3. It was not cholera.

4. It probably was a variety of the Oriental plague, which has reappeared in Europe in more modern times, and regarding which they who wish to know more must seek their information where it is to be found.

The next question usually asked is, Where did the new plague come from? And here the answer is even more uncertain than that to the other question What the great plague was.

66

ence," says Villani, "at the beginning of April, and at Cesena, on the other side of the Apennines, on the 1st of June." It is asserted that it reached England at the beginning of August, is said to have lingered for some months in the west, and to have devastated Bristol with awful se verity.

There can be no doubt that in the towns of Italy and France there was a dreadful mortality; but when we are told that one hundred thousand died in Venice, and sixty thousand in Florence, and seventy thousand in Siena, it is impossible to ac cept such round numbers as anything better than ignorant guesses. Whether the great cities of the Low Countries were visited by the pestilence with any sever

affected, I am unable to say, nor am I much concerned at present with such an inquiry; that I leave to others to throw light upon. But as to the progress, the incidence, and the effect of the black death in England - when it came and where it showed itself, how long it lasted, and what effects followed on these questions the time has come for pointing out that we have a body of evidence such as perhaps exists in no other country — evi

In fact, a careful comparison of such testimony as comes to hand leaves the inquirer in a very perplexed condition, and inclines him rather to accept than reject the old-fashioned theory of a general corruption of the atmosphere as the only working hypothesis whereby to ac-ity, or how far the towns of Germany were count for the startling spontaneity of the outbreak and its appearance at so many and such distant points at the same time. The imperial author, who appears to have done his best to gather information, evidently found himself quite baffled in his attempt to follow the march of the plague. It had originated among the Hyperborean Scythians; it had passed through Pontus, and Libya, and Syria, and the furthest East, and "in a manner all the world round about." Other writ-dence, too, which hitherto has hardly reers are just as much in the dark as Cantacuzene, and it seems mere waste of time to endeavor to arrive at any conclusion from data so defective and statements so void of historical basis as have come down to us. This only seems established, that during the year 1347 there was great atmospheric disturbance, extending over a large area of southern Europe, and resulting in extensive failure of the harvest, and consequent distress and famine; and that in January, 1348, one of the most violent earthquakes in history wrought immense havoc in Italy, the shocks being felt in the islands of the Mediterranean, and even north of the Alps.

It is at least curious that the date of the earthquake coincides very closely with the date which has been given by Guido de Chauliac for the first appearance of the plague at Avignon. He tells us expressly that it broke out in that city in January, 1348, and I think it would be difficult to produce trustworthy evidence of any earlier outbreak than this, at any rate in Europe.* "It appeared at Flor

One of our monastic chroniclers states expressly that it began about St. James's Day in 1347. I feel certain that the date is wrong, and that it could be proved to be wrong without much difficulty by reference

to documentary evidence which might be consulted.

ceived any attention, its very existence entirely overlooked, forgotten, nay! not even suspected.

Let us understand where we are, and look about us for a little while.

When King Edward the Third entered London in triumph on the 14th of October, 1347, he was the foremost man in Europe, and England had reached a height of power and glory such as she had never attained before. At the battle of Créci France had received a crushing blow, and by the loss of Calais, after an eleven months' siege, she had been well-nigh reduced to the lowest point of humiliation. David the Second, king of Scotland, was lying a prisoner in the Tower of London. Louis of Bavaria had just been killed by a fall from his horse, the imperial throne was vacant, and the electors in eager haste proclaimed that they had chosen the king of England to succeed. To their discomfiture the king of England declined the proffered crown. He had other views." Intoxicated by the splendor of their sovereign and his martial renown, and the success which seemed to attend him wherever he showed himself, the English people had gone mad with exultation - all except the merchant princes, the monied men,

down England there was wild extravagance, and money seemed to burn in peo ple's pockets. Feasting and revelry, and all that appertains thereto, were the order of the day, and all went merry as a marriage bell.

who are not often given to lose their heads. They took a much more sober view of the outlook than the populace did -they had an eye to their own interests and the interests of the trade and commerce in which they were engaged. They were very much in earnest in asserting The king got all he could get out of the their rights and protesting against their Parliament, but he did not get, he could wrongs, and they presented their petitions not get, all he wished. What was to be to the king after the fashion of the time-done next? The pope said, "Make petitions which must have seemed rather peace!" and his Holiness did his best to startling protests in the fourteenth cen- bring about the desired end. The sumtury, betraying, as they did, some ad- mer of 1348 had come, and it seems that vanced opinions for which the world at at Avignon the plague had by this time large was hardly then prepared. spent itself; people were no longer afraid to go there, and the pope would peradventure come out of his seclusion and receive an embassy. So on the 28th of July Edward the Third wrote a letter to Pope Clement, and announced his intention of sending his ambassadors to Avignon to treat about terms. The negotiations fell through, and on the 8th of October the king announced by proclamation that he was once more going to make an inroad upon France with an armed force. He did not keep his word. In November a truce was patched up somehow; and on the first of the next month we find the king once more at Westminster, and there he seems to have remained over Christmas. If the dates are correctly given, the news from the west of England about this time was not likely to have provoked much merriment.

