Chapter XII (4)

[112] I give this account of the obvious characters of spurred rye from a recent observation of a growing crop of it.

[113] One of the greatest epidemics was in Westphalia and the Cologne district in 1596 and 1597. It fell to be described by two learned writers, Sennert and Horst, of whose accounts a summary is given by Short, _Air, weather, seasons, etc._ I. 275-285.

[114] Translated into the _Philosophical Transactions_, No. 130, vol. XII. p. 758 (14 Dec. 1676) from the _Journal des Sçavans_.

[115] _Studien über den Ergotismus_, Marburg, 1856.

[116] Simeon of Durham and Roger of Howden have the following, under the year 1048: “Mortalitas hominum et animalium multas occupavit Angliae provincias, et ignis aereus, vulgo dictus sylvaticus, in Deorbensi provincia et quibusdam aliis provinciis, villas et segetes multas ustulavit.”

[117] “Je crois qu’ils ont voulu indiquer l’ignis sacer ou de St Antoine, qui dans ces années et surtout 1044 sévit en France.” _Recherches de Pathologie Comparée_, vol. II. p. cxlviii.

[118] On the other hand, Short, in his _General Chronological History of the Air, Weather, Seasons, Meteors etc._ (2 vols. London, 1749) says that the epidemic of 1110 consisted of “especially an epidemic erysipelas, whereof many died, the parts being black and shrivelled up;” and that in 1128, “St Anthony’s fire was fatal to many in England.” He gives no authority in either case. But the one error is run to earth in a French entry of 1109, “membris instar carbonum nigrescentibus” (Sig. Gembl. auctar. p. 274, Migne); the other, most likely, in the _ignis_ around Chartres, 1128 (Stephen of Caen, Bouquet, xii. 780).

Perhaps this is the best place to express a general opinion on the work by Short, which is the only book of the kind in English previous to my own. It is everywhere uncritical and credulous, and often grossly inaccurate in dates, sometimes repeating the same epidemic under different years. It appears to have been compiled, for the earlier part, at least, from foreign sources, such as a Chronicle of Magdeburg, and to a large extent from a work by Colle de Belluno (fl. 1631). Many of the facts about English epidemics are given almost as in the original chronicles, but without reference to them. English experience of sickness is lost in the general chronology of epidemics for all Europe, and is dealt with in a purely verbalist manner. So far as this volume extends (1667) I have found Short’s book of no use, except now and then in calling my attention to something that I had overlooked. His other work, _New Observations on City, Town and County Bills of Mortality_ (London, 1750) shows the author to much greater advantage, and I have used his statistical tables for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

[119] The facts were communicated to the Royal Society by Charlton Wollaston, M.D., F.R.S., then resident in Suffolk, and by the Rev. James Bones. They were referred by Dr G. Baker to Tissot of Lausanne, who replied that they corresponded to typical gangrenous ergotism. See _Phil. Trans._ vol. LII. pt. 2 (1762) p. 523, p. 526, p. 529; and vol. LX. (1768) p. 106.

[120] An erroneous statement as to an epidemic of gangrenous ergotism, or of Kriebelkrankheit, in England in 1676, has somehow come to be current in German books. It has a place in the latest chronological table of ergotism epidemics, that of Hirsch in his _Handbuch der historisch-geographischen Pathologie_, vol. II. 1883 (Engl. Transl. II. p. 206), the reference being to Birch, _Philos. Transact._ This reference to ergotism in England in 1676 is given also in Th. O. Heusinger’s table (1856), where it appears in the form of “Schnurrer, nach Birch.” On turning to Schnurrer’s _Chronik der Seuchen_ (II. 210), the reference is found to be, “Birch, _Phil. Trans._ vols. XI. and XII.”; and coming at length to the _Philosophical Transactions_, it appears that vols. X., XI. and XII. are bound up together, that vol. XII. (1676) p. 758, contains an extract from the _Journal des Sçavans_ about ergot of rye in certain parts of France, and that there is nothing about ergotism in England in either vol. XI. or vol. XII. So far as concerns Dr Birch, he was secretary to the Royal Society in the next century.

[121] Knighton, _De Eventibus Angliae_ in Twysden, col. 2580: “In aestate scilicet anno Gratiae 1340 accidit quaedam execrabilis et enormis infirmitas in Anglia quasi communis, et praecipue in comitatu Leicestriae adeo quod durante passione homines emiserunt vocem latrabilem ac si esset latratus canum; et fuit quasi intolerabilis poena durante passione: ex inde fuit magna pestilentia hominum.”

[122] _Phil. Trans._ XXIII. p. 1174 (June 26, 1702).

[123] _Op. cit._ I. pt. 2, p. 366.

[124] _Phil. Trans._ XXII. (1700-1701), p. 799, a Letter in Latin from Joh. Freind dated Christ Church, Oxford, 31 March.

[125] The earliest religious hysterias of Sweden fall in the years 1668 to 1673, which do not correspond to years of ergotism in that country, although there was ergotism in France in 1670 and in Westphalia in 1672. The later Swedish psychopathies have been in 1841-2, 1854, 1858, and 1866-68, some of which years do correspond closely to periods of ergotism in Sweden.

[126] “Moriebantur etiam plures morbo litargiae, multis infortunia prophetantes; mulieres insuper decessere multae per fluxum, et erat communis pestis bestiarum.” Walsingham, _Hist. Angl._, _sub anno_; and in identical terms in the _Chronicon Angliae_ a Monacho Sancti Albani.

[127] “Magna et formidabilis pestilentia extemplo subsecuta est Cantabrigiae, qua homines subito, prout dicebatur, sospites, invasi mentis phrenesi moriebantur, sine viatico sive sensu.” Walsingham, _Hist. Angl._ II. 186. Under the same year, 1389, the continuator of Higden’s _Polychronicon_ (IX. 216) says that the king being in the south and “seeing some of his prostrated by sudden death, hastened to Windsor.”

[128] For example in the Sloane MS. 2420 (the treatise by Constantinus Africanus of Salerno), there are chapters “De Litargia,” “De Stupore Mentis,” and “De Phrenesi.”

