THE EPIDEMIC IN GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, AND OXFORD.
In the last two chapters an account has been given of the great
plague of 1349 in the southern portion of England. In somewhat less
detail the story of its ravages in Gloucester, Oxfordshire, and the
Midlands must be here told. First, however, the general account given
in the chronicle of Galfrid le Baker, who appears to have been a
native of this district, may here find a place.
In all these narratives there is, of course much repetition. But it
is just this absolute coincidence, even to the use of the same terms,
in writers of different countries, or even of the same country, who
could not have had any communication with one another, that brings
home to the mind the literal reality of statements which, when
read each one by itself, inevitably appear as gross and incredible
exaggeration. It so raged at Bristol, writes Le Baker, that the
people of Gloucester refused those of Bristol access to their town,
all considering that the breath of those so dying was infectious to
the living. But in the end Gloucester, and Oxford, and London, and
finally all England, were so violently attacked that hardly a tenth
part of both sexes survived. The cemeteries not being sufficient,
fields were chosen as burial-places for the dead. The Bishop of
London bought a croft, called 'No man's land,' in London, and Sir
Walter de Manny one called 'The new church-hawe' (where he has
founded a house of religious) to bury the dead. Cases in the King's
Bench and in the Common Pleas necessarily ceased. A few nobles died,
amongst whom was Sir John Montgomery, [p117] Captain of Calais and
the Lord of Clistel (?) in Calais,[205] and they were buried at the
Friars of the Blessed Mary of Carmel, in London. An innumerable
number of the common people and a multitude of religious and other
clerics passed away. The mortality attacked the young and strong
especially, and commonly spared the old and weak. Scarce anyone dared
to have contact with a sick person; the healthy fled, leaving the
goods of the dead as if infected. Swellings suddenly breaking out in
various parts of the body, racked the sick. So hard and dry were they
that, when cut, scarcely any fluid matter came from them. From this
form of the plague many, through the cutting, after much suffering,
recovered. Others had small black pustules distributed over the whole
skin of the body, from which very few, and indeed hardly anyone,
regained life and strength.
"This terrible pestilence, which began at Bristol on the Feast of the
Assumption of the Glorious Virgin, and in London about the Feast of
St. Michael, raged in England for a whole year and more so severely
that it completely emptied many country villages of every individual
of the human species. . . . The following year it devastated Wales
as well as England, and then passing over to Ireland it killed the
English inhabitants there in great numbers, but the pure-blooded
Irish, living in the mountains and high lands, it hardly touched till
A.D. 1357, when unexpectedly it destroyed them everywhere."[206]
The mention by Le Baker of Wales and Ireland suggests a brief
statement of what is recorded as to the ravages of the pestilence
in these two countries. Of Wales hardly anything is known for
certain, although the few items of information that we possess make
it tolerably certain that Le Baker's statement that it "devastated"
the country is [p118] not exaggerated. In April, 1350, Thomas de
Clopton, to whom the lands of the late Earl of Pembroke, Laurence de
Hastings, had been leased during the minority of the heir, petitioned
the King for a reduction of £140 out of the £340 he had engaged to
pay. The property was chiefly situated in the county of Pembroke, and
the petitioner urges that, "by reason of the mortal pestilence lately
so rife in those parts, the ordinary value" of the land could not be
maintained. Upon inquiry the statement was found to be true, and £60
arrears were remitted, as well as £40 a year taken off the rent.[207]
No institutions for any of the four Welsh dioceses are forthcoming;
but on the supposition that half the number of the beneficed clergy
in the Principality were carried off by the sickness, the number of
benefices in Wales being about 788, the total mortality among the
beneficed clergy would be nearly 400.
With regard to the religious houses in Wales also, little is known
as to the effect of the pestilence. The priory of Abergavenny, an
alien priory then in the King's hands, was forgiven the rent due to
the King's exchequer, as the prior found it impossible to obtain
payment at this time for his lands.[208] And seven-and-twenty years
later, the small number in some fairly large religious houses raises
the suspicion that they, like so many English monasteries at this
time, had not regained their normal strength after their losses.
