INTRODUCTION 



THE BLACK DEATH AND THE ENACTMENT OF THE ORDI- 

 NANCE AND OF THE STATUTE OF LABOURERS 



The Black Death reached Dorsetshire in August, 

 1348/ and spreading first toward the west, and then 

 toward the northeast, appeared in London by the end of 

 September or the beginning of November ; ^ it was at its 

 height in Surrey and Hampshire during the following 

 spring,^ and in the northern and eastern counties during 

 the summer and early autumn,'* ending nearly every- 

 where in England by the last months of 1349.' Esti- 

 mates of the mortality during these fourteen or fifteen 

 months vary from nine-tenths to one-fifth of the total 

 population ; a half is probably fairly near the truth,* 



^Creighton, Hist, of Epidemics, i, 116; for discussion of the exact 

 date, see Gasquet, The Great Pestilence, 71-74. 



'Creighton, loc. cit. 'Gasquet, op. cit., 112-114. ^Ibid., 67, 128. 



"Creighton, op. cit., i, 177, gives Michaelmas, 1349, as the latest 

 date, but Gasquet, op. cit., 160, quotes an instance in the north as late 

 as the spring of 1350. 



^ Eulogiuni Historiarum , iii, 213, one-fifth; Le Baker, Chronicon, 

 99, nine-tenths; Rogers, Work and Wages, 223, a third; Jessopp, The 

 Coming of the Friars, 205-206, a half in East Anglia; Creighton, op. 

 cit., i, 123-139, gives various estimates for specific localities; Gasquet, 

 op. cit., 194-195, inclines to a half; Cunningham, Grozvth of Eng. In- 

 dustry and Commerce , i, 329-336, in a summary of the effects of the 

 plague and of the statutes of labourers, inclines to the theory of " nearly 

 a half." For an accurate estimate in one district, cf. Little, "Black 

 Death in Lancashire," in E. H. R ., v. These modern calculations are 

 based largely on records of presentations to livings and on the evidence 

 furnished by manorial court rolls. The sources examined for this mono- 

 graph contain much information both direct and indirect as to the de- 

 vastation of the country. 



I 



