The Great Pestilence Talk by Rosemary Hopewell to East Meon History Group 13th December 2018

. . . From plague, pestilence and famine . . . Good Lord, deliver us Cranmer 1549 - Book of Common Prayer

The Black Death and the Plague are one and the same disease. Mediaeval writers variously described it as ‘The Great Pestilence’ or ‘the Great Mortality’– Magna mortalitas in the Latin of official documents. Although the phrase ‘mors nigra’ was used in Europe as early as 13501, the term ‘Black Death’ was not used in 2 England until 1823 by Elizabeth Penrose . The ‘Black’ probably refers to the black patches caused by bleeding beneath the skin and the black gangrene at the tips of the fingers and toes. This is the term, however, by which the first and most devastating outbreak in England in 1348- 49, is known. Further outbreaks, increasingly affecting urban populations, were to recur at very regular short intervals until the Plague of London in 1665 after which it appears to have died out in Britain.

Above all, the Great Pestilence was considered by the Church to be a divine retribution from God for the lax morals of the people and the only way to be rid of it was to be forgiven by God! However, astrologers explained its cause as the conjunction of the planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars leading to “a great pestilence in the air “ - what is now known as the miasma or pollution theory. Other theories included the stench from decaying and unburied bodies and fumes from poor sanitation. On the continent, popular opinion blamed the Jews for poisoning the wells and pogroms erupted throughout Europe but not in Britain, because they had been expelled by Edward I in 1290 .

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As its cause was considered as Divine retribution for sin, the obvious ‘cure’ was repentance of sin and therefore forgiveness by God – backed up by Prayer. Other more mundane methods tried included ‘bleeding’ from a vein in the limb nearest the worst swellings (buboes); encouraging these to burst by lancing them in various ways; taking arsenic or mercury or drinking urine. Washing with vinegar and burning or spreading spices and herbs to clear the air were also tried, to no avail.

In the mid-1300s, England was still a predominantly agrarian society with about 90% of its population living in the countryside. But conditions were not good. It had already been hit by the Great Famine of 1315-17 leading to a mortality of about 10%. In addition climate cooling was taking place with very unpredictable weather which led to a series of bad harvests. The population was growing and there were insufficient resources to feed them.

The summer of 1348 was particularly wet with grain rotting in the fields and the harvests not completed until October. Edward III had been crowned in 1327 and the 100 Years War started in 1337, requiring men and vast resources to maintain it.

The population were terrified. They lived in fear of God’s wrath and the End of the World. The plague – a mark of God’s displeasure – led to great anxiety because of the suddenness of death, leaving little or no time for Absolution of sins, which would guarantee a safe passage to Heaven rather than Hell.

2 Until recently, it has been generally accepted that the Plague was caused by the bacterium –Yersinia pestis, originally known as Pasteurella pestis - first isolated in 1894, and transmitted to humans by rat fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis) carried by infected Black Rats. (These fleas can jump 200 times their body length – about 20 inches!)

Several days after feeding on an infected host, the flea’s foregut (proventriculus) becomes obstructed by the replicating Y.pestis. This blockage results in starvation and aggressive feeding behaviour by the fleas, which repeatedly attempt to clear the blockage by regurgitation, resulting in thousands of bacteria being flushed into the feeding site, thus infecting the host.

The plague cycle was dependent on two populations of rats, in this case the Black Rat (Rattus rattus): one group resistant to the disease, acting as a host to the fleas thus keeping the disease endemic: the second, lacking resistance and infected themselves. When the second population died, the fleas move on to other hosts, in this case man, causing an epidemic.

3 Recently there has been research as to why it spread so rapidly. It has been considered that this spread was far too rapid for rats and their fleas to be the main or only cause. Mathematical models derived from mortality data have been used to demonstrate it spread using three different scenarios:

• outbreak due to rats • airborne transmission • human fleas and lice

The best match linked outbreaks to human fleas and 3 lice .

The Black Rat (Rattus rattus) was introduced into Britain by the Romans. At the time of the Black Death it was the only rat in Britain. The introduction of the Brown Rat (Rattus norvegicus) in the early 18th century, led to its rapid decline, remaining only in seaports and major cities until the late 19th century, since when it is only found in very isolated communities in this country.

