SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY.
It will be evident to all who have followed the summary of the
history of the epidemic of 1349, given in the preceding chapters,
that throughout England the mortality must have been very great.
Those who, having examined the records themselves, have the best
right to form an opinion, are practically unanimous in considering
that the disease swept away fully one-half of the entire population
of England and Wales.
But whilst it is easy enough to state in general terms the proportion
of the entire population which probably perished in the epidemic,
any attempt to give even approximate numbers is attended with the
greatest difficulty and can hardly be satisfactory. At present we do
not possess data sufficient to enable us to form the basis of any
calculation worthy of the name. From the Subsidy Roll of 1377—or
some 27 years after the great mortality—it has been estimated that
the population at the close of the reign of Edward III. was about
2,350,000 in England and Wales. The intervening years were marked
by several more or less severe outbreaks of Eastern plague; and one
year, 1361, would have been accounted most calamitous had not the
memory of the fatal year 1349 somewhat overshadowed it. At the same
time the French war continued to tax the strength of the country and
levy its tithe upon the lives of Englishmen. It may consequently be
believed that the losses during the thirty years which followed the
plague of 1349 would be sufficient to prevent any actual increase
of the population, and that somewhere about two and a half millions
of people were left in the country after the [p195] epidemic
had ceased. If this be so, it is probable that previously to the
mortality the entire population of the country consisted of from four
to five millions, half of whom perished in the fatal year.[366]
On the other hand, whilst apparently allowing that about one-half
of the population perished, so eminent an authority as the late
Professor Thorold Rogers held that the population of England in
1349 could hardly have been greater than two-and-a-half millions,
and "probably was not more than two millions."[367] The most recent
authority, Dr. Cunningham, thinks that "the results (_i.e._, of an
inquiry into the number of the population) which are of a somewhat
negative character, may be stated as follows: (i.), that the
population was pretty nearly stationary at over two millions from
1377 to the Tudors; (ii.), that circumstances did not favour rapid
increase of population between 1350 and 1377; (iii.), that the
country was not incapable of sustaining a much larger population in
the earlier part of Edward III.'s reign than it could maintain in
the time of Henry VI."[368] Thus the estimate first given, of the
population previous to the Black Death, may be taken as substantially
the same as that adopted by Dr. Cunningham. Mr. Thorold Rogers,
on the other hand, without entering into the question of figures,
views the problem altogether from the standpoint of the land, the
cultivated portion of which he considers incapable of supporting a
larger population than he names.
In the country at large the most striking and immediate effect
of the mortality was to bring about nothing less than a complete
social revolution. Everywhere, although the well-to-do people were
not exempt from the contagion, it was the poor who were the chief
sufferers. "It is well [p196] known," wrote the late Professor
Thorold Rogers, "that the Black Death, in England at least, spared
the rich and took the poor. And no wonder. Living as the peasantry
did in close, unclean huts, with no rooms above ground, without
windows, artificial light, soap, linen; ignorant of certain
vegetables, constrained to live half the year on salt meat; scurvy,
leprosy, and other diseases, which are engendered by hard living and
the neglect of every sanitary precaution, were endemic among the
population.[369]
The obvious and undoubted effect of the great mortality among the
working classes was to put a premium upon the services of those that
survived. From all parts of England comes the same cry for workers to
gather in the harvests, to till the ground, and to guard the cattle.
For years the same demands are re-echoed until the landowners learnt
from experience that the old methods of cultivation, and the old
tenures of land, had been rendered impossible by the great scourge
that had swept over the land.
It was a hard time for the landowners, who up to this had had it,
roughly speaking, all their own away. With rents falling to half
their value, with thousands of acres of land lying untilled and
valueless, with cottages, mills and houses without tenants, and
orchards, gardens, and fields waste and desolate, there came a
corresponding rise in the prices of commodities. Everything that
the landowner had to buy rose at once, as Professor Thorold Rogers
pointed out, "50, 100, and even 200 per cent." Iron, salt and
clothing doubled in value, and fish—and in particular herrings, which
formed so considerable a part of the food of that generation—became
dear beyond the reach of the multitude. "At that time," writes
William Dene, the [p197] contemporary monk of Rochester, "there was
such a dearth and want of fish that people were obliged to eat meat
on the Wednesdays, and a command was issued that four herrings should
be sold for a penny. But in Lent there was still such a want of fish
that many, who had been wont to live well, had to content themselves
with bread and potage."[370]
Then that which had been specially the scourge of the people at
large began to be looked upon as likely to prove a blessing in
disguise. The landowner's need was recognised as the labourers'
opportunity, upon which they were not slow to seize. Wages everywhere
rose to double the previous rate and more. In vain did the King and
Council strive to prevent this by legislation, forbidding either the
labourer to demand, or the master to pay, more than the previous
wage for work done. From the first the Act was inoperative, and the
constant repetition of the royal commands, addressed to all parts of
the country, as well as the frequent complaints of non-compliance
with the regulations, are evidence, even if none other existed,
of the futility of the legislation. Even when the King, taking
into consideration "that many towns and hamlets, both through the
pestilence and other causes, are so impoverished, and that many
others are absolutely desolate," granted, if only the money were paid
him in three months, that the fines levied on servants and others for
demanding excessive wages, and on masters for giving them, might be
allowed to go in relief of the tax of a tenth and fifteenth due to
him,[371] the justices appointed to obtain the money plead that they
"cannot and have not been able to levy any of these penalties."[372]
The truth seems to be that masters generally pleaded the excessive
wages they were called upon to pay, as an excuse for not finding
money to meet the royal demands, and it was for this reason rather
than out of [p198] consideration for the pockets of the better
classes that Edward issued his proclamations to restrain the rise
of wages. But he was quickly forced to understand "that workmen,
servants, and labourers publicly disregarded his ordinances" as to
wages and payments, and demanded, in spite of them, prices for their
services as great as during the pestilence and after it, and even
higher. For disobedience to the royal orders regulating wages the
King charged his judges to imprison all whom they might find guilty.
Even this coercion was found to be no real remedy, but rather a
means of aggravating the evil, since districts where his policy was
carried out were quickly found to be plunged in greater poverty by
the imprisonment of those who could work, and of those who dared to
pay the market price for labour.[373]
Knighton thus describes the situation:—"The King sent into each
county of the kingdom orders that harvesters and other workmen should
not obtain more than they were wont to have, under penalties laid
down in the statute made for the purpose. But labourers were so
elated and contentious that they did not pay attention to the command
of the King; and if anyone wanted to hire them he was forced to pay
them what was asked, and so he had his choice either to lose his
harvest and crops, or give in to the proud and covetous desire of the
workmen. When this became known to the King, he levied heavy fines
upon the abbots, priors, and the higher and lesser lords, as well
as upon the greater and smaller landowners in the country, because
they had not obeyed his orders, and had given higher wages to their
labourers; from some he exacted 100s., from some 40s., and from some
20s., and indeed from each as much as he could be made to pay. And he
took from every carucate throughout the whole kingdom 20s. besides a
fifteenth.
"Then the King arrested very many labourers and put [p199] them in
prison; and many fled and hid themselves in forests and woods for the
time, and those who were caught were fined more severely still. And
the greater number were sworn not to take higher daily wages than was
customary, and were so liberated from prison. In like manner he acted
towards the artificers in towns and cities."[374]
To this account of the labour difficulties which followed on the
mortality may be added the relation of the Rochester contemporary,
William Dene. "So great was the want of labourers and workmen of
every art and craft," in those days, he writes, "that a third
part and more of the land throughout the entire kingdom remained
uncultivated. Labourers and skilled workmen became so rebellious that
neither the King, nor the law, nor the justices, the guardians of the
law, were able to punish them."[375] Many instances are to be found
in the public documents at the period of combinations of workmen for
the purpose of securing higher wages, and of their refusal to work at
the old rate of payment customary before the great mortality had made
the services of the survivors more valuable. This, in the language of
the statute, is called "the malice of servants in husbandry." In the
same way tenants who had survived the visitation refused to pay the
old rents and threatened to leave their holdings unless substantial
reductions were made by their landlords. Thus, in an instance already
given, the landowner remitted a third part of the rent of his
tenants, "because they would have gone off and left their holdings
empty unless they had obtained this reduction."[376]
As a consequence of the great mortality among small tenant farmers
and the labouring classes generally, and forced by the failure of
legislation to practically cope with the "strike" organised by the
survivors, the landowners quickly despaired of carrying on the
traditional system of [p200] cultivation with their own stock
under bailiffs. Professor Thorold Rogers has pointed out that "very
speedily after the plague, this system of farming by bailiff was
discontinued, and that of farming on lease adopted." The difficulty
experienced by the tenant of finding capital to work the farms at
first led to the institution of the stock and seed lease, which,
after lasting till about the close of the fourteenth century, gave
place to the ordinary land lease, with, of course, a certain fixity
of tenure, which at this day we do not associate with that form of
lease. Some landowners tried, with more or less success, to continue
the old system; but these formed the exception, and by the beginning
of the next century the whole tenure of land had been changed in
England by the great mortality of 1349, and by the operation of the
"trades unions," which sprung up at once among the survivors, and
which are designated, in the statute against them, as "alliances,
covines, congregations, chapters, ordinances and oaths."
The people all at once learnt their power, and became masters of
the situation, and although for the next thirty years the lords and
landowners fought against the complete overthrow of the mediæval
system of serfdom, from the year of the great mortality its fall
was inevitable, and practical emancipation was finally won by the
popular rising of 1381. Even to the last, however, the landowning
class appear to have remained in the dark as to the real issues
at stake. They claimed the old labour rents, by which their manor
lands had been worked, as well as the money payments for which
they had been commuted, and they desired that the old ties of the
tenant in villainage to the soil of his lord should be maintained.
Even Parliament was apparently at fault as to the danger which
threatened the established system. It is impossible, however, to
read the sermons of the period without seeing how entirely the
clergy were with the people in their determination to secure full
and entire liberty for themselves and their posterity, and it is
probably to their countenance and advice that the preamble of an
[p201] Act passed in the first year of Richard II. refers when
it says: "Villains withdraw their services and customs from their
lords, by the comfort and procurement of others, their counsellors,
maintainers, and abettors, which have taken hire and profit of the
said villains and land tenants, by colour of certain exemplifications
made out of Domesday, and affirm that they are discharged and will
suffer no distress. Hereupon they gather themselves in great routs,
and argue by such a confederacy that everyone shall resist their
lords by force."