[129] Th. O. Heusinger, _Studien über den Ergotismus_, Marburg, 1856, p. 35: “Es werden freilich in den Beschreibungen einiger früheren Epidemieen öfter typhöse Erscheinungen erwähnt; die Beschreiber behaupten aber auch dann meist die Contagiosität der Krankheit, und es liegt die Vermuthung nahe, dass die Krankheit dann eigentlich ein Typhus war, bei dem die Erscheinungen des Ergotismus ebenso constant vorkommen, wie sie sonst in vereinzelteren Fällen dem Typhus sich beigesellen” (cf. ‘Dorf Gossfelden,’ in Appendix).

[130] _History of Agriculture and Prices_, I. 27.

[131] “Sed in fructibus arborum suspicio multa fuit, eo quod per nebulas foetentes, exhalationes, aerisque varias corruptiones, ipsi fructus, puta poma, pyra, et hujusmodi sunt infecta; quorum esu multi mortales hoc anno [1383] vel pestem letalem vel graves morbos et infirmitates incurrerunt.” Walsingham, _Hist. Angl._ II. 109. The continuator of Higden records under the same year, in one place a “great pestilence in Kent which destroyed many, and spared no age or sex” (IX. 27), and on another page (IX. 21) a great epidemic in Norfolk, which attacked only the youth of either sex between the ages of seven and twenty-two!

[132] Walsingham, II. 203; Stow’s _Survey of London_, p. 133.

[133] The spelling, and a few whole words, have been altered from Skeat’s text, so as to make the meaning clear.

[134] Simpson, _Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ._ 1842, vol. LVII. p. 136.

[135] Ralph of Coggeshall (Rolls ed. p. 156) describes the death of Hubert on 13 July, 1205, but does not mention the name of his physician.

[136] Gilberti Anglici _Compendium Medicinae_, ed. Michael de Capella. Lugduni, 1512, Lib. VII. cap. “De Lepra,” pp. 337-345.

[137] Bernardi Gordonii _Lilium Medicinae_. Lugd. 1551, p. 88.

[138] _Compend. Med._ _Ed. cit._ p. 344.

[139] _Lilium Medicinae._ Lugd. 1551, p. 89.

[140] _Ibid._ p. 89.

[141] For fuller reference, see p. 103.

[142] _Philos. Trans. of Royal Society_, XXXI. 58: “Now in a true leprosy we never meet with the mention of any disorder in those parts, which, if there be not, must absolutely secure the person from having that disease communicated to him by coition with leprous women; but it proves there was a disease among them which was not the leprosy, although it went by that name; and that this could be no other than venereal because it was infectious.”

He then quotes from Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomew Glanvile, _De proprietatibus rerum_, passages which he thinks relate to syphilis, although they are obviously the distinctive signs of lepra taken almost verbatim from Gilbertus Anglicus. He implies that the later so-called leper-houses of London were really founded for syphilis when it became epidemic. In the will of Ralph Holland, merchant taylor, mention is made of three leper-houses, the Loke, Hackenay and St Giles beyond Holborn Bars, as if these were all that existed in the year 1452. But in the reign of Henry VIII. there were six of them besides St Giles’s,--Knightsbridge, Hammersmith, Highgate, Kingsland, the Lock, and Mile End; and these, says Beckett, were used for the treatment of the French pox, which became exceedingly common after 1494-6.

[143] Martin, _Histoire de France_, VII. 283.

[144] One of Gascoigne’s references was copied by Beckett (_Phil. Trans._ XXXI. 47), beginning: “Novi enim ego, Magister Thomas Gascoigne, licet indignus, sacrae theologiae doctor, qui haec scripsi et collegi, diversos viros, qui mortui fuerunt ex putrefactione membrorum suorum et corporis sui, quae corruptio et putrefactio causata fuit, ut ipsi dixerunt, per exercitium copulae carnalis cum mulieribus. Magnus enim dux in Anglia, scil. J. de Gaunt, mortuus est ex tali putrefactione membrorum genitalium et corporis sui, causata per frequentationem mulierum. Magnus enim fornicator fuit, ut in toto regno Angliae divulgabatur,” etc. In the _Loci e Libro Veritatum_, printed by Thorold Rogers (Oxford, 1881), the following consequences are mentioned: “Plures viri per actum libidinosum luxuriae habuerunt membra sua corrupta et penitus destructa, non solum virgam sed genitalia: et alii habuerunt membra sua per luxuriam corrupta ita quod cogebantur, propter poenam, caput virgae abscindere. Item homo Oxoniae scholaris, Morland nomine, mortuus fuit Oxoniae ex corruptione causata per actum luxuriae.” p. 136.

[145] _A most excellent and compendious method of curing woundes in the head and in other partes of the body; translated into English by John Read, Chirurgeon; with the exact cure of the Caruncle, treatise of the Fistulae in the fundament, out of Joh. Ardern, etc._ London, 1588.

[146] MS. Harl. 2378:--No. 86 is: “Take lynsed or lynyn clothe and brēne it & do ye pouder in a clout, and bynd it to ye sore pintel.” Also, “Take linsed and stamp it and a lytel oyle of olyf and a lytl milk of a cow of a color, and fry them togeder in a panne, and ley it about ye pyntel in a clout.” No. 87 is “for bolnyng of pyntel.” No. 88 is “For ye kank’ on a mānys pyntel.” On p. 103 is another “For ye bolnyng of a mānys yerde.... Bind it alle abouten ye yerde, and it salle suage.” On folio 19: “For ye nebbe yt semeth leprous ... iii dayes it shall be hole.” “For ye kanker” might have meant cancer or chancre. The prescriptions in Moulton’s _This is the Myrour or Glasse of Helth_ (? 1540) correspond closely with these in the above Harleian MS. The printed book gives one (cap. 63), “For a man that is Lepre, and it lake in his legges and go upwarde.” There is also a prescription for “morphewe.”

[147] Nicolas Massa, in Luisini.

[148] Freeman, _The Reign of William Rufus_. App. vol. II. p. 499.

[149] _L. c._ V. 679, “Episcopus Herefordensis polipo percutitur.--Episcopus Herefordensis turpissimo morbo videlicet morphea, Deo percutiente, merito deformatur, qui totum regnum Angliae proditiose dampnificavit;” and again V. 622.

