The Black Death in London (26 page)

Table 4a. Proportions of the adult population of all burials where both an age and a sex could be established for the 1361 burials, compared with the 1349 group and those buried around the abbey churchyard cross.

Table 4b. Age and sex distribution of the skeletons buried in the East Smithfield cemetery, probably in the pestis secunda of 1361.

In aggregate, the historical and archaeological evidence combines to reinforce the notion that the group buried on the 1349 plague plot was indeed formed principally of victims of the second plague. If this is correct, then we can make some very tentative observations about the differences between the two plague groups. The overall nature of the cemetery population, using the same recorded data as for 1349, is very similar. The number of infant deaths is slightly greater, that of teens a little less, and the overall proportions buried suggests that the 1361 outbreak was only very slightly more dangerous to the young than that of 1349. This may not be so surprising since the majority of the youngsters represented in this group would have been born after 1349, and so would possess no immunity (unless any were transmitted from mothers who had survived).

In conclusion, the East Smithfield cemetery appears to have been reused for plague burials as one of two cemeteries specifically set up in 1349 for dealing with the crisis; the burials indicate that the second outbreak was of a very similar nature to the first in terms of the population; and the burial customs employed were also very similar.

The Effects of the Pestis Secunda

Such consideration as has been given to the direct impacts of the 1361 outbreak in the literature has mainly attempted to provide a national picture, suggesting a mortality of between 4.5 to 6 times the average for the first half of the fourteenth century,
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suggesting that the outbreak was up to one-third as powerful as the 1349 pestilence. In London itself previous estimates suggest that things were worse, perhaps as much as nine times the average death rate of the ten years since 1351.
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However, a closer look at the evidence from the enrolments, taking into account the already reduced population, suggests an even higher mortality. A total of ninety-five wills were enrolled in the seven months between the beginning of April and the end of October 1361. This compares to a minimum of 135 wills enrolled between April 1351 and March 1361, a figure that should be increased (by around ten) to account for the missing enrolments of 1360. This actually represents a factor of over eleven times the annual rate of this decade, a disaster of major proportions. Certainly, Parliament raised the issue of the labour laws and of the prices for employing clergy once more, and both the king and the lords spiritual responded by restricting wages and stipends as they had in 1349–51.

The signs are that fertility rates were down and mortality rates up in the aftermath of the first outbreak, but our only clue as to the extent to which London had repopulated itself before the
pestis secunda
is the 1357 description of the city as one-third empty. This is obviously a very crude indicator, but we should anticipate a slow recovery, mainly through immigration. Reproductive recovery rates appear to have been severely reduced. Allowing an entirely nominal 2 per cent net increase each year after 1349 (the equivalent of two people arriving per day), the population would recover from c. 33,000 after the first outbreak to perhaps 42,000 by 1361. The estimate of mortality in the second plague would reduce such a figure to as few as 34,000 in the space of six months or so.

There is little direct London evidence for the chroniclers’ claims that the second outbreak attacked children in greater numbers than the first. One indirect indicator may be the appearance in the Husting wills of testators’ preference for burial near the tombs or graves of their predeceased offspring. As noted above, four wills were made with this specification, all during the pestilence, and all were made two months or more after the beginning of the outbreak. Of course, we do not know how old these four testators were, or when their children died, but cluster (4 per cent of wills made during the plague months) is probably significant; there was just one example from among all the wills enrolled during the 1348–9 outbreak.
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The restriction of these wills to the last two months of the plague may indeed support reports in the chronicles that the second plague affected children first, and adults later. It seems more likely to this author that the belief that the second plague disproportionately affected the young arose through the value parents and families attached to the post-1350 generation and younger survivors of the first outbreak – it would have seemed so much more dangerous to them. In support of this, the use of coffins for infants and children at the East Smithfield cemetery increased dramatically from 20 per cent in the 1348–9 outbreak to over 51 per cent in the
pestis secunda.
If this was representative of child deaths across the city, the effort of preparation for the burial of children was clearly much greater than in the first plague.

The remarkable thing about the second pestilence is that it was a major disaster on its own terms. Approximately 34 per cent of London’s population died. If the 1349 plague had not occurred, it is probable that the impact of such an outbreak would have featured prominently in historical analyses of the fourteenth century. Like an aftershock to a massive earthquake, it is seldom reported on in detail, but its effects must surely have amplified considerably the enormous damage wreaked by the first plague. And, like an aftershock, it was to be followed just seven years later by a third visitation.

