In the last two chapters an account has been given of the great plague of 1349 in the southern portion of England. In somewhat less detail the story of its ravages in Gloucester, Oxfordshire, and the Midlands must be here told. First, however, the general account given in the chronicle of Galfrid le Baker, who appears to have been a native of this district, may here find a place. In all these narratives there is, of course much repetition. But it is just this absolute coincidence, even to the use of the same terms, in writers of different countries, or even of the same country, who could not have had any communication with one another, that brings home to the mind the literal reality of statements which, when read each one by itself, inevitably appear as gross and incredible exaggeration. It so raged at Bristol, writes Le Baker, that the people of Gloucester refused those of Bristol access to their town, all considering that the breath of those so dying was infectious to the living. But in the end Gloucester, and Oxford, and London, and finally all England, were so violently attacked that hardly a tenth part of both sexes survived. The cemeteries not being sufficient, fields were chosen as burial-places for the dead. The Bishop of London bought a croft, called 'No man's land,' in London, and Sir Walter de Manny one called 'The new church-hawe' (where he has founded a house of religious) to bury the dead. Cases in the King's Bench and in the Common Pleas necessarily ceased. A few nobles died, amongst whom was Sir John Montgomery, [p117] Captain of Calais and the Lord of Clistel (?) in Calais,[205] and they were buried at the Friars of the Blessed Mary of Carmel, in London. An innumerable number of the common people and a multitude of religious and other clerics passed away. The mortality attacked the young and strong especially, and commonly spared the old and weak. Scarce anyone dared to have contact with a sick person; the healthy fled, leaving the goods of the dead as if infected. Swellings suddenly breaking out in various parts of the body, racked the sick. So hard and dry were they that, when cut, scarcely any fluid matter came from them. From this form of the plague many, through the cutting, after much suffering, recovered. Others had small black pustules distributed over the whole skin of the body, from which very few, and indeed hardly anyone, regained life and strength.