magnates died, but the poor, the religious,
and the clergy were chief sufferers. The law courts ceased to hold
regular sessions. When the people had partially recovered from the
first visitations of the plague, others befel them which were scarcely
less severe. The years 1362 and 1369 almost rivalled the horrors of
1348 and 1349.

The immediate effects of the calamity were overwhelming. At first the
horror of the foul death effaced all other considerations from men's
minds. There were not enough priests to absolve the dying, and special
indulgences, with full liberty to choose confessors at discretion, were
promulgated from Avignon and from many diocesan chanceries. The price
of commodities fell for the moment, since there were few, we are told,
who cared for riches amidst the general fear of death. The pestilence
played such havoc with the labouring population that the beasts
wandered untended in the pastures, and rich crops of corn stood rotting
in the fields from lack of harvesters to gather them. There was the
same lack of clergy as of labourers, and the priest, like the peasant,
demanded a higher wage for his services by reason of the scarcity of
labour. A mower was not to be had for less than a shilling a day with
his food, and a chaplain, formerly glad to receive two marks and his
board, demanded ten pounds, or ten marks at the least. Non-residence,
neglect of cures, and other evils followed. As Langland wrote:--

Persones and parisch prestes - playneth to heore bisschops,
That heore parisch hath ben pore - seththe the pestilence tyme,
And asketh leue and lycence - at Londun to dwelle,
To singe ther for simonye - for seluer is swete.[1]

The lack of clergy was in some measure compensated by the rush of
candidates for orders. Some of these new clerks were men who had lost
their wives by the plague; many of them were illiterate, or if they
knew how to read their mass-book, could not understand it. The close
social life of the monasteries proved particularly favourable to the
spread of the disease; the number of monks and nuns declined
considerably, and, since there was no great desire to embrace the
religious profession, many houses remained half empty for generations.

[1] _Vision of Piers Plowman_, i., p. g, ed. Skeat.

No one in the Middle Ages believed in letting economic laws work out
their natural results. If anything were amiss, it was the duty of kings
and princes to set things right. Acco