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A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2) by Charles Creighton

3639. It may be assumed to have lost more than half its people; but it

716 words  |  Chapter 22

recovered quickly, was made a seat of the wool-staple, and threatened to rival Norwich. Clyn’s statement that 14,000 died in Dublin from the beginning of August until Christmas may also be taken merely as illustrating the inability of early writers to count correctly up to large numbers. The most trustworthy figures of mortality in the Black Death which were recorded at the time are those given for the inmates of particular monasteries; and these are such as to give colour to the remark interpolated in Higden’s _Polychronicon_ that “in some houses of religion, of twenty there were left but twain.” At St Albans, the abbot Michael died of the common plague at Easter, 1349, one of the first victims in the monastery. The mortality in the house increased daily, until forty-seven monks, “eminent for religion,” and including the prior and sub-prior, were dead, besides those who died in large numbers in the various cells or dependencies of the great religious house[251]. At the Yorkshire abbey of Meaux, in Holdernesse, the visitation was in August, although the epidemic in the city of York was already over by the end of July[252]. The abbot Hugh died at Meaux on the 12th of August, and five other monks were lying unburied the same day. Before the end of August twenty-two monks and six lay-brethren had died, and when the epidemic was over there were only ten monks and lay-brethren left alive out of a total of forty-three monks (including the abbot) and seven lay-brethren. The chronicler adds that the greater part of the tenants on the abbey lands died also[253]. In the Lincolnshire monastery of Croxton, all the monks died save the abbot and prior[254]. In the hospital of Sandon, Surrey, the master and brethren all died[255]. At Ely 28 monks survived out of 43[256]. In the Irish monasteries the mortality had been equally severe: in the Franciscan convent at Drogheda, 25 friars died; in the corresponding fraternity at Dublin, 23; and in that of Kilkenny 8 down to the 6th of March[257], with probably others (Clyn himself) afterwards. The following mortalities have been collected for East Anglian religious houses: At Hickling, a religious house in Norfolk, with a prior and nine or ten canons (‘Monasticon’), only one canon survived. At Heveringham in the same county the prior and canons died to a man. At the College of St Mary in the Fields, near Norwich, five of the seven prebendaries died. Of seven nunneries in Norfolk and Suffolk, five lost their prioress as well as an unknown number of nuns[258]. At the nunnery of Great Winthorp on the Hill, near Stamford, all the nuns save one either died of the plague or fled from it, so that the house fell to ruin and the lands were annexed by a convent near it[259]. The experience of Canterbury appears to have been altogether different, and was perhaps exceptional. In a community of some eighty monks only four died of the plague in 1349[260]. It is known, however, that when the new abbot of St Albans halted at Canterbury on his way to Avignon after his election at Easter, one of the two monks who accompanied him was there seized with plague and died[261]. These monastic experiences in England were the same as in other parts of Europe. At Avignon, in 1348, sixty-six Carmelite monks were found lying dead in one monastery, no one outside the walls having heard that the plague was amongst them. In the English College at Avignon the whole of the monks are said to have died[262]. What remains to be said of the death-rate in the great mortality of 1349 is constructive or inferential, and that part of the evidence, not the least valuable of the whole, has been worked out only within a recent period. The enormous thinning of the ranks of the clergy was recorded at the time, in general terms, by Knighton, and the difficulty of supplying the parishes with educated priests is brought to light by various things, including the founding of colleges for their education at Cambridge (Corpus Christi) and at Oxford (Durham College). The first to examine closely the number of vacancies in cures after the great mortality was Blomefield in the third volume of the _History of Norfolk_ published in
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Chapters

