Flagellants a. were jews who beat themselves in an effort to avoid harsher abuse by christians. b. were christian fanatics who physically scourged themselves during the black death. c. were hereditary slaves in fifteenth-century italy. d. were a new order of friars which were established in france by joan of arc. e. was the term used to describe the aristocratic opponents of rebelling serfs.

• MsEleanor: b. were christian fanatics who physically scourged themselves during the black death.
  
  Christians believed illness to be connected to sin. Flagellants beat or whipped themselves or someone else to purify. By punishing themselves they were doing penance for sins and attempting to prevent illness from the Plague.