Читать книгу The Great Pestilence (A.D. 1348-9) - Gasquet Francis Aidan - Страница 5

Almost simultaneously with the outbreak of the pestilence in Italy it obtained a foothold in the South of France. According to a contemporary account, written at Avignon in 1348, the disease was brought into Marseilles by one of the three Genoese ships, which had been compelled to leave the port of Genoa when the inhabitants discovered that by their means the dreaded plague had already commenced its ravages in their city. It would consequently appear most likely that the mortality began in Marseilles somewhere about the first days of January, 1348, although one account places the commencement of the sickness as early as All Saints' Day (November 1), 1347.46 The number of deaths in this great southern port of France fully equalled that of the populous cities of Italy. In a month the sickness is said to have carried off 57,000 of the inhabitants of Marseilles and its neighbourhood.47 One chronicle says that "the Bishop, with the entire chapter of the cathedral, and nearly all the friars, Preachers and Minorites, together with two-thirds of the inhabitants, perished" at this time; and adds that upon the sea might be seen ships, laden with merchandise, driven about hither and thither by the waves, the steersman and every sailor having been carried off by the disease.48 Another, speaking of Marseilles after the pestilence had passed, says that "so many died that it remained like an uninhabited place."49 It is of interest to record that amongst the survivors there was an English doctor, William Grisant, of Merton College, Oxford. He had studied medicine at the then celebrated school of Montpellier, and was in practice at Marseilles during the visitation of the great plague of 1348, dying two years later, in 1350.50

At Montpellier the ravages were, if possible, even greater. Of the twelve magistrates, or consuls, ten died, and in the numerous monasteries scarcely one religious was spared. The Dominicans here were very numerous, numbering some 140 members, and of these seven only are said to have been left alive.51 Simon de Covino, a doctor, of Paris, who probably witnessed the course of the disease at Montpellier, wrote an account of his experiences in a poetical form in 1350. The moral of his verse is the same as Boccaccio's, and the chief interest lies in the fact that, like the Italian poet, Covino was an eye-witness of what he relates, whilst his medical training makes his testimony as to the chief characteristics of the disease specially important. The name he gives to the malady is the pestis inguinaria, or bubonic plague of the East. He describes a burning pain, beginning under the arms, or in the groin, and extending to the regions of the heart. A mortal fever then spread to the vital parts; the heart, lungs, and breathing passages were chiefly affected, the strength fell quickly, and the person so stricken was unable to fight any length of time against the poison.

One very singular effect of the disease is noted by the author: – "The pestilence," he asserts, "stamped itself upon the entire population. Faces became pale, and the doom which threatened the people was marked upon their foreheads. It was only necessary to look into the countenances of men and women to read there recorded the blow which was about to fall; a marked pallor announced the approach of the enemy, and before the fatal day the sentence of death was written unmistakably on the face of the victims. No climate appeared to have any effect upon the strange malady. It appeared to be stayed neither by heat nor cold. High and healthy situations were as much subject to it as damp and low places. It spread during the colder season of winter as rapidly as in the heat of the summer months."

About the contagious nature of the epidemic there could be no doubt. "It has been proved," wrote Covino, "that when it once entered a house scarcely one of those who dwelt in it escaped." The contagion was so great that one sick person, so to speak, would "infect the whole world." "A touch, even a breath, was sufficient to transmit the malady." Those who were obliged to render ordinary assistance to the sick fell victims. "It happened also that priests, those sacred physicians of souls, were seized by the plague whilst administering spiritual aid; and often by a single touch, or a single breath of the plague-stricken, they perished even before the sick person they had come to assist." Clothes were justly regarded as infected, and even the furniture of houses attacked was suspected. At Montpellier, at the time of the visitation, the writer says there were more doctors than elsewhere, but hardly one escaped the infection, and this even although it was recognised that medical skill was of little or no avail.

