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OTHER WORKS BY ABBOT GASQUET, D.D., O.S.B. 
 
 Demy 8vo, 125. net. 
 
 HENRY III. AND THE CHURCH. A Study of his Eccle- 
 siastical Policy, and of the Relations between England and 
 Rome. 
 
 "It is written with no desire to defend the Papacy from the charges 
 which were made even by the faithful at the time, and it may fairly claim 
 to represent an unbiassed survey of the evidence. He has gone carefully 
 through a large body of evidence which English historians have too much 
 neglected, and that his investigations serve rather to confirm than to upset 
 generally received opinions, is, perhaps, additional reason for gratitude. 
 His book will be indispensable to the student of the reign of Henry III.— 
 Times. 
 
 Crown 8vo, 6s. net. 
 
 THE EVE OF THE REFORMATION. Studies in the Reli- 
 gious Life and Thought of the English People in the Period 
 preceding the Rejection of the Roman Jurisdiction. Fourth 
 Edition. 
 
 " Dr. Gasquet has produced a book which will set many men thinking. 
 He has done an excellent piece of work, and has offered to students of 
 history a highly interesting problem. He writes as usual in a lucid and 
 attractive style. The controversial element is so subordinated to the 
 scholady setting forth of simple facts and the adroit marshalling of evid- 
 ence, that one might read the volume through without being tempted to 
 ask what the author's creed is, or whether he has any, and when one gets 
 to the end one is inclined to wish that there were a little more. " — A thenceum. 
 
 HENRY VIII. 
 
 Demy 8vo, 8s. 6d. net. 
 AND THE ENGLISH MONASTERIES. 
 
 "The work of Abbot Gasquet on the dissolution of the English Monas- 
 teries is so well known and so widely appreciated that little may be said to 
 commend a new and cheaper edition. The criticism of nearly twenty years 
 has served only to show that the views, expressed by the author in the 
 original edition, are shared by every candid student of the events of that 
 period." — Scottish Historical Review. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 
 
 THE LAST ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY, and other 
 Essays. 
 
 Cc-ntents.— I. The Last Abbot of Glastonbury.— II. English Biblical 
 Criticism in the Thirteenth Century. — III. English Scholarship in the 
 Thirteenth Century. — IV. Two Dinners at Wells in the Fifteenth Century. 
 —V. Some Troubles of a Catholic Family in Penal Times. —VI. Abbot 
 Feckenham and Bath. — VII. Christian Family Life in Pre-Reformation 
 Days. — VIII. Christian Democracy in Pre-Reformation Times. — IX. The 
 Layman in the Pre-Reformation Parish. — X. St. Gregory the Great and 
 England. 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS 
 
THE BLACK DEATH 
 
LONDON : GEORGE BELL AND SONS 
 PORTUGAL ST. LINCOLN'S INN, W.C. 
 CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTON, BELL & CO. 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. 
 BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER & CO. 
 
THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 OF 
 
 I 348 AND I 349 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS AIDAN GASQUET, D.D. 
 
 ABBOT PRESIDENT OF THE ENGLISH BENEDICTINES 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 V 
 
 nc 
 
 7 % sc^ 
 
 LONDON 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS 
 
 1908 
 
A' 
 
 ,GSV 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO, 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 THIS essay, published in 1893, nas l° n g 
 been out of print, and second-hand copies 
 are difficult to procure, as they very rarely find 
 their way into booksellers' catalogues. For this 
 reason it has been thought well to reprint this 
 account of the greatest plague that has probably 
 ever devastated the world in historic times. Al- 
 though the subject is necessarily of a doleful and 
 melancholy character, it is of importance in the 
 world's history, both as the account of a universal 
 catastrophe and in its far-reaching effects. 
 
 Since the original publication of The Great 
 Pestilence additional interest in the subject of 
 bubonic plague has been aroused by the alarming 
 mortality recently caused by it in India, and by 
 the threatened outbreaks in various parts of 
 Europe, where, however, the watchful care of the 
 sanitary authorities has so far enabled them to 
 deal with the sporadic cases which have appeared 
 during the past few years, and to prevent the 
 spread of the terrible scourge. 
 
vi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 From the researches made in India and else- 
 where into the nature and causes of the disease, 
 many new facts have been established which 
 assist us to understand the story of the great 
 epidemic of the fourteenth century, now commonly 
 known as "The Black Death," which is related in 
 some detail in these pages. The accounts of the 
 ravages of the disease in India, which have ap- 
 peared in the newspapers, are little less than 
 appalling, and would probably have attracted 
 more attention were it not for the fact that few 
 Europeans have succumbed to a malady which 
 has been so fatal to the natives of the country. 
 
 The present bubonic plague in India assumed 
 the nature of an epidemic in the Punjab in Octo- 
 ber, 1897, an d> m spite of the drastic precautions 
 of the sanitary authorities, it so far seems to 
 baffle their endeavours to stamp it out, notwith- 
 standing all the resources of modern science 
 which they possess. In April, 1907, a telegram 
 from Simla announced that the total number of 
 deaths from plague in India during the week 
 ending April 13th was seventy-five thousand; all 
 but five thousand of these having taken place in 
 the United Provinces and the Punjab. At this 
 time the total number of victims from the epi- 
 demic in the Punjab alone, during the nine years 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION vii 
 
 it had existed, was estimated at about a million 
 and a half. 
 
 So far as it can be traced, the origin of the 
 Indian plague, as indeed that of the great pesti- 
 lence of 1348-9, is China, the great breeding 
 ground of epidemics. It is supposed to have been 
 imported from Hong Kong to Bombay, and the 
 disease had already made great headway before 
 investigation established the fact that the infection 
 was conveyed by means of the ships' rats. From 
 January to August, 1903, the estimated mortality 
 in India from plague was 600,000, and in 1904 
 the total rose to the appalling figure of 938,000. 
 Even this was exceeded in 1905; and it is stated 
 that from 1897 to 1904 the plague claimed three 
 and a quarter millions of victims. 
 
 The campaign against the plague-carrying rats 
 has been waged with comparatively little result, 
 owing, in great measure, to the religious suscepti- 
 bilities of the native peoples, and their aversion 
 to leaving their insanitary homes, leading ob- 
 viously to concealment of infection. Moreover, 
 the rat is regarded by the natives as somewhat of 
 a domestic animal. Its destruction is thus resented 
 and its facilities for spreading the disease greatly 
 increased. Curiously enough it would appear that 
 it has long been recognised by the native inhabit- 
 
viii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 ants of India that some connection did in fact 
 exist between the rat and the bubonic plague. 
 " When the rats begin to fall it is time for people 
 to leave the houses," is an old and common 
 saying in India; in which sentence was registered 
 the popular belief that an outbreak of plague was 
 preceded by a mortality among the rats. It is 
 now certain that this connection does exist. The 
 special commission appointed in 1905 to examine 
 into this matter has established, by a series of 
 experiments, that bubonic plague is due to the 
 rat-flea, called pulex cheopis, which not only carries 
 the plague germ from rat to rat, but is almost 
 certainly the means by which it is communicated 
 to man. 
 
 It may be taken for granted, as an established 
 fact, that malarial diseases are produced by the 
 bites of the mosquito, and that sleeping sickness 
 follows from that of a blood-sucking fly which 
 transmits to maa the bacilli of the disease. In the 
 same way it is now known that the plague is 
 passed on from the infected rat through the 
 agency of rat-fleas, which, when biting man, im- 
 pregnate him with the bacillus of the deadly 
 bubonic plague. It has even been suggested as 
 by no means impossible that the plague may at 
 any time be reintroduced into Europe by means 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ix 
 
 of the rat parasite, and modern research has made 
 it certain that want of cleanliness is a fertile cause 
 of disease and its dissemination. In particular, it 
 is proved that the fleas and bugs which exist in 
 the poorer quarters of cities and villages may be 
 the means of communication of many various 
 forms of disease. 
 
 As a suggestion to explain the rapid spread 
 of "The Great Pestilence" of 1348-9, these re- 
 sults of modern research are of interest and im- 
 portance. The houses which sheltered the people 
 in the fourteenth century were only too well cal- 
 culated to assist the spread of the contagion, if it 
 was carried, as now appears certain, by the agency 
 of blood-sucking parasites. The account of French 
 rural life at this period, given by M. Simeon Luce, 
 and reproduced in Chapter III of this volume, is 
 probably true, in the main, in regard to our own 
 country, and the insanitary state and habitual 
 dirt in which our ancestors lived, would have 
 provided an ideal field for the indefinite multipli- 
 cation of fleas, and possibly of other plague-bearing 
 insects. 
 
 It remains to add that, with one or two minor 
 corrections, and a few additions, the present 
 volume is a reprint, of the previous edition. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface to the Second Edition v 
 
 To the Reader xvii 
 
 Introduction . . . . . . . xix 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Commencement of the Epidemic 
 
 First reports as to the sickness — General account of 
 the epidemic in eastern countries — The great trade routes 
 between Asia and Europe — The plague in the Crimea — 
 Tartar siege of Caffa — Origin of the name " Black Death" 
 — Symptoms of the disease — Constantinople is attacked; 
 account of the epidemic by the Emperor Cantacuzene — 
 Genoese traders carry the infection to Sicily — Effect in 
 Messina and Catania 1-17 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Epidemic in Italy 
 
 Date of the arrival of the infected ships at Genoa — 
 Striking sameness in all accounts — De Mussi's account 
 of the beginning of the plague in Italy, specially in Genoa 
 and Piacenza — Boccaccio's description of it in Florence — 
 This confirmed by the historian Villani — Progress of the 
 disease in Italy — Pisa — Padua, Siena, etc. — Petrarch's 
 letter on the epidemic at Parma — Venice and its doctors 
 — Description of the desolation by Bohemian students 18-38 
 
 xi 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Progress of the Plague in France 
 
 page 
 Its arrival at Marseilles — A Parisian doctor's account 
 of the epidemic at Montpellier — Avignon is attacked and 
 suffers terribly — Contemporary account of its ravages by 
 a Canon of the Low Countries — Gui de Chauliac, the 
 Pope's physician — Spread of the infection in every direc- 
 tion — William of Nargis' description of the mortality in 
 Paris — Philip VI consults the medical faculty — Nor- 
 mandy — Amiens — Account of Gilles Le Muisis, Abbot 
 of Tournay — M. Simeon Luce on the conditions of popu- 
 lar life in France in the fourteenth century — Agrarian 
 troubles follow the epidemic 39-65 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Plague in Other European Countries 
 
 From Sicily the pestilence is carried to the Balearic 
 islands — Majorca — The scourge in Spain — The shores 
 of the Adriatic are visited — From Venice the wave passes 
 into Austria and Hungary — It passes over the Alps into 
 the Tyrol and Switzerland — Account of a Notary of 
 Novara — From Avignon the epidemic is carried up the 
 Rhone Valley to the Lake of Geneva — It visits Lucerne 
 and Engelberg — Account of its ravages at Vienna — It 
 goes from Basle up the valley of the Rhine — Frankfort 
 — Bremen — From Flanders it passes into Holland — Den- 
 mark, Norway, and Sweden — Account of Wisby on the 
 Island of Gotland — Labour difficulties consequent upon 
 the epidemic ....... 66-80 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Plague Reaches England 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Jersey and Guernsey are attacked — First rumours of 
 the epidemic in England— It is brought to Melcombe 
 Regis in Dorsetshire — Discussion as to the date— Diffi- 
 culty in dealing with figures in Middle Ages — Value of 
 episcopal registers in giving institutions of beneficed 
 clergy — Evidence of Patent Rolls — Institutions in Dor- 
 setshire — Letter of the Bishop of Bath and Wells — 
 Difficulty of obtaining clergy — Institutions in Somerset- — 
 Effect of the disease in the religious houses — Bristol — 
 Evidence of the mortality in Devon and Cornwall — In- 
 stitutions in the diocese of Exeter — Spread of mortality 
 — Religious houses of the diocese . . . . 81-105 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Progress of the Disease in London and 
 the South 
 
 Rapidity of the spread of the epidemic — Date of its 
 reaching London — The opening of new churchyards — 
 Number of the dead in the capital — State of the city 
 streets — Evidence of the wills of the Court of Hustings 
 at this period — Westminster and other religious houses — 
 St. Albans — Institutions of clergy for Hertfordshire — 
 Evidence as to the counties of Bedford, Buckingham, 
 and Berks — Special value of the Inquisitiones post mortem 
 — State of various manors after the Plague — Institutions 
 for the county of Bucks — The diocese of Canterbury — 
 William Dene's account of the Rochester diocese — Diffi- 
 culty in finding priests — The diocese of Winchester — 
 Bishop Edyndon's letter on the pestilence — Date of the 
 epidemic in Hampshire — Troubles about the burying of 
 the dead — Institutions for Hants — Institutions for the 
 county of Surrey — Little information about Sussex 106-134 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Epidemic in Gloucester, Worcester, 
 Warwick, and Oxford 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Le Baker's account of the disease — Evidence of it in 
 Wales — Account by Friar Clyn of the plague in Ireland 
 — Institutions for Worcester — New burial ground in the 
 city — State of the county after the plague — Institutions 
 in Warwickshire — The city and county of Oxford — Effect 
 on the University ....... 135-148 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Story of the Disease in the Rest of England 
 
 Dr. Jessopp's account of Norfolk and Suffolk — Institu- 
 tions in the diocese of Norwich — Evidence of the Court 
 rolls — Norwich and its population — Yarmouth — The 
 diocese of Ely — Preparations by the bishop — Institutions 
 in the diocese — Cambridge — Decay of parishes con- 
 sequent upon the mortality — Straits of the clergy — Hunt- 
 ingdon — Institutions in the county of Northampton — 
 Effect on religious house of the county — Fall in the value 
 of land — Leicestershire — Knighton upon the plague in 
 the city of Leicester — Fall in prices — Labour difficulties 
 — Staffordshire — Institutions in the diocese of Hereford 
 — Shropshire — Evidence of Inquisitiones post-mortem — 
 Chester — Accounts of the County Palatine — Derbyshire 
 — Derby — Monasteries — Wakebridge and Drakelow — 
 Nottinghamshire — Lincolnshire — Louth Park Abbey — 
 Yorkshire — Archbishop Zouche — Vacant livings — 
 Deaths among superiors of religious houses — Meaux 
 abbey — Deanery of Holderness — Doncaster — Hull — 
 Lancashire — Amounderness — Westmoreland — Cumber- 
 land — Carlisle — Durham — Northumberland — Alnwick 
 
 149-187 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The Desolation of the Country 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Vacant livings in diocese of Salisbury — In Dorset and 
 Wilts — Ivychurch Priory — Manors ruined by plague — 
 Somerset parsonages — Court roll of Gillingham, Dorset 
 — Stockton, Wilts — Chedzoy, Bridgwater — Carthusians 
 of Hinton and Witham — Exeter diocese — Lydford — 
 North Cornwall — The Black Prince and his tenants — 
 Essex benefices — Lands vacant — Rents lowered — Col- 
 chester wills — Talkeley Priory — Cheshunt nunnery — 
 Anglesey Priory — Kent — Sussex — Hants — Isle of Wight 
 — Surrey — Winchester Cathedral Priory — Hyde Abbey — 
 Nuns of St. Mary's Abbey — of Romsey — Decrease among 
 the mendicant friars of Winchester diocese — Debts at 
 the cathedral — At Christchurch — Sandown Hospital — 
 Shireborne Priory — Hayling Island — Taxation — Glou- 
 cester — Lantony Priory — Horsleigh cell — Warwickshire 
 — Wappenbury — Whitchurch — Bruerne Abbey — St. 
 Frideswide's at Oxford — Barlings .... 188-224 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Some Consequences of the Great Mortality 
 
 Estimate of population of England in 1377, and 
 before the great pestilence — Social revolution — Dearth 
 of labourers and artisans — The tenantry swept off — Rise 
 in prices — State efforts to depress the working classes — 
 A third of the land falls out of cultivation — Leasehold 
 farming — Serfdom declines — Popular rising of 138 1 prac- 
 tically emancipates the labourer — Growth of large land- 
 owners — English language spreads as French declines — 
 — Effects on architecture — Great works left unfinished — 
 Statistics of clerical mortality — Effects on the Church 
 — Old traditions perished — Decline of public liturgical 
 
 b 
 
xvi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 worship — Young and aged, and inexperienced persons 
 ordained priests — Curious examples of this — Great falling 
 off in number of candidates for ordination at Winchester, 
 Ely, Hereford — Decline of the Universities — False views 
 about the preponderance of regular clergy — After the 
 Black Death their number relatively greater — Pluralities — 
 Depopulation of monasteries — Instances cited — Wad- 
 ding's explanation of Franciscan decadence — The Black 
 Death, a calamity sudden, overwhelming, and of wide- 
 spread effect. ....... 225-255 
 
TO THE READER 
 
 IN publishing this story of a great and over- 
 whelming calamity, which fell upon England 
 in common with the rest of Europe, in the middle 
 of the fourteenth century, I desire to record my 
 grateful thanks to those who have in any way 
 assisted me in gathering together any material, or 
 in weaving it into a connected narrative. Amongst 
 these many kind friends I may specially name the 
 late Mr. F. Bickley, of the British Museum ; Mr. 
 F. J. Baigent, the Rev. Prebendary Hingeston- 
 Randolph, and, above all, Mr. Edmund Bishop, 
 to whom I am greatly indebted for advice, 
 criticism, and ever-patient assistance in revising 
 the proof-sheets. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE story of the Great Pestilence of 1348-9 has 
 never been fully told. In fact, until comparatively 
 recent times, little attention was paid to an event which, 
 nevertheless, whether viewed in the magnitude of the 
 catastrophe, or in regard to its far-reaching results, is 
 certainly one of the most important in the history of our 
 country. 
 
 Judged by the ordinary manuals, the middle of the 
 fourteenth century appears as the time of England's 
 greatest glory. Edward III was at the very height of 
 his renown. The crushing defeat of France at Crecy, 
 in 1 346, followed the next year by the taking of Calais, 
 had raised him to the height of his fame. When, wearing 
 the laurels of the most brilliant victory of the age, he 
 landed at Sandwich, on October 14th, 1347, the country, 
 or at least the English courtiers, seemed intoxicated by 
 the success of his arms. "A new sun," says the chronicler 
 Walsingham, " seemed to have arisen over the people, in 
 the perfect peace, in the plenty of all things, and in the 
 glory of such victories. There was hardly a woman of 
 any name who did not possess spoils of Caen, Calais, 
 and other French towns across the sea;" and the 
 English matrons proudly decked themselves with the 
 
xx INTRODUCTION 
 
 rich dresses and costly ornaments carried off from foreign 
 households. This was, moreover, the golden era of 
 chivalry, and here and there throughout the country 
 tournaments celebrated with exceptional pomp the 
 establishment of the Order of the Garter, instituted by 
 King Edward to perpetuate the memory of his martial 
 successes. It is little wonder, then, that the Great Pesti- 
 lence, now known as the " Black Death," coming as it 
 does between Crecy and Poitiers, and at the very time 
 of the creation of the first Knights of the Garter, should 
 seem to fall aside from the general narrative as though 
 something apart from, and not consonant with, the 
 natural course of events. 
 
 It is accordingly no matter for wonder that a classic 
 like Hume, in common with our older writers on English 
 history, should have dismissed the calamity in a few 
 lines ; but a reader may well feel surprise at finding that 
 the late Mr. J. R. Green, who saw deeper into causes 
 and effects than his predecessors, deals with the great 
 epidemic in a scanty notice only as a mere episode in 
 his account of the agricultural changes in the fourteenth 
 century. Although he speaks generally of the death of 
 one-half the population through the disease, he evi- 
 dently has not realised the enormous effects, social 
 and religious, which are directly traceable to the catas- 
 trophe. 
 
 Excellent articles, indeed, such as those from the pen 
 of Professor Seebohm and Dr. Jessopp, and chance pages 
 in books on political and social economy, like those of 
 the late Professor Thorold Rogers and Dr. Cunningham, 
 have done much in our time to draw attention to the 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 importance of the subject. Still, so far as I am aware, 
 no writer has yet treated the plague as a whole, or, 
 indeed, has utilised the material available for forming a 
 fairly accurate estimate of its ravages. The collections 
 for the present study had been entirely made when a 
 book on the Epidemics in Britain, by Dr. Creighton, was 
 announced, and, as a consequence, the work was set 
 aside. On the appearance of Dr. Creighton's volume, 
 however, it was found that, whilst treating this pestilence 
 at considerable length as a portion of his general sub- 
 ject, not merely had it not entered into his design to 
 utilise the great bulk of material to be found in the 
 various records of the period, but the author had dealt 
 with the matter from a wholly different point of view. 
 
 It is proper, therefore, to state why a detailed treat- 
 ment of a subject, in itself so uninviting, is here under- 
 taken. The pestilence of 1348-9, for its own sake, must 
 necessarily be treated by the professional writer as an 
 item in the general series of epidemics; but there are 
 many reasons why it has never been dealt with in detail 
 from the mere point of view of the historian. Yet an 
 adequate realisation of its effects is of the first import- 
 ance for the right understanding of the history of Eng- 
 land in the later Middle Ages. The "Black Death" 
 inflicted what can only be called a wound deep in the 
 social body, and produced nothing less than a revolution 
 of feeling and practice, especially of religious feeling 
 and practice. Unless this is understood, from the very 
 circumstances of the case, we shall go astray in our 
 interpretation of the later history of England. In truth, 
 this great pestilence was a turning-point in the national 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 life. It formed the real close of the Mediaeval period 
 and the beginning of our Modern age. It produced a 
 break with the past, and was the dawn of a new era. 
 The sudden sweeping away of the population and the 
 consequent scarcity of labourers, raised, it is well recog- 
 nised, new and extravagant expectations in the minds 
 of the lower classes; or, to use a modern expression, 
 labour began then to understand its value and assert 
 its power. 
 
 But there is another and yet more important result 
 of the pestilence which, it would seem, is not sufficiently 
 recognised. To most people, looking back into the past, 
 the history of the Church during the Middle Ages in 
 England appears one continuous and stately progress. 
 It is much nearer to the truth to say that in 135 1 the 
 whole ecclesiastical system was wholly disorganised, or, 
 indeed, more than half ruined, and that everything had 
 to be built up anew. As regards education, the effect of 
 the catastrophe on the body of the clergy was pre- 
 judicial beyond the power of calculation. To secure the 
 most necessary public ministrations of the rites of re- 
 ligion the most inadequately-prepared subjects had to 
 be accepted, and even these could be obtained only in 
 insufficient numbers. The immediate effect on the people 
 was a religious paralysis. Instead of turning men to 
 God the scourge turned them to despair, and this not 
 only in England, but in all parts of Europe. Writers of 
 every nation describe the same dissoluteness of manners 
 consequent upon the epidemic. In time the religious 
 sense and feeling revived, but in many respects it took 
 a new tone, and its manifestations ran in new channels. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 If the change is to be described in brief, I should say 
 that the religion of Englishmen, as it now manifested 
 itself on the recovery of religion, and as it existed from 
 that time to the Reformation, was characterised by a 
 devotional and more self-reflective cast than previously. 
 This is evidenced in particular by the rise of a whole 
 school of spiritual writers, the beginnings of which had 
 been already manifested in the writings of Hampole, 
 himself a victim of the plague. It was subsequently 
 developed by such writers as Walter Hilton and the 
 authors of a mass of anonymous tracts, still in manu- 
 script, which, in so far as they have attracted notice at 
 all, have been commonly set down under the general 
 designation of Wycliffite. The reason for this misleading 
 classification is not difficult to understand. Finding on 
 the one hand that these tracts are pervaded by a deeply 
 religious spirit, and on the other being convinced that 
 the religion of those days was little better than a mere 
 formalism, the few persons who have hitherto paid 
 attention to the subject have not hesitated to attribute 
 them to the " religious revival of the Lollards," and were 
 naturally unable to believe them to be inspired by the 
 teaching of " a Church shrivelled into a self-seeking 
 secular priesthood." 1 The reader, who has a practical 
 and personal experience of the tone, spirit, and teaching 
 of works of Catholic piety, will, however, at once recog- 
 nise that these tracts are perfectly Catholic in tone, spirit, 
 and doctrine, and differ essentially from those of men 
 inspired by the teaching of Wycliffe. 
 
 The new religious spirit found outward expression in 
 1 Green, Short History of the English People^ p. 216. 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 the multitude of guilds which sprang into existence at 
 this time, in the remarkable and almost, as it may seem 
 to some, extravagant development of certain pious 
 practices, in the singular spread of a more personal 
 devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, to the Blessed Virgin, 
 to the Five Wounds, to the Holy Name, and other such 
 manifestations of a more tender or more familiar piety. 
 Even the very adornment and enrichment of the churches, 
 so distinctive of this period, bears witness to the change. 
 At the close of the fourteenth century and during the 
 course of the fifteenth the supply of ornaments, fur- 
 niture, plate, statues painted or in highly decked " coats," 
 with which the churches were literally encumbered as 
 time went on, proved a striking contrast to the compara- 
 tive simplicity which characterised former days, as wit- 
 nessed by a comparison of inventories. Moreover, the 
 source of all this wealth and elaboration is another 
 indication of the change that had come over the country. 
 Benefactions to the Church are no longer contributed 
 entirely, or at least chiefly, by the great nobles, but they 
 are now the gifts of the burgher folk and middle classes, 
 and this very profusion corresponds, according to the 
 ideas and feelings* of those days, to the abundant ma- 
 terial comfort which from the early years of the last 
 century to the present has specially characterised the 
 English homes of modern times. In fact, the fifteenth 
 century witnessed the beginnings of a great middle-class 
 movement, which can be distinctly traced to the effect of 
 the great pestilence, and which, whether for good or for 
 evil, was checked by the change of religion in the six- 
 teenth century. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 It is sufficient here to have indicated in the most 
 general way the change which took place in the religious 
 life of the English people and the new tendencies which 
 manifested themselves. If the later religious history of 
 the country is to be understood it is necessary to take 
 this qatastrophe, social and religious, as a starting-point, 
 and to bring home to the mind the part the Black Death 
 really played in the national history. 
 
 Merely to report what is said of England would tend 
 to raise in the mind of the reader a certain incredulity. 
 A short and rapid review has accordingly been made of 
 the progress of the pestilence from Eastern Europe to 
 these Western shores, and by this means the very dis- 
 tressing unanimity, even to definite forms of language, of 
 writers who recorded events hundreds and even thousands 
 of miles apart, brings home the reality of the catastrophe 
 with irresistible force. The story, so far as England is 
 concerned, is told at greater length, and the progress of 
 the disease is followed as it swept from south to north 
 and passed on to higher latitudes. The state of the 
 country after the pestilence was over is then briefly 
 described, and attention is called to some of the imme- 
 diate results of the great plague, especially as bearing 
 upon the Church life of the country. 
 
THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC 
 
 THE Great Pestilence, which first reached Europe 
 in the autumn of 1347, is said to have originated 
 in the East some three or four years previously. So far 
 as actual history goes, however, the progress of the 
 disease can be traced only from the ports of the Black 
 Sea and possibly from those of the Mediterranean, to 
 which traders along the main roads of commerce with 
 Asiatic countries brought their merchandise for con- 
 veyance to the Western world. Reports at the time 
 spoke of great earthquakes and other physical disturb- 
 ances as having taken place in the far East, and these 
 were said to have been accompanied by peculiar con- 
 ditions of the atmosphere, and followed by a great 
 mortality among the teeming populations of India and 
 China. Pope Clement VI was informed that the pestil- 
 ence then raging at Avignon had had its origin in the 
 East, and that, in the countries included under that 
 vague name, the infection had spread so rapidly, and 
 had proved to be so deadly, that the victims were cal- 
 culated at the enormous, and no doubt exaggerated, 
 number of nearly four-and-twenty millions. 
 
 B 
 
2 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 A Prague chronicle speaks of the epidemic in the 
 kingdoms of China, India, and Persia, and the con- 
 temporary historian, Matteo Villani, reports its convey- 
 ance to Europe by Italian traders, who had fled before 
 it from the ports on the eastern shores of the Black Sea. 
 The same authority corroborates, by the testimony of 
 one who had been an eye-witness in Asia, the reports 
 of certain Genoese merchants as to earthquakes de- 
 vastating the continent and pestilential fogs covering 
 the land. " A venerable friar minor of Florence, now a 
 bishop, declared," so says Villani, " that he was then in 
 that part of the country at the city of Lamech, where by 
 the violence of the shock part of the temple of Mahomet 
 was thrown down." l 
 
 A quotation from Hecker's " Epidemics of the Middle 
 Ages " will be a sufficient summary of what was reported 
 of the plague in eastern countries before its arrival in 
 Europe. " Cairo lost daily, when the plague was raging 
 with its greatest violence, from 10 to 15,000, being as 
 many as, in modern times, great plagues have carried off 
 during their whole course. In China more than thirteen 
 millions are said to have died, and this is in correspondence 
 with the certainly exaggerated accounts from the rest 
 of Asia. India was depopulated. Tartary, Mesopotamia, 
 Syria, Armenia* were covered with dead bodies; the 
 Kurds fled in vain to the mountains. In Caramania and 
 Csesarea none were left alive. On the roads, in the 
 camps, in the caravansaries unburied bodies were alone 
 to be seen. ... In Aleppo 500 died daily; 22,000 people 
 and most of the animals were carried off in Gaza within 
 six weeks. Cyprus lost almost all its inhabitants; and 
 ships without crews were often seen in the Mediter- 
 1 Muratori, Rerum Italicartim Scriptores^ xiv, col. 14. 
 
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC 3 
 
 ranean, as afterwards in the North Sea, driving about 
 and spreading the plague wherever they went ashore." * 
 There can be little doubt that the contagion was first 
 spread by means of the great trade routes of the East. 
 The lines of commerce of European countries with India, 
 China, and Asiatic countries generally are first definitely 
 described in 1321 by Marino Sanudo, a Venetian, in a 
 work addressed to Pope John XXI, not thirty years 
 before the outbreak of the pestilence. 2 His object was 
 to indicate the difficulties and dangers which then beset 
 the traffic of the mercantile world with the East. In so 
 doing he pointed out that the ancient centre of all trade 
 with the far East was Bagdad. To and from this great 
 depot of Oriental merchandise all the caravan routes 
 led ; but, at the time when Sanudo wrote, the incursion 
 of barbarian hordes into Central Asia had rendered 
 trade along these roads difficult and unsafe. Two trading 
 tracts are in particular named by the author as the chief 
 lines of communication. One ran from Bagdad over the 
 plains of Mesopotamia and Syria to Lycia, 3 where the 
 goods were purchased by the Italian merchants. This, 
 the best known route, was the shortest by which the 
 produce of China and India could be conveyed to the 
 European markets ; but in the fourteenth century it was 
 the most perilous. The second route also started from 
 Bagdad, and having followed the Tigris to its sources in 
 Armenia, passed on, either to Trebizond and other ports 
 
 1 The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, translated by B. G. Babington 
 (Sydenham Society), p. 21. 
 
 2 Marinus Sanutus, Zifer secretorum Fidelium cruets super Terrae 
 Sanctae recuperatione et cofiversatione, in Bongars, Gesta Dei per 
 Francos, vol. ii. 
 
 3 The most southern part of Asiatic Turkey. 
 
4 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 of the Black Sea, or taking the road from the Caspian, 
 upon the other side of the Caucasus, passed to the 
 Genoese and other flourishing Italian settlements in the 
 Crimea. 
 
 A third route was, however, according to Sanudo, the 
 most used in his day because the least dangerous. By- 
 it the produce of eastern lands was brought to Alex- 
 andria, whence, after having been heavily taxed by the 
 Sultan, it was transported to Europe. Merchandise 
 coming to Italy and other countries by this route from 
 India was, according to the same authority, shipped from 
 two ports of the peninsula, which he calls Mahabar x and 
 Cambeth. 2 Thence it was conveyed to ports in the Per- 
 sian Gulf, to the river Tigris, or to Aden, at the entrance 
 of the Red Sea. From this last point a journey of nine 
 days across the desert brought the caravans to a city 
 called Chus 3 on the Nile. Fifteen days more of river 
 carriage, however, was required before the produce of 
 the Eastern marts reached Cairo, or Babylon, as it was 
 called by mediaeval writers. From Cairo it was con- 
 veyed to Alexandria by canal. 
 
 These were the three chief routes by which com- 
 munication between Asiatic countries and Europe was 
 kept up, and the markets of the Western world supplied 
 with the spices,* gums, and silks of the East. It is 
 more than probable that the great pestilence was con- 
 veyed to Europe by the trading caravans coming from 
 the East by all these roads and by other similar lines of 
 
 1 Probably Mahe, on the Malabar coast. 
 
 2 Now Cambay, in the Baroda Dominion to the north of 
 Bombay. 
 
 3 Otherwise Kus, now Koos, in Upper Egypt, not far from 
 Thebes. 
 
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC 5 
 
 commerce. In the country along one of the trade routes, 
 by which caravans reached the Italian ports established 
 on the Crimea, it is certain that the plague was raging 
 with great virulence in 1346, the year before its appear- 
 ance in Europe. Moreover, Gabriele de' Mussi, a notary 
 of Piacenza, and an eye-witness of the first outbreak of 
 the plague in Upper Italy, has described the way in 
 which the infection was conveyed in the ships of traders 
 from Caffa, 1 a Genoese settlement in the Crimea. This 
 account will be found in the next chapter; and here it 
 is only necessary to report what he gathered from the 
 survivors about the outbreak of the plague among the 
 Tartar tribes and its appearance at Caffa. 2 
 
 "In the year 1346," he writes, "in eastern parts an 
 immense number of Tartars and Saracens fell victims to 
 
 1 Sometimes known as S. Feodosia. This port was by the begin- 
 ning of the fourteenth century a most important trading settlement 
 of Genoese merchants. In 1316 Pope John XXII issued a Bull 
 making it the cathedral city of an extensive diocese. By the time 
 of the outbreak of the great plague it had become the centre of 
 almost all commerce between Asia and Europe (Cf. M. G. Canale, 
 Delia Crimea, del suo commercio et del suoi dominatori, i, p. 208 
 et seq. 
 
 2 The account of Gabriele de' Mussi, called Ystoria de ?norbo seu 
 mortalitate qui fuit a. 1348, was first printed by Henschel, in 
 Haeser's Archiv fiir gesammte Medicin (Jena), ii, 26-59. The editor 
 claims that De' Mussi was actually present at Caffa during the 
 Tartar siege, and came to Europe in the plague-stricken ships which 
 conveyed the infection to Italy. Signor Tononi, who in 1884 re- 
 printed the Ystoria in the Giomale Ligustico (Genoa), vol. x (1883), 
 p. 139 seqq., has proved by the acts of the notaries of Piacenza that 
 De' Mussi never quitted the city at this time, and his realistic 
 narrative must have been consequently derived from the accounts 
 of others. From the same source Tononi has shown that De' Mussi 
 acted as notary between A.D. 1300 and 1356, and was consequently 
 born probably somewhere about 1280. He died in the first half of 
 the year 1356. 
 
6 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 a mysterious and sudden death. In these regions vast 
 districts, numerous provinces, magnificent kingdoms, 
 cities, castles, and villages, peopled by a great multi- 
 tude, were suddenly attacked by the mortality, and in a 
 brief space were depopulated. A place in the East called 
 Tana, situated in a northerly direction from Con- 
 stantinople and under the rule of the Tartars, to which 
 Italian merchants much resorted, was besieged by a 
 vast horde of Tartars and was in a short time taken." l 
 The Christian merchants violently expelled from the 
 city were then received for the protection of their per- 
 sons and property within the walls of CafTa, which the 
 Genoese had built in that country. 
 
 "The Tartars followed these fugitive Italian mer- 
 chants, and, surrounding the city of CafTa, besieged it 
 likewise. 2 Completely encircled by this vast army of 
 enemies, the inhabitants were hardly able to obtain the 
 necessaries of life, and their only hope lay in the fleet 
 which brought them provisions. Suddenly ' the death,' 
 as it was called, broke out in the Tartar host, and 
 thousands were daily carried off by the disease, as if 
 1 arrows from heaven were striking at them and beating 
 down their pride.' 
 
 " At first the Tartars were paralysed with fear at the 
 ravages of the disease, and at the prospect that sooner 
 or later all must fall victims to it. Then they turned 
 their vengeance on the besieged, and in the hope of 
 
 1 Tana was the port on the north-western shore of the sea of 
 Azov, which was then known as the sea of Tana. The port is now 
 Azov. 
 
 2 De 5 Mussi says the siege lasted " three years." Tononi shows 
 that this is clearly a mistake, and adduces it as additional evidence 
 that the author was not himself at CafTa. 
 
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC 7 
 
 communicating the infection to their Christian enemies, 
 by the aid of the engines of war, they projected the 
 bodies of the dead over the walls into the city. The 
 Christian defenders, however, held their ground, and 
 committed as many of these plague-infected bodies as 
 possible to the waters of the sea. 
 
 " Soon, as might be supposed, the air became tainted 
 and the wells of water poisoned, and in this way the 
 disease spread so rapidly in the city that few of the 
 inhabitants had strength sufficient to fly from it." * 
 
 The further account of Gabriele de' Mussi describing 
 how a ship from Caffa conveyed the infection to Genoa, 
 from which it spread to other districts and cities of Italy, 
 must be deferred to the next chapter. Here a short space 
 may be usefully devoted to a consideration of the disease 
 itself, which proved so destructive to human life in every 
 European country in the years 1348- 13 50. And, in the 
 first place, it may be well to state that the name Black 
 Deaths by which the great pestilence is now generally 
 known, not only in England, but elsewhere, is of com- 
 paratively modern origin. 2 In no contemporary account 
 of the epidemic is it called by that ominous title; at the 
 time people spoke of it as " the pestilence," " the great 
 mortality," " the death," " the plague of Florence," etc., 
 and, apparently, not until some centuries later was it 
 given the name of " the Black Death." This it seems to 
 have first received in Denmark or Sweden, although it 
 is doubtful whether the atra mors of Pontanus is equi- 
 valent to the English Black Death. 3 It is hard to resist 
 
 1 Gabriele de' Mussi, Ystoria de Morbo, in Haeser, ut supra. 
 
 2 K. Lechner, Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland (Innsbruck, 
 Wagner, 1884), p. 8. 
 
 3 J. J. Pontanus Rerum Danicarum Historia (1631), p. 476. 
 
8 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 the impression that in England, at least, it was used as 
 the recognised name for the epidemic of 1 349 only after 
 the pestilence of the seventeenth century, had assumed 
 to itself the title of the Great Plague. Whether the 
 name Black Death was first adopted to express the uni- 
 versal state of mourning to which the disease reduced 
 the people of all countries, or to mark the special 
 characteristic symptoms of this epidemic, is, under the 
 circumstances of its late origin, unimportant to de- 
 termine. 
 
 The epidemic would appear to have been some form 
 of the ordinary Eastern or bubonic plague. Together, 
 however, with the usual characteristic marks of the com- 
 mon plague, there were certain peculiar and very marked 
 symptoms, which, although not universal, are recorded 
 very generally in European countries. 
 
 In its common form the disease showed itself in swell- 
 ings and carbuncles under the arm and in the groin. 
 These were either few and large — being at times as 
 large as a hen's egg — or smaller and distributed over the 
 body of the sufferer. In this the disease does not appear 
 to have been different from the ordinary bubonic plague, 
 which ravaged Europe during many centuries, and which 
 is perhaps best known in England as so destructive to 
 human life in the *great plague of London in 1665. In 
 this ordinary form it still exists in Eastern countries, and 
 its origin is commonly traced to the method of burying 
 the dead there in vogue. 
 
 The special symptoms characteristic of the plague of 
 1348-9 were four in number: 
 
 (1) Gangrenous inflammation of the throat and lungs; 
 
 (2) Violent pains in the region of the chest ; 
 
 (3) The vomiting and spitting of blood; and 
 
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC 9 
 
 (4) The pestilential odour coming from the bodies and 
 breath of the sick. 
 
 In almost every detailed account by contemporary 
 writers these characteristics are noted. And, although 
 not all who were stricken with the disease manifested it 
 in this special form, it is clear that, not only were many, 
 and indeed vast numbers, carried off by rapid corruption 
 of the lungs and blood-spitting, without any signs of 
 swellings or carbuncles, but also that the disease was at 
 the time regarded as most deadly and fatal in this 
 special form. " From the carbuncles and glandular swell- 
 ings," says a contemporary writer, "many recovered; 
 from the blood-spitting none." * Matteo Villani, one of 
 the most exact writers about this plague at Florence, 
 says that the sick " who began to vomit blood quickly 
 died;" 2 whilst Gui de Chauliac, the Pope's physician at 
 Avignon, who watched the course of the disease there 
 and left the most valuable medical account of his obser- 
 vations, says that the epidemic was of two kinds. The 
 first was marked by "constant fever and blood-spitting, 
 and from this the patient died in three days;" the 
 second was the well-known and less fatal bubonic 
 plague. 
 
 The characteristic symptoms of this epidemic, noted 
 in numerous contemporary accounts, appear to be iden- 
 tical with those of the disease known as malignant pus- 
 
 1 See Lechner, Das grosse Sterben, p. 15. De 5 Mussi gives the 
 same account. 
 
 2 " Chi cominciavano a sputare sangue, morivano chi di subito." 
 The contemporary chronicle of Parma by the Dominican John de 
 Cornazano also notes the same : " Et fuit talis quod aliqui sani, si 
 spuebant sanguinem, subito ibi moriebantur, nee erat ullum re- 
 medium " (Monumenta hislorica ad provlnclas Parmensem et Pla- 
 centinam pertinently vol. v, p. 386). 
 
io THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 tule of the lung; and it would appear probable that this 
 outbreak of the plague must be distinguished from every 
 other of which there is any record. " I express my pro- 
 found conviction," writes an eminent French physician, 
 " that the Black Death stands apart from all those which 
 preceded or followed it. It ought to be classed among 
 the great and new popular maladies." l 
 
 Be that as it may, the disease, as will be subsequently 
 seen in the accounts of those who lived at the time, 
 showed itself in various ways. Some were struck sud- 
 denly, and died within a few hours ; others fell into a 
 deep sleep, from which they could not be roused; whilst 
 others, again, were racked with a sleepless fever, and 
 tormented with a burning thirst. The usual course of 
 the sickness, when it first made its appearance, was from 
 three to five days ; but towards the close of the epidemic 
 the recovery of those suffering from the carbuncular 
 swellings was extended, as in the case of ordinary East- 
 ern plague, over many months. 1 
 
 1 Anglada, Etude sur les Maladies Eteintes (Paris, 1869), p. 416. 
 The idea that this peculiar malady was altogether novel in char- 
 acter is confirmed by its specially malignant nature. According to 
 a well-recognised law, new epidemics are always most violent and 
 fatal. The depopulation of the Fiji Islands by the measles is an 
 instance of the way in*which a comparatively mild disease may in 
 its first attack upon a people prove terribly destructive. It is com- 
 monly thought that it has been the action of some new disease 
 whereby the races which built the great prehistoric cities of Africa 
 and America have been completely swept away. 
 
 2 The following account of an outbreak of disease somewhat 
 similar to the " Black Death " appeared in the British Medical 
 Journal <A 5th November, 1892 : "An official report of the Governor- 
 General of Turkestan, which has recently been published in St. 
 Petersburg, states that that province has been severely visited by 
 an epidemic of ' Black Death,' which followed upon the footsteps 
 
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC u 
 
 Such is a brief account of the disease which devastated 
 the world in the middle of the fourteenth century. Be- 
 fore following the course of the epidemic in Italy, to 
 which it was conveyed, as De' Mussi relates, from the 
 Crimea, some account of its ravages in Constantinople 
 and in Sicily may be given. From the Crimea Constan- 
 tinople lay upon the highway to the west. Italian ships 
 crossing the Black Sea would naturally touch at this 
 city, then the great centre of communication between 
 the Eastern and Western Worlds. From the relation of 
 De' Mussi it appears that Caffa, the plague-stricken 
 
 of cholera. On September 10 (22) it appeared suddenly at Askabad, 
 and in six days it killed 1,303 persons in a population of 30,000. 
 ' Black Death ' has long been known in Western Asia as a scourge 
 more deadly than the cholera or the plague. It comes suddenly, 
 sweeping over a whole district like a pestilential simoon, striking 
 down animals as well as men, and vanishes as suddenly as it came, 
 before there is time to ascertain its nature or its mode of diffusion. 
 The visit here referred to was no exception to this rule. After raging 
 in Askabad for six days the epidemic ceased, leaving no trace of its 
 presence but the corpses of its victims. These putrified so rapidly 
 that no proper post-mortem could be made. The Governor- General 
 gives some details as to the symptoms and course of the disease, 
 which, though interesting as far as they go, do not throw much 
 light on its pathology. The attack begins with rigors of intense 
 severity, the patient shivering literally from head to foot ; the rigors 
 occur every five minutes for about an hour. Next an unendurable 
 feeling of heat is complained of; the arteries become tense, and the 
 pulse more and more rapid, while the temperature steadily rises. 
 Unfortunately no thermometric readings or other precise data are 
 given. Neither diarrhoea nor vomiting has been observed. Con- 
 vulsions alternate with syncopal attacks, and the patients suffer 
 intense pain. Suddenly the extremities become stiff and cold, and 
 in from 10 to 20 minutes the patient sinks into a comatose condi- 
 tion, which speedily ends in death. Immediately after he has ceased 
 to breathe large black bullae form on the body, and quickly spread 
 over its surface. Decomposition takes place in a few minutes." 
 
12 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Genoese city in the Crimea, besieged by the Tartars, was 
 in communication by ship with countries from which it 
 received supplies. To Constantinople, therefore, it seems 
 not unlikely that the dreaded disease was conveyed by 
 a ship coming from this plague centre in the Crimea. An 
 account of the pestilence at the Imperial city has come 
 from the pen of the Emperor John Cantacuzene, who 
 was an eye-witness of what he reports. And although 
 he adopted the language of Thucydides, about the 
 plague of Athens, to describe his own experiences at 
 Constantinople, he could hardly have done so had the 
 description not been fairly faithful to the reality. " The 
 epidemic which then (1347) raged in northern Scythia," 
 he writes, "traversed almost the entire sea-coasts, 
 whence it was carried over the world. For it invaded 
 not only Pontus, Thrace, and Macedonia, but Greece, 
 Italy, the Islands, Egypt, Lybia, Judea, Syria, and 
 almost the entire universe." 
 
 The disease according to his account was incurable. 
 Neither regularity of life nor bodily strength was any 
 preservation against it. The strong and the weak were 
 equally struck down; and death spared not those of 
 whom care was taken, any more than the poor, destitute 
 of all help. No other illness of any sort showed itself in 
 this year ; all sickness took the form of the prevalent 
 disease. Medical science recognised that it was power- 
 less before the foe. The course of the malady was not in 
 all cases the same. Some people died suddenly, others 
 during the course of a day, and some after but an hour's 
 suffering. In the case of those who lingered for two or 
 three days the attack commenced with a violent fever. 
 Soon the poison mounted to the brain, and the sufferer 
 lost the use of speech, became insensible to what was 
 
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC 13 
 
 taking place about him, and appeared sunk in a deep 
 sleep. If by chance he came to himself and tried to speak, 
 his tongue refused to move, and only a few inarticulate 
 sounds could be uttered, as the nerves had been para- 
 lysed ; then he died suddenly. 
 
 Others who fell sick under the disease were attacked 
 first, not in the head, but in the lungs. The organs of 
 respiration became quickly inflamed, sharp pains were 
 experienced in the chest, blood was vomited, and the 
 breath became fetid. The throat and tongue, burnt up 
 by the excessive fever, became black and congested with 
 blood. " Those who drank copiously experienced no more 
 relief than those who drank but little." 
 
 Then, after describing the terrible sleeplessness and 
 restlessness of some sufferers, and the plague spots which 
 broke out over the body in most cases, the Emperor 
 proceeds : " The few who recovered had no second attack, 
 or at least not of a serious nature." Even some of those 
 who manifested all the symptoms recovered against every 
 expectation. It is certain that no efficacious remedy has 
 been discovered. What had been useful to one appeared 
 a real poison to another. People who nursed the sick 
 took their malady, and on this account the deaths multi- 
 plied to such an extent that many houses remained 
 deserted, after all who had lived in them — even the 
 domestic animals — had been carried off by the plague. 
 
 The profound discouragement of the sick was specially 
 sad to behold. On the first symptoms of the attack men 
 lost all hope of recovery, and gave themselves up as lost. 
 This moral prostration quickly made them worse and 
 accelerated the hour of their death. 
 
 It is impossible in words to give an idea of this malady. 
 All that can be said is that it had nothing in common 
 
14 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 with the ills to which man is naturally subject, and that 
 it was a chastisement sent by God Himself. By this 
 belief many turned to better things and resolved to 
 change their lives. I do not speak only of those who 
 were swept away by the epidemic, but of those also who 
 recovered and endeavoured to correct their vicious ten- 
 dencies and devote themselves to the practice of virtue. 
 A large number, too, before they were attacked dis- 
 tributed their goods to the poor, and there were none so 
 insensible or hard-hearted when attacked as not to show 
 a profound sorrow for their faults so as to appear be- 
 fore the judgment seat of God with the best chances 
 of salvation. 
 
 " Amongst the innumerable victims of the epidemic in 
 Constantinople must be reckoned Andronicus, the Em- 
 peror's son, who died the third day. This young man 
 was not only remarkable for his personal appearance, 
 but was endowed in the highest degree with those 
 qualities which form the chief adornment of youth; and 
 everything about him testified that he would have fol- 
 lowed nobly in the footsteps of his ancestors." 
 
 From Constantinople the Italian trading ships passed 
 on towards their own country, everywhere spreading the 
 terrible contagion. Their destinations were Genoa and 
 Venice, as De' Mifssi relates; but as the same authority 
 says : " The sailors, as if accompanied by evil spirits, as 
 soon as they approached the land, were death to those 
 with whom they mingled." Thus the advent of the 
 plague can be traced in the ports of the Adriatic in the 
 autumn of 1 347, and there can be little doubt that it was 
 due to the arrival of ships bound from the East to Ven- 
 ice. Of the islands of the ocean, and particularly of 
 Sicily, De' Mussi speaks as having been affected by the 
 
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC 15 
 
 ships that were bound from the Crimea to Genoa. Of the 
 plague in Sicily there exists a particular account by one 
 who must have been a contemporary of the events he 
 describes. 1 " A most deadly pestilence," he says, " sprang 
 up over the entire island. It happened that in the month 
 of October, in the year of our Lord, 1347, about the be- 
 ginning of the month, twelve Genoese ships, flying from 
 the divine vengeance which our Lord for their sins had 
 sent upon them, put into the port of Messina, bringing 
 with them such a sickness clinging to their very bones 
 that, did anyone speak to them, he was directly struck 
 with a mortal sickness from which there was no escape." 
 After detailing the terrible symptoms and describing the 
 rapid spread of the infection, how the mere breath of the 
 strangers poisoned those who conversed with them, how 
 to touch or meddle with anything that belonged to them 
 was to contract the fatal malady, he continues : " Seeing 
 what a calamity of sudden death had come to them by 
 the arrival of the Genoese, the people of Messina drove 
 them in all haste from their city and port. But the sick- 
 ness remained and a terrible mortality ensued. The one 
 thought in the mind of all was how to avoid the infec- 
 tion. The father abandoned the sick son; magistrates 
 and notaries refused to come and make the wills of the 
 dying; even the priests to hear their confessions. The 
 care of those stricken fell to the Friars Minor, the Dom- 
 inicans and members of other orders, whose convents 
 were in consequence soon emptied of their inhabitants. 
 Corpses were abandoned in empty houses, and there 
 was none to give them Christian burial. The houses of 
 the dead were left open and unguarded with their jewels, 
 money, and valuables.; if anyone wished to enter, there 
 1 A Franciscan friar, Michael Platiensis (of Piazza). 
 
16 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 was no one to prevent him. The great pestilence came 
 so suddenly that there was no time to organise any 
 measures of protection; from the very beginning the 
 officials were too few, and soon there were none. The 
 population deserted the city in crowds; fearing even to 
 stay in the environs, they camped out in the open air in 
 the vineyards, whilst some managed to put up at least a 
 temporary shelter for their families. Others, again, 
 trusting in the protection of the virgin, blessed Agatha, 
 sought refuge in Catania, whither the Queen of Sicily 
 had gone, and where she directed her son, Don Fred- 
 erick, to join her. The Messinese, in the month of No- 
 vember, persuaded the Patriarch 1 Archbishop of Catania 
 to allow the relics of the Saint to be taken to their city, 
 but the people refused to permit them to leave their 
 ancient resting-place. Processions and pilgrimages were 
 organised to beg God's favour. Still the pestilence raged 
 and with greater fury. Everyone was in too great a 
 terror to aid his neighbour. Flight profited nothing, for 
 the sickness, already contracted and clinging to the 
 fugitives, was only carried wherever they sought refuge. 
 Of those who fled some fell on the roads and dragged 
 themselves to die in the fields, the woods, or the valleys. 
 Those who reached Catania breathed their last in the 
 hospitals. At the* demand of the terrified populace the 
 Patriarch forbade, under pain of excommunication, the 
 burial of any of these Messina refugees within the city, 
 and their bodies were all thrown into deep pits outside 
 the walls. 
 
 " What shall I say more? " adds the historian. " So 
 wicked and timid were the Catanians that they refused 
 
 1 The Archbishop was a member of the Order of St. Francis, and 
 had been created Patriarch of Antioch. 
 
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC 17 
 
 even to speak to any from Messina, or to have anything 
 to do with them, but quickly fled at their approach. 
 Had it not been for secret shelter afforded by some of 
 their fellow citizens, resident in the town, the unfortunate 
 refugees would have been left destitute of all human 
 aid." The contagion, however, was already spread, and 
 the plague soon became rife. The same scenes were 
 enacted at Catania as before in Messina. The Patriarch, 
 desiring to provide for the souls of the people, gave to 
 the priests, even the youngest, all the faculties he him- 
 self possessed, both episcopal and patriarchal, for ab- 
 solving sins. " The pestilence raged in the city from 
 October, 1347, to April, 1348, and the Patriarch himself, 
 Gerard Otho, of the Order of St. Francis, fell a victim 
 to his duty, and was one of the last to be carried off by 
 the disease. Duke John, who had sought security by 
 avoiding every infected house and person, died of the 
 disease at the same time. The plague was spread in the 
 same way from Messina throughout Sicily; Syracuse, 
 Girgenti, Sciacca, andTrapani were successively attacked; 
 in particular it raged in the district of Trapani, in the 
 extreme west of the island, which," says the writer, " has 
 remained almost without population." l 
 
 Having briefly noticed the origin of the great pesti- 
 lence which ravaged Europe in the fourteenth century, and 
 its progress towards Italy, the story of Gabriele de' Mussi 
 may again be taken up at the point where he describes 
 the flight of the Genoese traders from the Crimea. The 
 narrative has so far anticipated his account only by giving 
 the history of the epidemic in Constantinople and Sicily. 
 
 1 Gregorio (R.), Bibliotheca Scriptorum qui res in Sicilia gestas 
 7'etulere^ torn, i, p. 562 seqq. The historian wrote probably not later 
 than a.d. 1 36 1. 
 
 C 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 
 
 THE great sickness reached Italy in the early days 
 of 1348. The report at Avignon at the time was 
 that three plague-stricken vessels had put into the port 
 of Genoa in January, whilst from another source it would 
 appear that at the same time another ship brought the 
 contagion from the East to Venice. From these two 
 places the epidemic quickly spread over the entire 
 country. What happened in the early days of this 
 frightful scourge is best told in the actual words of 
 Gabriele de' Mussi, who possessed special means of know- 
 ledge, and who has until quite recently been looked 
 upon, but incorrectly, as a passenger by one of the very 
 vessels which brought the plague from the Crimea to 
 Genoa. The history of the progress of the plague may 
 be gathered from the pages of the detailed ^chronicles, 
 which at that time recorded the principal events in the 
 various large and prosperous cities of the Italian penin- 
 sula, as well as from the well-known account of the straits 
 to which Florence was reduced by the sickness, given 
 in the introduction to the " Decameron " of Boccaccio. 
 
 On reviewing in detail the testimonies from every land 
 relating to this great calamity, it is impossible to over- 
 look the sameness of the terms in which writers the 
 most diverse in character, and in places far distant from 
 
 18 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 19 
 
 one another, describe what passed before their eyes. It 
 has already been remarked that the imperial historian, 
 John Cantacuzene, in recounting the horrors of the 
 plague in Constantinople, has borrowed from Thucy- 
 dides. But the same ideas, the very same words, suggest 
 themselves involuntarily to one and all. The simple 
 monastic annalist of the half-buried cloister in Engel- 
 berg, the more courtly chronicler of St. Denis, the 
 notary who writes with the dryness and technicalities of 
 his profession, but displays withal a weakness for rhet- 
 oric and gossip, litterateurs like Boccaccio, whose forte 
 is narrative, or like Petrarch, delighting in a show of 
 words, the business-like town chronicler of an Italian 
 city, and the author who aspires to the rank of historian, 
 the physician whose interest is professional, even the 
 scribbler who takes this strange theme as the subject 
 for his jingling verse, all speak with such complete one- 
 ness of expression that it would almost seem that each 
 had copied his neighbour, and that there is here a fine 
 theme for the scientific amusement known as " investiga- 
 tion of sources." It is only when we come to examine 
 the whole body of evidence that there is borne in upon 
 the mind a realisation of the nature of a calamity which, 
 spreading everywhere, was everywhere the same in its 
 horrors, becoming thus nothing less than a world-wide 
 tragedy, and it is seen that even the phrases of the 
 rhetorician can do no more than rise to the terrible 
 reality of fact. 
 
 First in importance, as well as in order of time, comes 
 the testimony of De' Mussi, the substance of which is 
 here given. It so happened that when the ships left 
 Caffa — some bound for Genoa, some for Venice, and 
 some to other parts of the Christian world — a few of 
 
20 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 the sailors were already infected by the fatal disease. 
 One sick man was enough to infect the whole household, 
 and the corpse as it was carried to the grave brought 
 death to its bearers. " Tell, O Sicily, and ye, the many 
 islands of the sea, the judgments of God. Confess, O 
 Genoa, what thou hast done, since we of Genoa and Venice 
 are compelled to make God's chastisement manifest. 
 Alas ! our ships enter the port, but of a thousand sailors 
 hardly ten are spared. We reach our homes ; our kin- 
 dred and our neighbours come from all parts to visit us. 
 Woe to us, for we cast at them the darts of death! 
 Whilst we spoke to them, whilst they embraced us and 
 kissed us, we scattered the poison from our lips. Going 
 back to their homes, they in turn soon infected their 
 whole families, who in three days succumbed, and were 
 buried in one common grave. Priests and doctors visit- 
 ing the sick returned from their duties ill, and soon were 
 numbered with the dead. O, death ! cruel, bitter, impious 
 death! which thus breaks the bonds of affection and di- 
 vides father and mother, brother and sister, son and wife. 
 Lamenting our misery, we feared to fly, yet we dared 
 not remain." 
 
 The terror increased when it was found that even 
 the effects and clothes of the dead were capable of com- 
 municating the disease. This was seen in the case 
 of four soldiers at a place near Genoa. Returning 
 to their camp they carried back with them a woollen 
 bed-covering they had found in a house at Rivarolo, on 
 the sea-coast, where the sickness had swept away the 
 entire population. The night following the four slept 
 under the coverlet, and in the morning all were found to 
 be dead. At Genoa the plague spared hardly a seventh 
 part of the population. At Venice it is said that more 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 21 
 
 than seventy died out of every hundred, and out of four- 
 and-twenty excellent doctors twenty were soon carried 
 off by the sickness. 
 
 " But as an inhabitant I am asked to write more of 
 Piacenza so that it may be known what happened there 
 in the year 1348. Some Genoese who fled from the 
 plague raging in their city betook themselves hither. 
 They rested at Bobbio, and there sold the merchandise 
 they had brought with them. The purchaser and their 
 host, together with all his family and many neighbours, 
 were quickly stricken with the sickness and died. One 
 of these, wishing to make his will, called a notary, his 
 confessor, and the necessary witnesses. The next day 
 all these were buried together. So greatly did the 
 calamity increase that nearly all the inhabitants of 
 Bobbio soon fell a prey to the sickness, and there re- 
 mained in the town only the dead. 
 