Other suggestive evidence against rats and their fleas being the only cause is provided (negatively) by Samuel Pepys in his Diary where he documents the Great Plague of London of 16654. At no time in several entries, does he mention the presence of large numbers of dead rats

. ‘But, Lord how sad the sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and very few upon the ‘Change’. Jealous of every door one sees shut up, least it should be the plague, and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up’

4 Other recent suggestions as to its cause and rapid spread with lethal consequences, have included unknown/unidentified Ebola-like viruses or even anthrax. No evidence of either of these has been found as a cause for modern outbreaks. Yersinia pestis DNA has been isolated from bones and teeth from skeletons from the 1348 Plague pits at Smithfield, unearthed during work on Crossrail.

Plague has three main types: bubonic – the commonest, septicaemic, and pneumonic. The first two forms of the disease cannot be transferred from human to human, but the third – pneumonic, is transmitted directly between humans by coughing, leading to the inhalation of infected droplets by others. Bubonic plague is characteristically a warm weather disease reaching its peak in this country around August and September. (The rat fleas being killed off by cold weather). On the other hand, Pneumonic plague occurs during colder weather. The incubation period for all types is between 0 – 5 days

In Bubonic plague, the infection from the flea bite is carried by the lymphatic system to the lymph nodes. Here the bacteria multiply and form swellings which suppurate, called ‘buboes’ - from which name is derived. These were commonly in the groin, armpits and neck and site of the flea bite. After 3 to 4 days the bacteria spreads into the bloodstream and infects other organs, as well as causing gangrene and spots all over the body, which were known as ‘Tokens’ of the plague. Death normally occurred 2 to 6 days after infection. There are several very graphic contemporary descriptions from Europe of the signs and symptoms of bubonic plague5, and one from London at the time of the final outbreak of plague in 1665:

‘The plague ordinarily begins with vomiting; there are Buboes that appear in the EMUNCTORIES; carbuncles which come anywhere; the BLANES which are things like blisters; and TOKENS which are spots of bright flaming red colour’6

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It is believed that perhaps one in five (20%), who fell sick with bubonic plague survived and slowly recovered but they were not immune to further attacks.

The second form of the disease – Septicaemic, was the rarest. It is caused by the bacteria entering directly into the bloodstream from the flea bite and multiplying. Death was rapid, often within a day from multi-organ failure and occurred without any major symptoms. As Geoffrey le Baker wrote at the time: ‘People who on one day had been full of happiness, on the next 7 were found dead’ Pneumonic plague – the only form transferable directly between humans, was deadly. Death often happened within one day after inhaling the bacteria from another victim. It was characterised by fever, troublesome breathing, chest pain and coughing bloody sputum.

The mortality in both Septicaemic and Pneumonic plague was about 100%. It is thought that the plague of 1348 was a combination of the bubonic and pneumonic forms. The Great Plague of London in 1665, was mainly bubonic.

6 Initially there was some confusion between the plague and another infectious disease very common and prevalent at that time – leprosy. This too was thought to be a punishment for sin.

At the time of the Black Death there were over 300 leper hospitals in England as it was a chronic disease. In both diseases the first signs in those infected, were pink patches on the skin - the so-called tokens in patients with the plague, who died rapidly; whereas patients with leprosy were well and for many years had no other symptoms. It is thought by some authors that the illustration of the plague which appears at the beginning of this paper, is in fact of patients with leprosy as they are far too well to have the plague!

Originating amongst rats in the High Steppe of the Central Asian plateau – Mongolia; the plague spread westward along trade routes (Silk Road). During 1346 it was raging around the north-western shore of the Caspian Sea, striking Constantinople in the late spring 1347. It was first introduced into Europe (Sicily) in October 1347, by a fleet of Genoese galleys fleeing from the disease in Crimea. From there it was carried to other Mediterranean ports and rapidly spread up the Italian mainland and inland into southern France by January 1348, reaching Paris in June 1348. Transmission by sea was of great importance and it was by this means that the plague arrived in Bordeaux, by the summer of 1348.

