Note 361 — Chapter III · OUTLAWS, WANDERING WORKMEN, AND PEASANTS OUT OF BOND

According to Seebohm (“The Black Death and its place in English History,” two articles in the Fortnightly Review in 1865), more than half of the population died during the epidemic which had begun in July 1348 and lasted till the end of 1349. Three archbishops of Canterbury died in one year. Knyghton, a contemporary, gives a striking picture of the plague at Leicester. “There were scarcely any who took heed of riches or cared for anything. . . . And sheep and oxen wandered through the fields and among the crops; there was no one to go after and collect them; but there perished an untold number in out of the way ditches and under hedges.” In the autumn the price of labour was so exorbitant that a large part of the crops were left on the ground (Twysden’s “Decem Scriptores,” col. 2599). “Through this pestilence,” say the Commons in Parliament, “cities, boroughs and other towns and hamlets throughout the land have decayed, and from day to day are decaying and several are entirely depopulated.” 25 Ed. III, A.D. 1351, “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 227.