[150] _Compend. Med._ _Ed. cit._ p. 170.

[151] _Lilium Med._ _Ed. cit._ p. 108.

[152] Brassac, Art. “Elephantiasis” (p. 465) in _Dict. Encycl. des Sciences Médicales_.

[153] _Rosa Anglica._ Papiae, 1492.

[154] That Baldwin IV.’s disease excited interest in him is clear from the reference of William of Newburgh, who calls him (p. 242) “princeps Christianus lepram corporis animi virtute exornans.”

[155] Chronicon de Lanercost (Bannatyne Club, p. 259): “Dominus autem Robertus de Brus, quia factus fuerat leprosus, illa vice [anno 1327] cum eis Angliam non intravit.” The rubric on folio 228 of the MS. has “leprosus moritur.”

[156] The original account is by Gascoigne, _Loci etc._ ed. Rogers, Oxon. p. 228.

[157] “Item matrimonium inter dominum regem et quandam nobilem mulierem nequiter impedivit, dum clanculo significavit eidem mulieri et suo generi, quod rex strabo et fatuus nequamque fuerat, et speciem leprae habere, fallaxque fuerat et perjurus, imbellis plusquam mulier, in suos tantum sacvientem, et prorsus inutilem complexibus alicujus ingenuae mulieris asserendo.” Matthew Paris, _Chron. Maj._, Rolls ed., III. 618-19.

[158] _Chronicon Angliae_ in Twysden, col. 2600.

[159] _Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker_, edited by E. Maunde Thompson. Oxford, 1889, p. 100.

[160] Professor Robertson Smith has kindly written for me the following note: “The later Jews were given to shorten proper names; and in the Talmud we find the shortening _La‘zar_ (with a guttural, which the Greeks could not pronounce, between the _a_ and the _z_), for Eliezer or Eleazar. Λάζαρος is simply _La‘zar_ with a Greek ending, and occurs, as a man’s name, not only in the New Testament but in Josephus (_B. Jud._ V. 13, 7). This was quite understood by early readers of the Gospels; the Syriac New Testament, translated from the Greek, restores the lost guttural, and uses the Syriac form, as employed in _1 Macc._ viii. 17 to render the Greek ’Ελάζαρος. Moreover the Latin and Greek _onomastica_ explain Lazarus as meaning ‘adjutus,’ which shows that they took it from (Hebrew) ‘to help’--the second element in the compound Eliezer. The etymology ‘adjutus’ (or the like) ‘helped by God,’ would no doubt powerfully assist in the choice of the designation lazars (for lepers). Suicer, in his _Thesaurus_, quotes a sermon of Theophanes, where it is suggested that every poor man who needs help from those who have means might be called a Lazarus.”

Hirsch (_Geog. and Hist. Path._ II. 3) says that the Arabic word for the falling sickness comes from the same root (meaning “thrown to the ground”) as the Hebrew word “sâraat,” which is the term translated “leprosy” in Leviticus xiii. and xiv. In Isaiah liii. 4, the Vulgate has “et nos putavimus eum quasi leprosum,” where the English Bible has “yet we did esteem him stricken.”

[161] Roger of Howden. Edited by Stubbs. Rolls series, No. 51, vol. I. p. 110. Aelred, the chief collector of the miraculous cures by Edward the Confessor, appears to have omitted this one.

[162] Ailredi Abbatis Rievallensis _Genealogia Regum Anglorum_. In Twysden’s _Decem Scriptores_, col. 368. “Cum, inquit [David], adolescens in curia regia [Anglica] servirem, nocte quadam in hospicio meo cum sociis meis nescio quid agens, ad thalamum reginae ab ipsa vocatus accessi. Et ecce domus plena leprosis, et regina in medio stans, deposito pallio, lintheo se precinxit, et posita in pelvi aqua, coepit lavare pedes eorum, et extergere, extersosque utrisque constringere manibus et devotissime osculari. Cui ego: ‘Quid agis,’ inquam, ‘O domina mea? Certe si rex sciret ista, nunquam dignaretur os tuum, leprosorum pedum tabe pollutum, suis labiis osculari.’ Et illa surridens ait: ‘Pedes,’ inquit, ‘Regis aeterni quis nescit labiis regis morituri esse praeferendos? Ecce, ego idcirco vocavi te, frater carissime, ut exemplo mei talia discas operari. Sumpta proinde pelvi, fac quod me facere intueris.’ Ad hanc vocem vehementer expavi, et nullo modo id me pati posse respondi. Necdum enim sciebam Dominum, nec revelatus fuerat mihi Spiritus ejus. Illa igitur coeptis insistente, ego--mea culpa--ridens ad socios remeavi.”

[163] _Vita S. Hugonis Lincolnensis._ Rolls series, 39, p. 163-4.

[164] The bishop left by his will 100 marks to be distributed “per domos leprosorum” in his diocese and a like sum “per domos hospitales,” and three marks each to the leper-houses at Selwood and outside Bath and Ilchester. _Hist. MSS. Commiss._ X. pt. 3, p. 186.

[165] _Monumenta Franciscana._ Rolls series, No. 4. Introd. by Brewer, p. xxiv.

[166] William of Malmesbury, _Gesta pontificum_, Rolls ed., p. 72.

[167] In 1574 it was found providing indoor relief for fifteen brethren and fifteen sisters, and outdoor relief for as many more.

[168] Roger of Wendover. Rolls ed. II. 265.

[169] In the MS. of Matthew Paris’s _Chronica Majora_ in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, No. 26 in the Parker Collection, p. 220. The late Rev. S. S. Lewis, fellow and librarian of the College, who most liberally had a fac-simile of the drawing made for me, would date it a little before 1250. (Rolls edition, by Luard, II. 144.)

[170] _Rotuli Chartarum_, 1199-1216. Charter of confirmation, 1204 (5 Joh.) p. 117 b.

[171] In the _Valor Ecclesiasticus_ of Henry VIII. its revenue is put at £100.

[172] The commanderies of the Knights of St Lazarus were numerous in every province of France. For an enumeration of them see _Les Lepreux et les Chevaliers de Saint Lazare de Jerusalem et de Notre Dame et de Mont Carmel_. Par Eugene Vignat, Orleans, 1884, pp. 315-364.

