In the same year, on the Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary,
there was an earthquake in divers places, and in the summer following a
great pestilence in divers parts, and many devout Brothers and Sisters
departed from this present world.

In the year 1440 the great building on the western side of the monastery
was set up, to receive guests and the Lay folk of our household, and the
roof thereof was finished in stone on the day before the Feast of our
Holy Father Augustine. At this work many of our Brothers laboured long
and bravely, while others attended to the choir.

In the same year four brothers died in the pestilence, namely, Brother
Arnold Droem, a Convert, Goswin Witte, a Clerk and Oblate, Dirk
Mastebroick, a Donate, Hermann Sutor, a Novice. Likewise many of our
neighbours in Haerst and Bercmede died of this plague, and by their own
desire were buried in our monastery.

In the year of the Lord 1441, on the Feast of St. Petronilla the Virgin,
died our beloved Brother Christian of Kampen, the Infirmarius, for he was
smitten with the plague. He was very attentive to the sick and plague
stricken, to whom he ministered faithfully to the death. On the same
day, when noon was hardly past, died John Clotinc, a Lay Brother and
Oblate. He was a man very devout, and a pattern for his long service in
the brewery and the mill, and for his frequent prayers. These died on
the same day and at the same hour after High Mass when Sext was done, and
after Vespers, when the Vigils had been sung, they were buried in peace.
After their death, by the mercy of God, the plague in the cloister was
stayed.

In the same year and month, but before the aforesaid Brothers, and on the
day before the Feast of St. Pancras, died the elder Wermbold, a Donate,
who was born in Hasselt.

In the year 1442, on the fourth day of March, which was the third Sunday
in Lent, the venerable man, John of Korke, Bishop Suffragan to our Lord
of Utrecht, consecrated the burial-ground upon the eastern side of the
church, together with the cloister thereof, likewise the passage before
the Brothers' Refectory, and that on the western side that goeth from
before the cells of the Converts to the entrance of the church. Also on
the northern side the ground to bury strangers in, with the whole circuit
thereof, but the part in the midst of it had been consecrated aforetime
with our church. Moreover, the Bishop granted indulgences for forty days
to