7 The Black Death arrived in England in the summer of 1348, either at Melcombe in Dorset, as related in the Chronicles of the Grey Friars: ‘In this year,1348 in Melcombe in the county of Dorset, a little before the feast of St John the Baptist, two ships came alongside. One of the sailors brought with him from Gascony the seeds of the terrible pestilence, and through him the men of the town of Melcombe were the first in England to be infected’

… or through the port of Southampton, as recorded nearly fifty years later by Henry Knighton, an Augustinian canon in Leicester, who was alive at the time of the plaguei.

It spread rapidly throughout Hampshire mainly through the system of drove roads which had been established a century earlier. Among the famuli (household servants) of the Bishop of were carters ready to transport his goods.

In the case of East Meon, this included carrying fresh fish, wrapped in wet reeds, alive to his palace in Winchester, or possibly mill stones imported from France and Wales to Southampton and carted to one of the seven mills in the Hundredii.

The Black Death spread ‘metastatically’iii from the ports, mainly affecting poorer families in both towns and countryside (the rich were spared, relatively speaking).

8 In urban areas, close proximity and poor sanitation exacerbated the plague. In farming communities which grew grain and ate it, it was spread by the rodents which fed on grain. Later, it increasingly became an urban disease.

This map shows the extent of the estates of the Bishops of Winchester who were the wealthiest landowners in England at the time (second in Europe only to the Archbishops of Milan).

The Hundred of East Meon was the largest of the Bishops’ estates in Hampshire, run on the model of the Crown’s properties: from 1208 to 1710, meticulous records were kept on income and expenditure in the Winchester Pipe Rollsiv. The estate economy was rooted on the exploitation of slave labour and the Bishops’ farms were worked by ‘servii’, serfs, bound to provide ‘labour services’ to their lordv.

All Saints, East Meon, was the parish church for the whole Hundred, with dependent chapels (or ‘chapels of ease’) at Westbury (St Nicholas, pictured far right), St Mary’s in the Fields, Steep and Froxfieldvi.

9 The Bishop was the rector of East Meon, and received the ‘greater’ or rectorial tithes; between 1341 and 1361 the vicar (in vice the Bishop) was John Ace who had one curate at All Saints and two more looking after Steep and Froxfield.

Ace was appointed by the Bishop and would have been literate in both Latin and English. He received the ‘lesser’ (or ‘vicarial’) tithes, essentially one tenth of the produce of the curtilages around the dwellings of the villeins and serfs, as well as fees for conducting services and the produce of the glebe landvii.

In fact, he was seldom in East Meon since he acted as Notary Public for the Bishop, which would have necessitated his presence at Wolvesey Palace in Winchester, and the work of the parish would have been carried out by the curates, men of humble birth and poorly educated. The curates were appointed by the vicar and their wages were determined by him (and were probably meagre). In 1346, the standard wage for a curate was £3.6s.6d a year (the equivalent of £2,500 in today’s money).

Where there was a vicarage, as in East Meon, the curate might have lived there, and he was expected to teach local children in spite of his own lack of learning. He visited the sick and carried out baptisms, marriages and burials (though the vicar pocketed the fees).

10 From 1346 until 1366, the was William Edington, who in addition to his church duties was also a royal administrator. From 1335 – 41, he had been King’s Clerk, then Keeper of the until 1344 when he became Treasurer of the Realm and in 1356, Chancellor of England. (He was also the first prelate to be elected to the and in the year of his death was offered the See of Canterbury, which he declined.

When the plague struck Winchester, on ‘A voice has been heard in Rama and much 28th October 1348, Edington wrote a lamentation and mourning has echoed desperate letter to the Prior and Chapter through various parts of the world. Nations, and clergy of the diocese. bereft of their children, alas, in the abuss of the unprecedented pestilence, refused to be On January 19th of the following year, he comforted . . . We report with anguish the issued a plenary indulgence to the whole serious news which has come to our ears: diocese, religious and secular, if they that this cruel plague has now begun a confessed before they died. It was similarly savage attack on the coastal areas originally due to last until Easter but was of England. We are struck by terror lest extended to Michaelmas. (may God avert it!) this brutal disease should rage in any part of our city or dioceseviii.’

Pope Clement in Avignon went further and granted remission to all who died of plague and decreed that the dying could make their confession to anyone present – even a woman could give the last rites. This right has lasted to the present day.

