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

Introduction, p. 11.

1324 words  |  Chapter 92

[243] Stow’s _Survey_, p. 392. [244] The population of London is stated on good authority, that of its archdeacon, in a letter to Pope Innocent III. (_Petri Blessensis Opera omnia_, ed. Giles, vol. II. p. 85), to have been 40,000 about the years 1190-1200, a period of great expansion or activity. By the usual reckoning of the poll-tax in 1377 the population would have been 44,770; and in the year 1349 it was probably not far from those numbers. This matter comes up again in the next chapter. [245] _Memorials of London in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries_, edited from the Archives of the City, A.D. 1246-1419, by H. T. Riley. Lond. 1868, p. 219. [246] _Ibid._, pp. 239-40. [247] Blomefield, _History of Norfolk_, III. 93. [248] Peter of Blois, who as archdeacon of London was in a position to know, gives in his letter to the pope the number of parish churches in the City at 120. [249] Popham, “Subsidy Roll of 51 Edward III.,” in _Archæologia_, VII. (1785) p. 337. [250] _Itineraria, et cet._ ed. Nasmith, Cantab. 1778, p. 344. See also Weever, _Funeral Monuments_, p. 862, according to whom the record of the great mortality was on a chronological table hanging up in the church. [251] Walsingham, _Gesta Abbatum_. Rolls ed. II. 370. Abbot Michael, he says, “tactus est communi incommodo inter primos de suis monachis qui illo letali morbo percussi sunt.” [252] Th. Stubbs’ _Chronicle of York_ in Twysden, col. 1732. [253] _Chronicon Monasterii de Melsa_, Rolls ed. III. 36. [254] Rymer’s _Foedera_. [255] Lowth, _Life of William of Wykeham_, p. 93, with a ref. to Regist. Edyngdon, pt. 1. fol. 49. [256] Bentham, _Hist. of Ely_. [257] Clyn. [258] Jessopp, “The Black Death in East Anglia” in _Nineteenth Century_, April 1885, p. 602. The sources of these interesting particulars are not given. [259] Peck’s _Antiquarian Annals of Stamford_, Bk. XI. p. 47. [260] _Hist. MSS. Commission’s Reports_, IX. p. 127: “Hi quatuor tantum moriebantur de pestilencia.” The reporter on the MSS. of the Dean and Chapter conjectures that the monastery may have owed its comparative immunity to the fact that it was supplied with water brought by closed pipes from the hills on the north-east of the city. [261] Walsingham, _Gesta Abbatum_. [262] Knighton. [263] _History of Norfolk_, III. 94. [264] Owen and Blakeway, _History of Shrewsbury_, I. 166:--“The average number of institutions to benefices on vacancies by death in the archdeaconry of Salop, for ten years before 1349, and ten years after, is one and a half per annum, or fifteen in the whole; in that year alone the number of institutions on vacancies by death is twenty-nine, besides other institutions the cause of whose vacancies is not specified and therefore may also have been the same.” [265] F. Seebohm, “The Black Death and its Place in English History,” _Fortnightly Review_, Sept. 1 and 15, 1865:--“In the library of the Dean and Chapter, at York Minster, are voluminous MSS., known by the name of _Torr’s MSS._, which contain the clergy list of every parish in the diocese of York, and which, in by far the greater number of instances, state not only the date of each vacancy, but whether it was caused by death, resignation or otherwise of the incumbent.” _L. c._ p. 150. [266] Jessopp, “The Black Death in East Anglia,” _Nineteenth Century_, April 1885, pp. 600-602. This author remarks that the evidence from manor court rolls and from the Institution Books of the clergy “has hardly received any attention hitherto, its very existence being entirely overlooked, nay, not even suspected.” [267] G. Poulett Scrope, M.P., F.R.S., _The Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_. London, 1852, p. 168. [268] The court rolls of the Manor of Snitterton, Norfolk, in the British Museum. Professor Maitland has lately edited some of the earliest rolls of manor courts for the Selden Society. [269] G. Poulett Scrope, _op. cit._ pp. 151-2. [270] F. Seebohm, _The English Village Community_, London, 1882. The Manor Court Rolls of Winslow, upon which Mr Seebohm bases his work, are in the library of the University of Cambridge. [271] Rev. Augustus Jessopp, D.D. “The Black Death in East Anglia,” _Nineteenth Century_, Dec. 1884. [272] Under the heading “The Black Death in Lancashire,” Mr A. G. Little has printed, with remarks, in the _English Historical Review_, July, 1890, p. 524, the data submitted to a jury of eighteen who had been empannelled to settle a dispute between the archdeacon of Richmond and Adam de Kirkham, dean of Amounderness, touching the account rendered by the dean, as proctor for the archdeacon, of fees received for instituting to vacant livings, for probates of wills, and for administration of the goods of intestates. The dean’s account to the archdeacon is said to run “from the Feast of the Nativity of our Lady [8 September] in the year of our Lord 1349 unto the eleventh day of January next following;” but it may not imply, and almost certainly does not, that the vacancies in benefices, the probates and the letters of administration, or the corresponding deaths of individuals, fell between those dates. The archdeacon alleges what fees Adam de Kirkham had received, but had not accounted for, and the jury find what Adam did actually receive. Nine benefices of one kind or another are mentioned as vacant, three of them twice. The numbers said to have died in the several parishes, with the number of wills and of intestate estates, I have extracted from the data and tabulated as follows: +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Parish | Men & Women | With wills | Intestate | | | dead | (above 100 sh.) | (above 100 sh.) | |------------|-------------|-----------------|-----------------| | Preston | 3000 | 300 | 200 | | Kirkham | 3000 | -- | 100 | | Pulton | 800 | -- | 40 | | Lancaster | 3000 | 400 | 80 | | Garestang | 2000 | 400 | 140 | | Cokram | 1000 | 300 | 60 | | Ribchestre | [illegible] | 70 | 40 | | Lytham | 140 | 80 | 80 | | St Michel | 80 | 50 | 40 | | Pulton | 60 | 40 | 20 | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ Of the alleged 300 who died in Preston parish, leaving wills, five married couples are named, the probate fees being respectively ½ marc, 6 sh., 40 d., 4 sh., and 40 d. The archdeacon’s whole claim for the 300 was 20 marcs, which the jury reduced to 10 pounds. Of the alleged 200 intestates in the same parish, two married couples, one woman, and “Jakke o þe hil” are named. In the parish of Garstang, the executors of 6 deceased are named, whose probate fees in all amounted to 16 sh. 10 d., the whole claim of the archdeacon for 400 deceased leaving wills being £10, and the award of the jury 40 sh. In the parish of Kirkham, on a claim of 20 marcs for probate fees not accounted for, “the jury say that he received £4;” on a claim of £10 for quittance, the jury say 20 sh. This was a parish in which 3000 are said to have died, the number of wills being not stated. The numbers had obviously been put in for a forensic purpose, and are, of course, not even approximately correct for the actual mortality, or the actual number of wills proved, or of letters of administration granted. The awards of the jury amounted in all to £48. 10_s._ See also _Eng. Hist. Review_, Jan. 1891. [273] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, I. 296-7. [274] Cussan’s _Hertfordshire_, vol. I. Hundred of Odsey, p. 37. [275] _Sat. Rev._ 16 Jan. 1886, p. 82. [276] Jessopp, _l. c._ April 1885, p. 611-12. [277] The priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, lost the following live stock in the murrain of 1349: oxen, 757, cows and calves, 511, sheep,
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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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