A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



ordered processions or litanies throughout the province/ By the summer of 

 1349 the plague was raging throughout all parts of England. It was at its 

 worst in Northamptonshire from May to October in that year. Of the 

 beneficed clergy 148 died,' though the benefices subject to episcopal institu- 

 tion numbered only 281. The number of deaths would be far larger among 

 the unbeneficed, particularly among the monks and friars. The clergy of the 

 county town, where the plague was fiercest in October, suffered terribly. 

 Out of the nine parochial benefices of Northampton, seven were rendered 

 vacant, the vicarage of All Saints' being twice emptied. 



A very striking instance of the effect of the Black Death upon the 

 religious houses of the county is afforded by the abbey of Peterborough. In 

 the custumal of that house it is stated that the number of the monks at the 

 time of the great mortality was sixty-four, but that the deaths of that period 

 reduced it to thirty-two, and that it was found impossible to observe the 

 accustomed rota of services.' The priory of LuiSeld is said to have lost all 

 its monks and novices as well as the prior. There perished also the prior of 

 Canons Ashby ; the masters of the following hospitals : that of SS. John and 

 James at Brackley, that of St. John Baptist at Armston, and that of SS. John 

 and John Baptist at Northampton ; and the superiors of the nunneries of 

 Delapre, Rothwell, Sewardsley, Catesby, and Wothorpe. Wothorpe never 

 recovered from the effects of the pestilence. On the petition of its patron, it 

 was in 1354 united to the neighbouring convent of Stamford St. Michael, the 

 royal licence stating that the house was ' by the late pestilence reduced to 

 such poverty that all the nuns, save one, had in consequence dispersed. ' * 



The effect of the Black Death upon religious and other architecture, and 

 upon social life in general, is dealt with elsewhere : suffice it here to say a 

 word or two about the effect upon ecclesiastical life in particular. Knighton, 

 a canon of St. Mary's, Leicester, who thus lived in Lincoln diocese, and close 

 to the border of Northamptonshire, and who wrote shortly after the cessation 

 of the epidemic, thus sums up the situation : — 



At that time there was everywhere such a dearth of priests that many churches were 

 left without the divine offices, mass, matins, vespers, sacraments, and sacramentals. One 

 could hardly get a chaplain to serve a church for less than ;^io, or lO marks. And whereas 

 before the pestilence, when there were plenty of priests, anyone could get a chaplain for 5 or 

 even 4 marks, or for 2 marks and his board, at this time there was hardly a soul who would 

 accept a vicarage for ;^20, or 20 marks. In a short time after, however, a large number of 

 those whose wives had died in the pestilence came up to receive orders. Of these many 

 were illiterate and mere laics, except in so far as they knew in a way how to read, although 

 they did not understand what they read.° 



The lists of ordinations from the Lincoln episcopal registers fully confirm 

 some of Knighton's statements as to the after results, though the considerable 



' F. A. Gasquet, The Great Pestilence, 71-4. 



' This estimate is formed from the Lincoln Episcopal Register, compared with the Patent Rolls, where 

 the presentations to benefices in the king's gift are recorded. In seventeen cases there were two or more 

 changes during the year. It cannot of course be positively stated that in every case the vacancy was through 

 death by the plague, but this must be true of the enormous majority of cases. The institutions of the arch- 

 deaconry of Northampton, which included Rutland, were 32 in 1348, 183 in 1349, and 46 in 1350. 



' Lambeth MSS. 198^ and 198^. This MS. is not paged. 



* Pat. 28 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 16. See also Gasquet, op. cit. 1 37-8. 



' For Knighton's account of the plague and its after results, and of the action of the bishop of Lincoln 

 see his Chronicle (RoUs Ser.), ii, 58-65. For the wording of the above translation the writer is indebted to 

 Abbot Gasquet (op. cit. 205-6). 



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