 " In the spring of 1348 another Genoese infected with 
 the plague came to Piacenza. He sought out his friend 
 Fulchino della Croce, who took him into his house. 
 Almost immediately afterwards he died, and the said 
 Fulchino was also quickly carried off with his entire 
 family and many of his neighbours. In a brief space the 
 plague was rife throughout the city. I know not where to 
 J begin : everywhere there was weeping and mourning. So 
 great was the mortality that men hardly dared to breathe. 
 The dead were without number, and those who still lived 
 gave themselves up as lost, and prepared for the tomb. 
 
 " The cemeteries failing, it was necessary to dig 
 trenches to receive the bodies of the dead. It frequently 
 happened that a husband and wife, a father and son, a 
 mother and daughter — nay, whole families — were cast 
 together in the same pit. 
 
22 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 " It was the same in the neighbouring towns and 
 villages. One Oberto di Sasso, who had come one day 
 from an infected place to the church of the Friars 
 Minor to make his will, called thither a notary, witnesses, 
 and neighbours. All these, together with others, to the 
 number of more than sixty, died within a short space of 
 time. Also the religious man, Friar Sifredo de' Bardi, of 
 the convent and order of Preachers, a man of prudence 
 and great learning, who had visited our Lord's sepulchre, 
 died with twenty-three other members of his order and 
 convent. Also the learned and virtuous Friar Bertolin 
 Coxadocha, of Piacenza, of the order of Minorites, with 
 four-and-twenty members of his community, was carried 
 off. So too of the convent of Augustinian Hermits — 
 seven; of the Carmelites — seven; of the Servites of 
 Mary — four, and more than sixty dignitaries and rectors 
 of churches in the city and district of Piacenza died. Of 
 nobles, too, many; of young people a vast number." 
 
 De' Mussi then proceeds to give examples of the 
 scenes daily passing before his eyes in the plague- 
 stricken cities of northern Italy. The sick man lay lan- 
 guishing alone in his house and no one came near him. 
 Those most dear to him, regardless of the ties of kin- 
 dred or affection, withdrew themselves to a distance; 
 the doctor did not come to him, and even the priest with 
 fear and trembling administered the Sacraments of the 
 Church. Men and women, racked with the consuming 
 fever, pleaded— but in vain — for a draught of water, and 
 uselessly raved for someone to watch at their bedside. 
 The father or the wife would not touch the corpse of 
 child or husband to prepare it for the grave, or follow it 
 thither. No prayer was said, nor solemn office sung, nor 
 bell tolled for the funeral of even the noblest citizen; 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 23 
 
 but by day and night the corpses were borne to the 
 common plague-pit without rite or ceremony. The doors 
 of the houses now desolate and empty remained closed, 
 and no one cared, nor, indeed, dared to enter. 
 
 Such is the picture of the effect of the malady and the 
 terrible mortality caused by it drawn by one who seems 
 to have seen its first introduction into Italy, and who 
 certainly had the best opportunity of early observing 
 its rapid progress. It might, perhaps, be thought that 
 his description of the horrors of the infected cities was 
 over-coloured and the creation of his imagination. But 
 in the details it bears on the surface the stamp of truth, 
 and in its chief characteristics it is confirmed by too 
 many independent witnesses in other parts of Italy, and 
 even in Europe generally, to leave a doubt that it cor- 
 responded to the literal reality. 
 
 What happened at Florence is well-known through 
 the graphic description of Boccaccio. So terrible was 
 the mortality in that prosperous city that the very out- 
 break became for a time known in Europe as the 
 " Pestilence of Florence." In the spring of the previous 
 year (1347) a severe famine had been experienced, and 
 some 94,000 people had been in receipt of State relief, 
 whilst about 4,000 are supposed to have perished of 
 starvation in the city l and its neighbourhood. The 
 people, enfeebled by previous hardships, would naturally 
 fall a prey more easily to the poison of the epidemic. 
 In April, 1348, the dreaded infection began to show 
 itself. " To cure the malady," writes Boccaccio, " neither 
 medical knowledge nor the power of drugs was of any 
 avail, whether because the disease was in its own nature 
 
 1 Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques Italiemies du Moyen Age, 
 vi, p. 11. 
 
24 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 mortal, or that the physicians (the number of whom — 
 taking quacks and women pretenders into account — 
 was grown very great) could form no just idea of the 
 cause, nor consequently ground a true method of cure; 
 of those attacked few or none escaped, but they gener- 
 ally died the third day from the first appearance of the 
 symptoms, without a fever or other form of illness mani- 
 festing itself. The disease was communicated by the 
 sick to those in health and seemed daily to gain head 
 and increase in violence, just as fire will do by casting 
 fresh fuel on it. The contagion was communicated not 
 only by conversation with those sick, but also by ap- 
 proaching them too closely, or even by merely handling 
 their clothes or anything they had previously touched. 
 
 " What I am going to relate is certainly marvellous, 
 and, had I not seen it with my own eyes, and were there 
 not many witnesses to attest its truth besides myself, I 
 should not venture to recount it, whatever the credit of 
 persons who had informed me of it. Such, I say, was the 
 deadly character of the pestilential matter, that it passed 
 the infection not only from man to man; but, what is 
 more wonderful, and has been often proved, anything 
 belonging to those sick with the disease, if touched by 
 any other creature, would certainly affect and even kill 
 it in a short space df time. One instance of this kind I 
 took special note of, namely, the rags of a poor man just 
 dead having been thrown into the street, two hogs came 
 by at the time and began to root amongst them, shaking 
 them in their jaws. In less than an hour they fell down 
 and died on the spot. 
 
 " Strange were the devices resorted to by the survivors 
 to secure their safety. Divers as were the means, there 
 was one feature common to all, selfish and uncharitable 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 25 
 
 as itwas — the avoidance of the sick, and of everything that 
 had been near them; men thought only of themselves. 
 
 " Some held it was best to lead a temperate life and to 
 avoid every excess. These making up parties together, 
 and shutting themselves up from the rest of the world, 
 ate and drank moderately of the best, diverting them- 
 selves with music and such other entertainments as they 
 might have at home, and never listening to news from 
 without which might make them uneasy. Others main- 
 tained that free living was a better preservative, and 
 would gratify every passion and appetite. They would 
 drink and revel incessantly in tavern after tavern, or in 
 those private houses which, frequently found deserted 
 by the owners, were therefore open to anyone ; but they 
 yet studiously avoided, with all their irregularity, coming 
 near the infected. And such at that time was the public 
 distress that the laws, human and divine, were not re- 
 garded, for the officers to put them in force being 
 either dead, sick, or without assistants, everyone did just 
 as he pleased." 
 
 Another class of people chose a middle course. They 
 neither restricted themselves to the diet of the former 
 nor gave way to the intemperance of the latter; but 
 eating and drinking what their appetites required, they 
 went about everywhere with scents and nosegays to 
 smell at, since they looked upon the whole atmosphere 
 as tainted with the effluvia arising from the dead bodies. 
 
 " Others, again, of a more callous disposition, de- 
 clared, as perhaps the safest course in the extremity, that 
 the only remedy was in flight. Persuaded, therefore, of 
 this, and thinking only of themselves, great numbers of 
 men and women left the city, their goods, their house, 
 and kindred, and fled into the country parts ; as if the 
 
26 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 wrath of God had been restricted to a visitation of those 
 only within the city walls, and hence none should remain 
 in the doomed place. 
 
 " But different as were the courses pursued, the sick- 
 ness fell upon all these classes without distinction ; 
 neither did all of any class die, nor did all escape; and 
 they who first set the example of forsaking others now 
 languished themselves where there was no one to take 
 pity on them. I pass by the little regard that citizens 
 and distant relations showed one to the other, for the 
 terror was such that brother even fled from brother, wife 
 from husband, nay, the parent from her own child. The 
 sick could obtain help only from the few who still 
 obeyed the law of charity, or from hired servants who 
 demanded extravagant wages and were fit for little else 
 than to hand what was asked for, and to note when the 
 patient died. Even such paid helpers were scarce; and 
 their desire of gain frequently cost them their lives. 
 The rich passed out of this world without a single 
 person to aid them ; few had the tears of friends at their 
 departure. The corpse was attended to the grave only 
 by fellows hired for the purpose, who would put the bier 
 on their shoulders and hurry with it to the nearest 
 church, where it was consigned to the tomb without any 
 ceremony whatever, and wherever there was room. 
 
 " With regard to the lower classes, and, indeed, in the 
 case of many of the middle rank of life, the scenes 
 enacted were sadder still. They fell sick by thousands, 
 and, having no one whatever to attend them, most of 
 them died. Some breathed their last in the streets, 
 others shut up in their own houses, when the effluvia 
 which came from their corpses was the first intimation 
 of their deaths. An arrangement was now made for the 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 27 
 
 neighbours, assisted by such bearers as they could get, 
 to clear the houses, and every morning to lay the bodies 
 of the dead at their doors. Thence the corpses were 
 carried to the grave on a bier, two or three at a time. 
 There was no one to follow, none to shed tears, for 
 things had come to such a pass that men's lives were 
 no more thought of than those of beasts. Even friends 
 would laugh and make themselves merry, and women 
 had learned to consider their own lives before every- 
 thing else. 
 
 " Consecrated ground no longer sufficed, and it became 
 necessary to dig trenches, into which the bodies were 
 put by hundreds, laid in rows as goods packed in a ship ; 
 a little earth was cast upon each successive layer until 
 the pits were filled to the top. The adjacent country 
 presented the same picture as the city; the poor dis- 
 tressed labourers and their families, without physicians, 
 and without help, languished on the highways, in the fields, 
 in their own cottages, dying like cattle rather than 
 human beings. The country people, like the citizens, 
 grew dissolute in their manners and careless of every- 
 thing. They supposed that each day might be their last; 
 and they took no care nor thought how to improve their 
 substance, or even to utilise it for present support. The 
 flocks and herds, when driven from their homes, would 
 wander unwatched through the forsaken harvest fields, 
 and were left to return of their own accord, if they 
 would, at the approach of night." 
 
 Between March and the July following it was esti- 
 mated that upwards of a hundred thousand souls had 
 perished in the city alone. 
 
 " What magnificent dwellings," the writer continues, 
 " what stately palaces, were then rendered desolate, even 
 
28 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 to the last inhabitant! How many noble families became 
 extinct! What riches, what vast possessions were left 
 with no known heir to inherit them! What numbers of 
 both sexes, in the prime and vigour of youth, whom in 
 the morning Galen, Hippocrates, or ^Esculapius himself, 
 would have declared in perfect health, after dining 
 heartily with their friends here, have supped with their 
 departed friends in another world." x 
 
 It might perhaps be suspected that this description of 
 Boccaccio as to the terrible nature of the plague in 
 Florence was either a fancy picture of his imagination or 
 intended merely as a rhetorical introduction to the tales 
 told in the Decameron, with only a slender foundation 
 of fact. Unfortunately other authorities are forthcoming 
 to confirm the graphic relation of the Florentine poet 
 in all its details. Amongst others who were carried of! 
 by the pestilence in Florence was the renowned his- 
 torian, Giovanni Villani. His work was taken up by his 
 brother Matteo, who commences his annals with an 
 account of the epidemic. So terrible did the destruction 
 of human life appear to him that he tells his readers 
 that no greater catastrophe had fallen on the world 
 since the universal Deluge. According to his testimony, 
 it involved the wljole of the Italian peninsula, with the 
 exception of Milan and some Alpine districts of northern 
 Lombardy. In each place visited by the scourge it 
 lasted five months, and everywhere Christian parents 
 abandoned their children and kinsfolk, in as callous a 
 way as " might perhaps be expected from infidels and 
 savages." As regards Florence, whilst some few devoted 
 themselves to the care of the sick, many fled from the 
 plague-stricken city. The epidemic raged there from 
 1 The Decameron, Introduction. 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 29 
 
 April till September, 1348, and it is the opinion of 
 Villani that three out of every five persons in the city 
 and neighbourhood fell victims to it. As to the effect of 
 the scourge on the survivors, the historian records that 
 whilst it would naturally have been expected that men, 
 impressed by so terrible a chastisement, would have 
 become better, the very contrary was the fact. Work 
 too, was given over, and " men gave themselves up to 
 the enjoyment of the worldly riches to which they had 
 succeeded." Idleness, dissolute morals, sins of gluttony, 
 banquets, revels in taverns, unbridled luxury, fickleness 
 in dress and constant changes according to whim, such 
 were the characteristic marks of the well-to-do Italian 
 citizens when the plague had passed. And the poor, 
 also, Villani states, became idle and unwilling to work, 
 considering that when so many had been carried off by 
 the pestilence there could not but be an abundance for 
 those whom Providence had spared. 1 
 
 The same story is told in all the contemporary chroni- 
 cles of Italian cities. At Pisa the terrible mortality lasted 
 till September, 1348, and there were few families that 
 did not reckon two or three of their members among the 
 dead. Many names are said to have been completely 
 wiped off from the roll of the living. At least a hundred 
 each week were carried to the grave in the city, whilst 
 those who had been bold enough to watch at the death- 
 bed of a relation or friend appealed in vain to passers- 
 by to aid them to bury the corpse. "Help us to bear this 
 body to the pit," they cried, " so that we in our turn may 
 deserve to find some to carry us." The awful suddenness 
 of the death often inflicted by the scourge is noted 
 by the author of the 'Chronicle of Pisa in common with 
 1 Muratori, Scriptores xiv, coll. 11-15. 
 
30 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 nearly every writer of this period. Men who in the morn- 
 ing were apparently well had before evening been carried 
 to the grave. 1 
 
 A Paduan chronicler, writing at the time, notes that 
 one sick man as a rule infected the house in which he 
 lay, so that once the sickness entered into a dwelling all 
 were seized by it, "even the animals." To Padua a 
 stranger brought the sickness, and in a brief space the 
 whole city was suffering from it. Hardly a third of the 
 population was left after the scourge had passed. 2 At 
 Siena, according to Di Tura, a contemporary chronicler, 
 the plague commenced in April and lasted till October, 
 1348. All who could fled from the stricken city. In May, 
 July, and August so many died that neither position 
 nor money availed to procure porters to carry the dead 
 to the public pits. " And I, Agniolo di Tura," writes 
 this author, " carried with my own hands my five little 
 sons to the pit; and what I did many others did like- 
 wise." All expected death, and people generally said, 
 and believed, that the end of the world had certainly 
 come. In Siena and its neighbourhood, according to Di 
 Tura, about 80,000 people were thought to have died in 
 these seven months. 3 
 
 At Orvieto the plague began in May. Some 500 died 
 in a very short space of time, many of them suddenly; 
 the shops remained closed, and business and work was 
 
 1 Muratori, Scriptores, xv, 102 1. 2 Ibid., xii, 926. 
 
 3 Ibid., xv, 123. At this period the population at Siena was more 
 than 100,000, and it had been determined to proceed with the 
 building of the vast Cathedral according to the designs of Lando 
 Oreflce. The work was hardly undertaken when the plague of 1348 
 broke out in the city. The operations were suspended, and the 
 money which had been collected for the purpose was devoted to 
 necessary public works n (G. Gigli, Diario Sanese, ii, 428). 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 31 
 
 at a standstill. Here it ran its usual five months' course, 
 and finished in September, when many families were 
 found to have become extinct. 1 At Rimini it was noticed 
 that the poor were the first to be attacked and the chief 
 sufferers. The sickness first showed itself on May 15th, 
 1348, and only died out in the following December, 
 when, according to the computation of the chronicler, 
 two out of three of the inhabitants had been swept 
 away. 2 
 
 An anonymous contemporary Italian writer describes 
 the sickness as a " swift and sharp fever, with blood- 
 spitting, carbuncle or fistula." Only the few, he says, 
 recovered when once stricken with the disease. The 
 sick visibly infected with their corruption the healthy, 
 even by talking with them ; for from this mere convers- 
 ing with the sick an infinite number of men and women 
 died and are buried. " And here," says the writer, " I 
 can give my testimony. A certain man bled me, and the 
 blood flowing touched his face. On that same day he was 
 taken ill, and the next he died ; and by the mercy of 
 God I have escaped. I note this because, as by mere 
 communication with the sick the plague infected mortally 
 the healthy, the father afterwards avoided his stricken 
 son, the brother his brother, the wife her husband, and 
 so in each case the man in health studiously avoided the 
 sick. Priests and doctors even fled in fear from those ill, 
 and all avoided the dead. In many places and houses 
 when an inmate died the rest quickly, one after another, 
 expired. And so great was the overwhelming number of 
 the dead that it was necessary to open new cemeteries in 
 every place. In Venice there were almost 100,000 dead, 
 and so great was the multitude of corpses everywhere 
 1 Muratori, Scrifitores, xv, 653. 2 Ibid.^ 902. 
 
32 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 that few attended any funeral or dirge. . . . This pestil- 
 ence did not cease in the land from February till the feast 
 of All Saints (November 1st, 1348), and the offices of the 
 dead were chanted only by the voices of boys ; which 
 boys, without learning, and by rote only, sang the office 
 walking through the streets." The writer then notices 
 the general dissoluteness which ensued after the disease, 
 and its effect in lowering the standard of probity and 
 morals. 1 
 
 To the terrible accounts given by De' Mussi of the 
 state of plague-stricken Genoa and Piacenza, and that 
 of Boccaccio, of the ravages of the pestilence in the city 
 of Florence, may be well added the eloquent letters of 
 the poet Petrarch, in which he laments the overwhelm- 
 ing catastrophe, as he experienced it in the town of 
 Parma. Here, as in so many other places, the inhabitants 
 vainly endeavoured to prevent the entry of the disease 
 by forbidding all intercourse with the suffering cities of 
 Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa. The measures taken 
 to isolate Parma appear to have been, at least, for a time, 
 successful, as the dreaded plague apparently did not 
 make its appearance till the beginning of June, 1348. 2 
 But in the six months during which it lasted it desolated 
 the entire neighbourhood. In Parma and Reggio many 
 thousands, estimated roundly at 40,000, were carried off 
 by it. 3 Petrarch was at this period a canon of the cathe- 
 dral of Parma, and had made the acquaintance at Avig- 
 non of Laura, who quickly became the object of his 
 admiration as a typical Christian mother of a family, and 
 
 1 Muratori, Scriptores, xvi, 286. 
 
 2 A. Pezzana, Storia delta citta di Parma, vol. i, p. 12. 
 
 3 Historiae Parmensis Fragmenta, in Muratori, Scriptores, xii, 
 746. 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 33 
 
 as a fitting subject to inspire his poetic muse. Laura 
 died at Avignon, one of the many who fell victims to 
 the great pestilence which was then raging in that city. 
 The letter written by a friend named Louis to inform 
 Petrarch of this death found him at Parma on May 19th, 
 1348. 1 A month later the poet wrote to Avignon in the 
 most heart-broken language to his brother, a religious at 
 Monrieux, and the only survivor of a convent of five-and- 
 thirty. 2 " My brother ! my brother ! my brother," he 
 wrote. " A new beginning to a letter, though used by 
 Marcus Tullius fourteen hundred years ago. Alas ! my 
 beloved brother, what shall I say? How shall I begin? 
 Whither shall I turn? On all sides is sorrow; every- 
 where is fear. I would, my brother, that I had never 
 been born, or, at least, had died before these times. 
 How will posterity believe that there has been a time 
 when without the lightnings of heaven or the fires of 
 earth, without wars or other visible slaughter, not this or 
 that part of the earth, but well-nigh the whole globe, has 
 remained without inhabitants. 
 
 " When has any such thing been ever heard or seen ; 
 in what annals has it ever been read that houses were 
 left vacant, cities deserted, the country neglected, the 
 fields too small for the dead, and a fearful and universal 
 solitude over the whole earth? Consult your historians, 
 they are silent ; question your doctors, they are dumb ; 
 seek an answer from your philosophers, they shrug their 
 shoulders and frown, and with their fingers to their 
 lips bid you be silent. 
 
 " Will posterity ever believe these things when we, who 
 see, can scarcely credit them? We should think we were 
 
 1 T. Michelet, Histoire de France^ iv, p. 238. 
 
 2 A. Philippe, Histoire de la Peste Noire (Paris, 1853), p. 103. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 dreaming if we did not with our eyes, when we walk 
 abroad, see the city in mourning with funerals, and re- 
 turning to our home, find it empty, and thus know that 
 what we lament is real. 
 
 " Oh, happy people of the future, who have not known 
 these miseries and perchance will class our testimony 
 with the fables. We have, indeed, deserved these 
 (punishments) and even greater; but our forefathers also 
 have deserved them, and may our posterity not also 
 merit the same." 
 
 Then, after saying that the universal misery is enough 
 to make one think that God has ceased to have a care 
 for His creatures, and putting this -thought aside as 
 blasphemy, the writer continues : " But whatever the 
 causes and however hidden, the effects are manifest. To 
 turn from public to private sorrows ; the first part of the 
 second year is passed since I returned to Italy. I do not 
 ask you to look back any further; count these few days, 
 and think what we were and what we are. Where are 
 now our pleasant friends? Where the loved faces? 
 Where their cheering words? Where their sweet and 
 gentle conversation? We were surrounded by a crowd of 
 intimates, now we are almost alone." 
 
 Speaking of one special friend, Paganinus of Milan, 
 Petrarch writes : " He was suddenly seized in the even- 
 ing by the pestilential sickness. After supping with 
 friends he spent some time in conversation with me, in 
 the enjoyment of our common friendship and in talking 
 over our affairs. He passed the night bravely in the last 
 agony, and in the morning was carried off by a swift death. 
 And, that no horror should be wanting, in three days his 
 sons and all his family had followed him to the tomb." l 
 1 Epistolae Familiar es (ed. 1601), lib. viii, pp. 290-303. 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 35 
 
 In other towns of Italy the same tragedy, as told in 
 the words of Boccaccio and Petrarch, was being enacted 
 during the early spring and the summer months of 1348. 
 At Venice, where the pestilence obtained an early foot- 
 hold, and the position of which rendered it particularly 
 susceptible to infection, the mortality was so great that 
 it was represented by the round numbers of 100,000 
 souls. 1 
 
 Signor Cecchetti's researches into the history of the 
 medical faculty at Venice at this period furnish many 
 interesting details as to the spread of the sickness. 
 Although surgeons were not allowed by law to practise 
 medicine, so great was the need during the prevalence 
 of the dread mortality that one surgeon, Andrea di 
 Padova, was allowed to have saved the lives of more 
 than a hundred people by his timely assistance. 3 In the 
 fourteenth century Venice was troubled by the plague 
 some fifteen times, but that of 1348 was "the great 
 epidemic" — "the horrible mortality "—to the chroni- 
 clers of the time. For a long period after, public and 
 other documents make it the excuse for all kinds of irre- 
 gularities. 4 The diplomas of merit bestowed upon 
 doctors who remained faithful to their posts by the 
 authorities of Venice speak of death following upon the 
 first infection within a very short space of time. So de- 
 populated was the city that it might be said no one was 
 left in it. Many doctors fled, others shut themselves in 
 their houses. Artisans and even youths undertook the 
 duties of physicians, and helped numbers to recover. 5 
 
 1 Muratori, Scriptores, xii, 926. 
 
 2 See his article La Medicina in Venezia nel 1300 in Archivio 
 Veneto, torn, xxv, p. 361, seqq. 
 
 3 P. 369. 4 Ibid., 377. 5 Ibid. 
 
36 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 On Sunday, March 30th, 1348, the Great Council of 
 Venice chose a commission of three to watch over the 
 public safety. These a few days later ordered deep pits 
 to be made in one of the islands to receive the bodies of 
 those who died in the hospitals and of the poor; and to 
 convey them thither, ships were appointed to be always 
 in waiting. 
 
 The rich fled from the place; officials could not be 
 found, and the Great Council was so reduced that the 
 legal number for transacting business could not be got 
 together. Notaries died in great numbers, and the prisons 
 were thrown open. 1 When the epidemic had ceased the 
 Senate had great difficulty in finding three doctors for 
 the city. On January 12th, 1349, Marco Leon, a capable 
 physician, and a native of Venice, who was in practice 
 at Perugia, offered to return to his own city " since," as 
 he says, " it has pleased God by the terrible mortality to 
 leave our native place so destitute of upright and 
 capable doctors that it may be said not one has been 
 left." 2 
 
 An instance of the mortality in Italy may be cited 
 from the records of one religious Order. In 1347 the 
 Olivetans made Blessed Bernard Ptolomey their Abbot 
 General for life. In the following year, 1348, the Order 
 lost eighty, more, than half its members, by the plague. 
 Amongst those who perished was their new-made 
 General. 3 
 
 Details of a similar nature might be multiplied from 
 the contemporary Italian records. What has been here 
 
 1 Cecchetti, La Medicina in Venezia nel '1300 in Archivio Veneto, 
 torn, xxv, p. 378. 
 
 2 Ibid,, p. 379. 
 
 3 S. Lancelloto, Historia Olivetana, p. 22. 
 
THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY 37 
 
 given, however, will enable the reader to form some 
 estimate of the nature of the terrible disease and of the 
 extent of the universal devastation of the Italian penin- 
 sula. The annals relate that in every city, castle, and 
 town death and desolation reigned supreme. In most 
 places, as in Pisa, for example, law and order became 
 things of the past; the administration of justice was 
 impossible; criminals of every kind did what they best 
 pleased, 1 and for a considerable time after the plague 
 had passed the Courts of Law were occupied in disputes 
 over the possessions of the dead. When the wave of 
 pestilence had rolled on to other lands there came in its 
 wake famine and general distress in Italy, but strangely 
 accompanied with the lavish expenditure of those who 
 considered that, where so many had died, there should 
 be enough and to spare of worldly goods for such as 
 were left. The land lay uncultivated and the harvest was 
 unreaped. Provisions and other necessaries of life became 
 dear. Markets ceased to be held, and cities and towns 
 devoid of inhabitants were spectacles of decay and 
 desolation. It is said, and there does not appear to be 
 reason to doubt the statement, in view of the many con- 
 temporary accounts of the disaster, that at least one half 
 of the general population of Italy were swept away by 
 the scourge. This relation of the horrors of the year 
 1348 in Italy may be closed by the account left us of 
 some students from Bohemia, who at this time journeyed 
 back to their country from Bologna. 
 
 "At this time," says a chronicle of Prague, "some 
 students, coming from Bologna into Bohemia, saw that 
 in most of the cities and castles they passed through few 
 
 Roncioni, Istorie Pisane in Archivio Storico Italiano, iv. 808. 
 
38 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 remained alive, and in some all were dead. In many 
 houses also those who had escaped with their lives were 
 so weakened by the sickness that one could not give 
 another a draught of water, nor help him in any way, 
 and so passed their time in great affliction and distress. 
 Priests, too, ministering the sacraments, and doctors 
 medicines, to the sick were infected by them and died, 
 and so many passed out of this life without confession 
 or the sacraments of the Church, as the priests were 
 dead. There were generally made great, broad and deep 
 pits in which the bodies of the dead were buried. In 
 many places, too, the air was more infected and more 
 deadly than poisoned food, from the corruption of the 
 corpses, since there was no one left to bury them. Of 
 the foresaid students, moreover, only one returned to 
 Bohemia, and his companions all died on the journey." * 
 
 1 Chronicon Pragense, ed. Loserth in Fontes rerumAustriacarum, 
 Scrifttores, vol. i, p. 395. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 
 
 ALMOST simultaneously with the outbreak of the 
 pestilence in Italy it obtained a foothold in the 
 South of France. According to a contemporary account, 
 written at Avignon in 1348, the disease was brought 
 into Marseilles by one of the three Genoese ships, which 
 had been compelled to leave the port of Genoa when the 
 inhabitants discovered that by their means the dreaded 
 plague had already commenced its ravages in their city. 
 It would consequently appear most likely that the mor- 
 tality began in Marseilles somewhere about the first 
 days of January, 1348, although one account places the 
 commencement of the sickness as early as All Saints' 
 Day (November 1) 1347. 1 The number of deaths in this 
 great southern port of France fully equalled that of the 
 populous cities of Italy. In a month the sickness is said 
 to have carried off 5 7,000 of the inhabitants of Marseilles 
 and its neighbourhood. 2 One chronicle says that " the 
 Bishop, with the entire chapter of the cathedral, and 
 nearly all the friars, Preachers and Minorites, together 
 with two-thirds of the inhabitants, perished" at this 
 time; and adds that upon the sea might be seen ships, 
 laden with merchandise, driven about hither and thither 
 
 1 Labbe, Nova Bibliotheca Manuscrifttorum, i, p. 343. 
 
 2 C. Anglada, Etude sur les Maladies Eteintes, p. 432. 
 
 39 
 
 2 38 
 
4 o THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 by the waves, the steersman and every sailor having 
 been carried off by the disease. 1 Another, speaking of 
 Marseilles after the pestilence had passed, says that " so 
 many died that it remained like an uninhabited place." 2 
 It is of interest to record that amongst the survivors 
 there was an English doctor, William Grisant, of Merton 
 College, Oxford. He had studied medicine at the then 
 celebrated school of Montpellier, and was in practice at 
 Marseilles during the visitation of the great plague of 
 1348, dying two years later, in 1350. 3 
 
 At Montpellier the ravages were, if possible, even 
 greater. Of the twelve magistrates, or consuls, ten died, 
 and in the numerous monasteries scarcely one religious 
 was spared. The Dominicans here were very numerous, 
 numbering some 140 members, and of these seven only 
 are said to have been left alive. 4 Simon de Covino, a 
 doctor, of Paris, who probably witnessed the course of 
 the disease at Montpellier, wrote an account of his ex- 
 periences in a poetical form in 1350. The moral of his 
 verse is the same as Boccaccio's, and the chief interest 
 lies in the fact that, like the Italian poet, Covino was an 
 eye-witness of what he relates, whilst his medical train- 
 ing makes his testimony as to the chief characteristics 
 of the disease specially important. The name he gives 
 to the malady is the pestis inguinaria, or bubonic plague 
 
 1 Matthias Nuewenburgensis in Boehmer, Fontes rerum Ger- 
 manicarum, iv, p. 261. 
 
 2 Henricus Rebdorfensis, Ibid., p. 560. Another account speaks 
 of Marseilles remaining afterwards almost " depopulated," and of 
 "thousands dying in the adjoining towns" (Chronicon Pragense, in 
 Fontes rerum Austriacarum Scriptores, i, p. 395). 
 
 3 J. Astruc, Histoire de la Faculte de Medecine de Montpellier 
 (Montpellier, 1862), p. 184. 
 
 4 Anglada, ut supra, p. 432. 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 41 
 
 of the East. He describes a burning pain, beginning 
 under the arms, or in the groin, and extending to the 
 regions of the heart. A mortal fever then spread to the 
 vital parts; the heart, lungs, and breathing passages 
 were chiefly affected, the strength fell quickly, and the 
 person so stricken was unable to fight any length of 
 time against the poison. 
 
 One very singular effect of the disease is noted by the 
 author: "The pestilence," he asserts, "stamped itself 
 upon the entire population. Faces became pale, and the 
 doom which threatened the people was marked upon 
 their foreheads. It was only necessary to look into the 
 countenances of men and women to read there recorded 
 the blow which was about to fall; a marked pallor 
 announced the approach of the enemy, and before the 
 fatal day the sentence of death was written unmistak- 
 ably on the face of the victims. No climate appeared to 
 have any effect upon the strange malady. It appeared 
 to be stayed neither by heat nor cold. High and healthy 
 situations were as much subject to it as damp and low 
 places. It spread during the colder season of winter as 
 rapidly as in the heat of the summer months." 
 
 About the contagious nature of the epidemic there 
 could be no doubt. " It has been proved," wrote Covino, 
 " that when it once entered a house scarcely one of those 
 who dwelt in it escaped." The contagion was so great 
 that one sick person, so to speak, would "infect the 
 whole world." A touch, even a breath, was sufficient to 
 transmit the malady." Those who were obliged to render 
 ordinary assistance to the sick fell victims. " It happened 
 also that priests, those sacred physicians of souls, were 
 seized by the plague whilst administering spiritual aid ; 
 and often by a single touch, or a single breath of the 
 
42 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 plague-stricken, they perished even before the sick person 
 they had come to assist." Clothes were justly regarded 
 as infected, and even the furniture of houses attacked 
 was suspected. At Montpellier, at the time of the visita- 
 tion, the writer says there were more doctors than else- 
 where, but hardly one escaped the infection, and this 
 even although it was recognised that medical skill was 
 of little or no avail. 
 
 According to the experience of this Montpellier doctor 
 the mortality was greatest amongst the poor, because 
 their hard lives and their poverty rendered them more 
 susceptible to the deadly infection, and their condition 
 did not enable them to combat it with the chances of 
 success possessed by the well-to-do classes. As to the 
 extent of the mortality, he says " that the number of 
 those swept away was greater than those left alive ; cities 
 are now (i.e., 1350) depopulated, thousands of houses are 
 locked up, thousands stand with their doors wide open, 
 their owners and those who dwelt in them having been 
 swept away." Lastly, the writer bears testimony to the 
 baneful effect the scourge had upon the morals of those 
 who had been spared. Such visitations, he thinks, must 
 always exercise the most lowering influence upon the 
 general virtue of the world. 1 
 
 From Marseilles the epidemic quickly spread north- 
 wards up the Rhone valley, and in a westerly direction 
 through Languedoc. Montpellier, too, quickly passed on 
 the infection. It commenced at Narbonne in the first 
 week of Lent, 1348, and is said to have carried off 30,000 
 of the inhabitants. Indeed, so fearful was the visitation, 
 
 1 Opuscule relaiif a la peste de 1348, compose par un contempo- 
 rain in Bibliotheque de I'Ecole des Charles, ie Ser., ii, pp. 201- 
 243- 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 43 
 
 that this ancient city is reported never to have recovered 
 from the desolation it caused. 1 
 
 At Aries, which was attacked very shortly after the 
 disease had gained a footing on French soil, most of the 
 inhabitants perished. 2 It reached Avignon as early as 
 January, 1348. In this city Pope Clement VI, then in 
 the sixth year of his pontificate, held his court. Before 
 the arrival of the dreaded visitant was publicly recog- 
 nised sixty-six religious of the convent of Carmelites 
 had been carried off, and in the first three days 1,800 
 people are reported to have died. In the seven months 
 during which the scourge lasted the vast roll of the dead 
 in the territory of Avignon had mounted up to 1 50,000 
 persons, amongst whom was the friend of Petrarch, 
 Laura de Noves, who died on Good Friday, March 27th, 
 1 348. 3 Even in England at the time the excessive mor- 
 tality at Avignon was noted and remarked upon. 4 Great 
 numbers of Jews are said to have been carried off 
 because of the unsanitary conditions in which they lived, 
 and an equally great number of Spaniards resident in 
 the city, whose propensity for good living rendered 
 them most susceptible to the infection. 5 
 
 The alarming mortality quickly caused a panic. " For 
 such terror," writes an author of the lives of the Popes 
 at Avignon, "took possession of nearly everyone, that 
 as soon as the ulcer or boil appeared on anyone he was 
 deserted by all, no matter how nearly they might be 
 
 1 Martin, Histoire de France (4th ed.), v, p. 109. 
 
 2 Phillippe, Histoire de la Peste Noire^ p. 103. 
 
 3 Anglada, Maladies Eteintes, p. 431. 
 
 4 Higden, Polychronicon (ed. Rolls Series), viii, p. 344. 
 
 5 L. Michon, Documents inedits sur la grande peste de 1348 (Paris, 
 i860), p. 22. 
 
44 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 related to him. For the father left his son, the son his 
 father, on his sick bed. In any house when a person 
 became sick with the infirmity and died it generally 
 happened that all others there were attacked and quickly 
 followed him to the grave ; yea, even the animals in the 
 place, such as dogs, cats, cocks, and hens also died. 
 Hence those who had strength fled for fear of what had 
 taken place, and, as a consequence, many who might 
 otherwise have recovered perished through want of care. 
 Many, too, who were seized with the sickness, being con- 
 sidered certain to die and without any hope of recovery, 
 were carried off at once to the pit and buried. And in 
 this way many were buried alive." 
 
 The same writer notices the charity of the Pope at 
 this terrible time, in causing doctors to visit and assist 
 the sick poor. " And since the ordinary cemeteries did 
 not suffice to hold the bodies of the dead, the Pope pur- 
 chased a large field and caused it to be consecrated as a 
 cemetery where anyone might be buried. And here an 
 infinite number of people were then interred." x 
 
 The most important and particular account of the 
 pestilence at Avignon, however, is that of a certain 
 Canon of the Low Countries, who wrote at the time from 
 the city to his friends in Bruges. He was in the train of 
 a Cardinal on a visit to the Roman Curia when the 
 plague broke out.* " The disease," he writes, " is threefold 
 in its infection; that is to say, firstly, men suffer in their 
 lungs and breathing, and whoever have these corrupted, 
 or even slightly attacked, cannot by any means escape 
 nor live beyond two days. Examinations have been 
 
 1 Baluze, Vitae P aft arum Avenionensimn, i, p. 254. In a second 
 life of Clement VII (p. 274) it is said that vast pits were dug in the 
 public cemetery, where the dead were buried " ut pecora gregatim." 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 45 
 
 made by doctors in many cities of Italy, and also in 
 Avignon, by order of the Pope, in order to discover the 
 origin of this disease. Many dead bodies have been thus 
 opened and dissected, and it is found that all who have 
 died thus suddenly have had their lungs infected and 
 have spat blood. The contagious nature of the disease 
 is indeed the most terrible of all the terrors (of the 
 time), for when anyone who is infected by it dies, all 
 who see him in his sickness, or visit him, or do any 
 business with him, or even carry him to the grave, 
 quickly follow him thither, and there is no known means 
 of protection. 
 
 " There is another form of the sickness, however, at 
 present running its course concurrently with the first; 
 that is, certain aposthumes appear under both arms, and 
 by these also people quickly die. A third form of the 
 disease — like the two former, running its course at this 
 same time with them — is that from which people of both 
 sexes suffer from aposthumes in the groin. This, like- 
 wise, is quickly fatal. The sickness has already grown 
 to such proportions that, from fear of contagion, no 
 doctor will visit a sick man, even if the invalid would 
 gladly give him everything he possessed ; neither does a 
 father visit his son, nor a mother her daughter, nor a 
 brother his brother, nor a son his father, nor a friend his 
 friend, nor an acquaintance his acquaintance, nor, in 
 fact, does anyone go to another, no matter how closely 
 he may be allied to him by blood, unless he is prepared 
 to die with him or quickly to follow after him. Still, a 
 large number of persons have died merely through their 
 affection for others; for they might have escaped had 
 they not, moved by piety and Christian charity, visited 
 the sick at the time. . 
 
46 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 " To put the matter shortly, one-half, or more than a 
 half, of the people at Avignon are already dead. Within 
 the walls of the city there are now more than 7,000 
 houses shut up; in these no one is living, and all who 
 have inhabited them are departed ; the suburbs hardly 
 contain any people at all. A field near ' Our Lady of 
 Miracles ' has been bought by the Pope and consecrated 
 as a cemetery. In this, from the 13th of March, 1 11,000 
 corpses have been buried. This number does not in- 
 clude those interred in the cemetery of the hospital of 
 St. Anthony, in cemeteries belonging to the religious 
 bodies, and in the many others which exist in Avignon. 
 Nor must I be silent about the neighbouring parts, for 
 at Marseilles all the gates of the city, with the excep- 
 tion of two small ones, are now closed, for there four- 
 fifths of the inhabitants are dead. 
 
 "The like account I can give of all the cities and 
 towns of Provence. Already the sickness has crossed 
 the Rhone, and ravaged many cities and villages as far 
 as Toulouse, and it ever increases in violence as it pro- 
 ceeds. On account of this great mortality there is such 
 a fear of death that people do not dare even to speak 
 with anyone whose relative has died, because it is fre- 
 quently remarked that in a family where one dies nearly 
 all the relations follow him, and this is commonly be- 
 lieved among the people. Neither are the sick now 
 served by their kindred, except as dogs would be; food 
 is put near the bed for them to eat and drink, and then 
 those still in health fly and leave the house. When a 
 man dies some rough countrymen, called gavoti, come 
 to the house, and, after receiving a sufficiently large 
 
 1 The writer was sending his letter on April 27th, 1348, so that 
 the period would have been about six weeks. 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 47 
 
 reward, carry the corpse to the grave. Neither relatives 
 nor friends go to the sick, nor do priests even hear their 
 confessions nor give them the Sacraments; but everyone 
 whilst still in health looks after himself. It daily hap- 
 pens that some rich man dying is borne to the grave by 
 these ruffians without lights, and without a soul to follow 
 him, except these hired mourners. When a corpse is 
 carried by all fly through the streets and get into their 
 houses. Nor do these said wretched gavoti, strong as 
 they are, escape ; but most of them after a time become 
 infected by this contagion and die. All the poor who 
 were wont to receive bread from the rich are dead ; that 
 is to say, briefly, where daily in ordinary times there 
 were distributed sixty-four measures of wheat for bread, 
 fifty loaves being made from each measure, now only 
 one measure is given away, and sometimes even a half 
 is found to be sufficient. 
 
 " And it is said that altogether in three months — that 
 is from January 25 th to the present day (April 27th) — 
 62,000 bodies have been buried in Avignon. The 
 Pope, however, about the middle of March last past, 
 after mature deliberation, gave plenary absolution till 
 Easter, as far as the keys of the Church extended, to all 
 those who, having confessed and being contrite, should 
 happen to die of the sickness. He ordered likewise 
 devout processions, singing the Litanies, to be made on 
 certain days each week, and to these, it is said, people 
 sometimes come from the neighbouring districts to the 
 number of 2,000; amongst them many of both sexes are 
 barefooted, some are in sackcloth, some with ashes, walk- 
 ing with tears, and tearing their hair, and beating them- 
 selves with scourges even to the drawing of blood. The 
 Pope was personally present at some of these processions, 
 
48 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 but they were then within the precincts of his palace. 
 What will be the end, or whence all this has had its 
 beginning, God alone knows. . . . 
 
 " Some wretched men have been caught with certain 
 dust, and, whether justly or unjustly God only knows, 
 they are accused of having poisoned the water, and men 
 in fear do not drink the water from wells ; for this many 
 have been burnt and daily are burnt. 
 
 " Fish, even sea fish, is commonly not eaten, as people 
 say they have been infected by the bad air. Moreover, 
 people do not eat, nor even touch spices, which have not 
 been kept a year, since they fear they may have lately 
 arrived in the aforesaid ships. And, indeed, it has many 
 times been observed that those who have eaten these new 
 spices and even some kinds of sea fish have suddenly 
 been taken ill. 
 
 " I write this to you, my friends, that you may know 
 the dangers in which we live. And if you desire to 
 preserve yourselves, the best advice is to eat and drink 
 temperately, to avoid cold, not to commit excess of any 
 kind, and, above all, to converse little with others, at 
 this time especially, except with the few whose breath 
 is sweet. But it is best to remain at home until this 
 epidemic has passed. . . . 
 
 " Know, also, that the Pope has lately left Avignon, as 
 is reported, and has gone to the castle called Stella, near 
 Valence on the Rhone, two leagues off, to remain there 
 till times change. The Curia, however, preferred to re- 
 main at Avignon, (but) vacations have been proclaimed 
 till the feast of St. Michael. All the auditors, advocates, 
 and procurators have either left, intend to leave imme- 
 diately, or are dead. I am in the hands of God, to whom 
 I commend myself. My master will follow the Pope, so 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 49 
 
 they say, and I with him, for there are some castles 
 near the airy mountains where the mortality has not yet 
 appeared, and it is thought that the best chance is there. 
 To choose and to do what is best may the Omnipotent 
 and merciful God grant us all. Amen." x 
 
 From another source some corroboration of the mor- 
 tality, described by the writer of this letter, can be 
 obtained. The 11,000, stated by the anonymous canon 
 to have been buried in the Pope's new cemetery from 
 March 13th to April 27th may appear excessive; still 
 more, the 62,000 reported to have died in the three 
 months between the first outbreak, on January 25th, 
 and the date when the letter was written. The state- 
 ments of the writer are, however, so circumstantial and 
 given with such detail, that, allowing for the tendency in 
 all such catastrophes to exaggerate rather than minimise 
 the number of the victims, it is probable that his estimate 
 of the terrible destruction of life at Avignon and in the 
 neighbourhood is substantially accurate. Writing, as 
 he does, on the Sunday after Easter, 1348, he evidently 
 points to the time of Lent as the period during which 
 the epidemic was at its height. This is borne out by a 
 statement in a German chronicle, which says: "In 
 Venice, in the whole of Italy and Provence, especially 
 in the cities on the sea-coast, there died countless num- 
 bers. And at Avignon, where the Roman Curia then 
 was, in the first three days after mid-Lent Sunday, 
 1,400 people were computed to have been buried." 2 
 Mid-Lent Sunday, in 1348, fell upon March 30th, and, 
 consequently, according to this authority, on the last 
 
 1 Breve Chronicon clerici anonymi, in De Smet, Reaceil des 
 Chroniques de Flandre, iii, pp. 14-18. 
 
 2 Henricus Rebdorfensis, in Boehmer, Fontes^ iv, p. 560. 
 
 E 
 
5 o THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 day of March and the first two days of April the death- 
 rate was over 450 a day. 
 
 No account of the plague at Avignon would be com- 
 plete without some notice of Gui de Chauliac, and some 
 quotations from the work he has left to posterity upon 
 this particular outbreak. De Chauliac was the medical 
 attendant of Pope Clement VI. He devoted himself to 
 the service of the sick during the time of the epidemic, 
 and, although he himself caught the infection, his life was 
 happily spared to the service of others, and to enable 
 him to write an account of the sickness. The mortality, 
 he says, commenced in the month of January, 1348, and 
 lasted for the space of seven months. " It was of two 
 kinds; the first lasted two months, with constant fever 
 and blood-spitting, and of this people died in three days. 
 
 " The second lasted for the rest of the time. In this, 
 together with constant fever, there were external car- 
 buncles, or buboes, under the arm or in the groin, and 
 the disease ran its course in five days. The contagion 
 was so great (especially when there was blood-spitting) 
 that not only by remaining (with the sick), but even by 
 looking (at them) people seemed to take it ; so much so, 
 that many died without any to serve them, and were 
 buried without priests to pray over their graves. 
 
 " A father did not visit his son, nor the son his father. 
 Charity was dea*d. The mortality was so great that it 
 left hardly a fourth part of the population. Even the 
 doctors did not dare to visit the sick from fear of infec- 
 tion, and when they did visit them they attempted 
 nothing to heal them, and thus almost all those who 
 were taken ill died, except towards the end of the 
 epidemic, when some few recovered." - 
 
 " As for me, to avoid infamy, I did not dare to absent 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 51 
 
 myself, but still I was in continual fear." Towards the end 
 of the sickness de Chauliac took the infection, and was 
 in great danger for six weeks, but in the end recovered. 1 
 
 It was according to the advice of this same Gui de 
 Chauliac that Pope Clement VI isolated himself and 
 kept large fires always alight in his apartments, just as 
 Pope Nicholas IV had done in a previous epidemic. In 
 the whole district of Provence the mortality appears to 
 have been very great. In the Lent of 1 348 no fewer than 
 358 Dominicans are said to have died. 2 Even by the 
 close of the November of this year the terror of the time 
 had not passed away from Avignon and the Papal 
 Court. Writing to King Louis of Hungary, on the 23rd 
 of that month, the Pope excused himself for not having 
 sent before, "as the deadly plague, which has devastated 
 these and other parts of the world by an unknown and 
 terrible mortality, has not only, by God's will, carried off 
 some of our brethren, but caused others to fly from the 
 Roman Curia to avoid death." 3 
 
 In the early summer of the same year, 1348, just as 
 the plague was lessening its ravages at Avignon, the 
 Pope addressed a letter to the General Chapter of the 
 Friars Minor then being held at Verona. He laments 
 the misery into which the world has been plunged, 
 chiefly " by the mortal sickness which is carrying off from 
 us old and young, rich and poor, in one common, sudden 
 and unforeseen death." He urges them to unite in 
 prayer that the plague may cease, and grants special 
 indulgences " to such among you as, during this Chap- 
 ter, or whilst returning to your homes, may chance to 
 
 1 Anglada, Maladies Eteintes, pp. 413-14. 
 
 2 Barnes, History of Edward III., p. 435. 
 
 3 Thiener, Monumenta Historica Hungariae, i, p. 767. 
 
52 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 die." 1 Of these Franciscans it is said that, in Italy 
 alone, 30,000 died in this sickness. 
 
 From its first entry into France in the early days of 
 1348, the plague was ever spreading far and wide. The 
 letter from Avignon, already given, speaks of the rav- 
 ages of the mortality in the whole of Provence, and of 
 its having, before the end of April, reached Toulouse on 
 its journey westward. In the August of this year (1348) 
 Bordeaux was apparently suffering from it, since in that 
 month the Princess Joan, daughter of Edward III, who 
 was on her way to be married to Pedro, son of the King 
 of Castille, died suddenly in that city. 
 
 In a northerly direction the epidemic spread with 
 equal virulence. At Lyons evidence of the pestilence is 
 afforded by an inscription preserved in the town museum. 
 It relates to the construction of a chapel in 1352 by a 
 citizen, " Michael Pancsus," in which Mass should be 
 said for the souls of several members of his family " who 
 died in the time of the mortality, 1348." 2 The anony- 
 mous cleric of Bruges, who preserved the Avignon letter, 
 writing probably at the time, gives the following account 
 of its progress: "In the year of our Lord 1348, that 
 plague, epidemic, and mortality, which we have men- 
 tioned before, by the will of God has not ceased ; but 
 from day to day*grows and descends upon other parts. 
 For in Burgundy, Normandy, and elsewhere it has con- 
 sumed, and is consuming, many thousands of men, 
 animals, and sheep." 3 
 
 1 Wadding, Annates Mi?iorum, viii, p. 25 (ed. 1723). 
 
 2 Olivier de la Haye, Po'eme sur la grande fieste de 1348. Intro- 
 duction par G. Guigue, p. xviii, note. 
 
 3 Breve Chronicon in De Smet, Recueil des Chroniques de 
 Flandre, iii, p. 19. 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 53 
 
 It arrived in Normandy probably about the feast of 
 St. James (25th July), 1348. A contemporary note in a 
 manuscript, which certainly came from the Abbey of 
 Foucarmont, gives the following account : " In the year 
 of grace 1348, about the feast of St. James, the great 
 mortality entered into Normandy. And it came into 
 Gascony, and Poitou, and Brittany, and then passed into 
 Picardy. And it was so horrible that in the towns it 
 attacked more than two-thirds of the population died. 
 And a father did not dare to go and visit his son, nor a 
 brother his sister, and people could not be found to 
 nurse one another, because, when the person breathed 
 the breath of another he could not escape. It came to 
 such a pass that no one could be found even to carry 
 the corpses (to the tomb). People said that the end of 
 the world had come." x In another manuscript, M. De- 
 lisle has found a further note, or portion of a note, refer- 
 ring to the terrible nature of the malady in Normandy. 
 It never entered a city or town without carrying off the 
 greater part of the inhabitants. " And in that time the 
 mortality was so great among the people of Normandy 
 that those in Picardy mocked them." 2 
 
 Paris was, of course, visited by the disease. Appar- 
 ently, it was some time in the early summer of 1348 
 when it first manifested itself. In the chronicle of St. 
 Denis it is recorded that "in the year of grace 1348 the 
 said mortality commenced in the Kingdom of France 
 and lasted about a year and a half, more or less. In this 
 way there died in Paris, one day with another, 800, per- 
 sons. ... In the space of the said year and a half, as 
 some declare, the number of the dead in Paris rose to 
 
 1 Delisle, Cabinet des Manuscrits^ i, p. 532. 
 
 2 Ibid. Here the note abruptly finishes. 
 
54 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 more than 50,000, and in the town of St. Denis the 
 number was as high as 16,000." * The chronicle of the 
 Carmelites at Rheims places the total of deaths in Paris 
 at the larger number of 8o,ooo, 2 amongst whom were 
 two Queens, Joan of Navarre, daughter of Louis X, and 
 Joan of Burgundy, wife of King Philip of Valois. 
 
 The most circumstantial account of the plague in 
 France at the time when the capital was attacked is 
 given in the continuation of the chronicle of William of 
 Nangis, which was written probably before 1368. "In 
 the same year" (1348), it says, "both in Paris in the 
 kingdom of France, and not less, as is reported, in 
 different parts of the world, and also in the following 
 year, there was so great a mortality of people of both 
 sexes, and of the young rather than the old, that they 
 could hardly be buried. Further they were ill scarcely 
 more than two or three days, and some often died sud- 
 denly, so that a man to-day in good health, to-morrow 
 was carried a corpse to the grave. Lumps suddenly 
 appeared under the arm-pits or in the groin, and the 
 appearance of these was an infallible sign of death. 
 This sicknesSj or pestilence, was called by the doctors 
 the epidemic. And the multitude of people who died in 
 the years 1348 and 1349, was so large that nothing like 
 it was ever hear4, read of, or witnessed in past ages. 
 And the said death and sickness often sprung from the 
 imagination, or from the society and (consequent) con- 
 tagion of another, for a healthy man visiting one sick 
 hardly ever escaped death. So that in many towns, 
 small and great, priests retired through fear, leaving the 
 administration of the Sacraments to religious, who were 
 
 1 H. Martin, Histoire de France, v, p. in. 
 
 2 Marlot, Histoire de Rei?ns, iv, p. 63. 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 55 
 
 more bold. Briefly, in many places, there did not remain 
 two alive out of every twenty. 
 
 " So great was the mortality in the Hotel-Dieu of 
 Paris that for a long time more than fifty corpses were 
 carried away from it each day in carts to be buried. 1 
 And the devout sisters of the Hotel-Dieu, not fearing 
 death, worked piously and humbly, not out of regard for 
 any worldly honour. A great number of these said 
 sisters were very frequently summoned to their reward 
 by death, and rest in peace with Christ, as is piously 
 believed." 
 
 After saying that the plague had passed through 
 Gascony and Spain, the chronicler speaks of it as going 
 "from town to town, village to village, from house to 
 house, and even from person to person ; and coming into 
 the country of France, passed into Germany, where, 
 however, it was less severe than amongst us." 
 
 " It lasted in France," the writer says, " the greater 
 part of 1 348 and 1 349, and afterwards there were to be 
 seen many towns, country places, and houses in good 
 cities remaining empty and without inhabitants." 
 
 The writer concludes by declaring that nature soon 
 began to make up for losses. " But, alas ! the world by 
 this renovation is not changed for the better. For people 
 were afterwards more avaricious and grasping, even 
 when they possessed more of the goods of this world, 
 than before. They were more covetous, vexing them- 
 
 1 All copies of this chronicle give " quingente" and it has usually 
 been stated that the number so buried each day was 500. M. Geraud, 
 who edited the work for the Societe de l'Histoire de France, suggests 
 that it is a mistake for 50, and quotes two MSS., in which in the 
 margin the following note is found: "L corps par jour a l'Hostel- 
 Dieu de Paris." As this reading is more probable it has been 
 adopted above. 
 
56 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 selves by contentious quarrels, strifes, and law suits." 
 Moreover, all things were much dearer; furniture, food, 
 merchandise of all sorts, doubled in price, and servants 
 would work only for higher wages. " Charity, too, from 
 that time began to grow cold, and wickedness with its 
 attendant, ignorance, was rampant, and few were found 
 who could or would teach children the rudiments of 
 grammar in houses, cities, or villages." 1 
 
 Whilst the plague was at its height King Philip VI 
 requested the medical faculty of Paris to consult to- 
 gether and to report upon the best methods by which 
 the deadly nature of the disease could be combated. The 
 result of their consultation was published, probably in 
 June, 1348. 2 Unfortunately, adhering closely to the text 
 of the question addressed to them, their reply does not 
 furnish any historical details. They broadly state their 
 views as to the probable origin of the epidemic, and 
 confine themselves to suggestions as to its treatment, 
 and to the means by which contagion is to be avoided. 
 They are clear as to the infectious nature of the disease, 
 and earnest in their recommendations that all who were 
 able should have nothing to do with the sick. " It is 
 chiefly the people of one house, and above all those of 
 the same family, who are close together," they say, " who 
 die, for they are always near to those who are sick. We 
 advise them to depart, for it is in this way that a great 
 number have been infected by the plague." 3 
 
 Meanwhile the epidemic was spreading northward. 
 
 1 Continuatio Chronici Guillelmi di Nangiaco, ed. pour la Societe 
 de l'Histoire de France par H. Geraud, ii, pp. 21 1-2 17. 
 
 2 They speak in the document of " the 17th of the ensuing month 
 of July." 
 
 3 Michon, Documents inedits sur la Peste Noire, p. 22. 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 57 
 
 At Amiens, where 17,000 are said to have been carried 
 off by the sickness, it seems probable that the malady 
 was not at its height before the summer of the following 
 year, 1349. The wave of pestilence from Paris seems to 
 have divided. One stream swept on through Normandy 
 towards the coast, which it probably reached, in the 
 regions round Calais, about July or August of the year 
 
 1348. The other stream, checked probably by the autumn 
 and winter, made its way more slowly towards Belgium 
 and Holland. 
 
 In the June of 1349 the King granted a petition from 
 the Mayor of Amiens for a new cemetery. In the docu- 
 ment the plague in the city is described as having been 
 then so terrible that the cemeteries are full, and no more 
 corpses could safely be buried in them. " The mortality 
 in the said town," says the King's letter, " is so mar- 
 vellously great that people are dying there suddenly, as 
 quickly, as from one evening to the following morning, 
 and often even quicker than that." x This was in June, 
 
 1349, and already by September of the same year the 
 authorities were called upon to deal with a combination 
 of workmen at a tannery to secure for themselves ex- 
 cessive wages " to the great hurt of the people at large." 
 The promptness of the action of the Mayor, and the 
 tone of the proclamation establishing a rate of wages, is 
 a sufficient proof that the crisis was regarded as serious. 2 
 This trouble at Amiens is an indication of difficulties 
 which will be seen to have existed elsewhere in France, 
 in Germany, and in England, which had their origin in 
 the dearth of labourers after the scourge had passed. 
 
 1 Thierry, Recueil des Monuments inedits de VHistoire du Tiers 
 Etat, i, p. 544. 
 
 2 Ibid. , p. 546. 
 
58 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 The account of the ravages of this great pestilence in 
 France, as well as its course in the city of Tournay, 
 where it commenced in August, 1349, is well given in 
 the chronicle of Gilles Li Muisis, Abbot of St. Martin's, 
 Tournay, who was a contemporary of the events he 
 describes. " It is impossible," he says, " to credit the 
 mortality throughout the whole country. Travellers, 
 merchants, pilgrims, and others who have passed through 
 it declare that they have found cattle wandering without 
 herdsmen in fields, towns, and waste lands; that they 
 have seen barns and wine-cellars standing wide open, 
 houses empty, and few people to be found anywhere. 
 So much so that in many towns, cities and villages, 
 where there had been before 20,000 people, scarcely 
 2,000 are left; and in many cities and country places, 
 where there had been 1,500 people, hardly 100 remain. 
 And in many different lands (multis climatibus), both 
 lands and fields are lying uncultivated. I have heard 
 these things from a certain knight well skilled in the 
 law, who was one of the members of the Paris Parlia- 
 ment. He was sent, together with a certain Bishop, by 
 Philip, the most illustrious King of France, to the King 
 of Aragon, and on his return journey passed through 
 Avignon. Both there and in Paris, as he told me, he 
 was informed of the foresaid things by many people 
 worthy of credit." 
 
 After speaking of the evidence given by a pilgrim to 
 Santiago, Li Muisis proceeds to relate his own experi- 
 ences in Tournay in the summer of 1 349. This he does 
 in verse and prose. The poem, after speaking of the 
 manifestation of God's anger, describes the plague be- 
 ginning in the East and passing through France into 
 Flanders. Like other writers, Li Muisis declares that 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 59 
 
 he hesitates to say what he has seen and heard, because 
 posterity will hardly credit what he would relate. 1 The 
 reports of all travellers and merchants as to the terrible 
 state of the country generally give one and the same 
 sad story of universal death and distress. The par- 
 ticulars as to the plague in Tournay, the writer's own 
 city, may best be given from his prose account. 
 
 John de Pratis, the Bishop of Tournay, was one of the 
 first to be carried off by the sickness. He had gone 
 away for change of air, and on Corpus Christi Day, 
 June nth, 1349, he carried the blessed Sacrament in 
 the procession at Arras. He left that city the next day 
 for Cambray, but died the day after almost suddenly. 2 
 He was buried at Tournay; and "time passed on," says 
 our author, to the beginning of August, up to which no 
 other person of authority died in Tournay. But after 
 the feast of St. John the plague began in the parish of 
 St. Piat, in the quarter of Merdenchor, and afterwards 
 in other parishes. Every day the bodies of the dead 
 were borne to the churches, now five, now ten, now 
 fifteen, and in the parish of St. Brice sometimes twenty 
 or thirty. In all parish churches the curates, parish 
 clerks, and sextons to get their fees, rang morning, 
 evening, and night the passing bells, and by this the 
 whole people of the city, both men and women, began 
 to be filled with fear. 
 
