TOC[p162]
So far the course of the epidemic in England has been followed from south to north. It is now necessary to consider some statistics and immediate results of the plague.
The diocese of Salisbury comprised the three counties of Dorset, Wilts, and Berkshire. The total number of appointments made by the Bishop, in his entire diocese, is said to have been 202 in the period from March 25th, 1348, to March 25th, 1349; and 243 during the same time in the year following.[303]Of this total number of 445 it is safe to say that two-thirds were institutions to vacancies due to the plague. Roughly speaking, therefore, in these three counties, comprised in the diocese of Sarum, some 300 beneficed clergy, at least, fell victims to the scourge.
The county of Dorset may first be taken. The list of institutions taken from the Salisbury episcopal registers, given in Hutchins' history of that county, numbers 211. During the incidence of the plague ninety of these record a change of incumbent, so that, roughly, about half the benefices were rendered vacant. In several cases, moreover, during the progress of the epidemic changes are recorded twice or three times, so that the total number of institutions made to Dorsetshire livings at this time was 110. As regards the non-beneficed clergy, secular and regular, their proportion to those holding benefices will be considered in the[p163]concluding chapter. Here it is sufficient to observe that the proportion commonly suggested is far too low.
It is almost by chance that any information is afforded as to the effect of the visitation in the religious houses. All contemporary authorities, both abroad and in England, agree in stating that the disease was always most virulent and spread most rapidly where numbers were gathered together, and that, when once it seized upon any house, it usually claimed many victims. Consequently when it appears that early in November, 1348, the abbot of Abbotsbury died, and that about Christmas Day of that year John de Henton, the abbot of the great monastery of Sherborne, also died, it is more than probable that many of the brethren of those monasteries were also carried off by the scourge.
In the county of Wilts the average number of episcopal institutions, for three years before and three years after the mortality, was only 26. In the year 1348 there are 73 institutions recorded in the registers, and in 1349 no less a number than 103,[304]so that of the 176 vacancies filled in the two years the deaths of only some 52 incumbents were probably due to normal causes, and the rest, or some 125 priests holding benefices in the county, may be said to have died from the plague.
A chance entry upon the Patent roll reveals the state of one monastery in this county. The prior of Ederos, or Ivychurch, a house of Augustinian canons, died on February 2nd, 1349.[305]On February the 25th the King was informed that death had carried off the entire community with one single exception. "Know ye," runs the King's letter, dated March 16th, "that since the Venerable Father Robert, Bishop of Salisbury, cannot hold the usual election of prior in the Monastery of Ederos in his diocese, vacant by the death of the last prior of the same, since all the other canons of the same house, in which hitherto there[p164]has been a community of thirteen canons regular, have died, except only one canon, brother James de Grundwell, we appoint him custodian of the possessions, the Bishop testifying that he is a fit and proper person for the office.[306]
The general state of the county of Wilts after the epidemic had passed is well illustrated from some WiltshireInquisitiones post mortem. Sir Henry Husee, for instance, had died on the 21st of June, 1349. He owned a small property in the county. Some 300 acres of pasture were returned upon oath, by a jury of the neighbourhood, as "of no value because all the tenants are dead."[307]Again John Lestraunge, of Whitchurch, a Shropshire gentleman, had half the manor of Broughton, in the county of Wilts. He died on July the 20th, 1349, and the inquisition was held on August the 30th. At that time it is declared that only seven shillings had been received as rent from a single tenant, "and not more this year, because all the other tenants, as well as the natives, are dead, and their land is all in the hand of the lord."[308]
So, too, on the manor of Caleston, belonging to Henry de Wilington, who died on May the 23rd, 1349, it is said that water-mills are destroyed and worthless; of the six native tenants two have died, and their lands are in hand; and of the ten cottars, each of whom paid 12d. for his holding, four have been carried off with all their family.[309]In other places of the same county woods are declared to be valueless, "for want of buyers, on account of the pestilence amongst the population;"[310]from tenants who used to pay £4 a year there is now obtained only 6s., because all but three free tenants have been swept away;[311]140 acres of land and twelve cottages, formerly in the occupation of[p165]natives of a manor, are all now in hand, "as all are dead."[312]So, too, at East Grinstead, seven miles from Salisbury, on the death of Mary, wife of Stephen de Tumby, in the August of 1349, it is found that only three tenants are left on the estate, "and not more because John Wadebrok and Walter Wadebrok, Stephen and Thomas and John Kerde, Richard le Frer, Ralph Bodde, and Thomas the Tanner, tenants in bondage," who held certain tenements and lands, are all dead, and their holdings are left in the hands of the lord of the manor. Also, on the same estate, William le Hanaker, John Pompe, Edmund Saleman, John Whermeter, and John Gerde, jun., have also been swept away by the all-prevailing pestilence.
Such examples as these will enable the reader to understand the terrible mortality produced by this visitation, and in some measure to appreciate the social difficulties and changes produced by the sudden removal of so large a number of the population from every part of the country.
To pass on to the neighbouring county of Somerset. The institutions given in the episcopal registers of the diocese of Bath and Wells show that the mortality had already commenced in the county as early as November, 1348. The average number of inductions to livings in the county in each month of 1348, previous to November, was less than three; in November it was nine, and in the following month thirty-two. During the next year, 1349, the total number of clergy instituted to the vacant livings of the diocese by the Bishop was 232, against an average in a normal year of 35. For the two years, 1348 and 1349, consequently, out of the 297 benefices to which institutions were made, some 227 may be said, with fair certainty, to have been rendered vacant by the great mortality which then raged in this and other counties of England.
