[271] Rev. Augustus Jessopp, D.D. “The Black Death in East Anglia,” Nineteenth Century, Dec. 1884.
[272] Under the heading “The Black Death in Lancashire,” Mr A. G. Little has printed, with remarks, in the English Historical Review, July, 1890, p. 524, the data submitted to a jury of eighteen who had been empannelled to settle a dispute between the archdeacon of Richmond and Adam de Kirkham, dean of Amounderness, touching the account rendered by the dean, as proctor for the archdeacon, of fees received for instituting to vacant livings, for probates of wills, and for administration of the goods of intestates. The dean’s account to the archdeacon is said to run “from the Feast of the Nativity of our Lady [8 September] in the year of our Lord 1349 unto the eleventh day of January next following;” but it may not imply, and almost certainly does not, that the vacancies in benefices, the probates and the letters of administration, or the corresponding deaths of individuals, fell between those dates. The archdeacon alleges what fees Adam de Kirkham had received, but had not accounted for, and the jury find what Adam did actually receive. Nine benefices of one kind or another are mentioned as vacant, three of them twice. The numbers said to have died in the several parishes, with the number of wills and of intestate estates, I have extracted from the data and tabulated as follows:
| Parish | Men & Women dead | With wills (above 100 sh.) | Intestate (above 100 sh.) |
| Preston | 3000 | 300 | 200 |
| Kirkham | 3000 | — | 100 |
| Pulton | 800 | — | 40 |
| Lancaster | 3000 | 400 | 80 |
| Garestang | 2000 | 400 | 140 |
| Cokram | 1000 | 300 | 60 |
| Ribchestre | [illegible] | 70 | 40 |
| Lytham | 140 | 80 | 80 |
| St Michel | 80 | 50 | 40 |
| Pulton | 60 | 40 | 20 |
Of the alleged 300 who died in Preston parish, leaving wills, five married couples are named, the probate fees being respectively ½ marc, 6 sh., 40 d., 4 sh., and 40 d. The archdeacon’s whole claim for the 300 was 20 marcs, which the jury reduced to 10 pounds. Of the alleged 200 intestates in the same parish, two married couples, one woman, and “Jakke o þe hil” are named. In the parish of Garstang, the executors of 6 deceased are named, whose probate fees in all amounted to 16 sh. 10 d., the whole claim of the archdeacon for 400 deceased leaving wills being £10, and the award of the jury 40 sh. In the parish of Kirkham, on a claim of 20 marcs for probate fees not accounted for, “the jury say that he received £4;” on a claim of £10 for quittance, the jury say 20 sh. This was a parish in which 3000 are said to have died, the number of wills being not stated. The numbers had obviously been put in for a forensic purpose, and are, of course, not even approximately correct for the actual mortality, or the actual number of wills proved, or of letters of administration granted. The awards of the jury amounted in all to £48. 10s. See also Eng. Hist. Review, Jan. 1891.
[273] Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, I. 296-7.
[274] Cussan’s Hertfordshire, vol. I. Hundred of Odsey, p. 37.
[275] Sat. Rev. 16 Jan. 1886, p. 82.
[276] Jessopp, l. c. April 1885, p. 611-12.
[277] The priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, lost the following live stock in the murrain of 1349: oxen, 757, cows and calves, 511, sheep, 4585. (Hist. MSS. Commission, V. 444.)
[278] The author of the Eulogium, who wrote not later than 1367, and is for his own period an authority like Knighton, gives the following prices: wheat, 12 pence a quarter, barley 9 pence, beans 8 pence; a good horse 16 shillings (used to be 40 sh.), a large ox 40 pence, a good cow 2 sh. or 18 pence. Of the scarcity of servants he says: “Pro quorum defectu mulieres et parvuli invise missi sunt ad carucas et ad plaustra fuganda.”