The Bubonic Plague Pandemic of 1348

Walsham le Willows today

The bubonic plague pandemic of 1348 England killed off a third of its population. As many as three generations of men were killed, allowing a single male heir, sometimes a woman, to inherit property from multiple peasant farms, making them more economically sound and increasing their wealth.

The bubonic plague was caused by a bacterium, Yersinia pestis, previously unknown to 14th century English. The black ‘buboes,’ which were used to describe the pestilence in the 17^th century as the Black Death, emerged in the area close to where the bacterium entered the body. Contact with donated clothes after the death of a family member spread the plague like wildfire.

There were three types of plague, based on the route of infection:

1.      Bubonic plague was spread by fleas from small animals and body fluids from dead ones – 30-90% of those infected die within ten days unless treated with antibiotics.

2.      Septicemic plague was spread by infected blood from flea bites.

3.      Pneumonic plague was caused by exposure to the cough (airborne droplets) of an infected individual or may have been the result of the initial flea bite and then following septicemic plague infection. This type is almost always deadly unless treated with antibiotics.

After the plague ended in 1349, the nobility could not find people to fill positions [wages rose to such an extent that a law was passed to convince peasants to accept wages from the pre-plague period; it did not work] and were forced to offer incentives never before given to the peasant class. For example, records reveal that a peasant was seen plowing the land in noblemen’s attire, with holes and tears, but a nobleman’s clothing nevertheless, as an incentive to do the work.

In the village of Walsham, about 100 miles north of London and 26 miles west from the port of Ipswich, the Black Death [the name was not used until seventeenth century] arrived in 1349. Out of the 1,200 residents on tax rolls, half died from the plague. Expecting the Black Death to arrive, records show that some peasants decided to go to the pub and get drunk instead of showing up for work. They knew death was imminent, why not have fun one last time?

In one family, William Cranmer’s family, the tax records show that three generations died within a couple of weeks, the grandfather, the father, and the brother of Olivia Cranmer. She was mentioned previously in tax records as having had to pay a few shillings in penalty taxes for having given birth to a child out of wedlock. The landlord of the manor had her married to a landed farmer named Robert, who also died of the plague.

The death records from the bubonic plague were accurate because each peasant had to pay a death tax, i.e. a horse, a cow, a yew, or whatever animal the family had.

As a survivor, Olivia inherited a total of 40 acres of land. But how was tax on the property going to be paid since women were not allowed to own property? To fix this problem, the lord and the tax collector allowed Olivia to become a landowner legally, thus being able to pay taxes on her 40-acre farm.

Olivia lived comfortably into her sixties, a remarkable age in medieval times, but especially since she survived the bubonic plague. She was in good condition financially, as she received a pension.

Many women in this period benefited from the Black Death financially. They were even allowed to become apprentices in different professions, traditionally only performed by men.

Waves of subsequent bubonic plagues followed, and it will be 300 years before the population of England grew to the pre-pandemic numbers of 1348.

The Cranmer Farm still exists today in the village of Walsham and farming continues on the same acreage as it was done during the medieval period by William Cranmer when the plague hit in 1349 and claimed the lives of so many of his family members.