Thus the Cistercian abbey of Whitland, in Carmarthen, in 1377 had
only a community of the abbot and six monks; the Augustinian priory
at Carmarthen had but five beside the prior; the Premonstratensian
abbey of Tallagh only an abbot and five canons, whilst the prior of
Kidwelly, a cell of Sherborne abbey in Dorset, had not even a socius
with him.[209]
Some account of what happened in Ireland may be [p119] gathered
from the relation of friar John Clyn, a Minorite of Kilkenny, who
himself apparently perished in the epidemic. "Also this year (_i.e._,
1349),"[210] he writes, "and particularly in the months of September
and October, bishops, prelates, ecclesiastics, religious, nobles
and others, and all of both sexes generally, came from all parts
of Ireland in bands and in great numbers to the pilgrimage and the
passage of the water of That-Molyngis. So much so, that on many
days you could see thousands of people flocking there, some through
devotion, others (and indeed most) through fear of the pestilence,
which then was very prevalent. It first commenced near Dublin, at
Howth[211] and at Drogheda. These cities—Dublin and Drogheda—it
almost destroyed and emptied of inhabitants, so that, from the
beginning of August to the Nativity of our Lord, in Dublin alone,
14,000 people died."
Then after speaking of the commencement of the plague and its ravages
at Avignon, the author continues:—"From the beginning of all time it
has not been heard that so many have died, in an equal time, from
pestilence, famine, or any sickness in the world; for earthquakes,
which were felt for long distances, cast down and swallowed up
cities, towns, and castles. The plague too almost carried off every
inhabitant from towns, cities and castles, so that there was hardly
a soul left to dwell there. This pestilence was so contagious that
those touching the dead, or those sick of it, were at once infected
and died, and both the penitent and the confessor were together borne
to the grave. Through fear and horror men hardly dared to perform
works of piety and mercy; that is, visiting the sick and burying the
dead. For many died from abscesses and from impostumes and pustules,
which appeared on the [p120] thighs and under the arm-pits; others
died from affection of the head, and, as if in frenzy; others through
vomiting of blood.
"This year was wonderful and full of prodigies in many ways; still
it was fertile and abundant, although sickly and productive of great
mortality. In the convent of the Minorites of Drogheda 25, and in
that of Dublin 23, friars died before Christmas.
"The pestilence raged in Kilkenny during Lent, for by the 6th of
March eight friars Preachers had died since Christmas. Hardly
ever did only one die in any house, but commonly husband and wife
together, with their children, passed along the same way, namely, the
way of death.
"And I, brother John Clyn, of the order of Minorites, and the convent
of Kilkenny, have written these noteworthy things, which have
happened in my time and which I have learnt as worthy of belief. And
lest notable acts should perish with time, and pass out of the memory
of future generations, seeing these many ills, and that the world is
placed in the midst of evils, I, as if amongst the dead, waiting till
death do come, have put into writing truthfully what I have heard and
verified. And that the writing may not perish with the scribe, and
the work fail with the labourer, I add parchment to continue it, if
by chance anyone may be left in the future and any child of Adam may
escape this pestilence and continue the work thus commenced."[212]
This account of friar Clyn is borne out by one or two documents on
the Patent Rolls. Thus in July, 1350, the Mayor and Bailiffs of Cork
stated in a petition for relief "that, both because of the late
pestilence in those parts, and the destruction and wasting of lands,
houses, and possessions, by our Irish enemies round about the said
city," they were unable to pay the 80 marks' tax upon the [p121]
place.[213] Also the citizens of Dublin, in begging to be allowed
to have 1,000 quarters of corn sent for their relief, state in the
petition of their Mayor "that the merchants and other inhabitants of
the city are gravely impoverished by the pestilence lately existing
in the said country, and other many misfortunes which had happened
there."[214] Lastly, the tenants of the royal manors in Ireland asked
the King for special protection. They urged that "both by reason of
the pestilence lately existing in the said country, and because of
the excessive price of provisions and other goods charged by some of
the officers of the land to the tenants, they are absolutely reduced
to a state of poverty."[215]
After this brief digression upon the plague in Wales and Ireland,
a return may be made to England. The county of Worcester suffered
from the disease chiefly in the summer months of the year 1349. The
institutions to livings in the county, show that in 67 parishes out
of 138 the incumbent changes at this time. In several instances
there are recorded more than one change, so that fully half of the
total number of benefices in the county were at one time or other
vacant during the progress of the disease. The highest number of
appointments to livings in the county in any one month was in
July, whilst each month from May to November gives indication of
some special cause at work producing the vacancies. In the first
four months of the year and in December only six institutions are
recorded.[216] As examples of benefices which fell vacant [p122]
more than once during the period there may be adduced Great Malvern,
to which priests were presented on the 10th of July and the 21st
of August; and Powick, near Worcester, to which institutions are
registered on the 15th of May and the 10th of July.