One result of the change of land tenure should be noticed. Previously
to the great plague of 1349 the land was divided up into small
tenancies. An instance taken by Professor Rogers of a parish, where
every man held a greater or a less amount of land, is a typical
example of thousands of manors all over the country. It shows, he
says, "how generally the land was distributed," and that the small
farms and portions of land, so remarkable in France at the present
day, did prevail in England five hundred years ago. A great portion
of this land, however, although held by distinct tenants, lay in
common, and it is a very general complaint at this period that,
as the fields were undivided, they could not be used except by
the multitude of tenants, which had been carried off by the great
sickness. To render them profitable, under the condition of things
consequent upon the new system of farming, these tracts of country
had to be divided up by the plantation of hedges, which form now so
distinguishing a mark of the English landscape as compared with that
of a foreign country.
The population also having by the operation of the great mortality
become already detached from the soil, before the final extinction of
serfdom, their liberation resulted not, as in other countries, in the
establishment of a large class of peasant proprietors, but in that of
a small body of large landowners.
Of course, again, such a phrase must not be interpreted [p202] in
the modern sense, whereby a "landowner" is an "owner" of land in a
way which, in those days of custom and perpetuity of tenure, would
not have been even understood. The change then effected rendered
possible the character of the land settlement that now prevails.
So terrible a mortality cannot but have had its effect and left its
traces upon the education, arts, and architecture of the country.
In the first, besides the temporary interference with the education
at the Universities, "this pestilence forms," write the authors of
the _History of Shrewsbury_, "a remarkable era in the history of our
language. Before that time, ever since the Conquest, the nobility and
gentry of this country affected to converse in French; children even
construed their lessons at school into that language. So, at least,
Higden tells us in his _Polychronicon_. But from the time of 'the
first Moreyn,' as Trevisa, his translator, terms it, this 'manner'
was 'som del ychaungide.' A school-master, named Cornwall, was the
first that introduced English into the instruction of his pupils,
and this example was so eagerly followed that by the year 1385,
when Trevisa wrote, it had become nearly general. The clergy in all
Christian countries are the chief persons by whom the education of
youth is conducted, and it is probable that the dreadful scourge of
which we have been treating, by carrying off many of those ancient
instructors, enabled Mr. Cornwall to work a change in the mode of
teaching, which but for that event he would never have been able to
effect, and which has operated so mighty a revolution in our national
literature."
With regard to architecture, traces of the effects of the great
plague are to be seen in many places. In some cases great additions
to existing buildings, which had only been partially executed, were
put a stop to and never completed. In others they were finished only
after a change had been made in the style in vogue when the great
mortality swept over the country. Dr. Cox, in his [p203] _Notes on
the Churches of Derbyshire_, has remarked upon this. "The awful
shock," he says, "thus given to the nation and to Europe at large
by the Black Death paralyzed for a time every art and industry.
The science of church architecture, then about at its height, was
some years recovering from the blow. In some cases, as with the
grand church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, where a splendid pair of
western towers were being erected, the work was stopped and never
resumed. . . . The recollection of this great plague often helps
to explain the break that the careful eye not unfrequently notes
in church buildings of the 14th century, and accounts for the
long period over which the works extended. We believe this to be
the secret of the long stretch of years that elapsed before the
noble church of Tideswell was completed in that century; and it
also affords a clue to much other work interrupted, or suddenly
undertaken, in several other fabrics of the country."[377] To this
may be added the fact that the history of stained-glass manufacture
shows the same break with the past at this period. Not only just at
this time does there appear a gap in the continuity of manufacture,
but the first examples after the great pestilence manifest a change
in the style which had previously existed.
In estimating the mortality among the clergy it has been already
noted that we have, in many instances, more certain data to work
upon than in the case of the population at large. In each county the
number of institutions to benefices during the plague has already
been noticed, and in those cases where the actual figure cannot be
ascertained from documentary evidence, half the total number of
benefices has, in accordance with the general result where such
evidence is available, been taken to represent the livings rendered
vacant during that year. From this it would appear that in round
figures some 5,000 beneficed clergy fell victims to their duty. As
[p204] already pointed out this number in reality represents only
a portion of the clerical body; and in any estimate of the whole
allowance must be made for chaplains, chantry priests, religious, and
others.
It is, of course, possible to come to any conclusion as to the
proportion of the beneficed to the unbeneficed clergy only by very
round numbers. Turning to the Winchester registers, for example, we
find that the average number of priests ordained in the three years
previous to 1349 was 111.[378] The average number of institutions
to benefices annually during the same period was only twenty-one,
so that these figures taken by themselves seem to show that the
proportion of beneficed to unbeneficed clergy was about one to four.
On this basis, and assuming the deaths of beneficed clergy to have
been about 5,000, the total death roll in the clerical order would be
some 25,000.
This number, although very large, can hardly be considered as
excessive, when it is remembered that the peculiar nature of their
priestly duties rendered them specially liable to infection; whilst
in the case of the religious, the mere fact of their living together
in community made the spread of the deadly contagion in their ranks a
certainty. The Bishops were strangely spared; although it is certain
that they did not shrink from their duty, but according to positive
evidence remained at their posts. To their case are applicable the
lines of the poet upon the like wonderful escape of the Bishop during
the plague in the last century at Marseilles:—
"Why drew Marseilles' good Bishop purer breath
When nature sickened, and each gale was death?"[379] [p205]
On the supposition that five-and-twenty thousand of the clerical
body fell victims to the epidemic, and estimating that of the
entire population of the country one in every hundred belonged to
the clergy, and further that the death rate was about equal in both
estates, the total mortality in the country would be some 2,500,000.
This total is curiously the same as that estimated from the basis of
population returns made at the close of the memorable reign of Edward
III., evidencing, namely, a total population, before the outbreak of
the epidemic, of some five millions.[380]
It remains now to briefly point out some of the undoubted effects,
which followed from this great disaster, upon the Church. It is
obvious that the sudden removal of so large a proportion of the
clerical body must have caused a breach in the continuity of the best
traditions of ecclesiastical usage and teaching. Absolute necessity,
moreover, compelled the Bishops to institute young and inexperienced,
if not entirely uneducated clerics, to the vacant livings, and this
cannot but have had its effect upon succeeding generations. The
Archbishop of York sought and obtained permission from the Pope to
ordain at any time, and to dispense with the usual intervals between
the sacred orders;—Bishop Bateman, of Norwich, was allowed by Clement
VI to dispense with sixty clerks, who were but twenty-one years of
age, "though only shavelings," and to allow them to hold rectories,
as otherwise the divine offices of the Church would cease altogether
in many places of his diocese.
"At that time," writes Knighton, the sub-contemporary canon of
Leicester, "there was everywhere such a dearth of priests that many
churches were left without the divine offices, mass, matins, vespers,
sacraments, and sacramentals. One could hardly get a chaplain to
serve a [p206] church for less than £10, or 10 marks. And whereas
before the pestilence, when there were plenty of priests, anyone
could get a chaplain for 5 or even 4 marks, or for 2 marks and his
board,[381] at this time there was hardly a soul who would accept
a vicarage for £20, or 20 marks. In a short time after, however, a
large number of those whose wives had died in the pestilence came
up to receive orders. Of these many were illiterate and mere laics,
except in so far as they knew in a way how to read, although they did
not understand" what they read.[382]
One instance of the rapidity of promotion, so that benefices
might not too long remain unfilled, may be given. In the diocese
of Winchester the registers record at this period very numerous
appointments of clerics, not in sacred orders, to benefices. For
example, in 1349 no fewer than 19 incumbents already appointed to
churches in the city of Winchester came up for ordination, and eight
in the following year. Of these 27 every one took his various orders
of sub-deacon, deacon, and priest at successive ordinations without
the normal interval between each step in the sacred ministry.[383]
Two examples of the straits to which the Bishops were reduced for
priests are to be found in the registers of the [p207] diocese of
Bath and Wells. The one is the admission of a man to the first step
to Orders, in the lifetime of his wife, she giving her consent, and
promising to keep chaste, but not, as was usually required under such
circumstances, being compelled to enter the cloister, "because she
was aged, and could without suspicion remain in the world."[384] The
second instance in the same register of a difficulty experienced in
filling up vacancies is the case of a permission given to Adam, the
rector of Hinton Bluet, to say mass on Sundays and feast days in the
chapel of William de Sutton, even although he had before celebrated
the solemnities of the mass in his church of Hinton.[385]
Another curious case, which we may suspect really came from the same
cause, is noted at an ordination held in December, 1352, at Ely. Of
the four then receiving the priesthood two were monks, and from the
other two an oath of obedience to the Bishop and his successors was
enacted, together with a promise "that they would serve any parish
church to which they might be called."[386]
Many instances could be given of the ignorance consequent upon the
ordinations being hurried on, and upon laymen, otherwise unfitted
for the sacred mission, being too hastily admitted to the vacant
cures. To take but two instances, from Winchester, which may serve
to illustrate this and at the same time to show the zeal with which
the mediæval Bishops endeavoured to guard against the evil. On 24th
June, 1385, the illustrious William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester,
caused Sir Roger Dene, Rector of the church of St. Michael, in Jewry
Street, Winchester, to swear upon the Holy Gospels that he would
learn within twelve months the articles of faith, the cases reserved
to the Bishop, the Ten Commandments, the seven works of mercy, the
seven mortal sins, the Sacraments of the Church, and the form of
administering and [p208] conferring them, and also the form of
baptizing, etc., as contained in the Constitutions of Archbishop
Peckham.[387] The same year, on July 2nd, the Bishop exacted from
John Corbet, who on the 2nd of June previous had been instituted to
the rectory of Bradley, in Hampshire, a similar obligation to learn
the same, before the feast of St. Michael then next ensuing. In the
former case Roger Dene had been rector of Ryston, in Norfolk, and had
been instituted to his living at Winchester by the Bishop of Norwich
only on 21st June, 1358, three days before Bishop William of Wykeham
required him to enter into the obligation detailed above.[388]
It has been already remarked that one obvious result of the great
mortality, so far as the Church is concerned, was the extraordinary
decrease in the number of candidates for sacred orders. In the
Winchester diocese, for example, the average number of priests
ordained in each of the three years preceding 1349 was 111; whilst
in the 15 subsequent years, up to 1365, when Bishop Edyndon died,
the yearly average was barely 20; and in the thirty-four years, from
1367 to 1400, even with so zealous a prelate as William of Wykeham
presiding over the diocese, the annual average number of ordinations
to the sacred priesthood was only 27; a number which was further
decreased during the progress of the 15th century.[389]
The same striking result of the plague, which cannot but have had
a very serious effect upon the Church at large, is manifested
elsewhere. The Ely registers, for example, show that the average
number of all those ordained, for the seven years before 1349, was
101-1/2; whilst for the seven years after that date it was but
40-1/2. In 1349 no ordinations whatever apparently were held, and
[p209] the average number of priests ordained yearly, from 1374 to
1394, was only 14. In fact the total number ordained in that period
was only 282, whilst of these many entered the priesthood for other
dioceses, and more than half, namely 161, were members of the various
religious orders; so that the ranks of the diocesan clergy of Ely
appear to have received but few recruits during the whole of this
time.