According to the experience of this Montpellier doctor the mortality was greatest among the poor, because their hard lives and their poverty rendered them more susceptible to the deadly infection, and their condition did not enable them to combat it with the chances of success possessed by the well-to-do classes. As to the extent of the mortality, he says "that the number of those swept away was greater than those left alive; cities are now (i. e., 1350) depopulated, thousands of houses are locked up, thousands stand with their doors wide open, their owners and those who dwelt in them having been swept away." Lastly, this writer bears testimony to the baneful effect the scourge had upon the morals of those who had been spared. Such visitations, he thinks, must always exercise the most lowering influence upon the general virtue of the world.52

From Marseilles the epidemic quickly spread northwards up the Rhone valley, and in a westerly direction through Languedoc. Montpellier, too, quickly passed on the infection. It commenced at Narbonne in the first week of Lent, 1348, and is said to have carried off 30,000 of the inhabitants. Indeed, so fearful was the visitation, that this ancient city is reported never to have recovered from the desolation it caused.53

At Arles, which was attacked very shortly after the disease had gained a footing on French soil, most of the inhabitants perished.54 It reached Avignon as early as January, 1348. In this city Pope Clement VI., then in the sixth year of his pontificate, held his court. Before the arrival of the dreaded visitant was publicly recognised sixty-six religious of the convent of Carmelites had been carried off, and in the first three days 1,800 people are reported to have died. In the seven months during which the scourge lasted the vast roll of the dead in the territory of Avignon had mounted up to 150,000 persons, amongst whom was the friend of Petrarch, Laura de Noves, who died on Good Friday, March 27th, 1348.55 Even in England at the time the excessive mortality at Avignon was noted and remarked upon.56 Great numbers of Jews are said to have been carried off because of the unsanitary conditions in which they lived, and an equally great number of Spaniards resident in the city, whose propensity for good living rendered them most susceptible to the infection.57

The alarming mortality quickly caused a panic. "For such terror," writes an author of the lives of the Popes at Avignon, "took possession of nearly everyone, that as soon as the ulcer or boil appeared on anyone he was deserted by all, no matter how nearly they might be related to him. For the father left his son, the son his father, on his sick bed. In any house when a person became sick with the infirmity and died it generally happened that all others there were attacked and quickly followed him to the grave; yea, even the animals in the place, such as dogs, cats, cocks, and hens also died. Hence those who had strength fled for fear of what had taken place, and, as a consequence, many who might otherwise have recovered perished through want of care. Many, too, who were seized with the sickness, being considered certain to die and without any hope of recovery, were carried off at once to the pit and buried. And in this way many were buried alive."

The same writer notices the charity of the Pope at this terrible time, in causing doctors to visit and assist the sick poor. "And since the ordinary cemeteries did not suffice to hold the bodies of the dead, the Pope purchased a large field and caused it to be consecrated as a cemetery where anyone might be buried. And here an infinite number of people were then interred."58

The most important and particular account of the pestilence at Avignon, however, is that of a certain Canon of the Low Countries, who wrote at the time from the city to his friends in Bruges. He was in the train of a Cardinal on a visit to the Roman Curia when the plague broke out. "The disease," he writes, "is threefold in its infection; that is to say, firstly, men suffer in their lungs and breathing, and whoever have these corrupted, or even slightly attacked, cannot by any means escape nor live beyond two days. Examinations have been made by doctors in many cities of Italy, and also in Avignon, by order of the Pope, in order to discover the origin of this disease. Many dead bodies have been thus opened and dissected, and it is found that all who have died thus suddenly have had their lungs infected and have spat blood. The contagious nature of the disease is indeed the most terrible of all the terrors (of the time), for when anyone who is infected by it dies, all who see him in his sickness, or visit him, or do any business with him, or even carry him to the grave, quickly follow him thither, and there is no known means of protection.

"There is another form of the sickness, however, at present running its course concurrently with the first; that is, certain aposthumes appear under both arms, and by these also people quickly die. A third form of the disease – like the two former, running its course at this same time with them – is that from which people of both sexes suffer from aposthumes in the groin. This, likewise, is quickly fatal. The sickness has already grown to such proportions that, from fear of contagion, no doctor will visit a sick man, even if the invalid would gladly give him everything he possessed; neither does a father visit his son, nor a mother her daughter, nor a brother his brother, nor a son his father, nor a friend his friend, nor an acquaintance his acquaintance, nor, in fact, does anyone go to another, no matter how closely he may be allied to him by blood, unless he is prepared to die with him or quickly to follow after him. Still, a large number of persons have died merely through their affection for others; for they might have escaped had they not, moved by piety and Christian charity, visited the sick at the time.

