11
Precise death rates have been calculated for a large number of English manors during the Black Death, and the results are truly shocking. They indicate that around half of the rural population was killed in the epidemic. Although occasional manors can be found where only one in five of the tenants died, these are outnumbered by those with death rates in the region of two in every three, and on a few manors mortality may have reached three in four. Although the range of mortality between places could be wide, there was a pronounced tendency for it to cluster between 40 and 60 percent, with the greatest proportion of manors experiencing death rates of between 45 and 55 percent. The most recent attempt at an average mortality rate for the peasant tenantry of England as whole, calculated by Ole Benedictow, is close to 55 percent, and there are indications that the rural landless may have suffered to an even greater extent. Walsham is exceptionally well documented in the mid-fourteenth century, but it lacks the comprehensive listing of all tenants just prior to the epidemic that is essential for making a precise calculation of the death rate. However, close study of the excellent court rolls indicates that there were approximately 176 tenants on Walsham and High Hall manors just prior to the Black Death, of whom 109 were dead by June 1349, which produces a tenant death rate of marginally under 60 percent. There is also some evidence that mortality was particularly high among older adults, who were likely to be overrepresented among tenants. On the other hand, however, children were especially vulnerable to epidemic diseases, and it is likely that the adult landless also suffered disproportionately.
In common with other places at this time, there are no censuses that would make it possible to provide an accurate population of Walsham parish. However, from a series of indirect indications it is probable that Walsham contained as many as 1,500 souls in 1348. If so, then some 750 to 900 people would have died in the less than two months that the Black Death lasted. If deaths had been spaced evenly over this period, approximately one hundred would have died each week. But, given the behavior of most epidemics, including plague, the number of deaths in the village would have started relatively low, climbed rapidly in the early phases, peaked, and then declined in the latter phases. When the plague was at its peak, therefore, as many as fifty villagers may have died in a single day.
Because the plague was indisputably God ’s will, and caused its victims to die in a horrible manner and on a scale almost infinitely greater than anything ever seen before, contemporaries had great difficulty in explaining why God found it necessary to inflict it. Sermons are an especially informative source to the debates and confusions that raged, particularly when the preacher invented a dialogue with lay folk and used their supposed responses as a means of structuring his own argument. Thus Thomas Brinton, the bishop of Rochester, preached, “Let us not impute the scourges of God to planets or elements, but rather to our own sins . . . But you say, ‘If sin was the occasion of the aforesaid, by the just judgment of God, the notorious sinners should perish, not children or the just who have not sinned in this way!’ . . . I make the reply and say that the children are not dying for their own sins, but for those of their parents . . . But someone asks, ‘Since sin is the outstanding cause of the pestilence, what are to be the remedies, that the Divine hand may cease?’ I reply that the chief remedy would be the confession of the sinners. For how should the scourge of God cease at the people’s prayers, while a third part of them are in mortal sin?” Yet for all the apparent dogmatism of the language used by church leaders and preachers, their reflections frequently betray a sense of bewilderment and an awareness that they were attempting to explain the inexplicable.
English chronicles are generally frustratingly laconic in their descriptions of the Black Death, and rarely provide more than the scantiest details of how people behaved during it. By contrast, there are many narratives written in Europe and the Middle East, by both clerics and lay folk, which contain extensive reports of what life and death were like while the epidemic raged. Although some were written many years, even decades, after the event, and some contain passages which bear a disconcertingly close resemblance to Thucydides’ account of the great plague of Athens in the fifth century B.C., others were written by eyewitnesses of intelligence and perception. Notably informative are the description of the plague in Florence contained in Giovanni Boccaccio’s introduction to his Decameron; the account of plague in Piacenza in Gabriele de’ Mussi’s Historia de Morbo; a letter sent from the papal court of Avignon, by Louis Heyligen, a musician and friend of Petrarch; accounts of the plague in Tournai, written by Gilles li Muissis, the abbot of St. Giles monastery, in his chronicles; and the history of the Black Death in the Middle East compiled by al-Maqrizi, who was born in 1364. These and many other accounts have been drawn on in this chapter but, unfortunately, fourteenth-century commentators on the Black Death are overwhelmingly urban in their focus, and have relatively little to say about events in the countryside.
