The Black Death in the diocese of Ely

The Black Death of 1348-9 is thought to have killed a third to a half of the population of Europe. More exact measurements of the plague mortality are hard to come by, but the ten episcopal registers of England which survived the great pestilence provide some of the most complete and reliable information about the number of deaths on a yearly basis. Although there are qualifications to be made before using this information, the defects in the bishops' registers are not so great that the historian can afford to neglect this valuable source. In addition, there is sometimes anecdotal evidence in the registers which speaks of the human drama of the plague, in contrast to the impassive testimony of numbers. This paper will examine the evidence of the register of Thomas de Lisle, bishop of Ely from 1345 until 1361, as it relates to the Black Death. The first half of the paper will address the statistical evidence, to be followed by a discussion of the anecdotal material. De Lisle's register has not been extensively studied since J. Lunn's 1930 thesis on The Black Death in the Bishops' Registers, which is now lost. A re-evaluation of this evidence will reveal that the inhabitants of East Anglia, and of Cambridgeshire in particular, were among the greatest sufferers of the plague

Ancient history · Bishops · Census · Genealogy · Historical demography · Linguistics · Plague (disease · Political science · Population · Register (sociolinguistics · Research methodology · Sociology · Demography · History · Law · Philosophy · Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research

• The Temporal Dynamics of the Fourteenth-Century Black Death

  James W Wood, Rebecca J Ferrell et al.•Human Biology•2003

  Incluir item

• The Black Death

  Kristina Lenz, Nils Hybel•Scandinavian Journal of History•2015

  Incluir item

• Medieval monastic mortality

  Open Access•N Dewitte, Sharon N Dewitte et al.•American Journal of Physical…•2013

  Incluir item

• A Plague of Plagues

  John Theilmann, John M Theilmann et al.•The Journal of Interdisciplinary…•2007

  Incluir item

• Plague, Population and the English Economy 1348–1530

  Open Access•John Hatcher•Plague, Population and the…•1977

  Incluir item

• Registers of John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln, for the Years, 1347–1350

  A Hamilton Thompson•Archaeological Journal•1911

  Incluir item

• The Pestilences of the Fourteenth Century in the Diocese of York

  A Hamilton Thompson•Archaeological Journal•1914

  Incluir item

• Life, Marriage and Death in a Medieval Parish

  R B Goheen, Zvi Razi•American Journal of Legal History•1982

  Incluir item

• England in the Reign of Edward III

  H Rigby, S H Rigby et al.•The Economic History Review•1992

  Incluir item

• British Medieval Population

  Open Access•Josiah Cox Russel•Population•1949

  Incluir item