Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/89

 THE BLACK DEATH 83

apprehension. The Bishop of Bath and Wells sent letters through his diocese ordering processions every Friday in each collegiate, regular and parish church, and granting an indulgence of forty days to all who, possible, to avert God's anger." The coast of Dorsetshire seems to have been the first part infected, but the disease spread rapidly through the country. Gasquet remarks: "it is curious to observe how closely the epidemic in this country clung to the rivers and water-courses," a sug- gestive observation now that we know the connection of the disease with rats. " The mortality," says the same writer, " attacked the young and strong especially, and commonly spared the old and the weak" — ^its effects here being comparable to those of war. Just as to-day, Oxford and Cambridge were depleted of their students; and although to-day we honor and admire the many hundreds of young men who have left their colleges to fight for their country, we may no less than the men of the fourteenth century deplore the deaths of so many of those who were expected to lead the intellectual forces of the nation. In the earlier period, when the universities existed primarily for the education of the clergy, the loss fell upon the church, which suffered in many ways; to- day the injury will necessarily be more general, and if less conspicuous, no less serious. Dr. Gasquet, in a most interesting and instructive final chapter, sums up "some consequences of the great mortality." These consequences were good and bad, but of tremendous importance in either case. Prom the Norman conquest up to the middle of the fourteenth century, the nobility and gentry conversed in French, and their children were taught in that language. A schoolmaster named Cornwall intro- duced English into the instruction of his pupils, " and this example was so eagerly followed that by the year 1385, when Trevisa wrote, it had become nearly general." This change, the author suggests, could never have been effected had not the plague carried off so "many of those ancient instructors," that the opposition to it could be overcome. Thus was the English of Shakespeare made possible.
 * ^ being in a state of grace, should give alms, fast or pray, in order, if

In architecture, the effects of the epidemic are still visible to-day. In many cases buildings which had been begun were never finished ; or if finally completed, it was in another style which had since come into vogue. There is similarly a break in the development of stained-glass manufacture; first an interval, and then the resumption of work show- ing a change of style.

The tremendous shock to people's minds and habits produced a reac- tion which, in the long run, led to good results. But the disorganiza- tion let loose much evil, and Gasquet is obliged to state:

It is a well-aseertaiiied fact, strange as it may seem, that men are not as a role made better by great and universal visitations of Divine Providence.

It was noted of the great plague in the reign of the Emperor Jus-

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