In the diocese of Hereford, to take another example, previously to
1349, there were some very large ordinations. Thus, in 1346, on
the 11th of March, 438 people were ordained to various grades in
the sacred ministry. Of these some 89 received the priesthood, 49
of them being ordained for the diocese of Hereford. Again, on the
10th of June in the same year, Bishop Trileck conferred orders, in
the parish church of Ledbury, upon 451 candidates, of whom 148 were
made priests; 56 being intended for his own diocese. Altogether, in
that year, some 319 priests were ordained by the Bishop; half of
the number being his own clergy.[390] About the same numbers were
ordained in the year of the plague itself, 1349, and 371 in the
following year. In fact, till 1353 the number remains large, but the
greater portion of those ordained were intended for other dioceses.
The subjects of the Bishop of Hereford at once show a falling off
similar to that noticed in Winchester and Ely. Thus, from 1345 to
1349, the average number of subjects ordained by the Bishop for his
own diocese was 72. In the next five years it was only 34, whilst in
no subsequent year during Bishop Trileck's pontificate did it rise
above 23.
The above three examples will be sufficient to show how seriously
the great pestilence affected the supply of clergy. The reason is
not difficult to divine. The great dearth of population created a
proportionate demand upon the services of the survivors to carry on
the business of the nation, and the greater pressure of business
thus brought [p210] about, and the higher wages to be, in fact,
obtained, in spite of royal prohibitions, were not favourable to the
development of vocations to the clerical life. The void thus caused
by the overwhelming misfortunes of the great mortality was enlarged
by the exigencies of the English war with France, whilst popular
disturbances, and the subsequent Wars of the Roses, maintained the
same causes in operation till far into the reigns of the Tudor
sovereigns.
To some extent, the dearth of students at Oxford and Cambridge, which
has already been referred to, was brought about by the same causes,
and it certainly followed immediately upon the fatal year of 1349. At
Oxford, no doubt, the serious disturbances, which took place at this
time between the students and townsfolk, contributed to aggravate
the evil. So serious, indeed, had the state of the great centre of
clerical education in England become, in less than six years after
the pestilence, that the King was compelled to address the Bishops
on the subject. He begs them to help in the task of renewing the
University; "knowing," he says, "how the Catholic faith is chiefly
supported by the learning of the clergy, and the State governed by
their prudence, we earnestly desire that, particularly in our kingdom
of England, the clerical order may be increased in number, morals,
and knowledge." But, "in the city of Oxford, in which the fount
and source of clerical knowledge" has long existed, owing to the
disturbances, students have forsaken the place, and Oxford, once so
renowned, has become "like a worthless fig-tree without fruit."[391]
It has already been pointed out how, nearly half a century later, the
University had not recovered from the great blow it had received at
this period.[392] [p211]
There seems, indeed, a prevalent misunderstanding in regard to the
relation, or proportionate numbers, of secular and regular clergy at
this period, and as to the decline in popularity of the regulars, as
presumed to be evidenced in the number of those who joined them after
the middle of the fourteenth century. It is assumed that up to that
period the regular clergy were, both in numbers and influence, the
chief factors in the ecclesiastical system of England, and that after
that date they greatly declined in importance, public estimation,
and numbers. As evidence, not only is an actual diminution in mere
numbers adduced, but also the fact that, after this time, the new
religious institutions took the form of colleges, not of monasteries.
The misconception lies first of all in this—that there never was a
period of the middle ages in England, nor for the matter of that
abroad, when the regular clergy was the great mainstay of the
Church, so far, at least, as numbers, external work, and the cure of
souls are concerned. Writers have allowed their imaginations to be
influenced by the magnitude of the great monastic houses, or by the
prominent part taken in the government of the Church by individuals
of eminence, belonging to the ranks of the regular clergy; and
have not remembered how comparatively few in fact were these great
monastic centres, and how small a proportion their inmates bore to
the great body of clergy at large.
It is necessary to refer, perhaps, to figures to bring this home to
those who have not devoted special attention to the mediæval period,
or who, having studied it, still somehow fail to realise facts as
distinct from theories, and to rid themselves of the imaginative
prepossessions with which they entered upon their investigations.
Thus, even after the institution of the mendicant orders, and in the
flow of their popularity, the ordinations for the diocese of York, in
the year 1344-45, show that, whilst the number of priests ordained
was 271, only 44 were regulars. In the same way, the register of
Bishop Stapeldon gives the ordinations [p212] in the diocese of
Exeter from 1301 to 1321. During this period 703 seculars were made
priests, against 114 regulars. In both these instances, therefore,
more than six seculars were ordained for every regular.
This has its importance in estimating the change in the direction
given to religious foundations noticed above. During the course of
the thirteenth century, when so strong a current of intellectual
activity and speculation had set in, the importance of education
to the working clergy—at least to a considerable proportion of
them—forced itself upon those who were the responsible rulers of
the Church. The religious houses were in existence, and, either
great or small, were spread all over the land; indeed, after the
pestilence of 1349, greatly more than sufficed for the number of
vocations in the reduced population. Further, by their foundation
they were not calculated to furnish the means of meeting the new want
that was pressing, aggravated as it was by the sudden diminution of
the pastoral clergy in the sickness. The formation of collegiate
institutions, whether of the University type or of country colleges
for secular priests, such as Stoke-Clare, Arundel, and the very many
others which arose in the century and a half from 1350 to 1500, is
explained by the very circumstances of the case; and there is no
need to have recourse to a supposition as to the wane in popularity
of the religious orders, and the prevalent sense that their work was
over, to explain the diminution in their numbers, and the absence
of new monastic foundations. If the relative proportion between the
numbers of secular and regular clergy ordained before and after the
middle of the fourteenth century be taken as a test of the truth of
this supposition, the statistics available do not bear it out. Thus
the ordinations to the priesthood, registered in the registers of the
diocese of Bath and Wells, for the 80 years, 1443 to 1523, number
901; of these 679 were those of seculars and 222 those of regulars.
In this instance, consequently, the ordination of seculars to
regulars was [p213] in the proportion of 8·5 to 2·7, or rather more
than three to one.[393]
In common with those in worldly professions and businesses the
survivors among the clergy appear to have demanded larger stipends
than they had previously obtained for the performance of their
ecclesiastical duties. Looking back upon the times, and considering
how even the small dues of the clergy had been reduced by the death
of a large proportion of their people, till they became wholly
inadequate for their support, it is impossible to blame them harshly,
and not to see that such a demand must inevitably follow upon a great
reduction in numbers. At the time, however, by the direction of
King and Parliament, the Archbishops and Bishops sought to restrain
them from making these claims, in the same way as the King tried to
prevent the labourers from demanding higher wages. In his letter to
the Bishops of his province Archbishop Islip refers "to the unbridled
cupidity of the human race," which ever requires to be checked by
justice, unless "charity is to be driven out of the world." "General
complaints have come to me," he writes, "and experience, the best
teacher of all things, has shown to me that the priests who still
survive, not considering that they are preserved by the Divine will
from the dangers of the late pestilence, not for their own sakes, but
to perform the ministry committed to them for the people of God, and
the public utility," like other workmen, through cupidity, neglect
the burdens of curates, and take more profitable offices, for which
also [p214] they demand more than before. If this be not at once
put a stop to "many, and indeed most of the churches, prebends, and
chapels of our and your diocese, and indeed of our whole Province,
will remain absolutely without priests." To remedy this not only
were people urged not to employ such chaplains, but the clergy were
to be compelled under ecclesiastical censures to serve the ordinary
cures at moderate and usual salaries. It seems not improbable that
this measure may have contributed to draw the sympathies of the
clergy at large more closely to the people in their struggle for
freedom at this period of English history, when both in the civil and
ecclesiastical sphere there was the same attempt by public law to
impose restraints on natural liberty.
To the great dearth of clergy at this time may, partly at least,
be ascribed the great growth of the crying abuse of pluralities.
Without taking into account the difficulty experienced on all hands
in finding fit, proper, and tried ecclesiastics to fill posts of
eminence and responsibility in the Church, it is impossible to
account for the great increase in the practice just at this time.
The number of benefices, for example, held by William of Wykeham
himself, who entered the Church in consequence of the great mortality
among the clergy in 1361, may be explained, if not excused, by the
prevalent and in the circumstances inevitable dearth of subjects
of training and capacity equal to the arduous and delicate duties
devolving on the higher clergy.
Notwithstanding all the great difficulties which beset the Church
in England in consequence of the great mortality, there is abundant
evidence (which is no part of the present subject) of untiring
efforts on the part of the leading ecclesiastics to bring back
observance to its normal level. This is evidenced in the institution
of so many pious confraternities and guilds, and in a profuse
liberality to churches and sacred places.
The consequences of the mortality, so far as the monastic
establishments of the country are concerned, have already [p215] in
the course of the narrative frequently been pointed out. The same
reasons which militated against the recruiting for the ranks of the
clergy generally after the plague are sufficient explanation of the
fact that the religious houses were never able to regain the ground
lost in that fatal year. Over and above this, moreover, the sudden
change in the tenure of land, brought about chiefly by the deaths of
the monastic tenants, so impaired their financial position, at any
rate for a long period, that they were unable to support the burden
of additional subjects.
To the facts showing how the monasteries were depopulated by the
disease already given may be added the following:—In 1235 the abbey
of St. Albans is supposed to have counted some 100 monks within its
walls. In the plague of 1349 the abbot and some 47 of his monks died
at one time, and subsequently one more died whilst at Canterbury, on
his way with the newly-elected abbot to the Roman Curia. Assuming,
therefore, that the community had remained the same in number as in
1235, St. Albans was at most left with only 51 members. At the close
of the century, namely, in 1396, some 60 monks took part in election,
and as this number includes the priors of the nine dependent cells,
it would seem that the actual community still remained only 51. In
1452 there were only 48 professed monks in the abbey, and at the
dissolution of the monastery, nearly a century later, the number was
reduced to 39. This instance of the way in which the numbers in the
monastic houses were diminished by the sickness, and by its effect on
the general population of the country were prevented from ever again
increasing to their former proportions, may be strengthened by the
case of Glastonbury. This great abbey of the west of England has ever
been regarded as in many respects the most important of the English
Benedictine houses. It is not too much to suppose that in the period
of its greatest prosperity it must have counted probably a hundred
members. In 1377 the number, as given on the subsidy-roll, is only
45. In 1456 they stand [p216] at 48, and were about the same at
the time of the dissolution of the abbey. A similar effect upon the
members at Bath has already been pointed out.
