The Black Death in London (23 page)

The anonymous Canterbury Chronicle provides us with some description of the outward symptoms of the disease:

Children and adolescents were generally the first to die, and then the elderly. Members of religious orders and parish clergy and others died suddenly without respect of persons when the first spots and the other signs of death appeared on their bodies, as on the bodies of the victims everywhere. Many churches were then left unserved and empty through lack of priests. The plague lasted for more than four months in England.
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In contrast to the first epidemic, the course of the 1361 plague across England and indeed Europe has yet to be clearly established – certainly there seem to be few warning references in clerical correspondence, so it may well be that the outbreak originated in England and possibly in London as the Lynn greyfriars and the Canterbury Chronicles maintain. The Husting wills for 1361 do show the Canterbury Chronicle to be absolutely correct regarding the date, and the outbreak in the city can probably be dated to as precise a time as the second half of April (see Fig. 13).
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A total of fifteen wills were drawn up in that month, nine of them in its last twelve days. To put this into perspective, in the decade from January 1350 to December 1359, a total of 129 wills were drawn up (which were eventually enrolled in the Husting court), meaning the yearly average had been exceeded in one month.

Agnes, the unmarried daughter of cordwainer Richard Sorel, living in the parish of St Michael-le-Quern, is probably the earliest identifiable victim: her will dated 22 April and was proved in Husting just four days later. Another early victim may have been Margaret Cadoun, an orphan and minor whose death on 25 April was reported by her guardian, Richard Russell, when he came to recover money left in trust for her.
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Enrolments during the first two weeks of the plague totalled eight, seven of which had been drawn up before the outbreak. Of these, one was for Alan de Scarnyngge, a clerk at Holy Trinity priory, Aldgate, who had lived through the first plague and who left 10s for his daughter’s wedding, to be arranged by the prior for whom he had worked.
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Perhaps significantly, the king also issued orders strongly reminiscent of those made during the first outbreak, closing the ports on 30 April to any except merchants.
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In May, the number of wills drawn up leapt to twenty-nine. Among these was the will of Roger de Codyngton, dated to 29 May, who specified burial in the church of ‘St Mary of the New Work’ in Aldersgate, the chapel founded by de Mauny in the West Smithfield plague cemetery.
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The chapel and cemetery were the subject of intensive planning at this dangerous time, evidence of which comes from an agreement drawn up on 9 May 1361 between de Mauny himself and Michael de Northburgh, Ralph Stratford’s successor as Bishop of London. The agreement, relating to the foundation of both chapel and cemetery, was of such importance that it was recited verbatim in the early sixteenth-century Register of the Charterhouse. It said:

Walter de Mauny received the said bishop as his first associate for the foundation and advowson and building of the church of the Annunciation of Our Lady without London beside Smethefeld … It was also agreed that the beginning of this foundation was, during the pestilence which was [in 1349] and is in the present, to bury here in the cemetery the bodies of all Christians, especially of the City of London, who wish to be buried there, of rich as well as of poor … and as well without regard to the pestilence as during the pestilence, but especially during the pestilence.
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It is important in the context of this study because it specifically refers to further burials in the Smithfield cemetery during this second outbreak: the emergency cemetery was being pressed into service once more. De Northburgh’s will, dated 23 May, in reinforcing the agreement, further indicated his intention to found a Carthusian monastery on the site of the Newchurchehawe, for which he bequeathed the very considerable sum of £2,000. De Mauny issued a letter patent just a day after de Northburgh’s will was drawn up, notifying that:

an agreement having been arranged between him and Sir Michael de Northburgh, bishop of London, with reference to the church of the Annunciation of Our Lady without Smethefeld, which he had lately founded, it had pleased him that the said bishop for the advancement of that church, and of the religious house [Charterhouse], which they both intended to found, and for the benefit of the said place, might henceforth act as he, the said bishop, thought fit without hindrance from him, or without obtaining his consent, if absent.
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Such plans were, however, going to suffer a setback: de Northburgh was to die in just four months’ time.

Work on royal projects was not to be set aside despite the worsening situation, and as de Scarnyngge’s will was being copied into the Husting rolls, the king was appointing Richard de Normanton, clerk of the king’s works in the Tower of London, with funds to source sufficient workmen, to accommodate himself in the Tower and to convey materials there. Thomas Chamberleyn likewise was charged with the delivery of stone, timber, lime, tiles and other necessaries for the king’s works in Westminster Palace and the Tower of London, and carriage for the same, to be paid for by the hands of the king’s surveyor, William de Lambheth.
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Edward appears to have shown urgency in the matter of completing one particular royal religious project among the several he was progressing at this time, and perhaps for good reason. St Mary Graces, founded on the site of the Holy Trinity plague cemetery near the Tower, remained substantially incomplete.

On 17 March 1361 Edward appointed John Cory, the clerk who had consolidated the land for the cemetery in 1349, and John de Tiryngton, a master mason, ‘to take twenty-four carpenters, masons, tilers and other workmen’ for works at the abbey. The king also provided royal protection for the workmen, wishing ‘to hasten on the works as much as possible’.
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The reason for the haste is unclear, but a royal grant of lands to the abbey may provide a clue. On 7 May 1361, the king granted ‘a messuage and a brewhouse called Le Ram’ at Tower Hill; other tenements ‘which the king had of the grant of Gilbert Bromzerdes, “garlykmongere”, and Joan his wife, and Thomas Heywode son and heir of Thomas Heywode … [and] the whole tenement called Le Cornerhouse [also on Tower Hill] … to find chantries and alms in the abbey for the soul of the king and for the soul of his mother Isabel late queen of England’.
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It may, therefore, be that the king had got wind of a second outbreak as early as March and, through the establishment of chantries in his own royal foundation, was once again keen to improve his spiritual defences.

