The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9), Now Commonly Known as the Black Death

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

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 [p122] 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 [p123] 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 [p124] 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 [p125] 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.