It must be borne in mind that the death of every priest implied the deaths of very many of his flock, so[p166]that, if no other information were attainable, some idea of the extent of the sickness among the laity may be obtained. It cannot but be believed that the people generally suffered as greatly as the clergy, and that, proportionally, as many of them fell victims to the scourge. If the proportion of priests to lay folk was then (as some writers have suggested) about one to fifty—an estimate, however, which would seem to be considerably above the actual relation of laymen to those in sacred orders at that time—the reader can easily form some notion of the terrible mortality among the people of Somersetshire in the first half of 1349.
Some slight information, however, is afforded as to the actual state of the county in one or two instances. In each manor throughout the country there was held periodically what was known as the Court of the manor. At this assembly the business of the estate, so far as the tenants were concerned, was transacted before a chosen and sworn jury. Holders of land under the lord of the manor came before the court to claim their tenements and land as the rightful heirs of tenants deceased, to pay their heriots or fines due to the lord on every entry of a new holder. At this assembly, too, matters of police, the infringement of local customs, and often disputes between the tenants themselves, were disposed of by the officials of the manor. The record of the business of such courts is known as the Court roll, and these documents give some information about the extent of the mortality among the manorial tenants. Here, however, just as in the case of the institutions of clergy, where the actual incumbent only is registered and no account is taken of the larger body of non-beneficed clergy, so on the Court roll only the actual holder of the land is entered, and no notice is taken of the members of his family, or of others in the district, such as labourers and servants, etc., who were not actual tenants of the manor.
Unfortunately the Court rolls for this period are often, if not generally, found to be missing. They are either lost, or the disorganised state of the country consequent upon the[p167]great mortality did not permit of the court being held. There are, however, quite sufficient of these records to afford a tolerably good idea of what must have happened pretty generally throughout the country. Dr. Jessopp has been able by the use of the Norfolk Court rolls to present his readers with a vivid picture of the havoc made by the plague in East Anglia. As an illustration of the same, some notes from a few Court rolls of West of England manors may here be given.
The records of the royal manor of Gillingham, in the county of Dorset, show that at a court, held on "Wednesday next after the feast of St. Lucy (13 December), 1348," heriots were paid on the deaths of some twenty-eight tenants, and the total receipts on this account, which at ordinary courts amounted to but a few shillings, were £28 15s. 8d. Further, at the same sittings, the bailiff notes that he has in hand the lands and tenements of about thirty tenants, who had apparently left no heir to succeed to their holdings. In numbers of cases it is declared that no heriot has been paid, and this although the receipts on this score at the sitting of the court, and on many subsequent sittings, are unusually large. At another court, held early in the following year (1349) the names of two-and-twenty tenants of the manor are recorded as having died, and two large slips of parchment, belonging to the court held on May 6th, give the lists of dead tenants. Thus in the tything of Gillingham alone forty-five deaths are recorded, and in the neighbouring tything of Bourton seventeen.[313]
The next example may be taken from the rolls of a Wiltshire manor, and ought, perhaps, to have been given in the account of the plague in that county. On June the 11th, 1349, a court was held at Stockton, some seven miles from Warminster, consequently only a short distance from[p168]the boundaries of Somerset. The manor, be it remarked, was evidently only a very small one. On the parchment record it is stated that since the previous Martinmas (November 11th, 1348) no court had been held, and from the entries upon the roll it appears that out of a small body of tenants on this estate fourteen had died. How many had been carried off in each household does not, of course, appear, but in the majority of instances it looks very much as if the dead tenant had left no heir behind him.[314]
A third instance is taken from the Court roll of the manor of Chedzoy, near Bridgwater. The plague had made its appearance at Bridgwater, as before related, some time previous to November 21, 1348. It was to be expected, therefore, that the rolls of a manor only three miles off would show some sign of the mortality among the tenants about the same period. As a matter of fact a glance through the parchment record of a court held on St. Katherine's day, November 25, 1348, shows that it had made its appearance some time between September 29th and November 25th. On this latter day some few of the tenants of the manor are noted as dead, and three or four fairly large holdings have also fallen into the hands of the lord of the manor, no heirs being forthcoming. Amongst others, one William Hammond, who had rented and worked a water-mill, at a place calledle Slap, had been carried off by the sickness. The house, it is noted, had since, up to the date of the court, stood vacant. The mill wheel no longer spun round at its work, for William Hammond, the miller, had left no one to succeed him in his occupation.
But this was only a beginning. The next court was held on Thursday after the Epiphany, January 8th, 1349. What a terrible Christmas time it must have been for those Somerset villagers on the low-lying ground about Bridgwater, flooded and sodden by the long months of incessant rain! At least twenty more tenants are marked off upon[p169]the roll as dead, and as in this case the actual days of their deaths are given, it is clear the plague claimed many victims in this neighbourhood about the close of December, 1348.
Between this and March 23, 1349, the sickness was at its worst in this manor of Chedzoy. The record of the proceedings at the court, held on "Monday after the feast of St. Benedict," 1349, occupies two long skins of parchment closely written on both sides. Some 50 or 60 fines are paid by new tenants on their taking possession of the lands and houses, which had belonged to others now dead and gone. Again, who can tell how many had perished in each house? One thing is absolutely clear. In this single Somerset village many homes had been left vacant without a solitary inhabitant; many were taken over by new tenants not connected with the old occupier; and in more than one instance people came forward to act as guardians to young children who had apparently been left alone in the world by the death of every near relative. Take an instance. At this court one John Cran, who, by the way, took up the house and lands formerly held by his father, who is said to have died, also agreed with the officer of the court to take charge of William, the son of Nicholas atte Slope, for the said Nicholas, and apparently every other near relative of the boy William had perished in the sickness.
