The Great Pestilence (eBook)

 CHAPTER VI. PROGRESS OF THE DISEASE IN LONDON AND THE SOUTH.

 For a time the people of Gloucester strove, but in vain, to protect their city by prohibiting all intercourse with plague-stricken Bristol. The contagion passed from one district to another, from town to town, and village to village, soon involving the entire land in one common misfortune. "There was no city, nor town, nor hamlet, nor even, save in rare instances, any house," writes an English contemporary, "in which this plague did not carry off the whole, or the greater portion, of the inhabitants." And so great was the destruction of life "that the living scarcely sufficed to tend the sick and bury the dead." . . . In some places, on account of the deficiency of cemeteries, the Bishop consecrated new burial grounds.

"In that time there was sold a quarter of wheat for 12d., a quarter of barley for 9d., a quarter of beans for 8d., a quarter of oats for 6d., a large ox for 40d., a good horse for six shillings, which formerly was worth 40 shillings, a good cow for two shillings, and even for eighteen-pence. And even at this price buyers were only rarely to be found. And this pestilence lasted for two years and more before England was freed from it."

"When, by God's mercy it ceased, there was such a scarcity of labourers that none could be had for agricultural purposes. On account of this scarcity, women, and even small children, were to be seen with the plough and leading the waggons."[154]

The rapidity with which the contagion spread from place to place makes it now impossible to follow its course with [p093] any certainty; the more so because it seems likely that many towns on the southern and western coasts became fresh starting points for the disease. London, in constant communication with other ports, is said by one contemporary to have been attacked as early as September 29th, 1348,[155] whilst other authorities fix, at latest, All Saints' day—November 1st—as the date when the epidemic declared itself in London. It lasted in the city and its neighbourhood till about the feast of Pentecost next following, and according to the contemporary Robert of Avesbury, it was most severe in the two months from February 2nd to Easter. During the time, he says, "almost every day there were buried in the new cemetery, then made at Smithfield, more than 200 bodies of the dead, over and above those buried in other cemeteries of the city."[156]

Parliament, which was to have assembled at Westminster in January, 1349, was at the beginning of the month prorogued, because, as the King says, "the plague of deadly pestilence had suddenly broken out in the said place and the neighbourhood, and daily increased in severity so that grave fears were entertained for the safety of those coming there at that time."[157] The churchyards of the city were quickly found to be insufficient, and two, if not three, cemeteries were opened. Of the one in Smithfield referred to in the quotation already given from Robert of Avesbury, the historian Stowe gives the following account:—"In the year 1348 (23 Edward III.) the first great pestilence in his time began, and increased so sore that from want of room in churchyards to bury the dead of the city and of the suburbs, one John Corey, clerk, procured of Nicholas, prior of the Holy Trinity within Aldgate, one toft of ground near unto East Smithfield for the burial of them that died, with condition that it might be called 'the churchyard of the Holy Trinity;' which ground he caused, by the aid of [p094] divers devout citizens, to be enclosed with a wall of stone. Robert Elsing, son of William Elsing, gave five pounds thereunto; and the same was dedicated by Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, where innumerable bodies of the dead were afterwards buried, and a chapel built in the same place, to the honour of God." Subsequently Edward III. founded there a monastery of Cistercian monks dedicated to our Lady of Graces.[158]

The same author also relates the establishment of the better-known new cemetery, where subsequently the Charterhouse was founded. "The churchyards," he writes of this time, "were not sufficient to receive the dead, but men were forced to choose out certain fields for burials. Whereupon Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, in the year 1348, bought a piece of ground, called 'No man's land,' which he enclosed with a wall of brick and dedicated for the burial of the dead, building thereupon a proper chapel, which is now (i.e., 1598) enlarged and made a dwelling-house; and this burying plot is become a fair garden, retaining the old name of 'Pardon Churchyard.'

"After this, in the year 1349, the said Sir Walter Manny, in respect of the danger that might befal in this time of so great a plague and infection, purchased thirteen acres and a rood of ground, adjoining to the said 'No man's land,' and lying in a place called 'Spittle Croft,' because it belonged to St. Bartholomew's Hospital (since that called 'New Church Haw'), and caused it to be consecrated by the said Bishop of London to the use of burials.

"In this plot of ground there were (in that year) more than 50,000 persons buried, as I have read in the Charters of Edward the Third.

"Also I have seen and read an inscription, fixed on a stone cross sometime standing in the same churchyard, and having these words: Anno Domini 1349. Regnante, &c. That is in English, 'A great plague raging in the year of [p095] our Lord 1349, this churchyard was consecrated; wherein, and within the bounds of the present monastery, were buried more than 50,000 bodies of the dead, besides many others from thence to the present time, whose souls God have mercy upon. Amen."[159]

Whilst it is perfectly possible, and even probable, that the number 50,000, named by Stowe as buried in one churchyard, is an exaggerated estimate, it is on the other hand more than likely that the pestilence found the sanitary condition of the London of that period very favourable for its rapid development. The narrow and ill-cleansed streets, the low, unventilated and undrained houses, and the general condition of living at the time would all favour the growth of so contagious a disease as that which visited the city in the middle of the fourteenth century. One slight glimpse of the state of the streets about this time is afforded in a document issued by the King to the Mayor and Sheriffs, when in 1361 a second visitation threatened to become as destructive to human life as that of 1349. "Because," says the royal letter, "by the killing of great beasts, from whose putrid blood running down the streets and the bowels cast into the Thames, the air in the city is very much corrupted and infected, whence abominable and most filthy stench proceeds, sickness and many other evils have happened to such as have abode in the said city, or have resorted to it; and great dangers are feared to fall out for the time to come, unless remedy be presently made against it; we, willing to prevent such dangers, ordain, by consent of the present Parliament, that all 'bulls, oxen, hogs, and other gross creatures' be killed at either Stratford or Knightsbridge."[160] [p096]

There are indeed many indications that the number of those who died in the city was very great.[161] The extraordinary increase in the number of wills proved in the "Court of Hustings" affords some indication of this. During the three previous years the average number in that Court was twenty-two. In 1349 they reached the number of 222; and the wills themselves afford further evidence of the rapidity with which members of the same family followed each other to the grave. In one instance a son, who was appointed executor to his father's will, died before probate could be obtained, and his own will was passed through the Court together with that of his father.[162] The number of probates granted in each month is some indication of the time when the mortality was highest. May, with a total of 121, and July, with 51, are the largest numbers, whilst it is curious to observe that the large number in May is accounted for by the fact that none were proved in April.[163] It may be surmised that this was brought about by the complete paralysis of all business about the month of April in consequence of the sickness; [p097] this view being strengthened by the fact that no Easter sittings of the Courts of Justices were held.

Westminster was grievously visited by the sickness. On March 10th, 1349, in proroguing the Parliament for the second time, the King declared that the plague had increased in Westminster and London more seriously than ever.[164] Some weeks later the great monastery was attacked; early in May abbot Bircheston died, and at the same time 27 of his monks were committed to a common grave in the southern walk of the cloister. To relieve the urgent necessities of the house and those about it jewels and other ornaments to the value of £315 13s. 8d.—a large sum in those days—were sold during the visitation out of the monastic treasury.[165]

At Westminster, too, the Hospital of St. James was left without inmates. "The then guardian and all the other brethren and sisters, except one," had died; and in May, 1349, William de Weston, the survivor, was appointed guardian. Charged with dilapidation, he was deposed in 1351, but in 1353 the house still remained without inmates.[166]

What happened at St. Albans has been recorded by Walsingham in the Gesta Abbatum. Speaking of...