[173] _Joannis Sarisburiensis Opera omnia_, ed. Giles 1, 141 (letter to Josselin, bishop of Salisbury).

[174] “Vix seu raro inveniuntur tot leprosi volentes vitam ducere observantiis obligatam ad dictum hospitale concurrentes.” Walsingham, _Gesta Abbatum_, Rolls ed. II. 484.

[175] Matthew Paris, _Chron. Maj._ V. 452.

[176] Walsingham, _Gesta Abbatum_, II. 401.

[177] “The sisters of St James’s were bound by no vows, and at this period [1344] were not all, or even any of them, lepers; and in consequence a place in the hospital was much sought after by needy dependents of the Court.” Report on MSS. of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, in _Hist. MSS. Commission Reports_, IX. p. 87.

[178] Dugdale’s _History of Warwickshire_, p. 197.

[179] On Nov. 24, 1200, king John signed at Lincoln letters of simple protection to the _leprosi_ of St Bartholomew’s, Oxford (_Rot. Chart. 1199-1216_, p. 99).

[180] _Rotuli Hundredorum_, II. 359-60. The famous Stourbridge Fair originally grew out of a right of market-toll granted in aid of the leper-hospital.

[181] The decrees of the Third Lateran Council are given by several historians of the time, among others by William of Newburgh, pp. 206-223.

[182] Roger of Howden, Rolls edition, II. 265.

[183] William of Newburgh, Rolls edition, p. 437.

[184] See the various charters and memorials in Surtees’ _History of Durham_.

[185] Two of the larger houses for lepers not mentioned in the text were St Nicholas’s at Carlisle and the hospital at Bolton in Northumberland, each with thirteen beds.

[186] By collecting every reference to lepers or lazar-houses in Tanner’s _Notitia Monastica_ or in Dugdale’s _Monasticon_ Sir J. Y. Simpson has made out a table of some hundred leper-houses in Britain (_Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ._ 1841 and 1842). Simpson’s table has been added to by Miss Lambert in the _Nineteenth Century_, Aug.-Sept. 1884, by the Rev. H. P. Wright (_Leprosy_ etc. 1885), who says at the end of his long list: “There were hundreds more,” and by Mr R. C. Hope (_The Leper in England_, Scarborough, 1891), whose list runs to 172.

Perhaps the most remarkable development of that verbalist handling of the matter has been reserved for a recent medical writer, who has constructed, from the conventional list of leper-hospitals, a map of the _geographical distribution of leprosy_ in medieval Britain. (_British Medical Journal_, March 1, 1890, p. 466.)

[187] The Lock was doubtless the house of the “Leprosi apud Bermondsey” who are designated in the Royal Charter of 1 Hen. IV. (1399) as recipients, along with the _leprosi_ of Westminster (St James’s), of “five or six thousand pounds.” (_Rotuli Chartarum_, 1 Hen. IV.)

[188] Beckett, _Phil. Trans._, vol. 31, p. 60.

[189] Stow, _Survey of London_, ed. of 1890, p. 437.

[190] Beckett, _l. c._ The Knightsbridge house was earlier. See next note.

[191] _Survey of London_, pop. ed. p. 436. Bequests to lepers occur in various wills of London citizens, in Dr Sharpe’s _Calendar of Wills_, vol. II. Lond. 1890. In a will dated 21 April, 1349, the bequest is to “the poor lazars without Southwerkebarre and at Hakeney” (p. 3). On 1 July, 1371, another bequeaths money to “the three colleges of lepers near London, viz. at _le loke_, at St Giles de Holbourne, and at Hakeney” (p. 147). On 7 April, 1396, bequests are made to “the lepers at le loke near Seynt Georges barre, of St Giles without Holbournebarre, and le meselcotes de Haconey” (p. 341). The “lazar house at Knyghtbrigge” appears, for the first time, in a will dated 21 Feb. 1485, along with “the sick people in the lazercotes next about London” (p. 589).

[192] _Accounts of the Lord High-Treasurer of Scotland._ Rolls series I. 1473-1498, pp. 337, 356, 361, 378, 386.

[193] These are all the so-called “medieval leper-hospitals” collected by Belcher (_Dubl. Quart. Journ. of Med. Sc._ 1868, August, p. 36) chiefly from Archdall’s _Monasticon Hibernicum_. He points out that the very early references to leprosy in the _Annals of the Four Masters_ included various kinds of cutaneous maladies.

[194] _Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis._ Rolls series, 1886, p. 157. The chronicler has nothing farther to say as to the cause of the leprosy, than the opinion of “a certain philosopher,” that whatever turns us from health to the vices of disease acts by the weight of too much blood, by superfluous heat, by humours exuding in excess, or by the spirits flowing with unwonted laxity through silent passages.

[195] Eadmer, _Vita S. Anselmi_, Rolls edit., p. 355.

[196] Walsingham, _Gesta Abbatum_, Rolls edit. II. Appendix C. p. 503.

[197] Brassac, Art. “Éléphantiasis,” in _Dict. Encycl. des Sc. Méd._ p. 475, says: “Il y avait aussi des vagabonds et des paresseux qui, sans nulle crainte de la contagion, et désireux de vivre sans rien faire, simulaient la lèpre pour être admis aux léproseries. On y trouvait encore des personnes qui s’imposaient une réclusion perpétuelle pour vivre avec les lépreux et faire leur salut par une vie de soumission aux règles de l’Église.”

[198] The ordinance is translated in full from the City archives by H. T. Riley, _London in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries_, pp. 230-231. The following is the preamble of it:--

“Edward, by the grace of God, etc. Forasmuch as we have been given to understand that many persons, as well of the city aforesaid as others coming to the said city, being smitten with the blemish of leprosy, do publicly dwell among the other citizens and sound persons, and there continually abide and do not hesitate to communicate with them, as well in public places as in private; and that some of them, endeavouring to contaminate others with that abominable blemish (that so, to their own wretched solace, they may have the more fellows in suffering,) as well in the way of mutual communications, and by the contagion of their polluted breath, as by carnal intercourse with women in stews and other secret places, detestably frequenting the same, do so taint persons who are sound, both male and female, to the great injury of the people dwelling in the city aforesaid, and the manifest peril of other persons to the same city resorting:--We” etc.