"To put the matter shortly, one-half, or more than a half, of the people at Avignon are already dead. Within the walls of the city there are now more than 7,000 houses shut up; in these no one is living, and all who have inhabited them are departed; the suburbs hardly contain any people at all. A field near 'Our Lady of Miracles' has been bought by the Pope and consecrated as a cemetery. In this, from the 13th of March,59 11,000 corpses have been buried. This number does not include those interred in the cemetery of the hospital of St. Anthony, in cemeteries belonging to the religious bodies, and in the many others which exist in Avignon. Nor must I be silent about the neighbouring parts, for at Marseilles all the gates of the city, with the exception of two small ones, are now closed, for there four-fifths of the inhabitants are dead.

"The like account I can give of all the cities and towns of Provence. Already the sickness has crossed the Rhone, and ravaged many cities and villages as far as Toulouse, and it ever increases in violence as it proceeds. On account of this great mortality there is such a fear of death that people do not dare even to speak with anyone whose relative has died, because it is frequently remarked that in a family where one dies nearly all the relations follow him, and this is commonly believed among the people. Neither are the sick now served by their kindred, except as dogs would be; food is put near the bed for them to eat and drink, and then those still in health fly and leave the house. When a man dies some rough countrymen, called gavoti, come to the house, and, after receiving a sufficiently large reward, carry the corpse to the grave. Neither relatives nor friends go to the sick, nor do priests even hear their confessions nor give them the Sacraments; but everyone whilst still in health looks after himself. It daily happens that some rich man dying is borne to the grave by these ruffians without lights, and without a soul to follow him, except these hired mourners. When a corpse is carried by all fly through the streets and get into their houses. Nor do these said wretched gavoti, strong as they are, escape; but most of them after a time become infected by this contagion and die. All the poor who were wont to receive bread from the rich are dead; that is to say, briefly, where daily in ordinary times there were distributed sixty-four measures of wheat for bread, fifty loaves being made from each measure, now only one measure is given away, and sometimes even a half is found to be sufficient.

"And it is said that altogether in three months – that is from January 25th to the present day (April 27th) – 62,000 bodies have been buried in Avignon. The Pope, however, about the middle of March last past, after mature deliberation, gave plenary absolution till Easter, as far as the keys of the Church extended, to all those who, having confessed and being contrite, should happen to die of the sickness. He ordered likewise devout processions, singing the Litanies, to be made on certain days each week, and to these, it is said, people sometimes come from the neighbouring districts to the number of 2,000; amongst them many of both sexes are barefooted, some are in sackcloth, some with ashes, walking with tears and tearing their hair, and beating themselves with scourges even to the drawing of blood. The Pope was personally present at some of these processions, but they were then within the precincts of his palace. What will be the end, or whence all this has had its beginning, God alone knows..

"Some wretched men have been caught with certain dust, and, whether justly or unjustly God only knows, they are accused of having poisoned the water, and men in fear do not drink the water from wells; for this many have been burnt and daily are burnt.

"Fish, even sea fish, is commonly not eaten, as people say they have been infected by the bad air. Moreover, people do not eat, nor even touch spices, which have not been kept a year, since they fear they may have lately arrived in the aforesaid ships. And, indeed, it has many times been observed that those who have eaten these new spices and even some kinds of sea fish have suddenly been taken ill.

"I write this to you, my friends, that you may know the dangers in which we live. And if you desire to preserve yourselves, the best advice is to eat and drink temperately, to avoid cold, not to commit excess of any kind, and, above all, to converse little with others, at this time especially, except with the few whose breath is sweet. But it is best to remain at home until this epidemic has passed..

