A CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF DORCHESTER. 129 



It appeared first in the East in 1346, crossed to Italy in 1348, 

 overspread France and Spain in the same year, and then appeared 

 on the coast of Dorset. Weymouth was a very likely place to 

 receive the plague. There was a great deal of communication in 

 olden times between Weymouth, France, and Spain. When the 

 pilgrimages to the shrine of S. Jago de Compostella in the 

 North-West of Spain were set on foot, several Weymouth vessels 

 received licences to convey pilgrims for the shrine. In 1428 one 

 of the largest vessels that sailed for that country embarked 

 120 pilgrims from Weymouth. It is a matter of history how 

 Queen Margaret of Anjou in 1471, Philip King of Castile in 

 1505, and other important personages landed there. It is not 

 surprising, therefore, that persons flying before the dreaded 

 visitation which was advancing so rapidly on the Continent should 

 avail themselves of this line of communication with England, 

 and should bring the deadly disease to the coasts of Dorset. 



Its appearance next in Devonshire, and immediately after in 

 London and elsewhere, seems to suggest that the fugitives 

 followed the road to Dorchester, carrying the plague with them, 

 and then branching off, some along the old Via Iceniana to 

 Exeter, thus infecting Devonshire, others to London and other 

 parts of the country, so spreading the plague over the whole land. 

 Of the deadly character of the visitation we may judge from the 

 following significant fact : The Sarum register contains the 

 admission of 70 incumbents within nine months. These 

 70 would probably represent one-fourth of the beneficed clergy 

 of the diocese. The burial of one-fourth of the clergy within 

 nine months is an evidence of awful mortality. Though there is 

 no direct evidence that the Great Plague of Edward the Third's 

 reign visited Dorchester, there is, therefore, this circumstantial 

 evidence namely, in the first place, the fact of its appearance in 

 England first in this neighbourhood, and second the probability, 

 which, taking into account the general character of the visitation, 

 would amount to a certainty, that persons flying from the plague 

 would pass and some of them would remain for a time in Dor- 

 chester, so infecting it. 