It need hardly be said that the scourge must have been most
demoralising to discipline, destructive to traditional practice, and
fatal to observance. It is a well-ascertained fact, strange though
it may seem, that men are not as a rule made better by great and
universal visitations of Divine Providence. It has been noticed that
this is the evident result of all such scourges, or, as Procopius
puts it, speaking of the great plague in the reign of the Emperor
Justinian, "whether by chance or Providential design it strictly
spared the most wicked."[394] So in this visitation, from Italy to
England, the universal testimony of those who lived through it is
that it seemed to rouse up the worst passions of the human heart, and
to dull the spiritual senses of the soul. Wadding, the Franciscan
annalist, has attributed to this very plague of 1348-9 the decay of
fervour evident throughout his own order at this time. "This evil,"
he writes, "wrought great destruction to the holy houses of religion,
carrying off the masters of regular discipline and the seniors of
experience. From this time the monastic orders, and in particular the
mendicants, began to grow tepid and negligent, both in that piety and
that learning in which they had up to this time flourished. Then,
our illustrious members being carried off, the rigours of discipline
relaxed by these calamities, could not be renewed by the youths
received without the necessary training, rather to fill the empty
houses than to restore the lost discipline."[395]
We may sum up the results of the great mortality in the words of
a recent writer. "For our purpose," writes Dr. Cunningham, "it is
important to notice that the steady progress of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries was [p217] suddenly checked in the fourteenth;
the strain of the hundred years' war would have been exhausting in
any case, but the nation had to bear it when the Black Death had
swept off half the population and the whole social structure was
disorganised."[396]
In dealing with this subject it is difficult to bring home to the
mind the vast range of the great calamity, and to duly appreciate
how deep was the break with then existing institutions. The plague
of 1349 simply shattered them; and it is, as already pointed out,
only by perpetual reiteration and reconsideration of the same
phenomena that we can bring ourselves to understand the character
of such a social and religious catastrophe. But it is at the same
time of the first importance thoroughly to realise the case if we
are to enter into and to understand the great process of social
and religious re-edification, to which the immediately succeeding
generations had to address themselves. The tragedy was too grave to
allow of people being carried over it by mere enthusiasm. Indeed,
the empiric and enthusiast in the attempts at social reconstruction,
as may be found in the works of Wycliff, could only aggravate the
evil. It was essentially a crisis that had to be met by strenuous
effort and unflagging work in every department of human activity.
And here is manifested a characteristic of the middle ages which
constitutes, as the late Professor Freeman has pointed out, their
real greatness. In contradistinction to a day like our own, which
abounds in every facility for achievement, they had to contend with
every material difficulty; but in contradistinction, too, to that
practical pessimism which has to-day gained only too great a hold
upon intelligences otherwise vivacious and open, difficulties, in
the middle ages, called into existence only a more strenuous and
more determined resolve to meet and surmount them. And here is the
sense in which the hackneyed, and in a sense untrue, phrase, "the
Ages [p218] of Faith," has a real application, for nothing can be
more contrary to the spirit and tone of mind of the whole epoch than
pessimism, nothing more in harmony with it than hope. In this sense
the observation of a well-known modern writer on art, in noting the
inability of the middle ages to see things as they really are and the
tendency to substitute on the parchment or the canvas conventional
for actual forms, has a drift which, perhaps, he did not perceive.
In itself unquestionably this defect is a real one, but in practice
it possessed a counterbalancing advantage by supplying the necessary
corrective to that bare literalism and realism which, in the long
run, is fatal no less to sustained effort than it is to art.
The great mortality, commonly called the Black Death, was a
catastrophe sudden and overwhelming, the like of which it will be
difficult to parallel. Many a noble aspiration which, could it have
been realised, and many a wise conception which, could it have
attained its true development, would have been most fruitful of good
to humanity, was stricken beyond recovery. Still no time was wasted
in vain laments. What had perished was perished. Time, however, and
the power of effort and work belonged to those that survived.
Two of the noblest churches in Italy typify the twofold aspect of
this great visitation—the Cathedral of Siena and the Cathedral of
Milan. The former, the vast building that crowns the Tuscan Hill, is
but a fragment of what was originally conceived. It was actually in
course of erection, and would have been hardly less in size than the
present St. Peter's had it been completed. The transepts were already
raised, and the foundations of the enormous nave and choir had been
laid when the plague fell upon the city. The works were necessarily
suspended, and from that day to this have never been resumed.
Little more than a generation had passed from the fatal year when
the most glorious Gothic edifice on Italian soil was already rising
from the plain of Lombardy—a symbol [p219] of new life, new hopes,
new greatness, which would surpass the greatness of the buried past.
And this, be it observed, was no creation of Prince or Potentate; it
was essentially the idea, the work, the achievement of the people of
Milan themselves.[397]
What gives, perhaps, the predominant interest to the century and a
half which succeeded the overwhelming catastrophe of the Black Death
is the fact of the wonderful social and religious recovery from a
state almost of dissolution. It is not the place here even to enter
upon so interesting and important a subject. It must suffice to have
indicated the point of view from which the history of the immediately
succeeding generations must be regarded. In spite of wars and civil
commotions it was an age of distinct progress, although the very
complexity and variety of current and undercurrent is apt at times to
daze the too impatient inquirer, who wishes to reduce everything to
the simple result of the definitely good, or the definitely bad.
FOOTNOTES:
[366] _Cf._ T. Amyot, _Population of English Cities_, _temp. Ed.
III._ (_Archæologia_, Vol. xx, pp. 524-531).
[367] _England before and after the Black Death_ (_Fortnightly
Review_, Vol. viii, p. 191).
[368] W. Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, p.
304.
[369] _Fortnightly Review_, viii, p. 192. This is, of course, true,
but without qualification might give the reader a false impression as
to the condition of the English peasant in the middle ages. Most of
what Mr. Thorold Rogers says is applicable to all classes of society.
Dr. Cunningham (_Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, p. 275)
takes a truer view: "Life is more than meat, and though badly housed
the ordinary villager was better fed and amused."
[370] B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, B. v, fol. 99b.
[371] R. O., Originalia Roll, 26 Ed. III., m. 27.
[372] _Ibid._, 27 Ed. III., m. 19.
[373] _Ibid._, 26 Ed. III., m. 25.
[374] Ed. Twysden, col. 2699.
[375] B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, B. v, fol. 98b.
[376] R. O., Q. R. Mins. Accts., Bundle 801, No. 1.
[377] Introduction, p. ix.
[378] Of course, several of these would be ordained for other
dioceses, but in the same way Winchester priests would be ordained
by letters dimissory elsewhere, so that taking the whole of England
we may assume a practical equalisation. In the diocese of London, as
already stated (p. 175 _ante_), the proportion of non-beneficed to
beneficed clergy ordained during 12 years, from 1362 to 1374, was
nearly six to one.
[379] Pope, _Essay on Man_, lines 107-8.
[380] Mr. Thorold Rogers' supposition that the population in 1348 was
only about 2,500,000 would, on the assumption that the two sexes were
about equal in number, lead to the conclusion that one man in every
25 was a priest; a suggestion which seems to bear, on the face of it,
its own refutation.
[381] Amyot (_Archæologia_, xx, p. 531) notes that even soldiers
appear to have been better paid than the clergy. A foot soldier had
3d. a day, or 7 marks a year; a horse soldier 10d. or 12d. a day.
Chaucer's good parson, who was only "rich of holy thought and werk,"
might not be remarkable.
[382] Ed. Twysden, col. 2699.
[383] Mr. Baigent's MS. extracts from the Episcopal Registers. It
is of interest to note that in normal times very few were ordained
after their appointment as incumbents. Thus, to take the churches in
the city of Winchester, besides this period and 1361, when again the
mortality among the clergy was very great, only some 8 or 9 were so
ordained between 1349 and 1361, as the following table will show:—
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| 1346 | 1348 | 1349 | 1350 | 1351 | 1352 | 1354 | 1359 | 1361 |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| 1 | 1 | 19 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
+------+------+
| 1362 | 1363 |
+------+------+
| 1 | 1 |
+------+------+
[384] Harl. MS., 6965, fol. 145 (7 Id. Julii, 1349).
[385] _Ibid._, fol. 146b.
[386] B. Mus. Cole MS., 5824, fol. 23b.
[387] For the real meaning to be attached to learning the _Pater
noster_, etc., see my article on _Religious Instruction in England in
the 14th and 15th Centuries_, in _Dublin Review_, Oct., 1893, p. 900.
[388] Mr. Baigent's MS. collections.
[389] From 1400 to 1418 the average was 17, from 1447 to 1467 only 18.
[390] Reg. Trileck, fol. 180 _seqq._
[391] Reg. Trileck, fol. 163.
[392] Archbishop Islip founded Canterbury College at Oxford to supply
the failing ranks of the clergy and to increase the facilities of
learning (Wilkins, iii., p. 52), and William of Wykeham likewise
established his schools and colleges with the same object.
[393] In the diocese of London, in the twelve years, from 1362 to
1374, Bishop Sudbury ordained 1,046 seculars and 456 regulars, the
proportion consequently being about 2·3 to 1. In the last twenty
years of the century, namely, from 1381 to 1401, Bishop Braybroke
ordained to the priesthood only 584 seculars, whilst the regulars
were 425 during the same period. In other words, during the first
period, the average annual number of ordinations to the ranks of
the secular clergy in the diocese of London was over 87; during the
last twenty years of the century it was only 29·2. The averages of
the regulars in the corresponding periods were 35 and 21·2. Similar
results appear from the York registers.
[394] Archbp. Islip at this time (1350) says: "Dum ad memoriam
reducimus admirandam pestilentiam que nuper partes istas subito sic
invasit, ut nobis multo meliores et digniores subtraxerat."
[395] _Annales Minorum_, viii, p. 22.
[396] _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, p. 275.
[397] The _Annali della fabbrica_, published by the Cathedral
administration, show in the minutest detail the organisation by which
the necessary funds were raised, and enable us to see how it was
popular enterprise by which so noble an undertaking was achieved.
We can now realise the weekly collections made by willing citizens
from door to door, the collections in the churches, the monthly sales
of offerings in kind of the most varied nature, jewels, dresses,
linen, pots and pans, divers articles of dress and domestic use.
Every one, rich and poor alike, felt impelled to join in some way in
the work which, as the words of the originators express it, "_was
begun by Divine inspiration to the honour of Jesus Christ and His
most Spotless Mother_." _Cf._ an article by Mr. Edmund Bishop on the
subject in the _Downside Review_, July, 1893.
THE END.
INDEX.
Abergavenny priory, 118.
Abbotsbury abbey, 78, 163.
Abstinence days, dispensation from, 197.
Aden, trade route to, 3.
Adriatic, coast towns of, 60.
Agatha, St., relics at Catania, 13.
Ages of Faith, meaning of, 218.
