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.
[TOC] [p092]
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 [p093] 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 [p094] 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 [p095] 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] [p096]
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; [p097] 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 [p098] 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 [p099] 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 [p100] 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]
[p101] 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 [p102] 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 [p103] 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 [p104] 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 [p105] 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] [p106]
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 [p107] 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 [p108] 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 [p109] 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 [p110] 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 [p111] 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, [p112] 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 [p113] 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 [p114] 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] [p115] 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]