From Easter Day onward the bells of St. Mary’s steeple sonorously proclaimed an ever spiraling toll of deaths to the folk of Walsham (see figure 27). By the last week of April the bells scarcely ever seemed to be silent, as the rhythm of the plague’s blows quickened progressively, and each new strike was delivered with ever greater ferocity. In early May, however, they began to be heard less often. But this was not because the number of deaths had fallen, for they continued to spiral upward. On the instructions of Master John, for the sake of morale in his parish, as well as a lack of bell ringers, each peal now announced a multitude of burials. Though henceforth the numbers of deaths in Walsham were more difficult to count, no sensible villager had any doubt that they were on a scale that was likely to herald the end of the world. So great was the multitude of dead and dying, and the fear of infection among those who as yet remained untouched, that the fabric of routine daily existence threatened to fall apart and the comforting pillars of spiritual life to crumble. It was thus that the people of Walsham came to live out for themselves the most shocking experiences of death, devastation, and demoralization that over the last two years they had heard about time and again as the pestilence visited distant parts of the world.
The first victims were struck down in the east of Walsham around High Hall, but, with its poisonous emissaries dispatched in all directions, death was soon rampaging across the whole village. At first, people felt that far more would die in a month than the number who usually died in a year. However, such gloomy observations were soon proved wildly optimistic. As the distemper spread its arms ever wider to embrace the whole community, the numbers of its victims soared to unimaginable heights. Within a short time, the corpses of scores of men, women, and children were being cast each week into hurriedly prepared graves, and in mid-May villagers who lived close to the churchyard swore that as many as this were being buried each day, though few of those who witnessed these harrowing scenes lived to tell the tale. Certainly the hasty records kept by Master John and his assistants noted many days when thirty or even more corpses were packed into freshly dug pits in the churchyard. In the warm sunshine of early summer, the stench that came from the graves assailed the nostrils of all who came to pray and celebrate Mass.
So great was the ceaseless press of bodies that burials had to take place at night as well as during the day. It was not long before space for new corpses had to be made by digging up old graves, removing the bones, and piling them by the churchyard wall. Even though old graves were routinely excavated and fresh bodies packed ever more tightly into the ground, such measures gave only temporary respite, and plots of land adjacent to the churchyard had to be hastily consecrated and incorporated into the cemetery. Just as it was impossible to find enough room for a decent Christian burial for all parishioners who were entitled to one, so it became ever more difficult to find enough men and women to dig the graves and handle the corpses. Gravediggers died mightily from the pestilence and often swiftly followed their clients into the pit. Since those laboring people who remained alive and healthy had an understandable fear of contagion, the collection of the dead from the places where they had expired became increasingly hard to arrange, despite the offer of extraordinary wages and other inducements. Often the only people who were available to perform the solemn task of carrying departed loved ones to their final resting place were misfits, criminals, and outcasts. As a result some bodies were hastily buried in the fields near the location of death, although how many was not known because of the shame of those who carried out the deed.
The pestilence took many forms, just as the villagers of Walsham had been warned it would. Though the majority died, like John Chapman and Robert Helpe, with fevered minds and bodies, unbearable pains in their heads, and a large blackened boil or carbuncle in the groin, armpit, or neck, there were others who died without these telltale signs. These victims died swifter and, some say, even more horrible deaths, with intolerable chest and head pain, vomiting, coughing and spitting up large quantities of blood. Others were said to have collapsed almost without warning, with no visible signs of sickness, and expired within hours. Although catching the pestilence was at first thought to be a sure sign of imminent death, this was not always the case. While no one who coughed blood was ever known to have survived, a portion, perhaps one in five, who fell sick with carbuncles and buboes survived the critical days and slowly recovered, though often not to full health.
