History of Animal Plagues. 113 



ment is made bv the whole homage with the cadaverators, aiul 

 by these latter manv of the subsequent presentments are made. 



* I presume these officers had the charge of the disposal of 

 the carcases of the cattle dying of murrain, and I oceasionallv 

 met with their election by the homage of the courts, as on the 

 Tuesday after St Valentine 7th Richard II. — ''They elect John 

 Barnege and Geffrey Cay into the office of cadaverators, who 

 say, &c. ; " and again in the course of the following year — " They 

 elect John Baronne and Geffrey Cay into that office, and they 

 are sworn, 8cc.'' 



'From the two bailiffs' accounts I have before referred to, 

 the 33rd Edward III. and the 18th Richard II., it will seem that 

 the stock on the farm had considerably diminished, the sheep in 

 the latter account amounting to only about half the number 

 mentioned in the former. The purchases of stock were less on 

 some occasions, the lambs much less numerous, and many ewes 

 are stated to have been sterile; and I also observe such entries 

 as, that a dozen very sickly hoggets were sold " pro timore mori- 

 nae.'' These particular ones were sold at '^\d. a head, the current 

 price at that time being \']d. If they were (as it seems likely they 

 were) affected with the disease, it was a ready way of spreading it. 



' I trust I have sufficiently shown, without troubling you 

 with a mass of extracts (of which those in Appendix B are not 

 a twentieth part), that the murrain mentioned to have occurred 

 in 1348, and those of 1363 and 1369, were really one continuous 

 visitation. 



' It is quite certain, that on this one farm in the western 

 part of the county of Norfolk it commenced in 1346, and con- 

 tinued rising and felling in intensity, until it almost suddenly 

 ceased in November, 141 1. So accustomed had people become 

 to it by the 44th Edward III., that it is spoken of as the ''com- 

 mon murrain," and although it does not appear to have swept 

 off the entire flock, as in the case mentioned by Knyghton, the 

 a^roTcirate loss is very large, and if the numbers lost on other 

 farms bore any proportion to these, the eflect in such a county 

 as Norfolk must have been very serious.' ^ 



' Mr Ilarrofl appears to have been fully impressed with tlie idea tliat llie tiiin 

 ' murrain,' employed so frequently in this roll, could refer to nothing but the Cattle 



8 