In this same court of March 23rd also several law cases are disposed of, for they had been settled by the death of one or other or both of the parties. Thus, in January, 1349, a claim had been laid, at the sitting of the court, against one John Lager, for the return of some cattle by three tenants, William, John, and Roger Richeman. At the March sitting of the court in due course the case was called on. No plaintiffs, however, appeared, and inquiry elicited the fact that all three had died in the great pestilence.
The actual document which contains these particulars has, moreover, a tale of its own to tell. The long entries[p170]on these two skins of parchment are not all in the same hand. Before the record of the heavy business done at this court had been all transcribed, the clerk was changed. The hand which had so long kept the rolls of these Manor Courts ceases to write. What happened to him? Did he too die? Of course nothing can be known for certain, but it is not difficult to conjecture why another at this very time takes up the writing of the Chedzoy manor records.[315]
Another glimpse of the desolate state to which the country was generally reduced by this disastrous sickness is afforded by the case of Hinton and Witham, the two Somerset Carthusian houses. The King had endeavoured by every means in his power to restrain the tenants, who survived the plague, from leaving their old holdings and seeking for others where they could better themselves. Not only were fines ordered to be inflicted upon such labourers and tenants, as endeavoured to take advantage of the market rise in wages, but under similar penalties landowners were prohibited from giving employment to them. That such a law must have proved hard in the case of those owning manors, in which some or all of the tenants and labourers had died, is obvious. It was this hardship which some years after the epidemic, in 1354, made the Carthusians of Witham plead for some mitigation of the royal decree. "Our beloved in Christ, the prior and brethren of the Carthusian Order at Witham, in the county of Somerset," runs the King's reply, "have petitioned us that since their said house and all their lands and tenements thereto belonging are within a close in the forest of Selwood, placed far from every town, and they possess no domain beyond the said close, they have nothing to support the prior and his brethren," (and this) "both because almost all their servants and retainers died in the last pestilence, and[p171]because by reason of a command lately made by us and our Parliament, in whichinter aliait is ordered that servants should not leave their villages and parishes in which they dwelt, as long as they could be hired there, they have been brought to great need on account of the want of servants and labourers. Further, that a large part of their lands (for this same reason) remain waste and untilled, and the corn in the rest of their estate, which had been sown at the time of harvest, had miserably rotted as it could not be gathered for lack of reapers. By this they have been brought into great and manifest poverty." Looking at the circumstances, therefore, the King permits them for the future to engage servants and workmen on reasonable wages above the legal sum, provided that their time of service elsewhere had expired.[316]
The second instance is recorded in the following year, 1355, and has reference to difficulties springing from the same regulations as to the employment of labourers:—"The prior and brethren of the Carthusians of Hinton, in the county of Somerset, have petitioned us," says the King, "that seeing that they have no support except by the tillage of their lands, and that the greatest part of their estates, for want of workmen and servants from the time of the last pestilence, have been unused and still remain uncultivated, and that they cannot get any labourers to work their lands," (and further) "that as many people and tenants were wont to weave the woollen cloth for the clothes of the brethren from their wool, and do other various services for them, now through fear of our orders as to servants that they may not receive greater salaries and stipends from the said brethren, do not dare to serve them as before, and so leave their dwelling, so that the brethren cannot get cloth to clothe themselves properly," they beg that these orders may be relaxed in their regard. To which petition the King assented, allowing the[p172]Carthusians of Hinton to pay the wages they had been used to do.[317]
The diocese of Exeter, comprising the two counties of Devon and Cornwall, was stricken by the disease apparently about the same time as the county of Somerset. The institutions made by the Bishop of the diocese, in January, 1349, number some 30, which shows that death had already been busy among the clergy. The average number of livings annually rendered vacant in the two counties during the eight years previous to 1348 was only 36. In the year 1349 the vacancies were 382, and the number of appointments to vacant livings, in each of the five months from March to July, was actually larger than the previous yearly average. It would appear, therefore, that in 1349 some 346 vacancies may reasonably be ascribed to the prevailing sickness.
In looking over the lists of institutions it is evident that the effect of sickness was felt for some years. It is not until 1353 that the normal average is again reached. The year following the epidemic the number of vacancies filled up was 80, and even in 1351 it still remained at the high figure of 57. It is curious to note in these years that numerous benefices lapsed to the Bishop. These must have been vacant six months, at least, before the dates when they were filled by Bishop Grandisson. Sometimes, no doubt, patrons were dead, leaving no heirs behind them. Sometimes, in all probability, the patron could find no one to fill the cure. Further, the number of resignations of benefices during this period would appear to point to the fact that many livings were now found to be too miserably poor to afford a bare maintenance.
After the sickness was over here, as in other parts of England, the desolation and distress is evidenced by chance references in the inquisitions. Thus at Lydford, a manor on Dartmoor, the King's escheator returns the value of a[p173]mill at fifteen shillings, in place of the previous value of double that amount, because "most of the tenants, who used to grind their corn at it, have died in the plague." It is the same at other places in the county, and in one case 30 holdings are named as having fallen into the hands of the lord of the manor.[318]
A bundle of accounts for the Duchy of Lancaster gives a good idea of the effect of the pestilence in Cornwall. The roll is for the year from Michaelmas, 1350, and includes the accounts of several manors in the Deanery of Trigg, such as Helston, Tintagel, and others, in the district about the river Camel. In one it is noted that "this year there are no buyers;" in another only two youths pay poll tax, two more have not paid, as they have been put in charge of some land, "and the rest have died in the pestilence." In the same place pasture, which usually let for 3s. 4d., now, "because of the pestilence," fetched only 20d.; the holdings of five tenants are named as in hand, as well as nine other tenements and 214 acres of land. Again, in another place the rent has diminished by £7 14s., because 14 holdings and 102 acres are in hand, together with two fulling mills; on the other hand credit is given for 8s. 11d., the value of the goods and chattels of the natives of the manor who have died. And so the roll proceeds through the accounts of some twelve or fourteen manors, and everywhere the same story of desolation appears. Besides numerous holdings and hundreds of acres, represented as in hand and producing nothing, entire hamlets are named as having been depopulated. The decay in rent of one manor alone is set down at £30 6s. 1–3/4d.