 The officials of the town consequently seeing that the 
 Dean and Chapter, and the clerics generally, did not 
 
 1 " Certe dicere timeo 
 Quae vidi et quae video 
 De ista pestilentia." 
 
 2 Gams, Series Efiiscoporum, gives 13th June, 1349, as the day 
 of his death. 
 
6o THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 care to remedy this matter, since it was in their interest 
 it should go on, as they made profit out of it, having 
 taken counsel together, issued certain orders. Men and 
 women who, although not married, were living together 
 as man and wife, were commanded either to marry or 
 forthwith to separate. The bodies of the dead were to 
 be buried immediately in graves at least six feet deep. 
 There was to be no tolling of any bells at funerals. The 
 corpse was not to be taken to the church, but at the 
 service only a pall was to be spread on the ground, whilst 
 after the service there was to be no gathering together 
 at the houses of the deceased. Further, all work after 
 noon on Saturdays and during the entire Sunday was 
 prohibited, as also was the playing of dice and making 
 use of profane oaths. 
 
 These ordinances having lasted for a time, and the 
 sickness still further increasing, it was proclaimed on 
 St. Matthew's Day (September 24th) that there should 
 be no more ringing of bells, that not more than two 
 were to meet for any funeral service, and that no one 
 was to dress in black. This action of the city authorities, 
 the writer declares to have been most beneficial. In his 
 own knowledge, he says, many who had hitherto been 
 living in a state of concubinage were married, that the 
 practice of swearing notably diminished, and that dice 
 were so little used that the manufacturers turned " the 
 square-shaped dice " into " round objects on which people 
 told their Pater Nosters" 
 
 I have tried, says our author, to write what I know, 
 "and let future generations believe that in Tournay 
 there was a marvellous mortality. I heard from many 
 about Christmas time who professed to know it as a 
 fact that more than 25,000 persons had died in Tournay, 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 61 
 
 and it was strange that the mortality was especially great 
 among the chief people and the rich. Of those who used 
 wine and kept away from the tainted air and visiting 
 the sick few or none died. But those visiting and fre- 
 quenting the houses of the sick either became grievously 
 ill or died. Deaths were more numerous about the mar- 
 ket places and in poor narrow streets than in broader 
 and more spacious areas. And whenever one or two 
 people died in any house, at once, or at least in a short 
 space of time, the rest of the household were carried off. 
 So much so, that very often in one home ten or more 
 ended their lives together, and in many houses the dogs 
 and even cats died. Hence no one, whether rich, in 
 moderate circumstances, or poor, was secure, but every- 
 one from day to day waited on the will of the Lord. 
 And certainly great was the number of curates and 
 chaplains hearing confessions and administering the 
 Sacraments, and even of parish clerks visiting the sick 
 with them, who died." 
 
 In the parishes across the river, the mortality was as 
 great as in Tournay itself. Although death as a rule 
 came so suddenly, still the people for the most part were 
 able to receive the Sacraments. The rapidity of the 
 disease, remarked upon by Petrarch and Boccaccio in 
 Italy, is also spoken of in the same terms by the Abbot 
 of St. Martin's. People that one had seen apparently 
 well and had spoken to one evening were reported dead 
 next day. He specially remarks upon the mortality 
 among the clergy visiting the sick, 1 and speaks of the 
 creation of two new cemeteries outside the walls of the 
 
 1 " Quia de sacerdotibus 
 Infirmos visitantibus 
 Quamplurimi defecerunt." 
 
62 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 town. One was in a field near the Leper House De Valle, 
 the other at the religious house of the Crutched Friars. 
 Strange to say, Li Muisis speaks of the disfavour with 
 which this necessary precaution of establishing new 
 grave-yards was regarded. People, he says, grumbled 
 because they were no longer allowed to be buried in 
 their own family vaults. The town authorities, however, 
 were firm, and as the pestilence increased deep pits were 
 dug in these two common burying places, and into them 
 numbers of bodies were constantly being thrown and 
 covered up with a slight layer of earth. 1 
 
 It has been supposed by many that the accounts 
 given by contemporary writers of the excessive mortality 
 throughout the countries of Europe must be greatly 
 exaggerated, and that the population in the middle of 
 the fourteenth century was not sufficiently large to allow 
 of the number of deaths. On the one hand it is evident 
 that in the majority of cases the round figures stated 
 can be at most nothing more than a rough approxima- 
 tion of the actual deaths, and that the natural tendency 
 of those who have witnessed a catastrophe as great and 
 as universal as that of the plague of 1348 and sub- 
 sequent years, is to magnify, rather than to diminish, 
 the disaster. On the other hand, whilst allowing that in 
 most cases the actual figures are little more than guesses 
 at the truth, and can only be taken as evidence of the 
 belief of the age in the magnitude of the mortality, it 
 must be admitted that Italy, France, and other countries 
 of Europe were at the time more teeming with popula- 
 tion than is perhaps usually understood. 
 
 1 Chronicon majus JEgidii Li Muisis, abbatis Sti. Martini 
 Tornacensis, in De Smet, Recueil des Chroiiiques de Flandre, ii, 
 pp. 279-281 and 361-382. 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 63 
 
 M. Simeon Luce has made a special study of the 
 conditions of French popular life at this period, 1 and 
 the conclusions at which he has arrived may be here 
 usefully stated in brief. It has been proved by the 
 labours of French antiquaries that the general popula- 
 tion of France before the great pestilence of 1348- 1349, 
 and the hundred years' war with England, was equal to 
 what it is in the present century. Numerous villages 
 were scattered over the face of the country, every trace 
 of which has now disappeared. The houses, or rather 
 huts, in which the population of rural France lived were 
 very seldom framed of any kind of masonry, but were 
 for the most part merely four mud, or clay, walls, and 
 sometimes wickerwork lined, and the interstices rilled in, 
 with hay and straw. As a rule there was but one storey, 
 although some, chiefly taverns and places of that class, 
 had an upper floor. The roof was thatched or covered 
 with wood or stone; windows were the exception, and 
 where they did exist they were mere slits in the clay 
 walls closed with wooden shutters. Even the coarse 
 opaque glass then made was beyond the means of the 
 ordinary peasant and farmer, whilst just about this time 
 even a rich bourgeois of Paris recommended the filling 
 of windows with waxen cloth or parchment. The doors 
 were fastened with wooden latches, and over them, ac- 
 cording to the general arrangement, a shutter of wood 
 was fixed which was generally left open for air, light, 
 and to allow the smoke of the brushwood fire to pass 
 out of the living room. It will be readily understood 
 how the condition of life in houses such as these would 
 not be such as to put much obstacle to the spread of an 
 epidemic in the rural districts; whilst if such tenements 
 1 S. Luce, Bertrand du Guesclin, i, ch. 3. 
 
64 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 were vacant even for a short time they would readily 
 fall into decay and would present the spectacle of ruin 
 and desolation spoken of by so many writers of the 
 period as caused by the great pestilence. 
 
 The furniture of these houses was simple, but very 
 much what it is now in small country houses. The in- 
 ventories of the period show that most houses had vessels 
 of copper, tin and glass, and that there were few who 
 did not possess some articles of silver. The people for 
 the most part lived on a soup of bread and meal ; but even 
 by the fourteenth century white bread was by no means 
 unknown. The principal meat was pork fed in the 
 forests, but most cottages possessed a spit upon which 
 fowls, previously larded, were occasionally roasted. Of 
 condiments, mustard was the chief, and it was much, if 
 not universally, used. Even in the humblest houses a 
 cloth would be spread on the table at meals. For drink 
 there was the wine of the country, and in Normandy 
 cider was plentiful. With the drink, especially in taverns 
 which were exceedingly numerous, a little ginger would 
 generally be mixed. In dress fur of various kinds was 
 much used, and, by the time of this pestilence, in France 
 the use of the linen shirt as an undergarment had be- 
 come almost universal. The sleeping places were dark, 
 airless recesses, in which the people, having divested 
 themselves of all clothing, rested upon straw mattresses, 
 or sometimes on feather beds. Contrary to the opinion 
 entertained by persons of repute there is evidence to 
 show that bathing was common and much used, especi- 
 ally among the lower classes, and that even small villages 
 had their public bath places. 
 
 This sketch of the epidemic in these regions may be 
 concluded by one or two instances of the agrarian diffi- 
 
PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE 65 
 
 culties which followed upon it. On August 1 6th, 1349, 
 the Emperor Charles IV issued an order to the tenants 
 of the Abbey of St. Trond, in the diocese of Liege, to 
 return to their obedience. The document says that the 
 holders of the Abbey lands and other dependents are 
 now demanding their own terms and claiming liberty 
 to do what they like, with the result that the Abbot and 
 monastery are so distressed in temporal matters that 
 absolute ruin is impending. 1 The second instance is that 
 of the Abbey of St. John at Laon. A document, ad- 
 dressed by the French King Charles to the Abbot and 
 convent, says that the monastery is so decayed in re- 
 venues that it is impossible to keep up the fitting and 
 proper services of the Church. And although the letter 
 was not written till nearly the close of the century — 
 J 39 2 "3 — the cause assigned for this poverty and decay 
 is " the great mortality which took place about the year 
 1349," by which the tithes and other revenues were 
 destroyed. 
 
 And to quote but one more example: " On 5th July, 
 1352, relief was granted to the inhabitants of the town 
 of Arras because by reason of the wars, and because of 
 the mortality which has been universal in the world, the 
 said city is so greatly decayed, both as to buildings and 
 people, as also in revenues and temporal goods, that it 
 is on the high road to (absolute) desolation." 2 
 
 1 Piot, Cartulaire de Vabbaye de Saint-Trond, i, 507. 
 
 2 Lechner, Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland, p. 93. For the 
 diminution of the population in France, cf. Le Budget et la Popula- 
 tion de la Fi'ance sous Philippe de Valois, A. M. de Boislisle, 1875. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 
 
 IN following the great pestilence through Europe, 
 according to the historical sequence of events, its 
 course in England should be now described. Inasmuch, 
 however, as the story of the ravages caused by the dis- 
 ease in England will be told in greater detail, it may con- 
 veniently be left till the last. Here a brief account may be 
 interposed of the mortality in other European countries, 
 although it will take the reader to the year 135 1. 
 
 From Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica the plague was 
 carried to the Balearic Islands. The three streams of 
 infection met with destructive force at Majorca. The 
 historian Zurita declares that in less than a month 
 15,000 persons had perished on the island. Another 
 writer estimates the total loss of life during the epidemic 
 at double that number, and some ancient records have 
 been quoted as stating that in the island eight out of 
 every ten people must have died, a proportion, of course, 
 exaggerated, but sufficient to show local tradition as to 
 the extent of the misfortune. In the monasteries and 
 convents, according to this authority,, not one religious 
 was left; and the Dominicans are said to have been 
 obliged to recruit their numbers by enrolling quite 
 young children. 1 
 
 The scourge fell upon Spain in the early part of the 
 year 1348. It is supposed to have first appeared at 
 
 1 Philippe, Histoire de la Peste Noire, p. 54. 
 66 
 
THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 67 
 
 Almeira, and in Barcelona whole quarters of the city 
 were depopulated and rendered desolate by it. In May, 
 1348, it was already raging in Valencia, and by mid- 
 summer 300 persons a day are reported to have been 
 buried in the city. At Saragossa, where Pedro IV then 
 was, the malady was at its height in September. The 
 people here, as elsewhere, became hardened, and charity 
 died out in the presence of the terrors of death. They 
 fled from the sick, leaving them to die alone, and aban- 
 doned the corpses of the dead in the streets. Most of 
 the cities and villages of Spain suffered more or less 
 severely, and the sickness appears to have lingered 
 longer here than in most other countries. The new 
 Queen of Aragon had been one of the earliest victims ; 
 Alfonso XI was one of the last. In March, 1350, he 
 was laying siege to Gibraltar, when the plague broke 
 out suddenly with great violence amongst his troops. 
 He refused to retire, as his officers desired him to do, 
 and fell a victim to the epidemic on Good Friday, 
 March 26th, 1350. 1 
 
 An interesting account of Northern Spain during the 
 plague is given in the chronicle of Li Muisis, Abbot of 
 St. Martin's, Tournay, from which much was cited in the 
 previous chapter. The writer says that he learnt the 
 details from " a pilgrim, who, in going to St. James 5 (of 
 Compostella), passed by Notre Dame de Roc Amadour 2 
 and by Toulouse, because by reason of the wars he could 
 not travel the usual way." This pilgrim to Compostella, 
 in the middle of the fourteenth century, would conse- 
 quently have crossed the Pyrenees by one of the passes 
 
 1 Philippe, Histoire de la Peste Noire, pp. 54-56. 
 
 2 This was a place of pilgrimage on the Amadour, not far from 
 Toulouse. 
 
68 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 into Navarre, and so travelled along the north of Spain 
 to Santiago. Having performed his pilgrimage, Li Muisis 
 informs us that he returned through Galicia, and "with his 
 companion, reached a town named Salvaterra," probably 
 the place now called Salvatierra, situated below the 
 Pyrenees, and just above the Sierra de la Pena. This 
 town, as the traveller reported, " was so depopulated by 
 the mortality that not one person out of ten had been 
 left alive. The city itself was fairly large. The said 
 pilgrim related," says Li Muisis, " that after supping with 
 the host (who, with two daughters and one servant, had 
 alone so far survived of his entire family, and who was 
 not then conscious of any sickness upon him), he settled 
 with him for his entertainment, intending to start on his 
 journey at daybreak, and went to bed. Next morning 
 rising and wanting something from those with whom 
 they had supped, the travellers could make no one hear. 
 Then they learnt from an old woman they found in bed 
 that the host, his two daughters, and servant had died in 
 the night. On hearing this the pilgrims made all haste 
 to leave the place." 1 
 
 From North Italy the pestilence soon spread to the 
 country across the Adriatic, if indeed it had not already 
 been infected independently, as seems more than prob- 
 able, by ships from the East. The port of Ragusa, in 
 Dalmatia, is said to have been attacked as early as 
 January 13th, 1348, and more than 7,000 are reported as 
 having been swept away by it. A letter sent in April to 
 the authorities " condoles with them on the terrible 
 mortality, by which the population had been so greatly 
 diminished." 2 At Spalatro, on March 22nd, 1348, the 
 
 1 Chronicon majus AZgidii Li Muisis, ii, 280. 
 
 2 Lechner, Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland, p. 21. 
 
THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 69 
 
 Archbishop Dominic de Lucaris died of the disease, and 
 it is known to have raged for some months in the city. 
 An anonymous chronicler of Spalatro in the fifteenth 
 century, who professed to take his account of this period 
 from ancient records, declares that it is impossible to 
 picture " the terrors and miseries of these unhappy days." 
 To add to the horror of the situation, as he declares, 
 wolves and other wild animals came down from the 
 mountains and fell upon the plague-stricken city and 
 boldly attacked the survivors. The same writer notes 
 the rapidity with which the disease carried off those it 
 attacked. According to him, when swellings or car- 
 buncles appeared on any part of the body, all hope of 
 saving the life of the patient was abandoned. As a rule, 
 those stricken in this way died in three or at most four 
 days, and so great was the general mortality that bodies 
 were left lying unburied in the streets, because there were 
 none to carry them to the grave. 1 
 
 Further north again, Sebenico, through intercourse 
 with which, very possibly, the plague was carried into 
 Hungary, was attacked in the spring of the same year, 
 1348. By the 8th of May the Count of Sebenico had 
 written a description of the wretched condition and state 
 of the city, by reason of the great mortality in those 
 parts, through which it had been left almost without in- 
 habitants. 2 Istria, on August 27th, 1348, was declared in 
 a Venetian State paper to have suffered greatly. The 
 people left, especially in the city of Pola, were very few, 
 so many having been swept away " by the late pestil- 
 ence." 3 
 
 From Venice the epidemic spread northwards into 
 
 1 Farlati, Illyricum Sacrum^ iii, p. 324. 
 
 2 Lechner, ut sup., p. 22. 3 Ibid. 
 
7o THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Austria and Hungary. Attacking on its way Padua and 
 Verona, it passed up the valley of the Etsch and was 
 already at Trent on June 2nd, 1348. Thence it spread 
 quickly through Botzen up the Brenner Pass, in the 
 Tyrolese Alps, and was at Muhldorf on the Inn, in 
 Bavaria on June 29th, 1348. 1 Here it seems to have 
 lasted for a considerable time. One chronicler, writing 
 of the subsequent year, 1 349, says " that from the feast of 
 St. Michael, 1348, there perished in Muhldorf 1,400 of 
 the better class of inhabitants." 2 Another, speaking of 
 the plague generally, says " that it raged so terribly in 
 Carinthia, Austria, and Bavaria that many cities were 
 depopulated, and in some towns which it visited many 
 families were destroyed so completely that not a member 
 was found to have survived." 3 
 
 In November of the same year, 1348, the epidemic is 
 found in Styria, at Neuberg, in the valley of the Miirz. 
 The Neuberg Chronicle, giving an account of it, says, 
 " Since this deadly pestilence raged everywhere, cities 
 became desolate which up to this had been populous. 
 Their inhabitants were swept off in such numbers that 
 such as were left, with closed gates, strenuously watched 
 that no one should steal the property of those departed." 
 After speaking of Venice, it continues, " The pest in its 
 wanderings came to Carinthia, and then so completely 
 took possession of Styria, that people, rendered desper- 
 ate, walked about as if mad." 
 
 " From so many sick pestilential odours proceeded, 
 infecting those visiting and serving them, and very fre- 
 quently it happened that when one died in a house all, 
 
 1 Lechner, tit step., p. 23. 
 
 2 Annates Matseenses in Mon. Germ., ix, 829. 
 
 3 Annates Mellicenses, Ibid., p. 513. 
 
THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 71 
 
 one after the other, were carried off. So certain was this 
 that no one could be found to stop in the houses of the 
 sick, and relations, as if in the natural course of events, 
 seem to die all together. As a consequence of this over- 
 whelming visitation, cattle were left to wander in the 
 fields without guardians, for no one thought of troubling 
 himself about the future; and wolves coming down from 
 the mountains to attack them, against their instincts, 
 and as if frightened by something unseen, quickly fled 
 into the wilds again. Property, too, both moveable and 
 immoveable, which sick people leave by will, is carefully 
 avoided by all, as if it were sure to be infected. The 
 sickness . . . declined about the feast of St. Martin 
 (November 1 ith), 1348, and at Neuberg it had carried off 
 many monks and inhabitants." 1 
 
 It is necessary to return once again to North Italy, 
 from which another wave of pestilence rolled on to 
 Switzerland. The contemporary — but not very accurate 
 — notary of N ovara, Peter Azarius, speaks to the fact of 
 the plague being at Momo, Gallarete, Varese, and Bellin- 
 zona, 2 on the great highway over the Alps through the 
 St. Gothard Pass, and all in the immediate neighbourhood 
 of his home. What Azarius says from personal ex- 
 perience of this terrible time is of interest. He had left 
 his house at Novara for fear of the disease, and resting 
 for a while in the town of Tortona, he occupied himself 
 in philosophising upon the misfortunes which had fallen 
 upon Lombardy, and the strange unchristian neglect of 
 the sick he could hardly help noticing. " I have seen," 
 he says, " a rich man perish, who, even by offering an 
 
 1 Continuatio Novi7nontensis, ibid., p. 675. 
 
 2 Chronicon, in Muratori, xvi, 361. He places the event under 
 the year 1347. 
 
72 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 immense sum of money, could get no one to help him. 
 Through fear of the infection I have seen a father not 
 caring for his son, nor a son for his father, nor a brother 
 for a brother, nor a friend for his friend, nor a neighbour 
 for his neighbour. And what was worse than this, I have 
 seen a family, although one of high position, miserably 
 perish, not being able to get any help or assistance. 
 Medicine being useless, the strong and the young, men 
 and women, were struck down in a moment, and all the 
 infected were so shunned that none dared even to enter 
 their houses." 1 
 
 From the pass of St. Gothard the epidemic passed 
 down the Rhine Valley, and before the close of 1 348 was 
 in the neighbourhood of Dissentis; whilst by May, 1349, 
 the district round about the monastery of Pfaffers, half 
 way between the pass of St. Gothard and Lake Con- 
 stance, had been attacked. Shortly afterwards the country 
 near the celebrated Abbey of St. Gall was likewise 
 greatly afflicted. 2 
 
 Meanwhile another wave of pestilence passed into 
 Switzerland from the side of France. Avignon had been 
 attacked, as it has been shown, in the early part of 
 1348, and thence the infection was carried up the Rhone 
 Valley to the Lake of Geneva. Thence one stream 
 passed in a north-easterly direction over Switzerland, 
 and a second followed the course of the river Rhone. 
 By the 17th of March, 1349, the plague was at Ruswyl, 
 in the neighbourhood of Lucerne, having passed through 
 Berne on its way. 3 At Lucerne alone, 3,000 people are 
 said to have died of the disease. It must have remained 
 about the neighbourhood of this lake for some months, 
 
 1 Chronicon, in Muratori, xvi, 298. 
 
 2 Lechner, tit sup., p. 27. 3 Ibid. 
 
THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 73 
 
 for it was not until September, 1 349, that it is known to 
 have manifested its presence in the high and healthy 
 valley of Engelberg. "This year (1349)," says the 
 chronicler of the Abbey of Engelberg, " the pestilence 
 or mortality was great, and, indeed most great, in this 
 valley, so that more than twenty houses were left empty 
 without an inhabitant. In the same year, from the feast 
 of Our Lady's nativity, September 8th, to the feast of 
 the Epiphany, 116 of our nuns died in the cloister. One 
 of the first to die was the Superior Catherine; about the 
 middle (of the epidemic) the venerable Mother Beatrix, 
 Countess of Arberg, formerly Superior; and on the 
 morrow of Holy Innocents, Mechtilde of Wolfenschies- 
 sen, the new Superior likewise passed away. And of our 
 own numbers (there died) two priests and five scholars." 1 
 Basle was attacked, and is said to have lost some 
 14,000 people about the middle of the year; Zurich 
 about September nth; and Constance some time during 
 the winter. 
 
 It is unnecessary to follow the wanderings of the great 
 mortality in detail further through Europe. The annals 
 of almost every country prove incontestably that most 
 places were in turn visited, and more or less depopu- 
 lated, by the epidemic. By April 4th, 1349, it was re- 
 ported in Venice that the pestilence was raging in 
 Hungary, and by June 7th the King could declare 
 " that by Divine mercy it had now ceased in our king- 
 dom." It must consequently have commenced in the 
 country in the early part of the year, although there is 
 evidence that it was still to be found in some parts in 
 October of the same year. Poland was attacked about 
 the same time as Hungary. Here it is said many of the 
 1 Annales Engelb'ergenses in Mon. Germ^ xvii, 281. 
 
74 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 nobility died. There seemed no help for the daily mis- 
 fortunes. The sickness rendered desolate not alone 
 numberless houses, but even towns and villages. 1 
 
 It has been already pointed out that the pestilence 
 had reached Neuberg, in Styria, by the autumn of the 
 year 1348. It was only the following year, about the 
 feast of St. John the Baptist, June 24th, 1349, that such 
 a plague as never before was either heard or seen was 
 raging in Vienna. 
 
 It commenced seemingly about Easter time, and lasted 
 till St. Michael's, and a third part of the population was 
 carried off by it. 2 Each day there died 500 or 600, and 
 one day 960. 3 The dead were buried in trenches, each 
 of which, according to one chronicle, contained some 
 6,000 corpses. The parish of St. Stephen lost 54 eccle- 
 siastics during the course of the epidemic, and when it 
 passed some 70 families were found to be entirely 
 extinct, whilst the property of many more had passed 
 into the hands of very distant relations. 
 
 Another account declares that in the city and neigh- 
 bourhood barely a third of the population survived. 
 " Because of the odour, and horror inspired by the dead 
 bodies, burials in the church cemeteries were not 
 allowed; but as soon as life was extinct the corpses 
 were carried out of the city to. a common burial-place 
 (called) ' God's acre.' There the deep and broad pits 
 were quickly filled to the top with the dead. And this 
 plague lasted from Pentecost to St. Michael's ; and not 
 alone in Vienna, but in the surrounding country it raged 
 with great fury. It spared not the monks and the nuns, 
 
 1 Dlugoss, Historia Polonica, in Philippe, ut sup., p. 94. 
 
 2 Kaleiidarium Zwetlense, in Mon. Germ., ix, 692. 
 
 3 A nnales Matseenses, Ibid., 829. 
 
THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 75 
 
 for in (the Cistercian Abbey of) Heiligenkreuz 53 re- 
 ligious at the same time passed out of this life." l 
 
 In Bohemia the winter cold apparently put a stop to 
 the sickness at its commencement. " The mortality 
 commenced to be severe in Bohemia, but the recent cold 
 and snow stayed it." However, "in the year 1350 the 
 plague again devastated various countries, and then in 
 Bohemia likewise it was to be found." 2 
 
 The wave of pestilence which passed up the Rhine 
 Valley and attacked Basle passed on to Colmar, and 
 appeared in Strasburg in July, 1 34c;. 3 At the end of the 
 same year, about December 18th, it had reached Cologne. 
 " In the first year of archbishop William von Gennep 
 (who succeeded to the See of that city on the above 
 date) there was," says the chronicle, " a great pestilence 
 in Cologne and its neighbourhood." 4 
 
 Meanwhile the wave had divided lower down the 
 valley of the Rhine, for in the summer of 1349 the 
 plague was raging at Frankfort. " In that year," writes 
 Caspar Camentz, " from the feast of St. Mary Magdalene 
 (July 22nd) to the feast of the Purification following 
 (February 2nd, 1 350) the universal pestilence was at 
 Frankfort. In the space of 72 days more than 2,000 
 people died. Every second hour they were buried with- 
 out bell, priest, or candle. On one day 35 were buried 
 at one time." 5 
 
 During 1349 and 1350 the pestilence was rife in the 
 towns and country places of Prussia. In the latter year 
 
 1 Continuatio Novimontensis, in Mon. Germ., ix, 675. 
 
 2 Chronicon Pragense, ed. Loserth (in Fontes rerum Austriac- 
 arum, Scriptores, t. viii) p. 603. 
 
 3 Lechner, ut sup., p. 35. 
 5 Boehmer, Fontes rerum Germ., iv, 434. 
 
76 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 it attacked Bremen in the far north, and in the following 
 year the authorities of the city took a census of the 
 numbers that had been carried off by it. " In the year of 
 our Lord 1350," the account says, "the plague had gone 
 round the world and had visited Bremen, and the Council 
 determined to take the number of the dead, and it was 
 found that of known and named people there were 
 (entered on the list) in the parish of St. Mary 1,816; 
 in that of St. Martin, 1,415; in St. Anschar's, 1,922; 
 and in St. Stephen's, 1,813; moreover, numberless people 
 had died in the fields beyond the walls and in cemeteries, 
 the number of whom, as known and described, reached 
 almost 7,00c). 1 
 
 From Flanders, where the pestilence, was at Tournay 
 in December, 1349, as before reported, the epidemic 
 spread into Holland. Here in the following year its pro- 
 gress was marked by the same great mortality, especially 
 among those who lived together in monasteries and con- 
 vents. " At this time," writes the chronicler, " the plague 
 raged in Holland as furiously as has ever been seen. 
 People died walking in the streets. In the Monastery of 
 Fleurchamps 80 died, including monks and lay brethren. 
 In the Abbey of Foswert, which was a double monastery 
 for men and women, 207 died, including monks, nuns, 
 lay brethren, and kiy sisters." 2 
 
 This brief review of the progress of the plague in 
 Europe will be sufficient to show that the mortality and 
 consequent distress were universal. The northern coun- 
 tries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden received the 
 infection from England. As will be seen subsequently, 
 
 1 Hoeniger (R.), Der schwarze Tod in Deutschland (Berlin, 1882), 
 p. 26. 
 
 2 Philippe, ut sup., p. 1 24. 
 
THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 77 
 
 the northern parts of England were troubled with the 
 epidemic in the late summer and autumn of 1349, and 
 either from a port on the eastern coast, or from London, 
 the plague was brought over in a ship. Lagerbring, a 
 Swedish historian of repute, says that a ship with a 
 cargo of woollen cloth sailed out of the port of London 
 early in the summer of 1349. 1 The plague had been very 
 great in the English capital, and all the crew died whilst 
 the ship was at sea. Driven about by the winds and 
 currents the fatal bark was cast on the shore at Bergen, 
 in Norway. The epidemic spread quickly over the entire 
 country. The Archbishop of Drontheim and all his 
 Chapter, with one single exception, died, and the survivor 
 was nominated Archbishop. Most of his suffragans were 
 also carried off. 2 Several families who had fled from 
 Bergen to avoid the infection died in the mountains to 
 which they had retired. 
 
 Another Swedish historian states that in the country 
 of West-Gotland alone 466 priests were swept away by 
 the plague. In that district there were then about 479 
 churches, many of which were served by more than one 
 priest, so that the number given may not be altogether 
 improbable. 3 It is stated that in Norway there long 
 
 1 Historic iii, 406. 
 
 2 Finn Jonsson, Hist. eccl. Islandiae, ii, p. 198, says that most of 
 the Bishops died, and that Ormus, Bishop of Holar, in Iceland, who 
 happened then to be in Norway, solus fere evasit. It appears that 
 the archbishopric of Nidaros, or Drontheim, at that time comprised 
 seven Sees. Changes appear in six of these at this time, including 
 Drontheim and Bergen ; and of Solomon, Bishop of Oslo, it is said 
 that "he was the only Bishop who survived the plague" (Gams, 
 Series Episcoporum, 336). The same account is given in the mon- 
 astic chronicles of Iceland (Ftateyjarbok, iii, p. 562). 
 
 3 Henric Jacob Sirers, Historisk Beskrifning om then Pesten, 
 p. 23. 
 
78 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 existed what were called Find-dale — wildernesses — in 
 which were unmistakable traces of cultivation, and after 
 the plague there is evidence of a state of exhaustion and 
 a dearth of inhabitants, which lasted for several genera- 
 tions, so that forests grew where there had once been 
 churches and villages. 
 
 Some interesting particulars may be gathered about 
 the town of Wisby, on the Isle of Gotland. The annals 
 of the Franciscan convent note that the plague raged in 
 1350. In the necrology of the same house are entered 
 the names of a great number of friars and many novices 
 who died in this fatal year, and the comparison of one 
 portion of the necrology with another, in which the 
 names are collected into groups, shows that the worst 
 time at Wisby was in July, August, and September, 
 1350. 1 In all, twenty-four friars, a very large proportion 
 of the convent, appear to have been carried off by the 
 epidemic. In the Cathedral of Wisby five sepulchral 
 slabs are still preserved with the date 1350, whilst of 
 such memorials as have escaped destruction not more 
 than a single one remains for any other year. 
 
 The King of Sweden, Magnus II, in 1350 addressed 
 letters patent to his people, wherein he says that " God 
 for the sins of man has struck the world with this great 
 punishment of sudden death. By it most of the people 
 in the land to the west of our country {i.e., Norway) are 
 dead. It is now ravaging in Norway and Holland, and 
 is approaching our kingdom of Sweden." The king 
 
 1 Langebeck, Scriptores rerum Danicarum, vi, 564. I am in- 
 debted for much assistance in all that regards the plague in the 
 north of Europe to Dr. Lindstrom, of the Riksmusei, Stockholm. 
 He kindly examined for me the original MS. of the Franciscan 
 Necrology at Wisby. 
 
THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES 79 
 
 therefore summons them to abstain on every Friday 
 from all food but bread and water, or " at most to take 
 only bread and ale," to walk with bare feet to their 
 parish churches, and to go in procession round about the 
 cemeteries attached to them, carrying with them the 
 holy relics. 
 
 In the capital of Sweden, when the plague burst upon 
 the country, it is recorded that " the streets were strewn 
 with corpses," and among the victims are named Hacon 
 and Knut, two brothers of the king. 
 
 Denmark and Schleswig Holstein suffered from the 
 pestilence at the same time as Norway and Sweden. In 
 one chronicle it is called " a most grievous plague of 
 buboes ; " in another it is recorded that in the year 1350 
 " a great plague and sudden death raged both in the case 
 of men and in that of cattle." * The accounts of the 
 Bishopric of Roskild, on the Isle of Zealand, about the 
 year 1370, or twenty years after this plague had passed, 
 show the state of universal desolation to which the 
 country was reduced. Lands are described as lying idle 
 and uncultivated, villages and houses desolate and unin- 
 habited. Property that formerly used to bring in four 
 marks, or 48 "pund," now produced only 18 " pund." 
 The same story is repeated on almost every page 
 throughout these long accounts. 2 
 
 A few words only need now be said of the desolation 
 which everywhere throughout Europe was naturally the 
 consequence of the great pestilence. Of North Italy 
 John of Parma writes that "at the time (1348) labourers 
 could not be got, and the harvest remained on the fields, 
 since there was none to gather it in." 8 Twenty years 
 
 1 Langebeck, ut sup., i, 307, 395. 2 Ibid., vii, p. 2, et seqq. 
 
 3 Pezzana, Ston'a di Parma, i, 52. 
 
8o THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 after the pestilence, in 1372, it is said of Mayence that 
 " it is indubitable and notorious that because of the 
 terrible character of the pestilence and mortality which 
 suddenly swept away labourers, copyholders (parciarios) 
 and farmers, even the most robust, labourers are to-day 
 few and rare, for which reason many fields remain un- 
 cultivated and deserted." 1 Again, in 1359, Henry, 
 Bishop of Constance, impropriated to the monastery of 
 St. Gall, in Switzerland, the Church of Marbach and 
 others, to enable the abbey " to keep up its hospitality, 
 bestow alms, and fulfil its other duties," and he assigns 
 as a reason why it cannot now do this " that by the epi- 
 demic or mortality of people, which by permission of 
 God has existed in these parts, the number of farmers 
 and other retainers of both sexes of this abbey, belong- 
 ing by law of service to the said monastery, which has 
 passed from this life to the Lord (has been so great) 
 that many of the possessions of this monastery have re- 
 mained, on account of the said death, uncultivated, and 
 no proper return comes from them." 2 
 
 1 Henricus de Hervordia, Chronicon ed. Potthast, 274. 
 
 2 Lechner, ut sup n p. 73. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 
 
 THE plague first attacked England in the autumn 
 of 1348. It has already been pointed out that 
 Northern France was suffering under the scourge in the 
 summer of that year, and that in August the pestilence 
 had visited Normandy and was found at Calais, then in 
 possession of the English. Probably, also, at this time, 
 Jersey and Guernsey, with which England was in con- 
 stant communication, were decimated by the disease. 
 So greatly did these islands suffer that the King's taxes, 
 usually raised upon the fishing industries, could not be 
 levied. " By reason," writes the English King to John 
 Mautravers, the Governor, " of the mortality among the 
 people and fishing folk of these islands, which here as 
 elsewhere has been so great, our rent for the fishing, 
 which has been yearly paid us, cannot be now obtained 
 without the impoverishing and excessive oppression of 
 those fishermen still left" l 
 
 Rumours of the coming scourge reached England in 
 the early summer. On August 17th, 1348, the Bishop 
 of Bath and Wells, Ralph of Shrewsbury, sent letters 
 through his diocese ordering " processions and stations 
 every Friday, in each collegiate, regular, and parish 
 church, to beg God to protect the people from the 
 
 1 Originalia Roll, 24 Ed. Ill, m. 2. 
 G 
 
82 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 pestilence which had come from the East into the neigh- 
 bouring kingdom," and granting an indulgence of forty- 
 days to all who, being in a state of grace, should give 
 alms, fast or pray, in order, if possible, to avert God's 
 anger. 1 
 
 The " neighbouring kingdom " spoken of by the Bishop 
 in his letter may be taken almost certainly to refer to 
 France. From Calais it is probable that the pestilence 
 was brought into England in certain ships conveying 
 some who were anxious to escape from it. Most of the 
 contemporary accounts agree in naming the coast of 
 Dorsetshire as the part first infected. Thus Galfrid le 
 Baker, a contemporary, says " it came first to a seaport 
 in Dorsetshire, and then into the country, which it 
 almost deprived of inhabitants, and from thence it 
 passed into Devon and Somerset to Bristol." 2 Two or 
 three of the chronicles, also, more particular than the 
 rest, name Melcombe Regis as the memorable spot 
 where the epidemic first showed itself in England. " In 
 the year of our Lord 1 348, about the feast of the Trans- 
 lation of St. Thomas (July 7th)," writes the author of 
 the chronicle known as the Eulogium Historiarum, who 
 was a monk of Malmesbury at this time, " the cruel pes- 
 tilence, terrible to all future ages, came from parts over 
 the sea to the south coast of England, into a port called 
 Melcombe, in Dorsetshire. This (plague) sweeping over 
 the southern districts, destroyed numberless people in 
 Dorset, Devon, and Somerset." 3 So, too, a continuation 
 
 1 B. Mus., Harl. MS. 6965, f. 132. 
 
 2 Chronicon Galfridi le Baker ; ed. Sir E. M. Thompson, p. 98. 
 
 3 Eulogium Historiarum (ed. Rolls series), iii, p. 213. It seems 
 not at all improbable that this account was written whilst the plague 
 was still confined to the West of England. 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 83 
 
 of Trivet's chronicle, taken down to the death of Ed- 
 ward III by a canon of Bridlington, who was thus prob- 
 ably a contemporary of the event, says that " the great 
 plague came into England to the southern districts, be- 
 ginning by some (ships) putting in from the sea into a 
 town called Melcombe." l 
 
 Melcombe Regis, or Weymouth, was at that time a 
 port of considerable importance. In 1347-8, for ex- 
 ample, it furnished Edward III, for his siege of Calais, 
 with 20 ships and 264 mariners ; whilst Bristol sent only 
 22 ships and 608 sailors, and even London but 25 boats 
 and 662 men. 2 This fact is of interest, not merely as 
 showing the importance of Melcombe Regis as a port on 
 the southern coast, but as evidence actually connecting 
 the place at this very period with Calais, and, doubtless, 
 with other coast towns of France. It is not at all im- 
 probable that by the return of some of the Melcombe 
 boats from Calais, the epidemic may have been conveyed 
 into the town. No evidence is known to exist as to the 
 mortality in the port itself; but an item of information 
 as to the effect of the disease in the neighbourhood is 
 afforded at a subsequent period. Three years after the 
 plague had passed, the King, by his letters patent, for- 
 bade any of the inhabitants of the island of Portland to 
 leave their homes there, or, indeed, to sell any of their 
 crops out of the district, " because," he says, " as we have 
 learnt, the island of Portland, in the county of Dorset, 
 has been so depopulated in the time of the late pestil- 
 ence that the inhabitants remaining are not sufficiently 
 numerous to protect it against our foreign enemies." 3 
 
 Harl. MS. 688, f. 361. 
 
 Hutchins, History of Dorset (3rd ed.), ii, p. 422. 
 
 Rot. Pat., 26 Ed: III, pars 3, m. 5. 
 
84 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 The actual date when the pestilence first showed itself 
 in Dorsetshire has been considered somewhat doubtful. 
 The earliest day suggested is that assigned by the monk 
 of Malmesbury in his Eulogium Historiarum, who names 
 July 7th (1348) as the time when it commenced at Mel- 
 combe Regis. The latest date is that given by Knighton, 
 the sub- contemporary canon of Leicester, who mentions 
 generally that it began in the autumn of the year 1348. 
 One chronicle gives July 25th, and two others August 1st, 
 whilst another merely names August as the month. 
 Under these circumstances, and in view of the fact that 
 its arrival in England was apparently unknown to the 
 Bishop of Bath and Wells, who was then in his diocese, 
 in the middle of August, it seems more than likely that 
 the terrible scourge did not make itself felt in the West 
 of England until after the middle of that month and not 
 later than its end. 
 
 The early commencement of the disease is borne out 
 by a document in the archives of the Dean and Chapter 
 of Canterbury. Archbishop Strafford died on St. Bar- 
 tholomew's Eve, August 23rd, 1348, and before the end 
 of September the Prior of Canterbury, acting with archi- 
 episcopal power during the vacancy, addressed a man- 
 date to the Bishop of London, as the Dean of the College 
 of Bishops, to issue directions to the suffragans of Can- 
 terbury to hold public processions in their respective 
 dioceses to pray God's aid against " the mortality " which 
 was already assuming alarming proportions. 1 
 
 The summer and autumn of 1348 were abnormally wet 
 in England, and the chronicles record that from St. John 
 the Baptist's Day (June 24th) to Christmas it rained 
 
 1 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Eighth Report, App., 
 P- 338. 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 85 
 
 either by night or by day with hardly an exception. In 
 such a season, naturally unhealthy, the sickness, of its 
 own nature most deadly, found every condition suitable 
 for its rapid development. 
 
 Starting from Melcombe Regis, the wave of contagion 
 spread itself very quickly over Dorset, Devon, and Som- 
 erset, with the other counties comprised in the dioceses 
 of Salisbury, Exeter, and Wells. " It passed," writes 
 Robert of Avesbury, the contemporary Registrar of the 
 Court of Canterbury, " most rapidly from place to place, 
 swiftly killing ere mid-day many who in the morning 
 had been well, and without respect of persons (some few 
 rich people excepted), not permitting those destined to 
 die to live more than three, or at most four, days. On 
 the same day twenty, forty, sixty, and very often more 
 corpses were committed to the same grave." x In fact, 
 over the West of England during the late autumn of 
 1348 and the first months of the following year the 
 words of the old play must have had only too true an 
 application : 
 
 One news straight came huddling on another 
 Of death, and death, and death." 
 
 In dealing with a case of this kind a first object is to 
 control as far as possible, by means of definite statistics, 
 the general and vague statements of chroniclers and 
 other contemporary writers; whilst in the absence of 
 such statistics lies one of the great difficulties in dealing 
 with the history of the Middle Ages. Owing partly to 
 the troublesome and intricate nature of the subject, as 
 well as to the poverty of the material and the inherent 
 dryness of such matters, modern writers have made little 
 
 1 De Gestis Edwardi III. (ed. Rolls series), p. 406. 
 
86 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 advance to a more correct knowledge of the population 
 of European countries in those ages. Much, however, 
 might be done. As usual, the ecclesiastical documents 
 form the surest basis for any calculation, and the epis- 
 copal registers enable us to arrive at actual numbers. 
 Accordingly, in the present inquiry, these registers are 
 of the highest importance, and it is necessary constantly 
 to recur to them, as they furnish the only means of 
 arriving at any adequate knowledge of the proportion 
 of the population swept away by the plague. Possibly 
 the mortality may have been greater among ecclesiastics 
 than among lay persons; but only from the number of 
 the clergy carried off by the epidemic can an estimate 
 be formed as to the number of lay people who died. 
 Accordingly, in the course of this work, the mortality of 
 the clergy is systematically investigated. 
 
 To understand the nature and value of the evidence 
 thus afforded as to the extent of the mortality, a few 
 words of explanation are necessary. In each diocese 
 there was kept by the Bishop's Registrar a list of all 
 the institutions made to vacant benefices by the Bishop. 
 As a rule, not only was the name of the place and of 
 the out-going and the in-coming incumbent, together 
 with the date expressed, but the reason of the vacancy 
 was stated, whether arising from death, exchange, or 
 resignation. These lists, then, for the fatal period, or 
 the autumn of 1348 and the year 1349, afford some 
 means of gauging the extent of the mortality among 
 the clergy. It must, however, be borne in mind that 
 these registers record only the institutions of the actual 
 incumbents, and take no account of the larger body of 
 curates and chaplains, to say nothing of the monks, 
 canons, and friars of a diocese. It has been calculated 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 87 
 
 by a recent writer that non -beneficed clergy more than 
 equal in numbers the holders of benefices, and that the 
 total number of institutions of a diocese may fairly be 
 doubled in estimating the deaths of the clergy during 
 this epidemic. 1 These Books of Institutions, moreover, 
 by furnishing the dates of the appointments made to 
 various livings, afford a means of determining, at least 
 approximately, the time when the plague was rife in a 
 district, and even, making allowances for any delay in 
 filling up the benefice, in any given place. 
 
 Besides the special register of each diocese a series of 
 official State documents, called the Patent Rolls, contains 
 much evidence of the destructive powers of the disease. 
 On these rolls, amongst every variety of public docu- 
 ment, are entered royal grants, licences, and presenta- 
 tions made by the Sovereign to such vacant ecclesiastical 
 livings as were at the time in the royal gift. These were 
 ordinarily — 
 
 (1) Benefices of which the King was by right the 
 patron. 
 
 (2) Those to which he presented, as guardian of the 
 sons of tenants in capite during their minority, and 
 
 (3) Livings to which bishops and abbots of Sees and 
 monasteries, then vacant, ordinarily presented. At this 
 period, 1348-9, moreover, the royal presentations were 
 largely augmented by the patronage attached to the alien 
 religious houses existing in England, the possession of 
 which, " by reason of his war with France," as the official 
 phrase runs, " the King had seized into his own hands." 
 
 1 As will be seen subsequently, this estimate of Dr. Jessopp is 
 certainly too low, and it is probably more correct to suppose that 
 the non-benefked clergy, including under that head the religious, 
 were four times as numerous as those holding benefices. 
 
88 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 The evidence of the mortality among the beneficed 
 clergy during the great pestilence, as witnessed by the 
 entries on the patent rolls, may be here briefly sum- 
 marised. In 1348, in the period from January to May, 
 the King presented to 42 livings, and to 36 during the 
 following four months; so that in the eight months, 
 immediately before the arrival of the plague in Eng- 
 land, the average number of presentations monthly was 
 below ten, the previous yearly average being hardly more 
 than a hundred. The roll, upon which are entered the 
 grants and presentations from September to the close 
 of the year, affords conclusive proof that in the last four 
 months of the year 1348 death had been busy among 
 those holding royal preferments. Eighty-one more livings 
 had to be filled up by the Sovereign during that period. 
 
 The patents for 1349, in the same way, occupy three 
 parts, or rolls. On the first part are enrolled the pre- 
 sentations from January 25th to the end of May. This 
 large roll is a curiosity, since a very great part of the 
 parchment record is devoted to the entry of Royal pre- 
 sentations to the vacant livings, no fewer than 249 being 
 recorded, as against 42 during the same period of the 
 previous year. The second part registers the livings 
 filled by King Edward from June to the middle of 
 September, 1349, when the number reaches the extra- 
 ordinary figure of 440, as against 36 in the corresponding 
 period of 1348. 
 
 The third period, ending on January 24th, 1350, shows 
 a decline in the number, although it still stands at the 
 considerable total of 205. Altogether, therefore, from 
 January 25th, 1349, to the same date in 1350, the King 
 alone presented to 894 livings, which had become vacant. 
 Comparing the figures thus obtained with the normal 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 89 
 
 period of 1348 it may be said roughly that out of the 
 1,053 presentations, made by King Edward in the two 
 years, at least 800 must have been due to the mortality 
 caused by the great plague. This will be seen to be 
 sufficiently terrible when it is remembered that, even 
 allowing for the large number of presentations then in 
 the hands of the King, they would form but a very 
 small portion of the total number of institutions to 
 vacant livings at this period. 
 
 The whole question of statistics in their details, as 
 also any special indications of the effects which followed 
 upon the ravages of the plague, will be dealt with in 
 subsequent chapters in order to interfere as little as 
 possible with the consecutive story of the visitation 
 itself. Among the presentations made by the King, in 
 the autumn of this year, frequent mention is made of 
 vacancies in the diocese of Sarum, in which the county 
 of Dorset is situated. From October 8th, 1348, to 
 January 10th, 1349 — that is, in the space of three 
 months — the Crown presented to no fewer than 30 
 livings in the diocese. Most of these were in the county 
 of Dorset, and Abbotsbury Abbey, apparently the first 
 monastery attacked, and Bincombe rectory, to which 
 Edward III presented on October 8th, 1348, were both 
 close to Melcombe Regis, where the plague commenced 
 its ravages. 
 
 Judged merely by the few royal presentations it is 
 curious to observe how closely the epidemic in this 
 country clung to the rivers and water-courses. The 
 neighbourhood of Blandford, for instance, must have 
 suffered severely enough during the November and De- 
 cember of 1348, the two Winterbournes and Spettis- 
 bury, together with Blandford — all four close on the 
 
9 o 
 
 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 river Stour — losing their incumbents. To Spettisbury, 
 indeed, the King presented thrice in a very short space 
 of time. Even before John le Spencer, of Grimsby, to 
 whom the living was granted on December 7th, could 
 have been installed in his cure — in fact, probably even 
 before the grant was made — he was dead, for on De- 
 cember 10th, only three days later, another letter patent 
 is issued, upon the death of Spencer, to Adam de 
 Carleton. Adam in his turn did not hold the benefice 
 long, and on January 4th, 1349, Robert de Hoveden 
 was appointed in his place. Nor are these the only 
 instances, even among the few presentations recorded 
 on the patent rolls, of Dorset incumbents following one 
 another in rapid succession during the last months of 
 1348. 
 
 Looking at the number of institutions in each month 
 of this period, and making due allowance for the fact 
 that the vacancy had probably occurred some little time 
 before it was filled up, it is evident that the epidemic 
 was prevalent in the county of Dorset from October, 
 1348, to February, 1349, and the mortality was highest 
 in December and January. 1 The existence of the epi- 
 demic begins to be manifest in the institutions for 
 
 1 The following table will show the actual number of institutions 
 in Dorsetshire for some months : — 
 
 1348. 
 
 1349- 
 
 Oct. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 March. 
 
 April. 
 
 5 
 
 15 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 14 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 91 
 
 October, 1348. Previously only twelve institutions are 
 recorded during that year. West Chickerell, a place 
 close to Weymouth, received a new incumbent on Oct- 
 ober 14th, whilst to Bincombe, close by, which was then 
 vacant, as is proved by the King's presentation on the 
 8th of the month, no new incumbent was inducted till 
 November 4th. Warmwell and Combe Kaynes, a little 
 to the eastward, received new parish priests on October 
 the 9th and 19th, and Dorchester, the capital, was 
 attacked apparently about the same time. 
 
 Following the indications afforded by the Bishop's 
 registers the ravages of the pestilence are apparent on 
 the coast early in November, when many vacancies 
 begin to be noted in the coast towns. Bridport, East 
 Lulworth, Tynham, Langton, and Wareham had all 
 been visited by this time, whilst before the end of the 
 month the epidemic had crossed the county and ap- 
 peared at Shaftesbury. On December 3rd two vicarages 
 in the south, quite close together, Abbotsbury and 
 Portesham, received new incumbents. 
 
 At Shaftesbury appointments were made to St. Lau- 
 rence's on the 29th of November, to St. Martin's on the 
 10th of December, to St. John's on the 6th of January, 
 1349, and to St. Laurence's again on the 12th of May. 
 At Wareham, the small alien priory became vacant 
 before November 4th, for on that day the King ap- 
 pointed a successor to Michael de Molis, lately dead, 1 
 and appointments were made to St. Martin's, Wareham, 
 on the 8th of December, to St. Peter's on the 22nd of 
 December, to St. John's on the 29th of May, and to 
 St. Michael's on the 17th of June. Three changes were 
 registered as having taken place at Winterbourne St. 
 1 Originalia Roll, 22 Ed. Ill, m. 4. 
 
92 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Nicholas, between December 27th and May 3rd. As 
 far as can be judged by the dates of these institutions 
 it would appear as if a fresh outbreak of peculiar violence 
 occurred towards the end of April. 
 
 The Bridport Corporation records show that four 
 bailiffs held office in 1349, in place of the usual two, on 
 account of the pestilence. 1 In common with most places 
 in the land, Poole, which was then of sufficient import- 
 ance to be called upon to furnish four ships and 94 
 men for the siege of Calais, suffered greatly from the 
 pestilence, and received a considerable check to its 
 prosperity. "At Poole," writes Hutchins, "a spot on 
 the projecting slip of land, known as the Baiter, is still 
 pointed out as the burial-place of its victims." 2 And the 
 same writer adds that the country did not entirely re- 
 cover for the next 150 years; since, in the reign of 
 Henry VIII, "Poole and other towns in Dorsetshire" 
 were included in that numerous list of places whose 
 desolated buildings were ordered to be restored. 
 
 Before the close of the year 1348 the pestilence had 
 spread itself far and wide in the western counties of 
 England. The diocese of Bath and Wells, and that of 
 Exeter, the former conterminous with the county of 
 Somerset, and the latter comprising those of Devon 
 and Cornwall, were infected in the late autumn of that 
 year, and all over the west, as the old chronicle re- 
 lates, the sickness " most pitifully destroyed people 
 innumerable." 
 
 Indeed, so terrible had been the effect of the scourge 
 among the clergy of Somerset that, as early as January 
 17th, 1349, the Bishop of Bath and Wells felt himself 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Comm., Sixth Report, p. 475. 
 
 2 History of Dorset, i, p. 5. 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 93 
 
 constrained to address a letter of advice to his flock. 
 The document is of such interest, both as evidence of the 
 straits to which at that early date the diocese had been 
 reduced by the excessive mortality, and for the advice 
 that it contains, that it is here quoted at considerable 
 length, since it proves the depth of degradation to which 
 the whole religious life was reduced by the terror inspired 
 by the disease. Every bond was loosed, and every ordin- 
 ary ecclesiastical regulation and provision set aside, be- 
 cause none could now be enforced, or, indeed, observed. 
 " The contagious nature of the present pestilence, which 
 is ever spreading itself far and wide," writes the Bishop, 
 "has left many parish churches and other cures, and 
 consequently the people of our diocese, destitute of 
 curates 1 and priests. And inasmuch as priests cannot be 
 found who are willing out of zeal, devotion, or for a 
 stipend to undertake the care of the foresaid places, and 
 to visit the sick and administer to them the Sacraments 
 of the Church (perchance for dread of the infection and 
 contagion), many, as we understand, are dying without 
 the Sacrament of Penance. These, too, are ignorant of 
 what ought to be done in such necessity, and believe that 
 no confession of their sins, even in a case of such need, 
 is useful or meritorious, unless made to a priest having 
 the keys of the Church. Therefore, desiring, as we are 
 bound to do, the salvation of souls, and ever watch- 
 ing to bring back the wandering from the crooked paths 
 of error, we, on the obedience you have sworn to us, 
 urgently enjoin upon you and command you — rectors, 
 vicars, and parish priests — in all your churches, and you 
 deans, in such places of your deaneries as are destitute 
 
 1 Curates here and elsewhere is used for Rectors or Vicars, who 
 had the actual cure of souls. 
 
94 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 of the consolation of priests, that you at once and 
 publicly instruct and induce, yourselves or by some 
 other, all who are sick of the present malady, or who 
 shall happen to be taken ill, that in artieulo mortis, if 
 they are not able to obtain any priest, they should make 
 confession of their sins (according to the teaching of the 
 apostle) even to a layman, and, if a man is not at hand, 
 then to a woman. We exhort you, by the present letters, 
 in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to do this, and to proclaim 
 publicly in the aforesaid places that such confession 
 made to a layman in the presumed case can be most 
 salutary and profitable to them for the remission of their 
 sins, according to the teaching and the sacred canons 
 of the Church. And for fear any, imagining that these 
 lay confessors may make known confessions so made to 
 them, shall hesitate thus to confess in case of necessity, 
 we make known to all in general, and to those in parti- 
 cular who have already heard these confessions, or who 
 may in future hear them, that they are bound by the 
 precepts of the Church to conceal and keep them secret ; 
 and that, by a decree of the sacred canons, they are for- 
 bidden to betray such confession by word, sign, and by 
 any other means whatever, unless those confessing so 
 desire. And (further) should they do otherwise, let such 
 betrayers know that they sin most gravely, and incur the 
 indignation of Almighty God and of the whole Church." 
 And further to stir up the zeal of both clergy and laity 
 to this work the Bishop grants ample indulgences to such 
 as follow the advice here given them. 
 
 " And since late repentance," he says " (when, for ex- 
 ample, sickness compels and the fear of punishment 
 terrifies) often deceives many, we grant to all our sub- 
 jects, who in the time of the pestilence shall come to 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 95 
 
 confession to priests having the keys of the Church and 
 power to bind and to loose, before they are taken sick, 
 and who do not delay till the day of necessity, forty 
 days of indulgence. To every priest also who shall in- 
 duce people to do this, and hear the confessions of those 
 thus brought to confess whilst in health, we grant the 
 same by the mercy of God Almighty, and trusting to 
 the merits and prayers of His glorious Mother, of the 
 Blessed Peter, Paul, and Andrew the Apostles, our 
 patrons, and of all the Saints." 
 
 " You shall further declare," he adds, " to all thus con- 
 fessing to lay people in case of necessity, that if they re- 
 cover they are bound to confess the same sins again to 
 their own parish priest. The Sacrament of the Eucharist, 
 when no priest can be obtained, may be administered by 
 a deacon. If, however, there be no priest to administer 
 the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, faith must, as in 
 other matters, suffice for the Sacrament." 1 
 
 These large derogations from the usual ecclesiastical 
 practice, though consonant alike with Christian charity 
 and the teaching of the Church, are resorted to only in 
 cases of the direst need, and the circular letter of the 
 Bishop of Bath and Wells witnesses to the extreme 
 gravity of the situation throughout the diocese, as early 
 as the month of January, 1349. Already, as is certain 
 from the Bishop's words, the dearth of clergy had made 
 itself felt, and people were dying in the county of Somer- 
 set without the possibility of obtaining spiritual aid in 
 their last hours, and no priests could be found to take 
 the places of those who had already fallen victims to the 
 disease. The list of institutions given in the register of 
 Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury shows that the mortality in 
 1 Wilkins, Concilia^ ii, pp. 735-6. 
 
9 6 
 
 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 that county was considerable as early as the November 
 of the previous year, 1 348. 
 
 Taking the institutions of the diocese as a guide to 
 the time when the plague was most violent, and bearing 
 in mind that the death would have occurred some little 
 time before the institution, and that according to the 
 Bishop's letter some delay had been inevitable in the 
 filling up of benefices, the months when the pestilence 
 was at its height in the county of Somerset would 
 appear to be December, 1348, and January and February, 
 1349, although the number of institutions each month 
 remains high until June. The mortality was apparently 
 highest about Christmastide, 1348. 1 
 
 The Bishop of Bath and Wells remained at his manor 
 of Wiveliscombe till the worst was past in May of 1349. 
 Thither came the long procession of priests to receive 
 their letters of institution to vacant benefices. Day after 
 day for nearly six months the work went on with hardly 
 any cessation. Singly, or in twos and threes, often four 
 and five, once, at least, ten together, the clergy came to 
 be instituted to cures which the disease had left without 
 a priest. 
 
 How the epidemic entered into the county, and the 
 
 1 The following is a table of the institutions in Somersetshire for 
 some months : * 
 
 1.348. 
 
 1349- 
 
 Nov. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 March. 
 
 April. 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 9 
 
 32 
 
 47 
 
 43 
 
 36 
 
 40 
 
 21 
 
 7 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 97 
 
 course it pursued, it would be now impossible, even if it 
 were profitable, to discover. In December it would 
 seem to have gained a foothold in most parts of the 
 county. It was at Evercreech about November 19th, and 
 about a fortnight later at Castlecary and Almsford, in 
 the same neighbourhood. The fact that Bridgwater, 
 Clevedon, Weston-super-mare, Portishead, and Bristol 
 were amongst the earliest places in the county to be at- 
 tacked would almost make it appear that the contagion 
 was carried to these coast towns by a boat passing up 
 the Bristol Channel. This supposition, moreover, is 
 somewhat confirmed, as will be seen subsequently, by the 
 fact that the towns of North Devon were attacked by 
 the disease almost simultaneously with those on the 
 south coast, and very much about the same time as those 
 of North Somerset. 
 
 Bath suffered under the scourge in the early part of 
 January, 1349, on the 9th and 10th of that month 
 several institutions to livings, either in the city or the 
 neighbourhood, being recorded. In the same month it 
 had spread to the abbey of Keynsham, on the road be- 
 tween Bath and Bristol, and its path can almost be 
 traced along the line of communication between Bath 
 and Wells. Thus the villages of Freshford, Twerton, 
 Hardington, Holcombe, Cloford, Kilmersdon, Babing- 
 ton, Compton, and Doulting, as well as several benefices 
 in Wells itself, all fell vacant at this time. 
 
