Middle English Literature

A fall in the price of goods. The fear of death caused the price of every-
thing to fall, for there were very few who cared either for wealth or for
11
Edward III (r. 1327–77).
12
St. Martin’s.
13
John Gynwell (bishop 1347–62).
14
March 28, 1350.

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possessions. A man might have a good horse, which previously would have
cost forty shillings, for half a mark, a heavy, fat ox for four shillings, a cow
for twelve pence, a heifer for six pence, a fat sheep for four pence, a ewe for
three pence, a lamb for two pence, a great pig for five pence, a stone of
wool for nine pence. And sheep and cattle wandered through the fields and
amongst the crops, and there was none to seek them or round them up, and
they perished in out-of-the-way places amongst the furrows and under hedges
for want of a keeper in numbers beyond reckoning throughout the land,
for there was such a shortage of hands and servants that no one knew what
ought to be done.
For there was no memory of so unsparing and savage a plague since the
days of Vortigern, king of the Britons, in whose time, as Bede records in his
history of the English, there were not enough left alive to bury the dead.
15
In the following autumn no one could hire a mower for less than eight
pence with his keep or a reaper for less than twelve pence with his keep. So
many crops rotted in the fields for want of harvesting, but in the year of the
plague, as has been said already in another connection, there was such an
abundance of grain that almost no one cared for it.
The Scots mock the English over the plague. The Scots, hearing of the cruel
plague amongst the English, attributed it to the avenging hand of God,
and took it up as an oath, as a common report came to ears, and when they
wished to swear they would say, “By the filthy death of England” (or in
English, “Be the foul deth of Engelond”). And thus the Scots, believing
God’s dreadful judgement to have descended upon the English, gathered in
the forest of Selkirk ready to over run the whole kingdom of England.
And a fierce pestilence arose, and blew a sudden and monstrous death upon
the Scots, and some five thousand of them died in a short time, and the rest
of them, some fit and some enfeebled, prepared to make their way home, but
the English pursued them and fell upon them, and slew a great many of
them.
Master Thomas Bradwardine was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury
by the pope and, when he returned to England, he came to London and
within two days he was dead.
16
He was celebrated beyond all the scholars of
Christendom, in theology pre-eminently but also in all other liberal learning.
At that time there was such a shortage of priests everywhere that many
churches were bereft of the divine office: of masses, matins, and vespers, of
sacraments and observances. A man could scarcely retain a chaplain to serve
15
I.e., ca. 450, Bede (672–735), Ecclesiastical History.
16
Bradwardine was consecrated archbishop on July 19, 1349, and died August 26.
Pestilence
173

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174
Labor and Capital
a church for less than ten pounds, or perhaps ten marks, and where one
might have had a chaplain for four or five marks, or two marks and his keep,
with such numbers of priests as there were about before the plague, now in
those times there was almost no one willing to take a vicarage for twenty
pounds or perhaps twenty marks. But within a short time there came into
holy orders a great multitude of those whose wives had died in the plague,
many of them illiterate, the merest laymen, who if they were able to read at
all were unable to understand what they read.
Ox hides fell to a wretched price, namely twelve pence, and yet a pair of
gloves would cost ten pence, twelve pence, or fourteen pence, and a pair of
breeches three or four shillings. In the mean time the king sent word into
every shire that mowers and other workmen should take no more than
they had before, under the penalties laid down in the order, and thereupon
made a statute.
17
Nevertheless, the workmen were so puffed up and contrary-
minded that they did not heed the king’s decree and, if anyone wanted to
hire them, he had to pay what they asked: either his fruit and crops rotted
or he had to give in to the workmen’s arrogant and greedy demands.
When it came to the king’s notice that they had not obeyed his order and
had given their employees higher wages, he inflicted heavy fines upon abbots
and priors, and upon greater and lesser knights, and upon the others, great
and small, of the land: from some one hundred shillings, from some twenty
shillings, and from each according to what he could pay. And he took
twenty shillings from every ploughland in the kingdom, and received not
less than a fifteenth would yield.
Then the king caused many labourers to be arrested and put them in
prison. Many ran away and took to the woods and forests for a time, but
those who were caught were grievously fined. And most were sworn that
they would not take more than the old established daily rate and so were
freed from prison. And artisans in the boroughs and townships were treated
in the same way.
Translation of St. Thomas of Hereford. In the same year the translation of
St. Thomas of Hereford took place, on October 25, 1349.
18
After the plague,
many buildings, both large and small, in all cities, boroughs, and townships
decayed and were utterly razed to the ground for want of occupants, and
similarly many villages and hamlets were deserted with not a house left in
them, for all who had lived there were dead, and it is likely that many of
those villages will never be inhabited again.
17
See “Ordinance and Statute of Laborers,” p. 163.
18
St. Thomas Cantelupe (ca. 1218–82).

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In the following winter there was such a want of hands for every kind
of work that people believed that the like shortage had never been known
at any time in the past, for cattle and such livestock as a man might have
wandered about without a keeper, and there was no one to look after
people’s possessions. And thus the necessities of life became so dear that
what in previous times was worth one penny now cost four pence or five
pence.
Lords remit their tenants’ rent. Whereupon both the magnates of the
realm and also lesser lords who had tenants remitted the payment of rents
lest their tenants should quit for want of labour and the high cost of living:
some half the rent, some more or less, some for two years, some for three,
some for one, according to what they could agree.