Agrarian difficulties, 56, 148, 164, _seqq._
Albans, St., _see_ St. Albans.
Alcester, Inq. p.m. at, 190.
Aldgate, Holy Trinity, cemetery at, 93.
Aleppo, 2.
Alexandria and trade with Europe, 3.
Allott, Thomas, 155.
Almeira, 58.
Almsford, 84.
Alnwick abbey, 160.
Alphonsus XI, death of, 59.
Alverdiscott, 88.
Amiens, 49.
Amounderness, deanery of, 156.
Andronicus (son of the Emperor Cantacuzene), death of, 12.
Anglada, on nature of the plague, 8.
Anglia, East, plague in, 129;
effect on religious houses of, 129.
Anglesey priory, Cambridge, 177.
Animals attacked, 11, 38, 139.
Antioch, patriarch of, archbishop of Catania, 13.
Aragon, Queen of, dies, 59.
Architecture, influence of pestilence on, 202.
Arles, 37.
Armenia, 2.
Arras, decay of, 57.
Arundel college, 212.
Asia, epidemic in, 2;
trade route to Europe from, 2;
hordes of Tartars in, 3.
Athelney abbey, 85.
Atte Welle, John, 136.
Augustinians of Winchester diocese, 183.
Austria, 61.
Avesbury, Robert of, his account of the pestilence, 74.
Avignon, first reports of plague at, 16;
account of plague at, 37-45, 51, 119;
date of epidemic at, 43;
extent of mortality in, 42;
decrease of population in, 41;
new cemeteries at, 38.
Azarius, Peter, notary of Novara, 62.
Azor, otherwise Tana, 5.
Babington, translator of Hecker's _Epidemics_, 2.
Babington, Somerset, 85.
Babylon, mediæval name for Cairo, 4.
Bagdad, the centre of Eastern commerce, 3.
Baker, Galfrid le, 72, 116.
Balearic islands, the, 58.
Barcelona, 58.
Barlings abbey, 192.
Barlborough, 147.
Barnstaple, 89.
Barnwell, John, prior of, 132.
Basingstoke, deanery of, 113.
Basle, 64, 66.
Bateman, bishop of Norwich, 205.
Bath, 85.
Bath priory, decrease in numbers at, 85.
Bathampton, 85.
Bath and Wells, diocese of, prayers ordered in, 71;
date of pestilence in, 80, 83;
letter of bishop of, 81;
straits for priests in, 207;
ordinations in, 212.
Baths, public, common in the 14th century, 56.
Battle abbey, 115.
Bavaria, 61.
Beauchief abbey, 147.
Beche, Margaret de la, Inq. p.m. on, 191.
Bedfordshire, state of manors in, 101;
institutions in, 178;
petition of sheriff as to state of, 178.
Beds in French peasant houses, 56.
Belgium, 49.
Bellinzona, 62.
Beneficed and non-beneficed clergy, proportion of, 134, 155, 175,
_note_, 204, _note_.
Bergen, 67.
Berkshire, state of manors in, 101;
institutions of clergy in, 178.
Berne, 63.
Bincombe, 78, 79.
Bircheston, abbot of Westminster, 97.
Biknor, Alexander de, archbishop of Dublin, 119.
Blackburn, deanery of, 155.
Black Death, the, recent origin of name, 6;
symptoms of the disease, 7, 10, 119;
special nature of, 8, 39, 43, 49;
modern outbreak of, 9, _note_;
truce between England and France attributed to, 117;
inflicted a deadly blow on social body, iii.;
forms end of mediæval period, iii.;
catastrophe to church, iii.;
starting point of modern history, vi.
Blackmere, manor of, 143.
Black Prince, Cornish estates of, 174;
remits rents on, _ibid._
Black Sea, port of, the centres of infection, 1.
Blandford, 78.
Blessed Sacrament, increase of devotion to, v.;
lamp to burn before, 130.
Blisworth, manor of, 138.
Blood-spitting, a characteristic symptom, 8, 27, 39, 43.
Bobbio, 18.
Boccaccio, his description of the plague, 16, 29, _seqq._
Bodmin, 89;
numbers of deaths in, 90.
Bodmin priory, 90;
destitution of, 91.
Bohemia, 65.
Bohemian students, account of journey of, 32.
Bologna, journey from, 32.
Bolsover, 147.
Bongar's _Gesta Dei per Francos_, 3.
Bordeaux, 45.
Botereaux, Isabel de, 141.
Botzen, 61.
Bourton tything, 167.
Bowes, Agnes, prioress of Worthorp, 137.
Boxgrove abbey, 115.
Brackley, state of country near, 193.
Braunsford, Wulstan, bishop of Worcester, 120.
Bread, white, unknown in the 14th century, 55.
Bredwardine, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, 109.
Bremen, 66.
Brenner-pass, the, 61.
Bridgwater, 84, 168.
Bridlington priory, Trivet's Chronicle continued at, 72.
Bridport, 79;
evidence of corporation records, 80.
Bristol, 84, 86, 116, 139;
date of plague at, 117;
new cemetery at, 87;
decay of, 86.
Bristol channel, contagion carried along the, 84, 89.
Broughton manor, 164.
Bruerne abbey, 191.
Bruton priory, cell of, 190.
Bubonic plague, the, 43.
Buckinghamshire, date of plague in, 102;
institutions of clergy in, 101-2, 178;
state of manors in, 100;
petition of sheriff as to, 178.
Bucklow manor, 145.
Burgundy, 46.
Burials, effected with difficulty, 40;
Christian idea of, 111.
Burton-on-Trent, district of, 148.
Business, cessation of all, 116.
Buyers, death of, 92, 146.
Cæsarea, 2.
Caffa, Genoese port in Crimea, 4.
Cairo, 2;
called Babylon, 4;
trade at, 4.
Calais, 49, 71, 117;
the taking of, i.
Caleston, manor of, 164.
Caldecot, manor of, 136.
Cambeth, now Cambay, India, 3.
Cambray, death of Bishop of Tournay at, 51.
Cambridge, date of plague at, 134;
parishes depopulated, 134, 135;
plague pits at, 134.
Cambridgeshire, county of, accounts of a manor in, 135;
state of, 132.
Camel, district about the river, 173.
Cantacuzene, the emperor, description of plague, 10, 11, 16.
Canterbury, diocese of, 102;
institutions of clergy in, 102, 179;
benefices in diocese, _ibid._;
city of, St. Augustine's, 103;
Christchurch, 103, 107, 179;
death of a St. Alban's monk at, 103;
prior of, orders prayers, 74;
St. Sepulchre's priory, 103;
St. Gregory's priory, 103;
St. James's priory, 179;
hospital of Eastbridge, 103.
Canterbury college, Oxford, origin of foundation of, 210.
Caramania, 2.
Carinthia, 61, 62.
Carlisle, 157, 158.
Carmarthen priory, 118.
Carmelites of Winchester diocese, the, 183.
Cartmel priory, 157.
Cary, Richard de, Mayor of Oxford, 127.
Caspar Camentz, on the plague at Frankfort, 66.
Castlecary, 84.
Catania, 13, 14;
flight of people to, 14;
death of Gerard Otho, the archbishop, 14.
Cattle left to wander in fields, 62, 139.
Cecchetti, signor, on medical faculty of Venice, 31.
Cemetery, difficulty as to, at Winchester, 110;
at Avignon, 40;
at Tournay, 53.
Cérisy, St. Vigor's abbey of, 185.
Charterhouse, London, old cemetery at, 94.
Charterhouse of Somerset, 170.
Chastiloun, John, sheriff of Bedford, etc., 179.
Chauliac, Gui de, 8, 43.
Chedworth, Sir Thomas, and Anglesey priory, 177.
Chedzoy manor rolls, 168.
Cheshunt, convent at, 177.
Chester, county of, 145;
accounts of County Palatine, 145;
archdeanery of, institution in, 145;
city, St. John's in, 145;
St. Mary's priory, 145.
China, origin of plague in, 1, 2;
trade routes from, 3.
Christchurch priory, Hants, effect of mortality on, 184.
Christian charity destroyed by plague, 13, 20, 39, 38, 44, 46, 63, 119.
Church, effects of plague on the, iv, 205, _seqq._;
benefits to, from middle classes, v.
Churches left without services, 205-6.
Chus or Koos, trade routes through, 4.
Cities, depopulation of, 161.
Clement VI, pope, 44.
Clergy, reason for calculating mortality of, 75;
poor pay of, 206;
proportion to lay people, 205-6;
ignorance of some at this time, 207;
secular and regular, proportion of, 211;
mortality amongst, 77, 203-4;
dearth of, 152, 172, 205, 214;
regulation of fees of, 105;
demand higher stipends, 206.
Clerics not in sacred orders appointed to benefices, 206.
Clevedon, 84.
Clistel, the lord of, 117.
Cloford, 85.
Clopton, Thomas de, 118.
Clyn, friar John, account of plague in Ireland, 119-120.
Co, John de, chancellor of Ely diocese, 133.
Colchester, numbers of wills at, 176;
abbot of, dies, 176.
Colington, Great, 142.
Colington, Little, 142.
Collegiate establishment rendered necessary, 212.
Colmar, 66.
Cologne, 66.
Combe Kaynes, 79.
Commerce, routes of eastern, in 14th century, 2.
Compostella, account of a pilgrim to, 59.
Compton, 85.
Confession to laymen, people exhorted to make, 81.
Constance, 64.
Constantinople, position in regard to Crimean trade, 9;
plague at, 10.
Contagion, special nature of, 36, 39, 40, 44.
Conventional forms of middle ages, 218.
Conversation with infected fatal, 42, 44.
Corbet, John, priest of Winchester, 208.
Corey, John, establishes a cemetery in London, 93.
Cork, 120.
Cornard Parva, manor of, 129.
Cornwall, evidence of Duchy accounts, 173;
date of plague in the county of, 80.
Cornwall, Mr., introduces English in schools, 202.
Corsica, 58.
Court rolls, information contained in, 130, 166.
Country, desolation of, 162, _seqq._
Coventry, 125.
Covino, Simon de, poem on the plague, 35.
Crecy, battle of, i.
Creighton, Dr., his work on epidemics in Britain, ii.
Crimea, Italian trading cities in, 3, 4.
Crokham manor, 101.
Crops, prolific nature of, at time of plague, 140.
Crosby, 155.
Croxton abbey, 140.
Cumberland, 157.
Cunningham, Dr., on the population of England, 195;
on effect of the plague, 216.
Curates, technical meaning of name, 81, _note_.
Cyprus, 2.
Dale abbey, 147.
Dalkey, 119.
Dallyng, Philip, sacrist of Ely, 133.
Dalmatia, 60.
Dartmoor, 172.
Deacons, faculties given to, for administering H. Eucharist, 83.