"Know, also, that the Pope has lately left Avignon, as is reported, and has gone to the castle called Stella, near Valence on the Rhone, two leagues off, to remain there till times change. The Curia, however, preferred to remain at Avignon, (but) vacations have been proclaimed till the feast of St. Michael. All the auditors, advocates, and procurators have either left, intend to leave immediately, or are dead. I am in the hands of God, to whom I commend myself. My master will follow the Pope, so they say, and I with him, for there are some castles near the airy mountains where the mortality has not yet appeared, and it is thought that the best chance is there. To choose and to do what is best may the Omnipotent and merciful God grant us all. Amen."60

From another source some corroboration of the mortality, described by the writer of this letter, can be obtained. The 11,000, stated by the anonymous canon to have been buried in the Pope's new cemetery from March 13th to April 27th may appear excessive; still more, the 62,000 reported to have died in the three months between the first outbreak, on January 25th, and the date when the letter was written. The statements of the writer are, however, so circumstantial and given with such detail, that, allowing for the tendency in all such catastrophes to exaggerate rather than minimise the number of the victims, it is probable that his estimate of the terrible destruction of life at Avignon and in the neighbourhood is substantially accurate. Writing, as he does, on the Sunday after Easter, 1348, he evidently points to the time of Lent as the period during which the epidemic was at its height. This is borne out by a statement in a German chronicle, which says: "In Venice, in the whole of Italy and Provence, especially in cities on the sea-coast, there died countless numbers. And at Avignon, where the Roman Curia then was, in the first three days after mid-Lent Sunday, 1,400 people were computed to have been buried."61 Mid-Lent Sunday, in 1348, fell upon March 30th, and, consequently, according to this authority, on the last day of March and the first two days of April the death-rate was over 450 a day.

No account of the plague at Avignon would be complete without some notice of Gui de Chauliac, and some quotations from the work he has left to posterity upon this particular outbreak. De Chauliac was the medical attendant of Pope Clement VI. He devoted himself to the service of the sick during the time of the epidemic, and, although he himself caught the infection, his life was happily spared to the service of others, and to enable him to write an account of the sickness. The mortality, he says, commenced in the month of January, 1348, and lasted for the space of seven months. "It was of two kinds; the first lasted two months, with constant fever and blood-spitting, and of this people died in three days.

"The second lasted for the rest of the time. In this, together with constant fever, there were external carbuncles, or buboes, under the arm or in the groin, and the disease ran its course in five days. The contagion was so great (especially when there was blood-spitting) that not only by remaining (with the sick) but even by looking (at them) people seemed to take it; so much so, that many died without any to serve them, and were buried without priests to pray over their graves.

"A father did not visit his son, nor the son his father. Charity was dead. The mortality was so great that it left hardly a fourth part of the population. Even the doctors did not dare to visit the sick from fear of infection, and when they did visit them they attempted nothing to heal them, and thus almost all those who were taken ill died, except towards the end of the epidemic, when some few recovered."

"As for me, to avoid infamy, I did not dare to absent myself, but still I was in continual fear." Towards the end of the sickness de Chauliac took the infection, and was in great danger for six weeks, but in the end recovered.62

It was according to the advice of this same Gui de Chauliac that Pope Clement VI. isolated himself and kept large fires always alight in his apartments, just as Pope Nicholas IV. had done in a previous epidemic. In the whole district of Provence the mortality appears to have been very great. In the Lent of 1348 no fewer than 358 Dominicans are said to have died.63 Even by the close of the November of this year the terror of the time had not passed away from Avignon and the Papal Court. Writing to King Louis of Hungary, on the 23rd of that month, the Pope excused himself for not having sent before, "as the deadly plague, which has devastated these and other parts of the world by an unknown and terrible mortality, has not only, by God's will, carried off some of our brethren, but caused others to fly from the Roman Curia to avoid death."64

In the early summer of the same year, 1348, just as the plague was lessening its ravages at Avignon, the Pope addressed a letter to the General Chapter of the Friars Minor then being held at Verona. He laments the misery into which the world has been plunged, chiefly "by the mortal sickness which is carrying off from us old and young, rich and poor, in one common, sudden and unforeseen death." He urges them to unite in prayer that the plague may cease, and grants special indulgences "to such among you as, during this Chapter, or whilst returning to your homes, may chance to die."65 Of these Franciscans it is said that, in Italy alone, 30,000 died in this sickness.

