“In this season of the deadly pestilence, Pope Clement VI. made great general indulgences of the punishment of all sins to those who on repentance and confession requested it of their confessors, and died; and in this mortality every Christian, thinking that he was dying, set himself well in order, and with much contrition and repentance they gave up their souls to God. And the few wise men who remained alive expected many things, which through the corruption of sin, turned out otherwise, the very contrary most marvellously coming to pass. For they thought that such as God by his favour had kept alive, having seen the extermination of their nearest connexions, and having heard the like tidings of all the nations of the world, would have become of better condition, humble, virtuous, of the true faith, and would have kept themselves from iniquities and sins, and would have been full of love and charity one towards another. But now that the mortality was at an end, the contrary appeared; for men finding themselves few and rich by their heirships and successions to earthly goods, forgetting things past as if they had never been, gave into a more unhandsome and disorderly life than they had used before. For wandering about at leisure they dissolutely indulged in the sin of gluttony, banquets, taverns, delicate food, gaming, running without bridle into luxury, which they sought in strange clothing, and unusual fashions, and unseemly manners, changing the forms of all household goods. And the people, men and women, because of the exceeding abundance which they found of all things, would not labour at their accustomed trades, and would have the dearest and most delicate viands for their subsistence, and married at will; the maid–servants and all the lowest women dressing themselves in all the beautiful and valuable attire of the honourable ladies who were dead. And almost all our city, without any check, ran into a discreditable course of life, and so, and worse, did the other cities and provinces of the world. And according to all the accounts we have received, there was no place where the living kept themselves in continence, when they had escaped from the divine wrath, supposing that the hand of God was weary. But, according to the prophet Isaiah, the wrath of God is not shortened, neither is his hand weary: but he has much pleasure in his mercy, and labours in long–suffering, that he may bring back sinners to conversion and repentance; and he punishes temperately.