In the city of Worcester, as early as the middle of April,
difficulties as to the disposal of the bodies of the dead were
foreseen and provided against by the Bishop, Wulstan de Braunsford,
who himself, an old and infirm man, died on the 6th of August, 1349.
On the 18th of April, this year, the Bishop wrote from Hartlebury
to his officials at Worcester, to the following effect:—"Carefully
considering and not without anxiety of heart often remembering how
dangerously and excessively, alas, the burials have in these days,
to our sorrow, increased, in the cemetery of our cathedral church at
Worcester (for the great number of the dead in our days has never
been equalled); and on this account, both for our brethren in the
said church ministering devoutly to God and His most Glorious Mother,
for the citizens of the said city and others dwelling therein, and
for all others coming to the place, because of the various dangers
which may probably await them from the corruption of the bodies, we
desire, as far as God shall grant us, to provide the best remedy.
Having deliberated over this, we have ordained, and do ordain, that
a place fit and proper for the purpose, namely, the cemetery of the
hospital of St. Oswald, Worcester, be made to supply the deficiency
in the said cemetery of our cathedral church arising from the
said cause." He consequently orders that it be made known to the
sacrist that all burials may at his discretion, "in the time of this
mortality, be made in the said cemetery of St. Oswald."[217]
Leland mentions this cemetery in his Itinerary, where, speaking of
the "long and fayre suburbe by north without the foregate," he says
there was a chapel to St. Oswald [p123] afterwards a hospital;
"but of later times it was turned to a free chapel, and beareth the
name of Oswald, and here were wont corses to be buried in time of
pestilence as in a publicke cemitory for Worcester."[218]
The general state of the country parts in the county may be gauged by
the account given by the King's Escheator for Worcester at this time.
This officer, named Leo de Perton, was called upon, amongst other
duties, to account for the receipts of the Bishop of Worcester's
estates, from his death in August to the appointment of a successor
at the end of November, 1349. The picture of the county generally
which is presented in his reply is most distressing; tenants, he
says, could not be got at any price, mills were vacant, forges were
standing idle, pigeon houses were in ruins and the birds all gone,
the remnant of the people were everywhere giving up their holdings;
the harvest could not be gathered, nor, had this been possible, were
there any inhabitants left in the district to purchase the produce.
Coming to the particular case of the Bishop's temporalities, he
claims that of £140 supposed to be due, on the calculation of normal
years, so much as £84 was never received. For in that year, 1349, the
autumn works of all kinds were not performed. "On the divers manors
of the said bishoprick they did not, and could not, obtain more than
they allowed, on account of the dearth of tenants, who were wont to
pay rent, and of customary tenants, who used to perform the said
works, but who had all died in the deadly pestilence, which raged in
the lands of the said bishoprick, during and before the date of the
said account."
In the inquiry, the Escheator produced a letter from the [p124]
King,[219] saying that he had no wish that his official should
be charged more than he received. As a consequence of this, two
commissions were sent into the country to try, with a jury, the
matter at issue. The Escheator put in lists of tenants from whom
alone he had received anything, and in the end the jury came to the
conclusion that his statement was correct. The particulars disclose
some matters of considerable interest in the present inquiry. For
example, on the manor of Hartlebury there had been thirty-eight
tenants called _virgates_, because each had farmed a virgate of land;
thirteen called nokelonds, twenty-one called arkmen and four cottars,
who rendered certain services, valued at 106 shillings and 11-1/2d.
a year, including a custom called "yardsilver." Nothing could be got
of these services, "because all the tenants had died in the mortal
sickness, before the date of this account," and in the return of the
jury there are said to be only four tenants on the land paying 2s.