From its first entry into France in the early days of 1348, the plague was ever spreading far and wide. The letter from Avignon, already given, speaks of the ravages of the mortality in the whole of Provence, and of its having, before the end of April, reached Toulouse on its journey westward. In the August of this year (1348) Bordeaux was apparently suffering from it, since in that month the Princess Joan, daughter of Edward III., who was on her way to be married to Pedro, son of the King of Castille, died suddenly in that city.

In a northerly direction the epidemic spread with equal virulence. At Lyons evidence of the pestilence is afforded by an inscription preserved in the town museum. It relates to the construction of a chapel in 1352 by a citizen, "Michael Pancsus," in which Mass should be said for the souls of several members of his family "who died in the time of the mortality, 1348."66 The anonymous cleric of Bruges, who preserved the Avignon letter, writing probably at the time, gives the following account of its progress: "In the year of our Lord 1348, that plague, epidemic, and mortality, which we have mentioned before, by the will of God has not ceased; but from day to day grows and descends upon other parts. For in Burgundy, Normandy, and elsewhere it has consumed, and is consuming, many thousands of men, animals, and sheep."67

It arrived in Normandy probably about the feast of St. James (July 25th), 1348. A contemporary note in a manuscript, which certainly came from the Abbey of Foucarmont, gives the following account: "In the year of grace 1348, about the feast of St. James, the great mortality entered into Normandy. And it came into Gascony, and Poitou, and Brittany, and then passed into Picardy. And it was so horrible that in the towns it attacked more than two-thirds of the population died. And a father did not dare to go and visit his son, nor a brother his sister, and people could not be found to nurse one another, because, when the person breathed the breath of another he could not escape. It came to such a pass that no one could be found even to carry the corpses (to the tomb). People said that the end of the world had come."68 In another manuscript, M. Delisle has found a further note, or portion of a note, referring to the terrible nature of the malady in Normandy. It never entered a city or town without carrying off the greater part of the inhabitants. "And in that time the mortality was so great among the people of Normandy that those in Picardy mocked them."69

Paris was, of course, visited by the disease. Apparently, it was some time in the early summer of 1348 when it first manifested itself. In the chronicle of St. Denis it is recorded that "in the year of grace 1348 the said mortality commenced in the Kingdom of France and lasted about a year and a half, more or less. In this way there died in Paris, one day with another, 800 persons… In the space of the said year and a half, as some declare, the number of the dead in Paris rose to more than 50,000, and in the town of St. Denis the number was as high as 16,000."70 The chronicle of the Carmelites at Rheims places the total of deaths in Paris at the larger number of 80,000,71 amongst whom were two Queens, Joan of Navarre, daughter of Louis X., and Joan of Burgundy, wife of King Philip of Valois.

The most circumstantial account of the plague in France at the time when the capital was attacked is given in the continuation of the chronicle of William of Nangis, which was written probably before 1368. "In the same year" (1348), it says, "both in Paris in the kingdom of France, and not less, as is reported, in different parts of the world, and also in the following year, there was so great a mortality of people of both sexes, and of the young rather than the old, that they could hardly be buried. Further they were ill scarcely more than two or three days, and some often died suddenly, so that a man to-day in good health, to-morrow was carried a corpse to the grave. Lumps suddenly appeared under the arm-pits or in the groin, and the appearance of these was an infallible sign of death. This sickness, or pestilence, was called by the doctors the epidemic. And the multitude of people who died in the years 1348 and 1349, was so large that nothing like it was ever heard, read of, or witnessed in past ages. And the said death and sickness often sprung from the imagination, or from the society and (consequent) contagion of another, for a healthy man visiting one sick hardly ever escaped death. So that in many towns, small and great, priests retired through fear, leaving the administration of the Sacraments to religious, who were more bold. Briefly, in many places, there did not remain two alive out of every twenty.

