FATHER LIAM SAYS: Six
hundred and sixty six years ago
(an easy number to remember) the Black Death arrived in Europe. It seems that twelve Genoese galleys brought
the infection to the Port of Messina in Sicily in October 1347. Where these boats came from is unknown but it
is thought they came from the Crimea.
Within a few days the plague had taken a firm hold on the city. The citizens turned on the sailors who had
brought this disastrous cargo and drove them from the port. With their going the Black Death was
scattered around the Mediterranean. The
few officials who might have organised some kind of campaign to mitigate the
disaster were among the first to perish.
The people of Messina and other ports fled from their doomed cities,
carrying the plague with them throughout the countryside.
‘A
Fourteenth Century Chronicle from the Grey Friars at Lynn’ tells us: ‘In this
year 1348 in Melcombe in the County of Dorset a little before the Feast of St
John the Baptist, two ships, one of them from Bristol, came alongside. One of the sailors had brought with him from
Gascony the seeds of the terrible pestilence and through him the men of that
town of Melcombe were the first in England to be infected.’ Other ports have been put forward as the
first to receive the plague – Bristol or Southampton – but Melcombe Regis, now
part of Weymouth, is widely regarded to be the port in question.
Among
the sources of information that historians have relied on in discovering the
severity of the Plague in various areas of the country are the Books of
Institution which shows when clergy were appointed to various parishes or ecclesiastical
livings. Exactly one hundred
appointments of Parish Priests (as we would now term them) to parishes in
Dorset who had lost their previous incumbent to the plague were made during the
seven months from October 1348 to April 1349.
Poole was particularly badly affected.
In Somerset new appointments rose from a normal figure of nine in
November 1348 to thirty-two in December and forty-seven in January 1349,
forty-three in February, twenty one in May and a mere seven in June.
It
is thought that a little under 12% of the population at this time lived in
cities or towns. London was by far the
largest and most prosperous city with a population of perhaps seventy thousand
at most. Norwich was the second largest
city with around fourteen thousand inhabitants with York at about the ten
thousand mark. The only defence against
the plague in which the doctors had the slightest faith was flight from the
affected area. But this was a defence to
which the poor had no recourse. As the
poor saw the rich and privileged pack up their most valuable belongings and
flee the cities, they must have felt that they were abandoned and
betrayed. But there is very little
evidence of social unrest such as was experienced in Spain, France or
Germany. By and large, and to a greater
extent than seems to have been the case in continental Europe, the fabric of
society survived at least in the short term.
Sussex
and Kent were assailed from every side as the Black Death moved across from the
West from Dorset, spread south from London and was able to enter through
several Channel Ports. Only five
survived out of a total strength of thirteen monks at the Priory at
Michelham. More than half of the monks
at Battle Abbey were carried away. In
the History of the Abbey of St Albans, L.F.Willliams tells of Michael of Mentmore,
one of the greatest of its Abbots, who was struck down after thirteen years in
Office on 2nd April 1349: ‘Being the first to suffer from the dread
disease, which was later to carry off his monks, he began to feel the first
symptoms on Maundy Thursday but out of reverence for the festival and
remembering Our Lord’s humility he celebrated High Mass and then before taking
his dinner he humbly and devotedly washed the feet of the poor. After he had taken his dinner he proceeded to
wash and kiss the feet of all the brethren and to carry out all the offices of
the day alone and without assistance.
The next day when the sickness became worse he took to his bed and made
his confession with a true heart and received the Sacrament of Extreme
Unction. Amidst the sorrow of all who
surrounded him he endured until noon on Easter Day......and there died at that
time forty-seven monks.’
In
spite of the outstandingly high mortality rate among the priests, they were
often criticised for not having risen to the level of their
responsibilities. The Bishop of Bath and
Wells taxed some of his clergy with a lack of devotion to their duty – but that
bishop himself does not appear to be very active while the plague was at its
highest. Those who took care of
themselves tended to have a better chance of surviving than those who exposed
themselves to danger. The best of the
clergy tended to fall victim to the plague.
The abrupt disappearance of nearly half of the clergy put a heavy strain
on the ability of the Church to function.
It is thought that about one third of the population of England
succumbed to the Black Death.
