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

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

As some indication of the state to which these counties were reduced by the scourge, a petition of the sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, made to the King in 1353, may be here mentioned. He declared that it was impossible then to pay into the Exchequer the old sums for the farming of the hundreds, which had been usual "before the late pestilence." Coming before the King in February, 1353, he not only urged his petition, but claimed to have £66 returned to him, which he had paid over and above his receipts. For the years 1351 and 1352 he had paid £132 for these rents, as had been usual since 1342; but he claimed that "from the time of the pestilence the bailiffs of the hundreds had been unwilling to take them on such terms." An inquiry by a jury was held in both counties, and it was declared "that since 1351 the bailiffs of the hundreds had been able to obtain nothing for certain—except what they could get by extortion—from the county. Further, that the inhabitants of the said county were now [p179] so diminished and impoverished that the bailiffs were able to get nothing for the farms in that year, 1351." In the same way also John Chastiloun, the sheriff, had received nothing whatever for his office. In the end the sum claimed was allowed.[329]

In the Canterbury portion of the county of Kent there were some 280 benefices, which number may form the basis for a calculation of the death roll. The condition to which this portion of England was reduced may be estimated from one or two examples. In 1352 the prioress and nuns of the house of St. James' outside Canterbury were allowed to be free from the tax of a fifteenth granted to the King, because they were reduced to such destitution that they had nothing beyond what was necessary to support them.[330] Even the Cathedral priory of Christchurch itself had to plead poverty. About 1350 the monks addressed petitions to the Bishop of Rochester asking him to give them the church of Westerham "to help them to maintain their traditional hospitality." They say that "by the great pestilence affecting man and beast," they are unable to do this, and as arguments to induce the Bishop to allow this impropriation, they state that they have lost 257 oxen, 511 cows, and 4,585 sheep, worth together £792 12s. 6d. Further they state that "1,212 acres of land, formerly profitable, are inundated by the sea," apparently from want of labourers to maintain the sea walls.[331] [p180]

The neighbouring county of Sussex, at the time of the appearance of the disease, counted some 320 benefices. From the Patent Rolls it appears that in 1349 the King presented to as many as 26 livings in the county; amongst these no less than five were at Hastings, at All Saints', St. Clement's, St. Leonards, and two at the Free Chapel.[332]

In Hampshire, including the Isle of Wight, the average annual number of appointments to benefices for three years previous to the pestilence was 21; in 1349 no fewer than 228 institutions are registered, so that it may fairly be said that over 200 beneficed clergy were carried off by the sickness.

In the county of Surrey the total number of institutions in 1349 was as high as 92, against a previous average of a little over nine yearly, so that here, as in Hants, the number of vacancies of livings was this year increased tenfold. It may fairly be argued that of the number 92, some 80, at least, of the vacancies were caused by the epidemic. Several examples have already been given of the havoc wrought by the epidemic in religious houses in which it had effected an entrance. Where the head of a community was carried off, it is practically certain many of the members also would have perished, and it can be doubted by no one who examines the facts that the pestilence was not only terrible at the time, but had a lasting and permanent effect upon the state of the monastic houses. This point may be illustrated by some of the monasteries of the diocese of Winchester.

In the city itself the prior of St. Swithun's and the abbess of St. Mary's Benedictine convent both died, and there is evidence that a large proportion of both these communities must have perished at the same time, as well as many at the abbey of Hyde. To take the Cathedral of St. Swithun's first. In 1325, four and twenty years before the great mortality, the monks in the house were 64 in number.[333] Of these the 12 juniors on the list had not at that time received the subdiaconate. The 34th in order in the community had been ordained deacon on December 19th, 1310, and all the thirty below him were his juniors. It is fair to consider that about 60 was the normal number previous to the year 1349.[334] After that date they were [p181] reduced to a number which varied between 35 and 40. In 1387 William of Wykeham exhorted the community to use every effort to get up their strength to the original 60 members[335]; but notwithstanding all their endeavours they were on Wykeham's death, in A.D., 1404, only 42. At Bishop Wayneflete's election, in 1447, there were only 39 monks; three years later only 35; and in A.D. 1487 their number had fallen to 30, at which figure it remained till the final dissolution of the house in the reign of Henry VIII.[336]

The neighbouring Abbey of Hyde, a house of considerable importance, with a community of probably between thirty and forty monks, a century later had fallen to only twenty. In 1488 it had risen to twenty-four, and eight of these had joined within the previous three years. At the beginning of the 16th century, in 1509, the community again consisted of twenty; but on the eve of the final destruction of the abbey there are some signs of a recovery, the house then consisting of twenty-six members, four of whom were novices. So impoverished was the house by the consequences of the great mortality that in 1352 the community were forced in order "to [p182] avoid," as they say, "the final destruction of their house," and "on account of their pitiful poverty and want, to relieve their absolute necessity," to surrender their possessions into the hands of Bishop Edyndon.[337]

Financial difficulties also overwhelmed and nearly brought to ruin the Benedictine Convent of St. Mary's, which was reduced to about one half their former number. To the same generous benefactor, Bishop Edyndon, they were indebted for their escape from extinction. In fact, it would appear that at this time many, if not most, of the religious houses of the diocese were protected and supported by the liberality of the Bishop and his relatives, whom he interested in the work of preserving from threatened destruction these monastic establishments. In the document by which the nuns of St. Mary's acknowledge Bishop Edyndon as their second founder, they say that "he counted it a pious and pleasing thing mercifully to come to their assistance when overwhelmed by poverty, and when, in these days, evil doing was on the increase and the world was growing worse, they were brought to the necessity of secret begging. It was at such a time that the same father, with the eye of compassion, seeing that from the beginning our monastery was slenderly provided with lands and possessions, and that now we and our house, by the barrenness of our land, by the destruction of our woods, and by the diminution or taking away from the monastery of due and appointed rents, because of the dearth of tenants carried off by the unheard-of and unwonted pestilence," came to our assistance to avert our entire undoing.[338]

Six months later the nuns of Romsey, in almost the same words, acknowledged their indebtedness to the Bishop.[339] Here the results of the pestilence upon the convent, as regards numbers, are even more remarkable than [p183] in the instances already given. At the election of an abbess in A.D. 1333 there were present to record their votes 90 nuns. Early in May, 1349—that is only 16 years later—the abbess died, for the royal assent was given to the election of her successor, Joan Gerneys, on May 7th of that year.[340] What happened to the community can be gathered by the fact that in 1478 their number is found reduced to 18, and they never rose above 25 until their final suppression.

The various bodies of friars must have suffered quite as severely as the rest of the clergy. It is, however, very difficult to obtain any definite information about these mendicant orders; but some slight indication of the dearth of members they must have experienced at this period in common with all other bodies in England, ecclesiastical and lay, is to be found in the episcopal registers of the period. In the diocese of Winchester, for example, the Augustinians had only one convent, at Winchester. From September, 1346, to June, 1348, they presented four subjects for ordination to the priesthood; from that time till Bishop Edyndon's death, in October, 1366, only two more were ordained, both on 22nd December, 1358. The Friars Minor had two houses, one at Winchester, the other at Southampton; for these, in 1347 and 1348, three priests were ordained. From that time till the 21st of December, 1359, no more received orders. Then two were made priests; but no further ordinations are recorded until after Bishop Edyndon's death. The same extraordinary want of subjects appears in the case of the Carmelites. With them, between 1346 and 1348, eleven subjects received the priesthood. The next Carmelite ordained was in December, 1357, and only three in all were made priests between the great plague and the close of the year 1366. The Dominicans also had only one priest ordained in ten years, that is in the period from March, 1349, to December, 1359.