The Bishop’s income from heriots (death duties) and entry fines went up in the year after the Black Death, while rents declined 20 – 25%. I don’t quite understand the figures for heriots and fines … what had been the previous figure? Overall, profits actually increased between 1348 and 1350ix.

11 The death rate in Europe from the Black Death was one third, and in England between one third and a half of the population.The effect on Hampshire was devastating: whole communities were wiped out, including the village which had surrounded this chapel, St Peter & St Paul in Idsworth (now dedicated to St Hubert).

The death rate among the clergy of Winchester diocese was the highest in the country: 48% diedx. They were in the direct line of fire, hearing confessions, administering sacraments and conducting funerals for those dying of the plague. Some tried to reduce the time they were exposed by reducing the time they spent giving the sacraments, hearing confession from outside the room, or simply running away. Two out of the three curates in East Meon parish either died or fled.

The number of benefices left vacant by the death of their incumbents rose dramatically, from 12 in 1348 to 315 in the following year, with 64 in April alonexi.

The people were quick to notice that there were more deaths among the clergy than the population as a whole and asked why? They were supposed to be closer to God, his envoys on earth, while the plague was seen as punishment for sins … Many were resentful that victims were dying without confession and last rites and that the priests were unable to alleviate suffering. Many were buried without proper funerals and in mass graves because the clergy were deserting their posts but nonetheless increasing their wealth.

12 There were difficulties in recruiting new priests who, with the exception of some widowers who took the cloth, were young and inexperienced and even if they could read could not understand what they read.

The population of East Meon at the time of Domesday was about 425; assuming it followed the trends in the rest of the country, by 1348 it would have been about 850xii. There were 72 ‘fines’ paid in 1349 on the transfer of land in the hundred (paid to the Diocese upon the death of a tenant); assuming wives and children the village would have suffered about 240 deaths of copyholders alone, i.e, tenant farmers, that yearxiii. In value, the Diocese recouped £47 (9,437 pence), or £27,600 in today’s money. In addition, deaths among serfs and paupers would have been numerous but unrecorded. From Pipe Roll 1399/1400xiv … And 106s 8d from Nicola, widow of Thomas This was one aspect of a dramatic change Knoller, to retain one messuage and one virgate of in the ‘law of supply and demand’. villein land in Comb, one toft, one garden, 4 acres of Reduction in the number of labourers led villeain land called Spyghtes in Meon, 3 ½ acres of wood in Hyden; 8 acres of old purpresture in Comb, to an increase in wages and serfs’ piece of meadow in M… one cottage 10 acres of obligation to provide ‘labour services’ was villein land called Budelond in Meon, lately of John commuted to monetary payments. Parker, one toft, 2 crofts of villein land containing 8 Peasants became richer while much acres lately of Richard Cook, and 40 acres from the lord’s demesne in Selescomb from Thomas Knoller arable and marginal land was converted to her husbandxv. pasture. At the same time, some moved to towns and cities where similar shortages led to opportunities for employment. By the mid 1370s there were three times more sheep than in 1348; as Thomas More put it: ‘The countryside was overrun and consumed by sheep.’

Livestock v grainxvi

Weight of fleeces soldxvii

13 Because the Diocese could not find enough labourers to work all its demesne lands, many were now let to tenants. Bereleigh had been part of the tithing of Bordean until the Black Death; now it was let to John de Burlee and his wife Agatha, as recorded in this 1369 quitclaim: William de Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, his heirs and assigns, the following tenements which they held of him as of his bishopric: 1 messuage, 1 mill, 205 acres of land, 10 acres of meadow, 60 acres of pasture, 50 acres of wood, and 40s. 6d. rent in East Meon and Drayton and the rents and services of Richard Tygenore, Richard Hethere, Tygall, John Southonore, and John Knollere for the tenements which they held of Sub-manor of Bereleigh (based on names of them’. Bereleigh now became a sub- sub-tenants recorded in quitclaimxviii.) manor and was separately accounted in the Pipe Rolls.

