Making every deduction for exaggeration and miscounting, it is plain that a very large number of the priests, as well as of their congregations, died of the successive plagues which visited England in the fourteenth century. Amongst other evils which resulted from the wholesale mortality, hundreds of parishes were robbed of spiritual guidance, or deserted by their pastors when they were in special need of help. Hence the passage in Langland's Vision, written perhaps after the second plague (1361):
"Parsons and parish priests
Plaineth to their bishops
That their parish hath been poor
Since the pestilence,
And asketh leave and license
At London to dwell,
And sing for simony—
For silver is sweet."
The Archbishop did his best to cope with this evil, and to convince the priests that it was part of their duty to suffer with their people. He also took the sensible course of ordaining many poor survivors of the plague who had lost their family and friends, their heart and hope, sending them into the deserted parishes. And that they might have a rule of life beforehand, and know what their new vocation meant, he "did ordain that more should not be given to priests for their yearly stipend than three pounds six shillings and eightpence, which"—Stow laconically adds—"caused many of them to steal."
Three pounds six-and-eightpence! Multiply the sum by ten, to get a rough comparison with what