The good folk of Walsham had been brought up to believe that the last moments of life were of supreme importance in securing salvation, and they had been well taught that each stage in the elaborate rituals which confessed, cleansed, and reconciled the dying, and secured the safety of their departing soul, was crucial. But so cruel was the pestilence and so debilitating the afflictions of the dying, that few on their deathbed were able to respond to the urgings of their confessors, and many were incapable of even understanding what was said to them. Thus, unless God granted them special dispensation, their souls were not washed clean. But worse than this, in these dreadful times, at the very moment when the distraction, frenzy, or torpor of the dying required support from church, family, and friends it was not forthcoming. Instead it shrank, decayed, and frequently fell completely away, out of inability, fear, and selfishness. And, so it must be admitted, as the intensity of the pestilence grew ever stronger, an increasing multitude of Christian folk were left to perish alone, their souls abandoned, with scarcely a mourner or even a candle to accompany them to the pit.
Despite the best efforts of the majority of the clergy of Walsham and the lay folk who assisted them, extreme adversity rendered it impossible to provide the full traditional rites so beloved by all. Instead, the sheer scale of deaths and the terror which accompanied them forced many aspects of the observance of sacred ritual and liturgy to be curtailed or abandoned altogether, and often not in an orderly fashion. In the cruel chaos many major shifts in faith, custom, and practice were condoned as necessary and unavoidable. Accordingly, it became common for parishioners to be assured that the souls of their dear departed would not suffer if both they and their loved ones had done all they reasonably could to secure a Christian passage of death. Surely God would not punish those who strove to do their best against impossible odds?
Try as he might, however, Master John often found it difficult to accept such compromises with an easy conscience, being torn between a desire to offer comfort and aid to his flock and a firm conviction that most traditional practice was indispensable. Nor could ordinary people easily accept that making do was as effective in securing salvation as the age-old beliefs and ceremonies they had grown up with. In their hearts folks desired the old liturgies and meticulous routines they were accustomed to, and lamented the frequent lack of a priest at the bedside when they and their loved ones departed the earth.
Nor were they easily comforted, for there had been no such meddling with the truth before the plague. Instead, parishioners had been told many times by their priests, “The passage of death out of the wretchedness of the exile of this world was extremely hard, very perilous, and also very terrifying,” and that it was essential for all Christian folk “to die in a state of true repentance and contrition.” Deeply implanted in hearts and minds was the belief that “although bodily death is the most dreadful of all terrifying things, spiritual death of the soul is much more horrible and detestable, as the soul is more worthy and precious than the body.” Therefore, even the most unlearned of parishioners understood that the attainment of a pure and contrite condition at the moment of death required free and full confession in the last breaths to a priest, as well as the making of amends for past transgressions, the aid of the power of the Communion Host, and the protection of the Virgin. It was no less a matter of fact that the safe passage of the soul required the sealing of the body anointed in holy oil, the collective prayers and candles of family and friends, the singing of psalms, the chanting of prayers, the solemn procession with clerks, the careful interring of the body in consecrated ground, and a multitude of Masses. How could it now be accepted that a lonely death in a state of near madness or stupor, unshriven and unhouselled, except perhaps by the stumbling efforts of family, with bodies cast with little ceremony into shared graves, could serve the same purpose? Guilt and despair as well as terror hung over the households of Walsham, and these emotions were fed not just by fear of the imminence of a horrific death, but also of the fate which awaited stained and abandoned souls in the afterlife.
Villagers knew well enough what was expected of them from the seven acts of mercy, as Master John constantly reminded them of their Christian obligations. But under the onslaught of death, decent impulses to self-sacrifice were strained and broken. Fear of the plague and the burdens of the spiraling deaths and sickness of loved ones and neighbors, forced most folk into a reordering of the priorities of their lives, and in others it precipitated blind panic. Dread of catching the pestilence by contact with its victims, which was just common sense as well as the advice of experts, meant that the sick were shunned instead of being cared for. As soon as lodgers or servants displayed any symptoms of ill health they were evicted from their rooms, and left to wander abroad. Where good neighbors would once have conscientiously visited the sick, now when a person lay on their deathbed even dear friends hid themselves away, weeping in shame. And, sad to relate, the scourge implanted in the heart so great a terror that it vanquished love, and some mothers even deserted their sick children, husbands their wives, and brothers and sisters their siblings.
Nor did this shameful neglect apply only to the living. Fear of the corruption which lay in corpses led to the abandonment of the souls which were waiting to depart from them. Instead of joining the unceasing flow of funeral processions, most villagers peered from behind doors and window shutters or from a distance thought safe, sorrowfully noting that the deceased they knew and liked had scarcely a candle to guide them to their resting place. Whereas before the pestilence even the poorest creatures were sent on their way with ceremony and a goodly gathering of the devout and the conscientious, now a good burial was enjoyed only by those villagers who had been fortunate enough to join together as members of the Corpus Christi fraternity.
