This kind of evidence needs more careful handling than Cardinal Gasquet has given it in his book on _The Black Death of 1348 and 1349_. Amongst other things he says there, page 102, “An examination of the institutions of the diocese, in relation to the time when the plague visited the various parts of it, appears to show that it commenced almost simultaneously in north and south. In North Devon it is found at both Northam and Alverdiscott on the 7th of November, at Fremington in the same district on the 8th, and at Barnstaple on December 23rd.... The early outbreak in the coast villages at the mouth of the estuary leading to Barnstaple points to the conclusion that the infection was brought by a ship passing up the Bristol Channel.” He assumes here that the Plague will be ‘found’ at a place on the very day on which a new incumbent has been instituted; and this assumption is quite unfounded unless he also assumes that the previous incumbent must have died of Plague there. But in two of these four places the previous incumbents could not possibly have died of Plague, as they had not died of anything at all: the register says distinctly that these vacancies were caused by resignation, not by death. In a letter of 30 October 1348 bishop Grandisson cites a letter from the prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, written after the Archbishop’s death, and giving his instructions for processions and other rites to stay the Plague. According to the Prior’s letter (28 September) England was exhausted and impoverished by the War, “guerrarum discriminibus, que ipsius regni diviciarum substanciam exhaurunt et consumunt ... regnum Anglie desolatum extitit et afflictum.” That was the opinion of a man living at the time: yet there are books on history assuring us that England had never been so prosperous before, the country being then enriched with all the spoils of France.