William Dene

In the following account of 1349, the English monk William Dene of Rochester describes how the plague ravaged the church, carrying away entire households and leaving many parishes completely bereft of churchmen (since the close quarters in which monks and nuns lived made it easy for the plague to travel from one victim to the next). Dene goes on to describe the effect on English laborers, who found their numbers scarce and their services in high demand, and the general greed and lawlessness that gripped the country as people died by the thousands.

A plague such as never before had been heard of,... ravaged England in this year. The Bishop of Rochester, out of his small household lost four priests, five gentlemen, ten serving men, seven young clerks, and six pages, so that not a...