Attached to the account of Helston, in Trigg, is a skin giving a list of goods and effects of different tenants named which the lord Prince "occupied." There are 57 items in this list, which includes goods of all sorts, from an article of female dress and a golden buckle to ploughs and[p174]copper dishes; and the total value of the goods which thus fell into the hands of the Black Prince, presumably by the death of his tenants without heirs, is £16 18s. 8d.
At Tintagel it is noted that the "fifty shillings previously paid each year as stipend to the chaplain who celebrated in the chapel, was not paid this year, because no one would stay to minister there for the said stipend."[319]
On the 29th May, 1350, the Black Prince, in view of the great distress throughout the district, authorised his officials to remit one-fourth part of the rents of the tenants who were left, "for fear they should through poverty depart from their holdings."[320]But John Tremayn, the receiver of the revenues of the Prince in Cornwall, states that even in the years 1352 and 1353, so far from the estates there showing any recovery, they were in a more deplorable state still. "For the said two years," he relates, "he has not been able to let (the lands), nor to raise or obtain anything from the said lands and tenements, because the said tenements for the most part have remained unoccupied, and the lands lain waste for want of tenants (in the place of those) who died in the mortal pestilence lately raging in the said county."[321]
The loss of the episcopal registers of London for this period makes it impossible to form any certain estimate of the deaths in the ranks of the clergy of the capital during the progress of the epidemic. London contained within its walls, at that time, some 140 parish churches, exclusive of the large number of religious houses grouped together in its precincts. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the mortality here was greater than elsewhere. The population was closely packed in narrow streets, the religious houses were exceptionally numerous, and many of them, from their very situation, could have had but very little space. It has already been seen how fatal was the entry[p175]of the plague into any house, and consequently the proportion of deaths among the regulars in London was doubtless greater than elsewhere, whilst other causes must have also contributed to raise the roll of death among the seculars.[322]
The diocese of London included, with Middlesex, the county of Essex and a portion of Hertfordshire. The benefices of the county of Essex were in number some 265, and, like the actual institutions of the Middlesex clergy for this period, those made in the county of Essex are unknown. By July, 1349, the consequences of the scourge clearly appear in theInquisitiones post mortemfor this county. In one manor ten acres of meadow, which had formerly been let for twenty shillings, this year produced only half that amount, "because of the common pestilence." For the same reason the arable land had fallen in value, and a water-mill was idle, as there was no miller. In another place 140 acres of arable land was lying waste. "It cannot be let at all," says the Inquisition, "but if it could be let, it would be worth but eleven shillings and sixpence" only, in place of twenty-three shillings. Here, too, pasture had fallen fifty per cent, in value, and the wood that had been cut could not be sold. So, too, at a manor near Maldon, in this county, prices had fallen to half the previous value, and here the additional information is given that, out of eleven native tenants of the manor eight have died, and their tenements and land were in hand. It is the same in every instance; rents had dropped, owing to the catastrophe, to one-half. Arable, meadow, and pasture could be obtained this year in Essex anywhere at such a reduction. Other estate receipts had fallen equally. In one place court fees were three in place of the usual six shillings, and the manor[p176]dove-house brought in one instead of two shillings. Water mills were at a greater discount even than this. One, at a place called Longford, was valued at twenty shillings in place of sixty shillings, and even at this reduction there is considerable doubt expressed whether it will let at all.
Lastly, to take one more example in the county of Essex. An inquiry was made as to the lands held by the abbot of Colchester, who died on August the 24th, 1349. In this it appears that, in the manors of East and West Denny, 320 acres of arable land had fallen in yearly value from four to two pence an acre; 14 acres of meadow from 18d. to 8d.; the woods are valueless, "because there are no buyers;" and out of six native tenants two are dead. In another place four out of six have been carried off; in another, only two are left out of seven. The rent of assize, it is declared, is only £4, "and no more, because most of the land is in hand."[323]
No account has been preserved of the ravages of the pestilence at the abbey of Colchester; but the death of the abbot at this time makes it not unlikely that the disease was as disastrous here as in other monasteries of which there is preserved some record. It is known that the town suffered considerably. "One of the most striking effects was," writes one author, "that wills to the unusual number of 111 were enrolled at Colchester, which at that time had the privilege of their probate and enrolment."[324]
Talkeley, an alien priory in Essex, was reduced to complete destitution. It was a cell of St. Valery's Abbey, in Picardy, and when seized into the King's hands on account of the war with France the prior was allowed to hold the lands on condition of his paying £126 a year into the royal purse. Two years after the plague had visited the county this payment had fallen into arrears, "by reason of the pestilence lately raging, from which time the said land[p177]remained uncultivated, and the holdings, from which the revenues of the priory were derived, remained unoccupied after the death of the tenants. So terribly is it impoverished that it has nothing upon which to live, and on account of the arrears no one is willing to rent the lands and tenements of the priory." In the end the King was compelled to forgive the arrears of rent.[325]
In the county of Hertfordshire 34 benefices were in the diocese of London, whilst 22 more were under the jurisdiction of no Bishop, but formed a peculiar of the abbey of St. Alban's. In both of these consequently the actual institutions made in the year of the great plague are unknown. For the portion within the diocese of Lincoln 27 institutions were made in the summer of 1349; so that probably at least 50 Hertfordshire clergy died at this time.
