chapter 9._

"We may trace the destructive nature of the war with France in the notices of adjoining parishes thrown into one for want of sufficient inhabitants, 'of people impoverished by frequent taxation of our lord the king,' until they had fled, of churches allowed to fall into ruin because there were none to worship within their walls, and of religious houses extinguished because the monks and nuns had died, and none bad been found to supply their places. ... {813} To the poverty of the country and the consequent inability of the nation to maintain the costly wars of Edward III., are attributed the enactments of sumptuary laws, which were passed because men who spent much on their table and dress were unable 'to help their liege lord' in the battle field."

_W. Denton, England in the 15th Century, introduction, part 2._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1318-1349. The Black Death and its effects.

"The plague of 1349 ... produced in every country some marked social changes. ... In England the effects of the plague are historically prominent chiefly among the lower classes of society. The population was diminished to an extent to which it is impossible now even to approximate, but which bewildered and appalled the writers of the time; whole districts were thrown out of cultivation, whole parishes depopulated, the number of labourers was so much diminished that on the one hand the survivors demanded an extravagant rate of wages, and even combined to enforce it, whilst on the other hand the landowners had to resort to every antiquated claim of service to get their estates cultivated at all; the whole system of farming was changed in consequence, the great landlords and the monastic corporations ceased to manage their estates by farming stewards, and after a short interval, during which the lands with the stock on them were let to the cultivator on short leases, the modern system of letting was introduced, and the permanent distinction between the farmer and the labourer established."

_W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 16, section 259._

"On the first of August 1348 the disease appeared in the seaport towns of Dorsetshire, and travelled slowly westwards and northwards, through Devonshire and Somersetshire to Bristol. In order, if possible, to arrest its progress, all intercourse with the citizens of Bristol was prohibited by the authorities of the county of Gloucester. These precautions were however taken in vain; the Plague continued to Oxford, and, travelling slowly in the same measured way, reached London by the first of November. It appeared in Norwich on the first of January, and thence spread northwards. ... The mortality was enormous. Perhaps from one-third to one-half the population fell victims to the disease. Adam of Monmouth says that only a tenth of the population survived. Similar amplifications are found in all the chroniclers. We are told that 60,000 persons perished in Norwich between January and July 1349. No doubt Norwich was at that time the second city in the kingdom, but the number is impossible. ... It is stated that in England the weight of the calamity fell on the poor, and that the higher classes were less severely affected. But Edward's daughter Joan fell a victim to it and three archbishops of Canterbury perished in the same year. ... All contemporary writers inform us that the immediate consequence of the Plague was a dearth of labour, and excessive enhancement of wages, and thereupon a serious loss to the landowners. To meet this scarcity the king issued a proclamation directed to the sheriffs of the several counties, which forbad the payment of higher than the customary wages, under the penalties of amercement. But the king's mandate was every where disobeyed. ... Many of the labourers were thrown into prison; many to avoid punishment fled to the forests, but were occasionally captured and fined; and all were constrained to disavow under oath that they would take higher than customary wages for the future."

_J. E. T. Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, chapter 15._

ALSO IN: _F. A. Gasquet, The Great Pestilence._

_W. Longman, Edward III., volume 1; chapter 10._

_A. Jessop, The Coming of the Friars, &c.,