Ely and the Black Death

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At first there were only vague rumours in Ely that some terrible disaster was approaching. But in fact it had all started in the far East and according to an Italian eye witness, Boccaccio, when it got to Italy, it looked like this: -

 “…in men and women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumours in the groin or the armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg… which the common folk calla “gavocciolo”. From the said parts of the body this deadly gavocciolo began to propogate and spread itself in all directions. After which the form of the malady began to change, black spots or livid ones making their appearance, in many cases on the arm or the thigh or elsewhere, now few and large, now minute and numerous. And as the gavocciolo had been and still was an infallible token of approaching death, such also were these spots on whomsoever they showed themselves…”

 The germ Pasteurella Pestis was carried by the flea and carried by the rat until it jumped onto the human. Like the tide rolling up the shore, The Black Death flowed through Europe. Some said “as fast as a man might walk”. The plague arrived in Weymouth by ship and then advanced throughout Britain. The Bishop of Ely was in Avignon, France when the plague passed him by. He stayed where he was. There was no point in beating it back to Ely and giving it a second chance. Whole villages fell into ruin and desolation. There were said to be few survivors in Cambridge north of the River Cam. The fields stayed unploughed and unplanted, so hunger was added to the misery.

There are little or no descriptions of events in the Ely area but records of the time show: -

We can presume that it was a similar fate in Ely. Like in the Domesday Book these figures don’t include women, children and landless men. Great Shelford reported no men having been killed. But in 1361 the plague returned and because no crops were sown or reaped in the village that year shows that it was badly hit then. In 1349 and 1361 the plague hit Soham (this is taken from the number of rents uncollected).

Another way of showing the number of Ely deaths is to look at the number of priests who were appointed to new jobs that year in Ely diocese (the previous priest having died) Here are the figures for 1349: -

 This was about 18 times the usual death rate. They were still building the Cathedral at this time. Bishop John Hotham had started the Lady Chapel in 1321 only to stop when the central tower collapsed. Sub-Sacrist John de Wisbech then “found” a pot of gold in the foundations to pay the workers to build the Lady Chapel but work was stopped again when he and Prior Crauden both died of the plague.

England was in a poor economic state at that time, due to high taxes and the climate getting cooler (hard times for Ely’s vineyards). Also there were now too few people to work on the land, so fields were abandoned and some villages deserted. The peasants realised that they were now in demand and insisted that they should be paid wages instead of having to work for their lord. The lords decided to make the peasants work harder and go back to the old system, by passing a law – The Statute of Labourers. And the peasants revolted… (But that’s another story!)