The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9)_ Now Commonly Known as the Black Death Francis Aidan Gasquet 1494 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9),
Now Commonly Known as the Black Death

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If
you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9), Now Commonly Known as the
Black Death

Author: Francis Aidan Gasquet

Release date: May 29, 2014 [eBook #45815]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45815

Credits: Produced by Clarity, RichardW, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT
PESTILENCE (A.D. 1348-9), NOW COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE BLACK
DEATH ***

The Great Pestilence

(A.D. 1348–9),

NOW COMMONLY KNOWN

AS

The Black Death.

BY

FRANCIS AIDAN GASQUET, D.D., O.S.B.

London:

SIMPKIN MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., Limited.

1893.

Lewes:

SOUTH COUNTIES PRESS LIMITED.

CONTENTS.
To The Reader xi

Introduction xiii

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 1–15

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 16–33

CHAPTER III.
Progress of the Plague in France.
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 direction — William of Nargis' description of the
mortality in Paris — Philip VI. consults the medical faculty — Normandy —
Amiens — Account of Gilles Le Muisis, Abbot of Tournay — M. Siméon Luce on
the conditions of popular life in France in the Fourteenth century — Agrarian
troubles follow the epidemic 34–57

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 —
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden — Account of Wisby on the Island of Gotland —
Labour difficulties consequent upon the epidemic 58–70

CHAPTER V.
The Plague Reaches England.
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 —
Difficulty in dealing with figures in Middle Ages — Value of episcopal registers in
giving institutions of beneficed clergy — Evidence of Patent Rolls — Institutions in
Dorsetshire — 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 — Institutions in the
diocese of Exeter — Spread of mortality — Religious houses of the diocese
71–91
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. Alban's — 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 — Difficulty 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
92–115

CHAPTER VII.
The Epidemic in Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick, and Oxford.
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 116–127

CHAPTER VIII.
Story of the Disease in the Rest of England.
Dr. Jessop's account of Norfolk and Suffolk — Institutions 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 consequent upon the mortality — Straits of the
clergy — Huntingdon — 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 — Cumberland — Carlisle — Durham —
Northumberland — Alnwick 128–161

CHAPTER IX.
The Desolation of the Country.
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 — Colchester
wills — Talkeley priory — Chesthunt 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 — Gloucester
— Lantony priory — Horsleigh cell — Warwickshire — Wappenbury —
Whitchurch — Bruerne abbey — St. Frideswide's at Oxford — Barlings 162–193

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 1381
practically emancipates the labourer — Growth of large landowners — 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 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 — Wadding's explanation of Franciscan decadence
— The Black Death, a calamity sudden, overwhelming, and of widespread effect
194–219

TO THE READER.

In publishing this story of a great and overwhelming 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 my material, or in weaving it into a connected narrative. Amongst
these many kind friends I may specially name 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 1346, 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 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 Pestilence, 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 evidently has not realised the enormous
effects, social and religious, which are directly traceable to the catastrophe.
Excellent articles, indeed, such as those from the pen of Professor Seebohm and
Dr. Jessop, 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 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 subject, 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 treatment of a subject, in itself so
uninviting, is here undertaken. The pestilence of 1348–49, 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 importance for the right understanding of the history of England 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 life. It formed the real close of the Mediæval 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 recognised, 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 1351 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 prejudicial beyond the power of
calculation. To secure the most necessary public ministrations of the rites of religion
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. 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 manuscript,
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 recognise that
these tracts are perfect 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 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, furniture, 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 comparative simplicity which characterised former days, as witnessed 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
material 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 sixteenth century.
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 catastrophe, 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 distressing 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 immediate results of the great plague, especially as bearing
upon the Church life of the country.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Green, Short History of the English People, p. 216.

TO

THE GREAT PESTILENCE.

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 conveyance to the Western world. Reports at the time spoke of great earthquakes
and other physical disturbances as having taken place in the far East, and these were
said to have been accompanied by peculiar conditions of the atmosphere, and
followed by a great mortality among the teeming populations of India and China.
Pope Clement VI. was informed that the pestilence 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 calculated at the enormous, and no doubt exaggerated, number of nearly four-
and-twenty millions.

A Prague chronicle speaks of the epidemic in the kingdoms of China, India, and
Persia, and the contemporary historian, Matteo Villani, reports its conveyance 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 devastating 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."[2]
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
Cæsarea 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
Mediterranean, as afterwards in the North Sea, driving about and spreading the
plague wherever they went ashore."[3]
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.[4] 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 depôt 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,[5] 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 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
Alexandria, 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[6] and Cambeth.[7] Thence it was conveyed to
ports in the Persian 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[8] 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 mediæval writers. From Cairo it was conveyed to
Alexandria by canal.
These were the three chief routes by which communication 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 conveyed to Europe by the trading caravans coming from the East by
all these roads and by other similar lines of 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 appearance 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,[9] 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.[10]

"In the year 1346," he writes, "in eastern parts an immense number of Tartars and
Saracens fell victims to a mysterious and sudden death. In these regions vast
districts, numerous provinces, magnificent kingdoms, cities, castles, and villages,
peopled by a great multitude, 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 Constantinople 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."[11] The Christian merchants violently expelled from the city were then
received for the protection of their persons and property within the walls of Caffa,
which the Genoese had built in that country.
"The Tartars followed these fugitive Italian merchants, and, surrounding the city
of Caffa, besieged it likewise.[12] 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
"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 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."[13]
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 1348–1350. And, in the first
place, it may be well to state that the name Black Death, by which the great
pestilence is now generally known, not only in England, but elsewhere, is of
comparatively modern origin.[14] 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 equivalent to the English Black Death.[15] It is hard to resist the
impression that in England, at least, it was used as the recognised name for the
epidemic of 1349 only after the pestilence of the 17th century had assumed to itself
the title of the Great Plague. Whether the name Black Death was first adopted to
express the universal 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 determine.
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
common 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 swellings 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 in vogue there.
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
(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 swellings,"
says a contemporary writer, "many recovered; from the blood-spitting none."[16]
Matteo Villani, one of the most exact writers about this plague at Florence, says that
the sick "who began to vomit blood quickly died;"[17] 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 observations, 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 identical with those of the disease known as malignant
pustule 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
profound 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."[18]
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
suddenly, 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 Eastern plague, over many months.[19]
Such is a brief account of the disease which devastated the world in the middle of
the fourteenth century. Before 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 Constantinople 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 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 powerless 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 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 paralysed; 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 multiplied 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 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 tendencies and devote themselves to the practice of virtue. A large
number, too, before they were attacked distributed 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 before 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 Emperor'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 followed 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' Mussi 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 1347, and there can be little doubt that it was
due to the arrival of ships bound from the East to Venice. Of the islands of the
ocean, and particularly of Sicily, De' Mussi speaks as having been affected by the
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.[20] "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
beginning 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 sickness remained and a terrible mortality
ensued. The one thought in the mind of all was how to avoid the infection. 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 Dominicans 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 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 Frederick, to join her. The
Messinese, in the month of November, persuaded the Patriarch[21] 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 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 himself
possessed, both episcopal and patriarchal, for absolving 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, and Trapani 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."[22]
Having briefly noticed the origin of the great pestilence which ravaged Europe in
the fourteenth century, and its progress towards Italy, the story of Gabriel 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, xiv, col. 14.
[3] The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, translated by B. G. Babington (Sydenham Society), p. 21.
[4] Marinus Sanutus, Liber secretorum Fidelium crucis super Terræ Sanctæ recuperatione et
conversatione, in Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, vol. ii.

[5] The most southern part of Asiatic Turkey.
[6] Probably Mahe, on the Malabar coast.
[7] Now Cambay, in the Baroda Dominion to the north of Bombay.
[8] Otherwise Kus, now Koos, in Upper Egypt, not far from Thebes.
[9] Sometimes known as S. Feodosia. This port was by the beginning of the 14th 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, Della Crimea, del suo commercio
et dei suoi dominatori, i, p. 208 et seq.)

[10] The account of Gabriele de' Mussi, called Ystoria de morbo seu mortalitate qui fuit a. 1348, was
first printed by Henschel, in Haeser's Archiv für 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 reprinted the Ystoria in the Giornale
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.

[11] Tana was the port on the north-western shore of the sea of Azor, which was then known as the sea
of Tana. The port is now Azor.

[12] De' 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 Caffa.

[13] Gabriele de' Mussi, Ystoria de Morbo, in Haeser, ut supra.
[14] K. Lechner, Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland (Innsbruck, Wagner, 1884), p. 8.
[15] J. J. Pontanus, Rerum Danicarum Historia (1631), p. 476.
[16] See Lechner, Das grosse Sterben, p. 15. De' Mussi gives the same account.
[17] "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, nec erat ullum remedium" (Monumenta historica ad provincias
Parmensem et Placentinam pertinentia, vol. v, p. 386).

[18] Anglada, Étude sur les Maladies Éteintes (Paris, 1869), p. 416. The idea that this peculiar malady
was altogether novel in character is confirmed by its specially malignant nature. According to a well-
recognized 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 commonly 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.

[19] The following account of an outbreak of disease somewhat similar to the "Black Death" appeared
in the British Medical Journal of 5 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 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 diarrhœa nor vomiting has been observed.
Convulsions 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 condition, which

speedily ends in death. Immediately after he has ceased to breathe large black bullæ form on the body, and
quickly spread over its surface. Decomposition takes place in a few minutes."

[20] A Franciscan friar, Michael Platiensis (of Piazza).
[21] The Archbishop was a member of the Order of St. Francis, and had been created Patriarch of
Antioch.

[22] Gregorio (R.), Bibliotheca Scriptorum qui res in Sicilia gestas retulere, tom. i, p. 562 seqq. The
historian wrote probably not later than A.D. 1361.

TO

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 Gabriel de' Mussi, who
possessed special means of knowledge, 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 peninsula, 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 overlook the sameness of the terms in which writers the
most diverse in character, and in places far distant from 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 Thucydides. 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 Engelberg, 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 rhetoric and gossip, littérateurs 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 oneness 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 "investigation 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 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 kindred 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 visiting 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 divides 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 communicating 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

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 remained 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 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.
"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 languishing
alone in his house and no one came near him. Those most dear to him, regardless of
the ties of kindred 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; 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 corresponded 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
outbreak 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[23] 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 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 generally died the third day from the first appearance of the symptoms,
without a fever or other form of illness manifesting 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
approaching 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 of 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 as it was—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 themselves 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 maintained 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
regarded, 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 declared, 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 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 sickness 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 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
everything 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 distressed
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 everything. 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 estimated 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 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 Æsculapius himself, would have declared in
perfect health, after dining heartily with their friends here, have supped with their
departed friends in another world."[24]
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 off by the pestilence in Florence was the
renowned historian, 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 whole 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
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.[25]
The same story is told in all the contemporary chronicles 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 nearly every writer of this period. Men who in the morning
were apparently well had before evening been carried to the grave.[26]
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.[27] 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 likewise." 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.[28]
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 at a
standstill. Here it ran its usual five months' course, and finished in September, when
many families were found to have become extinct.[29] 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.[30]
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 conversing
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 that few attended any funeral or dirge. . . .
This pestilence 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.[31]
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 overwhelming 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.[32] 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.[33] Petrarch was
at this period a canon of the cathedral of Parma, and had made the acquaintance at
Avignon of Laura, who quickly became the object of his admiration as a typical
Christian mother of a family, and 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.[34] 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.[35] "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;
everywhere 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 dreaming if we did not with our eyes, when we
walk abroad, see the city in mourning with funerals, and returning 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 evening 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."[36]
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 foothold, 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.[37]
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.[38]

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.[39] In the 14th century Venice was troubled by the plague some
fifteen times, but that of 1348 was "the great epidemic"—"the horrible mortality"—
to the chroniclers of the time. For a long period after, public and other documents
make it the excuse for all kinds of irregularities.[40] 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
depopulated 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.[41]
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.[42]
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."[43]
Details of a similar nature might be multiplied from the contemporary Italian
records. What has been here 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 peninsula. 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,[44] 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 contemporary 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
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."[45]

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen Age, vi, p. 11.
[24] "The Decameron," Introduction.
[25] Muratori, Scriptores, xiv, coll. 11–15.
[26] Muratori, Scriptores, xv. 1021.
[27] Ibid., xii, 926.
[28] 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 Orefice. 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 (G. Gigli,
Diario Sanese, ii, 428).

[29] Muratori, Scriptores xv, 653.
[30] Ibid., 902.
[31] Ibid., xvi, 286.
[32] A. Pezzana, Storia della città di Parma, vol. i, p. 12.
[33] Historiæ Parmensis Fragmenta, in Muratori, Scriptores, xii, 746.
[34] T. Michelet, Histoire de France, iv, p. 238.
[35] A. Phillippe, Histoire de la Peste Noire (Paris, 1853), p. 103.
[36] Epistolæ Familiares (Ed. 1601), lib. viii, pp. 290–303.
[37] Muratori, Scriptores, xii, 926.
[38] See his article La Medicina in Venezia nel 1300 in Archivio Veneto, tom. xxv, p. 361, seqq.
[39] p. 369.
[40] Ibid., 377.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Ibid., p. 378.
[43] Ibid., p. 379.
[44] Roncioni, Istorie Pisane in Archivio Storico Italiano, iv, 808.
[45] Chronicon Pragense, ed. Loserth in Fontes rerum Austriacarum, Scriptores, vol. i, p. 395.

TO

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 mortality 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.[46] 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 57,000 of the inhabitants of Marseilles and its
neighbourhood.[47] 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 by the waves, the
steersman and every sailor having been carried off by the disease.[48] Another,
speaking of Marseilles after the pestilence had passed, says that "so many died that it
remained like an uninhabited place."[49] 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.[50]
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.[51] Simon de

Covino, a doctor, of Paris, who probably witnessed the course of the disease at
Montpellier, wrote an account of his experiences 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 training 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 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 unmistakably 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 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
visitation, the writer says there were more doctors than elsewhere, 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
among 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, this 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.[52]
From Marseilles the epidemic quickly spread northwards 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, that
this ancient city is reported never to have recovered from the desolation it caused.[53]
At Arles, which was attacked very shortly after the disease had gained a footing
on French soil, most of the inhabitants perished.[54] 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 recognised
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 150,000 persons, amongst whom was the friend of Petrarch, Laura de Noves,
who died on Good Friday, March 27th, 1348.[55] Even in England at the time the
excessive mortality at Avignon was noted and remarked upon.[56] 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.[57]
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 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 considered 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 purchased 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."[58]
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 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, likewise, 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.
"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,[59] 11,000 corpses have been buried. This number does not include 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
exception 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 proceeds. 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 frequently remarked that in a family
where one dies nearly all the relations follow him, and this is commonly believed
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 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 happens 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 25th 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, walking with tears and tearing
their hair, and beating themselves with scourges even to the drawing of blood. The
Pope was personally present at some of these processions, 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 remain 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 immediately, or are dead.
I am in the hands of God, to whom I commend myself. My master will follow the
Pope, so 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."[60]
From another source some corroboration of the mortality, 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
statements 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 cities on the sea-coast, there died countless numbers.
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."[61] Mid-Lent
Sunday, in 1348, fell upon March 30th, and, consequently, according to this
authority, on the last 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 complete 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 carbuncles, 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 dead. 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 infection, 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 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.[62]
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 1348 no fewer than 358
Dominicans are said to have died.[63] 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."[64]
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 Chapter, or whilst returning to your homes, may chance to
die."[65] 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
ravages 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."[66] The anonymous 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 mentioned 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 consumed, and is consuming, many
thousands of men, animals, and sheep."[67]
It arrived in Normandy probably about the feast of St. James (July 25th), 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."[68] In
another manuscript, M. Delisle has found a further note, or portion of a note,
referring 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."[69]

Paris was, of course, visited by the disease. Apparently, 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 persons. . . . In the space of the said
year and a half, as some declare, the number of the dead in Paris rose to more than
50,000, and in the town of St. Denis the number was as high as 16,000."[70] The
chronicle of the Carmelites at Rheims places the total of deaths in Paris at the larger
number of 80,000,[71] 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 suddenly, 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 sickness, 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 heard, read of, or
witnessed in past ages. And the said death and sickness often sprung from the
imagination, or from the society and (consequent) contagion 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 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.[72] 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 1348 and 1349, 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 themselves
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."[73]
Whilst the plague was at its height King Philip VI. requested the medical faculty
of Paris to consult together 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.[74] 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."[75]
Meanwhile the epidemic was spreading northward. 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 document 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
marvellously great that people are dying there suddenly, as quickly, as from one
evening to the following morning, and often even quicker than that."[76] 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
excessive 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.[77] 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.
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 Parliament. 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 experiences in Tournay in the summer of 1349. This he does in
verse and prose. The poem, after speaking of the manifestation of God's anger,
describes the plague beginning in the East and passing through France into Flanders.
Like other writers, Li Muisis declares that he hesitates to say what he has seen and
heard, because posterity will hardly credit what he would relate.[78] 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 particulars 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 11th,
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.[79] 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 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 bell 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, 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
frequenting the houses of the sick either became grievously ill or died. Deaths were
more numerous about the market 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 everyone 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,[80] and speaks of the creation of two new
cemeteries outside the walls of the 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.[81]
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 approximation 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 subsequent 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 population than is perhaps usually
understood.
M. Siméon Luce has made a special study of the conditions of French popular life
at this period,[82] 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 population 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 filled 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, according 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 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 inventories 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 become 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 especially 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 difficulties which followed upon it. On August 16th, 1349,
the Emperor Charles IV. issued an order to the tenants of the Abbey of St. Trond, in
the diocese of Liège, 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.[83]
The second instance is that of the Abbey of St. John at Laon. A document, addressed
by the French King Charles to the Abbot and convent, says that the monastery is so

decayed in revenues 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—1392–3—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."[84]

FOOTNOTES:

[46] Labbe, Nova Bibliotheca Manuscriptorum, i, p. 343.
[47] C. Anglada, Étude sur les Maladies Éteintes, p. 432.
[48] Matthias Nuewenburgensis in Boehmer, Fontes rerum Germanicarum, iv, p. 261.
[49] 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).

