History of Animal Plagues. 107 



of flesh became excessively dear, as well as other beasts for use 

 and labour. Whereas, in the plague time, partly through their 

 great abundance, and partly, also, because, through the present 

 apprehension of death, men were then less intent upon gain, a 

 a:ood horse, worth forty shillings before, might be bought for a 

 mark; a large fat ox for four shillings, a cow for one shilling, 

 a heifer for sixpence, a fat mutton for fourpence, a sheep for 

 twopence, a lamb for twopence, one stone of wool for ninepence, 

 and other things went at the same rate in England. But now 

 the state of atfairs was altered ; and, besides the prodigious 

 decay of cattle aforesaid, there succeeded also a great dearth of 

 corn in manv parts of the world, not so much through any defect 

 or parsimony of Nature (for the fields were suflicicntly clothed 

 with grain in many parts, especially here in England), as partly 

 through an inordinate desire of gain in some, and also partly 

 from the want of men in most places to gather it.^ ^ 



Adam Murimuth, for the year 1348 (but in reality for 1349), 

 after noticino; the unusual fall of rain that occurred in that year, 

 and which continued night and day for a long time, adds: 'At 

 which time a great mortality took place among men throughout 

 the land, beginning in the south and extending northwards, and 

 with such slaughter that scarcely one-half of the inhabitants 

 remained. In certain religious houses two alone survived out 

 of twenty; and, according to some, it destroyed a tenth part of 

 all the inhabitants. It was followed by a plague among animals 

 (£ vestigia lues animalinvi est secuta); then the remaining people 

 perished ; and the land, robbed of the people who cultivated it, 

 remained sterile, and such great misery followed that the land 

 could never after recover its former state.' ^ 



Speed only says with regard to the mortality of cattle suc- 

 ceeding the epidemy : ' It rained from midsummer till Christ- 

 mas ; and so terrible a plague ran through the world, that the 

 earth was filled with graves and the air with cries, which was 

 seconded with murren of cattle and dearth of all things.' ^ 



^Barnes. The History of King Edward III. Cambridge, 1688, p. 440. For 

 the revolution in the system of agriculture which this grave pestilence occasioned, 

 see y. E. T. Rogers. A History of Agriculture and Prices in England. O.xford, 

 l866. '^ Adanii Murimuth. Chronica. 



3 Speed. The Historic of Great Britaine. London, 1632, p. 694. 