In the rising temperatures of an unseasonably warm spring and early summer, the fear of infection and the need to safeguard the living led the less virtuous to resort to any means to get rid of the bodies of their loved ones without endangering themselves. Thus corpses were thrown into fields and ditches where they were collected like rubbish and cast without ceremony into common pits by rough hands. Yet there were also a multitude of instances of courage and self-sacrifice. It became not uncommon for good folk, sometimes sick with plague themselves, to carry their parents, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, and children to the graveyard in their own carts and barrows, or even in their arms, rather than entrust them to uncaring and impious hands.
Priests, for good reasons and bad, often failed to come and administer the sacraments before death occurred, and when they did arrive in time few could stop their hands and voices shaking with fear. And, shame though it is to tell, among those clergy who continued to perform their divine vocation there were some who demanded payments far in excess of those deemed adequate in former days. Much of the cruelty, however, was caused not by the selfishness of the people but by the sheer scale of the sickness and death that tormented them. The lack of nursing pushed the death rate even higher, as those who might have survived died from want of nurture rather than an excess of infection. Whole households often fell ill at the same time, and so there was no healthy person left to provide food, drink, and basic hygiene. And the sickness and death of parents, as well as the sheer callousness of their guardians, repeatedly left young children to suffer and perish without food or care. Though cowardice and selfishness in these days frequently threatened to overwhelm courage, kindness, and charity, it was the sheer enormity of the pestilence which thwarted all but the exceptionally devoted. As Good Samaritans assisted a sick stranger at great risk to themselves, so they commonly found within a few days that two, three, or even more friends and neighbors became sick and demanded their attention. In this manner, even the most pious and selfless were physically and mentally drained by calls on their time and emotions. What is more, servants were scarcely to be found, whatever the wages that were offered.
Yet even the most helpless of young children did not always die for want of care, and tales were told of babies found alive and healthy, clutching tightly to their dead mother’s breast. Margery Wodebite, without fear for her own safety because she enjoyed the protection of Christ, rescued the young orphaned Goche children from the house of their dead parents, and it was largely due to her charity that they survived the pestilence. Margery, however, succumbed to the sickness herself in mid-May.
It cannot be denied that, even under the stern and watchful eye of Master John, some of the Walsham clergy shamefully deserted their duties or made excuses not to attend the dying. One of the newly arrived chaplains, notable for his pointed shoes rather than his learning or devotion to his flock, fled from Walsham soon after the plague broke out and was not seen again. Another assistant hid himself away, from exhaustion or fear rather than sickness, only to be found by Master John, who roused him from his sloth and drove him to return to his duties. But the most devoted of Master John’s band of helpers were repeatedly overcome by fatigue, and the better part of them succumbed to the sickness itself, with the most diligent among them seemingly the most vulnerable.
Master John, of course, was the most assiduous priest of all, in Walsham or elsewhere (see figure 28). He provided both a shining example and a relentless goad, leading and driving his clerical assistants and lay helpers to perform feats of courage and endurance. While ministering to his flock in the valley of death, he paid no heed to personal profit and little to the revenues of his patrons, the monks of the abbey of Ixworth. Though accepting all dues which were offered freely, John did not press for payment from those who had forgotten, were too poor, or were too distracted by grief. So, at the height of the plague he received an angry message from the bursar of Ixworth priory reprimanding him for not spending enough time keeping his accounts and chasing payments. Master John, however, ignored this missive, continuing to pay more attention to souls than to money. As there was scarcely time to comfort the dying and bury the dead, he neglected to press for mortuary gifts in the form of cattle, sheep, and pigs from the bereaved. Moreover, there was no space in his glebe to keep all the livestock that had been given, and there was no one to look after them. In desperation, he had them driven to Ixworth and left in a field outside the priory walls.