 It may be said with considerable certainty that fully 
 half the number of beneficed clergy fell victims to the 
 disease in this diocese. Many livings were rendered 
 vacant two and three times during its course; whilst a 
 not inconsiderable number had four changes of incumb- 
 ents within these few months. Bathampton, for example, 
 
 H 
 
98 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 had four parsons appointed in this period. At Harding- 
 ton, not far from Frome, from January, 1349, to the 
 middle of March, there were certainly three and perhaps 
 four changes due to the disease ; and at Yeovil, from the 
 15th December, 1348, to the 4th February, 1349, three 
 priests held the living, one after the other. 
 
 Little or no information is forthcoming as to the re- 
 ligious houses of the county at this time. Both Athelney 
 and Muchelney lost their abbots, and probably also many 
 of their members. The fact that the great abbey of 
 Glastonbury, which previously contained within its walls 
 a community of some 80 monks, is found in A.D. 1377 to 
 have 44, seems to indicate that it must have suffered 
 very severe losses through the epidemic. 
 
 At Bath, in 1344, only five years before the outbreak 
 of the disease, the community at the Priory consisted of 
 thirty professed monks under Prior John de Ford. 1 A 
 list on the roll of the Somerset clergy, on whom a cleri- 
 cal subsidy was levied at the close of Edward the Third's 
 reign, in 1377, shows that the number had been reduced 
 to sixteen, 2 and at this number it apparently remained 
 to the time of the final dissolution of the house in the 
 sixteenth century. 3 
 
 It is not difficult to understand that the plague must 
 have raged with great virulence in the larger cities, where 
 in those days the*most elementary notions of sanitation 
 were almost unknown. In the west, Bristol, of course, 
 suffered severely. " There," says the sub-contemporary 
 
 1 Bath Chartulary (Lincoln's Inn MS.), p. 1 19. This has now been 
 edited for the Somerset Record Society ; and the list is given at p. 73 
 of Mr. Hunt's edition. 
 
 R. O. Clerical Subsidy (Somerset), f . 
 
 See list given in Deputy Keepers Report^ vii, p. 280. 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 99 
 
 writer, Knighton, " died, suddenly overwhelmed by death, 
 almost the whole strength of the town, for few were sick 
 more than three days, or two days, or even half a day." 
 Nor need this be a subject of wonder when, according to 
 the description of a modern writer, speaking of the city 
 at this very period, the streets were very narrow ; in the 
 busier parts the ground was honeycombed with cellars 
 for storing wine, salt, and other merchandise, whilst re- 
 fuse streamed down the centre ditch. So small was the 
 distance between the houses that no vehicle was allowed 
 to be used in the streets, and all goods were carried on 
 pack-horses or porters, a custom which even in the seven- 
 teenth century excited the wonder of Samuel Pepys. 1 
 
 " Here in Bristol," says the local historian Seyer, 
 quoting an old calendar of the town, " in 1348 the plague 
 raged to such a degree that the living were scarce able 
 to bury the dead. The Gloucestershire men would not 
 suffer the Bristol men to have access to them. At last 
 it reached Gloucester, Oxford, and London ; scarce the 
 tenth person was left alive, male or female. At this period 
 the grass grew several inches high in High Street and 
 Broad Street; it raged at first chiefly in the centre of 
 the city. This pestilence came from abroad, and the 
 people near the sea-coast in Dorsetshire and Devon- 
 shire were first affected." 2 By the wholesale destruction 
 of the population of this western port the same authority 
 accounts for the reduction of the King's taxation of the 
 city from £245 to ^158. 
 
 Lastly, in Bristol, as indeed without doubt in most 
 places, the cemeteries did not long suffice for the multi- 
 tude of the dead. Of this there is an example upon the 
 
 1 W. Hunt, Historic Towns, Bristol, p. 77. 
 
 2 S. Seyer, Memoirs of Bristol {'Bristol, 1823), ii, p. 143. 
 
IOO 
 
 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Patent Rolls. The parson of Holy Cross de la Temple 
 soon found the necessity of enlarging his graveyard. 
 For this purpose he obtained half an acre adjoining the 
 old cemetery, and so great and pressing was the need of 
 this fresh accommodation that it was done without the 
 required royal license, for which subsequently a pardon 
 had to be sued from the King. 1 
 
 The diocese of Exeter, comprising the two counties of 
 Devon and Cornwall, was stricken by the disease appar- 
 ently about the same time as the county of Somerset. 2 
 For eight years before 1348 the average number of 
 livings annually rendered vacant in the diocese was 
 thirty-six, whilst in the single month of January, 1349, 
 the Bishop instituted to some thirty livings, which shows 
 that death had already been busy among the clergy. 
 
 The number of institutions in each month of the year 
 points to the conclusion that the disease lingered some- 
 what longer in these counties than elsewhere. It is not 
 till the close of September that any great decrease in the 
 number of vacancies is seen, and although probably 
 beginning in December, the height of the plague was 
 not reached till March, April, and May. 3 
 
 1 Rot. Pat., 23 Ed. Ill, pars 3, m. 4. 
 
 2 For information about the institutions of this diocese and other 
 matters concerning Devon and Cornwall, I am indebted to the 
 kindness of the Rev. Trebendary Hingeston-Randolph. 
 
 3 The following table will give the number of institutions in 
 Devon and Cornwall in each month : 
 
 1348. 
 
 1349- 
 
 Nov. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 Mar. 
 
 April. May. 
 1 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 30 
 
 34 
 
 60 
 
 53 J 47 
 
 45 
 
 37 
 
 16 
 
 23 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 101 
 
 Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph thus describes the 
 state of the Exeter episcopal registers at this period : — 
 " There is very little direct information about the Black 
 Death in Bishop Grandisson's register; but there is a 
 great deal of indirect information. The Registrum Com- 
 mune, which is wonderfully full before and after the 
 fatal year, records scarcely anything during the year 
 itself. The ordinary work of the diocese seems to have 
 been all suspended, with a single exception. The register 
 of institutions — a separate volume — is a record of inces- 
 sant and most distressing work. Its very outward aspect 
 for this period tells a tale of woe. The entries are made 
 hurriedly and roughly, in striking contrast with the 
 neatness and regularity of the rest of the Register. 
 They are no longer grouped, as before, in years, but in 
 months, and the changes in each month exceed the 
 changes of a whole ordinary year, when there was no 
 pestilence. The scribe leaves off the customary ' vacant 
 per mortem', as if he dreaded to write the fatal word. 
 The clergy must have fallen by wholesale; evidently 
 they were faithful, and, for their flock's sake, faced the 
 foe without flinching. And, as each of them fell, another 
 was ready at his Bishop's call fearlessly to fill the vacant 
 place. Some incumbencies lasted but a few weeks. 
 And, when all was over, the survivors were, compara- 
 tively, so few that there was no small difficulty in filling 
 many a subsequent vacant benefice; this result of the 
 sickness is to be traced for some time after the mortality 
 had ceased. 
 
 " The Bishop never left his diocese, and the continuous 
 presence of so strong, so earnest, and devoted a prelate 
 must have been an unspeakable consolation and help to 
 his grievously afflicted flock." 
 
T02 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 An examination of the institutions of the diocese, in 
 relation to the time when the plague visited the various 
 parts of it, appears to show that it commenced almost 
 simultaneously in both north and south. In North 
 Devon it is found at both Northam and Alverdiscott on 
 the 7th of November, at Fremington in the same district 
 on the 8th, and at Barnstaple on December the 23rd. 
 It is found in November at villages on the Exe, and had 
 possibly also reached Exeter before the close of the 
 month. In the South, the fact of the close proximity of 
 the part first infected to Dorsetshire explains the course 
 of the epidemic; but the early outbreak in the coast 
 villages at the mouth of the estuary leading to Barn- 
 staple points to the conclusion that the infection was 
 brought by a ship passing up the Bristol Channel, which 
 subsequently infected other towns further up on the 
 Somerset shore of the passage. 
 
 It is of interest also to note how greatly the coast 
 towns generally appear to have suffered, as the contagion 
 was very probably carried from one place to another by 
 the fishing boats. Up some of the estuaries it would 
 seem as if the passage of the disease could be traced by 
 the dates of the institutions. Thus, to take one example, 
 in March, 1349, there is an institution to a living at the 
 mouth of the Fowey, in Cornwall ; a week later there is 
 another at St. Winnow's Vicarage higher up, and on 
 March 22nd the sickness had reached Bodmin, at no 
 great distance from the river, and a place with which, 
 in all probability, the passage up the estuary of the 
 Fowey would be an ordinary and usual means of 
 communication. 
 
 As to the result of the sickness in the religious houses 
 of the diocese some few details are known. At St. 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 103 
 
 Nicholas', Exeter, the Prior died in March, 1349; his 
 successor, John de Wye, was admitted on the 26th of 
 that month, but died almost immediately. The next 
 Prior was not installed until June 7th, and the house was 
 found to be in a deplorable state. 1 So also at Pilton 
 Priory two superiors died within a few weeks one of the 
 other. At the alien priory of Minster, Cornwall, William 
 de Huma, the Prior, was carried off by the sickness on 
 26th of April, 1 349, and the house was so impoverished 
 by the death of tenants and labourers that it could not 
 support both its members and the chaplain they were 
 bound to find to do the parish work, as neither the prior 
 nor his brethren spoke English, " or rather Cornish." 2 
 
 At the Cistercian Abbey of Newenham the register 
 records that " in the time of this mortality or pestilence 
 there died in this house twenty 'monks and three lay- 
 brothers, whose names are entered in other books. And 
 Walter, the abbot, and two monks were left alive there 
 after the sickness." 3 
 
 At the Augustinian abbey of Hartland, Roger de 
 Raleghe, the abbot, died, and the proclamation of the 
 election of his successor is dated 18th March, 1349. At 
 Benedictine Tavistock also the abbot died, and his suc- 
 
 1 The Prior of St. James', Exeter, also died: "postea tempore 
 pestilencie subito mortuus est" (Reg. Grand., i, fol. 27b). 
 
 2 Rot. Pat., 29 Ed. Ill, pars 2, m. 19. 
 
 3 B. Mus., Arund. MS. 17, fol. 55b. Oliver {Monasticon Dioecesis 
 Exonie?isis, p. 359) adds: "And no fewer than 88 persons living 
 within the Abbey gates." In Noakes' History of the Monastery and 
 Cathedral of Worcester, p. 94, it is said that the virulence of the 
 plague of 1349 may be judged "from the fact that in the Abbey of 
 Newenham, in the West of England, out of a hundred and eleven 
 inmates, only the Abbot and two monks survived." No authority is 
 cited by these writers."' 
 
104 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 cessor, Richard de Esse, was taken ill after his confirma- 
 tion, and, " detained by so grave a sickness," could 
 not go to the King, who, on October 17th, commissioned 
 Bishop Grandisson to receive his fealty. 1 
 
 At Bodmin, according to a note taken by William of 
 Worcester from a register in the Church of the Friars 
 Minor there, it was estimated that 1,500 persons died of 
 this sickness. 2 Amongst these was the Vicar, whose 
 successor was appointed on April 8th, 1349. The 
 Augustinian priory in the town was almost depopulated. 
 The prior, John de Kilkhampton, and all his brethren 
 but two were carried off by the sickness. The two sur- 
 vivors, on March 17th, wrote to the Bishop saying that 
 they " were left like orphans," and begging that he would 
 provide a superior for their house at once. The next 
 day, March the 18th, 1349, an inquisition was held 
 under a writ of the Prince of Wales. The jury found 
 that the priory was free, and that the last prior had died 
 " on Friday, next after the feast of St. Peter in Cathedra 
 then last past " (February 27th). 3 
 
 On March 19th Bishop Grandisson wrote to the prior 
 of Launceston setting forth the facts, and appointing a 
 member of that house to the office. Three days later 
 the mandate for his induction was issued, in the hopes 
 that " by his careful watchfulness the said priory may 
 recover from the calamity." i 
 
 The plight to which the Augustinians of Bodmin were 
 reduced by the disease is, after all, typical of that of 
 many religious houses throughout the country. Mean- 
 
 Reg, Grandisson, i, 26b. 
 
 Itinerarium, ed. J. Nasmith, p. 112. 
 
 Sir J. Maclean, Deanery of Trigg Minor, i, p. 128, 
 
 Reg. Grandisson, i, 26b. 
 
THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND 105 
 
 time, however, the epidemic had not confined its ravages 
 to the western counties, but continued to spread the 
 same desolation in every direction, as the wave of 
 pestilence rolled onward over the length and breadth of 
 the land. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE DISEASE IN LONDON AND 
 THE SOUTH 
 
 FOR a time the people of Gloucester strove, but in 
 vain, to protect their city by prohibiting all inter- 
 course with plague-stricken Bristol. The contagion 
 passed from one district to another, from town to town, 
 and village to village, soon involving the entire land in 
 one common misfortune. " There was no city, nor town, 
 nor hamlet, nor even, save in rare instances, any house," 
 writes an English contemporary, " in which this plague 
 did not carry off the whole, or the greater portion, of the 
 inhabitants." And so great was the destruction of life 
 " that the living scarcely sufficed to tend the sick and 
 bury the dead." ... In some places, on account of the 
 deficiency of cemeteries, the Bishop consecrated new 
 burial grounds. 
 
 " In that time there was sold a quarter of wheat for 
 12^., a quarter of*barley for gd., a quarter of beans for 
 Sd., a quarter of oats for 6d, a large ox for 4.od., a good 
 horse for six shillings, which formerly was worth 40 
 shillings, a good cow for two shillings, and even for 
 eighteenpence. And even at this price buyers were only 
 rarely to be found. And this pestilence lasted for two 
 years and more before England was freed from it." 
 
 " When, by God's mercy it ceased, there was such a 
 scarcity of labourers that none could be had for agricul- 
 
 106 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 107 
 
 tural purposes. On account of this scarcity, women, and 
 even small children, were to be seen with the plough and 
 leading the waggons." 1 
 
 The rapidity with which the contagion spread from 
 place to place makes it now impossible to follow its 
 course with any certainty; the more so because it seems 
 likely that many towns on the southern and western 
 coasts became fresh starting points for the disease. 
 London, in constant communication with other ports, is 
 said by one contemporary to have been attacked as 
 early as September 29th, 1348, 2 whilst other authorities 
 fix, at latest, All Saints' day — November 1st — as the 
 date when the epidemic declared itself in London. It 
 lasted in the city and its neighbourhood till about the 
 feast of Pentecost next following, and, according to the 
 contemporary Robert of Avesbury, it was most severe 
 in the two months from February 2nd to Easter. During 
 the time, he says, " almost every day there were buried 
 in the new cemetery, then made at Smithfield, more 
 than 200 bodies of the dead, over and above those buried 
 in other cemeteries of the city." 3 
 
 Parliament, which was to have assembled at West- 
 minster in January, 1349, was at the beginning of the 
 month prorogued, because, as the King says, " the plague 
 of deadly pestilence had suddenly broken out in the said 
 place and the neighbourhood, and daily increased in 
 severity so that grave fears were entertained for the 
 safety of those coming there at the time." 4 The church- 
 
 1 Eulogium Historiarum (Rolls series), iii, p. 213. 
 
 2 Annales de Bermundeseia in Annales Monastici (Rolls series), 
 iii, p. 475. 
 
 3 De gestis Edwardi III. (Rolls series), p. 406. 
 
 4 Rymer, Fcedera^ v, p. 655. 
 
108 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 yards of the city were quickly found to be insufficient, 
 and two, if not three, cemeteries were opened. Of the 
 one in Smithfield referred to in the quotation already 
 given from Robert of Avesbury, the historian Stowe 
 gives the following account: — "In the year 1348 (23 
 Edward III) the first great pestilence in his time began, 
 and increased so sore that from want of room in church- 
 yards to bury the dead of the city and of the suburbs, 
 one John Corey, clerk, procured of Nicholas, prior of the 
 Holy Trinity within Aldgate, one toft of ground near 
 unto East Smithfield for the burial of them that died, 
 with condition that it might be called ' the churchyard 
 of the Holy Trinity;' which ground he caused, by the 
 aid of divers devout citizens, to be enclosed with a wall 
 of stone. Robert Elsing, son of William Elsing, gave five 
 pounds thereunto ; and the same was dedicated by Ralph 
 Stratford, Bishop of London, where innumerable bodies 
 of the dead were afterwards buried, and a chapel built in 
 the same place, to the honour of God." Subsequently 
 Edward III founded there a monastery of Cistercian 
 monks dedicated to our Lady of Graces. 1 
 
 The same author also relates the establishment of the 
 better-known new cemetery, where subsequently the 
 Charterhouse was founded. " The churchyards," he writes 
 of this time, " were not sufficient to receive the dead, but 
 men were forced to choose out certain fields for burials. 
 Whereupon Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, in the 
 year 1348, bought a piece of ground, called 'No man's 
 land,' which he enclosed with a wall of brick and dedi- 
 cated for the burial of the dead, building thereupon a 
 proper chapel, which is now {i.e., 1598) enlarged and 
 made a dwelling-house; and this burying plot is become 
 1 Survey of London (ed. Strype), ii, p. 13. 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 109 
 
 a fair garden, retaining the old name of ' Pardon Church- 
 yard.' 
 
 " After this, in the year 1 349, the said Sir Walter 
 Manny, in respect of the danger that might befall in this 
 time of so great a plague and infection, purchased thir- 
 teen acres and a rood of ground, adjoining to the said 
 ' No man's land,' and lying in a place called ' Spittle 
 Croft,' because it belonged to St. Bartholomew's Hospi- 
 tal (since that called ' New Church Haw '), and caused it 
 to be consecrated by the said Bishop of London to the 
 use of burials. 
 
 " In this plot of ground there were (in that year) more 
 than 50,000 persons buried, as I have read in the Charters 
 of Edward the Third. 
 
 " Also I have seen and read an inscription, fixed on a 
 stone cross sometime standing in the same churchyard, 
 and having these words : Anno Domini 1349. Regnante, 
 &c. That is in English, ' A great plague raging in the 
 year of our Lord 1349, this churchyard was consecrated; 
 wherein, and within the bounds of the present monas- 
 tery, were buried more than 50,000 bodies of the dead, 
 besides many others from thence to the present time, 
 whose souls God have mercy upon. Amen." 1 
 
 Whilst it is perfectly possible, and even probable, that 
 the number 50,000, named by Stowe as buried in one 
 churchyard, is an exaggerated estimate, it is on the 
 other hand more than likely that the pestilence found 
 
 1 Dr. Creighton, History of Epidemics in Britain, p. 128, quotes 
 Rickman, Abstract of the Poptdation Returns of \ 831, as estimating 
 the total deaths in London at 100,000, and considers even the 
 50,000 as altogether impossible. In fact, he is inclined to think that 
 in 1349 the population of London "was probably not far from" 
 44,770 only. 
 
no THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 the sanitary condition of the London of that period very 
 favourable for its rapid development. The narrow and 
 ill-cleansed streets, the low, unventilated and undrained 
 houses, and the general condition of living at the time 
 would all favour the growth of so contagious a dis- 
 ease as that which visited the city in the middle of the 
 fourteenth century. One slight glimpse of the state of 
 the streets about this time is afforded in a document 
 issued by the King to the Mayor and Sheriffs, when in 
 1 36 1 a second visitation threatened to become as de- 
 structive to human life as that of 1 349. " Because," says 
 the royal letter, " by the killing of great beasts, from 
 whose putrid blood running down the streets and the 
 bowels cast into the Thames, the air in the city is very 
 much corrupted and infected, whence abominable and 
 most filthy stench proceeds, sickness and many other 
 evils have happened to such as have abode in the said city, 
 or have resorted to it ; and great dangers are feared to 
 fall out for the time to come, unless remedy be presently 
 made against it; we, willing to prevent such dangers, 
 ordain, by consent of the present Parliament, that all 
 ' bulls, oxen, hogs, and other gross creatures ' be killed at 
 either Stratford or Knightsbridge." 1 
 
 There are indeed many indications that the number of 
 those who died in the city was very great. 2 The extra- 
 
 1 Brooke Lambert, London, i, p. 241. 
 
 2 Dr. Creighton {ut. sup., p. 129) mentions that "in the charter 
 of incorporation of the Company of Cutlers, granted in 1344, eight 
 persons are named as wardens, and these are stated in a note to 
 have been all dead five years after, that is to say, in the year of the 
 Black Death, 1349, although their deaths are not set down to the 
 plague. Again, in the articles of the Hatters' Company, which were 
 drawn up only a year before the plague began (December 13, 1347) 
 six persons are named as wardens, and these according to a note 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH in 
 
 ordinary increase in the number of wills proved in the 
 " Court of Hustings " affords some indication of this. 
 During the three previous years the average number in 
 that Court was twenty -two. In 1349 they reached the 
 number of 222 ; and the wills themselves afford further 
 evidence of the rapidity with which members of the 
 same family followed each other to the grave. In one 
 instance a son, who was appointed executor to his father's 
 will, died before probate could be obtained, and his own 
 will was passed through the Court together with that of 
 his father. 1 The number of probates granted in each 
 month is some indication of the time when the mortality 
 was highest. May, with a total of 121, and July, with 51, 
 are the largest numbers, whilst it is curious to observe 
 that the large number in May is accounted for by the 
 fact that none were proved in April. 2 It may be sur- 
 mised that this was brought about by the complete 
 paralysis of all business about the month of April in 
 consequence of the sickness; this view being strength- 
 ened by the fact that no Easter sittings of the Courts of 
 Justices were held. 
 
 of the time were all dead before the 7th of July, 1350, the cause of 
 the mortality being again unmentioned, probably because it was 
 familiar knowledge to those then living. It is known also that four 
 wardens of the Goldsmiths' Company died in the year of the Black 
 Death." 
 
 1 Calendar of Wills in the Court of Hustings, London, ed. 
 R. R. Sharpe, i, p. xxvii. 
 
 2 The following is a table of the numbers : 
 
 Jan. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 March. 
 
 April. 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 18 
 
 42 
 
 41 
 
 
 
 121 
 
 31 
 
 51 
 
U2 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Westminster was grievously visited by the sickness. 
 On March ioth, 1349, in proroguing the Parliament for 
 the second time, the King declared that the plague had 
 increased in Westminster and London more seriously 
 than ever. 1 Some weeks later the great monastery was 
 attacked ; early in May abbot Bircheston died, and at 
 the same time twenty-seven of his monks were com- 
 mitted to a common grave in the southern walk of the 
 cloister. To relieve the urgent necessities of the house 
 and those about it, jewels and other ornaments to the 
 value of £31$ 13s. Sd. — a large sum in those days — 
 were sold during the visitation out of the monastic 
 treasury. 2 
 
 At Westminster, too, the Hospital of St. James was 
 left without inmates. " The then guardian and all the 
 other brethren and sisters, except one," had died ; and 
 in May, 1349, William de Weston, the survivor, was ap- 
 pointed guardian. Charged with dilapidation, he was 
 deposed in 1 351, but in 1353 the house still remained 
 without inmates. 3 
 
 What happened at St. Albans has been recorded by 
 Walsingham in the Gesta Abbatum. Speaking of abbot 
 Michael Mentmore, he writes: "The pestilence, which 
 carried off well-nigh half of all mankind, coming to St. 
 Albans, he was struck by a premature death, being 
 touched by the common misery amongst the first of his 
 monks, who were carried off by the deadly disease. And 
 although on Maundy Thursday (i.e., Thursday in Holy 
 Week) he felt the beginning of the ailment, still out of 
 devotion to the feast, and in memory of our Lord's humi- 
 
 Rymer, Fcedera, v, p. 658. 
 
 B. Mus. Cotton MS. Vitell. E. xiv, f. 129b. 
 
 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 25 Ed. Ill, m. 26. 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 113 
 
 lity, he celebrated solemnly the High Mass, and after 
 that, before dinner, humbly and reverently washed the 
 feet of the poor. Then, after partaking of food, he washed 
 and kissed the feet of all the brethren. And all the 
 offices of that day he performed alone and without 
 assistance. 
 
 " On the morrow, the sickness increasing, he betook 
 himself to bed, and like a true Catholic, having made, 
 with contrite heart, a sincere confession, he received the 
 Sacrament of Extreme Unction. And so in sorrow and 
 sadness he lasted till noon of Easter-Day. 
 
 " And because the plague was then raging, and the air 
 was corrupt, and the monks were dying day by day," he 
 was buried as quickly as possible. " And there died at 
 that time, forty-seven monks over and above those who 
 were carried off in great numbers, in (the monasteries 
 which are) the cells (of St. Albans)." 1 
 
 In another place the same writer adds : " By God's 
 permission came the pestilence which swept away such 
 numbers. Amongst the abbots was Dom Michael of 
 pious memory, abbot of St. Albans. At that same time 
 the prior of the monastery, Nicholas, and the sub-prior 
 of the place also died. By the advice, therefore, of those 
 learned in the law the convent chose Dom Thomas de 
 Risburgh, professor of Holy Scripture, as prior of the 
 Monastery." 2 
 
 From the date of the death of the abbot of St. Albans, 
 on April the 12th, 1349, it would appear that the 
 epidemic was then at its height in that part of Hertford- 
 shire. The institutions for the portion of the county in 
 the diocese of Lincoln, however, show that it must have 
 
 1 Gesta Abbatum S. Albani (Rolls series), ii, p. 369. 
 3 Ibid.) p. 381.. 
 
 I 
 
ii4 
 
 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 lingered on, at any rate in the northern part, till the late 
 summer. 1 
 
 " In Hertfordshire Manors," writes Mr. Thorold 
 Rogers, "where it (i.e., the great plague of 1349) was 
 specially destructive, it was the practice, for thirty years, 
 to head the schedule of expenditure with an enumeration 
 of the lives which were lost and the tenancies which were 
 vacated after 1348." 2 
 
 The neighbouring counties of Bedfordshire, Bucking- 
 hamshire, and Berkshire suffered in the same way. Al- 
 though the chronicles make no special mention of the 
 ravages of the epidemic in them, it would, indeed, from 
 other sources of information, appear that during the first 
 half of 1349 the mortality in this district was as great as 
 in most other parts of the country. Thus, the general 
 state of the country after the plague had passed may be 
 illustrated from a class of documents known as Inquisi- 
 tiones post mortem. Theoretically, at least, the whole 
 country belonged to the Sovereign ; the actual possessors 
 holding as tenants of the Crown, just as the smaller 
 farmers and peasants held from the tenant in capite. On 
 the death of landowners, therefore, the Crown exercised 
 certain rights and claimed certain dues, which it levied 
 on the estates, the King's officers holding them until the 
 
 1 The following is a table of the Institutions given in Clutterbuck's 
 Hertfordshire : 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 | 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, p. 225. 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 115 
 
 rights of the Sovereign over the in-coming heir were 
 satisfied. To secure these in each county, an official was 
 appointed known as the Escheator, whose duty it was, 
 on the death of any landowner, in response to the King's 
 writ, to summon a jury bound by oath to inquire into, 
 and testify to, the extent and value of the land held by 
 the deceased person. The record of their sworn verdict 
 is known as the Inquisitio post mortem. 
 
 These returns made into the King's Court of Chancery 
 even as they now exist — many of them having been lost, 
 or having otherwise disappeared — show a great increase 
 in number in the year 1349. The average number of 
 these inquisitions for the two years, 1346 and 1347, is 
 less than 120; in 1348 there are 130, whilst in 1349 
 there still exist 311 such records. That the number was 
 very considerably more than this appears from the entry 
 of the writs to the various Escheators upon the " Ori- 
 ginalia Roll " for 1 349. From this source it may be 
 gathered that the number of writs issued by the King 
 upon information of the death of landed proprietors was 
 619. Sometimes several such writs are addressed at one 
 time to the Escheator to inquire into many deaths in the 
 same place. 1 
 
 These records afford evidence of the numbers of land- 
 owners swept off by. the scourge, but their special value 
 lies in the testimony they afford to the state of various 
 manors and holdings examined in regard to their value 
 after the plague had abated. The smaller tenants paying 
 rent or performing land services were, of course, the 
 chief element in the value of an estate, and especially 
 
 1 Thus, some eight standing on the roll together direct inquiries 
 into deaths of various landed proprietors at Hornseaburton, in 
 Holderness, R. O., Originalia Roll, 23 Ed. Ill, m. 17. 
 
n6 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 where the land was in common, as was generally the case, 
 empty farmsteads and cottages meant a proportional 
 decrease in the yearly value. 
 
 Thus, to take some examples of the evidence of the 
 epidemic in this district. Of the manor of Sladen in 
 Buckinghamshire, not far from Berkhampstead, a jury, 
 about the beginning of August, 1349, declared upon 
 oath that the mill was of no value, since the miller was 
 dead, and there were no tenants left to want any corn 
 ground, " because of the mortality." The rents derived 
 hitherto from the free tenants, natives of the soil and 
 cottagers, had been £12 a. year, now it is declared that 
 there are no tenants at all and that the land is lying 
 untitled and useless. On the whole manor one little 
 cottage, with a strip of land, held by one John Robyns 
 on a service rent worth seven shillings a year, was 
 apparently all that was considered to be worth anything. 
 At another place on the same estate all the tenants and 
 cottars except one were dead, and at a third not one had 
 survived. 1 
 
 In Bedfordshire, by the end of May, 1349, the same 
 tale is told. A cloth mill on the manor of Storington is 
 said to be idle and worthless, and the reason assigned is 
 that " it stands empty through the mortality of the 
 plague, and there is no one who wishes to use it or 
 rent it for the same reason." Land, too, is described as 
 lying uncultivated, and woods cannot be sold because 
 there is no one to buy. 2 
 
 In Berkshire, in July, 1349, on a manor belonging to 
 the Husee family the rents and services of the natives of 
 the soil, " now dead," which were formerly worth thirty - 
 
 1 R. O., Chancery Inq. post mortem, 23 Ed. Ill, No. 85. 
 
 2 Ibid., No. 75. 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 
 
 117 
 
 two shillings a year, are declared to be without any 
 value at all, because, as the Inquisition says, " there is no 
 one willing to buy or to hire the land of the said dead 
 tenants," and since the land lay all in common it could 
 not be cultivated, and was thus useless. 1 In the same 
 way, on the manor of Crokham, which had belonged to 
 Catherine, wife of the Earl of Salisbury, even as early as 
 April 23rd of this year the free tenant and other 
 holders, who had paid yearly £13, were all dead, and no 
 tenants could be got to take up their lands. 2 In other 
 places there are no Court fees, no services performed, 
 and no mills used, because all on the land are dead; 
 houses and tenements also are in hand, and rents every- 
 where are either reduced or are nothing at all, because 
 some or all of those who held the lands and cottages 
 have been swept away. 3 
 
 The institutions for the county of Buckinghamshire 
 show that in the year 1349 4 there were eighty- three 
 appointments made to vacant livings. This is slightly 
 less than half the total number of benefices in the county, 
 which appears to have been 1 80. From the appointments 
 that are dated it appears probable that the sickness was 
 at its worst in the county in the months from May to 
 September, 1349. 5 
 
 1 R. O., Chancery Inq. post mortem, 23 Ed. Ill, No. 77. 
 
 2 Ibid, (second numbers), No. 58. 
 
 3 Cf. four inquisitions in this county: Escheator's Inq. post 
 mortem, file 103. 
 
 4 See Lipscombe's History of Buckinghamshire. 
 
 5 The following.is a table of the dated institutions : 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 3 
 
 •10 
 
 23 
 
 11 
 
 13 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
n8 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 On the other side of London, the dioceses of Canter- 
 bury and Rochester divided between them the county of 
 Kent. The Archbishop had jurisdiction over the south- 
 eastern portion with its long line of coast stretching 
 from the Medway to the boundaries of Sussex. The 
 diocese of Rochester included the western portion of 
 Kent, which lies on the southern bank of the Thames 
 from London to Sheerness. The diocese of Canterbury 
 was in many respects peculiarly exposed to the chances 
 of contagion. In it were situated both Dover and 
 Sandwich, the two chief points of communication with 
 the ports of France, and through the city of Canterbury 
 passed the main line of road between the coast and 
 London. 
 
 Thrice, within a few months, the Archiepiscopal See 
 was deprived by death of its ruler; and one, at least, of 
 these, and very probably two, died of the prevailing 
 sickness. The register of the prior and convent of 
 Christchurch, Canterbury, during the vacancy, shows 
 that institutions to livings in the diocese followed one 
 another in rapid succession, and that deaths must have 
 occurred in a large proportion of the benefices of this 
 part of England. 1 "In the year of our Lord, 1348, im- 
 mediately after the close of the Nativity," writes Stephen 
 Birchington, in his history of the Archbishops of Canter- 
 bury, " arrived the common death of all people; and it 
 lasted continuously till the end of the month of May, in 
 the year 1 349. By this pestilence barely a third part of 
 mankind were left alive. Then, also, there was such a 
 scarcity and dearth of priests that the parish churches 
 remained almost unserved, and beneficed persons, through 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Comm., Eighth Report, p. 336. 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 119 
 
 fear of death, left the care of the benefices, not knowing 
 where to go." x 
 
 At Canterbury itself there is some evidence of the 
 epidemic. The abbot of St. Augustine's had died of 
 the disease at Avignon; but no information has been 
 preserved of what took place at the monastery itself, 
 although the fact that abbot Thomas asked for and 
 obtained from Pope Clement VI dispensations, " on 
 account of defect of birth," for six monks, whom he 
 desired to have ordained at this time, makes it more 
 than probable that the pestilence had carried off many 
 members of the community, whose places it was neces- 
 sary to fill. 
 
 At Christchurch only four of the community died at 
 the time, and this comparative immunity has been as- 
 cribed to the excellent water supply obtained a century 
 before for the monastery from the hills. 2 Later on in the 
 summer, however, when the new abbot of St. Albans 
 rested at Canterbury, on his way to the Pope at Avignon, 
 one of the two companions whom he had with him died 
 of the sickness there. 3 In the city, also, two masters 
 were appointed to the Hospital of Eastbridge, one 
 quickly after the other. The prioress of St. Sepulchre's 
 and the prior of St. Gregory's both died; but we can 
 only suspect what happened in the communities at this 
 anxious time, and among the people at large. At Sand- 
 wich, in the June of 1349, the plague was still raging. 
 The old cemetery was full to overflowing, and the suf- 
 fragan bishop was commissioned to proceed thither and 
 
 1 Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i, p. 42. 
 
 2 J. E. Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 
 i, p, 221. 
 
 3 Gesta Abbatum (Rolls series). 
 
120 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 consecrate a new piece of ground, given for the purpose 
 by the Earl of Huntingdon. 1 
 
 One example may be given here of the rapidity with 
 which during the great sickness members of a family 
 followed one another to the grave. Sir Thomas Dene, 
 of Ospring, about three miles from Faversham, in the 
 northern part of the diocese of Rochester, died on May the 
 1 8th, 1 349. At the time of his death he had four daughters 
 — Benedicta, five years old, Margaret, four years, and 
 Martha and Joan, younger still. By July the 8th Martha, 
 the wife of Sir Thomas, had also died, and from the 
 inquisition, taken on Monday, the 3rd of August, 1349, it 
 appears that of the children the two youngest were now 
 also dead. Thus, out of a family of six, the father, mother, 
 and two children had been carried off by the disease. 2 
 
 In this second half of the county of Kent, which forms 
 the diocese of Rochester, the sickness was felt as severely 
 as in the Canterbury diocese. What happened here is 
 told in the account of William Dene, a monk of Roch- 
 ester, and a contemporary of the events he describes. "A 
 plague such as never before had been heard of," he writes, 
 " ravaged England in this year. The Bishop of Roch- 
 ester, out of his small household lost four priests, five 
 gentlemen, ten serving men, seven young clerks, and six 
 pages, so that not a soul remained who might serve him 
 in any office. At Mailing (a Benedictine nunnery) he 
 blessed two abbesses, and both quickly died, and there 
 were left there only four professed nuns and four novices. 
 To one of these the Bishop committed the charge of the 
 temporals, to another that of the spirituals, because no 
 proper person for abbess could be found." 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Comm., Eighth Report, p. 336. Batteley's copy of 
 this commission is in B. Mus. Add. MS., 22665, fol. 183. 
 
 2 Escheator's Inq. p.m., 23 Edw. Ill, Kent. 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 121 
 
 " The whole of this time," says the writer in another 
 place, " the Bishop of Rochester remained at Hailing ! 
 and TrottersclifT, 2 and he conferred orders in both places 
 at certain intervals. Alas, for our sorrow! this mortality 
 swept away so vast a multitude of both sexes that none 
 could be found to carry the corpses to the grave. Men 
 and women bore their own offspring on their shoulders 
 to the church and cast them into a common pit. From 
 these there proceeded so great a stench that hardly 
 anyone dared to cross the cemeteries." 
 
 The chronicler calls attention, in the most distinct 
 terms, to a fact mentioned by Birchington of Canter- 
 bury, and touched on by the Bishop of Bath and Wells 
 (p. 93), namely, that dread of the contagion interfered 
 even with the exercise of priestly functions. These are, 
 perhaps, the only cases in England which recall the 
 terrible and uncontrollable fear which in Italy issued in 
 an abandonment of all principle. 
 
 Again, he says: "In this pestilence many chaplains 
 and paid clerics refused to serve, except at excessive 
 salaries. The Bishop of Rochester, by a mandate ad- 
 dressed to the archdeacon of Rochester, on the 27th of 
 June, 1349, orders all these, on pain of suspension, to 
 serve such cures;" 3 "and some priests and clerics refuse 
 livings, now vacant in law and fact," writes the Bishop, 
 "because they are slenderly provided for; and some, 
 having poor livings, which they had long ago obtained, 
 are now unwilling to keep them, because their stipend, 
 on account of the death of their parishioners, is so 
 
 1 Some six miles from Rochester. 
 
 2 Nine miles from Maidstone. 
 
 3 Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i, pp. 375-6. This is an abstract of 
 Dene's account in the Rochester cartulary, B. Mus., Cotton MS., 
 Faust. B. v, rT. 96 et seqq. Cf. also Vitell. E. xiv, ff. 375 et seqq. 
 
122 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 notoriously diminished that they cannot get a living and 
 bear the burden of their cure. It has accordingly 
 happened that parishes have remained unserved for a 
 long time, and the cure attached to them has been aban- 
 doned, to the great danger of souls. We, desiring to 
 remedy this as soon as possible, by the present letters 
 permit and grant special leave to all rectors and vicars 
 of our city and diocese instituted, or hereafter to be in- 
 stituted, to such slender benefices as do not produce a 
 true revenue of ten marks sterling a year, to receive 
 during their poverty an anniversary mass, or such a num- 
 ber of masses as may bring their stipends to this annual 
 sum." 1 
 
 Then after noting that the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Thomas Bradwardine, had died in the Bishop of Roches- 
 ter's palace in London, William Dene continues: "So 
 great was the deficiency of labourers and workmen of 
 every kind in those days that more than a third of the 
 land over the whole kingdom remained uncultivated. 
 The labourers and skilled workmen were imbued with 
 such a spirit of rebellion that neither king, law, nor 
 justice could curb them. The whole people for the 
 greater part ever became more depraved, more prone to 
 every vice, and more inclined than before to evil and 
 wickedness, not thinking of death, nor of the past plague, 
 nor of their own salvation. . . . And priests, little weigh- 
 ing the sacrifice of a contrite spirit, betook themselves to 
 places where they could get larger stipends than in their 
 own benefices. On which account many benefices re- 
 mained unserved, whose holders would not be stayed by 
 the rule of their Ordinary. Thus, day by day, the 
 dangers to soul both in clergy and in people multiplied." 
 1 B. Mus. Faust. B., v, f. 98. 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 123 
 
 " Throughout the whole of that winter and spring the 
 Bishop of Rochester, an old and decrepit man, remained 
 at Trotterscliff, saddened and grieving over the sudden 
 change of the age. And in every manor of the Bishopric 
 buildings and walls fell to ruins, and that year there was 
 hardly a manor which returned a hundred pounds. In 
 the monastery of Rochester, also, there was such a 
 scarcity of provisions that the community were troubled 
 with great want of food; so much so that the monks 
 were obliged to grind their own bread." The prior, how- 
 ever, adds the writer, always lived well. William Dene 
 also relates much that will come under consideration 
 when the results of the great pestilence are dealt with. 
 Here, however, it may be noted that he speaks of " the 
 Bishop visiting the abbey of Mailing and the monastery 
 of Lesnes," when he found them so poor " that, as is 
 thought, from the present age to the Day of Judgment 
 they can never recover." Moreover, he notes that Simon 
 Islip, on the day of his enthronisation as Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, did not keep the feast, as was usual, with 
 great display, but to avoid all expense kept it simply 
 with the monks in their refectory at Christchurch. 1 
 
 To this account of the state of the diocese of Roches- 
 ter, written at the time, it is only necessary to add that 
 the number of benefices in this portion of Kent was 
 some 230, which will serve as some indication of the 
 number of clergy carried off by the prevailing sickness. 
 
 The diocese of Winchester includes the two counties 
 of Surrey and Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. On the 
 24th of October, 1348, Bishop Edyndon, the occupant of 
 the See, addressed a letter to his clergy ordering prayers. 2 
 
 1 B. Mus. Faust. B., v, fol. 99. 
 
 2 For the use of his transcripts of the Bishop's Register, as well 
 
124 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 It bears upon it the stamp of the horror which had 
 seized upon the minds of all by reason of the reports 
 now coming to hand of what had taken place in other 
 countries. " William, by Divine providence, Bishop," he 
 writes, " to the prior and chapter of our Church of Win- 
 chester, health, grace, and benediction. A voice in Rama 
 has been heard; much weeping and crying has sounded 
 throughout the various countries of the globe. Nations, 
 deprived of their children in the abyss of an unheard-of 
 plague, refuse to be consoled because, as is terrible to 
 hear of, cities, towns, castles, and villages, adorned with 
 noble and handsome buildings, and wont up to the pre- 
 sent to rejoice in an illustrious people, in their wisdom 
 and counsel, in their strength, and in the beauty of their 
 matrons and virgins ; wherein, too, every joy abounded, 
 and whither multitudes of people flocked from afar for 
 relief; all these have already been stripped of their 
 population by the calamity of the said pestilence, more 
 cruel than any two-edged sword. And into these said 
 places now none dare enter, but fly far from them as 
 from the dens of wild beasts. Every joy has ceased in 
 them; pleasant sounds are hushed, and every note of 
 gladness is banished. They have become abodes of 
 horror and a very wilderness; fruitful country places, 
 without the tillers, thus carried off, are deserts and aban- 
 doned to barrenness. And, news most grave which we 
 report with the deepest anxiety, this cruel plague, as we 
 have heard, has already begun singularly to afflict the 
 various coasts of the realm of England. We are struck 
 with the greatest fear lest, which God forbid, the fell 
 disease ravage any part of our city and diocese. And 
 
 as for assistance in all that relates to the Winchester diocese, I am 
 indebted to the kindness of F. J. Baigent, Esq., of Winchester. 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 125 
 
 although God, to prove our patience, and justly to punish 
 our sins, often afflicts us, it is not in man's power to 
 judge the Divine counsels. Still, it is much to be feared 
 that man's sensuality, which, propagated by the tendency 
 of the old sin of Adam, from youth inclines all to evil, 
 has now fallen into deeper malice and justly provoked 
 the Divine wrath by a multitude of sins to this chastise- 
 ment. 
 
 " But because God is loving and merciful, patient, and 
 above all hatred, we earnestly beg that by your devo- 
 tion He may ward off from us the scourge we have 
 so justly deserved, if we now turn to Him humbly with 
 our whole heart. We exhort you in the Lord, and in 
 virtue of obedience we strictly enjoin you to come before 
 the face of God, with contrition and confession of all 
 your sins, together with the consequent due satisfaction 
 through the efficacious works of salutary penance. We 
 order further that every Sunday and Wednesday all of 
 you, assembled together in the choir of your monastery, 
 say the seven penitential psalms, and the fifteen gradual 
 psalms, on your knees, humbly and devoutly. Also on 
 every Friday, together with these psalms, we direct that 
 you chant the long litany, instituted against pestilences 
 of this kind by the holy Fathers, through the market- 
 place of our city of Winchester, walking in procession, 
 together with the clergy and people of the said city. 
 We desire that all should be summoned to these solemn 
 processions and urged to make use of other devout 
 exercises, and directed to follow these processions in 
 such a way that during their course they walk with heads 
 bent down, with feet bare, and fasting; whilst with pious 
 hearts they repeat their prayers and, putting away vain 
 conversation, say, as often as possible, the Lord's Prayer 
 
126 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 and Hail Mary. Also that they should remain in earnest 
 prayer to the close of the Mass, which at the end of the 
 procession we desire you to celebrate in your church." 
 The Bishop then concludes by granting indulgences to 
 those who approach the Sacrament of Confession, and 
 shall in these public devotions pray that God " may 
 cause the severity of the plague to be stayed." x 
 
 On the same day, October 24th, 1348, Bishop Edyn- 
 don issued other mandates to his clergy generally, and 
 to the archdeacon of Surrey in particular. He charges 
 them to see that, in view of the terrible plague which 
 was approaching, all are exhorted to frequent the 
 Sacrament of Penance and to join in the public prayers 
 and processions to be made with bare feet in towns 
 through the market-places, and in villages in the ceme- 
 teries round about the churches. 
 
 On November 17th, on the nearer approach of the 
 epidemic, the Bishop granted faculties to absolve from 
 all reserved cases, reminding his people of "the approved 
 teaching of the holy Fathers, that sickness and prema- 
 ture death often come from sin; and that by the heal- 
 ing of souls this kind of sickness is known to cease." 
 To guard against any possible danger of cloistered nuns 
 being left by the death of their chaplains without con- 
 fessors, he at the same time sent to every abbess and 
 superior of religious women in his diocese permission to 
 appoint two or three fit priests, to whom he gave facul- 
 ties to hear the confessions of the nuns. 2 
 
 Before Christmas time the sickness was already in the 
 
 diocese, although it was only beginning. On the 19th of 
 
 January, 1349, Bishop Edyndon wrote to his official that 
 
 he had good tidings to announce — tidings which he had 
 
 1 Reg. Edyndon, ii, fol. 17. 2 Ibzd., ff. 17b- 18. 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 127 
 
 received with joy — that " the most holy father in Christ, 
 our lord the Supreme Pontiff, had in response to the 
 petition of himself and his subjects, on account of the 
 imminent great mortality, granted to all the people of 
 the diocese, religious and secular, ecclesiastic and lay, 
 who should confess their sins with sincere repentance to 
 any priest they might choose — a plenary indulgence at 
 the hour of death if they departed in the true faith, in 
 unity with the holy Roman Church, and obedience and 
 devotion to our lord the Supreme Pontiff and his suc- 
 cessors the Roman Bishops." The Bishop consequently 
 ordered that this privilege should be made known to all 
 as quickly as possible. 1 
 
 At Winchester, as at this time in other places, diffi- 
 culties about the burial of the dead who were carried off 
 by the pestilence soon arose. By January many bene- 
 fices in the city had been rendered vacant, and without 
 doubt the daily death-roll was becoming alarming. The 
 clergy for many reasons were desirous of restricting 
 burials to the consecrated cemeteries, but a party of the 
 citizens had clearly made up their minds that in such an 
 emergency as the present the ordinary rules and laws 
 should be, and must be, set aside. In order, apparently, 
 the better to enforce their views they set upon and 
 seriously wounded a monk of St. Swithun's, who was 
 conducting a funeral in the usual burial place. The 
 Bishop took a serious view of the offence. On January 
 
 1 Reg. Edyndon, ii, fol. 19. The Indulgence was to last until 
 Easter, but the time was subsequently extended to the feast of 
 St. Michael. This extension was notified from Avignon by letter 
 dated 28th April, 1349; the Pope here granted the extension verb- 
 ally. On 25th May, Bishop Edyndon sent out the announcement 
 of the extension, and ordered it to be made known at once. 
 
I 
 128 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 the 2 1st, 1349, he addressed an order to the prior of 
 Winchester and the abbot of Hyde ordering sermons to 
 be preached on the Catholic doctrine of the resurrection 
 of the flesh, and excommunication to be denounced 
 against those who had laid violent hands upon brother 
 Ralph de Staunton, monk of Winchester. " The Catholic 
 Church spread over the world," he says, " believes in the 
 resurrection of the bodies of the dead. These have been 
 sanctified by the reception of the Sacraments, and are 
 hence buried, not in profane places, but in specially 
 enclosed and consecrated cemeteries, or churches, where 
 with due reverence they are kept, like the relics of the 
 Saints, till the day of the resurrection." Winchester, he 
 continues, should set an example to the whole diocese, and 
 above other places ought to reflect the brightness of the 
 Catholic Faith. Some people there, however, not, he 
 thanks God, citizens, or even those born in the city (who 
 are wont to be conspicuous in their upright lives and in 
 their devotion to the Faith), but low class strangers and 
 degenerate sons of the Church, lately attacked brother 
 Ralph de Staunton whilst burying in the appointed 
 place, and when by his habit and tonsure they knew him 
 to be a monk, beat him and prevented him from con- 
 tinuing to bury the dead amongst those there waiting 
 for the resurrection. Thinking, therefore, that mischief 
 was likely to ensue in regard to the true Catholic belief 
 in the resurrection of the dead, he orders the doctrine to 
 be preached in the churches of Winchester. From all 
 this it is quite evident that the crisis had brought to the 
 surface, as it had previously done in Italy, a denial of 
 the first principles of the Catholic Faith. 
 
 Bishop Edyndon further adds that seeing that "at 
 this time " the multitude of the faithful who are dying 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 129 
 
 is greater than ever before, provision should be made 
 " that the people of the various parishes may have 
 prompt opportunity for speedy burial," and that the 
 old cemeteries should be enlarged and new ones dedi- 
 cated. 1 
 
 This, however, did not end the difficulties. On the 
 13th of February, 1349, letters were directed by the King 
 to the abbot of Hyde, John de Hampton, Robert de 
 Popham, and William de Fyfhide, 2 ordering them to 
 hear and determine a complaint made by the Venerable 
 Father, William de Edyndon, Bishop of Winchester, 
 concerning the breaking down of walls and other boun- 
 daries of the enclosure, whereon the abbey of Hyde 
 formerly stood, adjoining the cemetery of the Cathedral 
 church of St. Swithun's, Winchester, which had been 
 granted to the priory by the King, Henry I, on the 
 removal of the abbey. It appears from the document 
 that " the Mayor, bailiffs, and citizens had entered upon 
 the usurped portions of the said land, and employed the 
 site thereof to hold a market twice in the week and a 
 fair twice in the year." By this " the bodies of the dead 
 had been iniquitously disturbed, because, owing to the 
 great mortality and pestilence of late, and the smallness 
 of the parochial burial grounds, the Bishop, in the exer- 
 cise of his office, had consecrated the said ground, and 
 many interments had taken place in it." The Commis- 
 sioners, or two or three of them, are directed to view 
 the said area, cemeteries, and closes, " to empanel a 
 
 1 Reg. Edyndon, i, fol. 19b. 
 
 2 Any doubt about the pestilence to which this letter refers is 
 removed by the dates of the deaths of these last two named. John 
 de Hampton died 4th August, 1356, and William Fyfhide on 18th 
 May, 1 36 1. 
 
 K 
 
13° 
 
 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 jury, and to examine evidence and generally to try the 
 
 case. 
 
 Taking the dates of the institutions to livings in the 
 county of Hampshire 2 as some indication of the period 
 when the deaths were most frequent, it would appear 
 that the height of the plague was reached in the months 
 of February, March, and April, 1349. In one month, 
 May, indeed, the number of benefices filled was more 
 than double the average of the whole twelve months of 
 any of the three previous years. 
 
 In the county of Surrey, March, April, and May were 
 apparently the worst months ; and in the last named the 
 number of clergy instituted to vacant livings was double 
 that of the previous yearly average. 3 
 
 1 Winchester Cathedral Archives, Book ii, No. 80. In Book i, 
 No. 120, is an "Exemplification of the record and proceedings by 
 the Bishop of Winchester against the Mayor and others concerning 
 the limits and boundaries of the churchyard, where the Abbey of 
 Hyde once stood, called the cemetery of St. Peter," Anno 23 
 Ed. Ill (1349). 
 
 2 The following table will give the Institutions for Hants : 
 
 1348. 
 
 1349- 
 
 Dec. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 Mar. 
 
 April. 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 7 
 
 12 
 
 * 
 19 
 
 33 
 
 46 
 
 29 
 
 24 
 
 18 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 Table of Institutions for Surrey: 
 
 
 
 
 1349- 
 
 
 
 
 Jan. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 Mar. 
 
 April. 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 1 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 131 
 
 Some districts were affected more than others. Thus 
 in the deanery of Basingstoke, in the north of Hamp- 
 shire, at one time or other, and chiefly in the month of 
 March, by far the greater proportion of benefices fell 
 vacant. On the western side of the county several insti- 
 tutions are made in February, and a considerable number 
 in March. Ivychurch priory, in Wiltshire, where the 
 prior died on February 2nd, and all the rest of the 
 community but one quickly followed him to the grave, 
 is situated close to the boundaries of Hampshire, and an 
 institution was made to a living not far distant on 
 February the 7th. One of the earliest vacancies was 
 Fordingbridge vicarage, also not far from Wiltshire, 
 which appointment was made on the 21st of December, 
 1 348. Only two days later there was apparently the first 
 beginning of the plague at Southampton. The southern 
 coast of the county generally round about Portsmouth 
 and Hayling island suffered chiefly in April and March, 
 and in the later month are recorded numerous institu- 
 tions to livings in the Isle of Wight and in the country 
 between the southdowns and the sea. On January the 
 14th, 1349, a new vicar was appointed to Wandsworth 
 by Bishop Edyndon, " because to our pastoral office it 
 belongs," he says, " to have charge of the churches, and 
 to provide for the needs and wants, especially whilst the 
 present mortality among men continues to rage." 1 
 
 The ordinations held by Bishop Edyndon are further 
 indications of the havoc wrought in the diocese of Win- 
 chester by the pestilence. In each of the two years 1349, 
 1350, disregarding the usual Ember week, he held six 
 public ordinations as well as many private ones. On 
 March 5th, 1349, a candidate was ordained per saltum to 
 1 Reg. Edyndon, i, fol. 38. 
 
132 
 
 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 the priesthood, and there are instances of two orders 
 being conferred on the same candidate on the same day. 
 The numbers at the usual ordinations leapt up from 57 
 in March, 1347, to 158 in March, 1.349. 1 
 
 The friars who mostly lived amid the denser popula- 
 tions of our cities suffered naturally from the scourge 
 even more than others. The Hampshire friaries appar- 
 ently received a staggering blow, which is manifested in 
 the presentations of subjects for ordination. The Austin 
 Friars of Winchester, who had sent four of their number 
 to be ordained priests between September, 1346, and 
 June, 1348, next presented two, and that only in 1358. 
 The Franciscans had two houses at Winchester and 
 Southampton. For these, three were ordained 01,1347 
 and 1348, but until Bishop Edyndon's death in 1359, 
 only two more were presented. The Dominicans of 
 Winchester in the same way could only manage to pre- 
 sent one friar for the priesthood in the ten years which 
 followed the great plague. 
 
 Mr. F. J. Baigent, who for many years has made the 
 episcopal registers and other muniments of the diocese 
 of Winchester his special study, writing of the effects of 
 
 1 Dr. Cox in the "Ecclesiastical History 55 contributed to the 
 Victorian County History for Hampshire, i, p. 34, has given the 
 following table of ordinations : 
 
 Year. 
 
 Acolytes. 
 
 Subdeacons. 
 
 Deacons. 
 
 Priests. 
 
 Total. 
 
 March, 1347 
 
 8 
 
 17 
 
 14 
 
 18 
 
 57 
 
 March, 1348 
 
 9 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 75 
 
 March, 1349 
 
 48 
 
 62 
 
 25 
 
 23 
 
 158 
 
LONDON AND THE SOUTH 133 
 
 this great epidemic, says : " We have no means of ascer- 
 taining the actual havoc occasioned among the religious 
 houses of this diocese . . . but in the hospital of San- 
 down, in Surrey, there existed not a single survivor, and 
 of other religious houses in the diocese (which comprises 
 only two counties) there perished no fewer than 28 
 superiors, abbots, abbesses, and priors." 
 
 Of Sussex, the adjoining county to Hampshire, which 
 is conterminous with the diocese of Chichester, the loss 
 of the episcopal registers makes it difficult to speak with 
 certainty as to the number of clergy swept off by the 
 pestilence or as to its effect upon the religious houses. 
 It is certain, however, that the disease was not less 
 virulent here than in other places about which definite 
 information is obtainable. 
 
 At Winchelsea the King, in the year of the plague, 
 1349, granted to John de Scarle, the parson, a messuage 
 to the east of the cemetery of the church, which formerly 
 belonged to Matilda Lycotin, who had died without 
 leaving any heirs. " Out of devotion to St. Thomas," the 
 King gives this house to the church for a rectory house 
 for ever. 1 That the town suffered considerably seems 
 clear from the fact that in this year, 1349, "ninety- four 
 places in the said town lie together deserted and unin- 
 habited." 2 And both here and at Rye the bailiffs 
 claim that in 1354 they have not received £8 is. out of 
 ;£n \Js. $d. y supposed to be due from them, for taxes 
 on these towns, " because so many houses are destroyed 
 and lie desolate there." 3 
 
 Incidentally it is known that John de Waring, abbot 
 
 R. O., Originalia Roll, 23 Ed. Ill, m. 37. 
 
 Pipe Roll, 23 Ed. Ill, m. 23. 
 
 R. O., L. T.-R. Memoranda Roll, 28 Ed. III. 
 
134 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 of Boxgrove, died some time before May 20th, on which 
 day the monks had leave to elect another superior. Also 
 from a chance entry in the Ely registers it appears that 
 on July the 25th, 1349, a new vicar was instituted to 
 Whaddon, in Cambridgeshire, on the presentation of the 
 fourth prior of the Monastery of Lewes, to which the 
 living was appropriated. It is explained that the reason 
 why the fourth superior in the house had presented was 
 because "the prior, sub-prior, and third prior were all 
 dead." * Lastly, a year or two after the epidemic had 
 passed, even Battle abbey is said to be in great straits, 
 and " in many ways dilapidated " {jnultipliciter dilapid- 
 atur), about which the King orders an inquiry. 2 
 
 1 B. Mus. Cole MS., 5824, p. 78 (from Reg.- Lisle, fol. 24). 
 
 2 Rot. Pat, 27 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 4. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE EPIDEMIC IN GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, 
 AND OXFORD 
 
 IN the last two chapters an account has been given of 
 the great plague of 1349 in the southern portion 
 of England. In somewhat less detail the story of its 
 ravages in Gloucester, Oxfordshire, and the Midlands 
 must be here told. First, however, the general account 
 given in the chronicle of Galfrid le Baker, who appears 
 to have been a native of this district, may here find a 
 place. 
 
 In all these narratives there is, of course, much repeti- 
 tion. But it is just this absolute coincidence, even to the 
 use of the same terms, in writers of different countries, 
 or even of the same country, who could not have had any 
 communication with one another, that brings home to 
 the mind the literal reality of statements which, when 
 read each one by itself, inevitably appear as gross and 
 incredible exaggeration. It so raged at Bristol, writes 
 Le Baker, that the people of Gloucester refused those 
 of Bristol access to their town, all considering that the 
 breath of those so dying was infectious to the living. 
 But in the end, Gloucester, and Oxford, and London, and 
 finally all England, were so violently attacked that 
 hardly a tenth part of both sexes survived. The ceme- 
 teries not being sufficient, fields were chosen as burial- 
 
 i35 
 
136 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 places for the dead. The Bishop of London bought a 
 croft, called " No man's Land," in London, and Sir 
 Walter de Manny one called li The new church-hawe " 
 (where he has founded a house of religious) to bury the 
 dead. Cases in the King's Bench and in the Common 
 Pleas necessarily ceased. A few nobles died, amongst 
 whom was Sir John Montgomery, Captain of Calais and 
 the Lord of Clistel (?) in Calais, 1 and they were buried at 
 the Friars of the Blessed Mary of Carmel, in London. 
 An innumerable number of the common people and a 
 multitude of religious and other clerics passed away. 
 The mortality attacked the young and strong especially, 
 and commonly spared the old and weak. Scarce anyone 
 dared to have contact with a sick person; the healthy 
 fled, leaving the goods of the dead as if infected. Swell- 
 ings suddenly breaking out in various parts of the body, 
 racked the sick. So hard and dry were they that, when 
 cut, scarcely any fluid matter came from them. From 
 this form of the plague many, through the cutting, 
 after much suffering, recovered. Others had small black 
 pustules distributed over the whole skin of the body, 
 from which very few, and indeed hardly anyone, regained 
 life and strength. 
 
