Even allowing for the enormous size of the parishes and some inflation in the estimates of the dead it seems that Amounderness must have suffered worse than the regional average. But evidence is scarce. At Rochdale where the parson died, there was a gap of eight months before the vacancy was filled, but this could be accounted for by inefficiency on the part of the diocesan authorities as well as by the high mortality. A curious entry is found in the Assize Rolls. A certain William of Liverpool ‘caused one third of the inhabitants of Everton to be brought to his house after death’; presumably with the intention of carrying out cut-price funerals and so cheating the lord of the manor and the church authorities. Since it was widely assumed that the plague was caught from the dead, his courage deserves praise as well as his business acumen.{373}
Of Cumberland still less is known. In this county, the diocesan registers are lacking; a tribute not so much to the Black Death as to the havoc wrought by the invading Scots. But though the Scots prepared the ground it was the plague which finally dislocated the agricultural economy. The accounts of Richard de Den ton, former Vice-Sheriff, presented for audit in 1354, show vividly what damage had been done. Because of ‘the mortal pestilence lately raging in those parts’, he reported, ‘the greater parts of the manor lands attached to the King’s Castle at Carlisle’ were still lying uncultivated. For eighteen months after the end of the plague, indeed, the entire estate had been let go to waste ‘for lack of labourers and divers tenants. Mills, fishing, pastures and meadow lands could not be let during that time for want of tenants willing to take the farms of those who died in the said plague.’ The jury found that Richard de Den ton had proved his facts and accepted the greatly reduced value of the estate.{374} The city of Carlisle was relieved of many of its taxes in 1352 because ‘it is rendered void and, more than usual, is depressed by the mortal pestilence’.
Durham too had suffered severely from the incursions of marauding Scots. In 1346 they had invaded in greater numbers than ever before. Under the sacred banner of St Cuthbert, Bishop Hatfield had taken the field and repelled them. But, though the victory was decisive, it had not come in time to save the Palatinate from devastation. Against such a background it is not surprising that the morale of the inhabitants should have been frail even before the threat of the Black Death became imminent. Durham is almost the only county in England where there is any evidence of panic spreading before the arrival of the epidemic and it is reasonable to see a link between this and the recent tribulations of the area. Yet even here no very dramatic evidence of demoralization is to be found.
That summer the halmote at Chester le Street opened as usual but when the Bishop’s steward arrived on 15 July at Hough ton le Spring he found that accounts of the plague had spread dismay among the peasants. ‘There was no one’, it was recorded, ‘who would pay the fine for any land which was in the lord’s hands through fear of the plague.’ At Easington, the next centre for the halmote, things were even worse. The steward offered to make payment of rent contingent on the tenant’s survival of the plague but even this could not tempt the nervous peasants into taking on any new responsibility. In the end he was forced to let three tenements at an absurdly low rent since even this would be of greater benefit to the lord than to leave the land untilled.{375}
In his history of Durham, Surtees{376} described the Scottish invasion and concluded, ‘No other events than those related disturbed the peace of Hatfield’s Pontificate.’ The point of view which could thus lightly dismiss a calamity which killed perhaps ten times as many people as the battles with the Scots is hard to understand. But in justice to Surtees it must be admitted that few details are known. The usual pin-points of light illumine the great obscurity. Billingham was badly affected; forty-eight of the prior’s tenants were carried off, probably well over half the population. A laconic entry in the Bishop’s rolls records, ‘No tenant came from West Thickley because they are all dead.’ A peasant, driven mad with grief by the loss of all his family, wandered in search of them from village to village of the Palatinate. For many years his unceasing quest was to revive ugly memories throughout the countryside.{377}
