Medieval scholars, in all of their expertise, often fail to see the
greater sociological rules governing their subjects in spite of having assembled
all the necessary material themselves. In the following – based on their works –
we remind of the great inequalities in times of pandemics, taking the events of
the 14th+ c. Black Death as exemplary case. Not everyone was equal in front
of death : the major divisions between ”beneficed” and ”regular” priests are
recalled (they respectively received a fixed income, while the others made vows
of poverty and subsisted on offerings), as well as the institutions that emerged
around that time – ”chantry”, ”private” services, etc. : the rich sought a faster,
surer way to heaven, while the first category of priests sought a faster way
away from death – the poor, and the working-class, and their regular priests
stayed behind, joined in common death. (Experimental history : a historian
and sociologist once again steps out of their comfort zone, so as to make others
uncomfortable.)