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

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

In this same court of March 23rd also several law cases are disposed of, for they had been settled by the death of one or other or both of the parties. Thus, in January, 1349, a claim had been laid, at the sitting of the court, against one John Lager, for the return of some cattle by three tenants, William, John, and Roger Richeman. At the March sitting of the court in due course the case was called on. No plaintiffs, however, appeared, and inquiry elicited the fact that all three had died in the great pestilence.

The actual document which contains these particulars has, moreover, a tale of its own to tell. The long entries [p170] on these two skins of parchment are not all in the same hand. Before the record of the heavy business done at this court had been all transcribed, the clerk was changed. The hand which had so long kept the rolls of these Manor Courts ceases to write. What happened to him? Did he too die? Of course nothing can be known for certain, but it is not difficult to conjecture why another at this very time takes up the writing of the Chedzoy manor records.[315]

Another glimpse of the desolate state to which the country was generally reduced by this disastrous sickness is afforded by the case of Hinton and Witham, the two Somerset Carthusian houses. The King had endeavoured by every means in his power to restrain the tenants, who survived the plague, from leaving their old holdings and seeking for others where they could better themselves. Not only were fines ordered to be inflicted upon such labourers and tenants, as endeavoured to take advantage of the market rise in wages, but under similar penalties landowners were prohibited from giving employment to them. That such a law must have proved hard in the case of those owning manors, in which some or all of the tenants and labourers had died, is obvious. It was this hardship which some years after the epidemic, in 1354, made the Carthusians of Witham plead for some mitigation of the royal decree. "Our beloved in Christ, the prior and brethren of the Carthusian Order at Witham, in the county of Somerset," runs the King's reply, "have petitioned us that since their said house and all their lands and tenements thereto belonging are within a close in the forest of Selwood, placed far from every town, and they possess no domain beyond the said close, they have nothing to support the prior and his brethren," (and this) "both because almost all their servants and retainers died in the last pestilence, and [p171] because by reason of a command lately made by us and our Parliament, in which inter alia it is ordered that servants should not leave their villages and parishes in which they dwelt, as long as they could be hired there, they have been brought to great need on account of the want of servants and labourers. Further, that a large part of their lands (for this same reason) remain waste and untilled, and the corn in the rest of their estate, which had been sown at the time of harvest, had miserably rotted as it could not be gathered for lack of reapers. By this they have been brought into great and manifest poverty." Looking at the circumstances, therefore, the King permits them for the future to engage servants and workmen on reasonable wages above the legal sum, provided that their time of service elsewhere had expired.[316]

The second instance is recorded in the following year, 1355, and has reference to difficulties springing from the same regulations as to the employment of labourers:—"The prior and brethren of the Carthusians of Hinton, in the county of Somerset, have petitioned us," says the King, "that seeing that they have no support except by the tillage of their lands, and that the greatest part of their estates, for want of workmen and servants from the time of the last pestilence, have been unused and still remain uncultivated, and that they cannot get any labourers to work their lands," (and further) "that as many people and tenants were wont to weave the woollen cloth for the clothes of the brethren from their wool, and do other various services for them, now through fear of our orders as to servants that they may not receive greater salaries and stipends from the said brethren, do not dare to serve them as before, and so leave their dwelling, so that the brethren cannot get cloth to clothe themselves properly," they beg that these orders may be relaxed in their regard. To which petition the King assented, allowing the [p172] Carthusians of Hinton to pay the wages they had been used to do.[317]

The diocese of Exeter, comprising the two counties of Devon and Cornwall, was stricken by the disease apparently about the same time as the county of Somerset. The institutions made by the Bishop of the diocese, in January, 1349, number some 30, which shows that death had already been busy among the clergy. The average number of livings annually rendered vacant in the two counties during the eight years previous to 1348 was only 36. In the year 1349 the vacancies were 382, and the number of appointments to vacant livings, in each of the five months from March to July, was actually larger than the previous yearly average. It would appear, therefore, that in 1349 some 346 vacancies may reasonably be ascribed to the prevailing sickness.

In looking over the lists of institutions it is evident that the effect of sickness was felt for some years. It is not until 1353 that the normal average is again reached. The year following the epidemic the number of vacancies filled up was 80, and even in 1351 it still remained at the high figure of 57. It is curious to note in these years that numerous benefices lapsed to the Bishop. These must have been vacant six months, at least, before the dates when they were filled by Bishop Grandisson. Sometimes, no doubt, patrons were dead, leaving no heirs behind them. Sometimes, in all probability, the patron could find no one to fill the cure. Further, the number of resignations of benefices during this period would appear to point to the fact that many livings were now found to be too miserably poor to afford a bare maintenance.

After the sickness was over here, as in other parts of England, the desolation and distress is evidenced by chance references in the inquisitions. Thus at Lydford, a manor on Dartmoor, the King's escheator returns the value of a [p173] mill at fifteen shillings, in place of the previous value of double that amount, because "most of the tenants, who used to grind their corn at it, have died in the plague." It is the same at other places in the county, and in one case 30 holdings are named as having fallen into the hands of the lord of the manor.[318]

A bundle of accounts for the Duchy of Lancaster gives a good idea of the effect of the pestilence in Cornwall. The roll is for the year from Michaelmas, 1350, and includes the accounts of several manors in the Deanery of Trigg, such as Helston, Tintagel, and others, in the district about the river Camel. In one it is noted that "this year there are no buyers;" in another only two youths pay poll tax, two more have not paid, as they have been put in charge of some land, "and the rest have died in the pestilence." In the same place pasture, which usually let for 3s. 4d., now, "because of the pestilence," fetched only 20d.; the holdings of five tenants are named as in hand, as well as nine other tenements and 214 acres of land. Again, in another place the rent has diminished by £7 14s., because 14 holdings and 102 acres are in hand, together with two fulling mills; on the other hand credit is given for 8s. 11d., the value of the goods and chattels of the natives of the manor who have died. And so the roll proceeds through the accounts of some twelve or fourteen manors, and everywhere the same story of desolation appears. Besides numerous holdings and hundreds of acres, represented as in hand and producing nothing, entire hamlets are named as having been depopulated. The decay in rent of one manor alone is set down at £30 6s. 1–3/4d.

Attached to the account of Helston, in Trigg, is a skin giving a list of goods and effects of different tenants named which the lord Prince "occupied." There are 57 items in this list, which includes goods of all sorts, from an article of female dress and a golden buckle to ploughs and [p174] copper dishes; and the total value of the goods which thus fell into the hands of the Black Prince, presumably by the death of his tenants without heirs, is £16 18s. 8d.

At Tintagel it is noted that the "fifty shillings previously paid each year as stipend to the chaplain who celebrated in the chapel, was not paid this year, because no one would stay to minister there for the said stipend."[319]