The values of land and produce fell, as in other places. In one instance, given in anInquisitio post morteminto the estate of Thomas Fitz-Eustace, the lands and tenements, formerly valued at 67 shillings, were on the 3rd of August this year, 1349, estimated to produce only 13 shillings, and this only "if the pasture can be let."[326]In the same way the Benedictine convent of Cheshunt, in the county, is declared shortly afterwards "to be oppressed with such poverty in these days that the community have not wherewith to live."[327]
Again the destitution and poverty produced by the pestilence is evidenced in the case of some lands in the county, given by Sir Thomas Chedworth to Anglesey priory in Cambridgeshire. It had been agreed, shortly before the scourge had fallen upon England, that the monastery should for this benefaction endow a chantry of two secular priests. In 1351, however, the state of Anglesey priory, consequent on the fall in rents, made this impossible, and the obligation was, through the Bishop, readjusted, and the[p178]new document recites:—"Carefully considering the great and ruinous miseries which have occurred on account of the vast mortality of men in these days, to wit, that lands lie uncultivated in innumerable places, not a few tenements daily decay and are pulled down, rents and services cannot be levied, nor the advantage thereof, generally had, can be received, but a much smaller profit is obliged to be taken than heretofore," the community shall now be bound to find one priest only, whose stipend shall be five marks yearly instead of six as appointed, the value of the property being thus estimated at less than half what it had been before.[328]
In Buckinghamshire there were at the time between 180 and 200 benefices, in the county of Bedford some 120 and in Berkshire 162. From these a calculation of the probable number of incumbents carried off in 1349 by the sickness may be made.
As some indication of the state to which these counties were reduced by the scourge, a petition of the sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, made to the King in 1353, may be here mentioned. He declared that it was impossible then to pay into the Exchequer the old sums for the farming of the hundreds, which had been usual "before the late pestilence." Coming before the King in February, 1353, he not only urged his petition, but claimed to have £66 returned to him, which he had paid over and above his receipts. For the years 1351 and 1352 he had paid £132 for these rents, as had been usual since 1342; but he claimed that "from the time of the pestilence the bailiffs of the hundreds had been unwilling to take them on such terms." An inquiry by a jury was held in both counties, and it was declared "that since 1351 the bailiffs of the hundreds had been able to obtain nothing for certain—except what they could get by extortion—from the county. Further, that the inhabitants of the said county were now[p179]so diminished and impoverished that the bailiffs were able to get nothing for the farms in that year, 1351." In the same way also John Chastiloun, the sheriff, had received nothing whatever for his office. In the end the sum claimed was allowed.[329]
In the Canterbury portion of the county of Kent there were some 280 benefices, which number may form the basis for a calculation of the death roll. The condition to which this portion of England was reduced may be estimated from one or two examples. In 1352 the prioress and nuns of the house of St. James' outside Canterbury were allowed to be free from the tax of a fifteenth granted to the King, because they were reduced to such destitution that they had nothing beyond what was necessary to support them.[330]Even the Cathedral priory of Christchurch itself had to plead poverty. About 1350 the monks addressed petitions to the Bishop of Rochester asking him to give them the church of Westerham "to help them to maintain their traditional hospitality." They say that "by the great pestilence affecting man and beast," they are unable to do this, and as arguments to induce the Bishop to allow this impropriation, they state that they have lost 257 oxen, 511 cows, and 4,585 sheep, worth together £792 12s. 6d. Further they state that "1,212 acres of land, formerly profitable, are inundated by the sea," apparently from want of labourers to maintain the sea walls.[331][p180]
The neighbouring county of Sussex, at the time of the appearance of the disease, counted some 320 benefices. From the Patent Rolls it appears that in 1349 the King presented to as many as 26 livings in the county; amongst these no less than five were at Hastings, at All Saints', St. Clement's, St. Leonards, and two at the Free Chapel.[332]
In Hampshire, including the Isle of Wight, the average annual number of appointments to benefices for three years previous to the pestilence was 21; in 1349 no fewer than 228 institutions are registered, so that it may fairly be said that over 200 beneficed clergy were carried off by the sickness.
In the county of Surrey the total number of institutions in 1349 was as high as 92, against a previous average of a little over nine yearly, so that here, as in Hants, the number of vacancies of livings was this year increased tenfold. It may fairly be argued that of the number 92, some 80, at least, of the vacancies were caused by the epidemic. Several examples have already been given of the havoc wrought by the epidemic in religious houses in which it had effected an entrance. Where the head of a community was carried off, it is practically certain many of the members also would have perished, and it can be doubted by no one who examines the facts that the pestilence was not only terrible at the time, but had a lasting and permanent effect upon the state of the monastic houses. This point may be illustrated by some of the monasteries of the diocese of Winchester.