[50] J. Astruc, Histoire de la Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier (Montpellier, 1862), p. 184.
[51] Anglada, ut supra, p. 432.
[52] Opuscule relatif à la peste de 1348, composé par un contemporain in Bibliothèque de l'École des
Chartes, 1e Sér., ii, pp. 201–243.

[53] Martin, Histoire de France (4th ed.), v, p. 109.
[54] Phillippe, Histoire de la Peste Noire, p. 103.
[55] Anglada, Maladies Éteintes, p. 431.
[56] Higden, Polychronicon (ed. Rolls Series), viii, p. 344.
[57] L. Michon, Documents inédits sur la grande peste de 1348 (Paris, 1860), p. 22.
[58] Baluze, Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium, 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."

[59] The writer was sending his letter on April 27th, 1348, so that the period would have been about

six weeks.

[60] Breve Chronicon clerici anonymi, in De Smet, Recueil des Chroniques de Flandre, iii, pp. 14–18.
[61] Henricus Rebdorfensis, in Boehmer, Fontes, iv, p. 560.
[62] Anglada, Maladies Éteintes, pp. 413–14.
[63] Barnes, History of Edward III., p. 435.
[64] Thiener, Monumenta Historica Hungariæ, i, p. 767.
[65] Wadding, Annales Minorum, viii, p. 25 (ed. 1723).
[66] Olivier de la Haye, Poëme sur la grande peste de 1348. Introduction par G. Guigue, p. xviii, note.
[67] Breve Chronicon in De Smet, Recueil des Chroniques de Flandre, iii, p. 19.
[68] Delisle, Cabinet des Manuscrits, i, p. 532.
[69] Ibid. Here the note abruptly finishes.
[70] H. Martin, Histoire de France, v, p. 111.
[71] Marlot, Histoire de Ville de Reims, iv, p. 63.
[72] All copies of this chronicle give "quingente," and it has usually been stated that the number so
buried each day was 500. M. Géraud, who edited the work for the Société 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.

[73] Continuatio Chronici Guillelmi di Nangiaco, éd. pour la Société de l'Histoire de France par H.
Géraud, ii, pp. 211–217.

[74] They speak in the document of "the 17th of the ensuing month of July."
[75] Michon, Documents inédits sur la Peste Noire, p. 22.
[76] Thierry, Recueil des Monuments inédits de l'Histoire du Tiers Etat, i, p. 544.
[77] Ibid., p. 546.
[78]
"Certe dicere timeo
Quæ vidi et quæ video
De ista pestilentia."

[79] Gams, Series Episcoporum, gives 13th June, 1349, as the day of his death.
[80]

"Quia de sacerdotibus
Infirmos visitantibus
Quamplurimi defecerunt."

[81] Chronicon majus Ægidii Li Muisis, abbatis Sti. Martini Tornacensis, in De Smet, Receuil des
Chroniques de Flandre, ii, pp. 279–281 and 361–382.

[82] S. Luce, Bertrand du Guesclin, i, ch. 3.
[83] Piot, Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Trond, i, 507.
[84] Lechner, Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland, p. 93.

TO

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 disease in England will be told in
greater detail, it may conveniently 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 1351.
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.[85]
The scourge fell upon Spain in the early part of the year 1348. It is supposed to
have first appeared at 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 midsummer 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 abandoned 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; Alphonsus 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.[86]
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' (of Compostella), passed by Notre Dame de Roc
Amadour[87] 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 14th century, would
consequently have crossed the Pyrenees by one of the passes 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."[88]
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 probable,
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."
[89]
At Spalatro, on March 22nd, 1348, the 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 15th 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 carbuncles 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.[90]
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 inhabitants.[91] 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 pestilence."[92]
From Venice the epidemic spread northwards into 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.[93] Here it seems to have lasted for a considerable time. One chronicler,
writing of the subsequent year, 1349, says "that from the feast of St. Michael, 1348,
there perished in Muhldorf 1,400 of the better class of inhabitants."[94] 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."[95]
In November of the same year, 1348, the epidemic is found in Styria, at Neuberg,
in the valley of the Mürz. 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 desperate, walked about as if mad."
"From so many sick pestilential odours proceeded, infecting those visiting and
serving them, and very frequently it happened that when one died in a house all, 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 overwhelming 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 11th), 1348, and at
Neuberg it had carried off many monks and inhabitants."[96]
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 Novara, Peter Azarius, speaks to the fact of the plague being at Momo,
Gallarete, Varese, and Bellinzona, on[97] 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 experience 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 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."[98]
From the pass of St. Gothard the epidemic passed down the Rhine Valley, and
before the close of 1348 was in the neighbourhood of Dissentis; whilst by May,

1349, the district round about the monastery of Pfäffers, half way between the pass
of St. Gothard and Lake Constance, had been attacked. Shortly afterwards the
country near the celebrated Abbey of St. Gall was likewise greatly afflicted.[99]
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.[100] 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, for it was not until September, 1349, 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 Wolfenschiessen, the new Superior
likewise passed away. And of our own numbers (there died) two priests and five
scholars."[101] Basle was attacked, and is said to have lost some 14,000 people about
the middle of the year; Zurich about September 11th; 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 depopulated, by the epidemic. By April
4th, 1349, it was reported 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
kingdom." 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 nobility died. There seemed no help for the daily

misfortunes. The sickness rendered desolate not alone numberless houses, but even
towns and villages.[102]
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.[103] Each day there died 500 or 600,
and one day 960.[104] 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
ecclesiastics 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 neighbourhood 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,
for in (the Cistercian Abbey of) Heiligenkreuz 53 religious at the same time passed
out of this life."[105]
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."[106]
The wave of pestilence which passed up the Rhine Valley and attacked Basle
passed on to Colmar, and appeared in Strasburg in July, 1349.[107] 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."[108]
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 (June 22nd) to the feast of the
Purification following (February 2nd, 1350) the universal pestilence was at
Frankfort. In the space of 72 days more than 2,000 people died. Every second hour
they were buried without bell, priest, or candle. On one day 35 were buried at one
time."[109]
During 1349 and 1350 the pestilence was rife in the towns and country places of
Prussia. In the latter year 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 7,000."[110]
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 progress
was marked by the same great mortality, especially among those who lived together
in monasteries and convents. "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 lay sisters."[111]
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
countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden received the infection from England. As
will be seen subsequently, 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.[112] 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.[113] 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 then there were about 479
churches, many of which were served by more than one priest, so that the number
given may not be altogether improbable.[114] It is stated that in Norway there long
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 generations, 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.[115] 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 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 Sleswig 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."[116] 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 uninhabited. 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.[117]
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."[118] Twenty
years 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
uncultivated and deserted."[119] 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
epidemic 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,
belonging 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

remained, on account of the said death, uncultivated, and no proper return comes
from them."[120]

FOOTNOTES:

[85] Phillippe, Histoire de la Peste Noire, p. 54.
[86] Ibid., pp. 54–56.
[87] This was a place of pilgrimage on the Amadour, not far from Toulouse.
[88] Chronicon majus Ægidii Li Muisis, ii, 280.
[89] Lechner, Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland, p. 21.
[90] Farlati, Illyricum Sacrum, iii, p. 324.
[91] Lechner, ut sup., p. 22.
[92] Ibid.
[93] Ibid., p. 23.
[94] Annales Matscenses in Mon. Germ., ix, 829.
[95] Annales Mellicenses, Ibid., p. 313.
[96] Continuatio Novimontensis, Ibid., p. 675.
[97] Chronicon, in Muratori, xvi, 361. He places the event under the year 1347.
[98] Ibid., 298.
[99] Lechner, ut sup., p. 27.
[100] Ibid.
[101] Annales Engelbergenses, in Mon. Germ., xvii, 281.
[102] Dlugoss, Historia Polonica, in Philippe, ut sup., p. 94.
[103] Kalendarium Zwetlense, in Mon. Germ., ix, 692.
[104] Annales Matscenses, Ibid., 829.
[105] Continuatio Novimontensis, Ibid., 675.
[106] Chronicon Pragense, ed. Loserth (in Fontes rerum Austriacarum, Scriptores, t. viii) p. 603.
[107] Lechner, ut sup., p. 35.

[108] Ibid., p. 38.
[109] Boehmer, Fontes rerum Germ., iv, 434.
[110] Hoeniger (R.), Der schwarze Tod in Deutschland (Berlin, 1882), p. 26.
[111] Philippe, ut sup., p. 124.
[112] Historia, iii, 406.
[113] Finn Jonsson, Hist. eccl. Islandiæ, 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
monastic chronicles of Iceland (Ftateyjarbok, iii, p. 562).

[114] Henric Jacob Sirers, Historisk Beskrifning om then Pesten, p. 23.
[115] Langebeck, Scriptores rerum Danicarum, vi, 564. I am indebted 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.

[116] Langebeck, ut sup., i, 307, 395.
[117] Ibid., vii, p. 2, et seqq.
[118] Pezzana, Storia di Parma, i, 52.
[119] Henricus de Hervordia, Chronicon ed. Potthast, 274.
[120] Lechner, ut sup., p. 73.

TO

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 constant 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."[121]
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 pestilence
which had come from the East into the neighbouring 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.[122]
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."[123] 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 1348, about the feast of the Translation 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 pestilence, 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."[124] So, too, a
continuation of Trivet's chronicle, taken down to the death of Edward III. by a canon
of Bridlington, who was thus probably a contemporary of the event, says that "the
great plague came into England to the southern districts, beginning by some (ships)
putting in from the sea into a town called Melcombe."[125]
Melcombe Regis, or Weymouth, was at that time a port of considerable
importance. In 1347–8, for example, 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.[126] 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 improbable 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, forbade 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 pestilence that the inhabitants remaining are
not sufficiently numerous to protect it against our foreign enemies."[127]
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 Melcombe 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.
Bartholomew's Eve, August 23rd, 1348, and before the end of September the Prior
of Canterbury, acting with archiepiscopal power during the vacancy, addressed a
mandate to the Bishop of London, as the Dean of the College of Bishops, to issue
directions to the suffragans of Canterbury to hold public processions in their
respective dioceses to pray God's aid against "the mortality" which was already
assuming alarming proportions.[128]
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 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 Somerset, 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."
[129]
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
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 episcopal 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 incoming 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 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.[130] 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 document, are entered royal
grants, licenses, and presentations 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."
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
summarised. 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 England, 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 presentations 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 presentations 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 extraordinary 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 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 December of 1348, the two Winterbournes and
Spettisbury, together with Blandford—all four close on the 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 December 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.[131] The existence of the epidemic begins to be manifest in
the institutions for October, 1348. Previously only twelve institutions are recorded
during that year. West Chickerell, a place close to Weymouth, received a new
incumbent on October 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 appeared 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. Laurence'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
appointed a successor to Michael de Molis, lately dead,[132] 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. 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.[133] In common with most

places in the land, Poole, which was then of sufficient importance 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."[134] And the same writer adds that the country
did not entirely recover 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 relates, 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 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 ordinary ecclesiastical regulation and provision
set aside, because 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[135] 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 watching 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 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 articulo 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 particular 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
forbidden 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 example, sickness compels and
the fear of punishment terrifies) often deceives many, we grant to all our subjects,
who in the time of the pestilence shall come to 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 induce 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 confessing to lay people in case
of necessity, that if they recover 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."[136]
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
Somerset 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 that county was considerable as early as the
November of the previous year, 1348.
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.[137]
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 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 attacked 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 between 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, Babington,
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 incumbents within these few months. Bathampton, for example, had four
parsons appointed in this period. At Hardington, 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 religious 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.[138] A list on the roll of the Somerset clergy, on whom a clerical subsidy was
levied at the close of Edward the Third's reign, in 1377, shows that the number had
been reduced to sixteen,[139] and at this number it apparently remained to the time of
the final dissolution of the house in the sixteenth century.[140]

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 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
refuse 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 17th century excited
the wonder of Samuel Pepys.[141]
"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 Devonshire were first affected."[142] 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 multitude of the dead. Of this there is an example upon the
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.[143]
The diocese of Exeter, comprising the two counties of Devon and Cornwall, was
stricken by the disease apparently about the same time as the county of Somerset.
[144]
For eight years before 1348 the average number of livings annually rendered
vacant in the diocese was thirty-six,[145] 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 somewhat 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.[146]
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 Commune, 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 incessant 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 flocks' 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, comparatively, 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."
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 Barnstaple 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. 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.[147] 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, 1349,
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."[148]
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."[149]
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 successor, Richard de Esse, was
taken ill after his confirmation, and, "detained by so grave a sickness," could not go

to the King, who, on October 17th, commissioned Bishop Grandisson to receive his
fealty.[150]
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.[151] 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 survivors, 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).[152]
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."[153]
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. Meantime,
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.

FOOTNOTES:

[121] Originalia Roll, 24 Ed. III., m. 2.
[122] B. Mus., Harl. MS. 6965, f. 132.
[123] Chronicon Galfridi le Baker, ed. E. M. Thompson, p. 98.
[124] 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.

[125] Harl. MS. 688, f. 361.
[126] Hutchins, History of Dorset (3rd ed.), ii, p. 422.
[127] Rot. Pat., 26 Ed. III., pars 3, m. 5.
[128] Historical Manuscripts Commission, Eighth Report, App., p. 338.
[129] De Gestis Edwardi III. (ed. Rolls series), p. 406.
[130] 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-beneficed clergy, including under that head the religious, were four
times as numerous as those holding benefices.

[131] 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
[132] Originalia Roll, 22 Ed. III., m. 4.
[133] Hist. MSS. Comm., Sixth Report, p. 475.
[134] History of Dorset, i, p. 5.
[135] Curates here and elsewhere is used for Rectors or Vicars, who had the actual cure of souls.
[136] Wilkins, Concilia, ii, pp. 735–6.
[137] The following is a table of the institutions in Somersetshire for some months:—

1348. 1349.
Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. March.
9 32 47 43 36

April. May. June.
40 21 7

[138] Bath Chartulary (Lincoln's Inn MS.), p. 119. This is now being edited for the Somerset Record
Society, and the list is given at p. 73 of Mr. Hunt's edition.

