A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2) by Charles Creighton

[319] Alex. Rittmann, _Chronik der Pest._ Brünn, 1879. [320] Thomas Lodge, _Treatise of the Plague_, Lond. 1603, chap. III. Skene, in his Edinburgh essay on plague in 1568, gives as a sign of impending plague the moles and “serpents” leaving their holes: “As when the moudewart and serpent leavis the eird, beand molestit be the vapore contenit within the bowells of the samin.” He adds what agrees still farther with modern experience in Yun-nan: “If the domesticall fowls become pestilential, it is ane signe of maist dangerous pest to follow.” (Bannatyne Club ed. p. 9). [321] The writer of the article “Peste” in the _Dict. Encycl. des Sc. Med._, Dr Mahé, inclines on the whole to the view that the poison of plague is somehow related to cadaveric products: “Parmi ces accusations d’insalubrité publique, il en est une qui repose sur un objectif plus positif en apparance” viz. the “miasme des cadavres.” [322] Sir Tobie Matthews’ _Letters_. Lond. 1660, p. 110. [323] _Epist. de rebus familiar._ Lib. viii. epist. 7. The citation of these contemporary illustrations of the Black Death was begun in the last century by Sprengel (_Beiträge_, &c., p. 37). [324] _Foedera_, III. 184; it was renewed on 30th June for a year longer. [325] Avesbury. [326] _Foedera_, III. 192. [327] _Ib._ 193. [328] _Ib._ 200, 201. [329] Le Baker’s _Chronicle of Osney_. Avesbury. [330] _Foedera_, III. 221. [331] Avesbury, Rolls ed. 425. [332] Blomefield (_Hist. of Norfolk_, III.) says that the writ to Norwich in 1355 was for 120 men-at-arms to be sent to Portsmouth by Sunday in mid-Lent. [333] Avesbury, pp. 427-8. [334] _Ib._ p. 425. [335] _Ib._ p. 461. [336] Avesbury, p. 431. [337] Thorold Rogers, _Hist. of Agric. and Prices_, I. 367, “according to an account quoted by Misselden in his _Circle of Commerce_.” The sack of wool contained 52 cloves of 7 lbs. each, or 364 lbs. It appears from a statute of 5 Ric. II. that 240 wool-fells were equivalent, for duty, to one sack of wool. In Rogers’ tables, the wool-fell is usually priced at about the value of 1½ lbs. of wool, which was at the same time about the average clip of a sheep. The present average clip would be at least four times as much. The colonial bale of wool is of the same weight as the medieval sack, but would represent 40 to 60 fleeces, instead of about 240. At the smallest of the estimates in the text, the wool of 7,680,000 sheep would have been exported in a year. Avesbury’s estimate would mean an annual export to foreign countries of the clip of about 24,000,000 sheep. The average price of a sack of wool just before the Black Death was about £4 in money of the time; the period immediately following the plague was one of low prices; but from 1364 to 1380, the price was uniformly high. [338] _Foedera_, III. 186. [339] _Ib._ III. 191. [340] Jessopp (_l. c._) giving a general reference to the _Foedera_, and probably having the Sandwich letter in view, says there was “mad, unreasoning, insensate panic among well-to-do classes--the trader and the moneyed man, the _bourgeoisie_ of the towns,” and “a stampede,” (presumably to foreign parts). But the mortality was all over by 1st December, 1349; and the exodus, whatever motive it may have had, was almost certainly deliberate. [341] _Foedera_, III. 198. [342] The last clause of the ordinance implies that not only the labourers but also the employers of labour were taking the natural advantage of the situation. There appears to be some particular evidence of this for Bristol (Rev. W. Hunt, _Bristol_, p. 77): the masters in various crafts and trades were so reduced in numbers that the survivors could charge what they pleased. Thus, the attempt to coerce labourers and skilled workmen was a one-sided affair; although, in practice, it related mostly to farm-labour, where the one-sidedness did not appear. [343] _Foedera_, III. 210. [344] _Rot. Parl._ II. 225. [345] This was the first parliamentary Statute of Labourers (25 Ed. III. cap 2). The king’s ordinance of 18th June, 1350 (re-issued for Suffolk and Lindsey on 18th Nov.), is usually reckoned the first Statute of Labourers, and is invariably assigned to the 23rd year of Edward III., being so entered in the _Statutes of the Realm_. It is clear, however, from the text of the ordinance in the _Foedera_ that it belongs to the 24th of Edward III., its exact date being 18th June, 1350. Longman, in his _History of the Life and Times of Edward III._, correctly states in one place (I. 309) that the ordinance of 18th June, 1350, was “the first step,” but on the very next page, after stating that the ordinance failed, he proceeds, according to the usual chronology of 23 Ed. III. and 25 Ed. III., to say that “therefore, two years afterwards,” the statute of 25 Ed. III. was made in Parliament. The interval was only some eight months. [346] _Rot. Parl._ II. 234. [347] Knighton, in Twysden’s _Decem Scriptores_, _l. c._ [348] Seebohm, _The English Village Community_. Chapter I. [349] The Statute of Labourers was re-enacted with increased stringency six years after (31 Ed. III.), and again in 1360 and 1368. All the labour statutes were confirmed in the 12th year of Richard II. (cap. 34). Legislative attempts of the same kind continued to be made as late as the 5th of Elizabeth (1562-3), with particular reference to sturdy beggars. See copious extracts from the Statutes in Sir George Nicholls’s _History of the English Poor Law_, vol. I. Lond. 1854. “An Act for regulating Journeymen Tailors” was made in 7 Geo. I. (cap. 13). [350] “There is no trace of the villenage described in Glanville and Bracton, among the tenants of a manor 500 years ago. All customary services were commutable for money payments; all villein tenants were secure in the possession of their lands; and the only distinction between socage and villein occupation lay in the liberation of the former from certain degrading incidents which affected the latter.” Thorold Rogers, “Effects of the Black Death, &c.” _Fort. Rev._ III. (1865) p. 196. [351] Seebohm, _The English Village Community_. Lond. 1882. Chapter I. [352] Seebohm, p. 31. Such attempts by landowners, to go back to personal service from their villein tenants, appear to have become more systematic in the generation following, and to have been a cause of the Peasants’ Rebellion in 1381. See v. Oschenkowski, _England’s wirthschaftliche Entwickelung_, Jena, 1879, confirming the opinion of Thorold Rogers. [353] Smith, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, p. 128: “in 24 Edward III.” (Cited by Denton, _England in the 15th Century_.) [354] Morant, _Hist. of Essex_. [355] Niebuhr, _Lectures on Ancient History_. Engl. transl. London, 1852, II., p. 53. [356] _Eulogium Historiarum._ Rolls ed. III. 230. [357] _Loci e Libro Veritatum_, ed. Rogers. Oxon. 1880, p. 202; and, from Gascoigne’s MS., in Anthony Wood, _Hist. and Antiq. Univ. Oxford_, Ed. Gutch, I. 451: “What I shall farther observe is that before it began there were but few complaints among the people, and few pleas; as also few Legists in England, and very few at Oxford.” [358] _Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, sub anno 1361. [359] Owen and Blakeway, _op. cit._ I. 165. [360] Clarkson’s _History of Richmond_. Richmond, 1821 (authority not quoted). [361] Hailstone, _History of Bottisham and the Priory of Anglesey_. Camb.