[199] Riley, p. 384.

[200] _Dialogue of the Fever Pestilence._ Early Eng. Text Soc.

[201] Riley, p. 365.

[202] Rymer’s _Foedera_, v. pt. 2, p. 166.

[203] Wharton’s _Anglia Sacra_, 11. Praef. p. 32.

[204] The expression “leprosa Sodomorum” occurs in a Latin poem from a medieval MS. found in Switzerland. The verses are printed in full by Hensler, _Geschichte der Lustseuche_, p. 307.

[205] These and other particulars relating to lepers in Scotland are given in Simpson’s _Antiquarian Notices of Leprosy in Scotland and England_ (_Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ._ Oct. 1841, Jan. and April 1842), a series of excellent papers which have been for many years the source of most that has been written of medieval leprosy in this country.

[206] Letter to Barrington, 8 January, 1778.

[207] These numbers seem to stand for the contents of the larders in all the various manors of De Spenser.

[208] Mr Jonathan Hutchinson has been adding, year after year, to the evidence that semi-putrid fish, eaten in that state by preference or of necessity, is the chief cause of modern leprosy, and he has successfully met many of the apparent exceptions. Norway has had leprosy in some provinces for centuries; and it is significant that William of Malmesbury, referring to those who went on the first Crusade, says: “Scotus familiaritatem pulicum reliquit, Noricus cruditatem piscium.” (_Gesta Regum_, Eng. Hist. Soc. II. 533.)

[209] In his section _De preservatione a lepra_ (p. 345) Gilbert advises to avoid, among other things, all salted fish and meat, and dried bacon.

[210] Acts of Robert III. in the _Regiam Majestatem_, p. 414 (quoted by Simpson, _Ed. Med. and Surg. Journ._ vol. 57, p. 416).

[211] Dr Gilbert Skene, of Aberdeen, and afterwards of Edinburgh, in his book on the plague (1568), has an incidental remark about “evil and corrupt meats” which may be taken in a literal sense: “As we see dailie the pure man subject to sic calamitie nor the potent, quha are constrynit be povertie to eit evill and corrupte meittis, and diseis is contractit, heir of us callit pandemiall.” (Bannatyne Club edition, p. 6.)

[212] Higden’s _Polychronicon_. Edited for the Rolls series by Babington and Lumby, vol. VIII.

[213] _The Annals of Ireland._ By Friar John Clyn, of the Convent of Friars Minor, Kilkenny, and Thady Dowling, Chancellor of Leighlin. Edited from the MSS. etc. by R. Butler, Dean of Clonmacnois. Dublin, 1849 (Irish Archæological Society). The last entry by Clyn himself appears to be the words “magna karistia” etc., under 1349. There is added “Videtur quod author hic obiit;” and then two entries of pestilence made in 1375 in another hand.

[214] Henricus de Knighton, _Chronicon Angliae_, in Twysden’s _Decem Script. Angl._ col. 2598 _et seq._ An edition of Knighton’s _Chronicle_, by Lumby, is in progress for the Rolls series.

[215] _Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker._ Edited by E. Maunde Thompson, Oxford, 1889.

[216] Robertus de Avesbury, _Historia de Mirabilibus Gestis Regis Ed. III._, Oxon. 1720. Also in the Rolls series. Edited by E. Maunde Thompson.

[217] _Eulogium Historiarum._ Rolls series, No. 9. Edited by Haydon, III. 213.

[218] _Itineraria Symonis Simeonis et Willelmi de Worcestre._ Edited by Nasmith from the MSS. in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Cantab. 1778, p. 113: “parum ante nativitatem Domini intravit villam Bodminiae, ubi mortui fuerunt circa mille quingentos per estimacionem.”

[219] Histor. MSS. Commission, vi. 475.

[220] Wilkins, _Concilia_ II. 745: “Contagium pestilentiae moderni temporis undique se dilatans etc.”

[221] Rymer’s _Foedera_, V. 655:--“Quia tamen subita plaga Pestilentiae Mortalis in loco praedicto et aliis partibus circumvicinis adeo indies invalescit, quod de securo accessu Hominum ad locum illum formidatur admodum hiis diebus.”

[222] _Ibid._--“Et quia dicta Pestilentia Mortalis in dicto loco Westmonasteriensi ac in civitate Londoniae, ac alis locis circumvicinis, gravius solito invalescit (quod dolenter referimus) per quod accessus Magnatum et aliorum nostrorum Fidelium ad dictum locum nimis periculosus foret,” &c. This second prorogation was _sine die_.

[223] _Calendar of Wills_ (Husting Court, London), ed. Sharpe, Lond. 1889, I. 506-624.

[224] Clyn. But his account for Kilkenny, where he lived, makes the epidemic either earlier or later there than at Dublin: “Ista pestilencia apud Kilkenniam in XL{a} invaluit; nam VIto die Marcii viii fratres predicatores infra diem Natalem obierunt,” the Lent referred to being either that of 1349 or of 1350. The difficulty about assigning the landing of the infection near Dublin in the beginning of August to the year 1348 is that the English importation had only then taken place. But of course Ireland may have got it direct from abroad.

[225] _Op. cit._ p. 98: “Torserunt illos apostemata e diversis partibus corporis subito irrumpencia, tam dura et sicca quod ab illis decisis vix liquor emanavit; a quibus multi per incisionem aut per longam pacienciam evaserunt. Alii habuerunt pustulos parvos nigros per totam corporis cutem conspersos, a quibus paucissimi, immo vix aliquis, vitæ et sanitati resilierunt.”

[226] “Nam multi ex anthrace et ex apostematibus, et pustulis quae creverunt in tibiis et sub asellis, alii ex passione capitis, et quasi in frenesim versi, alii spuendo sanguinem, moriebantur,” p. 36.

[227] _A Treatise faithfully and plainely declaring the way of preventing, preserving from and curing that most fearfull I and contagious disease called the Plague. With the Pestilential Feaver and other the fearful symptomes and accidents incident thereto._ By John Woodall, surgeon to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, &c. London, 1639.

[228] Robertus de Avesbury, Rolls ed., p. 177.