Death of those attacked by disease considered certain, 38, 43.
Decameron, description of the plague in the, 16, 20-24.
Dene, William, monk of Rochester, his description of the plague,
104, _seqq._, 197;
account of the labour difficulties by, 199.
Dene, Roger, priest of Winchester, 207.
Dene, Sir Thomas, deaths in the family of, 104.
Delaprey abbey, 137.
De' Mussi, 4, 16.
Denis, St., account of plague in chronicle of, 46;
mortality at, 47.
Denmark, 69.
Denny, east and west, 176.
Denton, Richard de, 137.
Derby, death of priests in county, 147;
institutions in, 146;
Dominicans of, 147.
Dereford, John de, Mayor of Oxford, 127.
Derley abbey, notes in the chartulary of, 147.
Desolation of country after the plague, 48, 50, 56, 68, 69, 106,
115, 123, 145, 155, 157, 161, _seqq._
Devon, date of plague in county, 80;
mortality in, 89.
Devotions, new character of popular, v.
Dice converted into "beads," 52.
Dissentis abbey, 63.
Ditchford friary, 125.
Doctors, consulted by French king, 49;
at Venice, 31;
at Avignon, 39;
flight of many, 43.
Dodington manor, 143.
Dominicans, falling off in numbers of, 183.
Doncaster, deanery of, institutions in, 152, 154, 155.
Dorchester, 79.
Dorsetshire, first appearance of plague in, 72, 78, 79;
institutions of clergy in, 79;
deaths of clergy, 162.
Doulton, 85.
Drakelow, lordship of, 148.
Drogheda, 119;
convent of Minorites at, 120.
Drontheim, archbishop and canons of, die, 67;
bishops of province of, die, 68.
Dublin, 119;
state of city after plague, 121;
convent of Minorites in, 120.
Duchy of Lancaster accounts, 173.
Dugdale's _Warwickshire_, institutions from, 125.
Dunstable, John de, prior of Coventry, 125.
Dunwich, 131.
East, the, plague originates in, 1;
lines of commerce with, 3, 4.
Eaststoke, in Hayling Island, 187.
Eckington, 147.
Ederos, or Ivychurch, 163.
Education, seriously affected by plague, ix;
condition of university after, 210.
Edward III, his great renown at the time of plague, iii.
Edyndon, Bishop of Winchester, 107;
his letter on the plague, 107;
his letter on cemeteries at Winchester, 111;
benefactions to St. Mary's, Winchester, 182;
his benefactions to Romsey, 182;
his inquiry into the state of St. Swithun's, 184;
his inquiry into the state of Christchurch, Hants, 184;
his letter about Shereborne priory, 185;
his admonition to priests about residence, 185.
Elsyng, Robert, 94.
Ely, diocese of, 132;
institutions in, 133;
arrangement for government of, 132;
proportion of beneficed and non-beneficed in, 134;
falling off of ordinations, 208;
oath demanded from candidates for orders, 207;
cathedral priory of, 133;
tax on Dunwich granted to the priory, 131.
Elyot, William, 186.
Engelberg, 64;
nunnery at, terrible mortality at, 64.
England, date of arrival of plague in, 71, 73.
English, introduction of, into schools, 202.
Episcopal registers, value of, 75;
kind of evidence to be found in, 75.
Escheator's returns as to death of landowners, 100.
Esse, Richard de, Abbot of Tavistock, 70.
Essex, benefices in, 175;
Inq. p.m. in, 175.
Etsch, valley of the, 61.
Eulogium Historiarum, the, 72.
Europe, lines of Eastern trade with, 4.
Evercreech, 84.
Exe, villages on the, 89.
Exeter, diocese of, date of plague in, 80, 87;
episcopal registers, testimony of, 88;
institutions of, 87, 172;
city of, St. Nicholas, 89.
Families swept away by plague, 65, 148, 169.
Farming, change in the system of, 200.
Farms, small, in use before the plague, 201.
Feodosia, S., otherwise Caffa, 4.
Ferriby priory, 152.
Fifteenth century, the, a period of reconstruction, 219.
Fish, scarcity of, 197;
increased price of, 196;
supposed spread of epidemic through, 42.
Fishing boats convey infection, 89.
FitzEustace, Thomas, Inq. p.m. on, 177.
FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh, on decrease of Oxford students, 126.
FitzWilliam, John, 154.
Flanders, 51.
Fleurchamps abbey, 67.
Flight of people before plague, 154.
Florence, 16, 20-25.
Food, spread of infection through, 42;
dearness of, 140.
Fordingbridge, 112.
Foswert, 67.
Foucarmont abbey, 46.
Fourteenth century, common view as to, i.
Fowey, the estuary of, 89.
France, S. Luce on population of, 54;
condition of rural, in 14th century, 55.
Franciscans, Wadding on effect of plague on, 216.
Frankfort, 66.
Freeman, professor, on real greatness of middle ages, 217.
Fremington, 89.
Freshford, 85.
Friars, of Piacenza, deaths amongst, 19;
in Provence, mortality amongst, 44;
mortality of, 45;
of Winchester diocese, falling off in numbers, 183;
of Our Lady, Norwich, 129.
Frodsham manor, 145.
Frome, 85.
Funerals, regulations for, 28.
Furniture of French houses, 55.
Fyfhide, William de, 112.
Gall, St., abbey of, 70.
Gallarete, 62.
Garstang, 156.
Garter, foundation of the Order of the, i.
Gascoigne, Thomas, on decrease of Oxford students, 126.
Gascony, 46, 48.
Gayton, near Towcester, 193.
Gaza, 2.
Geneva, Lake of, 63.
Genoa, merchants of, report beginning of plague, 1;
ships carry plague to, 12;
date of plague at, 18;
ships from, carry plague to Marseilles, 34;
settlements in Crimea of merchants belonging to, 3-4.
Gerard Otho, archbishop of Catania, 14.
Gerneys, Joan, abbess of Romsey, 188.
Gesta Abbatum, the, 97.
Gibraltar, death of Alphonsus XI at, 59.
Gillingham, Dorset, court rolls of, 167.
Girgenti, 14.
Glastonbury, decrease in number of monks, 85, 215.
Glass, first use of, 55;
painted, influence of plague on manufacture of, 203.
Gloucester, county of, benefices in, 188;
city of, stops communication with Bristol, 92.
Godstowe, prioress of, 125.
Goods of deceased tenants seized by the lord of the manor, 193.
Grandisson, bishop, 88, 90, 172.
Green, J. R., his history, ii;
his estimate of church influence, v.
Gresley, prior of, 147.
Grinstead, East, near Salisbury, 165.
Grisant, William, doctor at Marseilles, 35.
Guernsey, 71.
Guilds, rise of, v.
Hagham priory, 158.
Hallmote courts, 159.
Haltemprice priory, 152.
Hame, manor of, 189.
Hampole, Richard Rolle, of, iv.
Hampshire, date of plague in, 112;
institutions of clergy in, 180;
Inq. p.m. in, 188.
Hampton, John de, 112.
Hardington, 85.
Hartland abbey, 90.
Hartlebury, manor of the Bishop of Worcester, 124.
Harvests unreaped for lack of labour, 171, 189, 196.
Hastings, royal presentation to church in, 179.
Hastings, Laurence de, Earl of Pembroke, 118.
Hastings, William de, Inq. p.m. on, 188.
Hayling, Island, 113;
impoverishment of, 187;
priory, impoverishment of, 187.
Hecker, his account of commencement of the plague, 2.
Hedges, origin of, 201.
Heiligen Kreuz abbey, 65.
Helston, 173.
Hereford, disease of, 141;
institutions of clergy in, 142;
falling off in numbers ordained, 209.
Hertfordshire, date of plague in, 98;
institutions of clergy in, 177;
manors of, state of, 99.
Heriots, increase in number of, 190.
Herrings, increase in price of, 196.
Heveringland priory, 129.
Hexstall, Leticia, abbess of Pollesworth, 125.
Hickling priory, 129.
Hinton charterhouse, difficulties on death of tenants at, 170, 171.
Hinton Bluet, two masses on Sundays allowed at, 207.
Holcombe, Somerset, 85.
Holderness, deanery of, 153.
Holland, 67.
Holland, town of, 49.
Holland, Sir Thomas, 137.
Holy Cross, Bristol, 87.
Holy Name, rise of devotion to the, v.
Horsleigh priory, 190.
Horsley, 147.
Houghton, 159.
House, style of French country, 55.
Hull, 155.
Hume, on the plague, iv.
Husee, Sir Henry, Inq. p.m. on, 164.
Hyde abbey, 181.
Iceland, the bishops of, all die, 68.
Incumbents, ordination of, after appointment, 206.
Indulgences granted at time of plague, 110.
Infection, terrible nature of, 18, 27, 49, 62, 92.
Institutions of clergy, valuable evidence of, 76.
Inquisitions post-mortem, value of, 99.
Ireland, 119, _seqq._
Iron, increased price of, 196.
Islep, Simon, Archbishop of Canterbury, his enthronisation, 107;
letter on stipends of clergy, 213.
Istria, 61.
Ivychurch priory, 113, 163.
Jessop, Dr., his account of the plague in East Anglia, ii, 128, 129.
Jersey, 71.
Jervaux abbey, 152.
Jews, mortality amongst, 38.
Joan, Queen of Navarre, dies, 47.
Joan of Burgundy dies, 47.
Joan, daughter of Edward III, dies, 45.
John XXI, report as to Eastern commerce to, 2.
Kent, Margaret, Countess of, 136.
Keynsham abbey, 85.
Kidwelly priory, 118.
Kilkenny, 120.
Kilkhampton, John de, prior of Bodwin, 90.
Kilmersdon, 85.
King Edward, his compassion seldom manifested, 186;
on clerical education, 210.
Kingsmead, prioress of, 147.
Knighton, chronicle by, 73;
his account of plague at Bristol, 86;
ditto in Leicestershire, 139;
his description of labour difficulties, 198;
on the scarcity of priests, 205.
Knightsbridge, slaughter place for London at, 95.
Koos, or Chus, a trade station on the Nile, 4.
Kurds, the, attacked by the plague, 2.
Labour, increased cost of, 189, 196.
Labourers, difficulty of obtaining, 50, 92, 106, 140, 170-1, 179, 189;
trouble with, 56;
feel their power, iii, 197;
get higher wages in spite of legislation, 198-9.
Lagerbring, on plague in Norway, 67.
Lamech, earthquake at, 2.
Lancashire, 155.
Land, depreciation of, 137, 153, 188, 189, 192, 196;
rents of, reduced, 106, 143-4, 145, 164, _seqq._;
cessation of services on, 148;
a third part of, uncultivated, 199;
change of, to large tenures, 201.