The Third Plague, 1368

There is some confusion over the date of the third outbreak. The Anonimalle Chronicle (written at the abbey of St Mary, York) noted that ‘in 1369 there was a third pestilence in England and in several other countries. It was great beyond measure, lasted a long time and was particularly fatal to children.’ The Chronicle of the Greyfriars of King’s Lynn also repeats 1369 as the year in which ‘there occurred a great pestilence of nobles and children’.
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Indeed, many principal commentators since have noted that the plague was confined to that year.
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However, a chronicle of Peterborough Abbey describes how in the third pestilence in 1368, among the dead were a great number of foreigners in London.
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The evidence from both the Husting wills and the wills proved in the Archdeaconry Court of London are categorical in demonstrating that the plague affected the south of the country from about May 1368, probably fading out in the city around October of that year.

While the Archdeaconry Court testaments do not survive before 1393, an index of those from 1368 does,
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and analysis of this shows that 180 records of will and/or probate were registered between May and October 1368, over three times the average non-plague yearly figure of just under sixty probates in that court.
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There was an overlap between those whose wills were proved in the Archdeaconry Court and those, owning estate in the city, who wished subsequently to have wills enrolled in Husting. However, the relationship is complex. First, the jurisdiction of the Archdeaconry Court covered only about half the city parishes, but included some of the larger extra-mural parishes such as St Leonard Shoreditch and St Mary Clerkenwell. Second, not everyone who could have their will proved at the Archdeaconry Court either wished to or could also afford to have it enrolled in the Husting court. Third, not everyone who owned estate in the city dwelled in the jurisdiction of the archdeacon. Thus, of 193 testamentary records dating to 1368, just thirteen (6.7 per cent) were written by individuals who also paid for Husting will enrolments. Conversely, those who had their wills proved at the Archdeaconry Court made up a significant 46 per cent of all Husting enrolments for 1368. The link between the two courts provides further evidence of the potential lag between probate and subsequent enrolment at Husting. Of the thirteen Husting wills, seven were enrolled after the summer fair recess of August and September, all on 16 October 1368, but the remaining six wills took up to a year after this date to appear on the Husting rolls. Of these, three could have been plague victims since their wills were drawn up during the plague months. Extrapolated, this suggests that of the twenty-eight wills enrolled later, during 1369, seven were probably proved as a result of plague death, bringing the total to thirty-five.

The twenty-eight wills enrolled at Husting in 1368 provide some flavour of the march of the epidemic. The outbreak probably began in late April or early May, shown by the evidence of two new wills drawn up in the last week of April and another seven by the end of May. Prior to this, only three wills had been drawn up in the previous five months. Of these nine, two willed burial in the churchyard of St Paul’s – one, the goldsmith John Hiltoft, specifying the Pardon churchyard. The other, Henry Yerdelee, left a bequest for a chantry to be founded in the chapel of the Holy Trinity at the ‘new cemetery towards the Tower’, the plague cemetery at East Smithfield. A third, carpenter Robert de Watford, specified the ‘Pardonchirchehawe’ of St Bartholomew’s priory, almost certainly de Mauny’s adjacent West Smithfield foundation, or possibly a cemetery by that name within the precincts of the priory itself.
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In this small sample, then, there is good evidence of themes common to previous outbreaks.

The plague was evidently of sufficient severity for Edward to completely suspend the business of the King’s Bench, Common Pleas and the upper Exchequer on 22 May until 30 September; the exchequer of receipt, also based in Westminster Palace, did stay open but conducted business on only three days during this period, a consequence and illustration of the impact the plague had on economic activity.
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Significantly, the king had pressed ahead with his Parliament at Westminster between 1 and 21 May, indicating either that the business to be discussed was of too great importance to be delayed, or that the pestilence was not considered to be as potent as in previous outbreaks. It may have been the latter, for in the city the Husting and other courts continued to be held throughout the outbreak, unlike on previous occasions. The Letter Books and the Pleas and Memoranda rolls both show activity throughout the plague, with records set down from April through to August, and the Assize of Nuisance held throughout April, May and June (though there was a pause between 30 June and 21 October).
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