 " This terrible pestilence, which began at Bristol on 
 the Feast of the Assumption of the Glorious Virgin, and 
 in London about the Feast of St. Michael, raged in 
 England for a whole year and more so severely that it 
 completely emptied many country villages of every in- 
 dividual of the human species. . . . The following year 
 
 1 At p. 92 of the printed edition of this chronicle the author 
 describes the breaking out of the plague in France, just after the 
 taking of Calais by the English. He attributes the truce between 
 the French and the English to the epidemic. 
 
GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, OXFORD 137 
 
 it devastated Wales as well as England, and then passing 
 over to Ireland it killed the English inhabitants there 
 in great numbers, but the pure-blooded Irish, living 
 in the mountains and high lands, it hardly touched 
 till A.D. 1357, when unexpectedly it destroyed them 
 everywhere." l 
 
 The mention by Le Baker of Wales and Ireland sug- 
 gests a brief statement of what is recorded as to the 
 ravages of the pestilence in these two countries. Of 
 Wales hardly anything is known for certain, although 
 the few items of information that we possess make it 
 tolerably certain that Le Baker's statement that it " de- 
 vastated " the country is not exaggerated. In April, 
 1350, Thomas de Clopton, to whom the lands of the late 
 Earl of Pembroke, Laurence de Hastings, had been 
 leased during the minority of the heir, petitioned the 
 King for a reduction of ^"140 out of the £340 he had 
 engaged to pay. The property was chiefly situated in the 
 county of Pembroke, and the petitioner urges that, " by 
 reason of the mortal pestilence lately so rife in those 
 parts, the ordinary value " of the land could not be 
 maintained. Upon inquiry the statement was found to be 
 true, and £60 arrears were remitted, as well as £40 a 
 year taken off the rent. 2 No institutions for any of the 
 four Welsh dioceses are forthcoming; but on the suppo- 
 sition that half the number of beneficed clergy in the 
 Principality were carried off by the sickness, the number 
 of benefices in Wales being about 788, the total mortality 
 among the beneficed clergy would be nearly 400. 
 
 With regard to the religious houses in Wales also, 
 
 1 Chronicon Galfridi Le Baker de Swynebroke, ed. Sir E. M. 
 Thompson, pp. 98-9. 
 
 2 R. O., Originalia Roll, 24 Ed. Ill, m. 8. 
 
138 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 little is known as to the effect of the pestilence. The 
 priory of Abergavenny, an alien priory then in the King's 
 hands, was forgiven the rent due to the King's ex- 
 chequer, as the prior found it impossible to obtain payment 
 at this time for his lands. 1 And seven-and-twenty years 
 later, the small number in some fairly large religious 
 houses raises the suspicion that they, like so many Eng- 
 lish monasteries at this time, had not regained their 
 normal strength after their losses. Thus the Cistercian 
 abbey of Whitland, in Carmarthen, in 1377 had only a 
 community of the abbot and six monks ; the Augustinian 
 priory at Carmarthen had but five besides the prior; 
 the Premonstratensian abbey of Talley only an abbot 
 and five canons, whilst the prior of Kidwelly, a cell of 
 Sherborne abbey in Dorset, had not even a socius with 
 him. 2 
 
 Some account of what happened in Ireland may be 
 gathered from the relation of friar John Clyn, a Minorite 
 of Kilkenny, who himself apparently perished in the 
 epidemic. "Also this year (i.e., 1349)," 3 he writes, "and 
 particularly in the months of September and October, 
 bishops, prelates, ecclesiastics, religious, nobles and others, 
 and all of both sexes generally, came from all parts of 
 Ireland in bands and in great numbers to the pilgrimage 
 and the passage of the water of That-Molyngis. So much 
 so, that on many days you could see thousands of people 
 flocking there, some through devotion, others (and indeed 
 
 1 R. O., Rot. Claus., 25 Ed. Ill, m. 9. 
 
 2 R. O., Clerical Subsidy, ^ (51 Ed. III.). 
 
 3 The author seems to imply that the plague reached Ireland in 
 1348. It is, however, probable that 1349 was in reality the date, for 
 in that year, on July 14, Alexander de Biknor, the Archbishop of 
 Dublin, died, and also the Bishop of Meath in the same month 
 (cf. Gams, Series Efiiscoporum, p. 219). 
 
GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, OXFORD 139 
 
 most) through fear of the pestilence, which then was 
 very prevalent. It first commenced near Dublin, at 
 Howth l and at Drogheda. These cities — Dublin and 
 Drogheda — it almost destroyed and emptied of inhabit- 
 ants, so that, from the beginning of August to the Na- 
 tivity of our Lord, in Dublin alone, 14,000 people died." 
 
 Then after speaking of the commencement of the 
 plague and its ravages at Avignon, the author continues : 
 " From the beginning of all time it has not been heard 
 that so many have died, in an equal time, from pesti- 
 lence, famine, or any sickness in the world ; for earth- 
 quakes, which were felt for long distances, cast down 
 and swallowed up cities, towns, and castles. The plague 
 too almost carried off every inhabitant from towns, cities 
 and castles, so that there was hardly a soul left to dwell 
 there. This pestilence was so contagious that those 
 touching the dead, or those sick of it, were at once infected 
 and died, and both the penitent and the confessor were 
 together borne to the grave. Through fear and horror 
 men hardly dared to perform works of piety and mercy ; 
 that is, visiting the sick and burying the dead. For 
 many died from abscesses and from impostumes and 
 pustules, which appeared on the thighs and under the 
 arm-pits ; others died from affection of the head, and, as 
 if in frenzy; others through vomiting of blood. 
 
 " This year was wonderful and full of prodigies in 
 many ways; still it was fertile and abundant, although 
 sickly and productive of great mortality. In the convent 
 of the Minorites of Drogheda 25, and in that of Dublin 
 23, friars died before Christmas. 
 
 " The pestilence raged in Kilkenny during Lent, for 
 by the 6th of March eight friars Preachers had died since 
 1 Dalkey in the margin. 
 
i 4 o THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Christmas. Hardly ever did only one die in any house, 
 but commonly husband and wife together, with their 
 children, passed along the same way, namely the way of 
 death. 
 
 " And I, Brother John Clyn, of the order of Minorites, 
 and the convent of Kilkenny, have written these note- 
 worthy things, which have happened in my time and 
 which I have learned as worthy of belief. And lest 
 notable acts should perish with time, and pass out of the 
 memory of future generations, seeing these many ills, 
 and that the world is placed in the midst of evils, I, as 
 if amongst the dead, waiting till death do come, have 
 put into writing truthfully what I have heard and verified. 
 And that the writing may not perish with the scribe, and 
 the work fail with the labourer, I add parchment to con- 
 tinue it, if by chance anyone may be left in the future 
 and any child of Adam may escape this pestilence and 
 continue the work thus commenced." 1 
 
 This account of Friar Clyn is borne out by one or two 
 documents on the Patent Rolls. Thus in July, 1350, the 
 Mayor and Bailiffs of Cork stated in a petition for relief 
 " that, both because of the late pestilence in those parts, 
 and the destruction and wasting of lands, houses, and 
 possessions, by our Irish enemies round about the said 
 city," they were unable to pay the tax of 80 marks upon 
 the place. 2 Also the citizens of Dublin, in begging to be 
 allowed to have 1,000 quarters of corn sent for their 
 relief, state in the petition of their Mayor " that the 
 merchants and other inhabitants of the city are gravely 
 impoverished by the pestilence lately existing in the 
 
 1 Friar John Clyn's Annals of Ireland (ed. Irish Archceological 
 Society, 1849). 
 
 2 Rot. Pat., 25 Ed. Ill, pars 2, m. 19. 
 
GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, OXFORD 141 
 
 said country, and other many misfortunes which had 
 happened there." 1 Lastly, the tenants of the royal manors 
 in Ireland asked the King for special protection. They 
 urged that " both by reason of the pestilence lately 
 existing in the said country, and because of the exces- 
 sive price of provisions and other goods charged by some 
 of the officers of the land to the tenants, they are 
 absolutely reduced to a state of poverty." 2 
 
 After this brief digression upon the plague in Wales 
 and Ireland, a return may be made to England. The 
 county of Worcester suffered from the disease chiefly in 
 the summer months of the year 1349. The institutions 
 to livings in the county, show that in 67 parishes out of 
 138 the incumbent changed at this time. In several in- 
 stances there are recorded more than one change, so that 
 fully half of the total number of benefices in the county 
 were at one time or other vacant during the progress of 
 the disease. The highest number of appointments to 
 livings in the county in any one month was in July, 
 whilst each month from May to November gives indica- 
 tion of some special cause at work producing the vacan- 
 cies. In the first four months of the year and in De- 
 cember only six institutions are recorded. 3 As examples 
 
 1 Rot. Pat., 26 Ed. Ill, pars 1, m. n. 
 
 2 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 27 Ed. Ill, Hilary term, m. 7. 
 
 3 The following is a table showing the Institutions in some 
 months : 
 
 1349- 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 5 
 
 9 
 
 23 
 
 11 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
i 4 2 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 of benefices which fell vacant more than once during the 
 period there may be adduced Great Malvern, to which 
 priests were presented on the ioth of July and the 21st 
 of August; and Powick, near Worcester, to which in- 
 stitutions are registered on the 15th of May and the ioth 
 of July. 
 
 In the city of Worcester, as early as the middle of 
 April, difficulties as to the disposal of the bodies of the 
 dead were foreseen and provided against by the Bishop, 
 Wulstan de Braunsford, who himself, an old and infirm 
 man, died on the 6th of August, 1349. On the 18th of 
 April, this year, the Bishop wrote from Hartlebury to 
 his officials at Worcester, to the following effect : " Care- 
 fully considering and not without anxiety of heart often 
 remembering how dangerously and excessively, alas, the 
 burials have in these days, to our sorrow, increased, in 
 the cemetery of our cathedral church at Worcester (for 
 the great number, of the dead in our days has never 
 been equalled) ; and on this account, both for our breth- 
 ren in the said church ministering devoutly to God and 
 His most glorious Mother, for the citizens of the said 
 city and others dwelling therein, and for all others 
 coming to the place, because of the various dangers 
 which may probably await them from the corruption 
 of the bodies, we desire, as far as God shall grant us, 
 to provide the best remedy. Having deliberated over 
 this, we have ordained, and do ordain, that a place fit 
 and proper for the purpose, namely, the cemetery of 
 the hospital of St. Oswald, Worcester, be made to 
 supply the deficiency in the said cemetery of our cathe- 
 dral church arising from the said cause." He conse- 
 quently orders that it be made known to the sacrist 
 that all burials may at his discretion, " in the time 
 
GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, OXFORD 143 
 
 of this mortality, be made in the said cemetery of 
 St. Oswald." x 
 
 Leland mentions this cemetery in his Itinerary, where, 
 speaking of the " long and fayre suburbe by north with- 
 out the foregate," he says there was a chapel to St. Os- 
 wald, afterwards a hospital ; " but of later times it was 
 turned to a free chapel, and beareth the name of Oswald, 
 and here were wont corses to be buried in time of pes- 
 tilence as in a publicke cemitory for Worcester." 2 
 
 The general state of the country parts in the county 
 may be gauged by the account given by the King's 
 Escheator for Worcester at this time. This officer, 
 named Leo de Perton, was called upon, amongst other 
 duties, to account for the receipts of the Bishop of 
 Worcester's estates, from his death in August to the ap- 
 pointment of a successor at the end of November, 1 349. 
 The picture of the county generally which is presented in 
 his reply is most distressing; tenants, he says, could not 
 be got at any price, mills were vacant, forges were stand- 
 ing idle, pigeon houses were in ruins and the birds all 
 gone, the remnant of the people were everywhere giving 
 up their holdings ; the harvest could not be gathered, 
 nor, had this been possible, were there any inhabitants 
 left in the district to purchase the produce. 
 
 1 Nash, Worcestershire, i, p. 226. 
 
 2 Green {Worcester, p. 144) speaks of the measures taken by the 
 Bishop for the public safety as relieving the city " from an alarming 
 evil," and by it the parishes of St. Alban, St. Helen, St. Swithun, 
 St. Martin, St. Nicholas, and All Saints, " whose churchyards were 
 very confined and not equal to the reception of the parochial 
 deceased, were permitted to partake of the same advantages of 
 sepulture. . . . Hence St. Oswald's burial ground has accumulated 
 that prodigious assemblage of tumulation which, at this time, 
 cannot be viewed with indifference by the most cursory beholder." 
 
144 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Coming to the particular case of the Bishop's tem- 
 poralities, he claims that of £140 supposed to be due, 
 on the calculation of normal years, so much as £84 was 
 never received. For in that year, 1349, the autumn 
 works of all kinds were not performed. " On the divers 
 manors of the said bishopric they did not, and could 
 not, obtain more than they allowed, on account of the 
 dearth of tenants, who were wont to pay rent, and of 
 customary tenants, who used to perform the said works, 
 but who had all died in the deadly pestilence, which 
 raged in the lands of the said bishopric, during and be- 
 fore the date of the said account." 
 
 In the inquiry, the Escheator produced a letter from 
 the King, 1 saying that he had no wish that his official 
 should be charged more than he received. As a conse- 
 quence of this, two commissions were sent into the 
 country to try, with a jury, the matter at issue. The 
 Escheator put in lists of tenants from whom alone he had 
 received anything, and in the end the jury came to the 
 conclusion that his statement was correct. The particu- 
 lars disclose some matters of considerable interest in the 
 present inquiry. For example, on the manor of Hartle- 
 bury there had been thirty-eight tenants called virgates> 
 because each had farmed a virgate of land; thirteen 
 called nokelonds^ twenty-one called arkmen and four cot- 
 tars, who rendered certain services, valued at 106 shillings 
 and i\\d. a year, including a custom called " yardsilver." 
 Nothing could be got of these services, " because all the 
 tenants had died in the mortal sickness, before the date 
 of this account," and in the return of the jury there are 
 said to be only four tenants on the land paying 2s. iod. 2 
 
 1 Dated October 26th, 1352. 
 
 2 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 26 Ed. III. 
 
GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, OXFORD 145 
 
 That this was not a mere passing difficulty appears 
 certain when, some years later, in 1354, the same Es- 
 cheator asks for relief of £57 15s. $%d., which he could 
 not then obtain on the same estates, once again in his 
 hands, by the translation of the Bishop to another See. 
 Speaking of the work of the customary tenants, he says: 
 " That he has not obtained, and could not obtain any of 
 these, because the remnant of the said tenants had 
 changed them into other services, and after the plague, 
 they were no longer bound to perform services of this 
 kind." l 
 
 The results in the neighbouring county of Warwick 
 are naturally similar. With the counties of Gloucester 
 and Worcester it formed the ancient see of Worcester. 
 The institutions of clergy in the county, given in Dug- 
 dale's History of Warwickshire, show that before April 
 and after October only seven of such institutions were 
 made, so that the pestilence was rife in the county in 
 the summer months of 1349, the institutions in the two 
 months of June and July being the highest. 2 
 
 In some instances the changes were very rapid ; thus 
 at Ditchford Friary an incumbent came on July the 19th, 
 and by August the 22nd his successor was appointed. 
 Kenilworth, too, was thrice vacant between May and 
 
 1 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 28 Ed. Ill, Mich, term, 
 m. 19. 
 
 2 The following table gives the number of Institutions in some 
 months : 
 
 April. 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 13 . 17 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 7 
 
 10 
 
146 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 August. At Coventry, on May ioth, Jordan Shepey, the 
 Mayor, " who built the well called Jordan well," died. 1 
 In July the archdeacon of Coventry and a chantry priest 
 at Holy Trinity were carried off. In August the Cathe- 
 dral prior, John de Dunstable, was elected to fill the 
 vacancy at the priory, and shortly after Trinity church 
 had a new incumbent. At Pollesworth the abbess, Le- 
 ticia de Hexstall, died, and a successor was appointed 
 on October 13th, 1349. 
 
 In Oxfordshire, which at the time of the great visita- 
 tion of the plague, formed part of the large diocese of 
 Lincoln, the number of benefices, exclusive of the Ox- 
 ford colleges, was some 220. Half this number conse- 
 quently may be estimated as that of the deaths of the 
 beneficed clergy. The disease was probably prevalent in 
 the county about the same time as in the adjacent places 
 — that is, in the spring and summer months of 1349. 
 The prioress of Godstowe, for example, died some time 
 before May the 20th, on which day the royal permission 
 was given to elect a successor, and the prior of St. Frides- 
 wide, Oxford, very much about the same time ; since on 
 June 1st Nicholas de Hungerford received the tem- 
 poralities upon his election. 
 
 The city of Oxford, with its large population of stu- 
 dents, appears t<3 have suffered terribly. " Such a pes- 
 tilence," writes Wood, " that the like was never known 
 before in Oxon. Those that had places and houses in 
 the country retired (though overtaken there also), and 
 those that were left behind were almost totally swept 
 away. The school doors were shut, colleges and halls 
 relinquished, and none scarce left to keep possession, or 
 make up a competent number to bury the dead. 'Tis 
 1 Dugdale, Warwickshire (ed. Thomas), p. 147. 
 
GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, OXFORD 147 
 
 reported that no less than 16 bodies in one day were 
 carried to one churchyard to be buried, so vehemently 
 did it rage." ! The celebrated FitzRalph, Archbishop of 
 Armagh, who had been Chancellor of the University 
 before the event, declares that in his time of office there 
 were 30,000 students at Oxford. 2 In this statement he 
 is borne out by Gascoigne, who, writing his Theological 
 Dictionary ', in the reign of Henry VI, says : " Before the 
 great plague in England there were few quarrels between 
 the people and law cases, and so there were also few 
 lawyers in the kingdom of England and few in Oxford, 
 when there were 30,000 scholars at Oxford, as I have 
 seen on the rolls of the ancient Chancellors, when I was 
 Chancellor there." 3 This concourse was diverted by the 
 pestilence, since in 1357 FitzRalph declares that there 
 were not a third of the old number at the schools. 
 
 In the year of the visitation Oxford had no fewer than 
 three Mayors. Richard de Selwood died on the 21st 
 April of this year, and the burgesses then made choice 
 of Richard de Cary. Before he could reach London to 
 
 1 Wood, History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford 
 (ed. Gutch), p. 449. 
 
 2 Harl. MS., 1900, fol. n b . Trevisa's translation of FitzRalph's 
 Propositio coram Papa: " So yt yet in my tyme, in ye University of 
 Oxenford were thritty thousand scolers at ones, and now beth 
 unnethe sixe thousand." 
 
 3 Gascoigne, Loci ex Libro Veritaturn, ed. J. E. Thorold Rogers, 
 p. 202. The editor on the passage says: "They {i.e. the students) 
 come from all parts of Europe. The number seems incredible, but 
 Oxfordshire was, to judge from its rating for exceptional taxation, 
 after Norfolk, then at the best of its industries, the wealthiest 
 county in England by a considerable proportion. . . . This con- 
 course of students was diverted by the great plague. ... I see no 
 reason to doubt the statement about the exceeding populousness 
 of Oxford in the first half of the 14th century." 
 
148 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 take the oath to the King he was taken sick, and the 
 abbot of Osney was named as Commissioner to attend 
 at Oxford and administer the oath of office to him. On 
 May 19th the abbot certified that he had done this, but 
 on the 1 6th of June, letters dated from Oxford two days 
 previously were received in London announcing the 
 Mayor's death and the election of John Dereford in his 
 place. 1 
 
 Without doubt Oxford had its plague pit like other 
 cities. The late Professor Thorold Rogers, writing about 
 this pestilence, says : " I have no doubt that the principal 
 place of burial for Oxford victims was at some part of 
 New College garden, for when Wykeham bought the site 
 it appears to have been one which had been previously 
 populous, but was deserted some thirty years before 
 during the plague and apparently made a burial ground 
 by the survivors of the calamity." 2 
 
 1 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 23 Ed. Ill, Mich. 
 
 2 Six Centuries of Work a?id Wages , i, p. 223. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 STORY OF THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 
 
 THE history of the great pestilence in the diocese of 
 Norwich which includes the two eastern counties of 
 Norfolk and Suffolk, has been graphically described by 
 Dr. Jessopp. 1 The results at which he has arrived by a 
 careful study of the episcopal registers of the diocese and 
 the court rolls of sundry manors may be very briefly 
 summarised here. The epidemic was at its height in the 
 East of England in the summer months of 1349, 2 and 
 the deaths in the ranks of the clergy were very alarming. 
 The average number of institutions in the diocese yearly 
 for five years before the sickness was seventy-seven. In 
 this single year 800 parishes lost their incumbents, 83 of 
 them twice, and ten three times, in a few months; and 
 by the close of the year two-thirds of the benefices in 
 the diocese had become vacant. 
 
 Of the seven convents of women in this district, five 
 
 1 The Coming of the Friars ■, pp. 166-261. 
 
 2 The following is a table of the Institutions during four months : 
 
 1349- 
 
 April. 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 23 
 
 74 
 
 139 
 
 209 
 
 149 
 
ISO THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 lost their superiors, and in at least twelve of the religious 
 houses of men, including the abbey of St. Benet's Hulme, 
 the head died. How many of the subjects in these 19 
 monastic establishments were carried off by the sickness 
 can never be known; but bearing in mind what was re- 
 marked at the time, that the disease hardly ever entered 
 a house without claiming many victims, and what we 
 know of other places of which there is definite informa- 
 tion, the suspicion may be allowed that the roll of the 
 dead in the religious houses of East Anglia was very 
 large. At Heveringland the prior and canons died to a 
 man, and at Hickling only one survived; neither house 
 ever recovered. In the college of St. Mary-in-the-Fields, 
 at Norwich, five out of the seven prebendaries were 
 carried off, whilst the Friars of our Lady, in the same 
 city, are said all to have died. Altogether, Dr. Jessopp 
 calculates that some 2,000 clergy in the diocese must 
 have been carried off by the disease in a few months. 
 
 From the court rolls the same evidence is adduced for 
 the terrible mortality among the people. Dr. Jessopp 
 had collected many striking proofs of this, from which 
 one or two examples may be quoted. On a manor called 
 Cornard Parva there were about 50 tenants. On 31st 
 March three men and six women are registered as having 
 died in two months. During the next month 1 5 men and 
 women, seven without heirs, were carried off, and by 3rd 
 November there are 36 more deaths recorded, and of 
 these 13 had left no relations. Thus during the incid- 
 ence of the plague some 21 families on this one manor 
 had disappeared. The priest of the place had died in 
 September. 1 
 
 To take another example. At Hunstanton on the 
 1 The Coining of the Friars^ p. 200. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 151 
 
 16th of October, 1349, it was found that in two months 
 63 men and 15 women had been carried off. In 31 in- 
 stances only women and children had been left to suc- 
 ceed, and in nine there were no known heirs. In this 
 small parish, and in only eight months, 172 persons 
 who were tenants of the manor had died. Of these, 
 74 had left no heirs male, and 19 no blood relations 
 at all. 1 
 
 To these examples may be added one taken from the 
 court roll of the manor of Snetterton, about the centre 
 of the county of Norfolk. A court of the manor was 
 held on Saturday in the feast of St. James the Apostle, 
 that is July 25th, 1349, and it is called ominously the 
 Curia pestilencie^ the Court of the Plague. At this meet- 
 ing 39 tenants of the manor are named as having died, 
 and in many cases no heir is forthcoming. One tenant 
 is specially named as holding his house and ten acres 
 on condition of keeping three lamps ever burning before 
 the Blessed Sacrament in the parish church. He is dead, 
 and has left no other relation but a son 16 years of 
 age. 
 
 The larger cities of East Angiia, such as Norwich and 
 Yarmouth, suffered no less than the country districts 
 from the all -pervading plague. The historian of Norfolk 
 has estimated the population of Norwich before this 
 catastrophe at 7o,ooo. 2 It was unquestionably one of the 
 most flourishing cities of England, and possessed some 
 60 parish churches, seven conventual establishments, as 
 well as other churches in the suburbs; and on the 
 authority of an ancient record in the Guildhall, Blome- 
 field put down the number of those carried off by the 
 
 1 The Coming of the Friars^ p. 203. 
 
 2 Blomefield, History of Norfolk (folio ed.), ii, p. 681. 
 
152 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 epidemic at 57>374« Such a number has been considered 
 by many as altogether impossible, but that the city was 
 reduced considerably does not appear open to doubt in 
 view of the fact that by 1368 ten parishes had dis- 
 appeared and fourteen more were subsequently found to 
 be useless. "The ruins of twenty of these," says a 
 modern writer, " may still be seen." l 
 
 Yarmouth in the middle of the fourteenth century was 
 a most flourishing port. When, to assist the attack of 
 Edward on Calais, but two years before the plague, 
 London furnished 25 ships and 662 mariners, Yarmouth 
 is said to have sent 43 ships and 1,950 sailors. 2 William 
 of Worcester, in his Itinerary, after speaking in praise of 
 the town, says : " In the great pestilence there died 
 7,000 people." 3 This statement is probably based upon 
 the number of persons buried in one churchyard. For in 
 a petition of burgesses of Yarmouth in the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century to Henry VII it is asserted that 
 the prosperous condition of the town was destroyed by 
 the great plagues during the reign of Edward III. In 
 the thirty-first year of this reign, they say — probably 
 mistaking the year — 7,052 people were buried in their 
 churchyard, " by reason whereof the most part of the 
 dwelling-places and inhabitations of the said town stood 
 desolate and fell into utter ruin and decay, which at this 
 day are gardens and void grounds, as it evidently ap- 
 peared." 
 
 It is, moreover, certain that Yarmouth Church, large 
 as it appears in these days, was, before the plague of 
 
 1 F. Seebohm, The Black Death and its place in English History 
 (in Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1st, 1865). 
 
 2 Fuller, Worthies, ed. Nicholas, ii, p. 132. 
 
 3 Ed. Nasmith, p. 344. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 153 
 
 1349, not ample enough for the population, 1 and pre- 
 parations had already been made for considerably en- 
 larging its nave. Owing to the pestilence the work was 
 not carried out. Nor is this the only instance in the 
 county where the enlargement of churches already vast 
 was rendered unnecessary by the diminution of inhabit- 
 ants through the sickness. It is impossible to examine 
 the great churches which abound in the counties of Nor- 
 folk and Suffolk without coming to the conclusion that 
 they were built to serve the purposes of a large popula- 
 tion. 
 
 To take one example, the tax on the town of Dunwich 
 had been granted by the King to the monastery of Ely ; 
 but in 135 1 the inhabitants petitioned for relief as they 
 were quite unable to find the money for the royal col- 
 lectors. The King gave way to what he calls " the rela- 
 tion of the men of the town of Dunwich," which recited 
 that " the said town, which before this time was com- 
 pletely inhabited by fisher-folk had been rendered deso- 
 late by the deadly plague late raging in those parts, and 
 by our enemies the French seizing and killing the fisher- 
 men at sea, and still remained so." 2 
 
 From Norfolk and Suffolk we pass to the adjoining 
 county of Cambridge, which is conterminous with the 
 diocese of Ely. The Bishop of the diocese, Thomas de 
 Lisle, was abroad at the time when the plague broke out 
 in the county. On the 19th of May he wrote to the 
 clergy of his diocese, forwarding the letter of Stephen, 
 
 1 Professor Seebohm thinks that Yarmouth had probably a popu- 
 lation of 10,000 before 1349. This seems much too low. It had 
 220 ships. 
 
 2 R. O., Rot. Claus., 26 Ed. Ill, m. 5d. This is repeated on two 
 occasions in the next year. 
 
154 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Archbishop of Aries, and Chamberlain of the Pope, 
 already referred to elsewhere. By this anyone was em- 
 powered to choose his own confessor, " since in all places 
 now is, or will be, the epidemic or mortality of people 
 which at present rages in most parts of the world." 1 
 The Bishop had made arrangements for the govern- 
 ment of his See during his absence abroad, but on April 
 9th, 1349, he wrote from Rome, making other disposi- 
 tions in view of the plague. " By reason of the epidemic, 
 as it is called, wonderfully increasing in the diocese," as 
 he has lately understood by people from thence, he " for 
 fear his former Vicars General should die," augments 
 their number. And, further, " considering how difficult 
 it is for two people to agree about the same sentence, he 
 appoints John, prior of Barnwell, singly and solely to 
 dispose of all vacant benefices, and in case of his death, 
 or refusal to act, then Master Walter de Peckham, 
 LL.D., to be sole disposer of them," and then six others 
 in order; a provision which itself shows how slight he 
 considered the chance of life for any individual. In 
 other matters any of his Vicars General could act; and 
 " in case of any death putting a stop to business, as was 
 likely in such a mortality," whichever Vicar General was 
 present should act until the arrival of the three specially 
 appointed. 2 
 
 The foresight of the Bishop was not unnecessary. 
 From the month of April vacancies followed quickly one 
 upon another. For three years previous to 1349 the 
 average number of institutions recorded in the episcopal 
 registers was nine, and in 1348 it was only seven. In 
 this year of the great sickness 97 appointments to liv- 
 
 1 B. Mus. Cole MS., 5824, fol. 73. Extracts from Reg. Lisle. 
 
 Ibid., fol. 76. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 155 
 
 ings in the diocese were made by the Bishop's Vicars, 
 and in July alone there were 25. 1 The prior of Barnwell 
 died early in the course of the sickness, probably even 
 before he could have received the Bishop's commission 
 to act for him in the matter of vacant benefices. 
 
 In June there are evidences of the mortality in the 
 Cathedral priory of Ely. On the 23rd of the month John 
 de Co, Chancellor of the diocese, acting as the Bishop's 
 representative, according to the commission, appointed 
 a new sub-prior to the monastery, and again on July 
 2nd a cellarer and camerarius. A week later, on the 9th 
 of July, 1349, "Brother Philip Dallying, late sacrist of 
 Ely, being dead, and the said Brother Paulinus (the 
 camerarius) being likewise dead and both of them buried, 
 he appointed to both offices, namely, Brother Adam de 
 Lynsted as sacrist, and Brother John of St. Ives as 
 camerarius." 2 At the same time also two chantries in 
 the Cathedral became vacant; one, called "the green 
 chantry," twice in two months. 
 
 1 The following table will give the number for some months : 
 
 1349- 
 
 April. 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 19 
 
 25 
 
 13 
 
 6 
 
 The total number of benefices in the diocese at this time was 
 142. 
 
 2 Cole MS., ut supra. Apparently another sacrist of Ely, called 
 John of Wisbeach, died on 16th June, 1349, "during the building 
 of the Lady Chapel" (see D. J. Stewart, Hist. of 'Ely ', p. 138; and 
 Angl. Sacra, i, p. 652). 
 
156 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 The number of clergy carried away by the sickness in 
 this diocese may be estimated from the number of 
 vacant benefices. Deducting the average number of 
 yearly institutions, it is fair to consider that 89 priests 
 holding benefices died at this time. 1 The proportion of 
 non-beneficed clergy to those beneficed was then prob- 
 ably about the same as it was in the second year of 
 King Richard II. The clerical subsidy for that time 
 shows 140 beneficed clergy against 508 non-beneficed, 
 including the various religious. 2 On this basis at least 
 350 of the clerical order must have perished in the 
 diocese of Ely. 
 
 The University town of Cambridge did not escape. 
 On May 24th, 1349, the church of St: Sepulchre's fell 
 vacant, and already in July several of the churches were 
 without incumbents. Towards the end of April the 
 Master of the hospital of St. John died, and one Robert 
 de Sprouston was appointed to succeed. Then he died 
 a short time after, and one Roger de Broom was in- 
 stituted on May 24th ; but in his turn Roger died, and 
 another took his place. 
 
 Cambridge, too, had probably its common plague pit. 
 " Some years ago," writes the late Professor Thorold 
 Rogers, " being at Cambridge while the foundations of 
 the new Divinity ^School were being laid, I saw that the 
 ground was full of skeletons, thrown in without any at- 
 
 1 Bentham, History of the Cathedral Church of Ely, i, p„ 161, 
 has the following note: Register L'Isle, fol. 17-21. Hinc obiter 
 notandum duxi, numerum clericorum parochialium in tota Diocesi 
 Elien. hoc tempore fuisse 145, aut circiter; ex hoc autem numero, 
 constat ex Registro 92 Institutions fuisse infra annum 1349 (anno 
 incipiente 25 die Martii). 
 
 2 Clerical Subsidy, - 8 r 1 -. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 157 
 
 tempt at order, and I divined that this must have been 
 a Cambridge plague pit." x 
 
 A curious document preserved in the Bishop's archives 
 shows how severely some parishes must have suffered. 
 It is a consent given by the prior and convent of Ely to 
 a proposal of the Bishop to unite two parishes in Cam- 
 bridge. It mentions the churches of All Saints' and 
 St. Giles', of Cambridge, near the castle, and states that 
 the parishioners of the former are, for the most part, 
 dead in the pestilence, and those that had been left 
 alive had gone to the parishes of other churches. It 
 also says that the people of St. Giles' have died, and, 
 further, that the nave of All Saints' is in a ruinous state, 
 " and the bones of the dead exposed to beasts." The 
 Bishop consequently proposes to unite these two an- 
 cient parishes of Cambridge, and in this consent to the 
 proposal a glimpse is almost accidentally afforded of the 
 desolation wrought in the University town by the ter- 
 rible scourge. 2 
 
 An example of what was probably very general 
 throughout the county is afforded by a roll of accounts 
 for a Cambridgeshire manor in this year. Considerable 
 decay of rents is noted, and no wonder, for it would 
 seem that 50 tenements and 22 cottages were in hand, 
 and that the services which the holders would otherwise 
 have rendered had to be paid for. At Easter 13 copy- 
 holders' tenements are vacant, and by Pentecost another 
 30 are added to the long list 3 
 
 1 Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, p. 223. 
 
 2 Hist. MSS. Comm., Sixth Report, p. 299. This document is 
 dated 27th May, 1366, and consequently may refer also to the 
 effects of the plague of 136 1. 
 
 3 R. O., Duchy of Lancaster, Mins. Accts., Bundle 288, No. 471. 
 
158 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 The clergy were reduced to the greatest straits in 
 consequence of the deaths among their parishioners, 
 leading to a proportional diminution of their incomes. 
 On September 20th, 1349, the Bishop's Vicar addressed 
 a letter to John Lynot, vicar of All Saints', Jury, Cam- 
 bridge. 1 " We are informed," he says, " by your frequent 
 complaint that the portion coming to you in the said 
 church is known to consist only of offerings of the par- 
 ishioners, and that the same parishioners have been so 
 swept away by the plague notoriously raging in this 
 year that the offerings of the said church do not suffice 
 for the necessities of life, and that you cannot elsewhere 
 obtain help to bear the burden laid upon you. On this 
 account you have humbly petitioned us to be allowed to 
 have for two years an anniversary (Mass) for your neces- 
 sary support. Since your position in God's Church does 
 not make it fitting that you should seek alms, par- 
 ticularly for necessities in food and clothing, we grant 
 you the permission asked on the condition that as soon 
 as the fruit and revenue of the said portion be sufficient 
 to furnish you properly with necessaries you altogether 
 give up the income of this anniversary (Mass)." 2 At the 
 same time a similar permission was granted to John Atte 
 Welle, vicar of St. John, " in Meln-street," Cambridge. 
 
 The adjoining ceunty of Huntingdon forms a portion 
 of the great diocese of Lincoln. In it there were some 
 95 benefices, which may give some indication of the 
 probable number of deaths in the ranks of the clergy of 
 the county. 
 
 The abbot of Ramsey died on the 10th of June, 1349? 
 
 1 It was this church which some years later was declared to be 
 in a ruinous state. 
 
 2 Cole MS., 5824, fol. 81. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 159 
 
 and the King did not, as usual, claim the temporalities 
 during the vacancy, but allowed the monks to pay a 
 smaller sum than was usual ; " and, be it remembered," 
 says the document allowing this, " that because of the 
 depression of the said abbey by the present mortal pes- 
 tilence raging in the country, the said custody is granted 
 to the prior and convent for a lesser sum to pay to the 
 King than at the time of the last vacancy." 1 
 
 Among the Inquisitiones post mortem is one relating 
 to the manor of Caldecot, in Huntingdonshire. It formed 
 part of the estates of Margaret, Countess of Kent, who 
 died on St. Michael's day, 1349. Many houses of the 
 manor are represented as ruinous, and of no value. 
 Rents of assize, formerly worth £8 a year, this time 
 produced but fifty shillings; an old mill, which hitherto 
 had been let with land for two pounds a year, is now 
 only worth 6s. 8d., " because of the pestilence it could be 
 let at no higher rate." And, lastly, the fees of the manor 
 court had sunk from 13^. 4^. to 3^. ^d. "through dearth 
 of tenants there." 2 
 
 Proceeding westward from Huntingdonshire, the 
 county of Northampton next claims attention. Judged 
 by the lists of institutions given in Bridges' history of 
 the county, there were changes at this period in 1 3 1 in- 
 stances out of 281. In fifteen cases two or more changes 
 occurred in the same place in 1349, and the number of 
 institutions was greatest in August, when 36 appoint- 
 
 1 R. O., Originalia Roll, 23 Ed. Ill, m. 6. Among the Ministers 5 
 Accounts (Q. R., Mins. Accts., General Series, 874, No. 9) is a set 
 belonging to a Ramsey manor at this time. " Many holdings of 
 natives " are said to be in hand " on account of the pestilence," and 
 in one place " 22 virgates of land " for the same reason. 
 
 2 R. O., Chancery Inq! p. m., 23 Ed. Ill, No. 88. 
 
i6o 
 
 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 ments were made. 1 From the institutions it appears 
 likely that the town of Northampton was attacked most 
 severely about the October of the year 1349; at least, on 
 November 1st two appointments were made to livings 
 there. 
 
 As to the religious houses, at Luffield all are said to 
 have died of the plague. William de Skelton, the prior, 
 was carried off by the sickness, and the rental of the 
 house was subsequently declared to be inadequate for 
 its support. At Delaprey Convent, Catherine Knyvet, 
 the abbess, fell a victim to the disease. At Worthop, the 
 superior, Emma de Pinchbeck, died, and probably many 
 of the Augustinian nuns there. The Bishop appointed 
 Agnes Bowes to succeed, but the convent never re- 
 covered, and in 1354 was, at the petition of its patron 
 Sir Thomas Holland, united to the convent of St. Michael 
 near Stamford. In the royal licence it is stated " that 
 the convent, being poorly endowed, was, by the pestil- 
 ence which lately prevailed, reduced to such poverty that 
 all the nuns but one, on account of their penury, had 
 dispersed." 2 
 
 1 The following table will show the number of Institutions in 
 Northamptonshire for some months ; before May and after October, 
 1349, some 34 institutions are recorded: 
 
 1349- 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 25 
 
 36 
 
 10 
 
 7 
 
 R. O., Rot. Pat,, 28 Ed. Ill, pars 1, m. 16. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 161 
 
 The inquiry just referred to, as to the estates of the 
 Countess of Kent upon her death in 1349, reports as to 
 the state of a manor in Northamptonshire. It is the 
 same tale of depression and desolation as appears every- 
 where else throughout England. Pasture formerly worth 
 forty shillings now yields only ten, and some even 
 brought in only five shillings in place of eighteen ; and 
 the sole reason assigned is " the mortality." A water- 
 mill and a wind-mill " for the same cause " were let for 
 6s. Sd., instead of the old 56 shillings. 
 
 The priory of Stamford itself moreover was in sad 
 distress. The rents from five free tenants and eighteen 
 customary tenants, were just one-third of their former 
 value " for the same cause." And the same nuns, in 
 place of igs. Sd. which they used to get for thirteen 
 tenements, now received only four shillings, whilst their 
 yearly tenants, who should pay 1 3 lbs. of pepper, at 1 2d. 
 the pound, have paid nothing ; moreover the fines of the 
 manor, estimated to produce twenty shillings a year, 
 have brought in but two. 
 
 A third example is given in the case of a manor near 
 Blisworth, in which two mills are let for twenty, in place 
 of the old rent of sixty-five shillings ; and two carucates 
 of land produced only some fifteen shillings the carucate, 
 "and not more, on account of the mortality in those 
 parts." l 
 
 Of the small county of Rutland, lying at the north of 
 Northamptonshire, little can be said. It likewise formed 
 part of the diocese of Lincoln, and contained some 57 
 benefices. From an inquisition we learn that on one 
 manor for nine virgates of land there could be estimated 
 nothing in the way of rent, " because all the tenants died 
 1 R. O., Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. Ill, No. 88. 
 M 
 
162 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 before the feast of Easter (1349). They (i.e., the jury) 
 also say that the natives and cottars did not work this 
 year." In another place, a house and garden formerly let 
 for forty shillings, now produces only twenty shillings; 
 240 acres of arable land are let for half their former 
 value, and 180 acres of meadow are worth lod. per acre, 
 in place of eighteenpence. 1 
 
 Eastward, the county adjoining Northampton is 
 Leicester. For this county there exists the local account 
 of Knighton, a canon of Leicester abbey. As far as con- 
 cerns England his relation may fitly ^find a place here. 
 " The sorrow-bearing pestilence," he writes, " entered the 
 sea coast at Southampton, and came to Bristol, and 
 almost the whole strength of the town died as if 
 struck with sudden death, for there were few who kept 
 their beds beyond three or two days or even half a day. 
 Then the terrible death rolled on into all parts according 
 to the course of the sun, and at Leicester, in the little 
 parish of St. Leonard, there died more than 380; in the 
 parish of Holy Cross more than 400; in that of St. 
 Margaret, Leicester, more than 700; and so in every 
 parish great numbers. 
 
 " The Bishop of Lincoln sent through his diocese a 
 general power to all and every priest, both regular and 
 secular, to hear confessions and to absolve with full and 
 entire episcopal power, except only in the case of debt. 
 In that case, if able (the penitent) himself was to make 
 satisfaction whilst he lived, or at least others should 
 do so with his property, after his death. In the same 
 way the Pope granted a full remission from all sins, 
 to be obtained once only by every one in danger ot 
 death, and he allowed this faculty to last till the next 
 1 Esch'eator's Inq. p. m., Series i, file 201. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 163 
 
 Easter following, and each to choose at will his own 
 confessor. 
 
 " In the same year, there was a great mortality of 
 sheep everywhere in the kingdom; so much so, that in 
 one place there died in one pasture more than 5,000 
 sheep, and they were so putrid that neither beast nor 
 bird would touch them. The price for everything was 
 low ; through fear of death, very few cared for riches and 
 the like. And then a man could purchase a horse for 
 half a mark, which before had been worth forty shillings; 
 a large fat ox for 4s.; a cow for I2d.; a bullock for 6d.; 
 a fat wether for 4^. ; a sheep for 3d. ; a lamb for 2d. ; a 
 large pig for $d. ; and a stone of wool for nine pence; 
 and sheep and cattle roamed about, wandering in fields 
 and through the growing harvest, and there was no one 
 to drive them off or collect them; but in ditches and 
 thickets they died in innumerable quantities in every 
 part, for lack of guardians; for so great a dearth of 
 servants and labourers existed that no one knew what 
 to do. Memory could not recall so universal and terrible a 
 mortality since the time of Vortigern, king of the Britons, 
 in whose reign, as Bede in his Degestis Anglorum testifies, 
 the living did not suffice to bury the dead. 
 
 " In the following autumn no one could get a harvester 
 at a lower price than eight pence with food. For this 
 reason many crops perished in the fields for lack of 
 those to gather them ; but in the year of the pestilence, 
 as said above of other things, there was such an abund- 
 ance of crops of all kinds that no one, as it were, cared 
 for them." x 
 
 In the absence of any definite information as to the 
 institutions made at this time in the county of Leicester 
 
 1 Tvvysden, Historiae Anglicanae Scriptoi'es Decern, col. 2699. 
 
164 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 it is only necessary to note that the number of benefices 
 was about 250 at this period. There were also some 
 twelve religious houses and several hospitals. In 1351, 
 as we learn from the records, Croxton abbey still " re- 
 mained quite deserted." The church and many of the 
 buildings had been burnt, and "by the pestilence the 
 abbey was entirely deprived of those by whose ability 
 the monastery was then administered " (the abbot and 
 prior alone excepted). The abbot was sick, " and the said 
 prior (in November, 1351) was fully occupied in the con- 
 duct of the Divine Office and the instruction of the novices 
 received there into the community, after the pestilence." x 
 
 A slight confirmation of Knighton's account of the 
 distress in the country parts after the plague had passed, 
 if any were needed, is found in an inquisition made upon 
 the death of Isabella, wife of William de Botereaux, who 
 died upon St. James' Day, 1349. The manor held by her 
 was at a place called Sadington, in Leicestershire, and 
 two carucates of land are represented as lying uncul- 
 tivated and waste " through the want of tenants." 2 
 
 The adjoining county of Staffordshire formed part of 
 the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield. It comprised 165 
 benefices, which may form some basis on which to calcu- 
 late in estimating the number of clergy who were carried 
 off by the pestilence. Some lands in this county, near 
 Tamworth, belonged to the Earl of Pembroke. Upon 
 his death, whilst the heir was a minor, they were farmed 
 out at a rent of ,£38 per annum, to be paid to the King. 
 In 135 1 the man who had agreed to pay that sum 
 petitioned to have it reduced, because " the tenements 
 with the said land so let are so deteriorated by the 
 
 1 Rymer, Foedera, v, p. 729. 
 
 2 R. O., Escheator's Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. Ill, Series i, file 240. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 165 
 
 pestilential mortality lately raging in those parts that 
 they do not reach their wonted value." After inquiry, 
 his rent is reduced by £8 the year. 1 
 
 Of the two counties bordering upon Wales, Hereford 
 and Shropshire, not much is known at this time. There 
 can be little doubt, however, that they suffered quite as 
 severely from the epidemic as the other counties of 
 England. 
 
 In the diocese of Hereford, including that county and 
 a portion of Shropshire, the average number of institu- 
 tions to benefices, during three years before and after 
 the epidemic, was some 13. In 1349 there are recorded 
 in Bishop Trileck's register no fewer than 175 institu- 
 tions, and in the following year the number of 45 vacant 
 benefices filled up, points to the fact that many livings 
 had probably remained for some months without incum- 
 bents. This suspicion is further strengthened by the fre- 
 quent appearance of the words " by lapse " in the record 
 of institutions at this period, which shows that for six 
 months the living had not been filled by the patron. It 
 is probable, therefore, that in the diocese of Hereford 
 about 200 beneficed clergy fell victims to the disease. 
 Taking the dates of the institutions as some indication of 
 the period when the epidemic was most severe in the 
 diocese, it would appear that the worst time was from 
 May to September, 1 34c;. 2 
 
 1 Originalia Roll, 25 Ed. Ill, m. 11. 
 
 2 The following table will give the number of Institutions in the 
 
 diocese of Hereford for some months 
 
 1349- 
 
 May. 
 
 June. 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. Oct. 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 37 
 
 29 
 
 27 J 13 
 
1 66 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 One fact bearing upon the subject of the great mor- 
 tality in the pestilence of 1349 in the county of Hereford 
 is recorded in the episcopal register. In 1352 the Bishop 
 united into one parish the two churches of Great Coling- 
 ton and Little Colington, about four miles from Brom- 
 yard. The patrons of the two livings agreed to support 
 a petition of the parishes to this effect, and in it they 
 say "that the sore calamity of pestilence of men lately 
 passed, which ravaged the whole world in every part, 
 has so reduced the number of the people of the said 
 churches, and for that said reason there followed, and 
 still exists, such a paucity of labourers and other in- 
 habitants, such manifest sterility of the lands, and such 
 notorious poverty in the said parishes, that the parish- 
 ioners and receipts of both churches scarcely suffice to 
 support one priest." l The single church of Colington 
 remains to this day as a memorial of the great mortality 
 in that district. Even among the inhabitants the memory 
 of the two Colingtons has apparently been lost. 
 
 In Salop the historians of the county town record that 
 "through all these appalling scenes (consequent upon 
 the great mortality of 1349) the zeal of the clergy, both 
 secular and monastic, was honourably distinguished. 
 The episcopal registers of the diocese, within which 
 Shrewsbury is situated, bear a like honourable testi- 
 mony to the assiduity of the secular clergy of the dis- 
 trict." 2 From the same source it appears that the average 
 number of institutions to benefices vacant by death 
 during ten years before 1349 and ten years after are 
 only 1 \ per annum, or 15 for the whole period. In that 
 year the number of institutions to vacancies known to 
 
 1 Reg. Trileck, fol. 103. 
 
 2 Owen and Blake way, Shrewsbury, i, p. 165. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 167 
 
 have been caused by death was 29. If this number be 
 taken as a guide for the general mortality, Shropshire 
 would appear to have suffered in an exceptional manner. 
 Besides these, however, there are a number of other 
 institutions registered at this time, the cause of which is 
 not specified, and many of them most probably were 
 also caused by the great epidemic. 
 
 As an example of the general destitution caused by 
 the great sickness, Owen and Blakeway quote an In- 
 quisitio post mortem, taken in the year of the plague, 
 upon the estate of a Shropshire gentleman, John le 
 Strange of Blakmere. By that record he is found by the 
 jury to have died, seized with various lands, etc., amongst 
 others, the three water-mills, " which used to be worth 
 by the year 20 marks, but now they are worth only half 
 that sum, by reason of the want of those grinding, on 
 account of the pestilence." The same cause is assigned 
 for the diminution of other parts of his revenue, as tolls 
 on markets, rent of assize, etc. 
 
 In the manor of Dodington, proceeds the record of 
 the inquiry, " there are two carucates of land which used 
 to be worth yearly sixty shillings, and now the said 
 jurors know not how to value the said land, because the 
 domestic and labouring servants {famuli et servientes) 
 are dead, and no one is willing to hire the land." The 
 water-mill has sunk in value from thirty shillings to six- 
 and-eightpence, because the tenants are dead ; the pond 
 was valueless since the fish had been taken out, and it 
 had not been stocked again. 1 
 
 This John le Strange, of Whitchurch, died on August 
 
 1 Owen and Blakeway, Shrewsbury, i, p. 165. The Inquisition 
 is to be found in the Record Office; Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 
 Ed. Ill, No. 78. 
 
168 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 20th, 1349, and the inquisition held upon his estates 
 names three sons — Fulk, the eldest, who was married; 
 Humphrey, the second; and John, who was 17 years of 
 age; and it notes that if Fulk were to die then Humphrey 
 his brother was the heir. The inquiry was held upon 
 August 30th, ten days after the death of John, and at 
 this very time when Fulk was thus declared to be the 
 heir he had himself been dead two days. Apparently 
 also Humphrey was carried off by the sickness as well ; 
 because in the inquisition subsequently held upon the 
 estate of Fulk, John, the third brother, is named as the 
 heir. In this inquiry the jury bear out the declarations 
 of that which had testified to the condition of the estates 
 upon the death of the father. On one manor it is stated 
 that the rent of assize, which used to be £20, is now only 
 forty shillings, and the court fees have fallen from forty 
 to five shillings, " because the tenants there are dead." 
 And in another Shropshire hamlet the rent of assize, 
 formerly £4, was now " from the said cause " only eight 
 shillings. 1 
 
 North of a line drawn from the Wash to the Dee, the 
 four counties of Chester, Derby, Nottingham, and Lin- 
 coln stretch across England from west and east. A brief 
 record of the pestilence in each of these counties is all 
 that need be here given. In its main lines, and, indeed, 
 almost in its every detail, the story of one county is that 
 of every other, and it is only by chance that the account 
 of definite incidents has been preserved. 
 
 The benefices in the county of Chester numbered some 
 70. In the four months June, July, August, and Septem- 
 ber, thirty institutions are entered in the registers of 
 Coventry and Lichfield for the archdeaconry of Chester 
 1 Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. Ill, No. 79. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 169 
 
 alone. The most numerous are in the month of Septem- 
 ber. 1 The non-beneficed clergy are, of course, not in- 
 cluded in this number; and in the city alone, at the end 
 of Edward the Third's reign, there were at least fifty or 
 sixty of this class. In one parish, for example, that of 
 St. John by the Riverside, there were nine non-beneficed 
 vicars and six chaplains. 2 In August a new prioress was 
 installed at St. Mary's, Chester, and a new prior at 
 Norton. 
 
 From the ministers' accounts for the County Palatine 
 of Chester, at this period, some facts can be gleaned as 
 to the general state of desolation to which the great 
 sickness reduced it. Thus, in the manor of Frodsham, 
 the bailiff returns the receipt of only twenty shillings 
 rent for the lands of the manor farm, " received for 66 
 animals feeding on them." He adds, " and not more this 
 year, because he could get no tenants by reason of the 
 pestilence." Further, he notes the general prices as being 
 low, and names a mill and a bakehouse that cannot be 
 let. As an instance of the decay of rent it is noted that 
 in the town of Netherton, more than a year after the 
 plague had ceased, eleven houses and a great quantity 
 of land, which fell into the hands of the lord in the last 
 year through the pestilence, " remain yet in his hands ; " 
 the same also is remarked of other townships, and in 
 one place the miller had been allowed a reduction in his 
 rent on account of the way his business had fallen off 
 since the disease. 3 
 
 In the same way on another manor, that of Bucklow, 
 at Michaelmas 1350, it is stated that 215 acres of arable 
 
 1 B. Mus. Harl. MS. 2071, ff. 159-160. 
 
 2 R. O., Clerical Subsidy, 51 Ed. Ill, ^-. 
 
 3 R. O., Q. R. Mins. Accts., Bundle 801, No. 14. 
 
170 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 land are lying waste, " for which no tenants can be found 
 through the pestilence," which had visited the place the 
 previous year. Further, those who had held a portion of 
 the manor land during the last year had given their 
 holdings up at the feast of St. Michael at the beginning 
 of the account (i.e., 1 349). On the same estate the rent 
 of a garden was put down at only 12c?., because there 
 was no one to buy the produce. One of the largest 
 receipts was 3^. 6d., paid by one Margery del Holes, 
 " for the turf of divers tenants of the manor who had 
 died in the time of the pestilence." On the whole of the 
 estate there is represented to be a decrease of ^"20 gs. 2-f d. 
 in the rent of this year, and a good part of the deficit is 
 accounted for by the fact that 34 tenants owe various 
 sums, but cannot pay as they have nothing but their 
 crops, and that 46 of the tenants had been carried off by 
 the epidemic. 
 
 On the estate, moreover, it is not uninteresting to note 
 that a portion — no less, indeed, than a third part — of the 
 rent was remitted at this time. The remission, however, 
 hardly appears to have been made willingly, but in con- 
 sequence of a threat on the part of the holders of the 
 manor lands that unless it was granted they would leave. 
 This is noted upon the roll: ".In money remitted to the 
 tenants of Rudheath (some four miles from Northwich) 
 by the Justices of Chester and others, by the advice of 
 the lord, for the third part of their rent by reason of the 
 plague which had been raging, because the tenants there 
 wished to depart and leave the holdings on the lord's 
 hands, unless they obtained this remission until the 
 world do come better again, and the holdings possess a 
 greater value . . . ,£10 13^. n-faf. x 
 
 1 R. O., Q, R., Mins. Accts., Bundle 801, No. 4. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 171 
 
 Eastward, the adjoining county is Derbyshire. An 
 examination of the institutions for this county has been 
 made by the Rev. Dr. Cox for his work on the Churches 
 of Derbyshire. The result of his studies may here be 
 given almost in his words. In May, 1349, there is 
 evidence that the plague had reached Derbyshire. At 
 that period the total number of benefices in the county 
 was 108, and the average number of institutions registered 
 yearly during the century was only seven. In 1346 the 
 actual number had been but four, in 1347 only two, and 
 in 1348 it was eight. In the year of the plague, 1349, no 
 fewer than sixty-three institutions to vacant benefices 
 are registered, and " in the following year (many of the 
 vacant benefices not being filled up till then) they 
 numbered forty-one." In this period seventy-seven of 
 the beneficed clergy died; that is considerably more 
 than half the total number, and twenty-two more re- 
 signed their livings. 
 
 " Of the three vicars of Derby churches two died, whilst 
 the third resigned. The chantry priest of our Lady at 
 St. Peter's Church also died. The two rectors of Ecking- 
 ton both died, and of the three rectors who then shared 
 the rectory of Derley two died and one resigned. The 
 rectories of Langwith and Mugginton, and the vicarages 
 of Barlborough, Bolsover, Horsley, Longford, Sutton-on- 
 the-Hill, and Willington were twice emptied by the 
 plague, and three successive vicars of Pentrich all fell in 
 the same fatal year. Nor were the regular clergy more 
 fortunate, for the abbots of Beauchief, Dale, and Derley, 
 the prior of Gresley, the prior of the Dominicans at 
 Derby, and the prioress of King's Mead, were all 
 taken." l 
 
 1 Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire. Introduction, p. viii. 
 
172 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 The same author has called attention to some obituary 
 notes in the calendar prefixed to the Chartulary of 
 Derley abbey. 
 
 " A glance at this obituary," he says, " is sufficient to 
 draw the attention of the reader to the remarkable 
 number of deaths in the year 1 349. . . . Of the character 
 of the olague we can form some idea when we consider 
 the extent of its ravages in a single household — a house- 
 hold the most wealthy of the neighbourhood, and situated 
 in as healthy and uncrowded a spot as any that could 
 be found on all the fair hillsides of Derbyshire. Within 
 three months Sir William de Wakebridge lost his father, 
 his wife, three brothers, two sisters, and a sister-in-law. 
 Sir William, on succeeding to the Wakebridge estate, 
 through this sad list of fatalities, appears to have aban- 
 d©ned the profession of arms and to have devoted a very 
 large share of his wealth to the service of God in his 
 own neighbourhood. The great plague had the effect of 
 thoroughly unstringing the consciences of many of the 
 survivors, and a lamentable outbreak of profligacy was 
 the result." 
 
 The accounts for the Lordship of Drakelow, some four 
 miles from Burton-on-Trent, may be taken as a sample 
 of what must have been the case elsewhere. There is 
 noted a loss, to begin with, " upon turf sold from the 
 waste of the manor to tenants who had died in the time 
 of the pestilence." The decrease of rent is very con- 
 siderable. From " the customs of the manor there is 
 nothing, because all these tenants died in the time of 
 the plague." Then follow the names of seventy-four 
 tenants, from all of whom only 13s. g%d. had been 
 received in the period covered by the account, and prac- 
 tically from the entire manor there had been no receipt 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 173 
 
 except for grass. Then, instead of the harvest being 
 gathered in, as before it had been, by means of the 
 services of the tenants, this year paid-labour had to be 
 employed at a cost of £22 iSs. lod. On the receipt side 
 of the account appear the values of the cows, oxen, and 
 horses of tenants who had died, and whose goods and 
 animals passed into the possession of the lord of the 
 manor. 1 
 
 In Nottinghamshire the proportion of deaths among 
 the beneficed clergy is found, as in other cases, to be 
 fully one-half the total number. Out of 126 benefices in 
 the county the incumbent died in sixty-five. 2 
 
 Eastwards, again, the county of Lincoln lies between 
 Nottinghamshire and the sea. At an early period Pope 
 Clement VI granted to the priests and people of the 
 city and diocese of Lincoln great indulgences at the hour 
 of death, " since on their behalf a petition had been made 
 to him which declared that the deadly pestilence had 
 commenced in the said city and diocese." 3 The extent 
 of the county is large, and its endowed livings numerous. 
 In all, not including its forty-nine monasteries, the 
 beneficed clergy of the county numbered some 700, and 
 from this some estimate may be formed of the probable 
 number of clerics who died in Lincolnshire in the year 
 
 1349- 
 
 The chronicle of Louth Park, a Cistercian abbey in 
 the county, contains a brief note upon the epidemic. 
 " This plague," it says, " laid low equally Jew, Christian, 
 and Saracen; together it carried off confessor and peni- 
 
 1 R. O., Q. R. Mins. Accts., Bundle 801, file 3. 
 
 2 Seebohm, Black Death, in Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1, 1865 
 p. 150. 
 
 3 . Vatican Archives, Reg. Pontif., Rubrice Litterarum Clem. VI. 
 