In the city itself the prior of St. Swithun's and the abbess of St. Mary's Benedictine convent both died, and there is evidence that a large proportion of both these communities must have perished at the same time, as well as many at the abbey of Hyde. To take the Cathedral of St. Swithun's first. In 1325, four and twenty years before the great mortality, the monks in the house were 64 in number.[333]Of these the 12 juniors on the list had not at that time received the subdiaconate. The 34th in order in the community had been ordained deacon on December 19th, 1310, and all the thirty below him were his juniors. It is fair to consider that about 60 was the normal number previous to the year 1349.[334]After that date they were[p181]reduced to a number which varied between 35 and 40. In 1387 William of Wykeham exhorted the community to use every effort to get up their strength to the original 60 members[335]; but notwithstanding all their endeavours they were on Wykeham's death, inA.D., 1404, only 42. At Bishop Wayneflete's election, in 1447, there were only 39 monks; three years later only 35; and inA.D.1487 their number had fallen to 30, at which figure it remained till the final dissolution of the house in the reign of Henry VIII.[336]
The neighbouring Abbey of Hyde, a house of considerable importance, with a community of probably between thirty and forty monks, a century later had fallen to only twenty. In 1488 it had risen to twenty-four, and eight of these had joined within the previous three years. At the beginning of the 16th century, in 1509, the community again consisted of twenty; but on the eve of the final destruction of the abbey there are some signs of a recovery, the house then consisting of twenty-six members, four of whom were novices. So impoverished was the house by the consequences of the great mortality that in 1352 the community were forced in order "to[p182]avoid," as they say, "the final destruction of their house," and "on account of their pitiful poverty and want, to relieve their absolute necessity," to surrender their possessions into the hands of Bishop Edyndon.[337]
Financial difficulties also overwhelmed and nearly brought to ruin the Benedictine Convent of St. Mary's, which was reduced to about one half their former number. To the same generous benefactor, Bishop Edyndon, they were indebted for their escape from extinction. In fact, it would appear that at this time many, if not most, of the religious houses of the diocese were protected and supported by the liberality of the Bishop and his relatives, whom he interested in the work of preserving from threatened destruction these monastic establishments. In the document by which the nuns of St. Mary's acknowledge Bishop Edyndon as their second founder, they say that "he counted it a pious and pleasing thing mercifully to come to their assistance when overwhelmed by poverty, and when, in these days, evil doing was on the increase and the world was growing worse, they were brought to the necessity of secret begging. It was at such a time that the same father, with the eye of compassion, seeing that from the beginning our monastery was slenderly provided with lands and possessions, and that now we and our house, by the barrenness of our land, by the destruction of our woods, and by the diminution or taking away from the monastery of due and appointed rents, because of the dearth of tenants carried off by the unheard-of and unwonted pestilence," came to our assistance to avert our entire undoing.[338]
Six months later the nuns of Romsey, in almost the same words, acknowledged their indebtedness to the Bishop.[339]Here the results of the pestilence upon the convent, as regards numbers, are even more remarkable than[p183]in the instances already given. At the election of an abbess inA.D.1333 there were present to record their votes 90 nuns. Early in May, 1349—that is only 16 years later—the abbess died, for the royal assent was given to the election of her successor, Joan Gerneys, on May 7th of that year.[340]What happened to the community can be gathered by the fact that in 1478 their number is found reduced to 18, and they never rose above 25 until their final suppression.
The various bodies of friars must have suffered quite as severely as the rest of the clergy. It is, however, very difficult to obtain any definite information about these mendicant orders; but some slight indication of the dearth of members they must have experienced at this period in common with all other bodies in England, ecclesiastical and lay, is to be found in the episcopal registers of the period. In the diocese of Winchester, for example, the Augustinians had only one convent, at Winchester. From September, 1346, to June, 1348, they presented four subjects for ordination to the priesthood; from that time till Bishop Edyndon's death, in October, 1366, only two more were ordained, both on 22nd December, 1358. The Friars Minor had two houses, one at Winchester, the other at Southampton; for these, in 1347 and 1348, three priests were ordained. From that time till the 21st of December, 1359, no more received orders. Then two were made priests; but no further ordinations are recorded until after Bishop Edyndon's death. The same extraordinary want of subjects appears in the case of the Carmelites. With them, between 1346 and 1348, eleven subjects received the priesthood. The next Carmelite ordained was in December, 1357, and only three in all were made priests between the great plague and the close of the year 1366. The Dominicans also had only one priest ordained in ten years, that is in the period from March, 1349, to December, 1359.
Owing to the mortality having swept away so many of[p184]their tenants, and other consequences traceable to the mortality, the priory of St. Swithun's became heavily involved in debt. On the 31st of December, 1352, Bishop Edyndon determined to make a careful inquiry into the state of his cathedral monastery, and wrote to that effect to the prior and convent. He says in his letter that he has heard how the temporalities have suffered severely "in these days, both by the deaths of tenants of the church, from which there has come a grave diminution of rent and services, and from various other causes unknown, and that it is burdened with excessive debts." As he himself was occupied in the King's service, he proposes to send some officers to inquire into these matters, and begs them to assist them in every way. He further says that it is reported to him "that in this our church the former fervour of devotion in the divine service and regular observance has grown lukewarm;" that both the monastery and out-buildings are falling to ruins; that "guests are not received there so honourably as before; on which account we wonder not a little," he continues, "and are troubled the more because so far you have not informed us" of these things. He appoints January 21, 1353, for the beginning of the inquiry, and in a second document names three priests, including a canon of the diocese of Sarum and the rector of Froyle, in Hampshire, to hold it.[341]
Shortly after this, on January 14, 1353, Bishop Edyndon ordered a similar inquiry to be made as to the state of Christchurch priory, which was also heavily in debt.[342]That the house had been seriously diminished in members seems more than probable in view of the fact that from the date of the plague till the beginning of 1366 no subject of the house was ordained priest.
