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

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 Howth²¹¹ 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

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.