174 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 tent. In many places it did not leave even a fifth part 
 of the people alive. It struck the whole world with 
 terror. Such a plague has not been seen, or heard of, or 
 recorded before this time, for it is thought so great a 
 multitude of people were not overwhelmed by the waters 
 of the deluge, which happened in the day of Noah. In 
 this year many monks of Louth Park died; amongst 
 them was Dom Walter de Luda, the Abbot, on July 
 1 2th, who was much persecuted because of the manor of 
 Cockrington, and he was buried before the high altar by 
 the side of Sir Henry Vavasour, Knight. To him Dom 
 Richard de Lincoln succeeded the same day, canonically 
 elected according to the institutes of our Lord and the 
 Order." x 
 
 From a document relating to the Chapter of Lincoln 
 it would appear that the Courts of Law did not sit every 
 term, during the universal visitation. The dean and 
 chapter complain that, whereas " from time beyond all 
 memory " they had received 6s. &±d. for some 66 acres 
 of arable and four acres of meadow at Navenby, this 
 year they had not done so. Still they were called upon 
 to pay the King's dues. They appealed ; but there was 
 no cause tried at Trinity anno 23 (1349) " because of the 
 absence of our judges assigned to hold the common 
 pleas, by reason of the plague then raging." 2 
 
 The audit of the Escheator's accounts for the county 
 of Lincoln proves that the distress was very real. Saier 
 de Rocheford, who held the office for Rutland and Lin- 
 coln in 135 1, sought to be relieved of ^"20 iSs. id., which 
 he was charged to pay for money he should have re- 
 ceived, on the ground that he had got nothing, " because 
 
 1 Chromcon de Parco Lude (Lincoln Record Society), pp. 38-39. 
 
 2 R. (X, Rot. Claus., 24 Ed. Ill, m. 7. 
 

 THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 175 
 
 of the mortality." 1 Three years later, moreover, he again 
 pleads that he is unable to raise more, " because of the 
 deadly pestilence of men and of tenants of the land, who 
 died in the year 1349, and on account of the dearth of 
 tenants " since. 
 
 The people, he adds, were so impoverished that they 
 could pay nothing for " Wapentakes." 2 
 
 Archbishop Zouche of York was apparently one of the 
 first of the English prelates to recognise the gravity of 
 the epidemic, which in 1348 was devastating Southern 
 Europe, and ever creeping northwards towards England. 
 Before the end of July, 1348, he wrote to his official at 
 York, ordering prayers. " Since man's life on earth is a 
 warfare," he writes, " those fighting amidst the miseries 
 of this world are troubled by the uncertainty of a future, 
 now propitious, now adverse. For the Lord Almighty 
 sometimes permits those whom he loves to be chastised, 
 since strength, by the infusion of spiritual grace, is made 
 perfect in infirmity. It is known to all what a mortal 
 pestilence and infection of the atmosphere is hanging 
 over various parts of the world, and especially England, 
 in these days. This, indeed, is caused by the sins of men 
 who, made callous by prosperity, neglect to remember the 
 benefits of the Supreme Giver." He goes on to say that it 
 is only by prayer that the scourge can be turned away, and 
 he, therefore, orders that in all parish churches, on every 
 Wednesday and Friday, there shall be processions and 
 litanies," and in all masses there be said the special prayer 
 for the stay of pestilence and infection of this kind." 3 
 
 1 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 25 Ed. III. 
 
 2 Ibid., 28 Ed. Ill, Trinity term. 
 
 3 Raine, Historical Papers from Northern Registers (Rolls 
 series), p. 395. 
 
176 
 
 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Judging from a reply of the Pope to a petition of the 
 Archbishop, it would be necessary to conclude that the 
 plague had reached York as early as February, 1349. It 
 is, however, more probable that the petition was sent in 
 the expectation that the scourge would certainly come 
 sooner or later, and it was best to be prepared. From 
 the dates of the institutions to vacant benefices, more- 
 over, it would seem that the province of York suffered 
 chiefly in the summer and autumn of the year 1349. 
 Pope Clement VI, by letters to Archbishop Zouche, 
 dated from Avignon as early as March 23rd, 1349, be- 
 stowed the faculties and indulgences already mentioned 
 as having been granted to other Bishops. This he did, 
 as the letter says, " in response to a petition declaring 
 that the deadly pestilence has commenced to afflict the 
 city, diocese, and province of York." x 
 
 The county of York contained at this date some 470 
 benefices; or, counting monastic houses and hospitals, 
 some 550. It has been pointed out that out of 141 livings 
 in the West Riding, in which the incumbent changed 
 in 1349, ninety-six vacancies are registered as being 
 caused by death, and in the East Riding 65 incumbents 
 died against 61 who apparently survived. 2 In the deanery 
 of Doncaster, 3 out of fifty-six lists of incumbents, printed 
 
 1 Raine, Historical Papers from Northern Registers (Rolls 
 series), -p. 399. 
 
 2 Seebohm, Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1st, 1865. 
 
 3 Joseph Hunter, Deanery of Doncaster. The following table will 
 give the institutions in this deanery for some months of 1349 : 
 
 1349- 
 
 July. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 177 
 
 in the local history, a change is recorded in thirty. It 
 may be concluded with certainty, from an examination 
 of the printed lists of institutions for Yorkshire, that 
 one-half at least of the clergy, generally, were carried 
 off by the sickness. So serious did the mortality among 
 the cathedral officials become that steps were taken to 
 prevent the total cessation of business. In July, 1349, 
 for instance, " it was ordained on account of the existing 
 mortality of the pestilence that one canon, with the 
 auditor and chapter clerk, might, in the absence of his 
 fellows, grant vicarages and transact other matters of 
 business as if the other canons were present, notwith- 
 standing the statutes." l 
 
 The Archbishop, too, sought and obtained from Pope 
 Clement VI faculties to dispense with the usual eccle- 
 siastical laws as to ordinations taking place only in the 
 Ember weeks. " For fear the Divine worship may be 
 diminished through want of ministers, or the cure and 
 ruling of souls be neglected," writes the Pope, we grant 
 leave to hold four extra ordinations during the year, 
 since you say "that on account of the mortal pestil- 
 ence, which at present rages in your Province," you fear 
 that " priests may not be sufficient for the care and 
 guidance of souls." 2 With this the Archbishop gives a 
 specimen of the testimonial letters to be granted to 
 such as were ordained under this faculty, reciting that 
 it was given " because of the want of ecclesiastical 
 ministers carried off by the pestilence lately existing in 
 our Province." 
 
 There is little doubt that the religious houses of the 
 diocese suffered in a similar way. The abbots of Jervaulx 
 
 1 B. Mus. Harl. MS., 6971, fol. nob. 
 
 2 Raine, Historical Papers from Northern Registers ', p. 491. 
 
 N 
 
178 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 and Rievaulx, Welbeck and Roche, the priors of Thur- 
 garton, and Shelford, of Monkbretton, of Marton, of 
 Haltemprice and Ferriby, are only some few of the 
 superiors of religious houses who died at this time. 
 
 For one of the monasteries of the county, Meaux, there 
 exists a special account in the chronicles of the house. 
 Abbot Hugh, it says, " besides himself had in the con- 
 vent 42 monks and seven lay brethren; and the said 
 abbot Hugh, after having ruled the monastery nine 
 years, eleven months and eleven days, died in the great 
 plague which was in the year 1349, and 32 monks and 
 lay brethren also died. 
 
 " This pestilence so prevailed in our said monastery, 
 as in other places, that in the month of August the abbot 
 himself, 22 monks and six lay brethren died; of these, 
 the abbot and five monks were lying unburied in one 
 day, and the others died, so that when the plague ceased, 
 out of the said 50 monks and lay brethren, only ten 
 monks with no lay brethren were left. 
 
 " And from this the rents and possessions of the 
 monastery began to diminish, particularly as a greater 
 part of our tenants in various places died, and the abbot, 
 prior, cellarer, bursar, and other men of years, and officials 
 dying left tho^se, who remained alive after them, un- 
 acquainted with the property, possessions, and common 
 goods of the monastery. The abbot died on 12th August, 
 A.D. I349-" 1 
 
 In the Deanery of Holderness, in which Meaux Abbey 
 was situated, there is evidence of great mortality. It is 
 striking to observe how frequently the bailiffs and col- 
 lectors of royal rents and taxes are changed. It is by no 
 means uncommon to find an account rendered by the 
 1 Chronicon Monasterii de Melsa (Rolls series), iii, 27- 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 179 
 
 executors of executors to the original official. 1 This 
 evidence as to the great extent of the mortality here as 
 in other places of England, and as to the consequent 
 distress, is borne out by the Inquisitiones post mortem 
 for the period. In one case, where the owner of the pro- 
 perty had died on 28th July, 1349, it is said that 114 
 acres of pasture were let at \2d. a year, "and not more 
 this year because of the mortality and dearth of men." 
 At Cliffe, on the same estate, the rents of customary 
 tenants and tenants at will are stated to have been 
 usually worth £\o $s. a year; but in this special year 
 they had produced only two shillings. 2 
 
 The chronicler of Meaux has described the disastrous 
 consequences of the sickness in his own monastery. 
 That this condition was not soon mended appears cer- 
 tain from the fact that in 1354 it was found necessary to 
 hand over the abbey, " on account of its miserable con- 
 dition," to a royal commission. 3 
 
 The account of the King's Escheator in Yorkshire for 
 the year, from October, 1349, to October, 1350, states 
 that he could in no way obtain the sum of £4 12s. 2d., 
 " due on certain lands and tenements from which he had 
 levied and could levy nothing during the said time 
 because of the mortality amongst men in those parts, 
 and owing to the dearth of tenants willing to take up 
 the said land and tenements." Then follows a list of 
 houses standing vacant, 4 
 
 1 Cf. for example Mins. Accts. Yorks., Holderness, 23-25 Ed. Ill, 
 Bundle 355. 
 
 2 R. O., Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. Ill, 1st series, No. 72. Cf. 
 also No. 88. 
 
 3 Rot. Pat, 28 Ed. Ill, pars 1, m. 3. 
 
 4 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 25 Ed. III. 
 
180 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 As another instance may be quoted a case related 
 in the history of the deanery of Doncaster. "John 
 FitzWilliam, the heir of Sir William, had a short enjoy- 
 ment of the family estates. He died in the great plague 
 of 1349. I transcribe, to show public feeling at the time, 
 from a chronicle : ' And in these daies was burying 
 withoute sorrowe and wedding without frendschippe and 
 fleying without refute of socoure; for many fled from 
 place to place because of the pestilence; but yet they 
 were effecte and myghte not skape the dethe.' 
 
 " In another part of the deanery we find a person 
 willing that his goods shall be divided among such of his 
 children as shall remain alive. In the Fitz Williams MS. 
 is a contemporary memorandum that John FitzWilliam, 
 the father, gave in the time of the pestilence before his 
 death all his goods and chattels, movable and immovable, 
 to Dame Joan, his wife, John, his son, and Alleyn, 
 late parson of Crosby, amounting to the sum of 
 
 An incident recorded by the same writer will serve to 
 show how uncertain people, at this time, regarded the 
 tenure of life, a feeling hardly to be wondered at when 
 so many were dying all round them. Thomas Allott, 
 of Wombwell, in the deanery of Doncaster, in his will, 
 proved 14th September, 1349, after clesiring to be buried 
 at Darfield, says: "Item I leave, etc., to my sons and 
 daughters living after this present mortal pestilence." 2 
 
 These notes upon the evidence for the plague in York- 
 shire may be concluded by a brief account of the state of 
 Hull in consequence of the mortality and other causes. 
 
 1 Hunter, Deanery of Doncaster, i, p. 1. The hiquisitio post 
 mortem of John Fitz William is in 1350. 
 
 2 Ibid., ii, p. 125.. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 181 
 
 In 1353 the King," considering the waste and destruction 
 which our town of Kingston-on-Hull has suffered, both 
 through the overflow of the waters of the H umber and 
 other causes, and that a great part of the people of the 
 said town have died in the last deadly pestilence which 
 raged in these parts, and that the remnant left in the 
 town are so desolate and poverty-stricken in money," 
 grants them permission to apply the fines ordered to be 
 imposed on labourers and servants demanding higher 
 wages than before, to the payment of the fifteenth they 
 owe the royal exchequer. 1 
 
 Westward of Yorkshire the extensive but then sparsely 
 populated county of Lancashire stretches between it and 
 the Irish sea. Of this county there is practically little 
 to be recorded. The number of benefices which existed 
 in the county was about 65, whilst the number of 
 chaplains and non-beneficed clergy generally must have 
 greatly exceeded that number. In the deanery of 
 Blackburn alone there were at the close of the reign of 
 Edward III at least 55 capellani without benefices. 2 
 One document, of its kind unique, relating to Lancashire 
 and to this great plague, is preserved in the Record 
 Office. It was long ago referred to by the late Professor 
 Thorold Rogers, and is now printed in the English 
 Historical Review. It is a statement of the supposed 
 number of deaths during the incidence of the great 
 pestilence in the deanery of Amounderness. Unfor- 
 tunately, as perhaps might be expected in such a 
 mortality, when death came so suddenly and men 
 followed one another so rapidly to the grave that vast 
 numbers had to be cast as quickly as possible into the 
 
 1 Rot. Pat, 27 Ed. Ill, pars 1, m. 18. 
 
 2 R. O., Clerical Subsidy, \ 5 -. 
 
182 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 same plague pit, the figures are clearly only approximate, 
 being in every instance round numbers. Still, as they 
 were adduced at a legal investigation and before a jury, 
 when the facts of the visitation of Providence must have 
 been fresh in the minds of those who heard the evidence, 
 it is difficult to suppose that they are mere gross ex- 
 aggerations, and may at least be taken as proof that the 
 mortality in this district of Lancashire was very con- 
 siderable. 
 
 The paper in question is the record of a claim for the 
 profits received, or supposed to have been received, by 
 the dean of Amounderness, acting as procurator for the 
 Archdeacon of Richmond, for proof of wills, adminis- 
 tration of intestate estates, and other matters, during the 
 course of the plague of 1349. Ten parishes are named 
 in the claim, including Preston, Lancaster, and Garstang. 
 In those ten parishes it supposes that some 13,180 souls 
 had died between September 8th, 1349, and January 1 ith, 
 1350. In both Preston and Lancaster 3,000 are said to 
 have been carried off, and in Garstang, 2,000. Nine 
 benefices are declared to have been vacant, three of 
 them twice, whilst the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, at 
 Preston, is stated to have been unserved for seven weeks. 
 The Priory of I^ytham is also noted as having been 
 rendered vacant by the sickness, whilst 80 people of the 
 village were said to have died at the same time. 1 
 
 From the Patent rolls it would appear that Cartmel 
 Priory, also, about this time lost its superior, as upon 
 September 20th, 1349, the King's licence was granted to 
 the community to proceed to a new election. 2 
 
 1 R. O., Exchequer, Treasury of Receipt - 2 B Ja , in English Historical 
 Review -, v, p. 525 (July, 1890). 
 
 2 Rot. Pat., 23 Ed. Ill, pars 3, m. 25. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 183 
 
 The counties of Westmoreland, to the north of Lanca- 
 shire, with Cumberland, still further to the north again, 
 carry the western part of England to the borders of 
 Scotland. In the former there were some 57 beneficed 
 clergy, and in the latter about 85. From these figures 
 the approximate number of beneficed priests who died 
 in the pestilence in the two counties may be guessed at 
 about 72. 
 
 The state of this borderland county of Cumberland 
 was, even before the arrival of the plague in the district, 
 deplorable. The Memoranda rolls of the period contain 
 ample evidence that the Scottish invasions had rendered 
 the land desolate and almost uninhabitable. Still the 
 mortality added to the misery of the people. The few 
 Inquisitiones post mortem afford little knowledge, beyond 
 the fact that here also the dearth of tenants was severely 
 felt. 1 The audit of the accounts of Richard de Denton, 
 late Vice-Sheriff of the County, is more precise in its 
 information. He declares, in excuse for the smallness of 
 his returns, that "the great part of the manor lands, 
 attached to the King's Castle at Carlisle," has remained 
 until the year of his account, 1354, waste and unculti- 
 vated, " by reason of the mortal pestilence lately raging 
 in those parts." Moreover, for one and a half years after 
 the plague had passed, the entire lands remained " un- 
 cultivated for lack of labourers and divers tenants. 
 Mills, fishing, pastures, and meadow lands could not be 
 let during that time for want of tenants willing to take 
 the farms of those who died in the said plague." 
 
 Richard de Denton then produced a schedule of par- 
 ticulars, which may now be seen stitched on to the roll. 
 This gives the items of decrease in rents ; for instance, 
 1 E.g., Escheator's Inq. p. m., series i, 430. 
 
1 84 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 there are houses, cottages, and lands to let, which used 
 to bring in £$, and now but £i ; " the farm of a garden 
 belonging to the King, called King's Mead, is rented 
 now at 13 shillings and fourpence less than it used to 
 be," and so on. The jury, who were called to consider 
 these statements, concluded that Richard de Denton 
 had proved them, and they enter a verdict to that effect, 
 giving a list of the tenants, and adding " the said Richard 
 says that all the last-mentioned tenants died in the said 
 plague, and all the tenements have stood since empty 
 through a dearth of tenants." x 
 
 An indication of the same difficulties which beset the 
 people of Cumberland at this time is found in the case of 
 the prior of Hagham, an alien house, to farm which, 
 during the time it was in the King's hands on account 
 of his French war, the prior had been appointed, on 
 condition of his paying the sum of threepence a day in 
 rent to be paid to the Bishop of Carlisle. At this time 
 he could not get even this out of the land, and could 
 not live, by reason of the great dearness of provisions. 2 
 
 The city of Carlisle also in 1352 was relieved of taxa- 
 tion to a great extent, because " it is rendered void, and 
 more than usual is depressed, by the mortal pestilence 
 lately raging in those parts." 
 
 The two remaining counties of England, Durham and 
 Northumberland, were no exceptions to the general 
 mortality. In the former there were some 93 beneficed 
 clergy, and in the latter about 72, figures from which, on 
 the usual calculation, may be deduced the numbers of 
 the beneficed clergy who died at this time. 
 
 In the Durham Cursitor records of this time a glimpse 
 
 1 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 28 Ed. Ill, m. 9. 
 
 2 R. O., Rot. Claus., 25 Ed. Ill, m. 16. 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 185 
 
 is afforded of the state of these northern counties. The 
 Halmote courts were similar to the manor courts, and 
 were held by commissioners appointed under the great 
 seal of the Palatinate of Durham, by the Bishop's certi- 
 ficate, to receive surrender of copyhold lands, to settle 
 fines, contentions, and generally to transact the business 
 of the estates. At one of these Halmote courts, held at 
 Houghton on the 14th of July, 1349, it is recorded: 
 " that there is no one who will pay the fine for any land, 
 which is in the lord's hands through fear of the plague. 
 And so all are in the same way of being proclaimed as 
 defaulters until God shall bring some remedy." At 
 another court " all refused their fines on account of the 
 pestilence." In another, after stating the receipts, the 
 record adds : " And not more on account of the poverty 
 and pestilence ; " and one tenant " was unwilling to take 
 the land in any other way, since even if he survived the 
 plague, he absolutely refused to pay a fine." There are 
 many similar instances in the records at this period, and 
 in one case it is noted that " a man and his whole family 
 had fled before the dreaded disease." * 
 
 In Northumberland the case of the people was so 
 desperate that in 1353 more than £600, which was owing 
 to the King for taxes for five and twenty parishes named, 
 was allowed to stand over for some months since it was 
 hopeless to press for payment. 2 
 
 Of Newcastle the same story is told. "It has been 
 shown us," writes the King, " in a serious complaint by 
 the men of Newcastle-on-Tyne, that, since very many 
 merchants and other rich people who were wont to pay 
 the greater part of the tenth, fifteenth, and other burdens 
 
 1 R. O., Durham Cufsitor Records, Bk. ii, rT. 2b, seqq. 
 
 2 Rot. Claus., 27 Ed. Ill, m. iod. 
 
186 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 of the town, have died in the deadly pestilence lately 
 raging in the town, and since the population remaining 
 alive, who were wont to live by their trading, are by the 
 said pestilence and other adverse causes in this time of 
 war, so impoverished that they hardly possess sufficient 
 to live upon," * they cannot now pay what is due. 
 
 At Alnwick, still further north, the plague may be 
 traced into the spring of the following year, 1350; at 
 least, the chronicle of the abbey there states that " in the 
 year 1350 (which for them began March 25th) John, 
 abbot of Alnwick, died in the common mortality." 2 
 Lastly, it is related by two contemporary authors that 
 the Scotch carried the disease over the borders into 
 their own country. " The Scots," writes Knighton, 
 " hearing of the cruel pestilence among the English, 
 thought this had happened to them as a judgment at 
 the hand of God. They laughed at their enemies, and 
 took as an oath the expression, ' Be the foul deth of 
 Engelond,' and so thinking that the terrible judgment of 
 God had overwhelmed the English, they assembled in 
 the forest of Selkirk with the intention of invading 
 England. The terrible mortality, however, came upon 
 them, and the Scotch were scattered by the sudden and 
 cruel death, and there died in a short time about five 
 thousand." 3 
 
 An account of the visitation given in the continuation 
 of a chronicle, probably written at the time, and possibly 
 
 1 Rot. Claus, 24 Ed. Ill, pars 2, m. 5. 
 
 2 B. Mus. Cott. MS., Vitell., E. xiv, fol. 256. 
 
 3 Dr. Creighton {History of Epidemics in Britain^ p. 119), speak- 
 ing of Scotland, says : " The winter cold must have held it in check 
 as regards the rest of Scotland; for it is clear from Fordoun that 
 its great season in that country generally was the year 1350." 
 
THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND 187 
 
 by a monk at Tynemouth, may fitly conclude this 
 review of the course of the epidemic in England ; telling, 
 though it does, ever the same story, and reading like an 
 echo of the plaint first raised in Europe on the shores of 
 the Bosphorus and in the islands of the Mediterranean. 
 " In the year of our Lord 1348, and in the month of 
 August," writes this chronicler, " there began the deadly 
 pestilence in England which three years previously had 
 commenced in India, and then had spread through all 
 Asia and Africa, and coming into Europe had depopu- 
 lated Greece, Italy, Provence, Burgundy, Spain, Aqui- 
 taine, Ireland, France, with its subject provinces, and at 
 length England and Wales, so far, at least, as to the 
 general mass of citizens and rustic folk and poor, but 
 not princes and nobles. 
 
 "So much so, that very many country towns and 
 quarters of innumerable cities are left altogether without 
 inhabitants. The churches or cemeteries before conse- 
 crated did not suffice for the dead ; but new places out- 
 side the cities and towns were at that time dedicated to 
 that use by people and bishops. And the said mortality 
 was so infectious in England that hardly one remained 
 alive in any house it entered. Hence flight was regarded 
 as the hope of safety by most, although such fugitives, 
 for the most part, did not escape death in the mortality, 
 although they obtained some delay in the sentence. 
 Rectors and priests, and friars also, confessing the sick, 
 by the hearing of the confessions, were so infected by 
 that contagious disease that they died more quickly 
 even than their penitents; and parents in many places 
 refused intercourse with their children, and husband 
 with wife." x 
 
 1 B. Mus. Cott. MS., Vitell., A. xx, fol. 56. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 
 
 SO far, the course of the epidemic in England has 
 been followed from south to north. It is now neces- 
 sary to consider some statistics and immediate results 
 of the plague. 
 
 The diocese of Salisbury comprised the three counties 
 of Dorset, Wilts, and Berkshire. The total number of 
 appointments made by the Bishop, in his entire diocese, 
 is said to have been 202 in the period from March 25th, 
 1348, to March 25th, 1349; and 243 during the same 
 time in the year following. 1 Of this total number of 445 
 it is safe to say that two-thirds were institutions to 
 vacancies due to the plague. Roughly speaking, there- 
 fore, in these three counties, comprised in the diocese of 
 Sarum, some 300 beneficed clergy, at least, fell victims 
 to the scourge. # 
 
 The county of Dorset may first be taken. The list of 
 institutions taken from the Salisbury episcopal registers, 
 given in Hutchins' history of that county, numbers 211. 
 During the incidence of the plague ninety of these 
 record a change of incumbent, so that, roughly, about 
 half the benefices were rendered vacant. In several 
 cases, moreover, during the progress of the epidemic, 
 changes are recorded twice or three times, so that the 
 
 1 B. Mus. Had. MS. 6979, f. 64. 
 188 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 189 
 
 total number of institutions made to Dorsetshire livings 
 at this time was no. As regards the non-beneficed 
 clergy, secular and regular, their proportion to those 
 holding benefices will be considered in the concluding 
 chapter. Here it is sufficient to observe that the pro- 
 portion commonly suggested is far too low. 
 
 It is almost by chance that any information is afforded 
 as to the effect of the visitation in the religious houses. 
 All contemporary authorities, both abroad and in Eng- 
 land, agree in stating that the disease was always most 
 virulent and spread most rapidly where numbers were 
 gathered together, and that, when once it seized upon 
 any house, it usually claimed many victims. Conse- 
 quently when it appears that early in November, 1348, 
 the abbot of Abbotsbury died, and that about Christmas 
 Day of that year John de Henton, the abbot of the 
 great monastery of Sherborne, also died, it is more than 
 probable that many of the brethren of those monasteries 
 were also carried off by the scourge. 
 
 In the county of Wilts the average number of epis- 
 copal institutions, for three years before and three years 
 after the mortality, was only 26. In the year 1348 there 
 are 73 institutions recorded in the registers, and in 1349 
 no less a number than 103, 1 so that of the 176 vacancies 
 filled in the two years the deaths of only some 52 in- 
 cumbents were probably due to normal causes, and the 
 rest, or some 125 priests holding benefices in the county, 
 may be said to have died from the plague. 
 
 A chance entry upon the Patent roll reveals the state 
 of one monastery in this county. The prior of Ederos, 
 or Ivychurch, a house of Augustinian canons, died on 
 
 1 Institutiones clericorum in Comitatu Wiltoniae, ed. Sir J. 
 Phillipps. 
 
190 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 February 2nd, 1349. 1 On February 25th the King was 
 informed that death had carried -off the entire com- 
 munity with one single exception. " Know ye," runs the 
 King's letter, dated March 16th, "that since the Vener- 
 able Father Robert, Bishop of Salisbury, cannot hold the 
 usual election of prior in the Monastery of Ederos in his 
 diocese, vacant by the death of the last prior of the same, 
 since all the other canons of the same house, in which 
 hitherto there has been a community of thirteen canons 
 regular, have died, except only one canon, brother James 
 de Grundwell, we appoint him custodian of the posses- 
 sions, the Bishop testifying that he is a fit and proper 
 person for the office. 2 
 
 The general state of the county of Wilts after the 
 epidemic had passed is well illustrated from some Wilt- 
 shire Inquisitiones post mortem. Sir Henry Husee, for 
 instance, had died on the 21st of June, 1349. He owned 
 a small property in the county. Some 300 acres of pas- 
 ture were returned upon oath, by a jury of the neigh- 
 bourhood, as "of no value because all the tenants are 
 dead." 3 Again John Lestraunge, of Whitchurch, a 
 Shropshire gentleman, had half the manor of Broughton, 
 in the county of Wilts. He died on July the 20th, 1349, 
 and the inquisition was held on August the 30th. At 
 that time it is declared that only seven shillings had 
 been received as rent from a single tenant, "and not 
 more this year, because all the other tenants, as well as 
 the natives, are dead, and their land is all in the hand of 
 the lord." 4 
 
 1 Originalia Roll, 23 Ed. Ill, m. 37. 
 
 2 Rot. Pat, 23 Ed. Ill, pars 1, m. 20. 
 
 3 R. O., Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. Ill (1st numbers), No. JJ. 
 
 4 Ibid., No. 78. 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 191 
 
 So, too, on the manor of Caleston, belonging to Henry 
 de Wilington, who died on May the 23rd, 1349, it is said 
 that water-mills are destroyed and worthless ; of the six 
 native tenants two have died, and their lands are in hand; 
 and of the ten cottars, each of whom paid I2d. for his 
 holding, four have been carried off with all their 
 family. 1 In other places of the same county woods are 
 declared to be valueless, " for want of buyers, on account 
 of the pestilence amongst the population ; " 2 from tenants 
 who used to pay £4 a year there is now obtained only 
 6s., because all but three free tenants have been swept 
 away; 3 140 acres of land and twelve cottages, formerly 
 in the occupation of natives of a manor, are all now in 
 hand, " as all are dead." 4 So, too, at East Grinstead, 
 seven miles from Salisbury, on the death of Mary, wife 
 of Stephen de Tumby, in the August of 1349, it is found 
 that only three tenants are left on the estate, " and not 
 more because John Wadebrok and Walter Wadebrok, 
 Stephen and Thomas and John Kerde, Richard le Frer, 
 Ralph Bodde, and Thomas the Tanner, tenants in 
 bondage," who held certain tenements and lands, are all 
 dead, and their holdings are left in the hands of the 
 lord of the manor. Also, on the same estate, William 
 le Hanaker, John Pompe, Edmund Saleman, John 
 Whermeter, and John Gerde, jun., have also been swept 
 away by the all-prevailing pestilence. 
 
 Such examples as these will enable the reader to 
 understand the terrible mortality produced by this 
 visitation, and in some measure to appreciate the social 
 difficulties and changes produced by the sudden re- 
 
 1 R. O., Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. Ill (1st numbers), No. 74. 
 
 Ibid., No. 87. 
 
 3 Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, file 95. 4 Ibid. 
 
192 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 moval of so large a number of the population from every 
 part of the country. 
 
 To pass on to the neighbouring county of Somerset. 
 The institutions given in the episcopal registers of the 
 diocese of Bath and Wells show that the mortality had 
 already commenced in the county as early as November, 
 
 1348. The average number of inductions to livings in 
 the county in each month of 1348, previous to November, 
 was less than three; in November it was nine, and in the 
 following month thirty-two. During the next year, 
 
 1349, the total number of clergy instituted to the vacant 
 livings of the diocese by the Bishop was 232, against an 
 average in a normal year of 35. For the two years, 
 1348 and 1349, consequently, out of the 297 benefices 
 to which institutions were made, some 227 may be 
 said, with fair certainty, to have been rendered vacant 
 by the great mortality which then raged in this and 
 other counties of England. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the death of every 
 priest implied the deaths of very many of his flock, so 
 that, if no other information were attainable, some idea 
 of the extent of the sickness among the laity may be 
 obtained. It cannot but be believed that the people 
 generally suffered as greatly as the clergy, and that, 
 proportionally, als many of them fell victims to the 
 scourge. If the proportion of priests to lay folk was 
 then (as some writers have suggested) about one to fifty 
 — an estimate, however, which would seem to be con- 
 siderably above the actual relation of laymen to those 
 in sacred orders at that time — the reader can easily form 
 some notion of the terrible mortality among the people 
 of Somersetshire in the first half of 1349. 
 
 Some slight information, however, is afforded as to the 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 193 
 
 actual state of the county in one or two instances. In 
 each manor throughout the country there was held 
 periodically what was known as the Court of the manor. 
 At this assembly the business of the estate, so far as the 
 tenants were concerned, was transacted before a chosen 
 and sworn jury. Holders of land under the lord of the 
 manor came before the court to claim their tenements 
 and land as the rightful heirs of tenants deceased, to pay 
 their heriots or fines due to the lord on every entry of a 
 new holder. At this assembly, too, matters of police, the 
 infringement of local customs, and often disputes be- 
 tween the tenants themselves, were disposed of by the 
 officials of the manor. The record of the business of 
 such courts is known as the Court roll, and these docu- 
 ments give some information about the extent of the 
 mortality among the manorial tenants. Here, however, 
 just as in the case of the institutions of clergy, where the 
 actual incumbent only is registered and no account is 
 taken of the larger body of non-beneficed clergy, so on 
 the Court roll only the actual holder of the land is 
 entered, and no notice is taken of the members of his 
 family, or of others in the district, such as labourers and 
 servants, etc., who were not actual tenants of the manor. 
 Unfortunately the Court rolls for this period are 
 often, if not generally, found to be missing. They are 
 either lost, or the disorganised state of the country con- 
 sequent upon the great mortality did not permit of the 
 court being held. There are, however, quite sufficient of 
 these records to afford a tolerably good idea of what 
 must have happened pretty generally throughout the 
 country. Dr. Jessopp has been able by the use of the 
 Norfolk Court rolls to present his readers with a vivid 
 picture of the havoc made by the plague in East Anglia. 
 
 O 
 
i 9 4 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 As an illustration of the same, some notes from a few 
 Court rolls of West of England manors may here be 
 given. 
 
 The records of the royal manor of Gillingham, in 
 the county of Dorset, show that at a court, held on 
 "Wednesday next after the feast of St. Lucy (13 De- 
 cember), 1348," heriots were paid on the deaths of some 
 twenty-eight tenants, and the total receipts on this 
 account, which at ordinary courts amounted to but a 
 few shillings, were £2% \$s. Sd. Further, at the same 
 sittings, the bailiff notes that he has in hand the lands 
 and tenements of about thirty tenants, who had appar- 
 ently left no heir to succeed to their holdings. In 
 numbers of cases it is declared that no heriot has been 
 paid, and this although the receipts on this score at the 
 sitting of the court, and on many subsequent sittings, 
 are unusually large. At another court, held early in the 
 following year (1349) the names of two-and-twenty 
 tenants of the manor are recorded as having died, and 
 two large slips of parchment, belonging to the court 
 held on May 6th, give the lists of dead tenants. Thus 
 in the tything of Gillingham alone forty-five deaths are 
 recorded, and in the neighbouring tything of Bourton 
 seventeen. 1 
 
 The next example may be taken from the rolls of a 
 Wiltshire manor, and ought, perhaps, to have been given 
 in the account of the plague in that county. On June 
 the nth, 1349, a court was held at Stockton, some seven 
 miles from Warminster, consequently only a short dis- 
 tance from the boundaries of Somerset. The manor, be 
 
 1 Records of the Manor of Gillingham, which I was permitted to 
 examine by the kindness of the present Steward of the Manor, 
 R, Freame, Esq., of Gillingham. 
 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 195 
 
 it remarked, was evidently only a very small one. On 
 the parchment record it is stated that since the previous 
 Martinmas (November nth, 1348) no court had been 
 held, and from the entries upon the roll it appears that 
 out of a small body of tenants on this estate fourteen 
 had died. How many had been carried off in each 
 household does not, of course, appear, but in the 
 majority of instances it looks very much as if the dead 
 tenant had left no heir behind him. 1 
 
 A third instance is taken from the Court roll of the 
 manor of Chedzoy, near Bridgwater. The plague had 
 made its appearance at Bridgwater, as before related, 
 some time previous to November 21st, 1348. It was to be 
 expected, therefore, that the rolls of a manor only three 
 miles off would show some sign of the mortality among 
 the tenants about the same period. As a matter of fact 
 a glance through the parchment record of a court held 
 on St. Katherine's day, November 25th, 1348, shows that 
 it had made its appearance some time between Sep- 
 tember 29th and November 25th'. On this latter day 
 some few of the tenants of the manor are noted as dead, 
 and three or four fairly large holdings have also fallen 
 into the hands of the lord of the manor, no heirs being 
 forthcoming. Amongst others, one William Hammond, 
 who had rented and worked a water-mill, at a place 
 called le Slap, had been carried off by the sickness. The 
 house, it is noted, had since, up to the date of the court, 
 stood vacant. The mill wheel no longer spun round at 
 its work, for William Hammond, the miller, had left no 
 one to succeed him in his occupation. 
 
 But this was only a beginning. The next court was 
 held on Thursday after the Epiphany, January 8th, 1349. 
 1 B. Mus. Add. Roll 24,335. 
 
196 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 What a terrible Christmas time.it must have been for 
 those Somersetshire villagers on the low-lying ground 
 about Bridgwater, flooded and sodden, by the long 
 months of incessant rain ! At least twenty more tenants 
 are marked off upon the roll as dead, and as in this case 
 the actual days of their deaths are given, it is clear the 
 plague claimed many victims in this neighbourhood 
 about the close of December, 1 348. 
 
 Between this and March 23rd, 1349, the sickness was at 
 its worst in this manor of Chedzoy. The record of the 
 proceedings at the court, held on " Monday after the 
 feast of St. Benedict," 1349, occupies two long skins of 
 parchment closely written on both sides. Some 50 or 60 
 fines are paid by new tenants on their taking possession 
 of the lands and houses, which had belonged to others 
 now dead and gone. Again, who can tell how many had 
 perished in each house? One thing is absolutely clear. 
 In this single Somerset village many homes had been 
 left vacant without a solitary inhabitant; many were 
 taken over by new tenants not connected with the old 
 occupier; and in more than one instance people came 
 forward to act as guardians to young children who had 
 apparently been left alone in the world by the death of 
 every near relative. Take an instance. At this court 
 one John Cran, who, by the way, took up the house and 
 lands formerly held by his father, who is said to have 
 died, also agreed with the officer of the court to take 
 charge of William, the son of Nicholas atte Slope, for 
 the said Nicholas, and apparently every other near 
 relative of the boy William had perished in the sickness. 
 
 In this same court of March 23rd also several law 
 cases are disposed of, for they had been settled by the 
 death of one or other or both of the parties. Thus, in 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 197 
 
 January, 1349, a claim had been laid, at the sitting of 
 the court, against one John Lager, for the return of some 
 cattle by three tenants, William, John, and Roger Riche- 
 man. At the March sitting of the court in due course 
 the case was called on. No plaintiffs, however, appeared, 
 and inquiry elicited the fact that all three had died in 
 the great pestilence. 
 
 The actual document which contains these particulars 
 has, moreover, a tale of its own to tell. The long entries 
 on these two skins of parchment are not all in the same 
 hand. Before the record of the heavy business done at 
 this court had been all transcribed, the clerk was changed. 
 The hand which had so long kept the rolls of these 
 Manor Courts ceases to write. What happened to him? 
 Did he too die? Of course nothing can be known for 
 certain, but it is not difficult to conjecture why another 
 at this very time takes up the writing of the Chedzoy 
 manor records. 1 
 
 Another glimpse of the desolate state to which the 
 country was generally reduced by this disastrous sick- 
 ness is afforded by the case of Hinton and Witham, the 
 two Somerset Carthusian houses. The King had en- 
 deavoured by every means in his power to restrain the 
 tenants, who survived the plague, from leaving their old 
 holdings and seeking for others where they could better 
 themselves. Not only were fines ordered to be inflicted 
 upon such labourers and tenants as endeavoured to take 
 advantage of the market rise in wages, but under simi- 
 lar penalties landowners were prohibited from giving 
 employment to them. That such a law must have 
 
 1 B. Mus. Add. Rolls 15,961-6. Perhaps the Richard Hammond 
 caftellanus who had a mill and six acres, and who is reported as 
 among the dead, may have been the scribe. 
 
198 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 proved hard in the case of those owning manors, in 
 which some or all of the tenants and labourers had died, 
 is obvious. It was this hardship which some years after 
 the epidemic, in 1354, made the Carthusians of Witham 
 plead for some mitigation of the royal decree. " Our be- 
 loved in Christ, the prior and brethren of the Carthusian 
 Order at Witham, in the county of Somerset," runs the 
 King's reply, "have petitioned us that since their said 
 house and all their lands and tenements thereto belong- 
 ing are within a close in the forest of Selwood, placed 
 far from every town, and they possess no domain beyond 
 the said close, they have nothing to support the prior 
 and his brethren," (and this) " both because almost all 
 their servants and retainers died in the last pestilence, 
 and because by reason of a command lately made by us 
 and our Parliament, in which inter alia it is ordered that 
 servants should not leave their villages and parishes in 
 which they dwelt, as long as they could be hired there, 
 they have been brought to great need on account of the 
 want of servants and labourers. Further, that a large 
 part of their lands (for this same reason) remain waste 
 and untilled, and the corn in the rest of their estate, 
 which had been sown at the time of harvest, had miser- 
 ably rotted as it could not be gathered for lack of 
 reapers. By this they have been brought into great and 
 manifest poverty." Looking at the circumstances, there- 
 fore, the King permits them for the future to engage 
 servants and workmen on reasonable wages above the 
 legal sum, provided that their time of service elsewhere 
 had expired. 1 
 
 The second instance is recorded in the following year, 
 1355, and has reference to difficulties springing from the 
 1 Rot. Pat., 28. Ed. Ill, pars 1, m. 20 (16th January, 1354). 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 199 
 
 same regulations as to the employment of labourers: 
 " The prior and brethren of the Carthusians of Hinton, 
 in the county of Somerset, have petitioned us," says the 
 King, " that seeing that they have no support except by 
 the tillage of their lands, and that the greatest part of 
 their estates, for want of workmen and servants from 
 the time of the last pestilence, have been unused and 
 still remain uncultivated, and that they cannot get any 
 labourers to work their lands/' (and further) " that as 
 many people and tenants were wont to weave the woollen 
 cloth for the clothes of the brethren from their wool, 
 and do other various services for them, now through 
 fear of our orders as to servants that they may not re- 
 ceive greater salaries and stipends from the said breth- 
 ren, do not dare to serve them as before, and so leave 
 their dwelling, so that the brethren cannot get cloth to 
 clothe themselves properly," they beg that these orders 
 may be relaxed in their regard. To which petition the 
 King assented, allowing the Carthusians of Hinton to 
 pay the wages they had been used to do. 1 
 
 The diocese of Exeter, comprising the two counties of 
 Devon and Cornwall, was stricken by the disease ap- 
 parently about the same time as the county of Somerset. 
 The institutions made by the Bishop of the diocese, in 
 January, 1349, number some 30, which shows that death 
 had already been busy among the clergy. The average 
 number of livings annually rendered vacant in the two 
 counties during the eight years previous to 1348 was 
 only 36. In the year 1349 the vacancies were 382, and 
 the number of appointments to vacant livings, in each of 
 the five months from March to July, was actually larger 
 than the previous yearly average. It would appear, 
 1 Rot. Pat., 29 Ed. Ill, pars 2, m. 4 (October 5th, 1355). 
 
200 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 therefore, that in 1349 some 346 vacancies may reason- 
 ably be ascribed to the prevailing sickness. 
 
 In looking over the lists of institutions it is evident 
 that the effect of sickness was felt for some years. It is 
 not until 1353 that the normal average is again reached. 
 The year following the epidemic the number of vacancies 
 filled up was 80, and even in 135 1 it still remained at the 
 high figure of 57. It is curious to note in these years 
 that numerous benefices lapsed to the Bishop. These 
 must have been vacant six months, at least, before the 
 dates when they were filled by Bishop Grandisson. 
 Sometimes, no doubt, patrons were dead, leaving no 
 heirs behind them. Sometimes, in all probability, the 
 patron could find no one to fill the cure. Further, the 
 number of resignations of benefices during this period 
 would appear to point to the fact that many livings were 
 now found to be too miserably poor to afford a bare 
 maintenance. 
 
 After the sickness was over here, as in other parts of 
 England, the desolation and distress is evidenced by 
 chance references in the inquisitions. Thus at Lydford, 
 a manor on Dartmoor, the King's escheator returns the 
 value of a mill at fifteen shillings, in place of the previous 
 value of double that amount, because " most of the ten- 
 ants, who used to grind their corn at it, have died in the 
 plague." It is the same at other places in the county, 
 and in one case 30 holdings are named as having fallen 
 into the hands of the lord of the manor. 1 
 
 A bundle of accounts for the Duchy of Lancaster 
 gives a good idea of the effect of the pestilence in Corn- 
 wall. The roll is for the year from Michaelmas, 1350, 
 and includes the accounts of several manors in the 
 1 R. O., Escheator's Accts., 3 ^-. 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 201 
 
 Deanery of Trigg, such as Helston, Tintagel, and others, 
 in the district about the river Camel. In one it is noted 
 that " this year there are no buyers ; " in another only 
 two youths pay poll tax, two more have not paid, as 
 they have been put in charge of some land, " and the 
 rest have died in the pestilence." In the same place 
 pasture, which usually let for $s. 4^., now, " because of 
 the pestilence," fetched only 2od.\ the holdings of five 
 tenants are named as in hand, as well as nine other tene- 
 ments and 214 acres of land. Again, in another place 
 the rent has diminished by £7 14s., because 14 holdings 
 and 102 acres are in hand, together with two fulling 
 mills; on the other hand credit is given for Ss. lid., the 
 value of the goods and chattels of the natives of the 
 manor who have died. And so the roll proceeds through 
 the accounts of some twelve or fourteen manors, and 
 everywhere the same story of desolation appears. Be- 
 sides numerous holdings and hundreds of acres, repre- 
 sented as in hand and producing nothing, entire hamlets 
 are named as having been depopulated. The decay in 
 rent of one manor alone is set down at ^30 6s. ifd. 
 
 Attached to the account of Helston, in Trigg, is a 
 skin giving a list of goods and effects of different tenants 
 named which the lord Prince " occupied." There are 57 
 items in this list, which includes goods of all sorts, from 
 an article of female dress and a golden buckle to ploughs 
 and copper dishes; and the total value of the goods 
 which thus fell into the hands of the Black Prince, pre- 
 sumably by the death of his tenants without heirs, is 
 £16 iSs. $d. 
 
 At Tintagel it is noted that the " fifty shillings pre- 
 viously paid each year as stipend to the chaplain who 
 celebrated in the chapel, was not paid this year, be- 
 
202 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 cause no one would stay to minister there for the said 
 stipend." l 
 
 On the 29th May, 1350, the Black Prince, in view of 
 the great distress throughout the district, authorised his 
 officials to remit one-fourth part of the rents of the ten- 
 ants who were left, " for fear they should through pov- 
 erty depart from their holdings." 2 But John Tremayn, 
 the receiver of the revenues of the Prince in Cornwall, 
 states that even in the years 1352 and 1353, so far from 
 the estates there showing any recovery, they were in a 
 more deplorable state still. " For the said two years," he 
 relates, " he has not been able to let (the lands), nor to 
 raise or obtain anything from the said lands and tene- 
 ments, because the said tenements for the most part 
 have remained unoccupied, and the lands lain waste for 
 want of tenants (in the place of those) who died in the 
 mortal pestilence lately raging in the said county." 3 
 
 The loss of the episcopal registers of London for this 
 period makes it impossible to form any certain estimate 
 of the deaths in the ranks of the clergy of the capital 
 during the progress of the epidemic. London contained 
 within its walls, at that time, some 140 parish churches, 
 exclusive of the large number of religious houses 
 grouped together in its precincts. It is not unreasonable 
 to suppose that the mortality here was greater than else- 
 where. The population was closely packed in narrow 
 streets, the religious houses were exceptionally numer- 
 ous, and many of them, from their very situation, could 
 have had but very little space. It has already been seen 
 how fatal was the entry of the plague into any house, 
 
 1 R. O., Duchy of Lancaster Mins. Accts., No. 817. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 28 Ed. Ill (Trinity Term). 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 203 
 
 and consequently the proportion of deaths among the 
 regulars in London was doubtless greater than else- 
 where, whilst other causes must have also contributed to 
 raise the roll of death among the seculars. 1 
 
 The diocese of London included, with Middlesex, the 
 county of Essex and a portion of Hertfordshire. The 
 benefices of the county of Essex were in number some 
 265, and, like the actual institutions of the Middlesex 
 clergy for this period, those made in the county of Essex 
 are unknown. By July, 1349, the consequences of the 
 scourge clearly appear in the Inquisitiones post mortem 
 for this county. In one manor ten acres of meadow, 
 which had formerly been let for twenty shillings, this 
 year produced only half that amount, " because of the 
 common pestilence." For the same reason the arable land 
 had fallen in value, and a water-mill was idle, as there 
 was no miller. In another place a holding of 140 acres of 
 arable land was lying waste. " It cannot be let at all," says 
 the Inquisition, " but if it could be let, it would be worth 
 but eleven shillings and sixpence" only, in place of twenty- 
 three shillings. Here, too, pasture had fallen fifty per 
 cent, in value, and the wood that had been cut could not 
 be sold. So, too, at a manor near Maldon, in this county, 
 prices had fallen to half the previous value, and here the 
 additional information is given that, out of eleven native 
 tenants of the manor eight have died, and their tene- 
 ments and land were in hand. It is the same in every 
 
 1 Judging by the ordination lists in the London Registers, the 
 proportion of non-beneficed clergy was very large. In the twelve 
 years, from 1362 to 1374, Bishop Sudbury ordained to the priest- 
 hood 456 regulars and 809 non-beneficed clergy, against 237 
 beneficed priests. According to this proportion, the non-beneficed 
 would be six times as numerous as the beneficed. 
 
204 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 instance; rents had dropped, owing to the catastrophe, 
 to one-half. Arable, meadow, and pasture could be ob- 
 tained this year in Essex anywhere at such a reduction. 
 Other estate receipts had fallen equally. In one place 
 court fees were three in place of the usual six shillings, 
 and the manor dove-house brought in one instead of two 
 shillings. Water-mills were at a greater discount even 
 than this. One, at a place called Longford, was valued 
 at twenty shillings in place of sixty shillings, and even 
 at this reduction there is considerable doubt expressed 
 whether it will let at all. 
 
 Lastly, to take one more example in the county of 
 Essex. An inquiry was made as to the lands held by 
 the abbot of Colchester, who died on "August the 24th, 
 1349. In this it appears that, in the manors of East and 
 West Denny, 320 acres of arable land had fallen in 
 yearly value from four to two pence an acre; 14 acres 
 of meadow from iSd. to 8d.; the woods are valueless, 
 " because there are no buyers ; " and out of six native 
 tenants two are dead. In another place four out of six 
 have been carried off; in another, only two are left out 
 of seven. The rent of assize, it is declared, is only £4, 
 " and no more, because most of the land is in hand." l 
 
 No account has been preserved of the ravages of the 
 pestilence at the* abbey of Colchester ; but the death of 
 the abbot at this time makes it not unlikely that the 
 disease was as disastrous here as in other monasteries of 
 which there is preserved some record. It is known that 
 the town suffered considerably. " One of the most strik- 
 ing effects was," writes one author, " that wills to the 
 
 1 R. O., Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, file 165. Also ibid., file 
 166. Esch. Accts., ^; % 4 ^. Cf. also, Exch. Q. R. Mins. Accts., 
 Bundle 869, No. 9. 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 205 
 
 unusual number of in were enrolled at Colchester, 
 which at that time had the privilege of their probate and 
 enrolment." * 
 
 Talkeley, an alien priory in Essex, was reduced to 
 complete destitution. It was a cell of St. Valery's 
 Abbey, in Picardy, and when seized into the King's 
 hands on account of the war with France, the prior was 
 allowed to hold the lands on condition of his paying 
 £126 a year into the royal purse. Two years after the 
 plague had visited the county this payment had fallen 
 into arrears, " by reason of the pestilence lately raging, 
 from which time the said land remained uncultivated, 
 and the holdings, from which the revenues of the priory 
 were derived, remained unoccupied after the death of 
 the tenants. So terribly is it impoverished that it has 
 nothing upon which to live, and on account of the arrears 
 no one is willing to rent the lands and tenements of the 
 priory." In the end the King was compelled to forgive 
 the arrears of rent. 2 
 
 In the county of Hertfordshire 34 benefices were in 
 the diocese of London, whilst 22 more were under the 
 jurisdiction of no Bishop, but formed a peculiar of the 
 abbey of St. Alban's. In both of these consequently the 
 actual institutions made in the year of the great plague 
 are unknown. For the portion within the diocese of 
 Lincoln 27 institutions were made in the summer of 
 1349; so that probably at least 50 Hertfordshire clergy 
 died at this time. 
 
 The values of land and produce fell, as in other places. 
 In one instance, given in an Inquisitio post mortem into 
 the estate of Thomas Fitz-Eustace, the lands and tene- 
 
 1 T. Cromwell, Histoiy of Colchester^ i, p. 75. 
 
 2 R. O., Originalia Roll, 25 Ed. Ill, m. 10. 
 
206 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 ments, formerly valued at 67 shillings, were on the 3rd 
 of August this year, 1349, estimated to produce only 
 13 shillings, and this only "if the pasture can be let." 1 
 In the same way the Benedictine convent of Cheshunt, 
 in the county, is declared shortly afterwards " to be 
 oppressed with such poverty in these days that the com- 
 munity have not wherewith to live." 2 
 
 Again the destitution and poverty produced by the 
 pestilence is evidenced in the case of some lands in the 
 county, given by Sir Thomas Chedworth to Anglesey 
 priory in Cambridgeshire. It had been agreed, shortly 
 before the scourge had fallen upon England, that the 
 monastery should for this benefaction endow a chantry 
 of two secular priests. In 135 1, however, the state of 
 Anglesey priory, consequent on the fall in rents, made 
 this impossible, and the obligation was, through the 
 Bishop, readjusted, and the new document recites: "Care- 
 fully considering the great and ruinous miseries which 
 have occurred on account of the vast mortality of men 
 in these days, to wit, that lands lie uncultivated in in- 
 numerable places, not a few tenements daily decay and 
 are pulled down, rents and services cannot be levied, nor 
 the advantage thereof, generally had, can be received, 
 but a much smaller profit is obliged to be taken than 
 heretofore," the community shall now be bound to find 
 one priest only, whose stipend shall be five marks yearly 
 instead, of six as appointed, the value of the property 
 being thus estimated at less than half what it had been 
 before. 3 
 
 1 Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, file 165. 
 
 2 Rot. Pat., 25 Ed. Ill, pars 3, m. 4. 
 
 3 B. Mus. Cole MS., 5824, fol. 86. Cf. Dr. Cunningham, Growth 
 of English Industry and Cominerce^ p. 305. 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 207 
 
 In Buckinghamshire there were at the time between 
 180 and 200 benefices, in the county of Bedford some 
 120 and in Berkshire 162. From these a calculation of 
 the probable number of incumbents carried off in 1349 
 by the sickness may be made. 
 
 As some indication of the state to which these counties 
 were reduced by the scourge, a petition of the sheriff of 
 Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, made to the King 
 in 1353, may be here mentioned. He declared that it 
 was impossible then to pay into the Exchequer the old 
 sums for the farming of the hundreds, which had been 
 usual "before the late pestilence." Coming before the 
 King in February, 1353, he not only urged his petition, 
 but claimed to have £66 returned to him, which he had 
 paid over and above his receipts. For the years 135 1 and 
 1352 he had paid £132 for these rents, as had been usual 
 since 1 342 ; but he claimed that " from the time of the 
 pestilence the bailiffs of the hundreds had been unwill- 
 ing to take them on such terms." An inquiry by a jury 
 was held in both counties, and it was declared "that 
 since 135 1 the bailiffs of the hundreds had been able 
 to obtain nothing for certain — except what they could 
 get by extortion — from the county. Further, that the 
 inhabitants of the said county were now so diminished 
 and impoverished that the bailiffs were able to get 
 nothing for the farms in that year, 1 35 1." In the same 
 way also John Chastiloun, the sheriff, had received 
 nothing whatever for his office. In the end the sum 
 claimed was allowed. 1 
 
 In the Canterbury portion of the county of Kent there 
 were some 280 benefices, which number may form the 
 
 1 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 27 Ed. Ill (Hilary term), 
 m. 7. 
 
208 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 basis for a calculation of the death roll. The condition 
 to which this portion of England was reduced may be 
 estimated from one or two examples. In 1352 the 
 prioress and nuns of the house of St. James' outside 
 Canterbury were allowed to be free from the tax of a 
 fifteenth granted to the King, because they were re- 
 duced to such destitution that they had nothing beyond 
 what was necessary to support them. 1 Even the Cathe- 
 dral priory of Christchurch itself had to plead poverty. 
 About 1350 the monks addressed petitions to the Bishop 
 of Rochester asking him to give them the church of 
 Westerham " to help them to maintain their traditional 
 hospitality." They say that " by the great pestilence 
 affecting man and beast," they are unable to do this, and 
 as arguments to induce the Bishop to allow this impro- 
 priation, they state that they have lost 257 oxen, 511 
 cows, and 4,585 sheep, worth together £792 12s. 6d. 
 Further they state that " 1,212 acres of land, formerly 
 profitable, are inundated by the sea," apparently from 
 want of labourers to maintain the sea walls. 2 
 
 The neighbouring county of Sussex, at the time of the 
 appearance of the disease, counted some 320 benefices. 
 From the Patent rolls it appears that in 1349 the King 
 presented to as many as 26 livings in the county; 
 amongst these ho less than five were at Hastings, at All 
 Saints', St. Clement's, St. Leonards, and two at the Free 
 Chapel. 3 
 
 In Hampshire, including the Isle of Wight, the aver- 
 
 1 Rot. Claus., 26 Ed. Ill, m. 7. 
 
 2 Hist. MSS. Comm., Fifth Report, p. 444. These lands were 
 apparently the Appledore Marshes, which subsequently cost the 
 monastery ^350 to reclaim. 
 
 3 Sussex A rchceological Society, vol. xxi, pp. 44, seqq. 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 209 
 
 age annual number of appointments to benefices for 
 three years previous to the pestilence was 21; in 1349 no 
 fewer than 228 institutions are registered, so that it may 
 fairly be said that over 200 beneficed clergy were carried 
 off by the sickness. 
 
 In the county of Surrey the total number of institu- 
 tions in 1349 was as high as 92, against a previous aver- 
 age of a little over nine yearly, so that here, as in Hants, 
 the number of vacancies of livings was this year in- 
 creased tenfold. It may fairly be argued that of the 
 number 92, some 80, at least, of the vacancies were 
 caused by the epidemic. Several examples have already 
 been given of the havoc wrought by the epidemic in 
 religious houses in which it had effected an entrance. 
 Where the head of a community was carried off, it is 
 practically certain many of the members also would 
 have perished, and it can be doubted by no one who ex- 
 amines the facts that the pestilence was not only terrible 
 at the time, but had a lasting and permanent effect 
 upon the state of the monastic houses. This point may 
 be illustrated by some of the monasteries of the diocese 
 of Winchester. 
 
 In the city itself the prior of St. Swithun's and the 
 abbess of St. Mary's Benedictine convent both died, and 
 there is evidence that a large proportion of both these 
 communities must have perished at the same time, as well 
 as many at the abbey of Hyde. To take the cathedral 
 priory of St. Swithun's first. In 1325, four and twenty 
 years before the great mortality, the monks in the house 
 were 64 in number. 1 Of these the 12 juniors on the list 
 had not at that time received the subdiaconate. The 
 34th in order in the community had been ordained 
 1 Reg. Pontissera, fol. 143. 
 P 
 
210 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 deacon on December. 19th, 13 10, and all the thirty be- 
 low him were his juniors. It is fair to consider that 
 about 60 was the normal number previous to the year 
 1349. 1 After that date they were reduced to a number 
 which varied between 35 and 40. In 1387 William of 
 Wykeham exhorted the community to use every effort 
 to get up their strength to the original 60 members; 2 
 but notwithstanding all their endeavours they were on 
 Wykeham's death, in A.D. 1404, only 42. At Bishop 
 Wayneflete's election, in 1447, there were only 39 
 monks; three years later only 35; and in A.D. 1487 
 their number had fallen to 30, at which figure it re- 
 mained till the final dissolution of the house in the reign 
 of Henry VIII. 3 
 
 1 This may be considered the number in the previous century 
 from the Annates de Wintonia. 
 
 2 Reg. Wykeham, ii, fol. 226. 
 
 3 The following table gives the number of monks belonging to 
 Winchester Cathedral Priory at the annexed dates : 
 
 Date. Occasion. Number. 
 
 A.D. 1260 Episcopal Election 62 
 
 A.D. 1325 Living in the Priory on October 
 
 9th 64 
 
 A.D. 1404 Episcopal Election 42 
 
 A.D. 1416-17 On Chamberlain's Rolls ... 39 and 2 juniors at 
 
 schools 
 A.D. 1422-3 On Chamberlain's Rolls ... 29 to 32 and 8 
 
 juniors at schools. 
 A.D. 1427-8 On Chamberlain's Rolls . . . 35 to 36 
 A.D. 1447 Episcopal Election on the death 
 
 of Cardinal Beaufort . . . 39 
 
 A.D. 1450 Election of Prior 35 
 
 a.d. 1468 Episcopal Election 30 and 2 or 3 at 
 
 Oxford 
 
 A.D. 1498 Election of Prior 31 
 
 A.D. 1524 Election of Prior 30 (none below sub- 
 deacons named) 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 211 
 
 The neighbouring abbey of Hyde, a house of con- 
 siderable importance, with a community of probably 
 between thirty and forty monks, a century later had 
 fallen to only twenty. In 1488 it had risen to twenty- 
 four, and eight of these had joined within the previous 
 three years. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 in 1509, the community again consisted of twenty; but 
 on the eve of the final destruction of the abbey there are 
 some signs of a recovery, the house then consisting of 
 twenty-six members, four of whom were novices. So 
 impoverished was the house by the consequences of the 
 great mortality that in 1352 the community were forced 
 in order " to avoid," as they say, " the final destruction 
 of their house," and " on account of their pitiful poverty 
 and want, to relieve their absolute necessity," to sur- 
 render their possessions into the hands of Bishop 
 Edyndon. 1 
 
 Financial difficulties also overwhelmed and nearly 
 brought to ruin the Benedictine Convent of St. Mary's, 
 which was reduced to about one half their former num- 
 ber. To the same generous benefactor, Bishop Edyndon, 
 they were indebted for their escape from extinction. In 
 fact, it would appear that at this time many, if not most, 
 of the religious houses of the diocese were protected and 
 supported by the liberality of the Bishop and his rela- 
 tives, whom he interested in the work of preserving 
 from threatened destruction these monastic establish- 
 ments. In the document by which the nuns of St. 
 Mary's acknowledge Bishop Edyndon as their second 
 founder, they say that " he counted it a pious and 
 pleasing thing mercifully to come to their assistance 
 when overwhelmed by poverty, and when, in these days, 
 1 Harl. MS., 1761, f. 20. 
 