Entry for Burle in 1409 Pipe Rollxix From its name, it has been assumed that Vineyard Hole, near the Court house, produced grapes for made in East Meon. Records in early Pipe Rolls confirm that wine was produced in the early Middle Ages:

1207–8 Pipe Roll: 4 tuns of wine - £4.2s.0dxx

1305-6 Pipe Roll: 3 men paid to help the Vineyard Hole gardener dig in the garden for planting vines there … weeding vines sometimes – 12dxxi. (A tun is equivalent to 252 gallons.)

14 In an attempt to quell the rising wages of labourers, in June 1349 the government issued a national ‘ordinance of labourers and beggars’ which required employers to pay ‘no more than had been customary’xxii Disquiet among poor farmers was further fanned in 1363 by a further Sumptuary Law was passed which regulated what people could wear and in 1381, the Peasants Revolt broke out in many parts of England, triggered by the government’s efforts to raise a poll tax to finance the 100 years war – amounting to 5d on every adult male in the country.

The Black Death had other effects. Parliament was prorogued on January 1st 1349: ‘the plague and deadly pestilence had suddenly broken out in the said place and the neighbourhood and the daily increase in severity so that grave fears were entertained for those coming here at the time.’

Fighting in the 100 years’ war was actually suspended from 1348 to 1355, while major building projects were affected by the shortage of labour with work on Ely and Lincoln cathedrals temporarily suspended. The flamboyance of the ‘Decorated’ Gothic style of architecture was replaced by the less elaborate Perpendicular stylexxiii.

The west front of , mostly built in the perpendicular style

The Black Death was a turning point in the history of England in several ways. It marked the end of feudalism which had dominated society since the arrival of the Normans. It marked the beginnings of labour law and sowed the seeds of the Reformation.

15 Timeline

1317 Great famine in England 1337 Declaration of 100 years’ war by King Edward III June 1348 Pestilence arrives in Melcombe Regis August 1348 Pestilence reaches East Meon September 1348 Pestilence in London October 1348 Pestilence in Winchester ‘Voce in Rama ‘speech 1.1.1349 Parliament prorogued 18.6.1349 Ordinance of Labourers 9.2.1351 Statute of Labourers 1361 - 64 2nd Pestilence Plague of Chidren 1367 Birth of Richard II in Bordeaux 1368 - 69 3rd Pestilence 1371 - 75 4th Pestilence 1381 Peasants’ Revolt

i James,Tom Beaumont The Black Death in Hampshire Hampshire Papers 1999 p2 ii Blakstad, Michael ed Farming the Valley EMHG 2018 p 35 (Mills) & 38 (Fishponds) iii Medical term: “the rapid transfer of morbific matter from one point to another’ iv HRO 11M59/B1/101 Pipe roll of the Bishop of Winchester 1348 - 9 v Blakstad, Michael ed Farming the Valley 2018 p27 vi Blakstad, Michael A Short History of All Saints. EMHG 2017 p3 vii Blakstad Michael A Short History of All Saints. p8 viii HRO 12M65/A1/9 – 17 Vox in Rama letter ix Do we have references for these accounts? x HRO 21M65/A1/8-9 Registers of William Eddington, Bishop of Winchester 1346 - 66 xi Ibid Bishop’s Register Part 1 xii Standfield, F.G. A History of East Meon Phillimore 1984 p23 xiii Mullen ‘The Land Market’ in ‘The Winchester Pipe Rolls’ xiv HRO 11M59/B1/101 Pipe roll of the Bishop of Winchester xv Lots of fascinating stuff here, but does the date make it less relevant? xvi Campbell Grain yield on English Demesnes 2012 xvii Stephenson Wool yield in the Medieval Economy 1988 xviii Redpath, Linda, Hales, Andrew and Blakstad, Michael History of Bereleigh Estate EMHG 2019 p7 xix Ed Page M. The Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester 1409-10 Hampshire County Council 1996 xx P.R.O. Eccl 2-22-159270B Ed Holt N.R. The Pipe Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester 1210-11 Manchester University Press 1964. xxi Standfield ibid p19 HRO Pipe Roll 159270 xxii Hockey S.F ed The Register of William Edington Bishop of Winchester 1346 – 66 James,Tom Beaumont The Black Death in Hampshire Hampshire Papers 1999 p7 xxiii James, ibid p19

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