Students of the manual, compendium, and popular handbook style of literature may possibly be hardly aware that the war of protection versus free trade, and the other war concerned with the incidence of taxation upon property, real and personal, had already begun. Even my distinguished friend, Mr. Cadaverous, who never made a mistake in his life, and whose memory for facts is portentous even Mr. Cadaverous assures me that he has never met with any mention of the above fact in all his study of history.

History! What is history but the science which teaches us to see the throbbing life of the present in the throbbing life of the past?

Note that these "gentlemen of the House of Commons," who made them selves somewhat disagreeable in the Parliaments of 1348, were not the warriors who had gone out to fight the king's battles, but the burghers who stayed at home, heaped up money, and grumbled. It was otherwise with the roistering swash-bucklers who came back in that glorious autumn. They are said to have returned laden with the spoils of France, the plunder of Calais, and so on and so on. Calais must have been rather a queer little place to afford much plunder after all that it had gone through. The swash-bucklers doubt less brought prize-money home, but it did not all come from France — that is pretty certain. Villani, our Florentine friend, tells us of an unexampled commercial crisis at Florence about this time brought about, observe, by the English conqueror of France not paying his debts. So the Bardi and the Peruzzi actually stopped payment; for the king owed them a million and a half of gold florins, and there was lamentation and distress of mind, and the level of the Arno rose by reason of the flood of tears that fell "from tired eyelids upon tired eyes." All that made no differ ence to the swash-bucklers, and up and

Gentlemen of

Are the dates correct? an antiquarian turn of mind, out in the west there, might do worse than spend some weeks in looking into this matter.

Meanwhile, it is at this point that we get our first direct, unquestionable proof, that the plague had reached our shores. On the 1st of January, 1349, the king wrote to the Bishop of Winchester, informing him that although the Parliament had been summoned to meet on the 19th of the month, yet because a sudden visitation of deadly pestilence had broken out at Westminster and the neighborhood, which was increasing daily, and occasioning much apprehension for the safety of any great concourse of people, should it assemble in that place at the time appointed; therefore it had been determined to prorogue the Parliament to Monday, the 27th of April.

I gather from the wording of this document that the government did not look upon the outbreak with any very grave apprehension, that they did not regard it as anything more than an epidemic which would be confined to narrow limits, and

a terminus a quo. We have learnt this, at any rate, that about Christmas, 1348, the plague appeared at Westminster and its vicinity, and that it had increased alarm

one likely to pass off after a little time as the spring advanced; and that they can hardly as yet have received any very disturbing intelligence of its ravages, such as must have soon come in from all quaringly in London and elsewhere by the beters of the compass. Two months passed, ginning of March, 1349. and the situation had seriously changed. On the 10th of March the king issued another letter, in which, after referring to the previous proclamation, he further prorogued the meeting of Parliament sine die. The reason for this step is explained to be "because the deadly pestilence in Westminster, and in the City of London, and in other places thereabouts, was increasing with extraordinary severity" (gravius solito invalescit).

It is to be observed that, in the first notice of prorogation, no mention is made of the city of London, only of Westminster and its neighborhood. In the second we hear that the plague had already extended over a wider area, and was showing no signs of abating. Nay, by this time the king and his advisers had taken alarm there was no knowing where the mortality would stop.

We have next to deal with that other evidence to which I have alluded — the unprinted documentary evidence ready to our hands I mean the institution books in the various diocesan registries and the rolls of the manor courts, which still exist in very great abundance, though they are rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. It is necessary that I should trespass upon my reader's attention while I endeavor to explain the nature and the value of these two classes of documents before proceeding to deal with their testimony.