212 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 evil doing was on the increase and the world was growing 
 worse, they were brought to the necessity of secret beg- 
 ging. It was at such a time that the same father, with 
 the eye of compassion, seeing that from the beginning 
 our monastery was slenderly provided with lands and 
 possessions, and that now we and our house, by the bar- 
 renness of our land, by the destruction of our woods, and 
 by the diminution or taking away from the monastery 
 of due and appointed rents, because of the dearth of 
 tenants carried off by the unheard-of and unwonted 
 pestilence," came to our assistance to avert our entire 
 undoing. 1 
 
 Six months later the nuns of Romsey, in almost the 
 same words, acknowledged their indebtedness to the 
 Bishop. 2 Here the results of the pestilence upon the 
 convent, as regards numbers, are even more remarkable 
 than in the instances already given. At the election of 
 an abbess in A.D. 1333 there were present to record their 
 votes 90 nuns. Early in May, 1349 — that is only 16 
 years later — the abbess died, for the royal assent was 
 given to the election of her successor, Joan Gerneys, on 
 May 7th of that year. 3 What happened to the com- 
 munity can be gathered by the fact that in 1478 their 
 number is found reduced to 18, and they never rose 
 above 25 until their final suppression. 
 
 The various bodies of friars must have suffered quite 
 as severely as the rest of the clergy. It is, however, very 
 difficult to obtain any definite information about these 
 mendicant orders; but some slight indication of the 
 dearth of members they must have experienced at this 
 
 1 Rot. Claus., 28 Ed. Ill, m. 3d (dated February 6th, 1353). 
 
 2 Ibid., m. 6 (July 8th). 
 
 3 Rot. Pat, 23 Ed. Ill, pars 1% m. 13. 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 213 
 
 period in common with all other bodies in England, ec- 
 clesiastical and lay, is to be found in the episcopal re- 
 gisters of the period. In the diocese of Winchester, for 
 example, the Augustinians had only one convent, at 
 Winchester. From September, 1346, to June, 1348, they 
 presented four subjects for ordination to the priest- 
 hood; from that time till Bishop Edyndon's death, in 
 October, 1366, only two more were ordained, both on 
 22nd December, 1358. The Friars Minor had two 
 houses, one at Winchester, the other at Southampton ; 
 for these, in 1 347 and 1 348, three priests were ordained. 
 From that time till the 21st of December, 1359, no more 
 received orders. Then two were made priests; but no 
 further ordinations are recorded until after Bishop Edyn- 
 don's death. The same extraordinary want of subjects 
 appears in the case of the Carmelites. With them, be- 
 tween 1346 arid 1348, eleven subjects received the priest- 
 hood. The next Carmelite ordained was in December, 
 1357, and only three in all were made priests between 
 the great plague and the close of the year 1366. The 
 Dominicans also had only one priest ordained in ten 
 years, that is in the period from March, 1 349, to Decem- 
 ber, 1359. 
 
 Owing to the mortality having swept away so many 
 of their tenants, and other consequences traceable to the 
 mortality, the priory of St. Swithun's became heavily 
 involved in debt. On the 31st of December, 1352, 
 Bishop Edyndon determined to make a careful inquiry 
 into the state of his cathedral monastery, and wrote to 
 that effect to the prior and convent. He says in his let- 
 ter that he has heard how the temporalities have suffered 
 severely "in these days, both by the deaths of tenants of 
 the church, from which there has come a grave diminu- 
 
214 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 tion of rent and services, and from various other causes 
 unknown, and that it is burdened with excessive debts." 
 As he himself was occupied in the King's service, he pro- 
 poses to send some officers to inquire into these matters, 
 and begs the monks to assist them in every way. He 
 further says that it is reported to him " that in this our 
 church the former fervour of devotion in the divine ser- 
 vice and regular observance has grown lukewarm ; " that 
 both the monastery and out-buildings are falling to 
 ruins ; that " guests are not received there so honourably 
 as before; on which account we wonder not a little," he 
 continues, " and are troubled the more because so far 
 you have not informed us " of these things. He appoints 
 January 21st, 1353, for the beginning of the inquiry, and 
 in a second document names three priests, including a 
 canon of the diocese of Sarum and the rector of Froyle, 
 in Hampshire, to hold it 1 
 
 Shortly after this, on January 14th, 1353, Bishop Edyn- 
 don ordered a similar inquiry to be made as to the state 
 of Christchurch priory, which was also heavily in debt. 2 
 That the house had been seriously diminished in mem- 
 bers seems more than probable in view of the fact that 
 from the date of the plague till the beginning of 1366 no 
 subject of the house was ordained priest. 
 
 The hospital* of Sandown, in Surrey, was left, as be- 
 fore said, without a single inmate. On June 1st, 1349, the 
 Bishop, in giving it into the care of a priest named 
 William de Coleton, says : " Since all and everyone of 
 the brethren of the Hospital of the blessed Mary Mag- 
 dalen of Sandown, in our diocese, to whom on a vacancy 
 of the office of prior, or guardian, the election belonged, 
 are dead in the mortality of men raging in the kingdom 
 1 Reg. Edyndon, ii, ff. 27b, 28. 2 Ibid., fol. 28. 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 215 
 
 of England, none of the brethren being left, the said 
 hospital is destitute both of head and members." l 
 
 The same state of financial ruin is known to have 
 existed in the case of Shireborne priory. On 8th June, 
 1350, Bishop Edyndon wrote to the abbot and convent 
 of St. Vigor of Cerisy saying that Shireborne, which was 
 said to be a dependency of the abbey, was fallen into 
 great poverty. " The oblations of sacrifices had ceased, 
 and from very hunger the devotion of priests was grown 
 tepid ; the buildings were falling to ruins, and its fruitful 
 fields, now that the labourers were carried off, were 
 barren." The priory could not hope, he considered, to 
 recover " in their days," and so, with the consent of the 
 patron, he requested the abbot to recall four of the monks 
 to the abbey, the priory then containing the superior and 
 seven religious. The same day a letter was sent to the 
 prior of Shireborne directing that this should be at once 
 carried out. 2 
 
 One fact will be sufficient to show the state to which 
 the diocese was reduced after the plague had passed. 
 On the 9th of April, 1350, the Bishop issued a general 
 admonition to his clergy as to residence on their cures. 
 It had been reported to him, he says, that some priests, 
 to whom the cure of souls had been committed, "neglect- 
 ing, with danger to many souls," this charge, " have most 
 shamefully absented themselves from their churches," so 
 that " even the divine sacrifices," for which these churches 
 had been built and adorned, " had been left off." The 
 sacred buildings were, he says, " left to birds and beasts," 
 and they neither kept the church in repair nor repaired 
 what was falling to ruins, " on which account the general 
 state of the churches is one of ruin." He consequently 
 1 Reg. Edyndon, i, fol. 49b. 2 Ibid., ii, fol. 23b. 
 
216 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 orders all priests to return to their cures within a month, 
 or to get proper and fitting substitutes. 1 
 
 In the June of the same year (1350) a special moni- 
 tion was issued to William Elyot, rector of a church near 
 Basingstoke, to return at once to his living, as the church 
 had been left without service. A month later, on the 
 10th of July, 1350, the Bishop published a joint letter of 
 the Archbishop and Bishops ordering priests to serve 
 the churches at the previous stipends, and he adds that 
 every parish church must be contented with one chaplain 
 only, " until those parish and prebendal churches and 
 chapels which are now, or may hereafter be, unserved, be 
 properly supplied with chaplains. 2 
 
 There are many indications of the misery and suffer- 
 ing to which the people generally were reduced in these 
 parts. Thus, for example, the King, whose compassion 
 and tenderness, by the way, are very rarely manifested, 
 remits the tax of the fifteenth due to him in the case of 
 his tenants in the Isle of Wight. This he does, " taking 
 into account the divers burdens which " these tenants 
 have borne, " for the men and tenants of our manors now 
 dead and whose lands and tenements by their deaths 
 have come into our hands." 3 A glance at the institutions 
 to benefices in the island will show that at one time 
 or another during the prevalence of the plague nearly 
 every living became vacant, and some more than once. 
 
 The town of Portsmouth, also, was forced to plead 
 poverty, and ask the remission of a tax of £\2 12s. 2d., 
 because " by the attacks of our enemies the French, 
 fires, and other adverse chances the inhabitants were 
 
 Reg. Edyndon, ii, fol. 22b. 
 
 Ibid., ii, fol. 23b. 
 
 Rot. Claus., 27 Ed. Ill, m. 19. 
 

 THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 217 
 
 very much depressed." x That the " other adverse 
 chances " refers to the desolation caused by the pestilence 
 appears from another grant, of relief for eight years, 
 made to the town the previous year, because it was so 
 impoverished " both by the pestilence and by the burn- 
 ing and destruction of the place by our enemies." 2 
 
 The neighbouring island of Hayling was in even a 
 worse plight after the pestilence. " The inhabitants of 
 Stoke, Eaststoke, Northwood, Southwood, Mengham, 
 Weston, and Hayling, in the island of Hayling, have 
 shown to us," says the King, in 1352, "that they are 
 greatly impoverished by expenses and burdens for the 
 defence of the said island against the attacks of the 
 French, and by the great wasting of their lands by in- 
 road of the sea, as well as by the abandonment of the 
 island by some who were wont to bear the burdens of 
 the said island. Those consequently who are left would 
 have to pay more than double the usual tax were it 
 now levied. Moreover since the greatest part of the said 
 population died whilst the plague was raging, now, 
 through the dearth of servants and labourers, the in- 
 habitants are oppressed and daily are falling most 
 miserably into greater poverty. Taking into account all 
 this, the King orders the collector of taxes for South- 
 ampton not to require the old amount, but to be content 
 with only £6 \$s. J\d? Three years later Hayling 
 priory, which as one of the alien houses then in the 
 King's hands had been paying a large rent into the 
 royal exchequer in place of sending it over to their 
 foreign mother house, was relieved by the King of the 
 
 1 Rot. Claus., 26 Ed. Ill, m. 12. 
 
 2 Ibid., 25. Ed. Ill, m. 21. 
 
 3 Originalia Roll, 29 Ed. Ill, m. 8. 
 
218 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 payment of £$?, as it was " much oppressed in these 
 days." 1 
 
 Even in Winchester difficulties as to taxation, at this 
 time, led to many people leaving the city. Citizens, as 
 the document relating to it declares, who have long lived 
 there, " because of the taxation and other burdens now 
 pressing on them, are leaving the said city with the pro- 
 perty they have made in the place, so as not to con- 
 tribute to the said taxes. And they, betaking them- 
 selves to other localities in the county, are leaving the 
 said city desolate and without inhabitants, to our (i.e., 
 the King's) great hurt." 2 
 
 An Inquisitio post mortem for a Hampshire manor, 
 taken in 1350, shows the fall in prices of lands and pro- 
 duce after the mortality. Eighty acres of arable land, 
 which in normal times had been let for two marks 
 (13^. 4*/.), now produced only 6s. Sd, or just one-half, 
 being at the rent of id. per acre in place of two pence. 
 The same fall is to be seen in the rent of meadow land, 
 which let now at 6d. instead of a shilling, and in the 
 value of woods, 20 acres fetching only 20d., in the place 
 of double that amount, which it used to produce. 3 
 
 In Surrey it is the same story. In the inquiry made 
 as to the lands of William de Hastings, on the 12th 
 March, 1349, it fs declared that the tenements let on the 
 manor produce only thirty-six shillings because all the 
 tenants but ten are dead, " and the other houses stand 
 and remain empty for want of tenants, and so are of no 
 value this year." In another case a water-mill is held by 
 
 1 Rot. 
 pars 1, m. 6. 
 
 2 Rot. Pat., 26 Ed. Ill, pars i a , m. 28d. 
 
 3 Escheator's Inq. p. m., series i, file 90. 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 219 
 
 the jury to be worthless because " all the tenants who 
 used it were dead." It had remained empty and no one 
 could be found to rent it. Of the land, 300 acres cannot 
 be let. The court of the manor produced nothing, be- 
 cause all are dead, and there are no receipts from the 
 free tenants, which used to amount to £6 a year, " be- 
 cause almost all the tenants on the said manor are dead, 
 and their tenements remain empty for want of some to 
 rent them." 1 
 
 In the absence of any definite information about the 
 institutions of clergy in the county of Gloucester, it may 
 be roughly estimated, from the number of benefices, that 
 between 160 and 170 beneficed clergy in this district 
 perished in the epidemic. Like other religious houses, 
 the abbey of Winchcombe was impoverished by the con- 
 sequences of the great mortality, and some years after 
 it was unable to support its community and meet its 
 liabilities. " By defect in past administration," as the 
 document puts it, " it is burdened with great debt, and 
 its state, from various causes, is so miserably im- 
 poverished that it is necessary to place the custody of 
 the temporalities in the hands of a commission " ap- 
 pointed by the crown. 2 
 
 That this is no exaggerated view of the difficulties 
 which beset the landed proprietors at the time, and that 
 the origin of the misery must be sought for in the great 
 pestilence, a passage in Smyth's Lives of the Berkeleys 
 may help to show: " In the 23rd of this King," he writes, 
 "so great was the plague within this lord's manor of 
 Hame (in Gloucestershire) that so many workfolks as 
 amounted to 1,144 days' work were hired to gather in 
 
 1 Escheator's Inq..p. m., 22-23 Ed. Ill, series i, file 64. 
 
 2 Rot. Pat, 27 Ed. Ill, m. 17. 
 
220 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 the corn of that manor alone, as by their deaths fell into 
 the lord's hands, or else were forsaken by them." l 
 
 The priory of Lanthony, near Gloucester, was brought 
 to such straits that the community were forced to apply 
 to the Bishop of Hereford to grant them one of the 
 benefices in his diocese. They have been, they say, so 
 situated on the high road as to be obliged to give great 
 hospitality at all times to rich and poor. Their property, 
 in great part, was in Ireland, and it had been much 
 diminished in value by the state of the country. The 
 house was at this time, October 15th, 1351, so im- 
 poverished by this and by a great fire, that, without aid, 
 they could not keep up their charity. For " the rents of 
 the priory and the services, which the tenants and 
 natives, or serfs of the said house living on their domain, 
 have been wont yearly, and even daily, to pay and per- 
 form for the religious serving God there, now, through 
 the pestilence and unwonted mortality by which the 
 people of the kingdom of England have been afflicted, 
 and, as is known, almost blotted out, are for the greater 
 part irreparably lost." 2 
 
 Some few years after the plague had passed an in- 
 quisition held at Gloucester as to the state of the priory 
 of Horsleigh reveals the fact that a great number of the 
 tenants on the estate had died. Horsleigh was at that 
 period a cell of the priory of Bruton, in Somerset, and 
 the question before the jury at this inquiry was as to the 
 dilapidations caused by the prior or minister of the 
 dependent cell. They first found that all revenues from 
 the estates at Horsleigh, after a reasonable amount had 
 been allowed for the support of the prior and his brethren 
 
 1 Ed. Bristol and Gloucester Archaeological Society, i, 307. 
 
 2 Reg. Heref. Trileck., fol. 102, 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 221 
 
 living in the cell, should be paid to the head house of 
 Bruton. This the then prior, one Henry de Lyle, had 
 not done. He had, moreover, dissipated the goods of his 
 house by cutting down timber and underwood and sell- 
 ing cattle. Amongst the rest he is declared to have sold 
 " eighty oxen and cows which had come to the house as 
 mortuaries or heriots of tenants who had died in the 
 great pestilence." J 
 
 Dugdale, in his history of the county, prints some 175 
 lists of incumbents of Warwickshire livings. In 76 cases 
 there is noted a change at this period, and in several 
 instances more than once is a new incumbent appointed 
 to a living within a short period, so that in all there are 
 some 93 institutions recorded. 
 
 A glimpse of the state to which the county generally 
 was reduced is afforded by some Inquisitiones post 
 mortem. As soon after the plague as 1350, at Wappen- 
 bury in Warwickshire, three houses, three cottages, and 
 20 acres of land are described as valueless and lying 
 vacant, because of the pestilence late past. At Alcester, 
 on the estate of a man who died June 20th, 1349, rents 
 are not received and tenements are in hand, " for the 
 most part, through the death of the holders." Again, at 
 Wilmacott, an inquiry was held as to the property of 
 Elizabeth, daughter of John de Wyncote, who died 10th 
 August, 1349. It is declared that the mother died on 
 10th June, and the daughter two months later, whilst the 
 great part of the land is in the hand of the owner " by 
 the death of the tenants in this present pestilence." 2 
 
 1 Bruton Chartulary, f. 121b. Prior Henry appears to have spent 
 the money thus raised in the expense of a journey to Rome and 
 Venice and back. The inquiry was held in June, 29 Ed. III. 
 
 2 Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, file 240. 
 
222 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 On the estate of one who died in December, 1350, it 
 is certified that there used to be nine villeins, each farm- 
 ing half a virgate of land, for which they paid eight 
 shillings a year. Five of these had died, and their land 
 since had been lying idle and uncultivated. On another 
 portion of the same, two out of four tenants, who had six 
 acres of land each, have been carried off. 
 
 On the manor of Whitchurch, owned by Margaret de 
 la Beche, who died in the October of the plague year, 
 1349, it is noted that there are no court fees, as all the 
 tenements are in hand. And in May, 1351, of another 
 Oxfordshire estate it is said that eight claimants out of 
 eighteen were dead, and no one was forthcoming to take 
 the land ; whilst on the same, out of six native tenants, 
 who had each paid 14 shillings, three are gone, and their 
 land has since remained untilled. 1 
 
 One or two examples may be given of the difficulties 
 subsequently experienced by the religious houses. The 
 year after the plague had passed the Cistercian abbey of 
 Bruerne was forced to seek the King's protection against 
 the royal provisors and the quartering of royal servants 
 upon them. This Edward granted, " because it was in 
 such a bad state, that otherwise in a short time there 
 would follow the total destruction of the said abbey, and 
 the dispersal of the monks." 2 Even this protection, 
 however, did not entirely mend matters, for three years 
 later, "to avoid total ruin," the custody of the abbey was 
 handed over to three commissioners." 3 
 
 St. Frideswide's, Oxford, was in much the same case. 
 In May, 1349, as we may suppose from the death of the 
 
 1 Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, file 103. 
 
 2 Rot. Pat., 25 Ed. Ill, pars i a , m. 16. 
 
 3 Ibid., 28 Ed. Ill, m. 10. 
 
THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY 223 
 
 superior during the time of the epidemic at Oxford, the 
 plague had visited the monastery, and had, in all prob- 
 ability, carried off many of its inmates. The deaths of 
 many of its tenants, moreover, must have gravely affected 
 its financial condition, and three years later it was found 
 necessary to put the temporalities in the hands of a 
 commission. " By want of good government," it is said, 
 " and through casual misfortunes, coming upon the said 
 priory, both because of the debts by which it is much 
 embarrassed, and for other causes," it is reduced to such 
 a state that it might easily lead to the dispersal of the 
 canons and the total destruction of the house. 1 
 
 Of the tenants of one manor belonging to a religious 
 house in the county of Oxford, it is said " that in the 
 time of the mortality of men or the pestilence, which was 
 in the year 1349, there hardly remained two tenants on 
 the said manor. These would have left had not brother 
 Nicholas de Lipton, then abbot, made new agreements 
 with these and other incoming tenants." 2 
 
 To take but two instances more in other parts of 
 England. 
 
 The year after the plague was over, in 135 1, the abbey 
 of Barlings had to plead poverty and to beg for the re- 
 mission of a tax. It is true, they urge the building of 
 their new church, but likewise declare that they have 
 been " impoverished by many other causes." An In- 
 quisitio post mortem gives the same picture. Two caru- 
 cates of land, for example, brought in only forty shil- 
 lings, on account of the pestilence and general poverty 
 and deaths of the tenants. " For a similar reason," a 
 mill, which used to produce £2 in rent, now yields 
 
 1 Rot. Pat, 28 Ed. III,m. 3. 
 
 2 Quoted in Saturday Review, Jan. 16, 1886, "The Manor." 
 
224 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 nothing; and so on throughout every particular of the 
 large estate. 
 
 In this part of the country, too, the King's officer ex- 
 perienced the greatest difficulties in getting his dues, 
 and the Escheator pleads, in mitigation of a small re- 
 turn, that during the whole of 1350 tenements have been 
 standing empty, in Gayton, near Towcester, in Weedon, 
 in Weston, and in Morton, ten miles from Brackley, as 
 tenants cannot be found " by reason of the mortality." 
 He further excuses himself for not levying on the lands 
 and goods of the people " on account of the pestilence." 1 
 
 1 R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 25 Ed. III. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY 
 
 IT will be evident to all who have followed the sum- 
 mary of the history of the epidemic of 1349, given in 
 the preceding chapters, that throughout England the 
 mortality must have been very great. Those who, having 
 examined the records themselves, have the best right to 
 form an opinion, are practically unanimous in consider- 
 ing that the disease swept away fully one-half of the 
 entire population of England and Wales. 
 
 But whilst it is easy enough to state in general terms 
 the proportion of the entire population which probably 
 perished in the epidemic, any attempt to give even ap- 
 proximate numbers is attended with the greatest diffi- 
 culty and can hardly be satisfactory. At present we do 
 not possess data sufficient to enable us to form the basis 
 of any calculation worthy of the name. From the Sub- 
 sidy Roll of 1377 — or some 27 years after the great 
 mortality — it has been estimated that the population at 
 the close of the reign of Edward III was about 2,350,000 
 in England and Wales. The intervening years were 
 marked by several more or less severe outbreaks of 
 Eastern plague; and one year, 1361, would have been 
 accounted most calamitous had not the memory of the 
 fatal year 1349 somewhat overshadowed it. At the 
 same time the French war continued to tax the strength 
 of the country and levy its tithe upon the lives of Eng- 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 lishmen. It may consequently be believed that the 
 losses during the thirty years which followed the plague 
 of 1349 would be sufficient to prevent any actual increase 
 of the population, and that somewhere about two and a 
 half millions of people were left in the country after the 
 epidemic had ceased. If this be so, it is probable that 
 previous to the mortality the entire population of the 
 country consisted of from four to five millions, half of 
 whom perished in the fatal year. 1 
 
 On the other hand, whilst apparently allowing that 
 about one-half of the population perished, so eminent an 
 authority as the late Professor Thorold Rogers held that 
 the population of England in 1349 could hardly have 
 been greater than two-and-a-half millions, and "prob- 
 ably was not more than two millions." 2 The most recent 
 authority, Dr. Cunningham, thinks that " the results (i.e., 
 of an inquiry into the number of the population) which 
 are of a somewhat negative character, may be stated as 
 follows : (i.) that the population was pretty nearly 
 stationary at over two millions from 1377 to theTudors; 
 (ii.) that circumstances did not favour rapid increase of 
 population between 1350 and 1377; (iii.) that the coun- 
 try was not incapable of sustaining a much larger 
 population in the earlier part of Edward Ill's reign than 
 it could maintain in the time of Henry VI." 3 Thus the 
 estimate first given, of the population previous to the 
 Black Death, may be taken as substantially the same as 
 
 1 Cf T. Amyot, Population of English Cities, temp. Ed. III. 
 {Archaeologia, vol. xx, pp. 524-531). 
 
 2 E?igland before and after the Black Death {Fortnightly Review, 
 vol. viii, p. 191). 
 
 3 W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, 
 p. 304. 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 227 
 
 that adopted by Dr. Cunningham. Mr. Thorold Rogers, 
 on the other hand, without entering into the question of 
 figures, views the problem altogether from the stand- 
 point of the land, the cultivated portion of which he 
 considers incapable of supporting a larger population 
 than he names. 
 
 In the country at large the most striking and im- 
 mediate effect of the mortality was to bring about 
 nothing less than a complete social revolution. Every- 
 where, although the well-to-do people were not exempt 
 from the contagion, it was the poor who were the chief 
 sufferers. " It is well known," wrote the late Professor 
 Thorold Rogers, " that the Black Death, in England at 
 least, spared the rich and took the poor. And no won- 
 der. Living as the peasantry did in close, unclean huts, 
 with no rooms above ground, without windows, artificial 
 light, soap, linen; ignorant of certain vegetables, con- 
 strained to live half the year on salt meat; scurvy, 
 leprosy, and other diseases, which are engendered by 
 hard living and the neglect of every sanitary precaution, 
 were endemic among the population. 1 
 
 The obvious and undoubted effect of the great mor- 
 tality among the working classes was to put a premium 
 upon the services of those that survived. From all parts 
 of England comes the same cry for workers to gather in 
 the harvests, to till the ground, and to guard the cattle. 
 For years the same demands are re-echoed until the 
 
 1 Fortnightly Review \ viii, p. 192. This is, of course, true, but 
 without qualification might give the reader a false impression as to 
 the condition of the English peasant in the Middle Ages. Most of 
 what Mr. Thorold Rogers says is applicable to all classes of society. 
 Dr. Cunningham {Growth of Eiiglish Industry and Commerce, 
 p. 275) takes a truer view: "Life is more than meat, and though 
 badly housed the ordinary villager was better fed and amused." 
 
228 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 landowners learnt from experience that the old methods 
 of cultivation, and the old tenures of land, had been 
 rendered impossible by the great scourge that had swept 
 over the land. 
 
 It was a hard time for the landowners, who up to this 
 had had it, roughly speaking, all their own way. With 
 rents falling to half their value, with thousands of acres 
 of land lying untilled and valueless, with cottages, mills 
 and houses without tenants, and orchards, gardens, and 
 fields waste and desolate, there came a corresponding 
 rise in the prices of commodities. Everything that the 
 landowner had to buy rose at once, as Professor Thorold 
 Rogers pointed out, " 50, 100, and even 200 per cent." 
 Iron, salt, and clothing doubled in value, and fish — and 
 in particular herrings, which formed so considerable a 
 part of the food of that generation — became dear be- 
 yond the reach of the multitude. " At that time," writes 
 William Dene, the contemporary monk of Rochester, 
 " there was such a dearth and want of fish that people 
 were obliged to eat meat on the Wednesdays, and a 
 command was issued that four herrings should be sold 
 for a penny. But in Lent there was still such a want of 
 fish that many, who had been wont to live well, had to 
 content themselves with bread and potage." l 
 
 Then that which had been specially the scourge of the 
 people at large began to be looked upon as likely to 
 prove a blessing in disguise. The landowner's need was 
 recognised as the labourers' opportunity, upon which 
 they were not slow to seize. Wages everywhere rose to 
 double the previous rate and more. In vain did the 
 King and Council strive to prevent this by legislation, 
 forbidding either the labourer to demand, or the master 
 1 B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, B. v, fol. 99b. 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 229 
 
 to pay, more than the previous wage fer work done. 
 From the first the Act was inoperative, and the constant 
 repetition of the royal commands, addressed to all parts 
 of the country, as well as the frequent complaints of 
 non-compliance with the regulations, are evidence, even 
 if none other existed, of the futility of the legislation. 
 Even when the King, taking into consideration "that 
 many towns and hamlets, both through the pestilence 
 and other causes, are so impoverished, and that many 
 others are absolutely desolate," granted, if only the 
 money were paid him in three months, that the fines 
 levied on servants and others for demanding excessive 
 wages, and on masters for giving them, might be allowed 
 to go in relief of the tax of a tenth and fifteenth due to 
 him, 1 the justices appointed to obtain the money plead 
 that they " cannot and have not been able to levy any 
 of these penalties." 2 The truth seems to be that masters 
 generally pleaded the excessive wages they were called 
 upon to pay, as an excuse for not finding money to 
 meet the royal demands, and it was for this reason rather 
 than out of consideration for the pockets of the better 
 classes that Edward issued his proclamations to restrain 
 the rise of wages. But he was quickly forced to under- 
 stand " that workmen, servants, and labourers publicly 
 disregarded his ordinances " as to wages and payments, 
 and demanded, in spite of them, prices for their services 
 as great as during the pestilence and after it, and even 
 higher. For disobedience to the royal orders regulating 
 wages, the King charged his judges to imprison all whom 
 they might find guilty. Even this coercion was found to 
 be no real remedy, but rather a means of aggravating 
 
 1 R. O., Originalia Roll, 26 Ed. Ill, m. 27. 
 
 2 Ibid., 27 Ed. Ill, m. 19. 
 
230 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 the evil, since districts where his policy was carried out 
 were quickly found to be plunged in greater poverty by 
 the imprisonment of those who could work, and of those 
 who dared to pay the market price for labour. 1 
 
 Knighton thus describes the situation: — "The King 
 sent into each county of the kingdom orders that 
 harvesters and other workmen should not obtain more 
 than they were wont to have, under penalties laid down 
 in the statute made for the purpose. But labourers were 
 so elated and contentious that they did not pay attention 
 to the command of the King; and if anyone wanted to 
 hire them he was forced to pay them w T hat was asked, 
 and so he had his choice either to lose his harvest and 
 crops, or give in to the proud and covetous desire of the 
 workmen. When this became known to the King, he 
 levied heavy fines upon the abbots, priors, and the 
 higher and lesser lords, as well as upon the greater and 
 smaller landowners in the country, because they had not 
 obeyed his orders, and had given higher wages to their 
 labourers; from some he exacted loos., from some 40s., 
 and from some 20s., and indeed from each as much as he 
 could be made to pay. And he took from every carucate 
 throughout the whole kingdom 20s. besides a fifteenth. 
 
 " Then the King arrested very many labourers and put 
 them in prison; and many fled and hid themselves in 
 forests and woods for the time, and those who were 
 caught were fined more severely still. And the greater 
 number were sworn not to take higher daily wages than 
 was customary, and were so liberated from prison. In 
 like manner he acted towards the artificers in towns and 
 
 1 R. O., Originalia Roll, 26 Ed. Ill, m. 25. 
 
 2 Ed. Twysden, col. 2699. 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 231 
 
 To this account of the labour difficulties which fol- 
 lowed on the mortality may be added the relation of 
 the Rochester contemporary, William Dene. " So great 
 was the want of labourers and workmen of every art and 
 craft," in those days, he writes, " that a third part and 
 more of the land throughout the entire kingdom re- 
 mained uncultivated. Labourers and skilled workmen 
 became so rebellious that neither the King, nor the law, 
 nor the justices, the guardians of the law, were able to 
 punish them." x Many instances are to be found in the 
 public documents at the period of combinations of work- 
 men for the purpose of securing higher wages, and of their 
 refusal to work at the old rate of payment customary 
 before the great mortality had made the services of the 
 survivors more valuable. This, in the language of the 
 statute, is called " the malice of servants in husbandry." 
 In the same way tenants who had survived the visita- 
 tion refused to pay the old rents and threatened to leave 
 their holdings unless substantial reductions were made 
 by their landlords. Thus, in an instance already given, 
 the landowner remitted a third part of the rent of his 
 tenants, " because they would have gone off and left 
 their holdings empty unless they had obtained this re- 
 duction." 2 
 
 As a consequence of the great mortality among small 
 tenant farmers and the labouring classes generally, and 
 forced by the failure of legislation to cope practically 
 with the " strike " organised by the survivors, the land- 
 owners quickly despaired of carrying on the traditional 
 system of cultivation with their own stock under bailiffs. 
 Professor Thorold Rogers has pointed out that " very 
 
 1 B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, B. v, fol. 98b. 
 
 2 R. O., Q. R. Mins. Accts., Bundle 801, No. 1. 
 
232 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 speedily after the plague, this system of farming by 
 bailiff was discontinued, and that of farming on lease 
 adopted." The difficulty experienced by the tenant of 
 finding capital to work the farms at first led to the in- 
 stitution of the stock and seed lease, which, after lasting 
 till about the close of the fourteenth century, gave place 
 to the ordinary land lease, with, of course, a certain 
 fixity of tenure, which at this day we do not associate 
 with that form of lease. Some landowners tried, with 
 more or less success, to continue the old system; but 
 these formed the exception, and by the beginning of the 
 next century the whole tenure of land had been changed 
 in England by the great mortality of 1 349, and by the 
 operation of the "trades unions," which sprung up at 
 once among the survivors, and which are designated, in 
 the statute against them, as " alliances, covines, congre- 
 gations, chapters, ordinances and oaths." 
 
 The people all at once learnt their power, and became 
 masters of the situation, and although for the next thirty 
 years the lords and landowners fought against the com- 
 plete overthrow of the mediaeval system of serfdom, 
 from the year of the great mortality its fall was inevit- 
 able, and practical emancipation was finally won by the 
 popular rising of 1381. Even to the last, however, the 
 landowning cla^s appear to have remained in the dark 
 as to the real issues at stake. They claimed the old 
 labour, rents, by which their manor lands had been . 
 worked, as well as the money payments for which they 
 had been commuted, and they desired that the old ties 
 of the tenant in villeinage to the soil of his lord should 
 be maintained. Even Parliament was apparently at fault 
 as to the danger which threatened the established 
 system. It is impossible, however, to read the sermons 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 233 
 
 of the period without seeing how entirely the clergy 
 were with the people in their determination to secure 
 full and entire liberty for themselves and their posterity, 
 and it is probably to their countenance and advice that 
 the preamble of an Act passed in the first year of 
 Richard II refers, when it says: "Villeins withdraw 
 their services and customs from their lords, by the com- 
 fort and procurement of others, their counsellors, main- 
 tamers and abettors, which have taken hire and profit 
 of the said villeins and land tenants, by colour of certain 
 exemplifications made out of Domesday, and affirm that 
 they are discharged and will suffer no distress. Here- 
 upon they gather themselves in great routs, and argue 
 by such a confederacy that everyone shall resist their 
 lords by force." 
 
 One result of the change of land tenure should be 
 noticed. Previously to the great plague of 1349 the land 
 was divided up into small tenancies. An instance taken 
 by Professor Rogers of a parish, where every man held 
 a greater or less amount of land, is a typical example of 
 thousands of manors all over the country. It shows, he 
 says, " how generally the land was distributed," and that 
 the small farms and portions of land, so remarkable in 
 France at the present day, did prevail in England five 
 hundred years ago. A great portion of this land, how- 
 ever, although held by distinct tenants, lay in common, 
 and it is a very general complaint at this period that, as 
 the fields were undivided, they could not be used except 
 by the multitude of tenants, which had been carried off 
 by the great sickness. To render them profitable, under 
 the condition of things consequent upon the new system 
 of farming, these tracts of country had to be divided up 
 by the plantation of hedges, which form now so distin- 
 
234 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 guishing a mark of the English landscape as compared 
 with that of a foreign country. 
 
 The population also having by the operation of the 
 great mortality become already detached from the soil, 
 before the final extinction of serfdom, their liberation 
 resulted not, as in other countries, in the establishment 
 of a large class of peasant proprietors, but in that of a 
 small body of large landowners. 
 
 Of course, again, such a phrase must not be inter- 
 preted in the modern sense, whereby a " landowner " is 
 an "owner" of land in a way which, in those days of 
 custom and perpetuity of tenure, would not have been 
 even understood. The change then effected rendered 
 possible the character of the land settlement that now 
 prevails. 
 
 So terrible a mortality cannot but have had its effect 
 and left its traces upon the education, arts, and architec- 
 ture of the country. In the first, besides the temporary 
 interference with the education at the Universities, " this 
 pestilence forms," write the authors of the History of 
 Shrewsbury, " a remarkable era in the history of our 
 language. Before that time, ever since the Conquest, 
 the nobility and gentry of this country affected to con- 
 verse in French; children even construed their lessons 
 at school into that language. So, at least, Higden tells 
 us in his Polychronicon. But from the time of ' the first 
 Moreyn.,' as Trevisa, his translator, terms it, this ' man- 
 ner ' was ■ som del ychaungide.' A school-master, named 
 Cornwall, was the first that introduced English into the 
 instruction of his pupils, and this example was so eagerly 
 followed that by the year 1385, when Trevisa wrote, it 
 had become nearly general. The clergy in all Christian 
 countries are the chief persons by whom the education 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 235 
 
 of youth is conducted, and it is probable that the dread- 
 ful scourge of which we have been treating, by carrying 
 off many of those ancient instructors, enabled Mr. Corn- 
 wall to work a change in the mode of teaching, which 
 but for that event he would never have been able to 
 effect, and which has operated so mighty a revolution in 
 our national literature." 
 
 With regard to architecture, traces of the effects of 
 the great plague are to be seen in many places. In some 
 cases great additions to existing buildings, which had 
 only been partially executed, were put a stop to and 
 never completed. In others they were finished only after 
 a change had been made in the style in vogue when the 
 great mortality swept over the country. Dr. Cox, in his 
 Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire, has remarked upon 
 this. " The awful shock/' he says, " thus given to the 
 nation and to Europe at large by the Black Death para- 
 lysed for a time every art and industry. The science of 
 church architecture, then about at its height, was some 
 years recovering from the blow. In some cases, as with 
 the grand church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, where a 
 splendid pair of western towers were being erected, the 
 work was stopped and never resumed. . . . The recol- 
 lection of this great plague often helps to explain the 
 break that the careful eye not unfrequently notes in 
 church buildings of the 14th century, and accounts for 
 the long period over which the works extended. We 
 believe this to be the secret of the long stretch of years 
 that elapsed before the noble church of Tideswell was 
 completed in that century; and it also affords a clue to 
 much other work interrupted, or suddenly undertaken, 
 in several other fabrics of the country." l To this may 
 1 Introduction, p. ix. 
 
236 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 be added the fact that the history of stained-glass manu- 
 facture shows the same break with the past at this 
 period. Not only just at this time does there appear a 
 gap in the continuity of manufacture, but the first ex- 
 amples after the great pestilence manifest a change in 
 the style which had previously existed. 
 
 In estimating the mortality among the clergy it has 
 been already noted that we have, in many instances, 
 more certain data to work upon than in the case of the 
 population at large. In each county the number of in- 
 stitutions to benefices during the plague has already been 
 noticed, and in those cases where the actual figure cannot 
 be ascertained from documentary evidence, half the total 
 number of benefices has, in accordance with the general 
 result where such evidence is available, been taken to 
 represent the livings rendered vacant during that year. 
 From this it would appear that in round figures some 
 5,000 beneficed clergy fell victims to their duty. As 
 already pointed out this number in reality represents 
 only a portion of the clerical body ; and in any estimate 
 of the whole, allowance must be made for chaplains, 
 chantry priests, religious, and others. 
 
 It is, of course, possible to come to any conclusion as 
 to the proportion of the beneficed to the unbeneficed 
 clergy only by very round numbers. Turning to the 
 Winchester registers, for example, we find that the 
 average number of priests ordained in the three years 
 previous to 1349, was in. 1 The average number of in- 
 
 1 Of course, several of these would be ordained for other dioceses, 
 but in the same way Winchester priests would be ordained by 
 letters dimissory elsewhere, so that taking the whole of England 
 we may assume a practical equalisation. In the diocese of London, 
 as already stated (p. 203 ante), the proportion of non-beneficed to 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 237 
 
 stitutions to benefices annually during the same period 
 was only twenty-one, so that these figures taken by 
 themselves seem to show that the proportion of bene- 
 ficed to unbeneficed clergy was about one to four. On 
 this basis, and assuming the deaths of beneficed clergy 
 to have been about 5,000, the total death roll in the 
 clerical order would be some 25,000. 
 
 This number, although very large, can hardly be con- 
 sidered as excessive, when it is remembered that the 
 peculiar nature of their priestly duties rendered the clergy 
 specially liable to infection; whilst in the case of the 
 religious, the mere fact of their living together in com- 
 munity made the spread of the deadly contagion in their 
 ranks a certainty. The Bishops were strangely spared ; 
 although it is certain that they did not shrink from their 
 duty, but according to positive evidence remained at 
 their posts. To their case are applicable the lines of the 
 poet upon the like wonderful escape of the Bishop during 
 the plague in the eighteenth century at Marseilles: 
 
 Why drew Marseilles' good Bishop purer breath 
 When nature sickened, and each gale was death?" 1 
 
 On the supposition that five-and-twenty thousand of 
 the clerical body fell victims to the epidemic, and esti- 
 mating that of the entire population of the country one 
 in every hundred belonged to the clergy, and further 
 that the death rate was about equal in both estates, the 
 total mortality in the country would be some 2,500,000. 
 This total is curiously the same as that estimated from 
 the basis of population returns made at the close of the 
 memorable reign of Edward III, evidencing, namely, a 
 
 beneficed clergy ordained during 12 years, from 1362 to 1374, was 
 nearly six to one. 
 
 1 Pope, Essay on Man, lines 107-8. 
 
238 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 total population, before the outbreak of the epidemic, of 
 some five millions. 1 
 
 It remains now briefly to point out some of the un- 
 doubted effects, which followed from this great disaster, 
 upon the Church. It is obvious that the sudden removal 
 of so large a proportion of the clerical body must have 
 caused a breach in the continuity of the best traditions 
 of ecclesiastical usage and teaching. Absolute necessity, 
 moreover, compelled the Bishops to institute young and 
 inexperienced, if not entirely uneducated clerics, to the 
 vacant livings, and this cannot but have had its effect 
 upon succeeding generations. The Archbishop of York 
 sought and obtained permission from the Pope to ordain 
 at any time, and to dispense with the usual intervals 
 between the sacred orders; — Bishop Bateman, of Nor- 
 wich, was allowed by Clement VI to dispense with sixty 
 clerks, who were but twenty-one years of age, " though 
 only shavelings," and to allow them to hold rectories, as 
 otherwise the divine offices of the Church would cease 
 altogether in many places of his diocese. 
 
 " At that.time," writes Knighton, the sub-contemporary 
 canon of Leicester, " there was everywhere such a dearth 
 of priests that many churches were left without the 
 divine offices, Mass, Matins, Vespers, sacraments, and 
 sacramentals. Oae could hardly get a chaplain to serve 
 a church for less than £10, or 10 marks. And whereas 
 before the pestilence, when there were plenty of priests, 
 anyone could get a chaplain for 5 or even 4 marks, or 
 
 1 Mr. Thorold Rogers' supposition that the population in 1348 
 was only about 2,500,000 would,, on the assumption that the two 
 sexes were about equal in number, lead to the conclusion that one 
 man in every 25 was a priest; a suggestion which seems to bear, 
 on the face of it, its own refutation. 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 239 
 
 for 2 marks and his board, 1 at this time there was hardly 
 a soul who would accept a vicarage for £20, or 20 marks. 
 In a short time after, however, a large number of those 
 whose wives had died in the pestilence came up to 
 receive orders. Of these many were illiterate and mere 
 laics, except in so far as they knew in a way how to read, 
 although they did not understand " what they read. 2 
 
 One instance of the rapidity of promotion, so that 
 benefices might not too long remain unfilled, may be 
 given. In the diocese of Winchester the registers record 
 at this period very numerous appointments of clerics, not 
 in sacred orders, to benefices. For example, in 1349 no 
 fewer than 19 incumbents already appointed to churches 
 in the city of Winchester came up for ordination, and 
 eight in the following year. Of these 27 every one took 
 his various orders of sub-deacon, deacon, and priest at 
 successive ordinations without the normal interval be- 
 tween each step in the sacred ministry. 3 
 
 1 Amyot (Archaeologia, xx, p. 531) notes that even soldiers appear 
 to have been better paid than the clergy. A foot soldier had 3d. a 
 day, or 7 marks a year ; a horse soldier lod. or i2d. a day. Chaucer's 
 good parson, who was only " rich of holy thought and werk," might 
 not be remarkable. 
 
 2 Ed. Twysden, col. 2699. 
 
 3 Mr. Baigenfs MS. extracts from the Episcopal Registers. It 
 is of interest to note that in normal times very few were ordained 
 after their appointment as incumbents. Thus, to take the churches 
 in the city of Winchester, besides this period and 1361, when again 
 the mortality among the clergy was very great, only some 8 or 9 
 were so ordained between 1349 and 1361, as the following table 
 will show : 
 
 1346 
 
 1348 
 
 1349 
 
 1350 
 
 i35i 
 
 1352 
 
 1354 
 
 1359 
 
 1361 
 
 1362 
 
 1363 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 19 
 
 -8 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 * 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
240 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Two examples of the straits to which the Bishops were 
 reduced for priests are to be found in the registers of the 
 diocese of Bath and Wells. The one is the admission of 
 a man to the first step to Orders, in the lifetime of his 
 wife, she giving her consent, and promising to keep 
 chaste, but not, as was usually required under such cir- 
 cumstances, being compelled to enter the cloister, " be- 
 cause she was aged, and could without suspicion remain 
 in the world." 1 The second instance in the same register 
 of a difficulty experienced in filling up vacancies is the 
 case of a permission given to Adam, the rector of Hinton 
 Bluet, to say mass on Sundays and feast days in the 
 chapel of William de Sutton, even although he had 
 before celebrated the solemnities of the mass in his 
 church of Hinton. 2 
 
 Another curious case, which we may suspect really 
 came from the same cause, is noted at an ordination held 
 in December, 1352, at Ely. Of the four then receiving 
 the priesthood two were monks, and from the other two 
 an oath of obedience to the Bishop and his successors 
 was enacted, together with a promise " that they would 
 serve any parish church to which they might be 
 called." 3 
 
 Many instances could be given of the ignorance con- 
 sequent upon the ordinations being hurried on, and upon 
 laymen, otherwise unfitted for the sacred mission, being 
 too hastily admitted to the vacant cures. To take but 
 two instances, from Winchester, which may serve to 
 illustrate this and at the same time to show the zeal with 
 which the mediaeval Bishops endeavoured to guard 
 
 1 Harl. MS., 6965, fol. 145 (7 Id. J-ulii, 1349). 
 
 2 Ibid., fol. 146b. 
 
 3 B. Mus. Cole MS., 5824, fol. 23b. 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 241 
 
 against the evil. On 24th June, 1385, the illustrious 
 William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, caused Sir 
 Roger Dene, Rector of the church of St. Michael, in 
 Jewry Street, Winchester, to swear upon the Holy 
 Gospels that he would learn within twelve months the 
 articles of Faith, the cases reserved to the Bishop, the 
 Ten Commandments, the seven works of mercy, the 
 seven mortal sins, the Sacraments of the Church, and 
 the form of administering and conferring them, and also 
 the form of baptising, etc., as contained in the Constitu- 
 tions of Archbishop Peckham. 1 The same year, on July 
 2nd, the Bishop exacted from John Corbet, who on the 
 2nd of June previous had been instituted to the rectory 
 of Bradley in Hampshire, a similar obligation to learn 
 the same, before the feast of St. Michael then next 
 ensuing. In the former case Roger Dene had been rector 
 of Ryston, in Norfolk, and had been instituted to his 
 living at Winchester by the Bishop of Norwich only on 
 2 1st June, 1358, three days before Bishop William of 
 Wykeham required him to enter into the obligation de- 
 tailed above. 2 
 
 It has been already remarked that one obvious result 
 of the great mortality, so far as the Church is con- 
 cerned, was the extraordinary decrease in the number of 
 candidates for sacred orders. In the Winchester diocese, 
 for example, the average number of priests ordained in 
 each of the three years preceding 1349 was in; whilst 
 in the 15 subsequent years, up to 1365, when Bishop 
 Edyndon died, the yearly average was barely 20; and 
 
 1 For the real meaning to be attached to learning the Paternoster \ 
 etc., see my article on Religious Instruction in England in the i^th 
 and \^th Centuries, in Dublin Review, Oct., 1893, p. 900. 
 
 2 Mr. Baigent's MS. collections. 
 
 R 
 
242 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 in the thirty-four years, from 1367 to 1400, even with so 
 zealous a prelate as William of Wykeham presiding over 
 the diocese, the annual average number of ordinations 
 to the sacred priesthood was only 27 ; a number which 
 was further decreased during the progress of the fifteenth 
 century. 1 
 
 The same striking result of the plague, which cannot 
 but have had a very serious effect upon the Church at 
 large, is manifested elsewhere. The Ely registers, for 
 example, show that the average number of all those 
 ordained, for the seven years before 1349, was 10 1 \\ 
 whilst for the seven years after that date it was but 40I-. 
 In 1349 no ordinations whatever apparently were held, 
 and the average number of priests ordained yearly, from 
 1374 to 1394, was only 14. In fact the total number 
 ordained in that period was only 282, whilst of these 
 many entered the priesthood for other dioceses, and 
 more than half, namely 161, were members of the various 
 religious orders ; so that the ranks of the diocesan clergy 
 of Ely appear to have received but few recruits during 
 the whole of this time. 
 
 In the diocese of Hereford, to take another example, 
 previously to 1349, there were some very large ordina- 
 tions. Thus, in 1346, on the nth of March, 438 people 
 were ordained to various grades in the sacred ministry. 
 Of these some 89 received the priesthood, 49 of them 
 being ordained for the diocese of Hereford. Again, on 
 the 10th of June in the same year, Bishop Trileck con- 
 ferred Orders, in the parish church of Ledbury, upon 
 451 candidates, of whom 148 were made priests; 56 
 being intended for his own diocese. Altogether, in that 
 
 1 From 1400 to 1418 the average was 17, from 1447 to 1467 
 only 18. 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 243 
 
 year, some 319 priests were ordained by the Bishop; 
 half of the number being his own clergy. 1 About the 
 same numbers were ordained in the year of the plague 
 itself, 1349, and 371 in the following year. In fact, till 
 1353 the number remains large, but the greater portion 
 of those ordained were intended for other dioceses. 
 The subjects of the Bishop of Hereford at once show a 
 falling off similar to that noticed in Winchester and Ely. 
 Thus, from 1345 to 1349, the average number of subjects 
 ordained by the Bishop for his own diocese was 72. In 
 the next five years it was only 34, whilst in no subse- 
 quent year during Bishop Trileck's pontificate did it 
 rise above 23. 
 
 The above three examples will be sufficient to show 
 how seriously the great pestilence affected the supply of 
 clergy. The reason is not difficult to divine. The great 
 dearth of population created a proportionate demand 
 upon the services of the survivors to carry on the busi- 
 ness of the nation, and the greater pressure of business 
 thus brought about, and the higher wages to be, in fact, 
 obtained, in spite of royal prohibitions, were not favour- 
 able to the development of vocations to the clerical life. 
 The void thus caused by the overwhelming misfortunes 
 of the great mortality was enlarged by the exigencies of 
 the English war with France, whilst popular disturb- 
 ances, and the subsequent Wars of the Roses, main- 
 tained the same causes in operation till far into the 
 reigns of the Tudor sovereigns. 
 
 To some extent, the dearth of students at Oxford and 
 Cambridge, which has already been referred to, was 
 brought about by the same causes, and it certainly fol- 
 lowed immediately upon the fatal year of 1349. At 
 1 Reg. Trileck, fol. 180 segg. 
 
244 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 Oxford, no doubt, the serious disturbances, which took 
 place at this time between the students and townsfolk, 
 contributed to aggravate the evil. So serious, indeed, 
 had the state of the great centre of clerical education in 
 England become, in less than six years after the 
 pestilence, that the King was compelled to address the 
 Bishops on the subject. He begs them to help in the 
 task of renewing the University ; " knowing," he says, 
 "how the Catholic Faith is chiefly supported by the 
 learning of the clergy, and the State governed by their 
 prudence, we earnestly desire that, particularly in our 
 kingdom of England, the clerical order may be increased 
 in number, morals, and knowledge." But, " in the city 
 of Oxford, in which the fount and- source of clerical 
 knowledge " has long existed, owing to the disturb- 
 ances, students have forsaken the place, and Oxford, 
 once so renowned, has become " like a worthless fig- 
 tree without fruit." * It has already been pointed out 
 how, nearly half a century later, the University had not 
 recovered from the great blow it had received at this 
 period. 2 
 
 There seems, indeed, a prevalent misunderstanding in 
 regard to the relation, or proportionate numbers, of 
 secular and regular clergy at this period, and as to the 
 decline in popu4arity of the regulars, as presumed to be 
 evidenced in the number of those who joined them after 
 the middle of the fourteenth century. It is assumed 
 that up to that period the regular clergy were, both in 
 
 1 Reg. Trileck, fol. 163. 
 
 2 Archbishop I slip founded Canterbury College at Oxford to 
 supply the failing ranks of the clergy and to increase the facilities 
 of learning (Wilkins, iii, p. 52), and William of Wykeham likewise 
 established his schools and colleges with the same object. 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 245 
 
 numbers and influence, the chief factors in the ecclesi- 
 astical system of England, and that after that date they 
 greatly declined in importance, public estimation, and 
 numbers. As evidence, not only is an actual diminution 
 in mere numbers adduced, but also the fact that, after 
 this time, the new religious institutions took the form of 
 colleges, not of monasteries. The misconception lies 
 first of all in this — that there never was a period of the 
 Middle Ages in England, nor for the matter of that 
 abroad, when the regular clergy were the great mainstay 
 of the Church, so far, at least, as numbers, external 
 work, and the cure of souls are concerned. Writers have 
 allowed their imaginations to be influenced by the 
 magnitude of the great monastic houses, or by the 
 prominent part taken in the government of the Church 
 by individuals of eminence, belonging to the ranks of 
 the regular clergy; and have not remembered how com- 
 paratively few in fact were these great monastic centres, 
 and how small a proportion their inmates bore to the 
 great body of clergy at large. 
 
 It is necessary to refer, perhaps, to figures to bring 
 this home to those who have not devoted special atten- 
 tion to the mediaeval period, or who, having studied it, 
 still somehow fail to realise facts as distinct from 
 theories, and to rid themselves of the imaginative pre- 
 possessions with which they entered upon their investiga- 
 tions. Thus, even after the institution of the mendicant 
 orders, and in the flow of their popularity, the ordinations 
 for the diocese of York, in the year 1344-45, show that 
 whilst the number of priests ordained was 271, only 44 
 were regulars. In the same way, the register of Bishop 
 Stapeldon gives the ordinations in the diocese of Exeter 
 from 1 301 to 1 32 1. During this period 703 seculars were 
 
246 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 made priests, against 114 regulars. In both these in- 
 stances, therefore, more than six seculars were ordained 
 for every regular. 
 
 This has its importance in estimating the change in 
 the direction given to religious foundations noticed 
 above. During the course of the thirteenth century, 
 when so strong a current of intellectual activity and 
 speculation had set in, the importance of education to 
 the working clergy — at least to a considerable propor- 
 tion of them — forced itself upon those who were the 
 responsible rulers of the Church. The religious houses 
 were in existence, and, either great or small, were spread 
 all over the land; indeed, after the pestilence of 1349, 
 greatly more than sufficed for the number of vocations 
 in the reduced population. Further, by their foundation 
 they were not calculated to furnish the means of meet- 
 ing the new want that was pressing, aggravated as it 
 was by the sudden diminution of the pastoral clergy in 
 the sickness. The formation of collegiate institutions, 
 whether of the University type or of country colleges 
 for secular priests, such as Stoke-Clare, Arundel, and 
 the very many others which arose in the century and a 
 half from 1350 to 1500, is explained by the very circum- 
 stances of the case; and there is no need to have re- 
 course to a supposition as to the wane in popularity of 
 the religious orders, and the prevalent sense that their 
 work was over, "to explain the diminution in their 
 numbers, and the absence of new monastic foundations. 
 If the relative proportion between the numbers of secular 
 and regular clergy ordained before and after the middle 
 of the fourteenth century be taken as a test of the truth 
 of this supposition, the statistics available do not bear it 
 out. Thus the ordinations to the priesthood, registered 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 247 
 
 in the registers of the diocese of Bath and Wells, for the 
 80 years, 1443 to 1523, number 901; of these 679 were 
 those of seculars, and 222 those of regulars. In this 
 instance, consequently, the ordination of seculars to 
 regulars was in the proportion of 8*5 to 27, or rather 
 more than three to one. 1 
 
 In common with those in worldly professions and busi- 
 nesses the survivors among the clergy appear to have 
 demanded larger stipends than they had previously 
 obtained for the performance of their ecclesiastical 
 duties. Looking back upon the times, and considering 
 how even the small dues of the clergy had been reduced 
 by the death of a large proportion of their people, till 
 they became wholly inadequate for their support, it is 
 impossible to blame them harshly, and not to see that 
 such a demand must inevitably follow upon a great 
 reduction in numbers. At the time, however, by the 
 direction of King and Parliament, the Archbishops and 
 Bishops sought to restrain them from making these 
 claims, in the same way as the King tried to prevent the 
 labourers from demanding higher wages. In his letter to 
 the Bishops of his province Archbishop Islip refers " to 
 the unbridled cupidity of the human race," which ever 
 
 1 In the diocese of London, in the twelve years, from 1362 to 
 1374, Bishop Sudbury ordained 1,046 seculars and 456 regulars, the 
 proportion consequently being about 2*3 to 1. In the last twenty 
 years of the century, namely, from 1381 to 1401, Bishop Braybroke 
 ordained to the priesthood only 584 seculars, whilst the regulars 
 were 425 during the same period. In other words, during the first 
 period, the average annual number of ordinations to the ranks of 
 the secular clergy in the diocese of London was over 87 ; during 
 the last twenty years of the century it was only 29*2. The averages 
 of the regulars in the corresponding periods were 35 and 21*2. 
 Similar results appear from the York registers. 
 
248 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 requires to be checked by justice, unless "charity is to 
 be driven out of the world." " General complaints have 
 come to me," he writes, "and experience, the best teacher 
 of all things, has shown to me that the priests who still 
 survive, not considering that they are preserved by the 
 Divine will from the dangers of the late pestilence, not 
 for their own sakes, but to perform the ministry com- 
 mitted to them for the people of God, and the public 
 utility," like other workmen, through cupidity, neglect 
 the burdens of curates, and take more profitable offices, 
 for which also they demand more than before. If this 
 be not at once put a stop to " many, and indeed most of 
 the churches, prebends, and chapels of our and your 
 diocese, and indeed of our whole Province, will remain 
 absolutely without priests." To remedy this not only 
 were people urged not to employ such chaplains, but the 
 clergy were to be compelled under ecclesiastical cen- 
 sures to serve the ordinary cures at moderate and usual 
 salaries. It seems not improbable that this measure may 
 have contributed to draw the sympathies of the clergy at 
 large more closely to the people in their struggle for 
 freedom at this period of English history, when both 
 in the civil and ecclesiastical sphere there was the same 
 attempt by public law to impose restraints on natural 
 liberty. * 
 
 To the great dearth of clergy at this time may, partly 
 at least, be ascribed the great growth of the crying abuse 
 of pluralities. Without taking into account the diffi- 
 culty experienced on all hands in finding fit, proper, and 
 tried ecclesiastics to fill posts of eminence and responsi- 
 bility in the Church, it is impossible to account for the 
 great increase in the practice just at this time. The 
 number of benefices, for example, held by William of 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 249 
 
 Wykeham himself, who entered the Church in conse- 
 quence of the great mortality among the clergy in 1 361, 
 may be explained, if not excused, by the prevalent and 
 in the circumstances inevitable dearth of subjects of 
 training and capacity equal to the arduous and delicate 
 duties devolving on the higher clergy. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the great difficulties which beset 
 the Church in England in consequence of the great 
 mortality, there is abundant evidence (which is no part 
 of the present subject) of untiring efforts on the part of 
 the leading ecclesiastics to bring back observance to its 
 normal level. This is evidenced in the institution of so 
 many pious confraternities and guilds, and in a profuse 
 liberality to churches and sacred places. 
 
 The consequences of the mortality, so far as the 
 monastic establishments of the country are concerned, 
 have already in the course of the narrative frequently 
 been pointed out. The same reasons which militated 
 against the recruiting for the ranks of the clergy gener- 
 ally after the plague are sufficient explanation of the 
 fact that the religious houses were never able to regain 
 the ground lost in that fatal year. Over and above this, 
 moreover, the sudden change in the tenure of land, 
 brought about chiefly by the deaths of the monastic 
 tenants, so impaired their financial position, at any rate 
 for a long period, that they were unable to support the 
 burden of additional subjects. 
 
