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

by Francis Aidan Gasquet

Owing to the mortality having swept away so many of [p184] their tenants, and other consequences traceable to the mortality, the priory of St. Swithun's became heavily involved in debt. On the 31st of December, 1352, Bishop Edyndon determined to make a careful inquiry into the state of his cathedral monastery, and wrote to that effect to the prior and convent. He says in his letter that he has heard how the temporalities have suffered severely "in these days, both by the deaths of tenants of the church, from which there has come a grave diminution of rent and services, and from various other causes unknown, and that it is burdened with excessive debts." As he himself was occupied in the King's service, he proposes to send some officers to inquire into these matters, and begs them to assist them in every way. He further says that it is reported to him "that in this our church the former fervour of devotion in the divine service and regular observance has grown lukewarm;" that both the monastery and out-buildings are falling to ruins; that "guests are not received there so honourably as before; on which account we wonder not a little," he continues, "and are troubled the more because so far you have not informed us" of these things. He appoints January 21, 1353, for the beginning of the inquiry, and in a second document names three priests, including a canon of the diocese of Sarum and the rector of Froyle, in Hampshire, to hold it.[341]

Shortly after this, on January 14, 1353, Bishop Edyndon ordered a similar inquiry to be made as to the state of Christchurch priory, which was also heavily in debt.[342] That the house had been seriously diminished in members seems more than probable in view of the fact that from the date of the plague till the beginning of 1366 no subject of the house was ordained priest.

The hospital of Sandown, in Surrey, was left, as before said, without a single inmate. On June 1, 1349, the Bishop, in giving it into the care of a priest named William de [p185] Coleton, says: "Since all and everyone of the brethren of the Hospital of the blessed Mary Magdalene of Sandown, in our diocese, to whom on a vacancy of the office of Prior, or guardian, the election belonged, are dead in the mortality of men raging in the kingdom of England, none of the brethren being left, the said hospital is destitute both of head and members."[343]

The same state of financial ruin is known to have existed in the case of Shireborne priory. On 8th June, 1350, Bishop Edyndon wrote to the abbot and convent of St. Vigor of Cérisy saying that Shireborne, which was said to be a dependency of the abbey, was fallen into great poverty. "The oblations of sacrifices had ceased, and from very hunger the devotion of priests was grown tepid; the buildings were falling to ruins, and its fruitful fields, now that the labourers were carried off, were barren." The priory could not hope, he considered, to recover "in their days," and so, with the consent of the patron, he requested the abbot to recall four of the monks to the abbey, the priory then containing the superior and seven religious. The same day a letter was sent to the prior of Shireborne directing that this should be at once carried out.[344]

One fact will be sufficient to show the state to which the diocese was reduced after the plague had passed. On the 9th of April, 1350, the Bishop issued a general admonition to his clergy as to residence on their cures. It had been reported to him, he says, that some priests, to whom the cure of souls had been committed, "neglecting, with danger to many souls," this charge, "have most shamefully absented themselves for their churches," so that "even the divine sacrifices," for which these churches had been built and adorned, "had been left off." The sacred buildings were, he says, "left to birds and beasts," and they neither kept the church in repair nor repaired what was falling to ruins, "on which account the general state of the churches is one [p186] of ruin." He consequently orders all priests to return to their cures within a month, or to get proper and fitting substitutes.[345]

In the June of the same year (1350) a special monition was issued to William Elyot, rector of a church near Basingstoke, at once to return to his living, as the church had been left without service. A month later, on the 10th of July, 1350, the Bishop published a joint letter of the Archbishop and Bishops ordering priests to serve the churches at the previous stipends, and he adds that every parish church must be contented with one chaplain only, "until those parish and prebendal churches and chapels which are now, or may hereafter be, unserved, be properly supplied with chaplains."[346]

There are many indications of the misery and suffering to which the people generally were reduced in these parts. Thus, for example, the King, whose compassion and tenderness, by the way, are very rarely manifested, remits the tax of the 15th due to him in the case of his tenants in the Isle of Wight. This he does, "taking into account the divers burdens which" these tenants have borne, "for the men and tenants of our manors now dead and whose lands and tenements by their deaths have come into our hands."[347] A glance at the institutions to benefices in the island will show that at one time or another during the prevalence of the plague nearly every living became vacant, and some more than once.

The town of Portsmouth, also, was forced to plead poverty, and ask the remission of a tax of £12 12s. 2d., because "by the attacks of our enemies the French, fires, and other adverse chances the inhabitants were very much depressed."[348] That the "other adverse chances" refers to the desolation caused by the pestilence appears [p187] from another grant, of relief for eight years, made to the town the previous year, because it was so impoverished "both by the pestilence and by the burning and destruction of the place by our enemies."[349]

The neighbouring island of Hayling was in even a worse plight after the pestilence. "The inhabitants of Stoke, Eaststoke, Northwood, Southwood, Mengham, Weston, and Hayling, in the island of Hayling, have shown to us," says the King, in 1352, "that they are greatly impoverished by expenses and burdens for the defence of the said island against the attacks of the French, and by the great wasting of their lands by inroad of the sea, as well as by the abandonment of the island by some who were wont to bear the burdens of the said island. Those consequently who are left would have to pay more than double the usual tax were it now levied. Moreover since the greatest part of the said population died whilst the plague was raging, now, through the dearth of servants and labourers, the inhabitants are oppressed and daily are falling most miserably into greater poverty. Taking into account all this, the King orders the collector of taxes for Southampton not to require the old amount, but to be content with only £6 15s. 7–1/4d.[350] Three years later Hayling priory, which as one of the alien houses then in the King's hands had been paying a large rent into the royal exchequer in place of sending it over to their foreign mother house, was relieved by the King of the payment of £57, as it was "much oppressed in these days."[351]

Even in Winchester difficulties as to taxation, at this time, led to many people leaving the city. Citizens, as the document relating to it declares, who have long lived there, "because of the taxation and other burdens now pressing on them, are leaving the said city with the property they have made in the place, so as not to contribute [p188] to the said taxes. And they, betaking themselves to other localities in the county, are leaving the said city desolate and without inhabitants to our (i.e., the King's) great hurt."[352]