The hospital of Sandown, in Surrey, was left, as before said, without a single inmate. On June 1, 1349, the Bishop, in giving it into the care of a priest named William de[p185]Coleton, says: "Since all and everyone of the brethren of the Hospital of the blessed Mary Magdalene of Sandown, in our diocese, to whom on a vacancy of the office of Prior, or guardian, the election belonged, are dead in the mortality of men raging in the kingdom of England, none of the brethren being left, the said hospital is destitute both of head and members."[343]
The same state of financial ruin is known to have existed in the case of Shireborne priory. On 8th June, 1350, Bishop Edyndon wrote to the abbot and convent of St. Vigor of Cérisy saying that Shireborne, which was said to be a dependency of the abbey, was fallen into great poverty. "The oblations of sacrifices had ceased, and from very hunger the devotion of priests was grown tepid; the buildings were falling to ruins, and its fruitful fields, now that the labourers were carried off, were barren." The priory could not hope, he considered, to recover "in their days," and so, with the consent of the patron, he requested the abbot to recall four of the monks to the abbey, the priory then containing the superior and seven religious. The same day a letter was sent to the prior of Shireborne directing that this should be at once carried out.[344]
One fact will be sufficient to show the state to which the diocese was reduced after the plague had passed. On the 9th of April, 1350, the Bishop issued a general admonition to his clergy as to residence on their cures. It had been reported to him, he says, that some priests, to whom the cure of souls had been committed, "neglecting, with danger to many souls," this charge, "have most shamefully absented themselves for their churches," so that "even the divine sacrifices," for which these churches had been built and adorned, "had been left off." The sacred buildings were, he says, "left to birds and beasts," and they neither kept the church in repair nor repaired what was falling to ruins, "on which account the general state of the churches is one[p186]of ruin." He consequently orders all priests to return to their cures within a month, or to get proper and fitting substitutes.[345]
In the June of the same year (1350) a special monition was issued to William Elyot, rector of a church near Basingstoke, at once to return to his living, as the church had been left without service. A month later, on the 10th of July, 1350, the Bishop published a joint letter of the Archbishop and Bishops ordering priests to serve the churches at the previous stipends, and he adds that every parish church must be contented with one chaplain only, "until those parish and prebendal churches and chapels which are now, or may hereafter be, unserved, be properly supplied with chaplains."[346]
There are many indications of the misery and suffering to which the people generally were reduced in these parts. Thus, for example, the King, whose compassion and tenderness, by the way, are very rarely manifested, remits the tax of the 15th due to him in the case of his tenants in the Isle of Wight. This he does, "taking into account the divers burdens which" these tenants have borne, "for the men and tenants of our manors now dead and whose lands and tenements by their deaths have come into our hands."[347]A glance at the institutions to benefices in the island will show that at one time or another during the prevalence of the plague nearly every living became vacant, and some more than once.
The town of Portsmouth, also, was forced to plead poverty, and ask the remission of a tax of £12 12s. 2d., because "by the attacks of our enemies the French, fires, and other adverse chances the inhabitants were very much depressed."[348]That the "other adverse chances" refers to the desolation caused by the pestilence appears[p187]from another grant, of relief for eight years, made to the town the previous year, because it was so impoverished "both by the pestilence and by the burning and destruction of the place by our enemies."[349]
The neighbouring island of Hayling was in even a worse plight after the pestilence. "The inhabitants of Stoke, Eaststoke, Northwood, Southwood, Mengham, Weston, and Hayling, in the island of Hayling, have shown to us," says the King, in 1352, "that they are greatly impoverished by expenses and burdens for the defence of the said island against the attacks of the French, and by the great wasting of their lands by inroad of the sea, as well as by the abandonment of the island by some who were wont to bear the burdens of the said island. Those consequently who are left would have to pay more than double the usual tax were it now levied. Moreover since the greatest part of the said population died whilst the plague was raging, now, through the dearth of servants and labourers, the inhabitants are oppressed and daily are falling most miserably into greater poverty. Taking into account all this, the King orders the collector of taxes for Southampton not to require the old amount, but to be content with only £6 15s. 7–1/4d.[350]Three years later Hayling priory, which as one of the alien houses then in the King's hands had been paying a large rent into the royal exchequer in place of sending it over to their foreign mother house, was relieved by the King of the payment of £57, as it was "much oppressed in these days."[351]
Even in Winchester difficulties as to taxation, at this time, led to many people leaving the city. Citizens, as the document relating to it declares, who have long lived there, "because of the taxation and other burdens now pressing on them, are leaving the said city with the property they have made in the place, so as not to contribute[p188]to the said taxes. And they, betaking themselves to other localities in the county, are leaving the said city desolate and without inhabitants to our (i.e., the King's) great hurt."[352]
AnInquisitio post mortemfor a Hampshire manor, taken in 1350, shows the fall in prices of lands and produce after the mortality. Eighty acres of arable land, which in normal times had been let for two marks (13s. 4d.), now produced only 6s. 8d., or just one-half, being at the rent of 1d. per acre in place of two pence. The same fall is to be seen in the rent of meadow land, which let now at 6d. instead of a shilling, and in the value of woods, 20 acres fetching only 20d., in the place of double that amount, which it used to produce.[353]
In Surrey it is the same story. In the inquiry made as to the lands of William de Hastings, on the 12th March, 1349, it is declared that the tenements let on the manor produce only thirty-six shillings because all the tenants but ten are dead, "and the other houses stand and remain empty for want of tenants, and so are of no value this year." In another case a watermill is held by the jury to be worthless because "all the tenants who used it were dead." It had remained empty and no one could be found to rent it. Of the land 300 acres cannot be let. The court of the manor produced nothing, because all are dead, and there are no receipts from the free tenants, which used to amount to £6 a year, "because almost all the tenants on the said manor are dead, and their tenements remain empty for want of some to rent them."[354]
In the absence of any definite information about the institutions of clergy in the county of Gloucester, it may be roughly estimated, from the number of benefices, that between 160 and 170 beneficed clergy in this district perished in the epidemic. Like other religious houses, the[p189]abbey of Winchcombe was impoverished by the consequences of the great mortality, and some years after it was unable to support its community and meet its liabilities. "By defect in past administration," as the document puts it, "it is burdened with great debt, and its state, from various causes, is so miserably impoverished that it is necessary to place the custody of the temporalities in the hands of a commission" appointed by the crown.[355]
