<P> The Black Death hit the monasteries very hard because of their proximity with the sick who sought refuge there . This left a severe shortage of clergy after the epidemic cycle . Eventually the losses were replaced by hastily trained and inexperienced clergy members, many of whom knew little of the rigors of their predecessors . New colleges were opened at established universities, and the training process sped up . The shortage of priests opened new opportunities for laywomen to assume more extensive and more important service roles in the local parish . </P> <P> Flagellants practiced self - flogging (whipping of oneself) to atone for sins . The movement became popular after the Black Death . It may be that the flagellants' later involvement in hedonism was an effort to accelerate or absorb God's wrath, to shorten the time with which others suffered . More likely, the focus of attention and popularity of their cause contributed to a sense that the world itself was ending and that their individual actions were of no consequence . </P> <P> Reformers rarely pointed to failures on the part of the Church in dealing with the catastrophe . </P> <P> The Black Death had a profound effect on art and literature . After 1350, European culture in general turned very morbid . The general mood was one of pessimism, and contemporary art turned dark with representations of death . The widespread image of the "dance of death" showed death (a skeleton) choosing victims at random . Many of the most graphic depictions come from writers such as Boccaccio and Petrarch . Peire Lunel de Montech, writing about 1348 in the lyric style long out of fashion, composed the following sorrowful sirventes "Meravilhar no s devo pas las gens" during the height of the plague in Toulouse: </P>

What was the impact of the black death on europe