Editing Pope Clement VI (section)

===The Black Death===
Clement VI was on the papal throne when the [[Black Death]] first struck Europe in 1347. This [[pandemic]] swept through Asia and the Middle East and into Europe between 1347 and 1350, and is believed to have killed between a third and two-thirds of [[Medieval demography|Europe's population]]. During the plague, Clement attributed the plague to divine wrath.<ref>{{cite book|author=L. Steiman|title=Paths to Genocide: Antisemitism in Western History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vxx_DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA37|year=1997|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|location=Basingstoke|isbn=978-0-230-37133-0|page=37}}</ref> But he also sought the opinions of astrologers for an explanation. [[Johannes de Muris]] was among the team "of three who drew up a treatise explaining the plague of 1348 by the conjunction of [[Saturn]], [[Jupiter]], and [[Mars]] in 1341"<ref>Tomasello, ''Music and Ritual at the Papal Court of Avignon 1309–1403'', 15.</ref> Clement VI's physicians advised him that surrounding himself with torches would block the plague. However, he soon became skeptical of this recommendation and stayed in Avignon supervising sick care, burials, and the pastoral care of the dying.<ref>Duffy, ''Saints & Sinners, a History of the Popes'', 167.</ref> He never contracted the disease, even though there was so much death around him that the cities ran out of ground for cemeteries, and he had to consecrate the entire Rhône River so that it could be considered holy ground and bodies could be thrown into it.<ref>Baluze, I, pp. 251–252.</ref> Due to so many dying without access to priests, he granted a remission of sins to all who died of the plague.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tuchman |first1=Barbara |title=A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century |date=1978 |page=95 |quote=Clement VI found it necessary to grant remission of sin to all who died of the plague because so many were unattended by priests}}</ref> One of Pope Clement's physicians, [[Gui de Chauliac]],<ref>{{cite book|author=Luigi Gaetano Marini|title=Degli Archiatri pontifici: Nel quale sono i supplimenti e le correzioni all'opera del Mandosio|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_iNAAAAAcAAJ|volume=Tomo I|year=1784|publisher=Pagliarini|location=Roma|language=it, la|pages=78–81}}</ref> later wrote a book called the ''[[Chirurgia magna]]'' (1363), in which he correctly distinguished between bubonic and pneumonic plague, based on his own observations of his patients and himself.

Perhaps feeling the pressure of mortality, having lost no fewer than six cardinals in the year 1348 alone,<ref>Gauscelin de Jean Duèse, Pedro Gómez Barroso [Lützelschwab, pp. 481–482], Imbertus de Puteo (Dupuis) [Lützelschwab, pp. 471–472], Giovanni Colonna, Pierre Bertrand, and Gozzio (Gotius, Gozo) Battaglia [Lützelschwab, pp. 459–460].  Chacon, II (1601), p. 724; II (1677, ed. Oldoin), p. 520.</ref> Pope Clement VI named a new cardinal on 29 May 1348,  his nephew and namesake, [[Pope Gregory XI|Pierre Roger de Beaufort]], who was not yet eighteen years old.<ref>Eubel, I, pp. 15–18.</ref>  On 17 December 1350, he added twelve more cardinals, nine of them French and only three from Limoges, including two relatives, Guillaume d'Aigrefeuille and Pierre de Cros.<ref>Eubel, I, pp. 18–19. Lützelschwab, pp. 465-467.</ref>

Suspicion fell on the Jews for the plague, and [[pogrom]]s erupted around Europe. Clement issued two [[papal bulls]] in 1348 (6 July and 26 September), the latter named ''Quamvis Perfidiam'', which condemned the violence and said those who blamed the plague on the Jews had been "seduced by that liar, the Devil."<ref name=Skolnik1>{{cite book |last1=Skolnik |first1=Fred |last2=Berenbaum |first2=Michael |title=Encyclopaedia Judaica: Ba-Blo |publisher=Granite Hill Publishers |isbn=978-0028659312 |page=733 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jblYAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA733 |access-date=30 January 2015}}</ref> He went on to emphasise that "It cannot be true that the Jews, by such a heinous crime, are the cause or occasion of the plague, because through many parts of the world the same plague, by the hidden judgment of God, has afflicted and afflicts the Jews themselves and many other races who have never lived alongside them."<ref>{{cite book|last=Simonsohn|first=Shlomo|title=Apostolic See and the Jews|publisher=Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Vol. 1: Documents, 492|place=Toronto|date=1991|page=1404|isbn=978-0888441096}}</ref> He urged clergy to take action to protect Jews as he had done.