THE BLACK DEATH IN KENT
by 1340 it had risen to 10,000.
Within the next hundred years the population fell to about 3,000. The cause was the Black Death. It killed both the rich and the poor, three masters of the Eastbridge Pilgrims Hospital died in three years. Hundreds of men and women were struck down, the population declined rapidly and parishes were combined, businesses collapsed and the Cathedral saw its income from rents reduced by 75%.
Other diseases overcame
the weakened population; typhoid, tuberculosis, pneumonia, measles and
dysentery took their toll. Only the income of the Cathedral from offerings
increased as the population looked for help from God where none was available
from doctors and other carers.
For most people the comforts of medicine had not changed since the end
of the Roman Empire. Common sense solutions, herbal remedies were provided
by women and local healers who still offered most of the health care for
the poor. Faith in God provided hope for many. The rich were able to call
on the attentions of doctors but some of the treatments, such as bleeding,
often did more harm than good. The superior diet of the rich and their
ability to get out of the towns probably had a greater impact than anything
else.
The bubonic plague was described vividly at the time by the Italian writer
Boccaccio.
‘There appeared certain tumours in the groin or under the armpits, some as big as a small apple, others as an egg; and afterwards purple spots in most parts of the body; in some cases large and but few in number, in others less and more numerous, both sorts the usual harbingers of death. To the cure of this malady, neither medical knowledge, nor the power of drugs, was of any effect: whether because the disease was in its own nature mortal, or that the physicians (the number of whom, taking quacks and women pretenders into the account, was grown very great) could form no clear idea of the cause, whichever was the reason, few or none escaped, but they generally died the third day from the first appearance of the symptoms'.
‘In this year a plague of a kind which had never been met with before ravaged our land of England. The Bishop Haymo of Rochester , who maintained only a small household, lost four priests, five esquires, ten attendants, seven young clerics and six pages, so that nobody was left to serve him in any capacity. At Malling he consecrated two Abbesses but both died almost immediately, leaving only four established nuns and four novices. One of these the Bishop put in the charge of the lay members and other of the religious for it proved impossible to find anyone suitable to act as Abbess. To our grief the plague carried off so vast a multitude of people of both sexes that no-one could be found who would bear the corpses to the grave. Men and women carried their own children on their shoulders to the church and threw them into a common pit. From these pits such an appalling stench was given off that hardly anyone dared even to walk beside the cemeteries.
There was so marked a shortage of labourers of every kind that more than a third of the land in the whole of the realm was left idle. All the labourers, skilled or unskilled, were so carried away by the spirit of revolt that neither King, nor law, nor justice, could restrain them...
During the whole of that winter and the following spring, the Bishop of Rochester, aged and infirm, remained at Trottiscliffe, bemoaning the terrible changes which had overcome the world. In every manor of his diocese buildings were falling into decay and there was hardly any one manor which returned as much as £100. In the monastery of Rochester supplies ran short and the brothers had great difficulty in getting enough to eat; to such a point that the monks were obliged either to grind their own bread or to go without. The prior, however ate everything of the best.’
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There were two types of plague: Bubonic Plague made people feel cold and tired. There were painful swellings in the armpit and the groin. The whole body was covered with blisters. Towards the end a person would have a high temperature and sometimes go into a coma for days. Pneumonic Plague infected a persons lungs. It was spread by people coughing germs onto one another. The victim would cough blood and eventually drown as their lungs filled with fluids. |
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Activities |
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| 1. |
The account by William Dene gives us a vivid picture of Kent in the 1340’s. Some of the account is based on personal observation, other parts on opinion. Underline all the statements that you think can be accepted as true and accurate. |
| 2. | Explain why so many people died of the plague. Do you think it could happen again? |