“Anglia terra ferax et fertilis angulus orbis. Anglia plena jocis, gens libera, digna jocari; Libera gens, cui libera mens et libera lingua; Sed lingua melior liberiorque manus. Anglia terrarum decus et flos finitimarum, Est contenta sui fertilitate boni. Externas gentes consumptis rebus egentes, Quando fames laedit, recreat et reficit. Commoda terra satis mirandae fertilitatis Prosperitate viget, cum bona pacis habet[29].” Or, to take another distich, apparently by Alfred of Beverley, “Insula praedives, quae toto non eget orbe, Et cujus totus indiget orbis ope.” Or, in Higden’s own fourteenth century words, after quoting these earlier estimates: “Prae ceteris gulae dedita, in victu et vestitu multum sumptuosa[30].” On the other hand there is a medieval proverbial saying which places England in a light strangely at variance with this native boast of fertility, plenty, and abundance overflowing to the famished peoples abroad: “Tres plagae tribus regionibus appropriari solent, Anglorum fames, Gallorum ignis, Normannorum lepra”--three afflictions proper to three countries, famine to England, St Anthony’s fire to France, leprosy to Normandy[31]. Whatever the “lepra Normannorum” may refer to, there is no doubt that St Anthony’s fire, or ergotism from the use of bread containing the grains of spurred rye, was a frequent scourge of some parts of France; and, in common repute abroad, famine seems to have been equally characteristic of England. Perhaps the explanation of England’s evil name for famines is that there were three great English famines in the medieval history, before the Black Death, separated by generations, no doubt, but yet of such magnitude and attended by so disgraceful circumstances that the rumour of them must have spread to foreign countries and made England a by-word among the nations. These were the famines of 1194-96, 1257-59, and 1315-16. Of the first we have a tolerably full account by William of Newburgh, who saw it in Yorkshire; of the second we have many particulars and generalities by Matthew Paris of St Albans, who died towards the end of it; and of the third we have an account by one of his successors as historiographer at St Albans, John Trokelowe. All other references to famine in England are meagre beside the narratives of these competent observers, although there were probably two or three famines in the Norman period equally worthy of the historian’s pen. For the comprehension of English famine-pestilences in general, we ought to take the best recorded first; but it will be on the whole more convenient to observe the chronological order, and to introduce, as occasion offers, some generalities on the types of disease which famine induced, the extent of the mortalities, and the conditions of English agriculture and food-supply which made possible occasional famines of such magnitude.