bUUlAL, AINU tlOV.»iNWiViio nxoxwAVA 



largest Yorkshire monasteries died of the disease. The mortality amongst the clergy broke down 

 the most deeply-rooted ecclesiastical prejudices. Contrary to all precedent, the pope was forced to 

 allow the people to choose their own confessors." New cemeteries had to be consecrated by the 

 suffragan archbishop for the mortality increased daily, additional ordinations had to be held, otherwise 

 the sacred offices could not have been performed.^' Archbishop Zouch made his will on i8 June 

 1349 considering 'quod morte nil cercius humanae creaturae, quamquam nichil incercius ejus hora. 

 But the collection of wills published by the Surtees Society, which cover this period, show few 

 traces of the plague, only nine wills are given between 1348 and 135 1.'* 



It is probably owing to the preponderance of information from ecclesiastical sources that the 

 belief has become so general that the clergy suflFered more than any other class of the community, 

 but a careful study of the limited material other than ecclesiastical does not bear out this assumption. 



The extant rolls of Crown officials show phenomenally rapid changes ; the inquisitions post 

 mortem afiFord similar evidence as to the great mortality among the tenants. The roll of the 

 freemen of York bears ample witness to the effect on the mercantile and artisan class. The 

 number of freemen enrolled each year during the 14th century varies between 50 and 60. The 

 plague reached Yorkshire in 1349, and that year no fewer than 208 new freemen were admitted, 

 and more than 50 different trades represented. Many of the trades only gained i, 2 or 3 members, 

 but 8 skinners and 8 glovers, 10 mariners and 12 new mercers were added. There must have 

 been either exceptional mortality among the tailors and shoemakers or an exceptional demand for 

 new clothes and shoes, for 22 tailors and 33 shoemakers figure in the list. The enrolments 

 certainly fell to little more than half that number in the following year, only however, to rise again 

 to 132 in 1351 ; they decreased to 104 in 1352, and by 1353 they became and remained normal. 

 The exceeding heavy roll of the year 1 363, when 218 new freemen were registered, points to 

 another and even more severe visitation. An analysis of the list, however, suggests some unusual 

 development of the woollen trade, as one-third of the number are walkers, websters, wool-packers, 

 chaloners, tailors, and mercers.*^ Taking the ten years previous to and the ten years subsequent to 

 the pestilence years the numbers read : — 



A curious example of the maintenance of order in spite of the general panic is found in the 

 Coroners' Rolls. Four of the parishes of York met and reviewed the body of William Needier 

 who was found dead. They certified that he died ' a natural and not a violent death by reason of 

 the pestilence in Coppergate, York, on 7 August 1349' ; the inquest must have taken place when 

 the plague was at its worst. Seventeen of the twenty-one York clergy of whom information is 

 extant died of the plague. It is asserted that the population of York before the visitation was between 

 30,000 and 40,000,*^ but from the 1378 poll tax census it stood between 1 1,000 and 13 ooo.^' 

 It would, however, be rash to deduce that the whole of Yorkshire suffered in the same degree as 

 York. The low situation of the city, the swarming population pent up within walls, the heaviness 

 and humidity of the air, especially during the month of August when the plague was raging fiercely 

 rendered the disease more easily spread and more difficult to eradicate. It is certainly in York 

 and the low-lying districts of the East Riding that the greatest mortality is heard of though 

 Richmond, one of Yorkshire's highest and healthiest places, is said to have suffered severely It is 

 impossible to overrate the influence of the Black Death on the economic condition of Yorkshire • 

 probably, however, it suflFered in a less degree than those counties where agriculture was on more 

 strictly arable lines. Still the dislocation of the labour market, the rise in the price of commodities 

 the sudden changes in the ownership of capital and land, were of far-reaching effect The 

 immediate result, the fall in the price of wool, was especially disastrous to a county which depended 



I Rje, op. cit. 49,. " Ibid. n <r„,. Ebor. (Surt. Soc), ii, 55 



» F. SMbohm, op. cit. 1S8. " ^'''""'" «^^'"^- "' '"P- 37-54- 



"^ E. Powell, The East Anglia Rising, i z 3 ; W. Denton, E»gk»^ in xv cent. 98. 



3 441 56 