"So great was the mortality in the Hotel-Dieu of Paris that for a long time more than fifty corpses were carried away from it each day in carts to be buried.72 And the devout sisters of the Hotel-Dieu, not fearing death, worked piously and humbly, not out of regard for any worldly honour. A great number of these said sisters were very frequently summoned to their reward by death, and rest in peace with Christ, as is piously believed."

After saying that the plague had passed through Gascony and Spain, the chronicler speaks of it as going "from town to town, village to village, from house to house, and even from person to person; and coming into the country of France, passed into Germany, where, however, it was less severe than amongst us."

"It lasted in France," the writer says, "the greater part of 1348 and 1349, and afterwards there were to be seen many towns, country places, and houses in good cities remaining empty and without inhabitants."

The writer concludes by declaring that nature soon began to make up for losses. "But, alas! the world by this renovation is not changed for the better. For people were afterwards more avaricious and grasping, even when they possessed more of the goods of this world, than before. They were more covetous, vexing themselves by contentious quarrels, strifes, and law suits." Moreover, all things were much dearer; furniture, food, merchandise, of all sorts doubled in price, and servants would work only for higher wages. "Charity, too, from that time began to grow cold, and wickedness with its attendant, ignorance, was rampant, and few were found who could or would teach children the rudiments of grammar in houses, cities, or villages."73

Whilst the plague was at its height King Philip VI. requested the medical faculty of Paris to consult together and to report upon the best methods by which the deadly nature of the disease could be combated. The result of their consultation was published, probably in June, 1348.74 Unfortunately, adhering closely to the text of the question addressed to them, their reply does not furnish any historical details. They broadly state their views as to the probable origin of the epidemic, and confine themselves to suggestions as to its treatment, and to the means by which contagion is to be avoided. They are clear as to the infectious nature of the disease, and earnest in their recommendations that all who were able should have nothing to do with the sick. "It is chiefly the people of one house, and above all those of the same family, who are close together," they say, "who die, for they are always near to those who are sick. We advise them to depart, for it is in this way that a great number have been infected by the plague."75

Meanwhile the epidemic was spreading northward. At Amiens, where 17,000 are said to have been carried off by the sickness, it seems probable that the malady was not at its height before the summer of the following year, 1349. The wave of pestilence from Paris seems to have divided. One stream swept on through Normandy towards the coast, which it probably reached, in the regions round Calais, about July or August of the year 1348. The other stream, checked probably by the autumn and winter, made its way more slowly towards Belgium and Holland.

In the June of 1349 the King granted a petition from the Mayor of Amiens for a new cemetery. In the document the plague in the city is described as having been then so terrible that the cemeteries are full, and no more corpses could safely be buried in them. "The mortality in the said town," says the King's letter, "is so marvellously great that people are dying there suddenly, as quickly, as from one evening to the following morning, and often even quicker than that."76 This was in June, 1349, and already by September of the same year the authorities were called upon to deal with a combination of workmen at a tannery to secure for themselves excessive wages "to the great hurt of the people at large." The promptness of the action of the Mayor, and the tone of the proclamation establishing a rate of wages, is a sufficient proof that the crisis was regarded as serious.77 This trouble at Amiens is an indication of difficulties which will be seen to have existed elsewhere in France, in Germany, and in England, which had their origin in the dearth of labourers after the scourge had passed.

The account of the ravages of this great pestilence in France, as well as its course in the city of Tournay, where it commenced in August, 1349, is well given in the chronicle of Gilles Li Muisis, Abbot of St. Martin's, Tournay, who was a contemporary of the events he describes. "It is impossible," he says, "to credit the mortality throughout the whole country. Travellers, merchants, pilgrims, and others who have passed through it declare that they have found cattle wandering without herdsmen in fields, towns, and waste lands; that they have seen barns and wine-cellars standing wide open, houses empty, and few people to be found anywhere. So much so that in many towns, cities and villages, where there had been before 20,000 people, scarcely 2,000 are left; and in many cities and country places, where there had been 1,500 people, hardly 100 remain. And in many different lands (multis climatibus), both lands and fields are lying uncultivated. I have heard these things from a certain knight well skilled in the law, who was one of the members of the Paris Parliament. He was sent, together with a certain Bishop, by Philip, the most illustrious King of France, to the King of Aragon, and on his return journey passed through Avignon. Both there and in Paris, as he told me, he was informed of the foresaid things by many people worthy of credit."