Royal concern with sanitation and the link between refuse disposal and the plague was once again raised. In May, Edward ordered the removal of slaughterhouses from the city to Stratford or Knightsbridge, complaining to the mayor and commonalty of London that:

by the killing of great beasts, from whose putrid blood running down the streets and the bowels cast into the Thames, the air in the city is very much corrupted and infected, whence abominable and most filthy stench proceeds, sickness and many other evils have happened to such as have abode in the said city, or have resorted to it; and great dangers are feared to fall out for the time to come, unless remedy be presently made against it.
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The wills continue to provide evidence both of the speed of death and the impact the plague had on whole families. Robert de Guldeford, a draper, made his will on 12 May, making provision for his four children. He died within two weeks, and his wife Johanna’s will, made on 27 May, specified her burial place by his side in the Lady Chapel of St Augustine Papey. By this time two of their children had also perished, leaving Roesia, 11, and Henry, 9. The remaining two children were placed with different guardians shortly after the enrolment of both parents’ wills in December 1361.
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Nicholas Horewode from the parish of St Nicholas Olave died within two weeks of his will, dated 16 May. In the will he left bequests to his children, but by 7 June, the date of his wife Johanna’s will, only one son survived.
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The number of enrolments in May was eight, matching April’s figure, but six of those eight had written their wills since the outbreak of the pestilence.

The crisis once again precipitated confusion among the citizens, exemplified by the family of one victim, Richard de Wycombe. He was a wealthy corder, married with three daughters, one of whom was a nun in Barking Abbey. His will, enrolled on 10 May, made his wife guardian of his youngest daughter, Isabella, and provided for the latter 200 marks of silver for her future marriage and his best silver spice dish. However, by 4 July 1361, it was necessary for the mayor and chamberlain to order the serjeant of the Guildhall to take Isabella, now an orphan, into the city’s hands, and to summon the executors of de Wycombe’s will. The serjeant reported on the same day that the little girl, said by the executors to be about 9 years old, had been ‘carried away’ and could not be found; the executors meanwhile brought in the money and the dish to be placed in safekeeping for Isabella’s return. The hope of her return was obviously held long, but was ultimately in vain: seven years later, her cousin came to court to claim the legacy, confirming that she had indeed died in 1361.
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The plague thus probably killed father, mother and at least one daughter.

Some properties, for want of any surviving legal heirs, reverted to the king himself. One example was Edward’s grant in fee to John Pecche, a London citizen, of three tenements held by Matilda Wight (died between May and July); and a brewhouse, six shops and a garden at ‘Le Barbikan’ (in the area of the modern Barbican Centre), which Nicholas de Horewode held (the same Nicholas mentioned above, whose wife also died shortly after). The grant specifically states that ‘These all came into the king’s hand because the said tenants died without heirs, as has been found by inquisitions’,
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so we may safely assume that de Horewode’s son mentioned in his will had also died.

Despite the relatively low enrolment figure, stories such as this hint at how serious an emergency this outbreak was for the city, and soon, as before, it was affecting royal administration. On 10 May the king was compelled to write to Robert de Thorpe, the chief justice, the justices of the Common Bench, and to the treasurer and barons of the Exchequer:

Whereas great multitudes of the people are suddenly smitten by the deadly plague now newly prevailing both in the City of London and in neighbouring parts, and the plague is daily increasing [in strength], whereby many presenting pleas and business in the king’s court have for fear of death drawn to their own parts leaving such pleas and business in peril of loss; wherefore, by assent of the nobles and others of the council, the king has appointed that all pleas pending in the Bench shall be continued [carried forward] in the state they now are until the morrow of mid-summer.
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Key personnel in the cathedral and in monastic houses once again fell victim. On the same day as the Common Bench was suspended, the will of William de Ravenstone, the almoner of St Paul’s Cathedral – effectively also the schoolmaster – was enrolled. Ravenstone’s will, drawn up by him in 1358, is interesting on two counts: first, attached to it was a list of the books of learning he bequeathed to the boys; and second, it provides clear detail of the furnishings and arrangement of the almonry school.
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The prior of St Bartholomew in Smithfield, John de Carleton, succumbed in early May. On 15 May the king committed to the sub-prior and convent the guardianship of the house and all temporalities, ‘for as long as it is void following the death of John, the last prior’. The next day, he further provided licence for the sub-prior and convent, ‘to elect a prior in the room of John, deceased’, and within five days he had signalled his assent to the election of canon Thomas de Watford.
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Across the river in Southwark things were no better, and it is probable that plague carried off John de Bradewey, the master of the hospital of St Thomas, before 13 May, when a new master, a former canon from the priory of St Mary Overie called Richard de Stokes, was elected. He, too, was gone before December 1361, the appointment of his successor falling to William Edington as bishop because all the brethren bar one had died in the plague.
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Secular clergy were no more immune than they had been in the first outbreak, and presentations by the king on 29 May of John de Thorneton, chaplain, to the church of St Dunstan in the West, and on 17 June of Robert de Ellerker, chaplain, to the church of St Stephen Walbrook,
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suggests losses among the parish incumbents.