16 The Progress of British Agriculture 



poorest of all were the modern manufacturing districts 

 of Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. 



Under the primitive system of agriculture that then 

 prevailed, the people lived on unwholesome salted food 

 during half the year ; cattle were starved during the 

 same period, and as a result disease was common in 

 man and beast. Scurvy was prevalent, and leprosy 

 was common. The unclean habits of the people 

 added to the unhealthiness of their lives. Few people 

 lived beyond fifty, when they were old. Plagues of 

 terrible deadliness attacked the people, and swept off 

 a large percentage of the population ; and scab in sheep 

 devastated whole flocks and imperilled one of the chief 

 sources of English wealth. 



We will close this chapter by a reference to the 

 Black Death, a disease of fearful destructiveness, 

 which devastated England during various years, but 

 especially in 1369. Chaucer and Langland both call it 

 the Pestilence, and the havoc it made in the population 

 far exceeded that made by any similar scourge recorded 

 in our history. Towns were stripped of their inhabit- 

 ants. It is stated that it slew 100,000 in London, 

 50,000 in Norwich, and proportionate numbers in 

 other large cities, and probably one half of the whole 

 population of our country was carried off by this 

 fearful visitation. The work of death went forward 

 into Scotland, and eventually to Ireland, so that the 

 whole of the British Isles was terror-stricken. 



It is not necessary to dwell further on the ravages 

 of the Black Death, but we must refer to the economic 

 consequences. It led to the Peasants' Revolt, and the 

 whole system of farming was revolutionised. The 

 scarcity of labourers caused the rate of wages to be 