[139] R. O. Clerical Subsidy (Somerset), 4/2.
[140] See list given in Deputy Keeper's Report, vii, p. 280.
[141] W. Hunt, Historic Towns, Bristol, p. 77.
[142] S. Seyer, Memoirs of Bristol (Bristol, 1823) ii, p. 143.
[143] Rot. Pat., 23 Ed. III., pars 3, m. 4.
[144] For information about the institutions of this diocese and other matters concerning Devon and
Cornwall, I am indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph.

[145] Curiously enough the number of institutions in 1891 was 36.
[146] 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.
10 6 30 34 60 53 47

June. July. Aug. Sept.
45 37 16 23

[147] The Prior of St. James', Exeter, also died: "postea tempore pestilencie subito mortuus est." (Reg.
Grand., i, fol. 27b).

[148] Rot. Pat., 29 Ed. III., pars 2, m. 19.
[149] B. Mus., Arund. MS. 17, fol. 55b. Oliver (Monasticon Dioecesis Exoniensis, 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.

[150] Reg. Grandisson, i, 26b.
[151] Itinerarum, ed. J. Nasmith, p. 112.
[152] Sir J. Maclean, Deanery of Trigg Minor, i, p. 128.
[153] Reg. Grandisson, i, 26b.

TO

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 intercourse 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 12d., a quarter of barley for 9d.,
a quarter of beans for 8d., a quarter of oats for 6d., a large ox for 40d., a good horse
for six shillings, which formerly was worth 40 shillings, a good cow for two
shillings, and even for eighteen-pence. 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 agricultural purposes. On account of this scarcity, women, and even
small children, were to be seen with the plough and leading the waggons."[154]
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,[155]
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."[156]
Parliament, which was to have assembled at Westminster 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 that time."[157] The churchyards 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 churchyards 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.[158]
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 dedicated 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 a fair garden, retaining the old name of 'Pardon Churchyard.'
"After this, in the year 1349, the said Sir Walter Manny, in respect of the danger
that might befal in this time of so great a plague and infection, purchased thirteen
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 Hospital (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 monastery, 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."
[159]

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 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 disease 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 1361 a second visitation threatened to become as
destructive to human life as that of 1349. "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."[160]
There are indeed many indications that the number of those who died in the city
was very great.[161] The extraordinary 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.[162] 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.[163] It may be surmised 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 strengthened by the fact that
no Easter sittings of the Courts of Justices were held.
Westminster was grievously visited by the sickness. On March 10th, 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.[164] Some weeks
later the great monastery was attacked; early in May abbot Bircheston died, and at
the same time 27 of his monks were committed 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 £315 13s. 8d.—a large sum in those days
—were sold during the visitation out of the monastic treasury.[165]
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 appointed guardian. Charged with
dilapidation, he was deposed in 1351, but in 1353 the house still remained without
inmates.[166]
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 humility, 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)."[167]
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."[168]
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 Hertfordshire.
The institutions for the portion of the county in the diocese of Lincoln, however,
show that it must have lingered on, at any rate in the northern part, till the late
summer.[169]
"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."[170]
The neighbouring counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire
suffered in the same way. Although 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
Inquisitiones 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 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
"Originalia Roll" for 1349. 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.[171]
These records afford evidence of the numbers of landowners 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 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 untilled 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.[172]
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.[173]
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-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.[174] 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 tenants and other holders, who had paid yearly £13, were all dead, and no
tenants could be got to take up their lands.[175] 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 everywhere are either reduced or
are nothing at all, because some or all of those who held the lands and cottages have
been swept away.[176]
The institutions for the county of Buckingham show that in the year 1349[177]
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
180. From the appointments that are dated it appears probable that the sickness was
at its worst in the county in the months from May till September, 1349.[178]
On the other side of London, the dioceses of Canterbury and Rochester divide
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.[179] "In the year of our Lord, 1348, immediately
after the close of the Nativity," writes Stephen Birchington, in his history of the
Archbishops of Canterbury, "arrived the common death of all people; and it lasted
continuously till the end of the month of May, in the year 1349. 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 fear of death, left the care of the benefices, not knowing
where to go."[180]
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 necessary to fill.
At Christchurch only four of the community died at the time, and this
comparative immunity has been ascribed to the excellent water supply obtained a
century before for the monastery from the hills.[181] 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.[182] 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 Sandwich, in
the June of 1349, the plague was still raging. The old cemetery was full to
overflowing, and the suffragan bishop was commissioned to proceed thither and
consecrate a new piece of ground, given for the purpose by the Earl of Huntingdon.
[183]

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 18th, 1349. 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.[184]
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 Rochester, 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 Rochester 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
Malling (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."
"The whole of this time," says the writer in another place, "the Bishop of
Rochester remained at Halling[185] and Trotterscliff,[186] 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 Canterbury, and touched on by the Bishop of Bath and Wells (p. 81),
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 addressed

to the archdeacon of Rochester, on the 27th of June, 1349, orders all these, on pain
of suspension, to serve such cures;"[187] "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 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 abandoned 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 instituted, 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 number of masses as may bring their stipends to this
annual sum."[188]
Then after noting that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Bradwardine, had
died in the Bishop of Rochester'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 weighing 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 remained 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."
"Throughout the whole of that winter and spring the Bishop of Rochester, an old
and decrepid 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, however, 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 Malling 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 Islep, 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.[189]
To this account of the state of the diocese of Rochester, 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.[190] 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
Winchester, 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 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 present 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 abandoned to barrenness. And, news most grave
which we report with the deepest anxiety, this cruel plague, as we have heard, has
already begun to singularly 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 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 chastisement.
"But because God is loving and merciful, patient, and above all hatred, we
earnestly beg that by your devotion 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 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."[191]
On the same day, October 24th, 1348, Bishop Edyndon 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
cemeteries 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 premature death often come from sin;
and that by the healing 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 confessors, 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 faculties to hear the confessions of the nuns.[192]
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 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 successors the Roman Bishops." The Bishop consequently
ordered that this privilege should be made known to all as quickly as possible.[193]
At Winchester, as at this time in other places, difficulties about the burial of the
dead who were carried off by the pestilence soon arose. By January many benefices
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 the 21st, 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 continuing 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 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 dedicated.[194]
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,[195] 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 boundaries 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 exercise of his office

had consecrated the said ground, and many interments had taken place in it." The
Commissioners, or two or three of them, are directed to view the said area,
cemeteries, and closes, "to empanel a jury, and to examine evidence and generally to
try the case."[196]
Taking the dates of the institutions to livings in the county of Hampshire[197] 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.[198]
Some districts were affected more than others. Thus in the deanery of
Basingstoke, in the north of Hampshire, 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 institutions 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, 1348. 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 institutions 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."[199]
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
this great epidemic, says: "We have no means of ascertaining the actual havoc

occasioned among the religious houses of this diocese . . . but in the hospital of
Sandown, 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.[200] That the town suffered considerably seems clear from the fact
that in this year, 1349, "ninety-four places in the said town lie altogether deserted
and uninhabited."[201] And both here and at Rye the bailiffs claim that in 1354 they
have not received £8 1s. out of £11. 17s. 5d., supposed to be due from them, for
taxes on these towns, because so many houses are destroyed and lie desolate there."
[202]

Incidentally it is known that John de Waring, abbot 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."[203] 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" (multipliciter dilapidatur), about which the King orders an
inquiry.[204]

FOOTNOTES:

[154] Eulogium Historiarum (Rolls series), iii, p. 213.
[155] Annales de Bermundeseia in Annales Monastici (Rolls series), iii, p. 475.
[156] De gestis Edwardi III (Rolls series), p. 406.
[157] Rymer, Fœdera, v, p. 655.
[158] Survey of London (ed. Strype), ii, p. 13.
[159] Dr. Creighton, History of Epidemics in Britain, p. 128, quotes Rickman, Abstract of the
Population Returns of 1831, 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.

[160] Brooke Lambert, London, i, p. 241.
[161] 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 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."

[162] Calendar of Wills in the Court of Hustings, London, ed. R. R. Sharpe, i, p. xxvii.
[163] The following is a table of the numbers:—
Jan. Feb. March. April. May. June. July.
18 42 41 0 121 31 51

[164] Rymer, Fœdera, v, p. 658.
[165] B. Mus. Cotton MS. Vitell. E. xiv, f. 129b.
[166] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 25 Ed. III., m. 26.
[167] Gesta Abbatum S. Albani (Rolls series), ii, p. 369.
[168] Ibid., p. 381.
[169] The following is a table of the Institutions given in Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire:—

June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
6 8 4 4 0 2 1

[170] Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, p. 225.
[171] 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. III., m. 17.

[172] R. O., Chancery Inq. post mortem, 23 Ed. III., No. 85.
[173] Ibid., No. 75.
[174] Ibid., No. 77.
[175] Ibid. (second numbers), No. 58.
[176] Cf. four inquisitions in this country: Escheator's Inq. post mortem, file 103.
[177] See Lipscombe's History of Buckinghamshire.
[178] The following is a table of the dated institutions:—

May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov.
3 10 23 11 13 3 3

[179] Hist. MSS. Comm., Eighth Report, p. 336.
[180] Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i, p. 42.
[181] J. E. Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, p. 221.
[182] Gesta Abbatum (Rolls series).
[183] Hist. MSS. Comm., Eighth Report, p. 336. Batteley's copy of this commission is in B. Mus.
Add. MS., 22, 665, fol. 183.

[184] Escheator's Inq. p.m., 23 Edw. III., Kent.
[185] Some six miles from Rochester.
[186] Nine miles from Maidstone.
[187] 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, ff. 96 et seqq. Cf. also Vitell. E. xiv, ff. 375 et seqq.

[188] B. Mus. Faust. B., v, f. 98.
[189] Ibid., fol. 99.
[190] For the use of his transcripts of the Bishop's Register, as well as for assistance in all that relates
to the Winchester diocese, I am indebted to the kindness of F. J. Baigent, Esq., of Winchester.

[191] Reg. Edyndon, ii, fol. 17.
[192] Ibid., ff. 17b-18.
[193] Ibid., 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 verbally. On 25th May Bishop Edyndon sent out the announcement of the
extension, and ordered it to be made known at once.

[194] Reg. Edyndon, i, fol. 19b.
[195] 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, 1361.

[196] 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. III. (1349).

[197] The following table will give the Institutions for Hants:—

1349.
Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May.
5 8 12 12 23

June. July. Aug. Sept.
6 7 2 5

[198] Table of Institutions for Surrey:—
1348. 1349.
Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May.
7 12 19 33 46 29

June. July. Aug. Sept.
24 18 11 12

[199] Reg. Edyndon, i, fol. 38.
[200] R. O., Originalia Roll, 23 Ed. III., m. 37.
[201] Pipe Roll, 23 Ed. III., m. 23.
[202] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 28 Ed. III.
[203] B. Mus. Cole MS., 5,824, p. 78 (from Reg. Lisle, fol. 24).
[204] Rot. Pat. 27 Ed. III., pars. 1, m. 4.

TO

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 repetition. 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 cemeteries not being sufficient, fields were chosen as
burial-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 '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,[205] 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. Swellings

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 individual of the human species. . . . The following year 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."[206]
The mention by Le Baker of Wales and Ireland suggests 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 "devastated" 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.[207] No institutions for any of the four Welsh dioceses are
forthcoming; but on the supposition that half the number of the 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, 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 exchequer, as the prior found it impossible to
obtain payment at this time for his lands.[208] And seven-and-twenty years later, the
small number in some fairly large religious houses raises the suspicion that they, like

so many English 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 beside the prior; the Premonstratensian abbey of Tallagh 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.[209]
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),"[210] 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 most) through fear of the pestilence, which
then was very prevalent. It first commenced near Dublin, at Howth[211] and at
Drogheda. These cities—Dublin and Drogheda—it almost destroyed and emptied of
inhabitants, so that, from the beginning of August to the Nativity 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 pestilence, famine, or any
sickness in the world; for earthquakes, 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 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 noteworthy things, which have happened in my time and which I
have learnt 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 continue 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."[212]
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 80 marks' tax upon the place.[213] 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 said
country, and other many misfortunes which had happened there."[214] 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 excessive 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."
[215]

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 changes at this time. In several instances
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 indication of
some special cause at work producing the vacancies. In the first four months of the
year and in December only six institutions are recorded.[216] As examples of
benefices which fell vacant more than once during the period there may be adduced
Great Malvern, to which priests were presented on the 10th of July and the 21st of
August; and Powick, near Worcester, to which institutions are registered on the 15th
of May and the 10th 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:—"Carefully 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 brethren 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 cathedral church arising from
the said cause." He consequently orders that it be made known to the sacrist that all
burials may at his discretion, "in the time of this mortality, be made in the said
cemetery of St. Oswald."[217]
Leland mentions this cemetery in his Itinerary, where, speaking of the "long and
fayre suburbe by north without the foregate," he says there was a chapel to St.
Oswald 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
pestilence as in a publicke cemitory for Worcester."[218]
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 appointment of a
successor at the end of November, 1349. 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 standing 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.
Coming to the particular case of the Bishop's temporalities, 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 bishoprick 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 bishoprick, during
and before the date of the said account."
In the inquiry, the Escheator produced a letter from the King,[219] saying that he
had no wish that his official should be charged more than he received. As a
consequence 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 particulars disclose some matters of considerable interest in the
present inquiry. For example, on the manor of Hartlebury 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 cottars, who rendered certain
services, valued at 106 shillings and 11–1/2d. 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. 10d.[220]
That this was not a mere passing difficulty appears certain when, some years later,
in 1354, the same Escheator asks for relief of £57 15s. 5–1/4d., 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."[221]
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 Dugdale'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.[222]
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 August. At
Coventry, on May 10th, Jordan Shepey, the Mayor, "who built the well called Jordan
well," died.[223] In July the archdeacon of Coventry and a chantry priest at Holy
Trinity were carried off. In August the Cathedral 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, Leticia de Hexstall, died, and a successor was
appointed on October 13th, 1349.
In Oxfordshire, which at the time of the great visitation of the plague, formed part
of the large diocese of Lincoln, the number of benefices, exclusive of the Oxford
colleges, was some 220. Half this number consequently 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. Frideswide, Oxford, very much about the same time; since on June 1st
Nicholas de Hungerford received the temporalities upon his election.
The city of Oxford, with its large population of students, appears to have suffered
terribly. "Such a pestilence," 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 reported that no
less than 16 bodies in one day were carried to one churchyard to be buried, so
vehemently did it rage."[224] 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.[225] 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."[226] 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 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 16th 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.[227]
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."[228]

FOOTNOTES:

[205] 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.

[206] Chronicon Galfridi Le Baker de Swynebroke, ed. E. M. Thompson, pp. 98–9.
[207] R. O., Originalia Roll, 24 Ed. III., m. 8.
[208] R. O., Rot. Claus., 25 Ed. III., m. 9.
[209] R. O., Clerical Subsidy, 21/1 (51 Ed. III.)
[210] 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 Episcoporum, 219.)

[211] Dalkey in the margin.
[212] Friar John Clyn's Annals of Ireland (ed. Irish Archæological Society, 1849).
[213] Rot. Pat., 25 Ed. III., pars 2, m. 19.
[214] Ibid., 26 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 11.
[215] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 27 Ed. III., Hilary term, m. 7.
[216] 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

[217] Nash, Worcestershire, i, p. 226.
[218] 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."

[219] Dated October 26th, 1352.
[220] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 26 Ed. III.
[221] Ibid., 28 Ed. III., Mich. term, m. 19.
[222] The following table gives the number of Institutions in some months:—
April. May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct.
4 13 17 20 15 7 10

[223] Dugdale, Warwickshire, (ed. Thomas), p. 147.
[224] Wood, History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford (ed. Gutch), p. 449.
[225] Harl. MS., 1900, fol. 2. Trevisa's translation of FitzRalph's Propositio coram Papa: "So yt in
my tyme, in ye University of Oxenford were thrilty thousand scolers at ones, and now beth unneth six

thousand."

[226] Gascoigne, Loci ex Libro Veritatum, 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 concourse 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."

[227] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 23 Ed. III., Mich.
[228] Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, p. 223.