1. Chapter 1 2. CHAPTER I. 3. CHAPTER II. 4. CHAPTER III. 5. CHAPTER IV. 6. CHAPTER V. 7. CHAPTER VI. 8. CHAPTER VII. 9. CHAPTER VIII. 10. CHAPTER IX. 11. CHAPTER X. 12. CHAPTER XI. 13. CHAPTER XII. 14. CHAPTER I. 15. introduction of a miracle, and is otherwise more circumstantial. While the 16. episode of the seventh century, to which he devotes thirty-eight lines of 17. CHAPTER II. 18. 1307. Future research may perhaps discover where Gilbert taught or was 19. introduction of maize into Lombardy at an interval of two or three 20. CHAPTER III. 21. 3939. The population of the same three parishes in 1558, or shortly after 22. 3639. It may be assumed to have lost more than half its people; but it 23. 1741. The Institution Book of the diocese of Norwich, he says (with a 24. CHAPTER IV. 25. 1349. The pestilence had lasted some fourteen months, from its first 26. CHAPTER V. 27. 1528. If there were any better regimen in the later epidemics than in the 28. 1551. Sweating sickness of the original sort was never again the _signum 29. CHAPTER VI. 30. 1563. 12 June 17 31. 1564. 7 January 45 32. 1518. In April of that year, the Court being in Berkshire or Oxfordshire, 33. 1. First a ’tre from the Mayor of London to every alderman of each 34. 2. To cause all infected houses to bee shutt up and noe person to come 35. 3. That some honest discreete person be appoynted to attend each such 36. 4. For the poorer houses infected that the Alderman or his deputy doe 37. 5. That such as shall refuse to pay what they are assest shall be 38. 6. That all bedding and cloathes and other thinges apt to take 39. 7. Lastly that a bill with ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ in greate ’tres 40. 1. That they should follow the good example of the orders devised and 41. 2. That the officers aforesayde with the curate of euery parish and 42. 3. To discharge all inmates out of all houses that there be noe more 43. 4. To cause the streetes lanes and passages and all the shewers sinkes 44. 1. That speciall noatis be taken of such houses infected as sell 45. 2. That euery counstable within his precinct haue at all tymes in 46. 3. That noe person dwelling in a house infected bee suffered to goe 47. 4. That they suffer not any deade corps dying of the plague to be 48. 5. To appoynt two honest and discreete matrons within euery parish who 49. 6. That order be taken for killing of dogs that run from house to 50. 2. The restraining of the building of small tenements and turning 51. 4. The increase of buildings about the Charterhouse, Mile End Fields; 52. 5. The pestering of exempt places with strangers and foreign 53. 8. The killing of cattle within or near the city. 54. 1588. In 1585 houses were shut up[685]; in 1586 a case at Southwell was 55. 1. First to command that no stinking doonghills be suffered neere the 56. 2. Every evening and morning in the hot weather to cause colde water 57. 3. And whereas the infection is entred, there to cause fires to be 58. 4. Suffer not any dogs, cattes, or pigs to run about the streets, for 59. 5. Command that the excrements and filthy things which are voided from 60. 6. That no Chirurgions, or barbers, which use to let blood, do cast 61. 7. That no vautes or previes be then emptied, for it is a most 62. 8. That all Inholders do every day make clean their stables, and cause 63. 9. To command that no hemp or flax be kept in water neere the Cittie 64. 10. To have a speciall care that good and wholesome victuals and corne 65. 11. To command that all those which do visit and attend the sick, as 66. 1597. In August there were 23 deaths, and in September 42 deaths. The 67. 1588. It was said to have been brought to Wester Wemyss, in Fife, by a 68. CHAPTER VII. 69. 1494. Typhus-fever, or war-fever with famine-fever, now begins to be a 70. CHAPTER VIII. 71. CHAPTER IX. 72. introduction of a third term, _punctilli_, which Gruner, however, takes to 73. 1538. They may be farther helped to a conclusion by the following curious 74. CHAPTER X. 75. 10. In the second place, no deaths are included from the out-parishes 76. 1624. The letters of the time enable us to see what it was that disturbed 77. CHAPTER XI. 78. 12. On December 7, Mr Yorke, captain of the ‘Hope,’ died of sickness, on 79. 1614. In 1617 he published his ‘Surgion’s Mate,’ “chiefly for the benefit 80. 4. The comforting and corroborating the parts late diseased. 81. CHAPTER XII. 82. 1625. His account of the burials by the cart-load in plague-pits is also 83. 1636. An importation from abroad had been alleged as early as the great 84. 1665. Its two great predecessors (not reckoning the smaller plague of 85. 1662. These fractions have been added in the table, so as to make 1603 86. 1666. There was also a sharp epidemic in Cambridge and in the country 87. introduction of inferior bread, 224 _note_ 88. Introduction, p. lxxvi. 89. 110. Aelred, the chief collector of the miraculous cures by Edward the 90. 220. The late Rev. S. S. Lewis, fellow and librarian of the College, who 91. 449. He says also: “The school doors were shut, colleges and halls 92. Introduction, p. 11. 93. 4585. (_Hist. MSS. Commission_, V. 444.) 94. 1878. _Med. Times and Gaz._ I. 1878, p. 597. 95. 1873. (Transact. Camb. Antiq. Soc. 8vo. series, vol. XIV.) 96. 1589. New ed. 1596, p. 272. 97. 1580. Brassavolus, writing _de morbo Gallico_, and illustrating the fact 98. 29. Stow puts the mortality under the year 1513. 99. Chapter VIII. London, 1578). 100. 198. Mr Rendle, in one place, seems to imply disapproval of this mode of 101. 1525. The same kind of misdating occurs among the printed letters of 102. 260. Brusselle, 1712. 103. 171. Buried in the parish of Stepney from the 25th of March to the 20th of 104. Book II. p. 36.

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