[229] _Eulogium Historiarum._ Rolls ser. No. 9, III. 213.

[230] Rymer’s _Foedera_, V. 668.

[231] “Pro quorum defectu [referring to the fugitive villeins] mulieres et parvuli invise missi sunt ad carucas et ad plaustra fuganda.” _Eulogium._ Rolls ed. III. 214.

[232] Nichols, _History Of Leicestershire_, I. 534.

[233] Nichols, _l. c._

[234] For a series of years the burials in the St Martin’s register are as follow:

1610 82
1611 128
1612 39
1613 25
1614 34
1615 60
1616 41
1617 31
1618 37
1619 28
1620 25
1621 43
1622 27
1623 37
1624 24.

[235] _History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford._ Ed. Gutch I. 449. He says also: “The school doors were shut, colleges and halls relinquished, and none scarce left to keep possession or make up a competent number to bury the dead.” The rest of his account of the Black Death is copied from Le Baker’s Chronicle of Osney.

[236] _Itinerarium_, _l. c._

[237] Stow’s _Survey_. “Portsoken Ward.”

[238] “Lying without the walls on the north part of the city between the land of the abbot of Westminster and the prior of St John of Jerusalem.” French Chronicle of London (p. 56), as quoted by Stubbs, in preface (p. lxxxi) to _Annales Londonienses_, Rolls series, No. 76.

[239] Robertus de Avesbury, _Historia Edwardi III._ Rolls ed. p. 407. “Quotidie multos vita privavit, et in tantum excrevit quod a festo Purificationis usque post Pascha, in novo tunc facto cimiterio juxta Smithfeld plus quam cc corpora defunctorum, praeter corpora quae in aliis cimiteriis civitatis ejusdem sepeliebantur, quasi diebus singulis sepulta fuerunt.... In festo Pentecostes cessavit Londoniis.”

[240] Stow’s _Memoranda_. Camden Soc., 1880.

[241] Camden’s _Britannia_, ed. Gough, II. 9.

[242] Rickman, _Abstract of the Population Returns of 1831_. London, 1832. Introduction, p. 11.

[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, 4585. (_Hist. MSS. Commission_, V. 444.)

[278] The author of the _Eulogium_, who wrote not later than 1367, and is for his own period an authority like Knighton, gives the following prices: wheat, 12 pence a quarter, barley 9 pence, beans 8 pence; a good horse 16 shillings (used to be 40 sh.), a large ox 40 pence, a good cow 2 sh. or 18 pence. Of the scarcity of servants he says: “Pro quorum defectu mulieres et parvuli invise missi sunt ad carucas et ad plaustra fuganda.”

[279] “The English Manor;” two articles in the _Saturday Review_, 9th and 16th Jan. 1886, p. 82 [by Professor Sir Frederick Pollock], the sources of information being as yet unpublished. He says: “The prospect of better terms brought in new tenants.”

[280] Stubbs, _Constitutional History of England_, 1875, II. 434. Höniger, dealing with the German evidence of the Black Death, concludes that the great mortality was almost without significance for the political course of affairs; that the great loss of life was unable to check the revival of trade and industry which had already begun or to retard the splendid development of the German free towns; that the low state of morals belonged to the period and was no worse after the epidemic than before; that no new impulse was given or point of view brought out, unless, perhaps, the idea of sanitary regulation; and that the scarcity of labour was merely an incident to be taken advantage of in the struggle against the existing order which was already going on. (_Der schwarze Tod in Deutschland._ Berlin, 1882, p. 133.)

[281] Richter, _Geschichte der Medicin in Russland_, I. 215.

[282] _Histoire des Huns_, V. 223-4.

[283] _Ib._ p. 226, note.

[284] _Der schwarze Tod im vierzehnten Jahrhundert_, Berlin, 1832. Engl. Transl. by Babington, Lond. 1833. This well-known work presents the more picturesque aspects of the Black Death in various countries, without thoroughness for any. England has a large space in the book; but the author has not gone for his information farther than the chapter on the Black Death in Barnes’s _Life of Edward III._

[285] Printed in Häser’s _Archiv für die gesammte Medicin_, 1842, II. pp. 26-59; and reprinted in his _Geschichte der Med. u. epid. Krankheiten_, III. 157, 3d ed., Jena, 1882.

[286] _Geschichte der Medicin_, Bd. III. “Epidemische Krankheiten.” Jena, 1882, p. 139. He gives point to this phrase by an account of the local plagues of recent times in Gujerat and Kumaon.

[287] His essay is one of the Escurial MSS., and has been printed, with a German translation, by M. H. Müller, in the _Sitzungsberichte der Münchener Akad. der Wissensch_. 1863.

[288] _Voyages d’Ibn Batoutah_ in 4 vols., for the Société Asiatique, Paris, 1853, I. 227-9, and IV. 309.

[289] See Sir Henry Yule’s _Cathay and the Way Thither_ (2 vols. Hakluyt Society) and his edition of _The Book of Marco Polo_, for numerous particulars of the overland trade to China by the northern parallels, in the 14th century.

[290] The stages, distances, expenses, &c. from Tana to Peking are given in Pegolotti’s mercantile handbook (written about 1340), in Yule’s _Cathay and the Way Thither_, vol. II.

[291] C. A. Gordon, M.D. in _Reports of Med. Officers to the Imperial Maritime Customs of China_, London, 1884.

[292] Gaubil, _Histoire de Gentchiscan_, Paris, 1739.

[293] _The Famine in China_, London, 1878--a translation of a Chinese appeal for charity, with illustrations.

[294] Parliamentary Papers, 1878, China, No. 4.

[295] In Yule’s _Cathay and the Way Thither_ (Hakluyt Society), I. 156.

[296] Etienne Pariset, _Causes de la Peste_. Paris, 1837.

[297] Volney, _Voyages en Syrie et en Egypte_. Paris, 1792.

[298] Cornelius de Pauw, _Philosophical Reflections on the Egyptians and Chinese_, Engl. Transl. Lond. 1795, 2 vols.

[299] It is noteworthy that Herodotus represents the question of disposal of the dead as having been raised by the Egyptians: they decided in favour of embalming and rock entombment, as against cremation or burial, the reason given for the preference being that fire was “a savage beast,” in the one case, while in the other case, the devouring beast was the worm. Bk. III. § 16.

