II 



THE GREAT PLAGUE AND ITS RESULTS 



To many writers the Great Plague, which visited England 

 in 1348 and of which there was more than one outbreak, 

 serves as the turning-point in the social and economic con- 

 dition of England, as a sort of cataclysm the effects of 

 which were never undone. That this should be so is not 

 to be wondered at. For although the East has suffered such 

 catastrophes both before and after, Western Europe, it may 

 be safely said, has never before or after undergone such 

 an awful experience. The way in which it struck con- 

 temporaries may be gathered from the following account, 

 written probably by a monk shortly after. 1 



' In the year of the Lord 1348 and in the month of 

 August there began the deadly pestilence in England, 

 which three years previously had commenced in India and 

 then had spread through all Asia and Africa, and coming 

 into Europe had depopulated Greece, Italy, Provence, 

 Burgundy, Spain, Aquitaine, Ireland, France with its 

 subject provinces (he omits Germany and Scandinavia), 

 and at length England and Wales, so far at least as to the 

 general mass of citizens and rustic folk and poor but not 

 princes and nobles. 2 So much so that very many country 

 *owns and innumerable cities are left altogether without 

 nhabitants. The churches or cemeteries, before consecrated, 



1 Cf. Gasquet, The Black Death, p. 187. 



2 The good monk is certainly wrong here, though it is true that 

 he lower classes suffered most. For instance, Joan, the wife of the 

 Hack Prince, the Duke of Lancaster, and two archbishops of Canter- 

 >ury were among the victims. 



JOHNSON fi 



