Among the other wild fancies of the age, it was imagined, that the persons affected with leprosy (a disease at that time very common, probably from bad diet) had conspired with the Saracens to poison all the springs and fountains; and men, being glad of any pretence to get rid of those who were a burden to them, many of those unhappy people were burnt alive on this chimerical imputation. Several Jews, also, were punished in their persons, and their goods were confiscated on the same account.[***]
* Ypod. Neust. p. 502. Walsing. p. 107.
** Ypod Neust. p. 503. T. de la More, p. 594. Trivet, Cont.
p, 22. Murimuth, p. 51.
*** Ypod. Neust. p. 504.
Stowe, in his Survey of London, gives us a curious instance of the hospitality of the ancient nobility in this period; it is taken from the accounts of the cofferer or steward of Thomas earl of Lancaster, and contains the expenses of that earl during the year 1313, which was not a year of famine. For the pantry, buttery, and kitchen, three thousand four hundred and five pounds. For three hundred and sixty-nine pipes of red wine, and two of white, one hundred and four pounds, etc. The whole, seven thousand three hundred and nine pounds; that is, near twenty-two thousand pounds of our present money; and making allowance for the cheapness of commodities, near a hundred thousand pounds.
I have seen a French manuscript, containing accounts of some private disbursements of this king. There is an article, among others, of a crown paid to one for making the king laugh. To judge by the events of the reign, this ought not to have been an easy undertaking.
This king left four children, two sons and two daughters: Edward, his eldest son and successor; John, created afterwards earl of Cornwall, who died young at Perth; Jane, afterwards married to David Bruce, king of Scotland; and Eleanor, married to Reginald, count of Gueldres.
CHAPTER XV.
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