io6 History of Animal Plagues. 



removino- the corn from the fields^ there was everywhere a great 

 rise in the price of food, which to many was inexphcable, be- 

 cause the harvest had been plentiful. By others it was attributed 

 to the wicked designs of the labourers and dealers ; but it really 

 had its foundation in the actual deficiency arising from circum- 

 stances by which individual classes at all times endeavour to 

 profit. For a whole year, until it terminated in August, 1349, 

 the Black Plague prevailed in this beautiful island, and every- 

 where poisoned the springs of comfort and prosperity.^ The 

 diseased cattle were slaughtered, and infected herds were as 

 much as possible separated from those which were sound, while 

 the herdsmen who attended the former were not allowed to 

 come near the latter. ' In the same year there was a great plague 

 among sheep {lues ovium) in every part of the kingdom (England), 

 so that in one pasture-land alone more than 5000 died, and their 

 carcases were so putrid that neither beast nor bird would touch 

 them.^ ^ Barnes says of the epizooty : "^And first, by occasion 

 of the plague, the cattle, for want of men to look to them, 

 wandered about in fields at random, from whence nobody 

 drove or gathered them, so that they began to perish among 

 hedges and ditches in such numbers, that it was no less loss than 

 wonder to behold ; for there died, in and about one pasture, 

 more than 5000 sheep. Wherefore it might be supposed that 

 they also died in this manner, through some kind of plague 

 that was as strange and unaccountable among them as the 

 former had been to mankind; for it is said that neither beast 

 nor bird of prey would touch the carcases. And this is another 

 instance that the late pestilence doth yet differ from those of other 

 times, since usually beasts, by reason of their prone looks down- 

 wards on the earth, and their quicker scent therewithal, are first 

 infected, but here it happened quite contrary. However, there 

 shortly ensued hereby such a scarcity of cattle, that all provisions 



^ Heckcr, who quotes from Barnes and Wood. This learned author informs us, 

 on good authority, that 'after the cessation of the Black Plague, a greater fecundity 

 in women was everywhere remarkable— a grand phenomenon, which, from its 

 occurrence after a very destructive pestilence, proves to conviction, if any occurrence 

 can do so, the prevalence of a higher power in the direction of general organic 

 life.' 



"^ Henry de Knyghton. Op. cit. Twysden. P. 2598. 



