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

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

[TOC] [p162]

CHAPTER IX. THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY.

So far the course of the epidemic in England has been followed from south to north. It is now necessary to consider some statistics and immediate results of the plague.

The diocese of Salisbury comprised the three counties of Dorset, Wilts, and Berkshire. The total number of appointments made by the Bishop, in his entire diocese, is said to have been 202 in the period from March 25th, 1348, to March 25th, 1349; and 243 during the same time in the year following.[303] Of this total number of 445 it is safe to say that two-thirds were institutions to vacancies due to the plague. Roughly speaking, therefore, in these three counties, comprised in the diocese of Sarum, some 300 beneficed clergy, at least, fell victims to the scourge.

The county of Dorset may first be taken. The list of institutions taken from the Salisbury episcopal registers, given in Hutchins' history of that county, numbers 211. During the incidence of the plague ninety of these record a change of incumbent, so that, roughly, about half the benefices were rendered vacant. In several cases, moreover, during the progress of the epidemic changes are recorded twice or three times, so that the total number of institutions made to Dorsetshire livings at this time was 110. As regards the non-beneficed clergy, secular and regular, their proportion to those holding benefices will be considered in the [p163] concluding chapter. Here it is sufficient to observe that the proportion commonly suggested is far too low.

It is almost by chance that any information is afforded as to the effect of the visitation in the religious houses. All contemporary authorities, both abroad and in England, agree in stating that the disease was always most virulent and spread most rapidly where numbers were gathered together, and that, when once it seized upon any house, it usually claimed many victims. Consequently when it appears that early in November, 1348, the abbot of Abbotsbury died, and that about Christmas Day of that year John de Henton, the abbot of the great monastery of Sherborne, also died, it is more than probable that many of the brethren of those monasteries were also carried off by the scourge.

In the county of Wilts the average number of episcopal institutions, for three years before and three years after the mortality, was only 26. In the year 1348 there are 73 institutions recorded in the registers, and in 1349 no less a number than 103,[304] so that of the 176 vacancies filled in the two years the deaths of only some 52 incumbents were probably due to normal causes, and the rest, or some 125 priests holding benefices in the county, may be said to have died from the plague.

A chance entry upon the Patent roll reveals the state of one monastery in this county. The prior of Ederos, or Ivychurch, a house of Augustinian canons, died on February 2nd, 1349.[305] On February the 25th the King was informed that death had carried off the entire community with one single exception. "Know ye," runs the King's letter, dated March 16th, "that since the Venerable Father Robert, Bishop of Salisbury, cannot hold the usual election of prior in the Monastery of Ederos in his diocese, vacant by the death of the last prior of the same, since all the other canons of the same house, in which hitherto there [p164] has been a community of thirteen canons regular, have died, except only one canon, brother James de Grundwell, we appoint him custodian of the possessions, the Bishop testifying that he is a fit and proper person for the office.[306]

The general state of the county of Wilts after the epidemic had passed is well illustrated from some Wiltshire Inquisitiones post mortem. Sir Henry Husee, for instance, had died on the 21st of June, 1349. He owned a small property in the county. Some 300 acres of pasture were returned upon oath, by a jury of the neighbourhood, as "of no value because all the tenants are dead."[307] Again John Lestraunge, of Whitchurch, a Shropshire gentleman, had half the manor of Broughton, in the county of Wilts. He died on July the 20th, 1349, and the inquisition was held on August the 30th. At that time it is declared that only seven shillings had been received as rent from a single tenant, "and not more this year, because all the other tenants, as well as the natives, are dead, and their land is all in the hand of the lord."[308]

So, too, on the manor of Caleston, belonging to Henry de Wilington, who died on May the 23rd, 1349, it is said that water-mills are destroyed and worthless; of the six native tenants two have died, and their lands are in hand; and of the ten cottars, each of whom paid 12d. for his holding, four have been carried off with all their family.[309] In other places of the same county woods are declared to be valueless, "for want of buyers, on account of the pestilence amongst the population;"[310] from tenants who used to pay £4 a year there is now obtained only 6s., because all but three free tenants have been swept away;[311] 140 acres of land and twelve cottages, formerly in the occupation of [p165] natives of a manor, are all now in hand, "as all are dead."[312] So, too, at East Grinstead, seven miles from Salisbury, on the death of Mary, wife of Stephen de Tumby, in the August of 1349, it is found that only three tenants are left on the estate, "and not more because John Wadebrok and Walter Wadebrok, Stephen and Thomas and John Kerde, Richard le Frer, Ralph Bodde, and Thomas the Tanner, tenants in bondage," who held certain tenements and lands, are all dead, and their holdings are left in the hands of the lord of the manor. Also, on the same estate, William le Hanaker, John Pompe, Edmund Saleman, John Whermeter, and John Gerde, jun., have also been swept away by the all-prevailing pestilence.