I. Students of English history know that few aggressions of the pope of Rome during the thirteenth century caused more deep discontent among the laity than those which threatened interference with their right of patronage to ecclesiastical benefices, and actually did interfere with those rights. The disgraceful reckless

language, were forced into English liv ings, and the best preferment claimed for papal nominees, produced an amount of irritation and revolt against Roman interference which had never been known before. The feeling of the laity became more and more outspoken, and at last Innocent IV. gave way, and the rights of private patronage were assured to the great lords assured, at any rate, in word

Two days after this (12th of March, 1349) William Bateman, Bishop of Nor-ness with which Italians, ignorant of our wich, received his letters of protection as ambassador for the king in France. His safe-conduct for himself and his suite - was to extend till Whitsuntide next ensuing (31st of May, 1349). The suite consisted of eight persons, all Norfolk men; two were wealthy laymen, two were distinguished ecclesiastics, three were country parsons, of one I know nothing. I believe they all got back safely, but the three country parsons returned to their several cures only to be smitten by the plague. The bishop had not shown himself again in his diocese many weeks before they were all three dead. In making this last statement, I am a little anticipating the course of events, but only a little. The Angel of Death moves at no laggard pace when once he begins his march with his sword drawn in his hand.

though the papal rescript "paltered with them in a double sense," and the quibbles and reservations, which could always be resorted to under color of the non obstante clause, constantly afforded excuse for fresh encroachments and evasions when the opportunity occurred. The jealousy of Roman interference continued to increase, and the legislation of the first half of the fourteenth century was largely taken up with enactments to guard the Thus far I have been quoting from, or rights of English patrons, from the king referring to, authorities which are acces- downwards. But there was always a feelsible to any one with an adequate coming of insecurity on the part of those who mand of books at his elbow - the chroni- had any benefices in their gift, and a corclers and the historians named, the responding feeling on the part of those Foedera, the rolls of Parliament, and such authorities as whoever chooses may consult for himself. These printed authorities, which have all been consulted and looked into again and again, have told us very little, but they have given us certain notes of time- - furnished us, in fact, with

who were candidates for preferment. This led to a vicious system, whereby appoint. ments were made with almost indecent haste to every vacant cure; institution was granted to an applicant for a benefice with the least possible delay after a vacancy had once been made known; the

also of such as were occasioned by the death of all abbots, or priors, or abbesses, who presided over that large number of religious houses not exempt from episco. pal jurisdiction. It is obvious that these records constitute an invaluable body of evidence, from which important information may be drawn regarding our parochial and ecclesiastical history. The institution books, as might be expected, contain a great deal of curious matter besides the mere records of admission to benefices, but with this I am at present not concerned.

II. I come now to the court rolls, which throw much more light upon our parochial history than any other documents that have come down to us; their information is concerned exclusively with the civil, domestic, sometimes with the political life of our forefathers; about their religious life, or their contentions with ecclesiastics, they have rarely a word to say.

Mr. Cadaverous laid it down the other day as a position not to be gainsaid, that "everybody knows what manor court rolls are; therefore, to stoop to the igno

patron was willing to exercise his right in favor of any one, rather than not exercise it at all; the candidate for the living knew that it was a case of now or never; the bishop had nothing to gain, and something to fear, from asking too many questions; and there is some reason to think that the parishioners had more voice in the matter than they have now. That followed which was likely to follow, namely, that the institutions to vacant benefices were made as a rule within a very few weeks, or even days, after the death of an incumbent. A man who had got his nomination lost no time in presenting himself to the bishop. There was no widow or family of his predecessor to consider; and for every reason the sooner the new man got into the parsonage the better for all parties concerned. Moreover, to guard against all chances of a disputed claim, the bishops' registers of institution were kept with the most scrupulous care, and while enormous masses of ecclesiastical records in every diocese in England have perished, the institution books have been preserved with extraordinary fidelity, have survived all the troubles and wars and spoliation that have gone on, and, speak-rance of the few, and to assume ignorance ing within certain limits, have been preserved for five hundred years from one end of England to the other. It is no exaggeration to say that there are hundreds of parishes in England of whose incumbents for centuries not only a complete list may be made out, but the very day and place be set down where those incumbents received institution into the benefice either at the hands of the diocesan or his official. This is certainly the case in the great East Anglian diocese of Norwich, which comprehended, in the fourteenth century, the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and a portion of Cambridgeshire. We may safely say that we are able to tell approximately within a few weeks or days — when any living fell vacant during the period under review, who succeeded, and who the patron was who presented to the cure. Nor is this true only of the secular or parochial clergy. Jealous as the religious houses were of their rights and privileges, the heads of monasteries, as a rule, were compelled to receive institution too at the hands of the bishops of the see in which they were situated. They too presented themselves to their diocesan that their elections might be formally recognized; and thus the institution books contain not only the records of the various changes in the incumbency of the secular clergy, but

on the part of the many, is unworthy of the enlightened scholar, his mission being to increase the sum of knowledge by addressing himself to the advanced guard in the army of progress!"