 To the facts showing how the monasteries were de- 
 populated by the disease already given may be added 
 the following: — In 1235 the abbey of St. Albans is sup- 
 posed to have counted some 100 monks within its walls. 
 In the plague of 1349 the abbot and some 47 of his 
 monks died at one time, and subsequently one more 
 
250 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 died whilst at Canterbury, on his way with the newly- 
 elected abbot to the Roman Curia. Assuming, therefore, 
 that the community had remained the same in number 
 as in 1235, St. Albans was at most left with only 51 
 members. At the close of the century, namely, in 1396, 
 some 60 monks took part in election, and as this num- 
 ber includes the priors of the nine dependent cells, it 
 would seem that the actual community still remained 
 only 51. In 1452 there were only 48 professed monks in 
 the abbey, and at the dissolution of the monastery, 
 nearly a century later, the number was reduced to 39. 
 This instance of the way in which the numbers in the 
 monastic houses were diminished by the sickness, and 
 by its effect on the general population of the country 
 were prevented from ever again increasing to their 
 former proportions, may be strengthened by the case of 
 Glastonbury. This great abbey of the west of England 
 has ever been regarded as in many respects the most im- 
 portant of the English Benedictine houses. It is not too 
 much to suppose that in the period of its greatest pros- 
 perity it must have counted probably a hundred mem- 
 bers. In 1377 the number, as given on the subsidy-roll, 
 is only 45. In 1456 they stand at 48, and were about the 
 same at the time of the dissolution of the abbey. A 
 similar effect upon the members at Bath has already 
 been pointed out. 
 
 It need hardly be said that the scourge must have 
 been most demoralising to discipline, destructive to tra- 
 ditional practice, and fatal to observance. It is a well- 
 ascertained fact, strange though it may seem, that men 
 are not as a rule made better by great and universal 
 visitations of Divine Providence. It has been noticed 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 251 
 
 that this is the evident result of all such scourges, or, as 
 Procopius puts it, speaking of the great plague in the 
 reign of the Emperor Justinian, " whether by chance or 
 Providential design it strictly spared the most wicked." l 
 So in this visitation, from Italy to England, the universal 
 testimony of those who lived through it is, that it seemed 
 to rouse up the worst passions of the human heart, and 
 to dull the spiritual senses of the soul. Wadding, the 
 Franciscan annalist, has attributed to this very plague 
 of 1348-9 the decay of fervour evident throughout his 
 own Order at this time. " This evil," he writes, " wrought 
 great destruction to the holy houses of religion, carrying 
 off the masters of regular discipline and the seniors of 
 experience. From this time the monastic Orders, and in 
 particular the mendicants, began to grow tepid and neg- 
 ligent, both in that piety and that learning in which they 
 had up to this time flourished. Then, our illustrious 
 members being carried off, the rigours of discipline re- 
 laxed by these calamities, could not be renewed by the 
 youths received without the necessary training, rather 
 to fill the empty houses than to restore the lost dis- 
 cipline." 2 
 
 We may sum up the results of the great mortality in 
 the words of a reliable writer. " For our purpose," writes 
 Dr. Cunningham, "it is important to notice that the 
 steady progress of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
 was suddenly checked in the fourteenth; the strain of 
 the hundred years' war would have been exhausting in 
 
 1 Archbp. I slip at this time (1350) says : "Dum ad memoriam 
 reducimus admirandam pestilentiam que nuper partes istas subito 
 sic invasit, ut nobis multo meliores et digniores subtraxerat." 
 
 2 Annates Minorum^ viii, p. 22. 
 
252 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 any case, but the nation had to bear it when the Black 
 Death had swept off half the population and the whole 
 social structure was disorganised." x 
 
 In dealing with this subject it is difficult to bring 
 home to the mind the vast range of the great calamity, 
 and duly to appreciate how deep was the break with 
 then existing institutions. The plague of 1349 simply 
 shattered them; and it is, as already pointed out, only 
 by perpetual reiteration and reconsideration of the same 
 phenomena that we can bring ourselves to understand 
 the character of such a social and religious catastrophe. 
 But it is at the same time of the first importance thor- 
 oughly to realise the case if we are to enter into and to 
 understand the great process of social and religious re- 
 edification, to which the immediately succeeding genera- 
 tions had to address themselves. The tragedy was too 
 grave to allow of people being carried over it by mere 
 enthusiasm. Indeed, the empiric and enthusiast in the 
 attempts at social reconstruction, as may be found in the 
 works of Wy cliff, could only aggravate the evil. It was 
 essentially a crisis that had to be met by strenuous 
 effort and unflagging work in every department of 
 human activity. And here is manifested a characteristic 
 of the Middle Ages which constitutes, as the late Pro- 
 fessor Freeman has pointed out, their real greatness. In 
 contradistinction to a day like our own, which abounds 
 in every facility for achievement, they had to contend 
 with every material difficulty; but in contradistinction, 
 too, to that practical pessimism which has to-day gained 
 only too great a hold upon intelligences otherwise viva- 
 cious and open, difficulties, in the Middle Ages, called 
 into existence only a more strenuous and more deter- 
 1 Growth of English Industry and Commerce^ p. 275. 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 253 
 
 mined resolve to meet and surmount them. And here is 
 the sense in which the hackneyed, and in a sense untrue, 
 phrase, " the Ages of Faith," has a real application, for 
 nothing can be more contrary to the spirit and tone of 
 mind of the whole epoch than pessimism, nothing more 
 in harmony with it than hope. In this sense the observa- 
 tion of a well-known modern writer on art, in noting the 
 inability of the Middle Ages to see things as they really 
 are and the tendency to substitute on the parchment or 
 the canvas conventional for actual forms, has a drift 
 which, perhaps, he did not perceive. In itself unques- 
 tionably this defect is a real one, but in practice it pos- 
 sessed a counterbalancing advantage by supplying the 
 necessary corrective to that bare literalism and realism 
 which, in the long run, is fatal no less to sustained effort 
 than it is to art. 
 
 The great mortality, commonly called the Black 
 Death, was a catastrophe sudden and overwhelming, the 
 like of which it will be difficult to parallel. Many a 
 noble aspiration which, could it have been realised, and 
 many a wise conception which, could it have attained 
 its true development, would have been most fruitful of 
 good to humanity, was stricken beyond recovery. Still 
 no time was wasted in vain laments. What had perished 
 had perished. Time, however, and the power of effort 
 and work belonged to those that survived. 
 
 Two of the noblest churches in Italy typify the two- 
 fold aspect of this great visitation — the Cathedral of 
 Siena and the Cathedral of Milan. The former, the vast 
 building that crowns the Tuscan Hill, is but a fragment 
 of what was originally conceived. It was actually in 
 course of erection, and would have been hardly less in 
 size than the present St. Peter's had it been completed. 
 
254 THE BLACK DEATH 
 
 The transepts were already raised, and the foundations 
 of the enormous nave and choir had been laid when the 
 plague fell upon the city. The works were necessarily 
 suspended, and from that day to this have never been 
 resumed. 
 
 Little more than a generation had passed from the 
 fatal year when the most glorious Gothic edifice on 
 Italian soil was already rising from the plain of Lom- 
 bardy — a symbol of new life, new hopes, new greatness, 
 which would surpass the greatness of the buried past. 
 And this, be it observed, was no creation of Prince or 
 Potentate; it was essentially the idea, the work, the 
 achievement of the people of Milan themselves. 1 
 
 What gives, perhaps, the predominant interest to the 
 century and a half which succeeded the overwhelming 
 catastrophe of the Black Death is the fact of the won- 
 derful social and religious recovery from a state almost 
 of dissolution. It is not the place here even to enter upon 
 so interesting and important a subject. It must suffice 
 to have indicated the point of view from which the his- 
 tory of the immediately succeeding generations must be 
 regarded. In spite of wars and civil commotions it was 
 
 1 The Annali delta fabbrica, published by the Cathedral adminis- 
 tration, show in the minutest detail the organisation by which the 
 necessary funds were raised, and enable us to see how it was popular 
 enterprise by which so noble an undertaking was achieved. We can 
 now realise the weekly collections made by willing citizens from 
 door to door, the collections in the churches, the monthly sales of 
 offerings in kind of the most varied nature, jewels, dresses, linen, 
 pots and pans, divers articles of dress and domestic use. Every 
 one, rich and poor alike, felt impelled to join in some way in the 
 work which, as the words of the originators express it, " was begun 
 by Divine inspiration to the honour of Jesus Christ and His most 
 Spotless Mother." Cf. an article by Mr. Edmund Bishop on the 
 subject in the Downside Review, July, 1893. 
 
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE MORTALITY 255 
 
 an age of distinct progress, although the very com- 
 plexity and variety of current and undercurrent is apt at 
 times to daze the too impatient inquirer, who wishes to 
 reduce everything to the simple result of the definitely 
 good, or the definitely bad. 
 
INDEX 
 
 ABBOTSBURY abbey, 89, 189. 
 Abergavenny priory, 138. 
 Abstinence days, dispensation from, 
 
 228. 
 Aden, trade route to, 4. 
 Adriatic, coast towns of, 68. 
 Agatha, St., relics at Catania, 
 
 16. 
 Ages of Faith, meaning of, 253. 
 Agrarian difficulties, 65, 172, 190- 
 
 191, seqq. 
 Albans, St., see St. Albans. 
 Alcester, Inq. p.m. at, 221. 
 Aldgate, Holy Trinity, cemetery at, 
 
 108. 
 Aleppo, 2. 
 
 Alexandria and trade with Europe, 4. 
 Alfonso XI, death of, 67. 
 Allott, Thomas, 180. 
 Almeira, 67. 
 Almsford, 97. 
 Alnwick abbey, 186. 
 Alverdiscott, 102. 
 Amiens, 57. 
 
 Amounderness, deanery of, 182. 
 Andronicus (son of the Emperor 
 
 Cantacuzene), death of, 14. 
 Anglada, on nature of the plague, 
 
 10. 
 Anglesey priory, Cambridge, 206. 
 Anglia, East, plague in, 150; effect 
 
 on religious houses of, 150. 
 Animals attacked, 13, 44, 163. 
 
 J Antioch, patriarch of, archbishop of 
 
 Catania, 16. 
 j Aragon, Queen of, dies, 67. 
 i Architecture, influence of pestilence 
 
 on, 235. 
 j Aries, 43. 
 j Armenia, 2. 
 
 Arras, decay of, 65. 
 
 Arundel college, 246. 
 
 Asia, epidemic in, 3; trade route 
 to Europe from, 3; hordes of 
 Tartars in, 3. 
 
 Athelney abbey, 98. 
 
 Atte Welle, John, 158. 
 
 Augustinians of Winchester diocese, 
 213. 
 
 Austria, 70. 
 
 Avesbury, Robert of, his account of 
 the pestilence, 85. 
 
 Avignon, first reports of plague at, 
 18; account of plague at, 43, 52, 
 58, 139; date of epidemic at, 49; 
 extent of mortality in, 49; de- 
 crease of population in, 47 ; new 
 cemeteries at, 44. 
 
 Azarius, Peter, notary of Novara, 
 
 71. 
 
 Azov, otherwise Tana, 6. 
 
 Babington, translator of Hecker's 
 
 Epidemics ', 3 note. 
 Babington, Somerset, 97. 
 
258 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Babylon, mediaeval name for Cairo, 4. 
 
 Bagdad, the centre of Eastern com- 
 merce, 3. 
 
 Baker, Galfrid le, 82, 135. 
 
 Balearic islands, the, 66. 
 
 Barcelona, 67. 
 
 Barlborough, 171. 
 
 Barlings abbey, 223. 
 
 Barnstaple, 102. 
 
 Barnwell, John, prior of, 154- 
 
 Basingstoke, deanery of, 131. 
 
 Basle, 73, 75. 
 
 Bateman, bishop of Norwich, 238. 
 
 Bath, 97. 
 
 Bath priory, decrease in numbers at, 
 98. 
 
 Bathampton, 97. 
 
 Bath and Wells, diocese of, prayers 
 ordered in, 81 ; date of pestilence 
 in, 92, 96 ; letter of bishop of, 92 ; 
 straits for priests in, 240 ; ordina- 
 tions in, 247. 
 
 Baths, public, common in the four- 
 teenth century, 64. 
 
 Battle abbey, 134. 
 
 Bavaria, 70. 
 
 Beauchief abbey, 171. 
 
 Beche, Margaret de la, Inq. p. m. 
 on, 222. 
 
 Bedfordshire, state of manors in, 
 116; institutions in, 207; petition 
 of sheriff as to state of, 207. 
 
 Beds in French peasant houses,- 64. 
 
 Belgium, 57. 
 
 Bellinzona, 71. 
 
 Beneficed and non-beneflced clergy, 
 proportion of, 156, 181, 203 note, 
 236 note. 
 
 Bergen, 77. 
 
 Berkshire, state of manors in, 116; 
 institutions of clergy in, 207. 
 
 Berne, 72. 
 
 Biknor, Alexander de, archbishop 
 of Dublin, 139. 
 
 Bincombe, 91. 
 
 Bircheston, abbot of Westminster, 
 112. 
 
 Blackburn, deanery of, 181. 
 
 Black Death, the, recent origin of 
 name, 8; symptoms of the dis- 
 ease, 8, 12, 139; special nature 
 of, 9, 45, 50, 56; modern out- 
 break of, 10 note; truce between 
 England and France attributed 
 to, 136 note; inflicted a deadly 
 blow on social body, xxi; forms 
 end of mediaeval period, xxii; 
 catastrophe to church, xxii; start- 
 ing-point of modern history, xxii. 
 
 Black Prince, Cornish estates of, 
 202 ; remits rents on, ibid. 
 
 Black Sea, ports of, the centres of 
 infection, 1. 
 
 Blakmere, manor of, 167. 
 
 Blandford, 89. 
 
 Blessed Sacrament, increase of de- 
 votion to, xxiv; lamp to burn 
 before, 151. 
 
 Blisworth, manor of, 161. 
 
 Blood-spitting, a characteristic sym- 
 tom, 9, 31, 45, 50. 
 
 Bobbio, 21. 
 
 Boccaccio, his description of the 
 plague, 18, 33 seqq. 
 
 Bodmin, 102 ; numbers of deaths in, 
 104. 
 
 Bodmin priory, 104 ; destitution of, 
 104. 
 
 Bohemia, 75. 
 
 Bohemian students, account of 
 journey of, 37. 
 
 Bologna, journey from, 37. 
 
 Bolsover, 171. 
 
 Bombay, plague imported into, from 
 Hong-Kong, vii. 
 
 Bongar's Gesta Dei per Francos, 3. 
 
 Bordeaux, 52. 
 
 Botereaux, Isabel de, 164. 
 
INDEX 
 
 59 
 
 Botzen, 70. 
 
 Bourton tything, 194. 
 
 Bowes, Agnes, prioress of Wor- 
 thorp, 160. 
 
 Boxgrove abbey, 134. 
 
 Brackley, state of country near, 224. 
 
 Braunsford, Wulstan, bishop of 
 Worcester, 142. 
 
 Bread, white, unknown in the four- 
 teenth century, 64. 
 
 Bredwardine, Thomas, archbishop 
 of Canterbury, 122. 
 
 Bremen, 76. 
 
 Brenner-pass, the, 70. 
 
 Bridgwater, 97, 195. 
 
 Bridlington priory, Trivet's Chron- 
 icle continued at, 83. 
 
 Bridport, 91; evidence of corpora- 
 tion records, 92. 
 
 Bristol, 97, 98, 135, 162; date of 
 plague at, 136; new cemetery at, 
 99; decay of, 99. 
 
 Bristol channel, contagion carried 
 along the, 97, 102. 
 
 Broughton manor, 190. 
 
 Bruerne abbey, 222. 
 
 Bruton priory, cell of, 221. 
 
 Bubonic plague, the, 50; in India, v. 
 
 Buckinghamshire, date of plague in, 
 117; institutions of clergy in, 117, 
 207; state of manors in, 116; 
 petition of sheriff as to, 207. 
 
 Bucklow manor, 169. 
 
 Burgundy, 52. 
 
 Burials, effected with difficulty, 46; 
 Christian idea of, 128. 
 
 Burton-on-Trent, district of, 172. 
 
 Business, cessation of all, 1 35. 
 
 Buyers, death of, 106, 170. 
 
 Caesarea, 2. 
 
 Caffa, Genoese port in Crimea, 5. 
 Cairo, 2; called Babylon, 4; trade 
 at, 4. 
 
 Calais, 57, 81, 136; the taking of, 
 
 xix. 
 Caldecot, manor of, 159. 
 Caleston, manor of, 191. 
 Cambeth, now Cambay, India, 4. 
 Cambray, death of Bishop of Tour- 
 nay at, 59. 
 i Cambridge, date of plague at, 156 ; 
 parishes depopulated, 156, 157; 
 plague pits at, 156. 
 J Cambridgeshire, county of, ac- 
 counts of a manor in, 157; state 
 of, 154. 
 1 Camel, district about the river, 
 201. 
 Cantacuzene, the emperor, descrip- 
 tion of plague, 12, 13, 19. 
 1 Canterbury, diocese of, 118; insti- 
 tutions of clergy in, 118, 207; 
 benefices in diocese, 208 ; city of, 
 St. Augustine's, 119; Christ- 
 church, 119, 123, 208; death of 
 a St. Albans monk at, 119; prior 
 of, orders prayers, 84; St. Sepul- 
 chre's priory, 119; St. Gregory's 
 priory, 119; St. James's prioiy, 
 208; hospital of Eastbridge, 1 19. 
 Canterbury College, Oxford, origin 
 of foundation of, 244 note. 
 \ Caramania, 2. 
 Carinthia, 70. 
 j Carlisle, 183, 184. 
 J Carmarthen priory, 138. 
 i Carmelites of Winchester priory, 
 the, 213. 
 Cartmel priory, 182. 
 j Cary, Richard de, Mayor of Oxford, 
 
 147. 
 I Caspar Camentz, on the plague at 
 
 Frankfort, 75. 
 I Castlecary, 97. 
 ! Catania, 16, 17; flight of people to, 
 
 16; death of Gerard Otho, the 
 
 archbishop, 17. 
 
26o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cattle left to wander in fields, 71, 
 163. 
 
 Cecchetti, signor, on medical faculty 
 of Venice, 35. 
 
 Cemetery, difficulty as to, at Win- 
 chester, 127; at Avignon, 46; at 
 Tournay, 61. 
 
 Cerisy, St. Vigor's abbey of, 215. 
 
 Charterhouse, London, old ceme- 
 tery at, 108-109. 
 
 Charterhouses of Somerset, 197. 
 
 Chastiloun, John, sheriff of Bedford, 
 etc., 207. 
 
 Chauliac, Gui de, 9, 50. 
 
 Chedworth, Sir Thomas, and An- 
 glesey priory, 206. 
 
 Chedzoy manor rolls, 195. 
 
 Cheshunt, convent at, 206. 
 
 Chester, county of, 168-169; ac- 
 counts of County Palatine, 169; 
 archdeanery of, institution in, 
 168-169; city, St. John's in, 169; 
 St. Mary's priory, 169. 
 
 China, origin of plague in, I, 2; 
 trade routes from, 3-4. 
 
 Christchurch priory, Hants, effect 
 of mortality on, 214. 
 
 Christian charity destroyed- by 
 plague, 15, 22, 44, 45, 50, 53, 72, 
 
 139. 
 
 Church, effects of plague on the, 
 xxii, 238 seqq ; benefits to, from 
 middle classes, xxki. 
 
 Churches left without services, 238- 
 
 239. 
 Chus or -Koos, trade routes through, 
 
 4- 
 
 Cities, depopulation of, 187. 
 
 Clement VI, pope, 51. 
 
 Clergy, reason for calculating mor- 
 tality of, 86; poor pay of, 238- 
 239; proportion to lay people, 
 237; ignorance of some at this 
 time, 241; secular and regular, 
 
 proportion of, 244-245 ; mortality 
 amongst, 88-89, 236; dearth of, 
 177, 200, 238, 248; regulation 
 of fees of, 121; demand higher 
 stipends, 239. 
 
 Clerics not in sacred orders ap- 
 pointed to benefices, 239. 
 i Clevedon, 97. 
 J Clistel, the lord of, 136. 
 ! Cloford, 97. 
 
 Clopton, Thomas de, 137. 
 
 Clyn, friar John, account of plague 
 in Ireland, 140. 
 
 Co, John de, chancellor of Ely 
 diocese, 155. 
 
 Colchester, numbers of wills at, 
 204; abbot of, dies, 204. 
 
 Colington,. Great, 166. 
 
 Colington, Little, 166. 
 I Collegiate establishment rendered 
 
 necessary, 246. 
 j Colmar, 75. 
 J Cologne, 75. 
 
 Combe Kaynes, 91. 
 
 Commerce, routes of eastern, in four- 
 teenth century, 3. 
 
 Compostella, account of a pilgrim 
 to, 67-68. 
 
 Compton, 97. 
 
 Confession to laymen, people ex- 
 horted to make, 93. 
 
 Constance, 73. 
 
 Constantinople, position in regard to 
 Crimean trade, II; plague at, 12. 
 
 Contagion, special nature of, 41, 45, 
 
 46, 50-5I. 
 
 Conventional forms of middle ages, 
 
 253- 
 J Conversation with infected fatal, 48, 
 
 50. 
 
 Corbet, John, priest of Winchester, 
 
 241. 
 Corey, John, establishes a cemetery 
 
 in London, 108. 
 
INDEX 
 
 261 
 
 Cork, 140. 
 
 Cornard Parva, manor of, 1 50. 
 
 Cornwall, evidence of Duchy ac- 
 counts, 200-201 ; date of plague 
 in the county of, 92. 
 
 Cornwall, Mr., introduces English 
 in schools, 234. 
 
 Corsica, 66. 
 
 Country, desolation of, 188 seqq. 
 
 Court rolls, information contained 
 in, 151, 193. 
 
 Coventry, 146. 
 
 Covino, Simon de, poem on the 
 plague, 40. 
 
 Crecy, battle of, xix. 
 
 Creighton, Dr., his work on epi- 
 demics in Britain, xxi. 
 
 Crimea, Italian trading cities in, 4, 5. 
 
 Crokham manor, 117. 
 
 Crops, prolific nature of, at time of 
 plague, 163. 
 
 Crosby, 180. 
 
 Croxton abbey, 164. 
 
 Cumberland, 183. 
 
 Cunningham, Dr., on the population 
 of England, 226 ; on effect of the 
 plague, 251. 
 
 Curates, technical meaning of name, 
 93 note. 
 
 Cyprus, 2. 
 
 Dale abbey, 171. 
 
 Dalkey, 139 note. 
 
 Dallyng, Philip, sacrist of Ely, 155. 
 
 Dalmatia, 68. 
 
 Dartmoor, 200. 
 
 Deacons, faculties given to, for 
 
 administering H. Eucharist, 95. 
 Death of those attacked by disease 
 
 considered certain, 44, 49-50. 
 Decameron , d escription of the plague 
 
 in the, 18, 23-27. 
 Delaprey abbey, 160. 
 De' Mussi, 5, 18. 
 
 Dene, Roger, priest of Winchester, 
 241. 
 
 Dene, Sir Thomas, deaths in the 
 family of, 120. 
 
 Dene, William, monk of Rochester, 
 his description of the plague, 120 
 seqq., 228; account of the labour 
 difficulties by, 231. 
 
 Denis, St., account of plague in 
 chronicle of, 53 ; mortality at, 54. 
 
 Denmark, 79. 
 
 Denny, East and West, 204. 
 
 Denton, Richard de, 183-184. 
 
 Derby, death of priests in county. 
 171; institutions in, 171; Domi- 
 nicans of, 171. 
 
 Dereford, John de, Mayor of Oxford, 
 148. 
 
 Derley abbey, notes in the chartulary 
 of, 171. 
 
 Desolation of country after the 
 plague, xi, 58, 65, 77-78, 79, 122, 
 133-134, 143-144, 169, 181, 183, 
 188 seqq. 
 
 Devon, date of plague in county, 
 92; mortality in, 102-103. 
 
 Devotions, new character of popular. 
 xxiv. 
 
 Dice converted into " beads," 60. 
 
 Dissentis abbey, 72. 
 
 Ditchford priory, 145. 
 
 Doctors, consulted by French king, 
 56; at Venice, 35; at Avignon, 
 44; flight of many, 49-50. 
 
 Dodinton manor, 167. 
 
 Dominicans, /ailing off in numbers 
 of, 213. 
 
 Doncaster, deanery of, institutions 
 in, 176, 180-181. 
 
 Dorchester, 91. 
 
 Dorsetshire, first appearance of 
 plague in, 82-83, 90-91 ; institu- 
 tions of clergy in, 91 ; deaths of 
 clergy, 188. 
 
262 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Doulton, 97. 
 
 Drakelow, lordship of, 172. 
 
 Drogheda, 139; convent of Minor- 
 ites at, 139. 
 
 Drontheim, archbishop and canons 
 of, die, 77; bishops of province 
 of, die, 77-78. 
 
 Dublin, 139; state of city after 
 plague, 140-141; convent of Min- 
 orites in, 139. 
 
 Duchy of Lancaster accounts, 200. 
 
 Dugdale's Warwickshire , institu- 
 tions from, 146 and note. 
 
 Dunstable, John de, prior of Cov- 
 entry, 146. 
 
 Dunwich, 153. 
 
 East, the, plague originates in, 1 ; 
 lines of commerce with, 3, 4, 5. 
 
 Eaststoke, in Hayling Island, 217. 
 
 Eckington, 171. 
 
 Ederos, or Ivychurch, 189. 
 
 Education, seriously affected by 
 plague, xxii ; condition of Univer- 
 sities after, 243-244. 
 
 Edward III, his great renown at the 
 time of plague, xix. 
 
 Edyndon, Bishop of Winchester, 
 123 ; his letter on the plague, 124; 
 his letter on cemeteries at Win- 
 chester, 128-129; benefactions to 
 St. Mary's, Winchester, 211; his 
 benefactions to Rornsey, 2i2;'his 
 inquiry into the state of St. 
 Swithun's, 214; his inquiry into 
 the state of Christchurch, Hants, 
 214; his letter about Shireborne 
 priory, 215; his admonition to 
 priests about residence, 215. 
 
 Elsyng, Robert, 108. 
 
 Ely, diocese of, 153; institutions in, 
 154-155 ; arrangement for govern- 
 ment of, 1 52 ; proportion of bene- 
 ficed and non-beneficed in, 156; 
 
 falling off of ordinations, 242 ; 
 
 oath demanded from candidates 
 
 for orders, 240; cathedral priory 
 
 of, 155 ; tax on Dunwich granted 
 
 to the priory, 153. 
 Elyot, William, 216. 
 Engelberg, 73; nunnery at, terrible 
 
 mortality at, 73. 
 England, date of arrival of plague 
 
 in, 81, 84. 
 English, introduction of, into schools, 
 
 234. 
 
 Episcopal registers, value of, 86; 
 kind of evidence to be found in, 
 86. 
 
 Escheator's returns as to death of 
 landowners, 115. 
 
 Esse, Richard de, Abbot of Tavis- 
 tock, 104. 
 
 Essex, benefices in, 203 ; Inq. p.m. 
 in, 203. 
 
 Etsch, valley of the, 70. 
 
 Eulogium Historiarum, the, 82. 
 
 Europe, lines of Eastern trade with, 
 
 4- 
 
 Evercreech, 97. 
 
 Exe, villages on the, 102. 
 
 Exeter, diocese of, date of plague 
 in, 92, 100; episcopal registers, 
 testimony of, 101 ; institutions of, 
 100, 102, 199; city of, St. Nicholas, 
 103. 
 
 Families swept away by plague, 74, 
 
 172, 196. 
 Farming, change in the system of, 
 
 231-232. 
 Farms, small, in use before the 
 
 plague, 233. 
 Feodosia, S. , otherwise Caffa, 5 and 
 
 note. 
 Ferriby priory, 178. 
 Fifteenth century, the, a period of 
 
 reconstruction, 254. 
 
INDEX 
 
 263 
 
 Fish, scarcity of, 228; increased 
 price of, 228 ; supposed spread of 
 epidemic through, 48. 
 
 Fishing boats convey infection, 102. 
 
 FitzEustace, Thomas, Inq. p.m. on, 
 205. 
 
 FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh, 
 on decrease of Oxford students, 
 147. 
 
 Fitz William, John, 180. 
 
 Flanders, 58. 
 
 Fleurchamps abbey, 76. 
 
 Flight of people before plague, 
 180. 
 
 Florence, 18, 23-28. 
 
 Food, spread of infection through, 
 48; dearness of, 163. 
 
 Fordingbridge, 131. 
 
 Foswert, 76. 
 
 Foucarmont abbey, 53. 
 
 Fourteenth century, common view 
 as to, xix. 
 
 Fowey, the estuary of, 102. 
 
 France, S. Luce on population of, 
 63; condition of rural, in four- 
 teenth century, 63-64. 
 
 Franciscans, Wadding on effect of 
 plague on, 251. 
 
 Frankfort, 75. 
 
 Freeman, professor, on real great- 
 ness of Middle Ages, 252. 
 
 Fremington, 102. 
 
 Freshford, 97. 
 
 Friars of Piacenza, deaths amongst, 
 22; in Provence, mortality 
 amongst, 51; mortality of, 51; 
 of Winchester diocese, falling off 
 in numbers, 212; of Our Lady, 
 Norwich, 150. 
 
 Frodsham manor, 169. 
 
 Frome, 98. 
 
 Funerals, regulations for, 3 1 -32. 
 
 Furniture of French houses, 64. 
 
 Fyfhide, William de, 129 and note. 
 
 Gall, St., abbey of, 80. 
 
 Gallarete, 71. 
 
 Garstang, 182. 
 
 Garter, foundation of the Order of 
 the, xx. 
 
 Gascoigne, Thomas, on decrease of 
 Oxford students, 147 and note. 
 
 Gascony, 53, 55. 
 
 Gayton, near Towcester, 224. 
 
 Gaza, 2. 
 
 Geneva, Lake of, *]2. 
 
 Genoa, merchants of, report begin- 
 ning of plague, 1 ; ships carry 
 plague to, 14; date of plague at, 
 20-21 ; ships from, carry plague 
 to Marseilles, 39 ; settlements in 
 Crimea of merchants belonging 
 to, 4-5. 
 
 Gerard Otho, archbishop of Cata- 
 nia, 17. 
 
 Gerneys, Joan, abbess of Romsey, 
 212. 
 
 Gesta Abba turn, the, 112. 
 
 Gibraltar, death of Alfonso XI at, 
 67. 
 
 Gillingham, Dorset, court rolls of, 
 194. 
 
 Girgenti, 17. 
 
 Glass, first use of, 63; painted, 
 influence of plague on manufac- 
 ture of, 236. 
 
 Glastonbury, decrease in number of 
 monks, 98, 250. 
 
 Gloucester, county of, benefices in, 
 219; city of, stops communica- 
 tion with Bristol, 106. 
 
 Godstowe, prioress of, 146. 
 
 Goods of deceased tenants seized by 
 the lord of the manor, 224. 
 
 Grandisson, bishop, 101, 104, 200. 
 
 Green, J. R., his history, xx; his 
 estimate of church influence, 
 xx iv. 
 
 Gresley, prior of, 171. 
 
264 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Grinstead, East, near Salisbury, 
 191. 
 
 Grisant, William, doctor at Mar- 
 seilles, 40. 
 
 Guernsey, 81. 
 
 Guilds, rise of, xxiv. 
 
 Hagham priory, 184. 
 
 Hallmote courts, 185. 
 
 Haltemprice priory, 178. 
 
 Hame, manor of, 219. 
 
 Hampole, Richard Rolle of, xxiii. 
 
 Hampshire, date of plague in, 130; 
 institutions of clergy in, 208-209; 
 Inq. p. m. in, 218. 
 
 Hampton, John de, 129. 
 
 Hardington, 97. 
 
 Hartland abbey, 103. 
 
 Hartlebury, manor of the Bishop of 
 Worcester, 144. 
 
 Harvests unreaped for lack of la- 
 bour, 198, 219-220, 228. 
 
 Hastings, Laurence de, Earl of 
 Pembroke, 137. 
 
 Hastings, royal presentation to 
 church in, 208. 
 
 Hastings, William de, Inq. p. m. 
 on, 218. 
 
 Hayling Island, 131; impoverish- 
 ment of, 217; priory, impoverish- 
 ment of, 217. 
 
 Hecker, his account o£ commence- 
 ment of the plague, 2. 
 
 Hedges, origin of, 233. 
 
 Heiligen Kreuz abbey, 75. 
 
 Helston, 201. 
 
 Hereford, disease in, 165 ; institu- 
 tions of clergy in, 166; falling 
 off in numbers ordained, 242. 
 
 Heriots, increase in numbers of, 
 221. 
 
 Herrings, increase in price of, 228. 
 
 Hertfordshire, date of plague in, 
 
 113; institutions of clergy in, 
 205 ; manors of, state of, 1 14. 
 
 Heveringland priory, 150. 
 
 Hexstall, Leticia, abbess of Polles- 
 worth, 146. 
 
 Hickling priory, 150. 
 
 Hinton Bluet, two masses on Sun- 
 days allowed at, 240. 
 
 Hinton Charterhouse, difficulties on 
 death of tenants at, 197-199. 
 
 Holcombe, Somerset, 97. 
 
 Holderness, deanery of, 178. 
 
 Holland, 76. 
 
 Holland, town of, 57. 
 
 Holland, Sir Thomas, 160. 
 
 Holy Cross, Bristol, 99. 
 
 Holy Name, rise of devotion to the, 
 xxiv. 
 
 Hong-Kong, plague in, vii. 
 
 Horsleigh priory, 220. 
 
 Horsley, 171. 
 
 Houghton, 1S5. 
 
 House, style of French country, 
 63-64. 
 
 Hull, 180- 181. 
 
 Hume, on the plague, xx. 
 
 Husee, Sir Henry, Inq. p.m. on, 
 190. 
 
 Hyde abbey, 211. 
 
 Iceland, the bishops of, all die, 77 
 and note. 
 
 Incumbents, ordination of, after 
 appointment, 239. 
 
 India, bubonic plague in, v seqq. 
 
 Indulgences granted at time of 
 plague, 127. 
 
 Infection, terrible nature of, 20-21, 
 3i 5 56-57, 7o-7i, 106. 
 
 Inquisitions post mortem, value of, 
 114. 
 
 Institutions of clergy, valuable evi- 
 dence of, 87-88. 
 
 Ireland, 138 seqq. 
 
INDEX 
 
 265 
 
 Iron, increased price of, 228. 
 
 Islip, Simon, Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, his enthronisation, 123; 
 letter on stipends of clergy, 247. 
 
 Istria, 69. 
 
 Ivychurch priory, 131, 189. 
 
 Jersey, 81. 
 
 Jervaulx abbey, 177. 
 
 Jessopp, Dr., his account of the 
 
 plague in East Anglia, ii, 149, 
 
 150. 
 Jews, mortality amongst, 43. 
 Joan of Burgundy dies, 54. 
 Joan, daughter of Edward III, dies, 
 
 52. 
 Joan, Queen of Navarre, dies, 54. 
 John XXI, report as to Eastern 
 
 commerce to, 3. 
 
 Kent, Margaret, Countess of, 159. 
 
 Keynsham abbey, 97. 
 
 Kidwelly priory, 138. 
 
 Kilkenny, 1 39- 140. 
 
 Kilkhampton, John de, prior of 
 Bod win, 104. 
 
 Kilmersdon, 97. 
 
 King Edward, his compassion sel- 
 dom manifested, 216 ; on clerical 
 education, 244. 
 
 Kingsmead, prioress of, 171. 
 
 Knighton, chronicle by, 84 ; his 
 account of plague at Bristol, 98; 
 ditto in Leicestershire, 162; on 
 the plague amongst the Scots, 
 186; his description of labour 
 difficulties, 230; on the scarcity 
 of priests, 238. 
 
 Knightsbridge, slaughter place for 
 London at, no. 
 
 Koos, or Chus, a trade station on 
 the Nile, 4. 
 
 Kurds, the, attacked by the plague, 2. 
 
 Labour, increased cost of, 219-220, 
 227-228. 
 
 Labourers, difficulty of obtaining, 
 57, 106-107, 122, 163, 197-199, 
 208, 219; trouble with, 65; feel 
 their power, xxii, 228 ; get higher 
 wages in spite of legislation, 230- 
 231. 
 
 Lagerbring, on plague in Norway, 
 
 77- 
 
 Lamech, earthquake at, 2. 
 
 Lancashire, 180. 
 
 Land, depreciation of, 159, 178, 
 218, 219, 223, 228; rents of, re- 
 duced, 123, 167-168, 169, 190 
 seqq. ; cessation of services on, 
 172-173; a third part of, unculti- 
 vated, 231; change of, to large 
 tenures, 233. 
 
 Landowners, difficulties of, 227- 
 228 ; mediaeval meaning of, 234. 
 
 Langton, 91. 
 
 Language, effect of plague on, 234. 
 
 Languedoc, 42. 
 
 Langwith, 171. 
 
 Lanthony priory, 220. 
 
 Laon, abbey of St. John at, 65. 
 
 Launceston, appointment of a reli- 
 gious of, as prior of Bodmin, 
 104. 
 
 Laura de Noves, death of, 32-33, 
 43; announcement of death of, 
 to Petrarch, 33. 
 
 Law Courts suspended, 174. 
 
 Law suits settled by deaths of par- 
 ties, 136, 196. 
 
 Lay people and clergy, proportion 
 of, 237. 
 
 Ledbury, large ordination at, 242. 
 
 Leicester, city of, 162. 
 
 Leicester, county of, institutions of 
 clergy in, 163-164. 
 
 Lesnes monastery, poverty of, 123. 
 
 Le Strange, John, 167, 190. 
 
266 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lewes priory, deaths at, 134. 
 Liege, labour difficulties at, 65. 
 Lincoln, county of, Escheat ors' ac 
 
 counts for, 174. 
 Lincoln, diocese of, indulgences for, 
 
 162, 173; institutions of clergy 
 
 in, 205. 
 Lincoln, Richard de, 174. 
 Lipton, Nicholas de, abbot, 223. 
 Lisle, Thomas de, Bishop of Ely, 
 
 153- 
 
 Livings left vacant, 199-200. 
 
 Lollards, supposed religious revival 
 due to, xxiii. 
 
 London, date of plague in, 107, III, 
 136; new churchyards in, 107- 
 108; number of dead in, 109- 
 1 10, 203 ; insanitary condition of, 
 1 10; proportion of secular to re- 
 gular clergy ordained in, 247 
 note. 
 
 Longford, 171, 204. 
 
 Louth Park, 173. 
 
 Lucaris, Dominic de, Archbishop 
 of Spalatro, 69. 
 
 Luce, M. Simeon, on condition of 
 French rural life, ix, 63. 
 
 Lucerne, 72. 
 
 Luda, Walter de, abbot of Louth 
 Park. 174. 
 
 Lufneld priory, 160. 
 
 Lulworth, East, 91. 
 
 Lycia, trade route with, 3. 
 
 Lycotin, Matilda, 133. 
 
 Lydford manor, 200. 
 
 Lyle, Henry de, prior of Horsleigh, 
 221. 
 
 Lynot, John, 158* 
 
 Lynsted, Adam de, sacrist of Ely, 
 155. 
 
 Magnus II, King of Sweden, 78. 
 Mahabar, probably Mahe, on Mala- 
 bar coast, 4. 
 
 Majorca, 66. 
 
 Maldon manor, 203. 
 
 Male population, demands upon 
 the, 243. 
 
 Mailing abbey, 120, 123. 
 
 Malvern, Great, 142. 
 
 Manny, Sir Walter, 109, 137. 
 
 Manors, example of deaths of ten- 
 ants on, 150-151, 157, 161, 162, 
 164, 194, 195, 196, 197. 
 
 Marino, Sanudo, his account of 
 ancient trade routes, 3. 
 
 Marseilles, 40; remains a city of 
 the dead, 46. 
 
 Marton priory, 178. 
 
 Mautravers, John, governor of 
 Channel Islands, 81. 
 
 Meals, account of, in France, 64. 
 
 Meath, bishop of, 138 note. 
 
 Meaux abbey, 178; decay of, 179. 
 
 Medical science powerless to deal 
 with epidemic, 12, 41, 50, 72. 
 
 Mediterranean ports, infection 
 brought from, 1. 
 
 Melcombe Regis, plague in Eng- 
 land first starts from, 82. 
 
 Mengham, Hayling Island, 217. 
 
 Mentmore, Michael, abbot of St. 
 Albans, 112. 
 
 Merdenchor, quarter of Tournay, 
 
 59. 
 
 Mesopotamia, 2; trade route through, 
 
 3- 
 
 Messina, 15. 
 
 Middle Ages, material difficulties 
 
 in, 252. 
 Middle classes, profusion of, xix. 
 Milan, building of the cathedral of, 
 
 253-254 and note. 
 Minster priory, Cornwall, 103. 
 Momo, 71. 
 Monasteries, special mortality in, 
 
 76, 209; impoverishment of, 197- 
 
 198; depopulation of, 249-250. 
 
INDEX 
 
 267 
 
 Monkbretton priory, 178. 
 
 Monrieux, 33. 
 
 Montgomery, Sir John, 136. 
 
 Montpellier, 40. 
 
 Morals, effect of scourge on, xxii, 
 2 9> 37? 55; attempt to enforce 
 better, 60. 
 
 Mortality, extent of, in Europe, 58 ; 
 probable estimate of, in England, i 
 225 seqq. ; of English clergy, as 
 evidenced by Patent rolls, 88 ; I 
 greater in confined places, 61. 
 
 Morton, 224. 
 
 Mosquitoes, cause of plague, viii. 
 
 Muchelney abbey, 98. 
 
 Muggington, 171. 
 
 Muhldorf, 70. 
 
 Muisis, Gilles Le, abbot of Tour- 
 nay, 58, 68. 
 
 Miirz, the valley of the, 70. 
 
 Mussi, De', his account of the 
 plague in Italy, 18, 19. 
 
 Mustard, nearly the only mediaeval 
 condiment, 64. 
 
 Nangis, William of, his account of 
 
 the plague, 54. 
 Narbonne, 42. 
 Navarre, Queen of, dies, 54. 
 Netherton, 169. 
 Neuberg, 70, 74. 
 Newcastle, 185. 
 Newenham abbey, 103. 
 Norfolk and Suffolk, institution of 
 
 clergy in, 149 ; manors of, deaths 
 
 in, 150-151. 
 Normandy, 53, 57. 
 Northam, 102. 
 Northamptonshire, institutions of 
 
 clergy in, 159; manors of, 161. 
 North Sea, ships drifting on the, 3. 
 Northumberland, 185. 
 North wich, 170. 
 Northwood, Hay ling Island, 217. 
 
 Norway, 76-77. 
 
 Norwich, city of, St. Martin's-in- 
 the-Fields, 150; the friars of Our 
 Lady in, ibid.-, deaths in, 151- 
 152 ; supposed population of, ibid. 
 
 Norwich, diocese of, deaths of re- 
 ligious superiors in, 149-150; in- 
 stitutions of clergy in, 149; or- 
 dinations of youths in, 238. 
 
 Nottinghamshire, deaths of bene- 
 ficed clergy in, 173. 
 
 Noves, Laura de, death of, 43. 
 
 Nurses, impossibility of finding, 46, 
 S°S l i 53> 71-72; almost certain 
 death of, 56. 
 
 Oath, a kind of missionary, im- 
 posed at Ely, 240. 
 
 Observance of monasteries, plague 
 fatal to, 250-251. 
 
 Orders, dearth of candidates for, 
 177; the usual intervals between, 
 dispensed with, 238; conferred 
 on a married man, 240; conferred 
 on youths, 238. 
 
 Ordinations, effect of plague upon 
 the, 211, 213, 241-242. 
 
 Ordinations, faculty to archbishop 
 of York for extra, 177. 
 
 Orvieto, 30. 
 
 Ospring manor, 120. 
 
 Otho, Gerard, archbishop of Catania, 
 
 17. 
 
 Oxford City, 146-147; mayors die, 
 147-148; plague pits in, 148. 
 
 Oxfordshire, date of pestilence in, 
 146. 
 
 Oxford, St. Frideswide, 146, 222. 
 
 Oxford University, students de- 
 crease through plague, 147, 244. 
 
 Padova, Andrea di 
 
 Venice, 35. 
 Padua, 30, 70. 
 
 a doctor at 
 
268 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Painted glass, influence of plague on 
 manufacture, 236. 
 
 Paris, 53, 54. 
 
 Parishes, depopulation of, 121 -122, 
 166; impoverishment of, 158. 
 
 Parliament, prorogation of, 107. 
 
 Parma, 32-34. 
 
 Pastoral clergy, necessity for pro- 
 viding, 248. 
 
 Patent rolls, evidence of the mor- 
 tality upon the, 88. 
 
 Pater noster, meaning of instruc- 
 tions upon the, 241 note. 
 
 Pembroke, county of, 137. 
 
 Pentrich, 171. 
 
 People, sympathy of clergy with, 
 248 ; become masters of the labour 
 situation, 232. 
 
 Pepys, Samuel, his description of 
 Bristol, 99. 
 
 Pessimism of present day, 252. 
 
 Pestilence, the great, date of com- 
 mencement, 1 ; its arrival in Eng- 
 land, 83-84; character of, 8, 12- 
 14, 41, 56, 68-69, 70-71; special 
 type of, 8, 41, 50, 136, 139; 
 rapidity of infection of, 69, 84-85, 
 139; not affected by climate, 41. 
 
 Petrarch, his account of the plague 
 at Parma, 32-34. 
 
 Pfafers, 72. 
 
 Philip of Valois, Queen of, dies, 54. 
 
 Philip VI consults doctors upon the 
 epidemic, 56. 
 
 Piacenza, 5, 21-22. 
 
 Pilton priory, 103. 
 
 Pinchbeck, Emma de, prioress of 
 Worthorp, 160. 
 
 Pisa, 29 ; effect of plague on morals 
 at, 37. 
 
 Platiensis, Michael, his account of 
 the plague in Sicily, 15 note. 
 
 Poisoners suspected at Avignon, 48. 
 
 Poitou, 53. 
 
 Pola, 69. 
 
 Pollesworth abbey, 146. 
 
 Poole, 92. 
 
 Poor, unhealthy condition of living, 
 147 ; very great mortality amongst 
 42, 47. 
 
 Population in 14th century, 62; 
 statistics of, 85-86; estimate of, 
 in England, 225 seqq.\ effect on 
 the, 83, 167; proportion carried 
 off, 225; detached from the soil 
 by the plague, 234. 
 j Portesham, 91. 
 J Portishead, 97. 
 
 Portland, 8$. 
 j Portsmouth, 131, 216. 
 
 Poverty of priests because of the 
 deaths of their people, 158. 
 
 Powick, 142. 
 
 Pratis, John de, bishop of Tournay, 
 
 59- 
 
 Preston, 182. 
 
 Priests, afraid of infection, 121-122, 
 126; specially liable to infect, 20, 
 38, 41, 61, 77, 93, 139; dearth 
 of, 93, 121, 200, 237; devotion 
 of, 61, 101. 
 
 Priests' deaths imply deaths of many 
 people, 192. 
 
 Priests, poverty of, through the 
 plague, 121 -122, 158, 200. 
 
 Processions, orders for, 81, 127. 
 
 Provence, 46, 51. 
 
 Provisions, cheap, during the pesti- 
 lence, 106. 
 
 Pulex cheopis, viii. 
 
 Punjab, plague in, vi. 
 
 Ragusa, 68. 
 
 Raleghe, Roger de, Abbot of Hart- 
 land, 103. 
 Ramsey abbey, 159. 
 Rats, cause of plague, vii. 
 Realism, need of corrective for, 253. 
 
INDEX 
 
 269 
 
 Reggio, 32. 
 
 Registers, Episcopal, importance of 
 the, 86. 
 
 Regular clergy, numbers of the, 244- 
 245; position in the Church of, 
 245 ; ordinations of, 245. 
 
 Religion, paralysis of, after the 
 epidemic, xxii ; history of, in later 
 times, to be understood in light 
 of this plague, xxv. 
 
 Religious, falling off in ordinations 
 of, 2II-2I2. 
 
 Religious feeling and practice, im- 
 portant change in, xxii. 
 
 Religious foundations, change in 
 type of, 246. 
 
 Religious houses, special mortality 
 in, 76, 164, 178, 189; effect of 
 plague on numbers of, 209; im- 
 poverishment of, 136, 2IO seqq. 
 
 Rent, instance of remission of, 170. 
 
 Rhine valley, 72, 75. 
 
 Rhone valley, 42. 
 
 Rich, the, victims of the plague at 
 Tournay, 61 ; in Hungary, 72. 
 
 Rievaulx abbey, 178. 
 
 Rimini, 31. 
 
 Rivarolo, 20. 
 
 Roche abbey, 178. 
 
 Rochester, cathedral priory of, 123. 
 
 Rochester, diocese of, 120 seqq.; 
 deaths in episcopal palace of, 
 120; the bishop's mandate for 
 prayers, 12 1 ; state of episcopal 
 manors, 122. 
 
 Rogers, Professor Thorold, on 
 population, 226. 
 
 Romsey abbey, 212; election of 
 abbess to, 212; benefactions of 
 Bishop Edyndon to, 212. 
 
 Roskild, the bishopric of, state of 
 the manors of, 79. 
 
 Round numbers, misleading nature 
 of, 62, 182. 
 
 Ruswyl, 72. 
 Rutland, 161. 
 
 Rye, 133- 
 
 Sacrament, the Blessed, increase of 
 
 devotion to, xxiv. 
 Sacraments, difficulty in obtaining 
 
 the, 38. 
 Sadington, 164. 
 St. Albans, decrease in number of 
 
 monks at, 249; date of plague 
 
 at, 112; death of a monk of, 
 
 at Canterbury, 119; peculiars of, 
 
 205. 
 St. Brice, parish of, 59. 
 St. Gall, abbey of, 71. 
 St. Gothard, pass of, 71. 
 St. Ives, John of, camerarius of 
 
 Ely, 155. 
 St. Piat, parish of, Tournay, 59. 
 St. Trond, difficulties with tenants 
 
 at, 65. 
 St. Valery, abbey of, Picardy, 
 
 205. 
 Salisbury, diocese of, institutions of 
 
 clergy in, 89; deaths in, 188. 
 Salt, increased price of, 228. 
 Salvatierra, 68. 
 
 Sandown, hospital of, 133, 214. 
 Sandwich, cemetery at, 119. 
 Santiago, 58, 68. 
 Sanudo, Marino, his report on lines 
 
 of commerce, 3. 
 Saragossa, 67. 
 Sardinia, 66. 
 Sciacca, 17. 
 
 Scotch invaders attacked, 186. 
 Sebenico, 69. 
 
 Secular and regular clergy, propor- 
 tion of, 244; ordination of, in 
 
 London, 247 note. 
 Selkirk forest, 186. 
 Selwood forest, 198. 
 Selwood, Richard de, 147. 
 
270 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Seyer, his history of Bristol, 99. 
 
 Shaftesbury, 91. 
 
 Shelford priory, 178. 
 
 Shepey, Jordan, Mayor of Coventry, 
 
 146. 
 Shereborne abbey, 138. 
 Ships without crews on the high 
 
 seas, 2-3, 77. 
 Shireborne priory, 215. 
 Shrewsbury, institutions of clergy 
 
 in, 166. 
 Shrewsbury, Ralph of, and bishop 
 
 of Bath and Wells, 81 ; letter of, 
 
 on the plague, 93-95. 
 Shropshire, 166-167. 
 Sicily, 14. 
 Sick left without attendants, 44-46, 
 
 5o. 
 Siena, 30 ; population of, 30 note ; 
 
 building of cathedral of, sus- 
 pended, 30 note^ 253. 
 Skelton, William, prior of Luffield, 
 
 160. 
 Sladen, manor of, 116. 
 Sleeping sickness, viii. 
 Smithfield, East, cemetery at, 107. 
 Snetterton, manor of, 151. 
 Social results of plague, 226-227, 
 
 252. 
 Somerset, date of plague in the 
 
 county of, 92, 93,95; institutions 
 
 of clergy in, 96, 192; dearth of 
 
 clergy in, 96. » 
 
 Southampton, 131, 162. 
 South wood, 217. 
 Spain, 55,. 66 seqq. 
 Spalatro, 68. 
 Spettisbury, 90. 
 Spiritual writers, rise of an English 
 
 school of, xxiii. 
 Spoils of France, English people 
 
 rich with, xix. 
 Sprouston, Robert de, 156. 
 Staffordshire, 164. 
 
 Stamford, St. Michael's, united to 
 Worthorp, 161. 
 
 Stipends of clergy, 247. 
 
 Stockton, near Warminster, 194. 
 
 Stoke-Glare, college of, 246. 
 
 Stoke, Hayling Island, 217. 
 
 Stowe's account of London ceme- 
 teries, 108-109. 
 
 Strange, John le, 167, 168; Fulk, 
 ibid. ; Humphrey, ibid. 
 
 Strikes against old rents, 231. 
 
 Students, decrease in numbers of, 
 147. 
 
 Styria, 70, 74. 
 
 Suffolk, institutions of clergy in, 
 149. 
 
 Surrey, date of plague in, 130; in- 
 stitutions in, 209 ; depreciation of 
 land in, 218. 
 
 Sussex, 133; benefices in, 208; 
 royal presentations to livings in, 
 208. 
 
 Sweden, letter of the king of, on 
 the plague, 78; the pestilence in, 
 
 78-79- 
 Switzerland, 72. 
 Syria, 2 ; trade routes through, 3. 
 
 Talkeley priory, Essex, 205. 
 
 Talley abbey, 138. 
 
 Tamworth, land near, 164. 
 
 Tana, now Azov, 6 note. 
 
 Tartary, 2. 
 
 Tavistock abbey, 103-104. 
 
 Taxes, difficulty in raising, 229. 
 
 Tenants, deaths of manorial, 170, 
 172, 174, 179, 183, 218; dearth 
 of, 223 ; refusal to pay old rents 
 by, 231; small holdings of, before 
 epidemic, 233. 
 
 That-Molyngis, Ireland, pilgrimage 
 to, 138. 
 
 Thurgarton priory, 178. 
 
 Tideswell, church of, 235. 
 
INDEX 
 
 71 
 
 Tigris, trade route along, 3. 
 
 Tintagel, 201. 
 
 Tortona, 71. 
 
 Toulouse, 46, 52. 
 
 Tournay, 58 seqq., 76; bishop of, 
 
 59; abbey of St. Martin's at, 
 
 58. 
 Towcester, 224. 
 Towns, decay of, 180-181, 229. 
 Trade routes, the chief eastern, 3-4. 
 Trades unions, rise of, 232. 
 Trapani, 17. 
 
 Trebizond, trade with, 3. 
 Trent, 70. 
 Trevisa, his account of introduction 
 
 of English into schools, 234. 
 Trigg, deanery of, 201. 
 Trileck, Bishop of Hereford, 164; 
 
 ordinations by, 242. 
 Trivet, his chronicle continued, 83. 
 Tumby, Stephen de, and Mary, his 
 
 wife, 191. 
 Tura, Agniolo de, his account of the 
 
 plague, 30. 
 Twerton, 97. 
 Tynemouth, account by a monk of, 
 
 186-187. 
 Tynham, 91. 
 Tyrolese Alps, 70. 
 
 Valencia, 67. 
 
 Valery, St., abbey of, 205. 
 
 Varese, 71. 
 
 Venice, ships from Crimea, trade 
 with, 14-15; plague at, 20, 31- 
 32; deaths at, 49; doctors at, 35, 
 36. 
 
 Verona, 74. 
 
 Vienna, 74. 
 
 Villani, Giovanni, dies of the plague, 
 28-29. 
 
 Villani, Matteo, on origin of the 
 plague, 2; on nature of the 
 plague, 9; his account of it, 28. 
 
 Villeinage, extinction of, 232. 
 Vocations to priesthood fall off, 
 243- 
 
 Wadding on the effects of the 
 plague, 251. 
 
 Wages, attempt to regulate, 228; 
 real reason for the measure, 229- 
 230; are doubled, 229. 
 
 Wakebridge, Sir William, 172. 
 
 Wales, 137; small number of reli- 
 gious in monasteries of, 137-138. 
 
 Walter, abbot of Newenham, 103. 
 
 Wandsworth, 131. 
 
 Wappenbury, lands in, 221. 
 
 Wareham, 91; alien priory at, 91. 
 
 Waring, John de, 133. 
 
 Warminster, 194. 
 
 Warm well, 91. 
 
 Warwickshire, institutions of clergy 
 in, 145-146, 221; Inq. p.m. in, 
 221; date of plague in, 146. 
 
 Weedon, 224. 
 
 Welbeck abbey, 178. 
 
 Wells, 98. 
 
 West Chickerell, 91. 
 
 West Gotland, 77. 
 
 Westerham, impropriation of, to 
 Canterbury, 208. 
 
 Westminster, 107; hospital of St. 
 James's at, 112. 
 
 Westminster abbey, 112. 
 
 Westmoreland, 183. 
 
 Weston, Hayling Island, 217. 
 
 Weston-super-Mare, 97, 224. 
 
 Weston, William, 112. 
 
 Weymouth, 8^, 91. 
 
 Whaddon, 134. 
 
 Whitchurch manor, 168, 190, 222. 
 
 Whitland abbey, 138. 
 
 Wight, Isle of, 131; institutions of 
 clergy in, 216. 
 
 Wilington, Henry de, 191. 
 
 Wilington, 171. 
 
272 
 
 INDEX 
 
 William of Worcester, note as to 
 Yarmouth, 152; note as to Bod- 
 min, 104. 
 
 Wills in court of Hustings, London, 
 ill. 
 
 Wilmacott, Inq. p. m. as to, 221. 
 
 Wiltshire, institutions of clergy in, 
 189; Inq. p. m. in, 190; manors 
 of, 194. 
 
 Winchcombe abbey, 219. 
 
 Winchelsea, 133. 
 
 Winchester city, difficulties in col- 
 lecting taxes, 218; processions 
 through, 125; riot in, about 
 burial places, 127. 
 
 Winchester, diocese of, 123 seqq.; 
 institutions of clergy in, 129-130; 
 deaths of religious superiors of, 
 132-133; falling off in numbers 
 ordained, 213, 241 ; decay of 
 churches in, 215, proportion of 
 beneficed to non-beneficed clergy 
 ordained in, 236; clerics not in 
 sacred orders ordained to bene- 
 fices, 239. 
 
 Winchester, St. Mary's nunnery, 211. 
 
 Winchester, St. Swithun's, 129; 
 death of prior, 209; effect of 
 deaths in, 209; impoverishment 
 of, 209, 213. 
 
 Winnow, St., 102. 
 
 Winterbourne, St. Nicholas, 91-92. 
 
 Winterbournes, the, 80,. 
 
 Wisby, Franciscan convent in, 78. 
 
 Wisby, the cathedral of, slabs in, 78. 
 
 Witham Charterhouse, difficulties 
 of, 197-198. 
 
 Wivelscombe, the bishop of Bath 
 and Wells at, 96. 
 
 Woods not to be sold, 191. 
 
 Wool, making of cloth from, at 
 Hinton Charterhouse, 199. 
 
 Worcester, letter of bishop of, 142; 
 state of his manors after, 143 ; 
 cemetery in, 142; St. Oswald's 
 in, 143; state of the county of, 
 143; date of plague in, 141; in- 
 stitutions of clergy in, 141. 
 
 Workmen, combinations of, 231. 
 
 Worthorp priory, 160. 
 
 Wycliffe, failure of social theories 
 of, 252. 
 
 Wycliffite authors, tracts wrongly 
 attributed to, xxiii. 
 
 Wykeham, William of, his exhorta- 
 tions to St. Swithin's, Winches- 
 ter, 210; his schools, 244 note', 
 his entry" into ecclesiastical state 
 caused by plague, 249. 
 
 Wyncote, John, deaths in family of, 
 221. 
 
 Yarmouth, population of, 153 note, 
 mortality in, 151 -152; petition to 
 Henry VII from, 152; church 
 building stopped, 153; St. Ni- 
 cholas' church, 235. 
 
 York, institutions of clergy in the 
 diocese, 176; provision against 
 deaths of canons, 177; deprecia- 
 tion of land in the county of, 
 1 79 ; letter of Archbishop Zouche, 
 175; indulgences from the Pope 
 for, 176. 
 
 Zouche, archbishop of York, 175. 
 Zurich, 73. 
 
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