Ashwell.
Not far from these bounteous springs rises the splendid tower of the church, springing high into the air with the same undaunted Early English ambition which raised the spire of Salisbury. And on its wall (inside) is carved, in rude and deeply incised lettering of Old English style, varied by some curiously Greek characteristics, the record already spoken of, dealing with the Black Death and the storm. This consists of four lines, intended for Latin elegiacs, again with a Greek touch, and runs thus:
M . Ct . Xpenta . miseranda . ferox . violenta .
M.CCC.L.
Supest . plebs . pessima . testis . in . fineque . vents .
Validus . oc . anno . maurus . in . orbe . tonat.
M.CCC.LXI.
The opening words stand for the date:
Ct = Cter = CCC, and Xpenta = XXXXX = 50
The interpretation therefore is:
1350! Miserable, wild, distracted,
1350!
The dregs of the people alone survive to witness.
And in the end a wind
Full mighty. This year St Maur thunders in the world.
1361.
The year 1349 marked the most fatal stage of the Black Death in these parts. In that year, to judge by the Diocesan records, no less than eighty-five per cent. of the beneficed clergy were swept away, which implies a corresponding mortality amongst other classes. By 1350 the worst was over, but the full wretchedness of the situation was now developing itself. The plague lingered on, constantly growing milder, till 1361, when the great storm was supposed to have cleared the fair of the last remnants of infection. A like popular distich about this later visitation is quoted by Adam of Murimuth:
C ter erant mille decies sex unus, et ille,
Luce tua Maure, vehemens fuit impetus auræ.
Ecce flat hoc anno Maurus in orbe tonans.