Physical exhaustion was not, however, the greatest weakness Master John had to confront in himself. From first hearing of the pestilence when it was in distant lands, he had found it difficult to understand fully God’s purpose, and had relied instead on faith to carry him through. However, as time passed and the pestilence drew ever closer, John’s doubts had multiplied. Now it was smiting Walsham, and his bewildered parishioners demanded answers to their urgent questions: Why is God scourging us with this cruel torment, and poisoning and destroying the blameless along with the sinful? What have we done to deserve such cruelty? Why does he permit the good to die and the evil to live? Why does God kill innocent children, even infants who have had no chance to sin? For Master John, providing satisfactory answers was much more challenging than ministering to the contagious on their deathbeds in plague-ridden houses.
Like many of his colleagues in the Church, including the bishops, archdeacons, and theologians who were charged with interpreting God’s will, John did not feel capable of fully comprehending the divine plan. He was well aware that some of his betters believed that, since God’s judgment was always just, the unprecedented scale of the present carnage must have been provoked by the unprecedented scale of sinfulness in the world. So he repeatedly scoured his memory and his conscience to uncover the immense weight of sin and malice in Walsham that would deserve the savagery of the pestilence now being visited on it.
But he did so without success. Master John believed, of course, that God was not using the pestilence out of vengeance as a punishment for transgressions, but in his mercy using it to turn men and women from their sinful ways on earth, so that they might enjoy eternal bliss. However, he found himself far too deeply disturbed by the sheer scale of the misery and suffering that he observed daily to accept that all would turn out for the best. And when he paused for prayer and contemplation, he found that the clarity of the faith in his heart was increasingly clouded by doubt, and its strength drained by uncertainty.
This doubt and uncertainty infected the parishioners of Walsham as well as their vicar. Master John, who had hitherto invariably been treated with great reverence, now often found himself being interrogated and his judgments questioned. When asked to explain why God’s vengeance was condemning the best part of the people to an agonizing death, Master John hesitated to follow the example of other priests by berating parishioners with accusations that the evil in the world was now many times greater than it had been in the time of Noah. Instead he would say, “As the Bible tells us, God drowned the whole world in the time of Noah because the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil. But I do not know what is the true answer today, and it is not for me or you to interpret the mysterious will of a kind and forgiving God.” And he encouraged them to consider the offense caused to God by the lechery, greed, hypocrisy, and frivolity which abounded in their own village, even in the midst of death.
Sometimes, in a hostile or angry manner, a mother or a father who had lost a young child in agony would say, “If sin is the reason this plague is scourging us, and if God is just, then evil sinners should die, and even myself, but not my children who have not sinned at all, or so very little.” In his response, John would refrain from repeating the harsh pronouncements favored by other priests and their superiors, such as, “God is punishing the innocent in order to chastise the most evil and guilty,” or “God is punishing the children not for their own sins but for those of their parents.” Nor did his belief that the guiding hand of God lay behind all things permit him to remark that fortune was to blame or that God made mistakes. Some popular preachers stated that “although God strikes the target when he seizes a sinner sleeping in his sin and gives him a terrible death, he is a wayward archer who sometimes shoots the arrow of death beyond the target by hitting an elderly mother or father, or short of the target by hitting a son or daughter, or to the side of a target by hitting a brother or sister.” Instead, Master John preferred to comfort grieving parents with words derived from the story of the son of Bersabea: “Your children living in a sinful world would soon have wished to follow the sins of their parents and others had they lived, and as a consequence they would have suffered eternal punishment. So, by taking them while still pure, God does them no injury, but allows them to escape from the dangers of this world and go forth to glory.”
It was most destructive of all to the faith of Master John that there were no signs in the bottomless pit of the pestilence that any of the measures that he and his trusty assistants were so assiduously performing were having any effect whatsoever on God’s wrath. Nor did his parishioners fail to observe that the greatly increased numbers of Masses, confessions, processions, and prayers did nothing to weaken the pestilence, but rather it grew daily in ferocity. While Master John tried to answer those doubters who railed that “Prayers have no power this pestilence to halt. For God is deaf nowadays and deigns not his ears to open,” he increasingly found himself uncertain of the truth of his own words. At no time more so than when he was brought news of the death of his best friend, Richard the infirmarer of Bury abbey.