Mr. Cadaverous is nothing if he is not sententious. It does by no means follow that he is always intelligible. What he meant to say was that everybody knows all about courts baron, and courts leet, and manor court rolls, and such like simple matters; and that it would be sheer waste of time to explain such rudiments to people in an enlightened age.

Oh, Mr. Cadaverous, Mr. Cadaverous ! It is a humiliating confession, which we the weak men of the earth are compelled to make, that we find ourselves learning most from those who assume that we know least. So a few words for such as are not ashamed to admit that omniscence is not their forte, whatever may be their foible.

In the thirteenth century it may be said that in theory the land of England belonged to the sovereign. The sovereign had indeed assigned large tracts of territory to A or B or C; but under certain circumstances, of no very unfrequent occurrence, these tracts of territory came back into the hands of the sovereign, and were re-granted by him at his will to whom

he chose. In return for such grants, A or | each of them administered on the model of the larger fiefs originally granted to the tenants in capite. There was a capital mansion in which the lord resided, or was supposed to reside, and sub-tenants hold

B or C were bound to perform certain services in recognition of the fact that they were tenants of the king; and by virtue of such services — the equivalents of what we now understand by renting their land under the lord, and paying they were called tenants in chief, or tenants in capite.

The tracts of territory held by A or B or C were in almost every case made up of lands scattered about over all parts of the kingdom. The tenant in chief had his castle or capital mansion, which was supposed to be his abode; but as far as the larger portion - immensely the larger portion - of his possessions was concerned, he was necessarily a non-resident landlord, getting what he could out of them either by farming them through the agency of a bailiff, or letting out his estates to be held under himself in precisely the same way as he held his fief, or original grant from the king.

to him periodically certain small money rents and rendering him certain services. The estate comprehended the capital mansion with its appurtenances and the domain lands in the lord's occupation, the common lands over which the tenants had certain common rights, and the lands in the occupation of the tenants, which they farmed with more or less freedom for their own behoof, the whole constituting a manor whose owner was the lord. At certain intervals the tenants were bound to appear before their lord and give account of themselves; bound, that is, to show cause why they had not performed their services; bound to pay their quit rents, whether in money or kind; bound to go through a great deal of queer business; but above all, as far as our present purpose is concerned, to do fealty to the lord of the manor in every case where the small patches of land had changed hands, and pay a fine for entering upon land ac quired by the various forms of alienation or by inheritance. In some manors, if a tenant died the lord laid claim to some of his live stock as a heriot, which was forthwith seized by the bailiff of the manor; and in all manors, if a man died without heirs, his land escheated to the lord of the manor; that is, it came back to the lord who in theory was the owner of the soil.

In theory the tenant in chief could not sell his land; he could sublet it to a mesne tenant, who stood to himself precisely in the same relation as he the tenant in capite stood to the sovereign, the mesne tenant in his turn being bound to render certain services to his over lord, and liable to forfeit his lease for in theory it was that if certain contingencies happened. It was inevitable that, as time went by, the mesne tenant should regard his estate as his own, and that the same necessities which compelled the tenant in capite to relax his hold over an outlying landed estate would compel the mesne tenant to follow his example. The process went These periodical meetings at which all on till it was becoming a serious difficulty this business and a great deal else was to discover how the king was to get his transacted were called the courts of the services from the tenant in capite, who manor, and the records of these courts had practically got rid of two-thirds of his were kept with exceeding and most jealfief, and how he again was to get his serous scrupulousness; they were invariably vices from the mesne tenant, who had drawn up in Latin, according to a strictly parted with two-thirds of his estate to half-legal form, and were inscribed on long a-dozen under-tenants; until, when the king's scutage had to be levied, there was no telling who was liable for it, or how it should be apportioned.

It was to meet this difficulty, and to check the prevailing sub-division of land -sub-infeudation men called it then that the statute of Quia Emptores was passed in the eighteenth year of Edward the First. [A D. 1290.] The result of all the sub-division that had been going on had been that the number of what we now call landed estates had largely increased,

Experts will object to the use of this term and

other terms as not strictly accurate. I am not writing for experts.

rolls of parchment, and are known as manor court rolls. This is not the time to say much more about the court rolls. They are not very easy reading - they require a somewhat long apprenticeship before they can be readily deciphered; . but when you have once become familiar with them, they afford some very curious and unexpected information from time to time, though it must be allowed that you have to do a good deal of digging for every nugget that turns up.

Observe, however, this: that it is not far from the truth to say that in East Anglia - for I will not travel out of my own province every tiller of the soil