Plague, Population and Economic Decline in England in the Later Middle Ages

Abstract

j'rom the appearance of the Black Death in I 348 to the Great Plague of London in i665 outbreaks of plague were frequent in England. The consequences of the first, and most devastating, of these epidemics the Black Death have already received considerable attention. But the results of the plagues that followed in its wake have so far almost completely escaped detailed examination. The details of contemporary references to these epidemics were collected and summarized by Charles Creighton in his History of Epidemics in Britain, published in i 89 .1 However, it was not until I94I that his references received the attention they deserved. In a stimulating paper,2 MrJohn Saltmarsh suggested that the presence of plague in England during this period might provide a satisfactory explanation for the phenomena revealed by the recent investigations of economic historians for example, declining rents and marginal lands falling out of cultivation all of which, it was suggested, indicated a marked decline of population. 'There was ... a succession of epidemics in England, on a national scale from I36i to some point in the fifteenth century; thereafter on a local scale, and restricted to the towns, and especially to the greater towns ... More than any single catastrophe, this continual sapping of the human resources of England would account for the gradual but continuous decay of her national prosperity ... The period in the middle of the fifteenth century which was if we may judge by London especially unhealthy coincides with the deepest point of the depression; and the gradual slackening of the power of plague, which naturally sets in as its reign wears on, would permit the gradual recovery of the early Tudor period.'3 The attractiveness of this theory compels us to examine it in the light of such evidence as is available. This task is greatly aided by the advances in scientific knowledge of plague which have been made since Creighton wrote and which resulted from the investigations in the East during the pandemic of i894 and onwards.4 The habits of plague are now understood and past outbreaks can be much more easily identified from contemporary descriptions. The exact nature of our problem must be defined. The catastrophic conse-