"Clement is most notable as the pope who reigned during the time of the Black Death (1348–1350), during which he granted remission of sins to all who died of the plague.

The Black death (Black plague, Great Pestilence) first visited Europe about 1348, killing between 30 and 60% of Europe’s population (about 25-50 million deaths). Usually lost in the descriptions of the catastrophe is the fact that it was also an occasion for horrific pogroms that killed large numbers of Jews.

Even where records exist, it is impossible to determine what percentage of Jews who died were victims of the plague, and how many died in persecutions and pogroms.

Pogroms erupted throughout Europe. Clement issued two papal bulls in 1348 (6 July and 26 September), the latter named Quamvis Perfidiam (“although the treachery \[we condemn\]”), which condemned the violence and denounced the allegation that the Jews were responsible by poisoning the wells, stating that “certain Christians, seduced by that liar, the devil, are imputing the pestilence to poisoning by Jews.”

This imputation and the massacre of Jews in consequence were described by the Pope as “a horrible thing”. He tried to convince Christians that “since this pestilence is all but universal everywhere, and by a mysterious decree of God has afflicted, and continues to afflict, both Jews and many other nations throughout the diverse regions of the earth to whom a common existence with Jews is unknown (the charge) that the Jews have provided the cause or the occasion for such a crime is without plausibility.”

The emperors Charles IV and Peter IV of Aragon also tried to protect the Jews from the accusation. The physician Konrad of Megenberg in his Buch der Natur stated:

>“But I know that there were more Jews in Vienna than in any other German city familiar to me, and so many of them died of the plague that they were obliged to enlarge their cemetery. To have brought this on themselves would have been folly on their part.”

However, all these appeals to reason were ineffective. The massacres of the Jews continued, and Jewish property was confiscated."

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1: 16th-century woodcut illustrating the devastating impact of the bubonic plague (Black Death) on a household, showing victims bedridden and dead bodies left unattended on the floor. The artwork highlights the highly infectious and catastrophic nature of the plague pandemics, which swept through Europe and killed millions. Similar woodcuts frequently appeared in historical medical and moral texts—such as the 1584 Trostspiegel in Glück und Unglück—to document the horrors of rampant infectious diseases. The stark line-art style is characteristic of Renaissance-era wood engravings, which were used to disseminate visceral imagery to a largely illiterate public.

July 6, 1348 The Black Death & The Jews: Pope Clement VI Issues a Papal Bull Protecting the Jews Accused of having Caused the Black Death: