Several causes were assigned for it. It was variously attributed to the just wrath of God at the wickedness of humanity; to the influences of the heavenly bodies; to the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter; to unusual convulsions of nature which had either preceded or followed it. Reports had long before come from China of great earthquakes, sunken mountains, droughts, floods, crop failures, and subsequent famines. Syria and Egypt also had been visited by earthquakes. The same manifestations, followed by raging storms and floods, had also appeared in Cyprus and in Naples and other cities. Similar convulsions had been experienced in Germany. Many houses had been hurled into the Rhine by a great earthquake at Basle. In Carinthia, cities and castles had been destroyed. As the excited imagination of the people connected these events with the dreadful disease, it was natural for them to consider these manifestations as the cause, and crop failures and famines as the result. The pestilence, which so readily found victims among people condemned to want, wretchedness, and despair, came to be known as the Black Death. When it attacked a household it was not contented with one victim. Almost every well person who breathed the same air as the sick one, or who had even touched his clothing, was stricken with it. Human science and medical skill were of no avail. It was in vain that cities were cleansed of filth and offal, and that infected persons were forbidden to enter them. Sanitary measures were of no avail. Flight was useless, for the terrible malady overtook the fleetest and spared neither the distinguished nor the insignificant, neither the strong nor the weak, neither the layman nor the priest. It was in vain that the church framed three prayers, to be offered at daybreak, midday, and evening, at the summons of the church bells. The mass which Pope Clemens the Sixth, who resided at Avignon, arranged for the supplication of divine mercy was fruitless. The head of Christendom himself withdrew from contact with the outside world, behind a perpetually burning fire of coals. Ceremonial processions were also arranged to avert the evil. The people joined them in multitudes. Many women walked barefooted, clad in sackcloth. Ecclesiastics, brotherhoods carrying lighted tapers, and guilds bearing banners and singing prayers and the litany also marched. Suddenly it was discovered that the number of victims was increasing because of the densely crowded throngs watching these processions. In the large cities people died by hundreds; in the smaller ones, by scores. The closest family ties were dissipated like spiders’ webs. Brothers forsook brothers, wives their husbands. Parents forbore visiting their sick children. The best of friends avoided each other on the streets.