The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9)

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
 

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.