Note 161 — Chapter VI · PROGRESS OF THE DISEASE IN LONDON AND THE SOUTH.

Dr. Creighton (ut sup., p. 129) mentions that "in the charter of incorporation of the Company of Cutlers, granted in 1344, eight persons are named as wardens, and these are stated in a note to have been all dead five years after, that is to say, in the year of the Black Death, 1349, although their deaths are not set down to the plague. Again, in the articles of the Hatters' Company, which were drawn up only a year before the plague began (December 13, 1347) six persons are named as wardens, and these according to a note of the time were all dead before the 7th of July, 1350, the cause of the mortality being again unmentioned, probably because it was familiar knowledge to those then living. It is known also that four wardens of the Goldsmiths' Company died in the year of the Black Death."