An elderly groom who had been Richard’s personal servant for many years fulfilled his master’s last wish by traveling to Walsham to give John the sad news: “The plague has been ravaging Bury abbey for more than a month, and the Lord has already taken more than one in two of the monks, and the greater part of the servants and pensioners who dwelt there. As if that isn’t enough for him, he shows no signs of being satisfied with this haul. He is still striking down those who loved him much more effectively than those who didn’t.” John was too shocked by the news of his dear friend’s death to reprimand the messenger for his blasphemy, and he listened silently to details of how Richard had devoted himself selflessly to caring for the sick, until eventually he was too ill to rise from his bed. John nodded with assent when told that his friend, despite the danger he knew only too well he was exposing himself to, had tended both the physical and the spiritual needs of those who filled his infirmary to overflowing. And he smiled knowingly at his practical turn of mind when the servant reported how Richard had persuaded the abbot to cut the lengthy and elaborate funeral rites that the abbey had always followed on the death of a brother, because of the threat posed by pestilential corpses to the health of those monks and servants who remained alive. So, instead of bodies lying in the chapel for three days, Richard arranged for them to be interred the same day, after a brief but intense requiem. Then he personally supervised the adding of quicklime to the earth when the grave was filled, to rot the body swiftly. John mused that Richard would have been very satisfied to know that this was exactly how his groom had treated his own corpse immediately after his soul departed.
Even in the darkest days of the plague, when John was exhausted by the endless struggle to perform all of his sacred duties for all of his parishioners, and distraught by his constant inability to do so, he continued to inspire faith in others. But inwardly, time and again he felt himself in imminent danger of collapsing into despair. Then, one night in the depths of his depression, as he was agitatedly turning the pages of his Bible in a desperate search for advice and comfort, God had caused his fingers to rest and his eyes to fall on Psalm 91, and he read:
I will say of the Lord; He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.
Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy sword and buckler.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday;
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come on nigh thee.
Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
There shall no evil befall thee, neither any plague come nigh thy dwelling, For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
John knew at once, with absolute certainty, that God was by his side and had guaranteed his deliverance. Thenceforth he went daily into the eye of the storm of the pestilence without fear in his heart or doubt in his mind. Although the pestilence struck down hundreds of his parishioners, henceforth John did not waver in his determination to minister to his flock in their time of need. He was indeed protected by angels.
Master John was not alone in regaining his faith. Indeed, despite all the horrors and tribulations that the pestilence inflicted, the light of faith burned constantly in some hearts, not least in the pious villagers who, eight months before, had formed themselves into the religious society they called Corpus Christi. These brethren and sistren remained true to the oaths they had sworn to assist each other in the time of their death, and now in the face of waves of adversity that washed over Walsham after Easter they spent from their common purse and also gave of their time and love to provide spiritual comfort and fitting funerals for their dying and dead fellows. Their ranks were culled time and again, and the survivors were repeatedly overwhelmed with the intolerable burdens imposed by sickness among their own family and friends, yet they found themselves miraculously refreshed and replenished with zeal. With strength derived from working together they strove to uphold impeccable standards of devotion and ritual, even in the most difficult of circumstances. If anything, the ardor of the members appeared to increase with their shrinking numbers to match the growing weight of their burdens and the perils of their obligations. This selfless devotion ensured that a succession of funerals were held which bore, for those dark times, a rare and fitting resemblance to those of old. Although wax was scarce and very expensive, the fraternity prided itself on always carrying a respectable number of candles of sufficient size to light the funeral bier of their fellows on its way to burial, though sometimes mourners were to be seen bearing makeshift torches made from wood and rags dipped in oil and fat. In this way, loyalty and piety provided a curing of the soul, a greater peace of mind, and a safer route to salvation for the brethren and sistren. And, it must not be forgotten, the whole community derived great benefit from the collective prayers which were said at their gatherings.
But while the members of the fraternity could offer each other protection for their souls, they had nothing to offer for their bodies. At their first meeting after the pestilence had finally ceased, almost a year to the day since the group of villagers had taken their common oath, the roll of parchment on which the names of founder members had been inscribed was read out. Then, with solemn ceremony, the names of each of the brothers and sisters who had perished were crossed out, to be carefully written again on the foot of the same roll, and it was noted that more than half of the original members had perished. The survivors decided that this list would henceforth be called the bede roll, and they swore an oath to keep the departed in perpetual memory and celebrate frequent Masses for the sake of their souls.
