t, after the plague had carried off
three-fourths of her inhabitants, their proud city was left forlorn and
desolate. In Florence it was prohibited to publish the numbers of the
dead and to toll the bells at their funerals, in order that the living
might not abandon themselves to despair.

In England most of the great cities suffered incredible losses; above
all, Yarmouth, in which seven thousand and fifty-two died; Bristol,
Oxford, Norwich, Leicester, York, and London, where, in one
burial-ground alone, there were interred upward of fifty thousand
corpses, arranged in layers, in large pits. It is said that in the whole
country scarcely a tenth part remained alive. Morals were deteriorated
everywhere, and public worship was, in a great measure, laid aside, in
many places the churches being bereft of their priests. The instruction
of the people was impeded, covetousness became general; and when
tranquillity was restored, the great increase of lawyers was
astonishing, to whom the endless disputes regarding inheritances offered
a rich harvest. The want of priests, too, throughout the country,
operated very detrimentally upon the people. The lower classes were most
exposed to the ravages of the plague, while the houses of the nobility
were, in proportion, much more spared. The sittings of parliament, of
the king's bench, and of most of the other courts were suspended as long
as the malady raged.

Ireland was much less heavily visited than England. The disease seems to
have scarcely reached the mountainous districts of that kingdom; and
Scotland, too, would, perhaps, have remained free had not the Scots
availed themselves of the misfortune of the English, to make an
irruption into their territory, which terminated in the destruction of
their army, by the plague and by the sword, and the extension of the
pestilence, through those who escaped, over the whole country.

In England the plague was soon accompanied by a fatal murrain among the
cattle. Of what nature this murrain may have been can no more be
determined than whether it originated from communication with the plague
patients or from other causes. There was everywhere a great rise in the
price of food. For a whole year, until it terminated in August, 1349,
the black plague prevailed and everywhere poisoned the springs of
comfort and prosperity. In other countries it generally lasted only half
a year, but returned frequently in individual places. Spain was
uninterrupt