Landowners, difficulties of, 196;
mediæval meaning of, 202.
Langton, 79.
Language, effect of plague on, 202.
Languedoc, 37.
Langwith, 147.
Lanthony priory, 189.
Laon, abbey of St. John at, 56.
Launceston, appointment of a religious of, as prior of Bodmin, 91.
Laura de Noves, death of, 37;
announcement of death of, to Petrarch, 29.
Law Courts suspended, 149.
Law suits settled by deaths of parties, 116, 169.
Lay people and clergy, proportion of, 205.
Ledbury, large ordination at, 209.
Leicester, county of, institutions of clergy in, 140.
Leicester, city of, 139.
Lesnes monastery, poverty of, 106.
Lestraunge, John, 144, 164.
Lewes priory, deaths at, 115.
Liège, labour difficulties at, 56.
Lincoln, diocese of, indulgences for, 139, 149;
institutions of clergy in, 177.
Lincoln, county of, Escheator's accounts for, 150.
Lincoln, Richard de, 149.
Lipton, Nicholas de, abbot, 192.
Lisle, Thomas de, Bishop of Ely, 132.
Livings left vacant, 172.
Lollards, supposed religious revival, due to, iv.
London, date of plague in, 93, 96, 117;
new churchyards in, 23-94;
number of dead in, 94-95, 175;
insanitary condition of, 95;
proportion of secular to regular clergy ordained in, 213, _note_.
Longford, 147, 176.
Louth Park, 149.
Luce, M. Simeon, on condition of French rural life, 56.
Lucerne, 63.
Lucaris, Dominic de, Archbishop of Spalatro, 60.
Luda, Walter de, abbot of Louth Park, 149.
Luffield priory, 137.
Lulworth, East, 79.
Lycia, trade route with, 3.
Lycotin, Matilda, 114.
Lydford manor, 172.
Lyle, Henry de, prior of Horsleigh, 190.
Lynot, John, 135.
Lynsted, Adam de, sacrist of Ely, 133.
Magnus II, King of Sweden, 69.
Mahabar, probably Mahe, on Malabar coast, 3.
Majorca, 58.
Maldon manor, 175.
Male population, demands upon the, 210.
Malling abbey, 104, 106.
Malvern, Great, 122.
Manny, Sir Walter, 94, 116.
Manors, example of deaths of tenants on, 129, 135, 138, 139, 141,
167, 168, 169.
Marino, Sanudo, his account of ancient trade routes, 2.
Marseilles, 34;
remains a city of the dead, 40.
Marton priory, 152.
Mautravers, John, governor of Channel Islands, 71.
Meals, account of, in France, 56.
Meath, bishop of, 119, _note_.
Meaux abbey, 78, 152;
decay of, 154.
Medical science powerless to deal with epidemic, 10, 36, 44, 63.
Mediterranean ports, infection brought from, 1.
Melcombe Regis, plague in England first starts from, 72.
Mengham, Hayling Island, 187.
Mentmore, Michael, abbot of St. Alban's, 97.
Merdenchor, quarter of Tournay, 51.
Messina, 12.
Mesopotamia, 2;
trade route through, 3.
Middle ages, material difficulties in, 217.
Middle classes, profusion of, v.
Milan, building of the cathedral of, 219.
Minster priory, Cornwall, 89.
Momo, 62.
Monasteries, special mortality in, 67, 180;
impoverishment of, 177;
depopulation of, 215.
Monkbretton priory, 152.
Monrieux, 29.
Montgomery, Sir John, 116.
Montpellier, 35.
Morals, effect of scourge on, iv, 25, 32, 48;
attempt to enforce better, 52.
Mortality, extent of, in Europe, 50;
probable estimate of, in England, 194, _seqq._;
of English clergy, as evidenced by patent rolls, 76;
greater in confined places, 53.
Morton, 193.
Muchelney abbey, 85.
Muggington, 147.
Muhldorf, 61.
Muisis, Gilles Le, abbot of Tournay, 50, 59.
Mussi, De', his account of the plague in Italy, 16, 17.
Mustard, nearly the only mediæval condiment, 55.
Mürz, the valley of the, 61.
Nangis, William of, his account of the plague, 47.
Narbonne, 37.
Navarre, Queen of, dies, 47.
Netherton, 145.
Neuberg, 61, 65.
Newcastle, 159.
Newenham abbey, 90.
Norfolk and Suffolk, institution of clergy in, 128;
manors of, deaths in, 129.
Normandy, 46, 49.
Northam, 88.
Northamptonshire, institutions of clergy in, 137;
manors of, 138.
North Sea, ships drifting on the, 2.
Northumberland, 159.
Northwich, 146.
Northwood, Hayling Island, 187.
Norway, 67.
Norwich, diocese of, deaths of religious superiors in, 128;
institutions of clergy in, 128;
ordinations of youths in, 205.
Norwich, city of, St. Martin's in the Fields, 129;
the friars of Our Lady in, _ibid._;
deaths in, 130;
supposed population of, _ibid._
Nottinghamshire, deaths of beneficed clergy in, 148.
Noves, Laura de, death of, 37.
Nurses, impossibility of finding, 40, 44, 46, 63;
almost certain death of, 49.
Oath, a kind of missionary, imposed at Ely, 207.
Observance of monasteries, plague fatal to, 216.
Orders, dearth of candidates for, 152;
the usual intervals between, dispensed with, 205;
conferred on a married man, 207;
conferred on youths, 205.
Ordinations, effect of plague upon the, 181, 183, 208.
Ordinations, faculty to archbishop of York for extra, 152.
Orvieto, 27.
Ospring manor, 104.
Otho, Gerard, archbishop of Catania, 14.
Oxfordshire, date of pestilence in, 125.
Oxford City, 126;
mayors die, 126;
plague pits in, 127.
Oxford University, students decrease through plague, 126, 210.
Oxford, St. Frideswide, 125, 192.
Padova, Andrea di, a doctor at Venice, 31.
Padua, 26, 61.
Painted glass, influence of plague on manufacture, 203.
Paris, 46, 47.
Parishes, depopulation of, 105, 142;
impoverishment of, 136.
Parliament, prorogation of, 93.
Parma, 28-30.
Pastoral clergy, necessity for providing, 214.
Patent rolls, evidence of the mortality upon the, 76.
Pater noster, meaning of instructions upon the, 208, _note_.
Pembroke, county of, 118.
Pentrich, 147.
People, sympathy of clergy with, 214;
become masters of the situation, 200.
Pepys, Samuel, his description of Bristol, 86.
Pestilence, the great, date of commencement, 1;
its arrival in England, 73;
character of, 7, 10, 11, 35, 49, 60, 62;
special type of, 7, 36, 43, 117, 119;
rapidity of infection of, 60, 74, 119;
not affected by climate, 36.
Petrarch, his account of the plague at Parma, 28-30.
Pessimism of present day, 217.
Pfäfers, 63.
Philip of Valois, Queen of, dies, 47.
Philip VI consults doctors upon the epidemic, 49.
Piacenza, 4, 18-19.
Pilton priory, 89.
Pinchbeck, Emma de, prioress of Worthorp, 137.
Pisa, 26;
effect of plague on morals at, 32.
Platiensis, Michael, his account of the plague in Sicily, 12.
Poisoners suspected at Avignon, 41.
Poitou, 46.
Pola, 61.
Pollesworth abbey, 125.
Poole, 80.
Poor, unhealthy condition of living, 126;
very great mortality amongst, 36, 41.
Population in 14th century, 54;
statistics of, 75;
estimate of, in England, 194, _seqq._;
effect on the, 73, 143;
proportion carried off, 194;
detached from the soil by the plague, 201.
Portesham, 79.
Portishead, 84.
Portland, 73.
Portsmouth, 113, 186.
Poverty of priests because of the deaths of their people, 135.
Powick, 122.
Pratis, John de, bishop of Tournay, 51.
Preston, 156.
Priests' deaths imply deaths of many people, 166.
Priests, poverty of, through the plague, 105, 135-172.
Priests afraid of infection, 105, 109;
specially liable to infect, 18, 33, 36, 53, 68, 81, 119;
dearth of, 81, 105, 172, 205;
devotion of, 53, 88.
Processions, orders for, 71-158.
Provisions, cheap, during the pestilence, 92.
Provence, 40, 44.
Ragusa, 60.
Raleghe, Roger de, Abbot of Hartland, 90.
Ramsey abbey, 156.
Realism, need of corrective for, 218.
Reggio, 28.
Registers, Episcopal, importance of the, 75.
Regular clergy, numbers of the, 211;
position in the Church of, 211;
ordinations of, 211.
Religion, paralysis of, after the epidemic, iv;
history of, in later times, to be understood in light of this
plague, vi.
Religious foundations, change in type of, 212.
Religious houses, special mortality in, 67, 141, 153, 163;
effect of plague on numbers of, 180;
impoverishment of, 117, 181, _seqq._
Religious, falling of in ordinations of, 183.
Religious feeling and practice, important change in, iv.
Rent, instance of remission of, 146.
Rhine valley, 63, 66.
Rhone valley, 37.
Rich, the, victims of the plague at Tournay, 53;
in Hungary, 64.
Rievaulx abbey, 152.
Rimini, 27.
Rivarolo, 18.
Roche abbey, 152.
Rochester, diocese of, 104, _seqq._;
deaths in episcopal palace of, 104;
the bishop's mandate for prayers, 105;
state of episcopal manors, 106.
Rochester, cathedral priory of, 106.
Rogers, Professor Thorold, on population, 195.
Romsey abbey, 183;
election of abbess to, 183;
benefactions of Bishop Edyndon, 182.
Roskild, the bishopric of, state of the manors of, 69.
Round numbers, misleading nature of, 54, 156.
Ruswyl, 63.
Rutland, 138.
Rye, 115.
Sacraments, difficulty in obtaining the, 33.
Sacrament, the blessed, increase of devotion to, v.
Sadington, 141.
St. Alban's, decrease in number of monks at, 215;
date of plague at, 97;
death of a monk of, at Canterbury, 103;
peculiars of, 177.
St. Brice, parish of, 51.
St. Gall, abbey of, 62.
St. Gothard, pass of, 62.
St. Ives, John of, camerarius of Ely, 133.
St. Piat, parish of, Tournay, 51.
St. Trond, difficulties with tenants at, 56.
St. Valery, abbey of, Picardy, 176.
Salisbury, diocese of, institutions of clergy in, 78;
deaths in, 162.
Salt, increased price of, 196.
Salvatierra, 59.
Sandown, hospital of, 93, 185.
Sandwich, cemetery at, 103.
Santiago, 51, 59.
Sanudo, Marino, his report on lines of commerce, 2.
Saragossa, 59.
Sardinia, 58.
Sciacca, 14.
Scotch invaders attacked, 160.