[300] Curiously enough it was among the Christians of Egypt that the controversy as to the _corruptibles_ and the _incorruptibles_ raged most furiously. See Gibbon.

[301] Clot Bey, _Peste en Egypte_. Paris, 1840.

[302] Benoit de Maillet, _Description de l’Egypte_. Paris, 1735, p. 281. See also Wilkinson, _Ancient Egyptians_, III. 456, 465.

[303] Justus Doolittle, _Social Life of the Chinese_, 2 vols. New York, 1867, I. 33, 198, 213.

[304] T. T. Cooper, _Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce_, Lond. 1871, p. 23, 33.

[305] This is one of the remarks in Dr Gilbert Skene’s treatise on the Plague, Edinburgh, 1568 (reprinted for the Bannatyne Club, 1840):--Among the causes are “deid cariounis unbureit, in speciale of mankynd, quhilkis be similitude of nature is maist nocent to man, as everie brutall is maist infectand and pestilentiall to thair awin kynd,” p. 6.

[306] A. von Kremer, “Ueber die grossen Seuchen des Orients nach arabischen Quellen.” _Sitzungsber. der Wien. Akad._, Philos.-histor. Classe, Bd. 96 (1880), p. 69.

[307] Ch. M. Doughty, _Travels in Arabia Deserta_, 2 vols. Cambridge, 1888.

[308] Communicated to Herr von Kremer (_l. c._) by Nury Effendi, who visited Assir, and wrote a report preserved in MS. in the Archives at Constantinople.

[309] “Report regarding Mahamurree in Kumaon and Garhwal in 1851-52.” By F. Pearson and Mookerjee. Agra, 1852 (Extracts in _Ind. Annals of Med. Sc._, I. 358). Also extracts (_Ib._) from Renny’s Report, 1851.

[310] Planck, _Ninth Report of the Sanitary Commissioner, N. W. Prov._ Allahabad, 1877, pp. 40-95. (Extracts, p. 39, of _Papers relating to the Plague, Parl. Papers_, 1879.)

[311] Baber, in _Parliamentary Papers_, 1878, “China.” No. 6. Rocher (_Province Chinoise de Yun-nan_) quoted, without the reference, in _Med. Reports of Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs_, No. 15, 1878, Shanghai, p. 25.

[312] J. H. Lowry, _Med. Rep. Chinese Mar. Customs_, No. 24, 1882, p. 27.

[313] D. J. Macgowan, _Ib._ 1882. Report for Wenchow.

[314] Thomas Whyte, “Report on the Disease which prevailed in Kattywar, etc. in 1819-20.” _Trans. Med. Phys. Soc. Bombay_, I. 155. Bombay, 1838.

[315] I have curtailed the evidence from Gujerat; it will be found at large in the following writers: Gilder, _Bombay Med. Trans._ I. 193; McAdam, _ib._ 183; F. Forbes, _ib._ II. |I, and Thesis on Plague, Edin. 1840; Glen, _Quart. Journ. Cal. Med. Soc._ I. 433; Ranken, _Report on Pali Plague_, Calcutta, 1838; and Whyte, as above.

[316] L. Arnaud, _Peste de Benghazi_, Constantinople, 1875; _Essai sur la Peste_, Paris, 1888; _Une Mission pour la Peste_, Paris, 1888.

[317] T. Farquhar, M.D., “Typhus Fever in the Eusofzai,” _Ind. Annals of Med. Sc._ II. 504; R. Lyell, M.D., “Fever of the Yusufzai Valley,” _Ib._ II. p. 16.

[318] Surgeon-General J. Murray, M.D., at Epidemiological Society, 11 May, 1878. _Med. Times and Gaz._ I. 1878, p. 597.

[319] Alex. Rittmann, _Chronik der Pest._ Brünn, 1879.

[320] Thomas Lodge, _Treatise of the Plague_, Lond. 1603, chap. III. Skene, in his Edinburgh essay on plague in 1568, gives as a sign of impending plague the moles and “serpents” leaving their holes: “As when the moudewart and serpent leavis the eird, beand molestit be the vapore contenit within the bowells of the samin.” He adds what agrees still farther with modern experience in Yun-nan: “If the domesticall fowls become pestilential, it is ane signe of maist dangerous pest to follow.” (Bannatyne Club ed. p. 9).

[321] The writer of the article “Peste” in the _Dict. Encycl. des Sc. Med._, Dr Mahé, inclines on the whole to the view that the poison of plague is somehow related to cadaveric products: “Parmi ces accusations d’insalubrité publique, il en est une qui repose sur un objectif plus positif en apparance” viz. the “miasme des cadavres.”

[322] Sir Tobie Matthews’ _Letters_. Lond. 1660, p. 110.

[323] _Epist. de rebus familiar._ Lib. viii. epist. 7. The citation of these contemporary illustrations of the Black Death was begun in the last century by Sprengel (_Beiträge_, &c., p. 37).

[324] _Foedera_, III. 184; it was renewed on 30th June for a year longer.

[325] Avesbury.

[326] _Foedera_, III. 192.

[327] _Ib._ 193.

[328] _Ib._ 200, 201.

[329] Le Baker’s _Chronicle of Osney_. Avesbury.

[330] _Foedera_, III. 221.

[331] Avesbury, Rolls ed. 425.

[332] Blomefield (_Hist. of Norfolk_, III.) says that the writ to Norwich in 1355 was for 120 men-at-arms to be sent to Portsmouth by Sunday in mid-Lent.

[333] Avesbury, pp. 427-8.

[334] _Ib._ p. 425.

[335] _Ib._ p. 461.

[336] Avesbury, p. 431.