TO

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.[229] 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,[230] 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 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 remarked 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 information, 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 all
said 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 15 men and women, seven without heirs, were
carried off, and by 3rd November there are 36 more deaths recorded, and of these 13
have left no relations. Thus during the incidence of the plague some 21 families on
this one manor had disappeared. The priest of the place had died in September.[231]
To take another example. At Hunstanton on the 16th of October, 1349, it was
found that in two months 63 men and 15 women had been carried off. In 31
instances only women and children had been left to succeed, 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.[232]
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 meeting 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 Anglia, 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 70,000.[233] 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, Blomefield put
down the number of those carried off by the 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 disappeared and fourteen more were subsequently found to be useless.
"The ruins of twenty of these," says a modern writer, "may still be seen."[234]
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.[235] William of Worcester, in his Itinerary, after speaking in praise

of the town, says: "In the great pestilence there died 7,000 people."[236] 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 appeared."
It is, moreover, certain that Yarmouth Church, large as it appears in these days,
was, before the plague of 1349, not ample enough for the population,[237] and
preparations had already been made for considerably enlarging 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 inhabitants through the sickness. It is impossible to examine the
great churches which abound in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk without coming
to the conclusion that they were built to serve the purposes of a large population.
To take one example, the tax on the town of Dunwich had been granted by the
King to the monastery of Ely; but in 1351 the inhabitants petitioned for relief as they
were quite unable to find the money for the royal collectors. The King gave way to
what he calls "the relation of the men of the town of Dunwich," which recited that
"the said town, which before this time was completely inhabited by fisher-folk, had
been rendered desolate by the deadly plague late raging in those parts, and by our
enemies the French seizing and killing the fishermen at sea, and still remained so."
[238]

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,
Archbishop of Arles, and Chamberlain of the Pope, already referred to elsewhere.
By this anyone was empowered 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."[239] The Bishop had made arrangements for the
government of his see during his absence abroad, but on April 9th, 1349, he wrote

from Rome, making other dispositions 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.[240]
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 livings
in the diocese were made by the Bishop's Vicars, and in July alone there were 25.
[241]
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 the 2nd a cellarer and camerarius. A week later, on the
9th of July, 1349, "brother Philip Dallyng, 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."[242] At the same time also two chantries in
the Cathedral became vacant; one, called "the green chantry," twice in two months.
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.[243] The proportion of non-beneficed clergy to those beneficed was then
probably 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.[244] 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 Spronston was appointed to succeed. Then he died a
short time after, and one Roger de Broom was instituted 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 attempt at order, and I divined that this must have been a
Cambridge plague pit."[245]
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 Cambridge. 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 ancient 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 terrible scourge.[246]
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
have to be paid for. At Easter 13 copyholders' tenements are vacant, and by
Pentecost another 30 are added to the long list.[247]
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, Cambridge.[248] "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 parishioners, 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 necessary
support. Since your position in God's Church does not make it fitting that you should
seek alms, particularly 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 properly furnish you with necessaries you altogether give up
the income of this anniversary (mass)."[249] At the same time a similar permission
was granted to John Atte Welle, vicar of St. John, "in Melnstreet," Cambridge.
The adjoining county 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, 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
pestilence 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."[250]
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 13s. 4d.
to 3s. 4d. "through dearth of tenants there."[251]
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 131 instances 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 appointments were made.[252] 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 the 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 Worthorp, 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
recovered, 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 pestilence which lately prevailed,
reduced to such poverty that all the nuns but one, on account of their penury, had
dispersed."[253]
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 everywhere 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" was let for 6s. 8d.,
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 19s. 8d. which they used
to get for thirteen tenements, now received only four shillings, whilst their yearly
tenants, who should pay 13lbs. of pepper, at 12d. 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."[254]

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
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 10d. per acre, in
place of eighteen-pence.[255]
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 concerns
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 of death,
and he allowed this faculty to last till the next 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 12d.; a bullock for 6d.; a
fat wether for 4d.; a sheep for 3d.; a lamb for 2d.; a large pig for 5d.; 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 'De gestis
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 abundance of crops of all kinds that no one, as it were, cared for them."
[256]

In the absence of any definite information as to the institutions made at this time
in the county of Leicester 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
"remained 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 conduct
of the Divine Office and the instruction of the novices received there into the
community, after the pestilence."[257]
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 uncultivated and waste "through
the want of tenants."[258]
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
calculate 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 1351 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 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.[259]
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 institutions 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 institutions, 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 incumbents. This suspicion is further strengthened by the
frequent 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, 1349.[260]
One fact bearing upon the subject of the great mortality 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 Colington and Little Colington,
about four miles from Bromyard. 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 inhabitants, such
manifest sterility of the lands, and such notorious poverty in the said parishes, that
the parishioners and receipts of both churches scarcely suffice to support one priest."
[261]
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 testimony to
the assiduity of the secular clergy of the district."[262] 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 1–1/2 per annum, or 15 for the
whole period. In that year the number of institutions to vacancies known to 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 Inquisitio 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 watermills, "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 Dodinton, 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.[263]
This John le Strange, of Whitchurch, died on August 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.[264]
North of a line drawn from the Wash to the Dee, the four counties of Chester,
Derby, Nottingham, and Lincoln 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 September thirty institutions are entered in the registers of
Coventry and Lichfield for the archdeaconry of Chester alone. The most numerous
are in the month of September.[265] The non-beneficed clergy are, of course, not
included 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.
[266]
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.[267]

In the same way on another manor, that of Bucklow, at Michaelmas 1350, it is
stated that 215 acres of arable 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., 1349).
On the same estate the rent of a garden was put down at only 12d., because there
was no one to buy the produce. One of the largest receipts was 3s. 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 9s. 2–3/4d. 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 consequence 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 13s. 11–3/4d."[268]
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 resigned 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
Eckington 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."[269]
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 1349. . . . Of the character of
the plague we can form some idea when we consider the extent of its ravages in a
single household—a household 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 abandoned 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
considerable. 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. 9–3/4d. had been received in the period covered
by the account, and practically from the entire manor there had been no receipt
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 18s. 10d. 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.[270]
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.[271]
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."[272] 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 penitent. 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 12th, 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."[273]
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. 8–1/2d. 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 23º (1349) "because of the

absence of our judges assigned to hold the common pleas, by reason of the plague
then raging."[274]
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
Lincoln in 1351, sought to be relieved of £20 18s. 1d., which he was charged to pay
for money he should have received, on the ground that he had got nothing, "because
of the mortality."[275] 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."[276]
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."
[277]

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, moreover, 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, bestowed 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."[278]
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.[279] In the deanery of
Doncaster,[280] out of fifty-six lists of incumbents, printed 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, notwithstanding the statutes."[281]
The Archbishop too sought and obtained from Pope Clement VI. faculties to
dispense with the usual ecclesiastical 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 pestilence, which at present rages in your province," you fear that
"priests may not be sufficient for the care and guidance of souls."[282] 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 Jervaux and Rievaulx, Welbeck and Roche, the priors of
Thurgarton, 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 convent

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 those, who
remained alive after them, unacquainted with the property, possessions, and
common goods of the monastery. The abbot died on 12th August, A.D. 1349."[283]
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
collectors of royal rents and taxes are changed. It is by no means uncommon to find
an account rendered by the executors of executors to the original official.[284] 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 property had died on 28th July, 1349,
it is said that 114 acres of pasture were let at 12d. 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 £10
5s. a year; but in this special year they had produced only two shillings.[285]
The chronicler of Meaux has described the disastrous consequences of the
sickness in his own monastery. That this condition was not soon mended appears
certain from the fact that in 1354 it was found necessary to hand over the abbey, "on
account of its miserable condition," to a royal commission.[286]
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.[287]

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 enjoyment 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 FitzWilliams' 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 £288 3s. 8–1/2d."[288]
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 desiring to be buried at
Darfield, says: "Item I leave, etc., to my sons and daughters living after this present
mortal pestilence."[289]
These notes upon the evidence for the plague in Yorkshire may be concluded by a
brief account of the state of Hull in consequence of the mortality and other causes.
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
Humber 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.[290]
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.[291] 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. Unfortunately, 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 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 exaggerations, and may at least be taken as proof that the
mortality in this district of Lancashire was very considerable.
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, administration 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 11th,
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 Lytham 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.[292]
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.[293]
The counties of Westmoreland, to the north of Lancashire, 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.[294] 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 uncultivated, "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 "uncultivated 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 particulars, which may now be
seen stitched on to the roll. This gives the items of decrease in rents; for instance,
there are houses, cottages, and lands to let, which used to bring in £5, and now but
£1; "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."[295]
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.[296]
The city of Carlisle also in 1352 was relieved of taxation 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 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 certificate, 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."[297]
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.[298]
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 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,"[299] 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."[300] 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."[301]
An account of the visitation given in the continuation of a chronicle, probably
written at the time, and possibly 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
depopulated Greece, Italy, Provence, Burgundy, Spain, Aquitaine, 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 consecrated
did not suffice for the dead; but new places outside 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."[302]

FOOTNOTES:

[229] The Coming of the Friars, pp. 166–261.
[230] The following is a table of the Institutions during four months:—
1349.
April. May. June. July.
23 74 139 209

[231] Ibid., p. 200.
[232] Ibid., p. 203.
[233] Blomefield, History of Norfolk (folio ed.), ii, p. 681.
[234] F. Seebohm, The Black Death and its place in English History (in Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1st,
1865).

[235] Fuller, Worthies, ed. Nicholas, ii, p. 132.
[236] Ed. Nasmith, p. 344.
[237] Professor Seebohm thinks that Yarmouth had probably a population of 10,000 before 1349. This
seems much too low. It had 220 ships.

[238] R. O., Rot. Claus., 26 Ed. III., m. 5d. This is repeated on two occasions in the next year.
[239] B. Mus. Cole MS., 5,824, fol. 73. Extracts from Reg. Lisle.
[240] Ibid., fol. 76.
[241] The following table will give the number for some months:—
1349.
April. May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct.
6 8 19 25 13 6 7
The total number of benefices in the diocese at this time was 142.

[242] Cole MS., ubi supra.
[243] 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 Institutiones fuisse infra annum
1349 (anno incipiente 25 die Martii).

[244] Clerical Subsidy, 21/1.
[245] Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, p. 223.
[246] 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 1361.

[247] R. O., Duchy of Lancaster, Mins. Accts., Bundle 288, No. 471.
[248] It was this church which some years later was declared to be in a ruinous state.
[249] Cole MS., 5824, fol. 81.
[250] R. O., Originalia Roll, 23 Ed. III., m. 6. Among the Ministers' 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.

[251] R. O., Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. III., No. 88.
[252] 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

[253] R. O., Rot. Pat., 28 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 16.
[254] R. O., Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. III., No. 88.
[255] Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, File 201.
[256] Twysden, Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem, col. 2699.
[257] Rymer, Fœdera, v, p. 729.
[258] R. O., Escheator's Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. III., Series i, file 240.
[259] Originalia Roll, 25 Ed. III., m. 11.
[260] 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 13

[261] Reg. Trileck, fol. 103.
[262] Owen and Blakeway, Shrewsbury, i, p. 165.
[263] Ibid. The Inquisition is to be found in the Record Office; Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. III., No.
78.

[264] Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. III., No. 79.
[265] B. Mus. Harl. MS. 2071, ff. 159–160.
[266] R. O. Clerical Subsidy, 51 Ed. III., 15/2.
[267] R. O., Q. R. Mins. Accts., Bundle 801, No. 14.
[268] Ibid., No. 4.
[269] Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire. Introduction, p. viii.
[270] R. O., Q. R. Mins. Accts., Bundle 801, file 3.
[271] Seebohm, Black Death, in Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1, 1865, p. 150.
[272] Vatican Archives, Reg. Pontif., Rubrice Litterarum Clem. VI.
[273] Chronicon de Parco Lude (Lincoln Record Society), pp. 38–39.
[274] R. O., Rot. Claus., 24 Ed. III., m. 7.
[275] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 25 Ed. III.
[276] Ibid., 28 Ed. III., Trinity term.
[277] Raine, Historical Papers from Northern Registers (Rolls series), p. 395.
[278] Ibid., p. 399.
[279] Seebohm, Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1st, 1865.
[280] 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

[281] B. Mus. Harl. MS., 6971, fol. 110b.
[282] Raine, Historical Papers from Northern Registers, p. 491.
[283] Chronicon Monasterii de Melsa (Rolls series), iii, 37.
[284] Cf. for example Mins. Accts. Yorks., Holderness, 23–25 Ed. III., Bundle 355.
[285] R. O., Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. III., 1st series, No. 72. Cf. also No. 88.
[286] Rot. Pat., 28 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 3.
[287] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 25 Ed. III.
[288] Hunter, Deanery of Doncaster, i, p. 1. The Inquisitio post mortem of John FitzWilliam is in
1350.

[289] Ibid., ii, p. 125.
[290] Rot. Pat., 27 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 18.
[291] R. O., Clerical Subsidy, 15/2.
[292] R. O., Exchequer, Treasury of Receipt 21a/3, in English Historical Review, v, p. 525 (July,
1890).

[293] Rot. Pat., 23 Ed. III., pars 3, m. 25.
[294] e.g., Escheator's Inq. p. m., series i, 430.
[295] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 28 Ed. III., m. 9.
[296] R. O., Rot. Claus., 25 Ed. III., m. 16.
[297] R. O., Durham Cursitor Records, Bk. ii, ff. 2b, seqq.
[298] Rot. Claus., 27 Ed. III., m. 10d.
[299] Rot. Claus., 24 Ed. III., pars 2, m. 5.
[300] B. Mus. Cott. MS., Vitell., E. xiv, fol. 256.
[301] Dr. Creighton (History of Epidemics in Britain, p. 119), speaking 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."

[302] B. Mus. Cott. MS., Vitell., A. xx, fol. 56.

TO

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 necessary 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.[303] Of this total
number of 445 it is safe to say that two-thirds were institutions to vacancies due to
the plague. Roughly speaking, therefore, 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 total number of institutions made to Dorsetshire livings at this time
was 110. 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 proportion 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
England, 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. Consequently 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 episcopal 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,[304] so
that of the 176 vacancies filled in the two years the deaths of only some 52
incumbents 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
February 2nd, 1349.[305] On February the 25th the King was informed that death had
carried off the entire community with one single exception. "Know ye," runs the
King's letter, dated March 16th, "that since the Venerable 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 possessions, the Bishop testifying that he is a fit and proper
person for the office.[306]
The general state of the county of Wilts after the epidemic had passed is well
illustrated from some Wiltshire 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 pasture were returned upon oath, by a jury of the
neighbourhood, as "of no value because all the tenants are dead."[307] 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."[308]
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 12d. for his holding, four have been carried off with all their family.

