tion>
Francis Aidan Gasquet
The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9), Now Commonly Known as the Black Death
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664635204
Table of Contents
THE GREAT PESTILENCE. CHAPTER I. THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EPIDEMIC.
CHAPTER II. THE EPIDEMIC IN ITALY.
CHAPTER III. PROGRESS OF THE PLAGUE IN FRANCE.
CHAPTER IV. THE PLAGUE IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
CHAPTER V. THE PLAGUE REACHES ENGLAND.
CHAPTER VI. PROGRESS OF THE DISEASE IN LONDON AND THE SOUTH.
CHAPTER VII. THE EPIDEMIC IN GLOUCESTER, WORCESTER, WARWICK, AND OXFORD.
CHAPTER VIII. STORY OF THE DISEASE IN THE REST OF ENGLAND.
CHAPTER IX. THE DESOLATION OF THE COUNTRY.
CHAPTER X. SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY.
TO THE READER.
In publishing this story of a great and overwhelming calamity, which fell upon England in common with the rest of Europe, in the middle of the fourteenth century, I desire to record my grateful thanks to those who have in any way assisted me in gathering together my material, or in weaving it into a connected narrative. Amongst these many kind friends I may specially name Mr. F. Bickley, of the British Museum, Mr. F.J. Baigent, the Rev. Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph, and, above all, Mr. Edmund Bishop, to whom I am greatly indebted for advice, criticism, and ever-patient assistance in revising the proof-sheets.
INTRODUCTION.
[p-xiii]
The story of the Great Pestilence of 1348–9 has never been fully told. In fact, until comparatively recent times, little attention was paid to an event which, nevertheless, whether viewed in the magnitude of the catastrophe, or in regard to its far-reaching results, is certainly one of the most important in the history of our country.
Judged by the ordinary manuals, the middle of the fourteenth century appears as the time of England's greatest glory. Edward III. was at the very height of his renown. The crushing defeat of France at Crecy, in 1346, followed the next year by the taking of Calais, had raised him to the height of his fame. When, wearing the laurels of the most brilliant victory of the age, he landed at Sandwich, on October 14th, 1347, the country, or at least the English courtiers, seemed intoxicated by the success of his arms. "A new sun," says the chronicler Walsingham, "seemed to have arisen over the people, in the perfect peace, in the plenty of all things, and in the glory of such victories. [p-xiv] There was hardly a woman of any name who did not possess spoils of Caen, Calais and other French towns across the sea;" and the English matrons proudly decked themselves with the rich dresses and costly ornaments carried off from foreign households. This was, moreover, the golden era of chivalry, and here and there throughout the country tournaments celebrated with exceptional pomp the establishment of the Order of the Garter, instituted by King Edward to perpetuate the memory of his martial successes. It is little wonder, then, that the Great Pestilence, now known as the "Black Death," coming as it does between Crecy and Poitiers, and at the very time of the creation of the first Knights of the Garter, should seem to fall aside from the general narrative as though something apart from, and not consonant with, the natural course of events.
It is accordingly no matter for wonder that a classic like Hume, in common with our older writers on English history, should have dismissed the calamity in a few lines; but a reader may well feel surprise at finding that the late Mr. J. R. Green, who saw deeper into causes and effects than his predecessors, deals with the great epidemic in a scanty notice only as a mere episode in his account of the agricultural changes in the fourteenth century. Although he speaks generally of the death of one-half the population through the disease, he evidently has not realised the enormous effects, social and religious, which are directly traceable to the catastrophe.
Excellent articles, indeed, such as those from the pen of [p-xv] Professor Seebohm and Dr. Jessop, and chance pages in books on political and social economy, like those of the late Professor Thorold Rogers and Dr. Cunningham, have done much in our time to draw attention to the importance of the subject. Still, so far as I am aware, no writer has yet treated the plague as a whole, or, indeed, has utilised the material available for forming a fairly accurate estimate of its ravages. The collections for the present study had been entirely made when a book on the Epidemics in Britain, by Dr. Creighton, was announced, and, as a consequence, the work was set aside. On the appearance of Dr. Creighton's volume, however, it was found that, whilst treating this pestilence at considerable length as a portion of his general subject, not merely had it not entered into his design to utilise the great bulk of material to be found in the various records of the period, but the author had dealt with the matter from a wholly different point of view.
It is proper, therefore, to state why a detailed treatment of a subject, in itself so uninviting, is here undertaken. The pestilence of 1348–49, for its own sake, must necessarily be treated by the professional writer as an item in the general series of epidemics; but there are many reasons why it has never been dealt with in detail from the mere point of view of the historian. Yet an adequate realisation of its effects is of the first importance for the right understanding of the history of England in the later [p-xvi] Middle Ages. The "Black Death" inflicted what can only be called a wound deep in the social body, and produced nothing less than a revolution of feeling and practice, especially of religious feeling and practice. Unless this is understood, from the very circumstances of the case, we shall go astray in our interpretation of the later history of England. In truth, this great pestilence was a turning point in the national life. It formed the real close of the Mediæval period and the beginning of our Modern age. It produced a break with the past, and was the dawn of a new era. The sudden sweeping away of the population and the consequent scarcity of labourers, raised, it is well recognised, new and extravagant expectations in the minds of the lower classes; or, to use a modern expression, labour began then to understand its value and assert its power.
But