In the city of Worcester, as early as the middle of April, difficulties as to the disposal of the bodies of the dead were foreseen and provided against by the Bishop, Wulstan de Braunsford, who himself, an old and infirm man, died on the 6th of August, 1349. On the 18th of April, this year, the Bishop wrote from Hartlebury to his officials at Worcester, to the following effect:—"Carefully considering and not without anxiety of heart often remembering how dangerously and excessively, alas, the burials have in these days, to our sorrow, increased, in the cemetery of our cathedral church at Worcester (for the great number of the dead in our days has never been equalled); and on this account, both for our brethren in the said church ministering devoutly to God and His most Glorious Mother, for the citizens of the said city and others dwelling therein, and for all others coming to the place, because of the various dangers which may probably await them from the corruption of the bodies, we desire, as far as God shall grant us, to provide the best remedy. Having deliberated over this, we have ordained, and do ordain, that a place fit and proper for the purpose, namely, the cemetery of the hospital of St. Oswald, Worcester, be made to supply the deficiency in the said cemetery of our cathedral church arising from the said cause." He consequently orders that it be made known to the sacrist that all burials may at his discretion, "in the time of this mortality, be made in the said cemetery of St. Oswald."[217] Leland mentions this cemetery in his Itinerary, where, speaking of the "long and fayre suburbe by north without the foregate," he says there was a chapel to St. Oswald [p123] afterwards a hospital; "but of later times it was turned to a free chapel, and beareth the name of Oswald, and here were wont corses to be buried in time of pestilence as in a publicke cemitory for Worcester."[218] The general state of the country parts in the county may be gauged by the account given by the King's Escheator for Worcester at this time. This officer, named Leo de Perton, was called upon, amongst other duties, to account for the receipts of the Bishop of Worcester's estates, from his death in August to the appointment of a successor at the end of November, 1349. The picture of the county generally which is presented in his reply is most distressing; tenants, he says, could not be got at any price, mills were vacant, forges were standing idle, pigeon houses were in ruins and the birds all gone, the remnant of the people were everywhere giving up their holdings; the harvest could not be gathered, nor, had this been possible, were there any inhabitants left in the district to purchase the produce.