Yet piety and steadfastness was not the only story to be told. As person after person and family after family succumbed to horrific deaths, the capricious nature of the pestilence, which carried the innocent as well as the guilty daily to their graves, led some villagers to lose faith in their religion and abandon themselves to fate. Instead of quietly and obediently awaiting death, they chose to spend their remaining time and worldly wealth enjoying life to the full, seeking to satisfy every base appetite, spending their waking hours eating, drinking, and fornicating. In this way they squandered what little money they had, consumed their inheritances, and sullied their soul.
However, with the rich diversity that characterizes human society and is accentuated rather than dulled in times of crisis, there were others who appeared strangely indifferent to their fate. Or at least their senses had been so blunted by tragedy that they went through their days as if in a state of trance, concentrating on the basic tasks and seemingly unaware of the chaos surrounding them. Yet others shunned all worldly things and concentrated on the spiritual, leading lives of extreme abstemiousness and piety. Some folk of this disposition hid from all social contacts, praying ceaselessly, eating and drinking only the most simple fare, and daily mortifying their flesh.
But lest it be thought that the plague inspired all to extreme responses, the greatest numbers of folk followed what they understood to be the sound advice of doctors and of priests, adhering to moderate regimes to obtain spiritual as well as bodily health, trusting that sober and pious behavior would best ensure the resistance of their bodies to the pestilence and, if that failed, ensure salvation for their souls.
It was commonly agreed that there was no better defense against the plague than to run away from it. Some had fled before the plague arrived, and when it did come eventually to Walsham many more thought hard about following them rather than waiting to die. But where could they run to that did not also have the plague, or would soon be struck by it? How could they abandon their homes, property, livestock, lands, and livelihoods? How could they raise sufficient money to survive for long away from their native village, when they were offered so very little for their possessions and land when they tried to sell them? So those few who did leave were predominantly poor landless people with little to lose, and they soon discovered the awful truth that the plague was raging for scores of miles all around Walsham, destroying the fine cities of Bury, Cambridge, Ely, and Norwich, as well as innumerable market towns, villages, and hamlets. Wherever they turned, they faced dangers in strange places at least as great as those they had fled from in their home village. It was almost impossible to find shelter and food, except for the highest prices. What is more, even if these fugitives chanced to find a place where the plague had not yet arrived, they encountered the most violent hostility from the residents who feared that they were bringing the death with them. Consequently these wanderers soon drifted back to Walsham or died along the way.
From the cities of Bury, Ely, and Cambridge, with their narrow, crowded streets and their multistoried houses, came tales even more shocking than the events witnessed in rural Suffolk. Particularly disgraceful were the piles of corpses in the streets, which, for fear of infection, had been thrown by families from their doors or even from their upstairs windows. There they lay until they were collected up like foul rubbish by gangs of vagrants who promised for high fees to take them to the cemetery and arrange for a priest to supervise their burial, but more often cast them into the river or dumped them in fields.
In the spring and early summer of 1349, as plague ravaged central and eastern England and began its march to the far north and west of the realm, it seemed to even the most sober of men and women that the end of the world might be nigh and that, within the space of a few months, the whole of humankind would be wiped out. Vacant cottages, overgrown fields, and deserted farms abounded in Walsham. Families which had been present in the village since time out of mind entirely disappeared, whole lines of succession to wealthy inheritances were wiped out, and innumerable households were left with only one or two members rather than the five or six who had previously flourished.
Yet still the pestilence persisted. Weeds grew high in the fields and, because there was no one to care for them, sheep, cows, oxen, and horses strayed unchecked through hedges and closes, damaging crops, falling into ditches, and dying from hunger, accident, and neglect. The roads, paths, and tracks of the village were largely deserted, as strangers were repelled and most folk sought to avoid contact with others. In these days, only the poor continued to be out and about, for they had no choice but to seek work and the wherewithal to buy food and drink. “We may as well die of the pestilence as of hunger,” they retorted when questioned about their reckless habits. And so they did in prodigious numbers (see figure 29).