1349

E l’Affrica nelle marine, e nelle sue provincie di verso levante, e le rive del nostro Mare tirreno. E venendo di tempo in tempo verso il ponente, comprese la Sardigna, e la Corsica, e l’altre isole di questo mare; e dall’altra parte, ch’è detta Europa, per simigliante modo aggiunse alle parti vicine verso il ponente, volgendosi verso il mezzogiorno con più aspro assalimento che sotto le parti settentrionali. E negli anni di Cristo 1348 ebbe infetta tutta Italia, salvo che la città di Milano, e certi circustanti all’Alpi, che dividono l’Italia dall’Alamagna, ove gravò poco. E in questo medesimo anno cominciò a passare le montagne, e stendersi in Proenza, e in Savoia, e nel Dalfinato, e in Borgogna, e per la marina di Marsilia e d’Acquamorta, e per la Catalogna, e nell’isola di Maiolica, e in Ispagna e in Granata. E nel 1349 ebbe compreso fino nel ponente, le rive del Mare oceano, d’Europa e d’Affrica e d’Irlanda, e l’isola d’Inghilterra e di Scozia, e l’altre isole di ponente, e tutto infra terra con quasi eguale mortalità salvo in Brabante ove poco offese. E nel 1350 premette gli Alamanni, e gli Ungheri, Frigia, Danesmarche, Gotti, e Vandali, e gli altri popoli e nazioni settentrionali.

It took in the coasts of Africa and its eastern lands, and the shores of our Tyrrhenian Sea. Moving westward over time, it took in Sardinia, Corsica, and the other islands of this sea. On the other side, called Europe, it reached the nearby lands to the west in the same way, striking the south more fiercely than the north. In the year of Christ 1348 it had infected all Italy except the city of Milan and some places near the Alps, which divide Italy from Germany; there it weighed lightly. That same year it began to cross the mountains and spread into Provence, Savoy, the Dauphiné, and Burgundy, along the coast at Marseille and Aigues-Mortes, and into Catalonia, the island of Majorca, Spain, and Granada. By 1349 it had reached the shores of the Ocean in the far west, in Europe, Africa, and Ireland, the islands of England and Scotland, and the other western islands. Inland, too, the mortality was almost equal everywhere, except in Brabant, where it did little harm. In 1350 it bore down on the Germans, the Hungarians, Frisia, Denmark, the Goths and Vandals, and the other peoples and nations of the north.

In hac pestilentiâ plures Capellani & stipendiarii Curati noluerunt sine excessivo salario deservire. Hos Episcopus Roffensis dato ad Archidiaconum Roff. mandato anno MCCCXLIX. die xxvii. Junii, sub poenâ suspensionis & interdicti jussit eisdem stipendiis deservire.

During this pestilence many chaplains and hired parish priests refused to serve unless they were paid far too much. On June 27, 1349, the Bishop of Rochester sent an order to the Archdeacon of Rochester. It commanded these priests to serve for the same pay as before, on pain of suspension and interdict.

Tanta autem abundantia populi tunc, videlicet anno Domini mcccxlviii et mcccxlix decessit, quod nunquam auditum, neque visum, neque lectum fuit in temporibus retroactis. Et veniebat mors praedicta et infirmitas ex imaginatione vel societate ad invicem et contagione; nam qui sanus aliquem visitabat infirmum, vix aut raro mortis periculum evadebat. Unde in multis villis parvis et magnis sacerdotes timidi recedebant, religiosis aliquibus magis audacibus administrationem dimittentes, et breviter in multis locis de viginti hominibus non remanserant duo viventes.

So many people died then, in the years of our Lord 1348 and 1349, that nothing like it had ever been heard of, seen, or read about in times past. This death and sickness came from imagination, or from people keeping company with one another, and from contagion. Anyone healthy who visited a sick person hardly ever escaped the danger of death. So in many towns, small and large, the priests withdrew in fear. They left the care of souls to some members of religious orders who were bolder. In short, in many places not two out of twenty people were left alive.