10d.[220]
That this was not a mere passing difficulty appears certain when,
some years later, in 1354, the same Escheator asks for relief of £57
15s. 5-1/4d., which he could not then obtain on the same estates,
once again in his hands, by the translation of the Bishop to another
See. Speaking of the work of the customary tenants, he says: "That
he has not obtained, and could not obtain any of these, because the
remnant of the said tenants had changed them into other services, and
after the plague, they were no longer bound to perform services of
this kind."[221]
The results in the neighbouring county of Warwick are naturally
similar. With the counties of Gloucester and Worcester it formed the
ancient see of Worcester. The institutions of clergy in the county,
given in Dugdale's _History of Warwickshire_, show that before April
and after October only seven of such institutions [p125] were made,
so that the pestilence was rife in the county in the summer months of
1349, the institutions in the two months of June and July being the
highest.[222]
In some instances the changes were very rapid; thus at Ditchford
Friary an incumbent came on July the 19th, and by August the 22nd
his successor was appointed. Kenilworth, too, was thrice vacant
between May and August. At Coventry, on May 10th, Jordan Shepey, the
Mayor, "who built the well called Jordan well," died.[223] In July
the archdeacon of Coventry and a chantry priest at Holy Trinity were
carried off. In August the Cathedral prior, John de Dunstable, was
elected to fill the vacancy at the priory, and shortly after Trinity
church had a new incumbent. At Pollesworth the abbess, Leticia de
Hexstall, died, and a successor was appointed on October 13th, 1349.
In Oxfordshire, which at the time of the great visitation of the
plague, formed part of the large diocese of Lincoln, the number of
benefices, exclusive of the Oxford colleges, was some 220. Half this
number consequently may be estimated as that of the deaths of the
beneficed clergy. The disease was probably prevalent in the county
about the same time as in the adjacent places—that is, in the spring
and summer months of 1349. The prioress of Godstowe, for example,
died some time before May the 20th, on which day the royal permission
was given to elect a successor, and the prior of St. Frideswide,
Oxford, very much about the same time; since on June 1st Nicholas de
Hungerford received the temporalities upon his election.
The city of Oxford, with its large population of [p126] students,
appears to have suffered terribly. "Such a pestilence," writes Wood,
"that the like was never known before in Oxon. Those that had places
and houses in the country retired (though overtaken there also),
and those that were left behind were almost totally swept away. The
school doors were shut, colleges and halls relinquished, and none
scarce left to keep possession, or make up a competent number to
bury the dead. 'Tis reported that no less than 16 bodies in one day
were carried to one churchyard to be buried, so vehemently did it
rage."[224] The celebrated FitzRalph, Archbishop of Armagh, who had
been Chancellor of the University before the event, declares that
in his time of office there were 30,000 students at Oxford.[225]
In this statement he is borne out by Gascoigne, who, writing his
_Theological Dictionary_, in the reign of Henry VI., says: "Before
the great plague in England there were few quarrels between the
people and law cases, and so there were also few lawyers in the
kingdom of England and few in Oxford, when there were 30,000 scholars
at Oxford, as I have seen on the rolls of the ancient Chancellors,
when I was Chancellor there."[226] This concourse was diverted by the
pestilence, since in 1357 FitzRalph declares that there were not a
third of the old number at the schools.
In the year of the visitation Oxford had no fewer than three Mayors.