[309]
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;"[310] 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;[311] 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."[312]
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 removal 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, as
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 considerably 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 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 between 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 documents 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 consequent
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. 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 December),
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 £28 15s. 8d. Further, at the same sittings, the bailiff notes that he has in hand
the lands and tenements of about thirty tenants, who had apparently 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.[313]
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
11th, 1349, a court was held at Stockton, some seven miles from Warminster,
consequently only a short distance from the boundaries of Somerset. The manor, be
it remarked, was evidently only a very small one. On the parchment record it is
stated that since the previous Martinmas (November 11th, 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.[314]
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 21, 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 25, 1348, shows
that it had made its appearance some time between September 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. What a terrible Christmas time it must have been for

those Somerset 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, 1348.
Between this and March 23, 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 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 Richeman. 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.[315]

Another glimpse of the desolate state to which the country was generally reduced
by this disastrous sickness is afforded by the case of Hinton and Witham, the two
Somerset Carthusian houses. The King had endeavoured 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 similar penalties landowners were
prohibited from giving employment to them. That such a law must have 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 beloved 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 belonging 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 miserably 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, therefore, 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.[316]
The second instance is recorded in the following year, 1355, and has reference to
difficulties springing from the 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 receive greater
salaries and stipends from the said brethren, 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.[317]
The diocese of Exeter, comprising the two counties of Devon and Cornwall, was
stricken by the disease apparently 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,
therefore, that in 1349 some 346 vacancies may reasonably 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
1351 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
tenants, 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.[318]
A bundle of accounts for the Duchy of Lancaster gives a good idea of the effect of
the pestilence in Cornwall. The roll is for the year from Michaelmas, 1350, and
includes the accounts of several manors in the 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 3s. 4d., now, "because of
the pestilence," fetched only 20d.; the holdings of five tenants are named as in hand,
as well as nine other tenements 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 8s. 11d., 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. Besides numerous holdings and
hundreds of acres, represented 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. 1–3/4d.
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, presumably by the death of his
tenants without heirs, is £16 18s. 8d.
At Tintagel it is noted that the "fifty shillings previously paid each year as stipend
to the chaplain who celebrated in the chapel, was not paid this year, because no one
would stay to minister there for the said stipend."[319]
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 tenants
who were left, "for fear they should through poverty depart from their holdings."[320]
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 tenements, 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."[321]
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 elsewhere. The population was closely packed in narrow
streets, the religious houses were exceptionally numerous, 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, and consequently the
proportion of deaths among the regulars in London was doubtless greater than
elsewhere, whilst other causes must have also contributed to raise the roll of death
among the seculars.[322]
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 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 tenements and land were in hand. It is the
same in every instance; rents had dropped, owing to the catastrophe, to one-half.
Arable, meadow, and pasture could be obtained 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
18d. 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."[323]
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
striking effects was," writes one author, "that wills to the unusual number of 111
were enrolled at Colchester, which at that time had the privilege of their probate and
enrolment."[324]
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.[325]
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
tenements, 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."[326] 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
community have not wherewith to live."[327]
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 1351, 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:—"Carefully 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 innumerable 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.
[328]

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 1351 and 1352 he had paid £132

for these rents, as had been usual since 1342; but he claimed that "from the time of
the pestilence the bailiffs of the hundreds had been unwilling to take them on such
terms." An inquiry by a jury was held in both counties, and it was declared "that
since 1351 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, 1351." In the same way
also John Chastiloun, the sheriff, had received nothing whatever for his office. In the
end the sum claimed was allowed.[329]
In the Canterbury portion of the county of Kent there were some 280 benefices,
which number may form the 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 reduced to such destitution that they had nothing beyond what
was necessary to support them.[330] Even the Cathedral 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 impropriation, 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.[331]
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 no less than five
were at Hastings, at All Saints', St. Clement's, St. Leonards, and two at the Free
Chapel.[332]
In Hampshire, including the Isle of Wight, the average 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 institutions in 1349 was as high as 92,
against a previous average of a little over nine yearly, so that here, as in Hants, the
number of vacancies of livings was this year increased 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 examines 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 of St. Swithun's first. In 1325, four and twenty
years before the great mortality, the monks in the house were 64 in number.[333] 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 deacon on December 19th, 1310,
and all the thirty below him were his juniors. It is fair to consider that about 60 was
the normal number previous to the year 1349.[334] 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[335]; 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 remained till the final dissolution of the house in the reign of
Henry VIII.[336]
The neighbouring Abbey of Hyde, a house of considerable 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 16th 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 surrender their
possessions into the hands of Bishop Edyndon.[337]
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 number. 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 relatives, whom he interested in the
work of preserving from threatened destruction these monastic establishments. 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, evil doing was on the increase and the world was growing worse, they
were brought to the necessity of secret begging. 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 barrenness 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.[338]
Six months later the nuns of Romsey, in almost the same words, acknowledged
their indebtedness to the Bishop.[339] 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.[340] What happened to the community 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 period in common with all other bodies in England,
ecclesiastical and lay, is to be found in the episcopal registers 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 priesthood; 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
1347 and 1348, 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 Edyndon's death. The same
extraordinary want of subjects appears in the case of the Carmelites. With them,
between 1346 and 1348, eleven subjects received the priesthood. 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, 1349, to December,
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 letter 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 diminution 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 proposes to send some officers
to inquire into these matters, and begs them 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 service 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 21, 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.[341]

Shortly after this, on January 14, 1353, Bishop Edyndon ordered a similar inquiry
to be made as to the state of Christchurch priory, which was also heavily in debt.[342]
That the house had been seriously diminished in members 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 before said, without a single
inmate. On June 1, 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 Magdalene 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 of England, none of the brethren being left, the said
hospital is destitute both of head and members."[343]
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 Cérisy 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.[344]
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,
"neglecting, with danger to many souls," this charge, "have most shamefully
absented themselves for 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 orders all priests to return to their
cures within a month, or to get proper and fitting substitutes.[345]

In the June of the same year (1350) a special monition was issued to William
Elyot, rector of a church near Basingstoke, at once to return 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."[346]
There are many indications of the misery and suffering 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 15th 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."[347] 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 £12 12s. 2d., because "by the attacks of our enemies the French, fires, and
other adverse chances the inhabitants were very much depressed."[348] 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 burning and
destruction of the place by our enemies."[349]
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 inroad 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 inhabitants are oppressed and daily

are falling most miserably into greater poverty. Taking into account all this, the King
orders the collector of taxes for Southampton not to require the old amount, but to
be content with only £6 15s. 7–1/4d.[350] 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 payment of £57, as it was "much oppressed in these
days."[351]
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 property they have made in the place, so as not to
contribute to the said taxes. And they, betaking themselves to other localities in the
county, are leaving the said city desolate and without inhabitants to our (i.e., the
King's) great hurt."[352]
An Inquisitio post mortem for a Hampshire manor, taken in 1350, shows the fall
in prices of lands and produce after the mortality. Eighty acres of arable land, which
in normal times had been let for two marks (13s. 4d.), now produced only 6s. 8d., or
just one-half, being at the rent of 1d. 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.[353]
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 is 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 watermill is held by 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, because all are dead, and there are no receipts from the free tenants, which
used to amount to £6 a year, "because almost all the tenants on the said manor are
dead, and their tenements remain empty for want of some to rent them."[354]
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
consequences 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 impoverished that it is necessary to place the custody of the
temporalities in the hands of a commission" appointed by the crown.[355]
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 the corn of that manor alone, as by their deaths fell into the
lord's hands, or else were forsaken by them."[356]
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 impoverished 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
perform 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."[357]
Some few years after the plague had passed an inquisition 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 the 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 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 selling 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."[358]
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 Wappenbury 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."[359]
On the estate of one who died in December, 1350, it is certified that there used to
be nine villains, each farming 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.[360]
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."[361] 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."[362]
St. Frideswide's, Oxford, was in much the same case. In May, 1349, as we may
suppose from the death of the superior during the time of the epidemic at Oxford,
the plague had visited the monastery, and had, in all probability, 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.[363]
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."[364]
To take but two instances more in other parts of England.
The year after the plague was over, in 1351, the abbey of Barlings had to plead
poverty and to beg for the remission 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 Inquisitio post mortem gives the same picture. Two carucates of
land, for example, brought in only forty shillings, 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 nothing; and so on throughout every particular of
the large estate.
In this part of the country, too, the King's officer experienced the greatest
difficulties in getting his dues, and the Escheator pleads, in mitigation of a small
return, 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."[365]

FOOTNOTES:

[303] B. Mus. Harl. MS. 6979, f. 64.
[304] Institutiones clericorum in Comitatu Wiltoniæ, ed. Sir J. Phillipps.
[305] Originalia Roll, 23 Ed. III., m. 37.
[306] Rot. Pat., 23 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 20.
[307] R. O., Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. III. (1st numbers), No. 77.
[308] Ibid., No. 78.
[309] Ibid., No. 74.
[310] Ibid., No. 87.
[311] Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, File 95.
[312] Ibid.
[313] 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.

[314] B. Mus. Add. Roll 24, 335.
[315] B. Mus. Add. Rolls 15961–6. Perhaps the Richard Hammond capellanus who had a mill and six
acres, and who is reported as among the dead, may have been the scribe.

[316] Rot. Pat., 28 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 20 (16th January, 1354).
[317] Rot. Pat., 29 Ed. III., pars 2, m. 4 (October 5th, 1355).
[318] R. O., Escheator's Accts., 828/20.
[319] R. O., Duchy of Lancaster Mins. Accts., No. 817.
[320] Ibid.
[321] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 28 Ed. III. (Trinity Term).
[322] 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 priesthood 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.

[323] R. O., Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i., file 165. Also ibid., file 166. Esch. Accts., 838/23;
846/31. Cf. also, Exch. Q. R. Mins. Accts., Bundle 869, No. 9.

[324] T. Cromwell, History of Colchester, i., p. 75.
[325] R. O., Originalia Roll, 25 Ed. III., m. 10.
[326] Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, File 165.
[327] Rot. Pat., 25 Ed. III., Pars 3, m. 4.
[328] B. Mus. Cole MS., 5824, fol. 86. Cf. Dr. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and
Commerce, p. 305.

[329] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 27 Ed. III. (Hilary term), m. 7.
[330] Rot. Claus., 26 Ed. III., m. 7.
[331] Hist. MSS. Comm., Fifth Report, p. 444. These lands were apparently the Appledore Marshes,
which subsequently cost the monastery £350 to reclaim.

[332] Sussex Archæological Society, Vol. xxi, pp. 44, seqq.
[333] Reg. Pontissera, fol. 143.
[334] This may be considered the number in the previous century from the Annales de Wintonia.
[335] Reg. Wykeham, ii, fol. 226.
[336] The following are the number of monks belonging to Winchester Cathedral Priory at the
annexed dates:—

Date. Occasion. Number.
A.D.
1260 Episcopal Election 62
1325 Living in the Priory on October 9th 64
1404 Episcopal Election 42
1416–17 On Chamberlain's Rolls 39 and 2 juniors at schools.
1422–3 On Chamberlain's Rolls 29 to 32 and 8 juniors at schools.
1427–8 On Chamberlain's Rolls 35 to 36.
1447 Episcopal Election on the death of Cardinal 39
Beaufort
1450 Election of Prior 35
1468 Episcopal Election 30 and 2 or 3 at Oxford.
1498 Election of Prior 31
1524 Election of Prior 30 (none below sub-deacons
named).

[337] Harl. MS., 1761, f. 20.
[338] Rot. Claus., 28 Ed. III., m. 3d (dated February 6th, 1353).
[339] Ibid., m. 6 (July 8th).
[340] Rot. Pat., 23 Ed. III., pars 1a, m. 13.
[341] Reg. Edyndon, ii, ff. 27b, 28.
[342] Ibid., fol. 28.
[343] Reg. Edyndon, i, fol. 49b.
[344] Ibid., ii, fol. 23b.
[345] Ibid., fol. 22b.
[346] Ibid., fol. 23b.
[347] Rot. Claus., 27 Ed. III., m. 19.
[348] Rot. Claus., 26 Ed. III., m. 12.
[349] Ibid., 25 Ed. III., m. 21.
[350] Originalia Roll, 29 Ed. III., m. 8.
[351] Rot. Claus., 26 Ed. III., m. 19. Cf. Patent Roll, 26 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 6.
[352] Rot. Pat., 26 Ed. III., pars 1a, m. 28d.
[353] Escheator's Inq. p. m., series i, file 90.
[354] Escheator's Inq. p. m., 22–23 Ed. III., series i, file 64.
[355] Rot. Pat., 27 Ed. III., m. 17.
[356] Ed. Bristol and Gloucester Archæological Society, i, 307.
[357] Reg. Heref. Trileck., fol. 102.

[358] Bruton Chartulary f. 121b. Prior Henry appears to have spent the money thus raised in the
expenses of a journey to Rome and Venice and back. The inquiry was held in June, 29 Ed. III.

[359] Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, file 240.
[360] Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, file 103.
[361] Rot. Pat., 25 Ed. III., pars 1a, m. 16.
[362] Ibid., 28 Ed. III., m. 10.
[363] Ibid., m. 3.
[364] Quoted in Saturday Review, Jan. 16, 1886, "The Manor."
[365] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 25 Ed. III.

TO

CHAPTER X.
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY.

It will be evident to all who have followed the summary 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
considering 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
approximate numbers is attended with the greatest difficulty 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 Subsidy 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 Englishmen. 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 previously to the mortality the entire population of the country
consisted of from four to five millions, half of whom perished in the fatal year.[366]
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 "probably was not more than two millions."[367] 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 the Tudors; (ii.), that circumstances did not favour rapid
increase of population between 1350 and 1377; (iii.), that the country was not
incapable of sustaining a much larger population in the earlier part of Edward III.'s
reign than it could maintain in the time of Henry VI."[368] Thus the estimate first
given, of the population previous to the Black Death, may be taken as substantially
the same as 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 standpoint 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 immediate effect of the mortality was
to bring about nothing less than a complete social revolution. Everywhere, 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
wonder. Living as the peasantry did in close, unclean huts, with no rooms above
ground, without windows, artificial light, soap, linen; ignorant of certain vegetables,
constrained 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.[369]
The obvious and undoubted effect of the great mortality 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
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 away. 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 beyond
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."[370]
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 to pay, more than the previous wage for 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,[371] the justices
appointed to obtain the money plead that they "cannot and have not been able to
levy any of these penalties."[372] 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 understand
"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 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.[373]
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
what 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 100s., 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 cities."[374]
To this account of the labour difficulties which followed 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 remained
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."[375] Many instances are to be found in the public documents at the period of
combinations of workmen 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 visitation 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 reduction."[376]
As a consequence of the great mortality among small tenant farmers and the
labouring classes generally, and forced by the failure of legislation to practically
cope with the "strike" organised by the survivors, the landowners quickly despaired
of carrying on the traditional system of cultivation with their own stock under
bailiffs. Professor Thorold Rogers has pointed out that "very 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 institution 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
1349, 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, congregations, 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
complete overthrow of the mediæval system of serfdom, from the year of the great
mortality its fall was inevitable, and practical emancipation was finally won by the
popular rising of 1381. Even to the last, however, the landowning class 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
villainage 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 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: "Villains withdraw their services and customs from their lords, by the
comfort and procurement of others, their counsellors, maintainers, and abettors,
which have taken hire and profit of the said villains and land tenants, by colour of
certain exemplifications made out of Domesday, and affirm that they are discharged
and will suffer no distress. Hereupon 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 a 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, however, 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
distinguishing 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 interpreted 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 architecture 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 converse 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 'manner'
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 of youth is conducted, and it is probable that the dreadful scourge of
which we have been treating, by carrying off many of those ancient instructors,
enabled Mr. Cornwall 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 paralyzed 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 recollection 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."[377] To this may be added the fact that the history of stained-glass
manufacture 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 examples
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 institutions 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 111.[378] The average number of
institutions 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 beneficed
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 considered as excessive, when it
is remembered that the peculiar nature of their priestly duties rendered them
specially liable to infection; whilst in the case of the religious, the mere fact of their
living together in community 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 last century at Marseilles:—

"Why drew Marseilles' good Bishop purer breath
When nature sickened, and each gale was death?"[379] [p205]

On the supposition that five-and-twenty thousand of the clerical body fell victims
to the epidemic, and estimating 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 total
population, before the outbreak of the epidemic, of some five millions.[380]
It remains now to briefly point out some of the undoubted 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 Norwich, 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. One 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 for 2 marks and his board,[381] 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.[382]
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 between each step in the sacred
ministry.[383]
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
circumstances, being compelled to enter the cloister, "because she was aged, and
could without suspicion remain in the world."[384] 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.[385]
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."[386]
Many instances could be given of the ignorance consequent 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 mediæval Bishops endeavoured to guard 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 baptizing, etc., as contained in the
Constitutions of Archbishop Peckham.[387] 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 21st June, 1358, three days before Bishop William of
Wykeham required him to enter into the obligation detailed above.[388]
It has been already remarked that one obvious result of the great mortality, so far
as the Church is concerned, 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 111; whilst
in the 15 subsequent years, up to 1365, when Bishop Edyndon died, the yearly
average was barely 20; and 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 15th century.[389]
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 101–1/2; whilst for the seven years after that date it was but 40–
1/2. 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 ordinations. Thus, in 1346, on the 11th 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 conferred 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 year, some 319 priests were
ordained by the Bishop; half of the number being his own clergy.[390] 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
subsequent 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 business 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 favourable 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
disturbances, and the subsequent Wars of the Roses, maintained 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
followed immediately upon the fatal year of 1349. At 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 disturbances, students have forsaken the place, and Oxford, once so
renowned, has become "like a worthless fig-tree without fruit."[391] 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.[392]
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 popularity 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 numbers and influence, the chief
factors in the ecclesiastical 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 was 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 comparatively 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 attention to the mediæval period, or who, having studied it, still
somehow fail to realise facts as distinct from theories, and to rid themselves of the
imaginative prepossessions with which they entered upon their investigations. 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
1301 to 1321. During this period 703 seculars were made priests, against 114
regulars. In both these instances, 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 proportion 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 meeting 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
circumstances of the case; and there is no need to have recourse 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 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 2·7, or rather more
than three to one.[393]
In common with those in worldly professions and businesses 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 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 committed
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 censures 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 difficulty
experienced on all hands in finding fit, proper, and tried ecclesiastics to fill posts of
eminence and responsibility 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 Wykeham himself, who entered the Church in consequence of the
great mortality among the clergy in 1361, 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 generally 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 depopulated by the disease
already given may be added the following:—In 1235 the abbey of St. Albans is
supposed 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
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 number
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 important
of the English Benedictine houses. It is not too much to suppose that in the period of
its greatest prosperity it must have counted probably a hundred members. 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 traditional 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 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."[394] 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 negligent, 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

relaxed 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 discipline."
[395]

We may sum up the results of the great mortality in the words of a recent 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 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."[396]
In dealing with this subject it is difficult to bring home to the mind the vast range
of the great calamity, and to duly 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
thoroughly 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
generations 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 Wycliff, 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
Professor 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 vivacious and open, difficulties, in the middle ages, called into existence
only a more strenuous and more determined 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 observation 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 unquestionably this defect is
a real one, but in practice it possessed 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 was perished. Time, however, and the power of effort and work
belonged to those that survived.
Two of the noblest churches in Italy typify the twofold 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. 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 Lombardy
—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.[397]
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
wonderful 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 history of the
immediately succeeding generations must be regarded. In spite of wars and civil
commotions it was an age of distinct progress, although the very complexity 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[366] Cf. T. Amyot, Population of English Cities, temp. Ed. III. (Archæologia, Vol. xx, pp. 524–531).
[367] England before and after the Black Death (Fortnightly Review, Vol. viii, p. 191).
[368] W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, p. 304.
[369] 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 English 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."

