Near the close of the first half of the fourteenth century, after the terrible ravages of the great plague had abated, the people were prostrate with fear and terrorized by the merciless words of the priests, who had not been slow to declare the pestilence as a mark of the wrath of God and who were utilizing the peculiar possibilities of this psychological moment for the advancement of the interests of the Church. In the churches--the wondrous mediaeval structures which were newly built at that time--songs of spasmodic grief like the _Stabat Mater_, or of tragic terror such as the _Dies irae_, were echoing under the high-vaulted arches, and the fear of God was upon the people. In a great movement of this kind it is but to be expected that women played no little part; their more sensitive natures caused them to be more easily affected than were the men by the threats of everlasting torment which were constantly being made by the priests for the benefit of all those who refused to renounce worldly things and come within the priestly fold. There was a most remarkable show of contrition and penitence at this time, and thousands of persons, men and women of all classes, were so deeply moved that they went about in companies, beating themselves and each other for the glory of God, and singing vociferously their melancholy dirges. These were the Flagellants, and there were crowds of them all over Europe, the number in France alone at this time being estimated at eight hundred thousand. One of the direct results of this state of religious excitement was an increased interest, on the part of women, in religious service, and a renewed desire to devote themselves to a religious life. The conditions of conjugal life had been such throughout the feudal period that for many years there had been a slowly growing sentiment that marriage was but a manner of self-abandonment to the world, the flesh, and the devil, and many women from time to time were influenced to put away worldly things and seek peace in the protection of some religious order. Tertullian had long before condemned marriage, and Saint Jerome was most bitter against it. The various abuses of the marriage relation were such that those of pure hearts and minds could but pause and ask themselves whether or not this was an ideal arrangement of human life; and, all in all, there was still much to be done by means of educational processes before men and women could lead a life together which might be of mutual advantage to all parties concerned. Still, it must not be supposed that this tendency on the part of women to affiliate themselves with conventual orders was a movement of recent origin.