Richard de Selwood died on the 21st April of this year, and the
burgesses then made choice of [p127] Richard de Cary. Before he
could reach London to take the oath to the King he was taken sick,
and the abbot of Osney was named as Commissioner to attend at Oxford
and administer the oath of office to him. On May 19th the abbot
certified that he had done this, but on the 16th of June, letters
dated from Oxford two days previously were received in London
announcing the Mayor's death and the election of John Dereford in his
place.[227]
Without doubt Oxford had its plague pit like other cities. The late
Professor Thorold Rogers, writing about this pestilence, says: "I
have no doubt that the principal place of burial for Oxford victims
was at some part of New College garden, for when Wykeham bought
the site it appears to have been one which had been previously
populous, but was deserted some thirty years before during the
plague and apparently made a burial ground by the survivors of the
calamity."[228]
FOOTNOTES:
[205] At p. 92 of the printed edition of this chronicle the author
describes the breaking out of the plague in France, just after the
taking of Calais by the English. He attributes the truce between the
French and the English to the epidemic.
[206] _Chronicon Galfridi Le Baker de Swynebroke_, ed. E. M.
Thompson, pp. 98-9.
[207] R. O., Originalia Roll, 24 Ed. III., m. 8.
[208] R. O., Rot. Claus., 25 Ed. III., m. 9.
[209] R. O., Clerical Subsidy, 21/1 (51 Ed. III.)
[210] The author seems to imply that the plague reached Ireland in
1348. It is, however, probable that 1349 was in reality the date,
for in that year, on July 14, Alexander de Biknor, the Archbishop of
Dublin, died, and also the Bishop of Meath in the same month (_cf._
Gams, _Series Episcoporum_, 219.)
[211] Dalkey in the margin.
[212] Friar John Clyn's _Annals of Ireland_ (ed. _Irish Archæological
Society_, 1849).
[213] Rot. Pat., 25 Ed. III., pars 2, m. 19.
[214] _Ibid._, 26 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 11.
[215] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 27 Ed. III., Hilary term, m. 7.
[216] The following is a table showing the Institutions in some
months:—
+------------------------------------------------+
| 1349. |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| May. | June.| July.| Aug. | Sept.| Oct. | Nov. |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| 5 | 9 | 23 | 11 | 3 | 5 | 8 |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
[217] Nash, _Worcestershire_, i, p. 226.
[218] Green (_Worcester_, p. 144) speaks of the measures taken by
the Bishop for the public safety as relieving the city "from an
alarming evil," and by it the parishes of St. Alban, St. Helen, St.
Swithun, St. Martin, St. Nicholas, and All Saints, "whose churchyards
were very confined and not equal to the reception of the parochial
deceased, were permitted to partake of the same advantages of
sepulture. . . . Hence St. Oswald's burial ground has accumulated
that prodigious assemblage of tumulation which, at this time, cannot
be viewed with indifference by the most cursory beholder."
[219] Dated October 26th, 1352.
[220] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 26 Ed. III.
[221] _Ibid._, 28 Ed. III., Mich. term, m. 19.
[222] The following table gives the number of Institutions in some
months:—
+------------------------------------------------+
|April.| May. |June. |July. | Aug. |Sept. | Oct. |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| 4 | 13 | 17 | 20 | 15 | 7 | 10 |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
[223] Dugdale, _Warwickshire_, (ed. Thomas), p. 147.
[224] Wood, _History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford_
(ed. Gutch), p. 449.
[225] Harl. MS., 1900, fol. 2. Trevisa's translation of FitzRalph's
_Propositio coram Papa_: "So yt in my tyme, in ye University of
Oxenford were thrilty thousand scolers at ones, and now beth unneth
six thousand."
[226] Gascoigne, _Loci ex Libro Veritatum_, ed. J. E. Thorold Rogers,
p. 202. The editor on the passage says: "They (_i.e._ the students)
come from all parts of Europe. The number seems incredible, but
Oxfordshire was, to judge from its rating for exceptional taxation,
after Norfolk, then at the best of its industries, the wealthiest
county in England by a considerable proportion. . . . This concourse
of students was diverted by the great plague. . . . I see no reason
to doubt the statement about the exceeding populousness of Oxford in
the first half of the 14th century."
[227] R. O., L. T. R. Memoranda Roll, 23 Ed. III., Mich.
[228] _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, i, p. 223.
[p128]