Middle English Literature

Earthquakes. Meanwhile at Corinth and in Achaea
6
several towns were
destroyed, and the earth covered them. Castles and towns were rent and
shattered, and swallowed up. Mountains in Cyprus were levelled so that the
courses of rivers were blocked, and many cities were flooded and villages
washed away. Similarly, when a certain friar was preaching at Naples, the
whole city was destroyed by earthquake and tempest, and the earth opened
suddenly as though a stone were thrown into water, and everyone perished
with the friar who was preaching except one other friar, who fled and
escaped into a garden outside the town. And all that was the work of the
earthquake.
7
Then the pope sent letters seeking to restore peace between the king-
doms, that they might escape the vengeance of God’s right hand, asserting
that all those misfortunes had come upon mankind because of their sins.
Whereupon the king sent the earl of Lancaster
8
and the earl of Suffolk
9
to
Calais, with other magnates, to negotiate a peace. The French nobles lodged
at Saint-Omer.
10
3
March–April, 1348.
4
Southeast France.
5
Magdelaine-sur-Tarn, southern France.
6
Greece.
7
The Naples earthquake was in September 1349.
8
Henry de Grosmont, earl 1337–61.
9
Robert de Ufford, earl 1337–69.
10
(Pas-de-Calais), southeast of Calais.
Pestilence
171

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172
Labor and Capital
However, in the mean time the commons of Flanders with French and
certain other Flemings gained Bruges by deceit, and beheaded and hanged
those Flemings whom they found to have supported the king of England.
King Edward
11
assembled his army, wishing to go to Flanders and destroy
those who had turned against him, and took to the road. But the earl of
Lancaster intercepted him to say that all the Flemings had been brought
over to the king, on certain terms, as will appear below. Also, it was agreed
that representatives of England and of France should negotiate a peace
between the kingdoms from that time to September when, if they could
not agree, the crown of France should be taken to some place within the
kingdom of France with consent of both parties and there awarded by
formal battle without further contention.
Then a lamentable plague travelled by sea to Southampton and on to
Bristol, where almost the whole population of the town perished, snatched
away, as it were, by sudden death, for there were few who kept their beds
for more than two or three days, or even half a day. And thence cruel death
spread everywhere with the passage of the sun. There died in Leicester, in
the little parish of St. Leonard’s, more than nineteen score, four hundred in
the parish of Holy Cross,
12
and in St. Margaret’s parish seven hundred, and
so on in every parish, in great numbers.
The bishop of Lincoln gives chaplains power to absolve. Then the bishop of
Lincoln
13
sent word throughout the diocese and gave a general power to all
priests, both regular and secular, to hear confessions and full episcopal
authority to absolve, excepting only in matters of debt, in which the debtor
should make restitution, if he were able, while he lived, or others should be
appointed to do so, with his goods, after his death.
The pope grants a general remission. In the same way the pope granted full
remission of all sins to any in danger of death, upon a single occasion, a
power which was to last until the following Easter,
14
and everyone could
choose his or her own confessors at will.
Disease amongst sheep. In the same year there was a great plague amongst sheep
everywhere in the realm so that in one place more than five thousand died in
one pasture, and they so rotted that neither beast nor bird would touch them.