[370] B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, B. v, fol. 99b.
[371] R. O., Originalia Roll, 26 Ed. III., m. 27.
[372] Ibid., 27 Ed. III., m. 19.
[373] Ibid., 26 Ed. III., m. 25.
[374] Ed. Twysden, col. 2699.
[375] B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, B. v, fol. 98b.
[376] R. O., Q. R. Mins. Accts., Bundle 801, No. 1.
[377] Introduction, p. ix.
[378] 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. 175 ante), the

proportion of non-beneficed to beneficed clergy ordained during 12 years, from 1362 to 1374, was nearly six
to one.

[379] Pope, Essay on Man, lines 107–8.
[380] 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.

[381] Amyot (Archæologia, 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 10d. or 12d. a day. Chaucer's good
parson, who was only "rich of holy thought and werk," might not be remarkable.

[382] Ed. Twysden, col. 2699.
[383] Mr. Baigent's 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 1351 1352
1 1 19 8 4 1

1354 1359 1361 1362 1363
2 1 5 1 1

[384] Harl. MS., 6965, fol. 145 (7 Id. Julii, 1349).
[385] Ibid., fol. 146b.
[386] B. Mus. Cole MS., 5824, fol. 23b.
[387] For the real meaning to be attached to learning the Pater noster, etc., see my article on
Religious Instruction in England in the 14th and 15th Centuries, in Dublin Review, Oct., 1893, p. 900.

[388] Mr. Baigent's MS. collections.
[389] From 1400 to 1418 the average was 17, from 1447 to 1467 only 18.
[390] Reg. Trileck, fol. 180 seqq.
[391] Reg. Trileck, fol. 163.
[392] Archbishop Islip 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.

[393] 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.

[394] Archbp. Islip 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."

[395] Annales Minorum, viii, p. 22.
[396] Growth of English Industry and Commerce, p. 275.
[397] The Annali della fabbrica, published by the Cathedral administration, 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.

THE END.

INDEX.
Abergavenny priory, 118.
Abbotsbury abbey, 78, 163.
Abstinence days, dispensation from, 197.
Aden, trade route to, 3.
Adriatic, coast towns of, 60.
Agatha, St., relics at Catania, 13.
Ages of Faith, meaning of, 218.
Agrarian difficulties, 56, 148, 164, seqq.
Albans, St., see St. Albans.
Alcester, Inq. p.m. at, 190.
Aldgate, Holy Trinity, cemetery at, 93.
Aleppo, 2.
Alexandria and trade with Europe, 3.
Allott, Thomas, 155.
Almeira, 58.
Almsford, 84.
Alnwick abbey, 160.
Alphonsus XI, death of, 59.
Alverdiscott, 88.
Amiens, 49.
Amounderness, deanery of, 156.
Andronicus (son of the Emperor Cantacuzene), death of, 12.
Anglada, on nature of the plague, 8.

Anglia, East, plague in, 129;
effect on religious houses of, 129.
Anglesey priory, Cambridge, 177.
Animals attacked, 11, 38, 139.
Antioch, patriarch of, archbishop of Catania, 13.
Aragon, Queen of, dies, 59.
Architecture, influence of pestilence on, 202.
Arles, 37.
Armenia, 2.
Arras, decay of, 57.
Arundel college, 212.
Asia, epidemic in, 2;
trade route to Europe from, 2;
hordes of Tartars in, 3.
Athelney abbey, 85.
Atte Welle, John, 136.
Augustinians of Winchester diocese, 183.
Austria, 61.
Avesbury, Robert of, his account of the pestilence, 74.
Avignon, first reports of plague at, 16;
account of plague at, 37-45, 51, 119;
date of epidemic at, 43;
extent of mortality in, 42;
decrease of population in, 41;
new cemeteries at, 38.
Azarius, Peter, notary of Novara, 62.
Azor, otherwise Tana, 5.
Babington, translator of Hecker's Epidemics, 2.
Babington, Somerset, 85.

Babylon, mediæval name for Cairo, 4.
Bagdad, the centre of Eastern commerce, 3.
Baker, Galfrid le, 72, 116.
Balearic islands, the, 58.
Barcelona, 58.
Barlings abbey, 192.
Barlborough, 147.
Barnstaple, 89.
Barnwell, John, prior of, 132.
Basingstoke, deanery of, 113.
Basle, 64, 66.
Bateman, bishop of Norwich, 205.
Bath, 85.
Bath priory, decrease in numbers at, 85.
Bathampton, 85.
Bath and Wells, diocese of, prayers ordered in, 71;
date of pestilence in, 80, 83;
letter of bishop of, 81;
straits for priests in, 207;
ordinations in, 212.
Baths, public, common in the 14th century, 56.
Battle abbey, 115.
Bavaria, 61.
Beauchief abbey, 147.
Beche, Margaret de la, Inq. p.m. on, 191.
Bedfordshire, state of manors in, 101;
institutions in, 178;
petition of sheriff as to state of, 178.
Beds in French peasant houses, 56.

Belgium, 49.
Bellinzona, 62.
Beneficed and non-beneficed clergy, proportion of, 134, 155, 175, note, 204, note.
Bergen, 67.
Berkshire, state of manors in, 101;
institutions of clergy in, 178.
Berne, 63.
Bincombe, 78, 79.
Bircheston, abbot of Westminster, 97.
Biknor, Alexander de, archbishop of Dublin, 119.
Blackburn, deanery of, 155.
Black Death, the, recent origin of name, 6;
symptoms of the disease, 7, 10, 119;
special nature of, 8, 39, 43, 49;
modern outbreak of, 9, note;
truce between England and France attributed to, 117;
inflicted a deadly blow on social body, iii.;
forms end of mediæval period, iii.;
catastrophe to church, iii.;
starting point of modern history, vi.
Blackmere, manor of, 143.
Black Prince, Cornish estates of, 174;
remits rents on, ibid.
Black Sea, port of, the centres of infection, 1.
Blandford, 78.
Blessed Sacrament, increase of devotion to, v.;
lamp to burn before, 130.
Blisworth, manor of, 138.
Blood-spitting, a characteristic symptom, 8, 27, 39, 43.

Bobbio, 18.
Boccaccio, his description of the plague, 16, 29, seqq.
Bodmin, 89;
numbers of deaths in, 90.
Bodmin priory, 90;
destitution of, 91.
Bohemia, 65.
Bohemian students, account of journey of, 32.
Bologna, journey from, 32.
Bolsover, 147.
Bongar's Gesta Dei per Francos, 3.
Bordeaux, 45.
Botereaux, Isabel de, 141.
Botzen, 61.
Bourton tything, 167.
Bowes, Agnes, prioress of Worthorp, 137.
Boxgrove abbey, 115.
Brackley, state of country near, 193.
Braunsford, Wulstan, bishop of Worcester, 120.
Bread, white, unknown in the 14th century, 55.
Bredwardine, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, 109.
Bremen, 66.
Brenner-pass, the, 61.
Bridgwater, 84, 168.
Bridlington priory, Trivet's Chronicle continued at, 72.
Bridport, 79;
evidence of corporation records, 80.

Bristol, 84, 86, 116, 139;
date of plague at, 117;
new cemetery at, 87;
decay of, 86.
Bristol channel, contagion carried along the, 84, 89.
Broughton manor, 164.
Bruerne abbey, 191.
Bruton priory, cell of, 190.
Bubonic plague, the, 43.
Buckinghamshire, date of plague in, 102;
institutions of clergy in, 101-2, 178;
state of manors in, 100;
petition of sheriff as to, 178.
Bucklow manor, 145.
Burgundy, 46.
Burials, effected with difficulty, 40;
Christian idea of, 111.
Burton-on-Trent, district of, 148.
Business, cessation of all, 116.
Buyers, death of, 92, 146.
Cæsarea, 2.
Caffa, Genoese port in Crimea, 4.
Cairo, 2;
called Babylon, 4;
trade at, 4.
Calais, 49, 71, 117;
the taking of, i.
Caleston, manor of, 164.
Caldecot, manor of, 136.

Cambeth, now Cambay, India, 3.
Cambray, death of Bishop of Tournay at, 51.
Cambridge, date of plague at, 134;
parishes depopulated, 134, 135;
plague pits at, 134.
Cambridgeshire, county of, accounts of a manor in, 135;
state of, 132.
Camel, district about the river, 173.
Cantacuzene, the emperor, description of plague, 10, 11, 16.
Canterbury, diocese of, 102;
institutions of clergy in, 102, 179;
benefices in diocese, ibid.;
city of, St. Augustine's, 103;
Christchurch, 103, 107, 179;
death of a St. Alban's monk at, 103;
prior of, orders prayers, 74;
St. Sepulchre's priory, 103;
St. Gregory's priory, 103;
St. James's priory, 179;
hospital of Eastbridge, 103.
Canterbury college, Oxford, origin of foundation of, 210.
Caramania, 2.
Carinthia, 61, 62.
Carlisle, 157, 158.
Carmarthen priory, 118.
Carmelites of Winchester diocese, the, 183.
Cartmel priory, 157.
Cary, Richard de, Mayor of Oxford, 127.
Caspar Camentz, on the plague at Frankfort, 66.

Castlecary, 84.
Catania, 13, 14;
flight of people to, 14;
death of Gerard Otho, the archbishop, 14.
Cattle left to wander in fields, 62, 139.
Cecchetti, signor, on medical faculty of Venice, 31.
Cemetery, difficulty as to, at Winchester, 110;
at Avignon, 40;
at Tournay, 53.
Cérisy, St. Vigor's abbey of, 185.
Charterhouse, London, old cemetery at, 94.
Charterhouse of Somerset, 170.
Chastiloun, John, sheriff of Bedford, etc., 179.
Chauliac, Gui de, 8, 43.
Chedworth, Sir Thomas, and Anglesey priory, 177.
Chedzoy manor rolls, 168.
Cheshunt, convent at, 177.
Chester, county of, 145;
accounts of County Palatine, 145;
archdeanery of, institution in, 145;
city, St. John's in, 145;
St. Mary's priory, 145.
China, origin of plague in, 1, 2;
trade routes from, 3.
Christchurch priory, Hants, effect of mortality on, 184.
Christian charity destroyed by plague, 13, 20, 39, 38, 44, 46, 63, 119.
Church, effects of plague on the, iv, 205, seqq.;
benefits to, from middle classes, v.
Churches left without services, 205-6.

Chus or Koos, trade routes through, 4.
Cities, depopulation of, 161.
Clement VI, pope, 44.
Clergy, reason for calculating mortality of, 75;
poor pay of, 206;
proportion to lay people, 205-6;
ignorance of some at this time, 207;
secular and regular, proportion of, 211;
mortality amongst, 77, 203-4;
dearth of, 152, 172, 205, 214;
regulation of fees of, 105;
demand higher stipends, 206.
Clerics not in sacred orders appointed to benefices, 206.
Clevedon, 84.
Clistel, the lord of, 117.
Cloford, 85.
Clopton, Thomas de, 118.
Clyn, friar John, account of plague in Ireland, 119-120.
Co, John de, chancellor of Ely diocese, 133.
Colchester, numbers of wills at, 176;
abbot of, dies, 176.
Colington, Great, 142.
Colington, Little, 142.
Collegiate establishment rendered necessary, 212.
Colmar, 66.
Cologne, 66.
Combe Kaynes, 79.
Commerce, routes of eastern, in 14th century, 2.
Compostella, account of a pilgrim to, 59.

Compton, 85.
Confession to laymen, people exhorted to make, 81.
Constance, 64.
Constantinople, position in regard to Crimean trade, 9;
plague at, 10.
Contagion, special nature of, 36, 39, 40, 44.
Conventional forms of middle ages, 218.
Conversation with infected fatal, 42, 44.
Corbet, John, priest of Winchester, 208.
Corey, John, establishes a cemetery in London, 93.
Cork, 120.
Cornard Parva, manor of, 129.
Cornwall, evidence of Duchy accounts, 173;
date of plague in the county of, 80.
Cornwall, Mr., introduces English in schools, 202.
Corsica, 58.
Court rolls, information contained in, 130, 166.
Country, desolation of, 162, seqq.
Coventry, 125.
Covino, Simon de, poem on the plague, 35.
Crecy, battle of, i.
Creighton, Dr., his work on epidemics in Britain, ii.
Crimea, Italian trading cities in, 3, 4.
Crokham manor, 101.
Crops, prolific nature of, at time of plague, 140.
Crosby, 155.
Croxton abbey, 140.
Cumberland, 157.

Cunningham, Dr., on the population of England, 195;
on effect of the plague, 216.
Curates, technical meaning of name, 81, note.
Cyprus, 2.
Dale abbey, 147.
Dalkey, 119.
Dallyng, Philip, sacrist of Ely, 133.
Dalmatia, 60.
Dartmoor, 172.
Deacons, faculties given to, for administering H. Eucharist, 83.
Death of those attacked by disease considered certain, 38, 43.
Decameron, description of the plague in the, 16, 20-24.
Dene, William, monk of Rochester, his description of the plague, 104, seqq., 197;
account of the labour difficulties by, 199.
Dene, Roger, priest of Winchester, 207.
Dene, Sir Thomas, deaths in the family of, 104.
Delaprey abbey, 137.
De' Mussi, 4, 16.
Denis, St., account of plague in chronicle of, 46;
mortality at, 47.
Denmark, 69.
Denny, east and west, 176.
Denton, Richard de, 137.
Derby, death of priests in county, 147;
institutions in, 146;
Dominicans of, 147.
Dereford, John de, Mayor of Oxford, 127.
Derley abbey, notes in the chartulary of, 147.

