[117] Ibid., vii, p. 2, et seqq.
[118] Pezzana, Storia di Parma, i, 52.
[119] Henricus de Hervordia, Chronicon ed. Potthast, 274.
[120] Lechner, ut sup., p. 73.
[TOC] [p071]
CHAPTER V. THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND.
The plague first attacked England in the autumn of 1348. It has already been pointed out that Northern France was suffering under the scourge in the summer of that year, and that in August the pestilence had visited Normandy and was found at Calais, then in possession of the English. Probably, also, at this time, Jersey and Guernsey, with which England was in constant communication, were decimated by the disease. So greatly did these islands suffer that the King's taxes, usually raised upon the fishing industries, could not be levied. "By reason," writes the English King to John Mautravers, the Governor, "of the mortality among the people and fishing folk of these islands, which here as elsewhere has been so great, our rent for the fishing, which has been yearly paid us, cannot be now obtained without the impoverishing and excessive oppression of those fishermen still left."[121]
Rumours of the coming scourge reached England in the early summer. On August 17th, 1348, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Ralph of Shrewsbury, sent letters through his diocese ordering "processions and stations every Friday, in each collegiate, regular, and parish church, to beg God to protect the people from the pestilence which had come from the East into the neighbouring kingdom," and granting an indulgence of forty days to all who, being in a state of grace, should give alms, fast or pray, in order, if possible, to avert God's anger.[122]
The "neighbouring kingdom" spoken of by the Bishop [p072] in his letter may be taken almost certainly to refer to France. From Calais it is probable that the pestilence was brought into England in certain ships conveying some who were anxious to escape from it. Most of the contemporary accounts agree in naming the coast of Dorsetshire as the part first infected. Thus Galfrid le Baker, a contemporary, says "it came first to a seaport in Dorsetshire, and then into the country, which it almost deprived of inhabitants, and from thence it passed into Devon and Somerset to Bristol."[123] Two or three of the chronicles, also, more particular than the rest, name Melcombe Regis as the memorable spot where the epidemic first showed itself in England. "In the year of our Lord 1348, about the feast of the Translation of St. Thomas (July 7th)," writes the author of the chronicle known as the Eulogium Historiarum, who was a monk of Malmesbury at this time, "the cruel pestilence, terrible to all future ages, came from parts over the sea to the south coast of England, into a port called Melcombe, in Dorsetshire. This (plague) sweeping over the southern districts, destroyed numberless people in Dorset, Devon, and Somerset."[124] So, too, a continuation of Trivet's chronicle, taken down to the death of Edward III. by a canon of Bridlington, who was thus probably a contemporary of the event, says that "the great plague came into England to the southern districts, beginning by some (ships) putting in from the sea into a town called Melcombe."[125]
Melcombe Regis, or Weymouth, was at that time a port of considerable importance. In 1347–8, for example, it furnished Edward III., for his siege of Calais, with 20 ships and 264 mariners; whilst Bristol sent only 22 ships and 608 sailors, and even London but 25 boats and 662 men.[126] [p073] This fact is of interest, not merely as showing the importance of Melcombe Regis as a port on the southern coast, but as evidence actually connecting the place at this very period with Calais, and, doubtless, with other coast towns of France. It is not at all improbable that by the return of some of the Melcombe boats from Calais, the epidemic may have been conveyed into the town. No evidence is known to exist as to the mortality in the port itself; but an item of information as to the effect of the disease in the neighbourhood is afforded at a subsequent period. Three years after the plague had passed the King, by his letters patent, forbade any of the inhabitants of the island of Portland to leave their homes there, or, indeed, to sell any of their crops out of the district, "because," he says, "as we have learnt, the island of Portland, in the county of Dorset, has been so depopulated in the time of the late pestilence that the inhabitants remaining are not sufficiently numerous to protect it against our foreign enemies."[127]