That this is no exaggerated view of the difficulties which beset the landed proprietors at the time, and that the origin of the misery must be sought for in the great pestilence, a passage in Smyth'sLives of the Berkeleysmay help to show:—"In the 23rd of this King," he writes, "so great was the plague within this lord's manor of Hame (in Gloucestershire) that so many workfolks as amounted to 1,144 days' work were hired to gather in the corn of that manor alone, as by their deaths fell into the lord's hands, or else were forsaken by them."[356]
The priory of Lanthony, near Gloucester, was brought to such straits that the community were forced to apply to the Bishop of Hereford to grant them one of the benefices in his diocese. They have been, they say, so situated on the high road as to be obliged to give great hospitality at all times to rich and poor. Their property, in great part, was in Ireland, and it had been much diminished in value by the state of the country. The house was at this time, October 15th, 1351, so impoverished by this and by a great fire that, without aid, they could not keep up their charity. For "the rents of the priory and the services, which the tenants and natives, or serfs of the said house living on their domain, have been wont yearly, and even daily, to pay and perform for the religious serving God there, now, through the pestilence and unwonted mortality by which the people of the kingdom of England have been[p190]afflicted, and, as is known, almost blotted out, are for the greater part irreparably lost."[357]
Some few years after the plague had passed an inquisition held at Gloucester as to the state of the priory of Horsleigh reveals the fact that a great number of the tenants on the estate had died. Horsleigh was at the period a cell of the priory of Bruton, in Somerset, and the question before the jury at this inquiry was as to the dilapidations caused by the prior or minister of the dependent cell. They first found that all revenues from the estates at Horsleigh, after a reasonable amount had been allowed for the support of the prior and his brethren living in the cell, should be paid to the head house of Bruton. This the then prior, one Henry de Lyle, had not done. He had, moreover, dissipated the goods of his house by cutting down timber and underwood and selling cattle. Amongst the rest he is declared to have sold "eighty oxen and cows which had come to the house as mortuaries or heriots of tenants who had died in the great pestilence."[358]
Dugdale, in his history of the county, prints some 175 lists of incumbents of Warwickshire livings. In 76 cases there is noted a change at this period, and in several instances more than once is a new incumbent appointed to a living within a short period, so that in all there are some 93 institutions recorded.
A glimpse of the state to which the county generally was reduced is afforded by someInquisitiones post mortem. As soon after the plague as 1350, at Wappenbury in Warwickshire, three houses, three cottages, and 20 acres of land are described as valueless and lying vacant, because of the pestilence late past. At Alcester, on the estate of a man who died June 20th, 1349, rents are not received and tenements are in hand, "for the most[p191]part, through the death of the holders." Again, at Wilmacott, an inquiry was held as to the property of Elizabeth, daughter of John de Wyncote, who died 10th August, 1349. It is declared that the mother died on 10th June, and the daughter two months later, whilst the great part of the land is in the hand of the owner "by the death of the tenants in this present pestilence."[359]
On the estate of one who died in December, 1350, it is certified that there used to be nine villains, each farming half a virgate of land, for which they paid eight shillings a year. Five of these had died, and their land since had been lying idle and uncultivated. On another portion of the same two out of four tenants, who had six acres of land each, have been carried off.
On the manor of Whitchurch, owned by Margaret de la Beche, who died in the October of the plague year, 1349, it is noted that there are no court fees, as all the tenements are in hand. And in May, 1351, of another Oxfordshire estate it is said that eight claimants out of eighteen were dead, and no one was forthcoming to take the land; whilst on the same, out of six native tenants, who had each paid 14 shillings, three are gone, and their land has since remained untilled.[360]
One or two examples may be given of the difficulties subsequently experienced by the religious houses. The year after the plague had passed the Cistercian abbey of Bruerne was forced to seek the King's protection against the royal provisors and the quartering of royal servants upon them. This Edward granted, "because it was in such a bad state, that otherwise in a short time there would follow the total destruction of the said abbey, and the dispersal of the monks."[361]Even this protection, however, did not entirely mend matters, for three years later, "to[p192]avoid total ruin," the custody of the abbey was handed over to three commissioners."[362]
St. Frideswide's, Oxford, was in much the same case. In May, 1349, as we may suppose from the death of the superior during the time of the epidemic at Oxford, the plague had visited the monastery, and had, in all probability, carried off many of its inmates. The deaths of many of its tenants, moreover, must have gravely affected its financial condition, and three years later it was found necessary to put the temporalities in the hands of a commission. "By want of good government," it is said, "and through casual misfortunes, coming upon the said priory, both because of the debts by which it is much embarrassed, and for other causes," it is reduced to such a state that it might easily lead to the dispersal of the canons and the total destruction of the house.[363]
Of the tenants of one manor belonging to a religious house in the county of Oxford, it is said "that in the time of the mortality of men or the pestilence, which was in the year 1349, there hardly remained two tenants on the said manor. These would have left had not brother Nicholas de Lipton, then abbot, made new agreements with these and other incoming tenants."[364]
To take but two instances more in other parts of England.
The year after the plague was over, in 1351, the abbey of Barlings had to plead poverty and to beg for the remission of a tax. It is true, they urge the building of their new church, but likewise declare that they have been "impoverished by many other causes." AnInquisitio post mortemgives the same picture. Two carucates of land, for example, brought in only forty shillings, on account of the pestilence and general poverty and deaths of the tenants. "For a similar reason," a mill,[p193]which used to produce £2 in rent, now yields nothing; and so on throughout every particular of the large estate.
In this part of the country, too, the King's officer experienced the greatest difficulties in getting his dues, and the Escheator pleads, in mitigation of a small return, that during the whole of 1350 tenements have been standing empty, in Gayton, near Towcester, in Weedon, in Weston, and in Morton, ten miles from Brackley, as tenants cannot be found "by reason of the mortality." He further excuses himself for not levying on the lands and goods of the people "on account of the pestilence."[365]