Desolation of country after the plague, 48, 50, 56, 68, 69, 106, 115, 123, 145, 155,
157, 161, seqq.
Devon, date of plague in county, 80;
mortality in, 89.
Devotions, new character of popular, v.
Dice converted into "beads," 52.
Dissentis abbey, 63.
Ditchford friary, 125.
Doctors, consulted by French king, 49;
at Venice, 31;
at Avignon, 39;
flight of many, 43.
Dodington manor, 143.
Dominicans, falling off in numbers of, 183.
Doncaster, deanery of, institutions in, 152, 154, 155.
Dorchester, 79.
Dorsetshire, first appearance of plague in, 72, 78, 79;
institutions of clergy in, 79;
deaths of clergy, 162.
Doulton, 85.
Drakelow, lordship of, 148.
Drogheda, 119;
convent of Minorites at, 120.
Drontheim, archbishop and canons of, die, 67;
bishops of province of, die, 68.
Dublin, 119;
state of city after plague, 121;
convent of Minorites in, 120.
Duchy of Lancaster accounts, 173.

Dugdale's Warwickshire, institutions from, 125.
Dunstable, John de, prior of Coventry, 125.
Dunwich, 131.
East, the, plague originates in, 1;
lines of commerce with, 3, 4.
Eaststoke, in Hayling Island, 187.
Eckington, 147.
Ederos, or Ivychurch, 163.
Education, seriously affected by plague, ix;
condition of university after, 210.
Edward III, his great renown at the time of plague, iii.
Edyndon, Bishop of Winchester, 107;
his letter on the plague, 107;
his letter on cemeteries at Winchester, 111;
benefactions to St. Mary's, Winchester, 182;
his benefactions to Romsey, 182;
his inquiry into the state of St. Swithun's, 184;
his inquiry into the state of Christchurch, Hants, 184;
his letter about Shereborne priory, 185;
his admonition to priests about residence, 185.
Elsyng, Robert, 94.
Ely, diocese of, 132;
institutions in, 133;
arrangement for government of, 132;
proportion of beneficed and non-beneficed in, 134;
falling off of ordinations, 208;
oath demanded from candidates for orders, 207;
cathedral priory of, 133;
tax on Dunwich granted to the priory, 131.

Elyot, William, 186.
Engelberg, 64;
nunnery at, terrible mortality at, 64.
England, date of arrival of plague in, 71, 73.
English, introduction of, into schools, 202.
Episcopal registers, value of, 75;
kind of evidence to be found in, 75.
Escheator's returns as to death of landowners, 100.
Esse, Richard de, Abbot of Tavistock, 70.
Essex, benefices in, 175;
Inq. p.m. in, 175.
Etsch, valley of the, 61.
Eulogium Historiarum, the, 72.
Europe, lines of Eastern trade with, 4.
Evercreech, 84.
Exe, villages on the, 89.
Exeter, diocese of, date of plague in, 80, 87;
episcopal registers, testimony of, 88;
institutions of, 87, 172;
city of, St. Nicholas, 89.
Families swept away by plague, 65, 148, 169.
Farming, change in the system of, 200.
Farms, small, in use before the plague, 201.
Feodosia, S., otherwise Caffa, 4.
Ferriby priory, 152.
Fifteenth century, the, a period of reconstruction, 219.
Fish, scarcity of, 197;
increased price of, 196;
supposed spread of epidemic through, 42.

Fishing boats convey infection, 89.
FitzEustace, Thomas, Inq. p.m. on, 177.
FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh, on decrease of Oxford students, 126.
FitzWilliam, John, 154.
Flanders, 51.
Fleurchamps abbey, 67.
Flight of people before plague, 154.
Florence, 16, 20-25.
Food, spread of infection through, 42;
dearness of, 140.
Fordingbridge, 112.
Foswert, 67.
Foucarmont abbey, 46.
Fourteenth century, common view as to, i.
Fowey, the estuary of, 89.
France, S. Luce on population of, 54;
condition of rural, in 14th century, 55.
Franciscans, Wadding on effect of plague on, 216.
Frankfort, 66.
Freeman, professor, on real greatness of middle ages, 217.
Fremington, 89.
Freshford, 85.
Friars, of Piacenza, deaths amongst, 19;
in Provence, mortality amongst, 44;
mortality of, 45;
of Winchester diocese, falling off in numbers, 183;
of Our Lady, Norwich, 129.
Frodsham manor, 145.
Frome, 85.

Funerals, regulations for, 28.
Furniture of French houses, 55.
Fyfhide, William de, 112.
Gall, St., abbey of, 70.
Gallarete, 62.
Garstang, 156.
Garter, foundation of the Order of the, i.
Gascoigne, Thomas, on decrease of Oxford students, 126.
Gascony, 46, 48.
Gayton, near Towcester, 193.
Gaza, 2.
Geneva, Lake of, 63.
Genoa, merchants of, report beginning of plague, 1;
ships carry plague to, 12;
date of plague at, 18;
ships from, carry plague to Marseilles, 34;
settlements in Crimea of merchants belonging to, 3-4.
Gerard Otho, archbishop of Catania, 14.
Gerneys, Joan, abbess of Romsey, 188.
Gesta Abbatum, the, 97.
Gibraltar, death of Alphonsus XI at, 59.
Gillingham, Dorset, court rolls of, 167.
Girgenti, 14.
Glastonbury, decrease in number of monks, 85, 215.
Glass, first use of, 55;
painted, influence of plague on manufacture of, 203.
Gloucester, county of, benefices in, 188;
city of, stops communication with Bristol, 92.
Godstowe, prioress of, 125.

Goods of deceased tenants seized by the lord of the manor, 193.
Grandisson, bishop, 88, 90, 172.
Green, J. R., his history, ii;
his estimate of church influence, v.
Gresley, prior of, 147.
Grinstead, East, near Salisbury, 165.
Grisant, William, doctor at Marseilles, 35.
Guernsey, 71.
Guilds, rise of, v.
Hagham priory, 158.
Hallmote courts, 159.
Haltemprice priory, 152.
Hame, manor of, 189.
Hampole, Richard Rolle, of, iv.
Hampshire, date of plague in, 112;
institutions of clergy in, 180;
Inq. p.m. in, 188.
Hampton, John de, 112.
Hardington, 85.
Hartland abbey, 90.
Hartlebury, manor of the Bishop of Worcester, 124.
Harvests unreaped for lack of labour, 171, 189, 196.
Hastings, royal presentation to church in, 179.
Hastings, Laurence de, Earl of Pembroke, 118.
Hastings, William de, Inq. p.m. on, 188.
Hayling, Island, 113;
impoverishment of, 187;
priory, impoverishment of, 187.
Hecker, his account of commencement of the plague, 2.

Hedges, origin of, 201.
Heiligen Kreuz abbey, 65.
Helston, 173.
Hereford, disease of, 141;
institutions of clergy in, 142;
falling off in numbers ordained, 209.
Hertfordshire, date of plague in, 98;
institutions of clergy in, 177;
manors of, state of, 99.
Heriots, increase in number of, 190.
Herrings, increase in price of, 196.
Heveringland priory, 129.
Hexstall, Leticia, abbess of Pollesworth, 125.
Hickling priory, 129.
Hinton charterhouse, difficulties on death of tenants at, 170, 171.
Hinton Bluet, two masses on Sundays allowed at, 207.
Holcombe, Somerset, 85.
Holderness, deanery of, 153.
Holland, 67.
Holland, town of, 49.
Holland, Sir Thomas, 137.
Holy Cross, Bristol, 87.
Holy Name, rise of devotion to the, v.
Horsleigh priory, 190.
Horsley, 147.
Houghton, 159.
House, style of French country, 55.
Hull, 155.
Hume, on the plague, iv.

Husee, Sir Henry, Inq. p.m. on, 164.
Hyde abbey, 181.
Iceland, the bishops of, all die, 68.
Incumbents, ordination of, after appointment, 206.
Indulgences granted at time of plague, 110.
Infection, terrible nature of, 18, 27, 49, 62, 92.
Institutions of clergy, valuable evidence of, 76.
Inquisitions post-mortem, value of, 99.
Ireland, 119, seqq.
Iron, increased price of, 196.
Islep, Simon, Archbishop of Canterbury, his enthronisation, 107;
letter on stipends of clergy, 213.
Istria, 61.
Ivychurch priory, 113, 163.
Jessop, Dr., his account of the plague in East Anglia, ii, 128, 129.
Jersey, 71.
Jervaux abbey, 152.
Jews, mortality amongst, 38.
Joan, Queen of Navarre, dies, 47.
Joan of Burgundy dies, 47.
Joan, daughter of Edward III, dies, 45.
John XXI, report as to Eastern commerce to, 2.
Kent, Margaret, Countess of, 136.
Keynsham abbey, 85.
Kidwelly priory, 118.
Kilkenny, 120.
Kilkhampton, John de, prior of Bodwin, 90.
Kilmersdon, 85.

King Edward, his compassion seldom manifested, 186;
on clerical education, 210.
Kingsmead, prioress of, 147.
Knighton, chronicle by, 73;
his account of plague at Bristol, 86;
ditto in Leicestershire, 139;
his description of labour difficulties, 198;
on the scarcity of priests, 205.
Knightsbridge, slaughter place for London at, 95.
Koos, or Chus, a trade station on the Nile, 4.
Kurds, the, attacked by the plague, 2.
Labour, increased cost of, 189, 196.
Labourers, difficulty of obtaining, 50, 92, 106, 140, 170-1, 179, 189;
trouble with, 56;
feel their power, iii, 197;
get higher wages in spite of legislation, 198-9.
Lagerbring, on plague in Norway, 67.
Lamech, earthquake at, 2.
Lancashire, 155.
Land, depreciation of, 137, 153, 188, 189, 192, 196;
rents of, reduced, 106, 143-4, 145, 164, seqq.;
cessation of services on, 148;
a third part of, uncultivated, 199;
change of, to large tenures, 201.
Landowners, difficulties of, 196;
mediæval meaning of, 202.
Langton, 79.
Language, effect of plague on, 202.
Languedoc, 37.

Langwith, 147.
Lanthony priory, 189.
Laon, abbey of St. John at, 56.
Launceston, appointment of a religious of, as prior of Bodmin, 91.
Laura de Noves, death of, 37;
announcement of death of, to Petrarch, 29.
Law Courts suspended, 149.
Law suits settled by deaths of parties, 116, 169.
Lay people and clergy, proportion of, 205.
Ledbury, large ordination at, 209.
Leicester, county of, institutions of clergy in, 140.
Leicester, city of, 139.
Lesnes monastery, poverty of, 106.
Lestraunge, John, 144, 164.
Lewes priory, deaths at, 115.
Liège, labour difficulties at, 56.
Lincoln, diocese of, indulgences for, 139, 149;
institutions of clergy in, 177.
Lincoln, county of, Escheator's accounts for, 150.
Lincoln, Richard de, 149.
Lipton, Nicholas de, abbot, 192.
Lisle, Thomas de, Bishop of Ely, 132.
Livings left vacant, 172.
Lollards, supposed religious revival, due to, iv.
London, date of plague in, 93, 96, 117;
new churchyards in, 23-94;
number of dead in, 94-95, 175;
insanitary condition of, 95;
proportion of secular to regular clergy ordained in, 213, note.

Longford, 147, 176.
Louth Park, 149.
Luce, M. Simeon, on condition of French rural life, 56.
Lucerne, 63.
Lucaris, Dominic de, Archbishop of Spalatro, 60.
Luda, Walter de, abbot of Louth Park, 149.
Luffield priory, 137.
Lulworth, East, 79.
Lycia, trade route with, 3.
Lycotin, Matilda, 114.
Lydford manor, 172.
Lyle, Henry de, prior of Horsleigh, 190.
Lynot, John, 135.
Lynsted, Adam de, sacrist of Ely, 133.
Magnus II, King of Sweden, 69.
Mahabar, probably Mahe, on Malabar coast, 3.
Majorca, 58.
Maldon manor, 175.
Male population, demands upon the, 210.
Malling abbey, 104, 106.
Malvern, Great, 122.
Manny, Sir Walter, 94, 116.
Manors, example of deaths of tenants on, 129, 135, 138, 139, 141, 167, 168, 169.
Marino, Sanudo, his account of ancient trade routes, 2.
Marseilles, 34;
remains a city of the dead, 40.
Marton priory, 152.
Mautravers, John, governor of Channel Islands, 71.
Meals, account of, in France, 56.

Meath, bishop of, 119, note.
Meaux abbey, 78, 152;
decay of, 154.
Medical science powerless to deal with epidemic, 10, 36, 44, 63.
Mediterranean ports, infection brought from, 1.
Melcombe Regis, plague in England first starts from, 72.
Mengham, Hayling Island, 187.
Mentmore, Michael, abbot of St. Alban's, 97.
Merdenchor, quarter of Tournay, 51.
Messina, 12.
Mesopotamia, 2;
trade route through, 3.
Middle ages, material difficulties in, 217.
Middle classes, profusion of, v.
Milan, building of the cathedral of, 219.
Minster priory, Cornwall, 89.
Momo, 62.
Monasteries, special mortality in, 67, 180;
impoverishment of, 177;
depopulation of, 215.
Monkbretton priory, 152.
Monrieux, 29.
Montgomery, Sir John, 116.
Montpellier, 35.
Morals, effect of scourge on, iv, 25, 32, 48;
attempt to enforce better, 52.

Mortality, extent of, in Europe, 50;
probable estimate of, in England, 194, seqq.;
of English clergy, as evidenced by patent rolls, 76;
greater in confined places, 53.
Morton, 193.
Muchelney abbey, 85.
Muggington, 147.
Muhldorf, 61.
Muisis, Gilles Le, abbot of Tournay, 50, 59.
Mussi, De', his account of the plague in Italy, 16, 17.
Mustard, nearly the only mediæval condiment, 55.
Mürz, the valley of the, 61.
Nangis, William of, his account of the plague, 47.
Narbonne, 37.
Navarre, Queen of, dies, 47.
Netherton, 145.
Neuberg, 61, 65.
Newcastle, 159.
Newenham abbey, 90.
Norfolk and Suffolk, institution of clergy in, 128;
manors of, deaths in, 129.
Normandy, 46, 49.
Northam, 88.
Northamptonshire, institutions of clergy in, 137;
manors of, 138.
North Sea, ships drifting on the, 2.
Northumberland, 159.
Northwich, 146.
Northwood, Hayling Island, 187.

Norway, 67.
Norwich, diocese of, deaths of religious superiors in, 128;
institutions of clergy in, 128;
ordinations of youths in, 205.
Norwich, city of, St. Martin's in the Fields, 129;
the friars of Our Lady in, ibid.;
deaths in, 130;
supposed population of, ibid.
Nottinghamshire, deaths of beneficed clergy in, 148.
Noves, Laura de, death of, 37.
Nurses, impossibility of finding, 40, 44, 46, 63;
almost certain death of, 49.
Oath, a kind of missionary, imposed at Ely, 207.
Observance of monasteries, plague fatal to, 216.
Orders, dearth of candidates for, 152;
the usual intervals between, dispensed with, 205;
conferred on a married man, 207;
conferred on youths, 205.
Ordinations, effect of plague upon the, 181, 183, 208.
Ordinations, faculty to archbishop of York for extra, 152.
Orvieto, 27.
Ospring manor, 104.
Otho, Gerard, archbishop of Catania, 14.
Oxfordshire, date of pestilence in, 125.
Oxford City, 126;
mayors die, 126;
plague pits in, 127.
Oxford University, students decrease through plague, 126, 210.
Oxford, St. Frideswide, 125, 192.

Padova, Andrea di, a doctor at Venice, 31.
Padua, 26, 61.
Painted glass, influence of plague on manufacture, 203.
Paris, 46, 47.
Parishes, depopulation of, 105, 142;
impoverishment of, 136.
Parliament, prorogation of, 93.
Parma, 28-30.
Pastoral clergy, necessity for providing, 214.
Patent rolls, evidence of the mortality upon the, 76.
Pater noster, meaning of instructions upon the, 208, note.
Pembroke, county of, 118.
Pentrich, 147.
People, sympathy of clergy with, 214;
become masters of the situation, 200.
Pepys, Samuel, his description of Bristol, 86.
Pestilence, the great, date of commencement, 1;
its arrival in England, 73;
character of, 7, 10, 11, 35, 49, 60, 62;
special type of, 7, 36, 43, 117, 119;
rapidity of infection of, 60, 74, 119;
not affected by climate, 36.
Petrarch, his account of the plague at Parma, 28-30.
Pessimism of present day, 217.
Pfäfers, 63.
Philip of Valois, Queen of, dies, 47.
Philip VI consults doctors upon the epidemic, 49.
Piacenza, 4, 18-19.
Pilton priory, 89.