Sebenico, 61.
Secular and regular clergy, proportion of, 211;
ordination of, in London, 213, _note_.
Selkirk forest, 160.
Selwood forest, 170.
Selwood, Richard de, 126.
Seyer, his history of Bristol, 86.
Shaftesbury, 79.
Shelford priory, 152.
Shereborne abbey, 118.
Shepey, Jordan, Mayor of Coventry, 125.
Ships without crews on the high seas, 2, 67.
Shireborne priory, 185.
Shrewsbury, institutions of clergy in, 143.
Shrewsbury, Ralph of, and bishop of Bath and Wells, 71;
letter of, on the plague, 81-3.
Shropshire, 143.
Sicily, 12.
Sick left without attendants, 39-40, 44.
Siena, 26;
population of, 27, _note_;
building of cathedral of, suspended, 27, 218.
Skelton, William, prior of Luffield, 137.
Sladen, manor of, 100.
Smithfield, East, cemetery at, 93.
Snetterton, manor of, 130.
Social results of plague, 195, 217.
Somerset, date of plague in the county of, 80, 81, 83;
institutions of clergy in, 84, 165;
dearth of clergy in, 84.
Southampton, 113, 139.
Southwood, 187.
Spain, 48, 58, _seqq._
Spalatro, 60.
Spettisbury, 78.
Spiritual writers, rise of an English school of, iv.
Spoils of France, English people rich with, i.
Sprouston, Robert de, 134.
Staffordshire, 141.
Stamford, St. Michael's, united to Worthorp, 138.
Stipends of clergy, 213.
Stockton, near Warminster, 167.
Stoke-Clare, college of, 212.
Stoke, Hayling Island, 187.
Stowe's account of London cemeteries, 94.
Strange, John le, 143, 144;
Fulk, _ibid._;
Humphrey, _ibid._
Strikes against old rents, 199.
Students, decrease in numbers of, 126.
Styria, 61, 65.
Suffolk, institutions of clergy in, 128.
Surrey, date of plague in, 113;
institutions in, 180;
depreciation of land in, 188.
Sussex, 114;
benefices in, 179;
royal presentations to livings in, 179.
Sweden, letter of the king of, on the plague, 69;
the pestilence in, 69.
Switzerland, 63.
Syria, 2;
trade routes through, 3.
Talkeley priory, Essex, 176.
Tallagh abbey, 118.
Tamworth, land near, 141.
Tana, now Azor, 5.
Tartary, 2.
Tavistock abbey, 90.
Taxes, difficulty in raising, 197.
Tenants, deaths of manorial, 146, 148, 150, 154, 157, 188;
dearth of, 192;
refusal to pay old rents by, 199;
small holdings of, before epidemic, 201.
That-Molyngis, Ireland, pilgrimage to, 119.
Thurgarton priory, 152.
Tideswell, Church of, 203.
Tigris, trade route along, 3.
Tintagel, 173.
Tortona, 63.
Toulouse, 40, 45.
Tournay, 67, 50 _seqq._;
bishop of, 51;
abbey of St. Martin's at, 50.
Towcester, 193.
Towns, decay of, 155, 197.
Trade routes, the chief eastern, 3.
Trades unions, rise of, 200.
Trapani, 14.
Trebizond, trade with, 3.
Trent, 61.
Trevisa, his account of introduction of English into schools, 202.
Trigg, deanery of, 173.
Trileck, Bishop of Hereford, 142;
ordinations by, 209.
Trivet, his chronicle continued, 72.
Tumby, Stephen de, and Mary, his wife, 165.
Tura, Agniolo de, his account of the plague, 26.
Twerton, 85.
Tynemouth, account by a monk of, 160.
Tynham, 79.
Tyrolese Alps, 61.
Valencia, 58.
Valery, St., abbey of, 176.
Varese, 62.
Venice, ships from Crimea, trade with, 12;
plague at, 18, 28;
deaths at, 43;
doctors at, 31, 32.
Verona, 65.
Vienna, 65.
Villainage, extinction of, 200.
Villani, Giovanni, dies of the plague, 25.
Villani Matteo, on origin of the plague, 1;
on nature of the plague, 8;
his account of it, 25.
Vocations to priesthood fall off, 210.
Wadding on the effects of the plague, 216.
Wages, attempt to regulate, 197;
real reason for the measure, 198;
are doubled, 197.
Wakebridge, Sir William, 148.
Wales, 117;
small number of religious in monasteries of, 118.
Walter, abbot of Newenham, 90.
Wordsworth, 114.
Wappenbury, lands in, 190.
Wareham, 79, 80;
alien priory at, 80.
Waring, John de, 115.
Warminster, 167.
Warmwell, 79.
Warwickshire, institutions of clergy in, 125, 190;
Inq. p.m. in, 190;
date of plague in, 125.
Weedon, 193.
Welbeck abbey, 152.
Wells, 85.
West Chickerell, 79.
West Gotland, 68.
Westerham, impropriation of, to Canterbury, 179.
Westminster, 93;
hospital of St. James's at, 97.
Westminster abbey, 96, 97.
Westmoreland, 157.
Weston-super-Mare, 84, 193.
Weston, Hayling Island, 187.
Weston, William, 97.
Weymouth, 72, 77.
Whaddon, 115.
Whitchurch manor, 144, 164, 191.
Whitland abbey, 118.
Wight, Isle of, 114;
institutions of clergy in, 186.
William of Worcester, note as to Yarmouth, 130;
note as to Bodmin, 90.
Willington, 147.
Willington, Henry de, 164.
Wilmacott, Inq. p.m. as to, 191.
Wills in court of Hustings, London, 96.
Wiltshire, institutions of clergy in, 163;
Inq. p.m. in, 164;
manors of, 167.
Winchcombe abbey, 189.
Winchelsea, 114.
Winchester, diocese of, 107, _seqq._;
institutions of clergy in, 112;
deaths of religious superiors of, 114;
falling off in numbers ordained, 183, 208;
decay of churches in, 185;
proportion of beneficed to non-beneficed clergy ordained in, 204;
clerics not in sacred orders ordained to benefices, 206.
Winchester, St. Swithun's, 112;
death of prior, 180;
effect of deaths in, 180;
impoverishment of, 180, 184.
Winchester, St. Mary's nunnery, 182.
Winchester city, difficulties in collecting taxes, 187;
processions through, 108;
riot in, about burial places, 110.
Winnow, St., 89.
Winterbourne, St. Nicholas, 80.
Winterbournes, the, 78.
Witham charterhouse, difficulties of, 170.
Wisby, the cathedral of, slabs in, 69.
Wisby, Franciscan convent in, 68.
Wiveliscombe, the bishop of Bath and Wells at, 84.
Wool, making of cloth from, at Hinton charterhouse, 171.
Woods not to be sold, 164.
Worcester, letter of bishop of, 122;
state of his manors after, 123;
cemetery in, 122;
St. Oswald's in, 123;
state of the county of, 123;
date of plague in, 121;
institutions of clergy in, 121.
Workmen, combinations of, 199.
Worthorp priory, 137.
Wycliff, failure of social theories of, 217.
Wycliffite authors, tracts wrongly attributed to, 5.
Wykeham, William of, his exhortations to St. Swithin's, Winchester,
181;
his schools, 210;
his entry into ecclesiastical state caused by plague, 214.
Wyncote, John, deaths in family of, 191.
Yarmouth, population of, 131, _note_;
mortality in, 130;
petition to Henry VII from, 131;
church building stopped, 131;
St. Nicholas' church, 203.
York, institutions of clergy in the diocese, 151;
provision against deaths of canons, 152;
depreciation of land in the county of, 154;
letter of Archbishop Zouche, 150;
indulgences from the Pope for, 151.
Zouche, archbishop of York, 150.
Zurich, 64.
TRANSCRIBER'S ENDNOTE
Original printed spelling and grammar is generally retained.
Footnotes were renumbered and moved from the ends of pages to the
ends of chapters. Ellipses look like the originals. Original printed
page numbers are shown like these: "[p-xiii]", in the front matter,
or "[p013]".
The page images available to the proofreaders and to the transcriber
were nearly illegible in a few places, especially in the small print
in some footnotes. The first footnote on page 157 is perhaps the
worst example of this: three different images, presumably from three
different printed copies of the book, failed to clarify whether the
correct reading is "Treasury of Receipt 21a/3", as rendered herein,
or not.
Page 9, footnote: "simoon" was printed, and is retained, but perhaps
"simoom" was meant.
Page 19: "northen Italy" changed to "northern Italy".
Page 35, first footnote: comma inserted between "Austriacarum" and
"Scriptores".
Page 40: "crosssd" changed to "crossed".
Page 61: "familes" changed to "families".
Page 63: "Pfäffers" is spelled "Pfäfers" in the index.
Page 65: "Heiligenkreuz" is spelled "Heiligen Kreuz" in the index.
Page 80: closing quote added to the sentence that ends thus: "the
burial-place of its victims".
Page 85: "Doulting" is retained, although it is spelled "Doulton" in
the index on page 228.
Page 118, etc.: The words "Shereborne" (p 229, 240), "Sherborne" (p
118, 163), and "Shireborne" (p 185, 240) have all been retained,
although two or all three may have the same referent.
Page 133: in "brother Philip Dallying, late sacrist of Ely", changed
"Dallying" to "Dallyng", to agree with index entry.
Page 134: "Robert de Spronston" is spelled "Sprouston, Robert de,
134" in the index.
Page 143: "Dodinton" is spelled "Dodington" in the index.
Page 152: "Rievaux" changed to "Rievaulx" (abbey).
Page 177: "Fitz-Eustace" is spelled "FitzEustace" in the index.
Pages 221-244, Index: there are several entries that apparently
refer to locations within the front matter, where page numbers were
designated by Roman numerals. These references generally seem to be
incorrect. For example, under the heading "Black Death" on page 223,
there are four entries that refer the reader to pages iii or vi, but
these pages were the title page and the second page of the Table of
Contents, respectively. Similarly, under the heading Calais, the
reader is referred to page i, which is the half title page of the
printed book. These incorrect references have been retained.
Page 226: changed "archdeanery" to "archdeaconry", under the index
entry "Chester".
Page 234: in "Lincoln, county of, Escheators' accounts", changed
"Escheators'" to "Escheator's" to agree with page 150.
Page 235: "Mallinge abbey" to "Malling abbey" to agree with text on
pages 104 and 106.
Page 237: "Oxford, St. Frideswithe" changed to "Oxford, St.
Frideswide", to agree with text.
Page 244: in "Wivelscombe, the bishop of Bath and Wells at,", changed
the name to "Wiveliscombe". "Wyclif" and "Wyclifite" were changed to
"Wycliff" and "Wycliffite", respectively, to agree with the text.