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

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

As another instance may be quoted a case related in the history of the deanery of Doncaster. "John FitzWilliam, the heir of Sir William, had a short enjoyment of the family estates. He died in the great plague of 1349. I transcribe, to show public feeling at the time, from a chronicle: 'And in these daies was burying withoute sorrowe and wedding without frendschippe and fleying without refute of socoure; for many fled from place to place because of the pestilence; but yet they were effecte and myghte not skape the dethe.'

"In another part of the deanery we find a person willing that his goods shall be divided among such of his children as shall remain alive. In the FitzWilliams' MS. is a contemporary memorandum that John FitzWilliam, the father, gave in the time of the pestilence before his death all his [p155] goods and chattels, movable and immovable, to dame Joan, his wife, John, his son, and Alleyn, late parson of Crosby, amounting to the sum of £288 3s. 8–1/2d."[288]

An incident recorded by the same writer will serve to show how uncertain people, at this time, regarded the tenure of life, a feeling hardly to be wondered at when so many were dying all round them. Thomas Allott, of Wombwell, in the deanery of Doncaster, in his will, proved 14th September, 1349, after desiring to be buried at Darfield, says: "Item I leave, etc., to my sons and daughters living after this present mortal pestilence."[289]

These notes upon the evidence for the plague in Yorkshire may be concluded by a brief account of the state of Hull in consequence of the mortality and other causes. In 1353 the King, "considering the waste and destruction which our town of Kingston-on-Hull has suffered, both through the overflow of the waters of the Humber and other causes, and that a great part of the people of the said town have died in the last deadly pestilence which raged in these parts, and that the remnant left in the town are so desolate and poverty-stricken in money," grants them permission to apply the fines ordered to be imposed on labourers and servants demanding higher wages than before, to the payment of the fifteenth they owe the royal exchequer.[290]

Westward of Yorkshire the extensive but then sparsely populated county of Lancashire stretches between it and the Irish sea. Of this county there is practically little to be recorded. The number of benefices which existed in the county was about 65, whilst the number of chaplains and non-beneficed clergy generally must have greatly exceeded that number. In the deanery of Blackburn alone there were at the close of the reign of Edward III at [p156] least 55 capellani without benefices.[291] One document, of its kind unique, relating to Lancashire and to this great plague, is preserved in the Record Office. It was long ago referred to by the late Professor Thorold Rogers, and is now printed in the English Historical Review. It is a statement of the supposed number of deaths during the incidence of the great pestilence in the deanery of Amounderness. Unfortunately, as perhaps might be expected in such a mortality, when death came so suddenly and men followed one another so rapidly to the grave that vast numbers had to be cast as quickly as possible into the same plague pit, the figures are clearly only approximate, being in every instance round numbers. Still, as they were adduced at a legal investigation and before a jury, when the facts of the visitation of Providence must have been fresh in the minds of those who heard the evidence, it is difficult to suppose that they are mere gross exaggerations, and may at least be taken as proof that the mortality in this district of Lancashire was very considerable.

The paper in question is the record of a claim for the profits received, or supposed to have been received, by the dean of Amounderness, acting as procurator for the Archdeacon of Richmond, for proof of wills, administration of intestate estates, and other matters, during the course of the plague of 1349. Ten parishes are named in the claim, including Preston, Lancaster, and Garstang. In those ten parishes it supposes that some 13,180 souls had died between September 8th, 1349, and January 11th, 1350. In both Preston and Lancaster 3,000 are said to have been carried off, and in Garstang 2,000. Nine benefices are declared to have been vacant, three of them twice, whilst the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, at Preston, is stated to have been unserved for seven weeks. The Priory of Lytham is also noted as having been rendered vacant by the sickness, [p157] whilst 80 people of the village were said to have died at the same time.[292]

From the Patent rolls it would appear that Cartmel Priory, also, about this time lost its superior, as upon September 20th, 1349, the King's licence was granted to the community to proceed to a new election.[293]

The counties of Westmoreland, to the north of Lancashire, with Cumberland, still further to the north again, carry the western part of England to the borders of Scotland. In the former there were some 57 beneficed clergy, and in the latter about 85. From these figures the approximate number of beneficed priests who died in the pestilence in the two counties may be guessed at about 72.

The state of this borderland county of Cumberland was, even before the arrival of the plague in the district, deplorable. The Memoranda rolls of the period contain ample evidence that the Scottish invasions had rendered the land desolate and almost uninhabitable. Still the mortality added to the misery of the people. The few Inquisitiones post mortem afford little knowledge, beyond the fact that here also the dearth of tenants was severely felt.[294] The audit of the accounts of Richard de Denton, late Vice-Sheriff of the County, is more precise in its information. He declares, in excuse for the smallness of his returns, that "the great part of the manor lands, attached to the King's Castle at Carlisle," has remained until the year of his account, 1354, waste and uncultivated, "by reason of the mortal pestilence lately raging in those parts." Moreover, for one and a half years after the plague had passed the entire lands remained "uncultivated for lack of labourers and divers tenants. Mills, fishing, pastures, and meadow lands could not be let during that time for want of tenants willing to take the farms of those who died in the said plague." [p158]

Richard de Denton then produced a schedule of particulars, which may now be seen stitched on to the roll. This gives the items of decrease in rents; for instance, there are houses, cottages, and lands to let, which used to bring in £5, and now but £1; "the farm of a garden belonging to the King, called King's Mead, is rented now at 13 shillings and fourpence less than it used to be," and so on. The jury, who were called to consider these statements, concluded that Richard de Denton had proved them, and they enter a verdict to that effect, giving a list of the tenants, and adding "the said Richard says that all the last-mentioned tenants died in the said plague, and all the tenements have stood since empty through a dearth of tenants."[295]