Pinchbeck, Emma de, prioress of Worthorp, 137.
Pisa, 26;
effect of plague on morals at, 32.
Platiensis, Michael, his account of the plague in Sicily, 12.
Poisoners suspected at Avignon, 41.
Poitou, 46.
Pola, 61.
Pollesworth abbey, 125.
Poole, 80.
Poor, unhealthy condition of living, 126;
very great mortality amongst, 36, 41.
Population in 14th century, 54;
statistics of, 75;
estimate of, in England, 194, seqq.;
effect on the, 73, 143;
proportion carried off, 194;
detached from the soil by the plague, 201.
Portesham, 79.
Portishead, 84.
Portland, 73.
Portsmouth, 113, 186.
Poverty of priests because of the deaths of their people, 135.
Powick, 122.
Pratis, John de, bishop of Tournay, 51.
Preston, 156.
Priests' deaths imply deaths of many people, 166.
Priests, poverty of, through the plague, 105, 135-172.

Priests afraid of infection, 105, 109;
specially liable to infect, 18, 33, 36, 53, 68, 81, 119;
dearth of, 81, 105, 172, 205;
devotion of, 53, 88.
Processions, orders for, 71-158.
Provisions, cheap, during the pestilence, 92.
Provence, 40, 44.
Ragusa, 60.
Raleghe, Roger de, Abbot of Hartland, 90.
Ramsey abbey, 156.
Realism, need of corrective for, 218.
Reggio, 28.
Registers, Episcopal, importance of the, 75.
Regular clergy, numbers of the, 211;
position in the Church of, 211;
ordinations of, 211.
Religion, paralysis of, after the epidemic, iv;
history of, in later times, to be understood in light of this plague, vi.
Religious foundations, change in type of, 212.
Religious houses, special mortality in, 67, 141, 153, 163;
effect of plague on numbers of, 180;
impoverishment of, 117, 181, seqq.
Religious, falling of in ordinations of, 183.
Religious feeling and practice, important change in, iv.
Rent, instance of remission of, 146.
Rhine valley, 63, 66.
Rhone valley, 37.
Rich, the, victims of the plague at Tournay, 53;
in Hungary, 64.

Rievaulx abbey, 152.
Rimini, 27.
Rivarolo, 18.
Roche abbey, 152.
Rochester, diocese of, 104, seqq.;
deaths in episcopal palace of, 104;
the bishop's mandate for prayers, 105;
state of episcopal manors, 106.
Rochester, cathedral priory of, 106.
Rogers, Professor Thorold, on population, 195.
Romsey abbey, 183;
election of abbess to, 183;
benefactions of Bishop Edyndon, 182.
Roskild, the bishopric of, state of the manors of, 69.
Round numbers, misleading nature of, 54, 156.
Ruswyl, 63.
Rutland, 138.
Rye, 115.
Sacraments, difficulty in obtaining the, 33.
Sacrament, the blessed, increase of devotion to, v.
Sadington, 141.
St. Alban's, decrease in number of monks at, 215;
date of plague at, 97;
death of a monk of, at Canterbury, 103;
peculiars of, 177.
St. Brice, parish of, 51.
St. Gall, abbey of, 62.
St. Gothard, pass of, 62.
St. Ives, John of, camerarius of Ely, 133.

St. Piat, parish of, Tournay, 51.
St. Trond, difficulties with tenants at, 56.
St. Valery, abbey of, Picardy, 176.
Salisbury, diocese of, institutions of clergy in, 78;
deaths in, 162.
Salt, increased price of, 196.
Salvatierra, 59.
Sandown, hospital of, 93, 185.
Sandwich, cemetery at, 103.
Santiago, 51, 59.
Sanudo, Marino, his report on lines of commerce, 2.
Saragossa, 59.
Sardinia, 58.
Sciacca, 14.
Scotch invaders attacked, 160.
Sebenico, 61.
Secular and regular clergy, proportion of, 211;
ordination of, in London, 213, note.
Selkirk forest, 160.
Selwood forest, 170.
Selwood, Richard de, 126.
Seyer, his history of Bristol, 86.
Shaftesbury, 79.
Shelford priory, 152.
Shereborne abbey, 118.
Shepey, Jordan, Mayor of Coventry, 125.
Ships without crews on the high seas, 2, 67.
Shireborne priory, 185.
Shrewsbury, institutions of clergy in, 143.

Shrewsbury, Ralph of, and bishop of Bath and Wells, 71;
letter of, on the plague, 81-3.
Shropshire, 143.
Sicily, 12.
Sick left without attendants, 39-40, 44.
Siena, 26;
population of, 27, note;
building of cathedral of, suspended, 27, 218.
Skelton, William, prior of Luffield, 137.
Sladen, manor of, 100.
Smithfield, East, cemetery at, 93.
Snetterton, manor of, 130.
Social results of plague, 195, 217.
Somerset, date of plague in the county of, 80, 81, 83;
institutions of clergy in, 84, 165;
dearth of clergy in, 84.
Southampton, 113, 139.
Southwood, 187.
Spain, 48, 58, seqq.
Spalatro, 60.
Spettisbury, 78.
Spiritual writers, rise of an English school of, iv.
Spoils of France, English people rich with, i.
Sprouston, Robert de, 134.
Staffordshire, 141.
Stamford, St. Michael's, united to Worthorp, 138.
Stipends of clergy, 213.
Stockton, near Warminster, 167.
Stoke-Clare, college of, 212.

Stoke, Hayling Island, 187.
Stowe's account of London cemeteries, 94.
Strange, John le, 143, 144;
Fulk, ibid.;
Humphrey, ibid.
Strikes against old rents, 199.
Students, decrease in numbers of, 126.
Styria, 61, 65.
Suffolk, institutions of clergy in, 128.
Surrey, date of plague in, 113;
institutions in, 180;
depreciation of land in, 188.
Sussex, 114;
benefices in, 179;
royal presentations to livings in, 179.
Sweden, letter of the king of, on the plague, 69;
the pestilence in, 69.
Switzerland, 63.
Syria, 2;
trade routes through, 3.
Talkeley priory, Essex, 176.
Tallagh abbey, 118.
Tamworth, land near, 141.
Tana, now Azor, 5.
Tartary, 2.
Tavistock abbey, 90.
Taxes, difficulty in raising, 197.

Tenants, deaths of manorial, 146, 148, 150, 154, 157, 188;
dearth of, 192;
refusal to pay old rents by, 199;
small holdings of, before epidemic, 201.
That-Molyngis, Ireland, pilgrimage to, 119.
Thurgarton priory, 152.
Tideswell, Church of, 203.
Tigris, trade route along, 3.
Tintagel, 173.
Tortona, 63.
Toulouse, 40, 45.
Tournay, 67, 50 seqq.;
bishop of, 51;
abbey of St. Martin's at, 50.
Towcester, 193.
Towns, decay of, 155, 197.
Trade routes, the chief eastern, 3.
Trades unions, rise of, 200.
Trapani, 14.
Trebizond, trade with, 3.
Trent, 61.
Trevisa, his account of introduction of English into schools, 202.
Trigg, deanery of, 173.
Trileck, Bishop of Hereford, 142;
ordinations by, 209.
Trivet, his chronicle continued, 72.
Tumby, Stephen de, and Mary, his wife, 165.
Tura, Agniolo de, his account of the plague, 26.
Twerton, 85.

Tynemouth, account by a monk of, 160.
Tynham, 79.
Tyrolese Alps, 61.
Valencia, 58.
Valery, St., abbey of, 176.
Varese, 62.
Venice, ships from Crimea, trade with, 12;
plague at, 18, 28;
deaths at, 43;
doctors at, 31, 32.
Verona, 65.
Vienna, 65.
Villainage, extinction of, 200.
Villani, Giovanni, dies of the plague, 25.
Villani Matteo, on origin of the plague, 1;
on nature of the plague, 8;
his account of it, 25.
Vocations to priesthood fall off, 210.
Wadding on the effects of the plague, 216.
Wages, attempt to regulate, 197;
real reason for the measure, 198;
are doubled, 197.
Wakebridge, Sir William, 148.
Wales, 117;
small number of religious in monasteries of, 118.
Walter, abbot of Newenham, 90.
Wordsworth, 114.
Wappenbury, lands in, 190.

Wareham, 79, 80;
alien priory at, 80.
Waring, John de, 115.
Warminster, 167.
Warmwell, 79.
Warwickshire, institutions of clergy in, 125, 190;
Inq. p.m. in, 190;
date of plague in, 125.
Weedon, 193.
Welbeck abbey, 152.
Wells, 85.
West Chickerell, 79.
West Gotland, 68.
Westerham, impropriation of, to Canterbury, 179.
Westminster, 93;
hospital of St. James's at, 97.
Westminster abbey, 96, 97.
Westmoreland, 157.
Weston-super-Mare, 84, 193.
Weston, Hayling Island, 187.
Weston, William, 97.
Weymouth, 72, 77.
Whaddon, 115.
Whitchurch manor, 144, 164, 191.
Whitland abbey, 118.
Wight, Isle of, 114;
institutions of clergy in, 186.
William of Worcester, note as to Yarmouth, 130;
note as to Bodmin, 90.

Willington, 147.
Willington, Henry de, 164.
Wilmacott, Inq. p.m. as to, 191.
Wills in court of Hustings, London, 96.
Wiltshire, institutions of clergy in, 163;
Inq. p.m. in, 164;
manors of, 167.
Winchcombe abbey, 189.
Winchelsea, 114.
Winchester, diocese of, 107, seqq.;
institutions of clergy in, 112;
deaths of religious superiors of, 114;
falling off in numbers ordained, 183, 208;
decay of churches in, 185;
proportion of beneficed to non-beneficed clergy ordained in, 204;
clerics not in sacred orders ordained to benefices, 206.
Winchester, St. Swithun's, 112;
death of prior, 180;
effect of deaths in, 180;
impoverishment of, 180, 184.
Winchester, St. Mary's nunnery, 182.
Winchester city, difficulties in collecting taxes, 187;
processions through, 108;
riot in, about burial places, 110.
Winnow, St., 89.
Winterbourne, St. Nicholas, 80.
Winterbournes, the, 78.
Witham charterhouse, difficulties of, 170.
Wisby, the cathedral of, slabs in, 69.

Wisby, Franciscan convent in, 68.
Wiveliscombe, the bishop of Bath and Wells at, 84.
Wool, making of cloth from, at Hinton charterhouse, 171.
Woods not to be sold, 164.
Worcester, letter of bishop of, 122;
state of his manors after, 123;
cemetery in, 122;
St. Oswald's in, 123;
state of the county of, 123;
date of plague in, 121;
institutions of clergy in, 121.
Workmen, combinations of, 199.
Worthorp priory, 137.
Wycliff, failure of social theories of, 217.
Wycliffite authors, tracts wrongly attributed to, 5.
Wykeham, William of, his exhortations to St. Swithin's, Winchester, 181;
his schools, 210;
his entry into ecclesiastical state caused by plague, 214.
Wyncote, John, deaths in family of, 191.
Yarmouth, population of, 131, note;
mortality in, 130;
petition to Henry VII from, 131;
church building stopped, 131;
St. Nicholas' church, 203.
York, institutions of clergy in the diocese, 151;
provision against deaths of canons, 152;
depreciation of land in the county of, 154;
letter of Archbishop Zouche, 150;
indulgences from the Pope for, 151.

Zouche, archbishop of York, 150.
Zurich, 64.

TRANSCRIBER'S ENDNOTE.
Original printed spelling and grammar is generally retained. Footnotes
were renumbered and moved from the ends of pages to the ends of
chapters. Ellipses look like the originals. Original printed page
numbers are shown like these: "[p-xiii]", in the front matter, or else
like "[p013]". Original SMALL CAPS Looks Like THIS. The
transcriber created the cover image, and transfers it to the public
domain.
The page images available to the proofreaders and to the transcriber
were nearly illegible in a few places, especially in the small print in
some footnotes. The first footnote on page 157 is perhaps the worst
example of this: three different images, presumably from three
different printed copies of the book, failed to clarify whether the
correct reading is "Treasury of Receipt 21a/3", as rendered herein, or
not.
Page 9, footnote: "simoon" was printed, and is retained, but perhaps
"simoom" was meant.
Page 19: "northen Italy" changed to "northern Italy".
Page 35, first footnote: comma inserted between "Austriacarum" and
"Scriptores".
Page 40: "crosssd" changed to "crossed".
Page 61: "familes" changed to "families".
Page 63: "Pfäffers" is spelled "Pfäfers" in the index.

Page 65: "Heiligenkreuz" is spelled "Heiligen Kreuz" in the index.
Page 80: closing quote added to the sentence that ends thus: "the
burial-place of its victims".
Page 85: "Doulting" is retained, although it is spelled "Doulton" in the
index.
Page 118, etc.: The words "Shereborne" (in the Index), "Sherborne" (p
118, 163), and "Shireborne" (p 185, and in the Index) have all been
retained, although two or all three may have the same referent.
Page 133: in "brother Philip Dallying, late sacrist of Ely", changed
"Dallying" to "Dallyng", to agree with index entry.
Page 134: "Robert de Spronston" is spelled "Sprouston, Robert de,
134" in the index.
Page 143: "Dodinton" is spelled "Dodington" in the index.
Page 152: "Rievaux" changed to "Rievaulx" (abbey).
Page 177: "Fitz-Eustace" is spelled "FitzEustace" in the index.
Pages 221–244, Index: there are several entries that apparently refer to
locations within the front matter, where page numbers were designated
by Roman numerals. These references generally seem to be incorrect.
For example, under the heading "Black Death" on page 223, there are
four entries that refer the reader to pages iii or vi, but these pages were
the title page and the second page of the Table of Contents,
respectively. Similarly, under the heading Calais, the reader is referred
to page i, which is the half title page of the printed book. These
incorrect references have been retained.
Page 226: changed "archdeanery" to "archdeaconry", under the index
entry "Chester".

Page 234: in "Lincoln, county of, Escheators' accounts", changed
"Escheators'" to "Escheator's" to agree with page 150.
Page 235: "Mallinge abbey" to "Malling abbey" to agree with text on
pages 104 and 106.
Page 237: "Oxford, St. Frideswithe" changed to "Oxford, St.
Frideswide", to agree with text.
Page 244: in "Wivelscombe, the bishop of Bath and Wells at,",
changed the name to "Wiveliscombe". "Wyclif" and "Wyclifite" were
changed to "Wycliff" and "Wycliffite", respectively, to agree with the
text.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT
PESTILENCE (A.D. 1348-9), NOW COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE
BLACK DEATH ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright royalties.
Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license,
apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic
works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and
trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not
be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of
the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project
Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may
use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative
works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks
may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically
ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S.
copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license,
especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing
Project Gutenberg electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic
work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept
all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your possession. If
you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg
electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this
agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom
you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people
who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the

collection of Project Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in
the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg mission of promoting free
access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg works
in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project
Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can easily comply with
the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format
with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you share it
without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which
the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase
“Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed,
viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with

this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located
in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived
from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a
notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright
holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United
States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or
providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”
associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with
the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain
permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg License for all works posted
with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of
this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide
access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official

version posted on the official Project Gutenberg website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of
obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided
that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of
Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you already use to
calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project
Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this
paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns.
Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section
4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in
writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to
the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a
user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical
medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project
Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic
work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the
work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of
Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth
in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the
Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in
Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend
considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and
proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the
Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be
stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete,
inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES -
Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in
paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party
distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this
agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and
expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO
REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH
OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE
FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT,
CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES

EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you
discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it,
you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by
sending a written explanation to the person you received the work
from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return
the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that
provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a
replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work
electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to
give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu
of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a
refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If
any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law
of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the
Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability,
costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly
from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a)

distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b) alteration,
modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg work,
and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project
Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals
and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely
available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and
permanent future for Project Gutenberg and future generations. To
learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and
the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state
of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue
Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is
64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S.
federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza
#516, Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact

links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small
donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax
exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.
Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable
effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these
requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have
not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.