16. Edward's Triumph. 1347.—Edward's return after the surrender of Calais was followed by an outburst of luxury. As the sea-rovers of Normandy and Calais had formerly plundered Englishmen, English landsmen now plundered Normandy and Calais. "There was no woman who had not gotten garments, furs, feather-beds, and utensils from the spoils." Edward surrounded himself with feasting and jollity. About this time he instituted the Order of the Garter, and his tournaments were thronged with gay knights and gayer ladies in gorgeous attires. The very priests caught the example, and decked themselves in unclerical garments. Even architecture lent itself to the prevailing taste for magnificence. The beautiful Decorated style which had come into use towards the end of the reign of Edward I.—and which may be seen[19] in the central tower of Lincoln Cathedral (see p. [227]), in the west front of Howden Church (see p. [230]), and in the nave of York Minster (see p. [238])—was, in the reign of Edward III., superseded by the Perpendicular style, in which beauty of form was abandoned for the sake of breadth, as in the choir of Gloucester and the nave of Winchester (see pp. [244], [276]). Roofs become wide, as in the Hall of Penshurst (see p. [246]), and consequently halls were larger and better adapted to crowded gatherings than those at Meare and Norborough (p. [247]).
A small house or cottage at Meare, Somerset. Built about 1350.
Norborough Hall, Northamptonshire. A manor-house built about 1350. The dormer windows and addition to the left are of much later date.
17. The Black Death. 1348.—In the midst of this luxurious society arrived, in 1348, a terrible plague which had been sweeping over Asia and Europe, and which in modern times has been styled the Black Death. No plague known to history was so destructive of life. Half of the population certainly perished, and some think that the number of those who died must be reckoned at two-thirds.