After speaking of the evidence given by a pilgrim to Santiago, Li Muisis proceeds to relate his own experiences in Tournay in the summer of 1349. This he does in verse and prose. The poem, after speaking of the manifestation of God's anger, describes the plague beginning in the East and passing through France into Flanders. Like other writers, Li Muisis declares that he hesitates to say what he has seen and heard, because posterity will hardly credit what he would relate.78 The reports of all travellers and merchants as to the terrible state of the country generally give one and the same sad story of universal death and distress. The particulars as to the plague in Tournay, the writer's own city, may best be given from his prose account.

John de Pratis, the Bishop of Tournay, was one of the first to be carried off by the sickness. He had gone away for change of air, and on Corpus Christi Day, June 11th, 1349, he carried the blessed Sacrament in the procession at Arras. He left that city the next day for Cambray, but died the day after almost suddenly.79 He was buried at Tournay; and "time passed on," says our author, to the beginning of August, up to which no other person of authority died in Tournay. But after the feast of St. John the plague began in the parish of St. Piat, in the quarter of Merdenchor, and afterwards in other parishes. Every day the bodies of the dead were borne to the churches, now five, now ten, now fifteen, and in the parish of St. Brice sometimes twenty or thirty. In all parish churches the curates, parish clerks, and sextons to get their fees, rang morning, evening, and night the passing bells, and by this the whole people of the city, both men and women, began to be filled with fear.

The officials of the town consequently seeing that the Dean and Chapter, and the clerics generally, did not care to remedy this matter, since it was in their interest it should go on, as they made profit out of it, having taken counsel together, issued certain orders. Men and women who, although not married, were living together as man and wife, were commanded either to marry or forthwith to separate. The bodies of the dead were to be buried immediately in graves at least six feet deep. There was to be no tolling of any bell at funerals. The corpse was not to be taken to the church, but at the service only a pall was to be spread on the ground, whilst after the service there was to be no gathering together at the houses of the deceased. Further, all work after noon on Saturdays and during the entire Sunday was prohibited, as also was the playing of dice and making use of profane oaths.

These ordinances having lasted for a time, and the sickness still further increasing, it was proclaimed on St. Matthew's Day (September 24th) that there should be no more ringing of bells, that not more than two were to meet for any funeral service, and that no one was to dress in black. This action of the city authorities, the writer declares to have been most beneficial. In his own knowledge, he says, many who had hitherto been living in a state of concubinage were married, that the practice of swearing notably diminished, and that dice were so little used that the manufacturers turned "the square-shaped dice" into "round objects on which people told their Pater Nosters."

I have tried, says our author, to write what I know, "and let future generations believe that in Tournay there was a marvellous mortality. I heard from many about Christmas time who professed to know it as a fact that more than 25,000 persons had died in Tournay, and it was strange that the mortality was especially great among the chief people and the rich. Of those who used wine and kept away from the tainted air and visiting the sick few or none died. But those visiting and frequenting the houses of the sick either became grievously ill or died. Deaths were more numerous about the market places and in poor narrow streets than in broader and more spacious areas. And whenever one or two people died in any house, at once, or at least in a short space of time, the rest of the household were carried off. So much so, that very often in one home ten or more ended their lives together, and in many houses the dogs and even cats died. Hence no one, whether rich, in moderate circumstances, or poor, was secure, but everyone from day to day waited on the will of the Lord. And certainly great was the number of curates and chaplains hearing confessions and administering the Sacraments, and even of parish clerks visiting the sick with them, who died."

In the parishes across the river, the mortality was as great as in Tournay itself. Although death as a rule came so suddenly, still the people for the most part were able to receive the Sacraments. The rapidity of the disease, remarked upon by Petrarch and Boccaccio in Italy, is also spoken of in the same terms by the Abbot of St. Martin's. People that one had seen apparently well and had spoken to one evening were reported dead next day. He specially remarks upon the mortality among the clergy visiting the sick,80