[337] Thorold Rogers, _Hist. of Agric. and Prices_, I. 367, “according to an account quoted by Misselden in his _Circle of Commerce_.” The sack of wool contained 52 cloves of 7 lbs. each, or 364 lbs. It appears from a statute of 5 Ric. II. that 240 wool-fells were equivalent, for duty, to one sack of wool. In Rogers’ tables, the wool-fell is usually priced at about the value of 1½ lbs. of wool, which was at the same time about the average clip of a sheep. The present average clip would be at least four times as much. The colonial bale of wool is of the same weight as the medieval sack, but would represent 40 to 60 fleeces, instead of about 240. At the smallest of the estimates in the text, the wool of 7,680,000 sheep would have been exported in a year. Avesbury’s estimate would mean an annual export to foreign countries of the clip of about 24,000,000 sheep. The average price of a sack of wool just before the Black Death was about £4 in money of the time; the period immediately following the plague was one of low prices; but from 1364 to 1380, the price was uniformly high.

[338] _Foedera_, III. 186.

[339] _Ib._ III. 191.

[340] Jessopp (_l. c._) giving a general reference to the _Foedera_, and probably having the Sandwich letter in view, says there was “mad, unreasoning, insensate panic among well-to-do classes--the trader and the moneyed man, the _bourgeoisie_ of the towns,” and “a stampede,” (presumably to foreign parts). But the mortality was all over by 1st December, 1349; and the exodus, whatever motive it may have had, was almost certainly deliberate.

[341] _Foedera_, III. 198.

[342] The last clause of the ordinance implies that not only the labourers but also the employers of labour were taking the natural advantage of the situation. There appears to be some particular evidence of this for Bristol (Rev. W. Hunt, _Bristol_, p. 77): the masters in various crafts and trades were so reduced in numbers that the survivors could charge what they pleased. Thus, the attempt to coerce labourers and skilled workmen was a one-sided affair; although, in practice, it related mostly to farm-labour, where the one-sidedness did not appear.

[343] _Foedera_, III. 210.

[344] _Rot. Parl._ II. 225.

[345] This was the first parliamentary Statute of Labourers (25 Ed. III. cap 2). The king’s ordinance of 18th June, 1350 (re-issued for Suffolk and Lindsey on 18th Nov.), is usually reckoned the first Statute of Labourers, and is invariably assigned to the 23rd year of Edward III., being so entered in the _Statutes of the Realm_. It is clear, however, from the text of the ordinance in the _Foedera_ that it belongs to the 24th of Edward III., its exact date being 18th June, 1350. Longman, in his _History of the Life and Times of Edward III._, correctly states in one place (I. 309) that the ordinance of 18th June, 1350, was “the first step,” but on the very next page, after stating that the ordinance failed, he proceeds, according to the usual chronology of 23 Ed. III. and 25 Ed. III., to say that “therefore, two years afterwards,” the statute of 25 Ed. III. was made in Parliament. The interval was only some eight months.

[346] _Rot. Parl._ II. 234.

[347] Knighton, in Twysden’s _Decem Scriptores_, _l. c._

[348] Seebohm, _The English Village Community_. Chapter I.

[349] The Statute of Labourers was re-enacted with increased stringency six years after (31 Ed. III.), and again in 1360 and 1368. All the labour statutes were confirmed in the 12th year of Richard II. (cap. 34). Legislative attempts of the same kind continued to be made as late as the 5th of Elizabeth (1562-3), with particular reference to sturdy beggars. See copious extracts from the Statutes in Sir George Nicholls’s _History of the English Poor Law_, vol. I. Lond. 1854. “An Act for regulating Journeymen Tailors” was made in 7 Geo. I. (cap. 13).

[350] “There is no trace of the villenage described in Glanville and Bracton, among the tenants of a manor 500 years ago. All customary services were commutable for money payments; all villein tenants were secure in the possession of their lands; and the only distinction between socage and villein occupation lay in the liberation of the former from certain degrading incidents which affected the latter.” Thorold Rogers, “Effects of the Black Death, &c.” _Fort. Rev._ III. (1865) p. 196.

[351] Seebohm, _The English Village Community_. Lond. 1882. Chapter I.

[352] Seebohm, p. 31. Such attempts by landowners, to go back to personal service from their villein tenants, appear to have become more systematic in the generation following, and to have been a cause of the Peasants’ Rebellion in 1381. See v. Oschenkowski, _England’s wirthschaftliche Entwickelung_, Jena, 1879, confirming the opinion of Thorold Rogers.

[353] Smith, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, p. 128: “in 24 Edward III.” (Cited by Denton, _England in the 15th Century_.)

[354] Morant, _Hist. of Essex_.

[355] Niebuhr, _Lectures on Ancient History_. Engl. transl. London, 1852, II., p. 53.

[356] _Eulogium Historiarum._ Rolls ed. III. 230.

[357] _Loci e Libro Veritatum_, ed. Rogers. Oxon. 1880, p. 202; and, from Gascoigne’s MS., in Anthony Wood, _Hist. and Antiq. Univ. Oxford_, Ed. Gutch, I. 451: “What I shall farther observe is that before it began there were but few complaints among the people, and few pleas; as also few Legists in England, and very few at Oxford.”

[358] _Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, sub anno 1361.

[359] Owen and Blakeway, _op. cit._ I. 165.

[360] Clarkson’s _History of Richmond_. Richmond, 1821 (authority not quoted).

[361] Hailstone, _History of Bottisham and the Priory of Anglesey_. Camb. 1873. (Transact. Camb. Antiq. Soc. 8vo. series, vol. XIV.)

[362] Cited by Jessopp, _l. c._

[363] See p. 141.

[364] Clutterbuck, _History of Hertfordshire_.

[365] Seebohm, for the Manor of Winslow, _op. cit._, p. 34.

[366] Thorold Rogers, _Fort. Rev._ III. (1865), p. 196. In his _History of Agriculture and Prices_, IV., the same learned and sagacious student of English developments thus sums up the agrarian consequences of the Black Death:--“The indirect effects of this great event were even more remarkable. The great landowner ceases to carry on agriculture with his own capital, and farmers’ rents of a fixed and almost invariable amount take the place of the lord’s cultivation by bailiffs. Attempts were made for varying periods of time to continue the old system, especially by corporations. It is possible that the system of stock and land leasing, which became very general after the change commenced, may have been suggested by the hope that the old state of things might be restored.... In the end all the great landowners conformed to the inevitable change, and let their land on short leases, and as a rule at low and almost fixed rents, to capitalist farmers.”

[367] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._, I. 376.

[368] _Rot. Parl._, II. 260. a.