"The Bishop of Lincoln sent through his diocese a general power to all and every priest, both regular and secular, to hear confessions and to absolve with full and entire episcopal power, except only in the case of debt. In that case, if able (the penitent) himself was to make satisfaction whilst he lived, or at least others should do so with his property, after his death. In the same way the Pope granted a full remission from all sins, to be obtained once only by every one in danger of death, and he allowed this faculty to last till the next Easter following, and each to choose at will his own confessor. "In the same year, there was a great mortality of sheep everywhere in the kingdom; so much so, that in one place [p140] there died in one pasture more than 5,000 sheep, and they were so putrid that neither beast nor bird would touch them. The price for everything was low; through fear of death, very few cared for riches and the like. And then a man could purchase a horse for half a mark, which before had been worth forty shillings; a large fat ox for 4s.; a cow for 12d.; a bullock for 6d.; a fat wether for 4d.; a sheep for 3d.; a lamb for 2d.; a large pig for 5d.; and a stone of wool for nine pence; and sheep and cattle roamed about, wandering in fields and through the growing harvest, and there was no one to drive them off or collect them; but in ditches and thickets they died in innumerable quantities in every part, for lack of guardians; for so great a dearth of servants and labourers existed that no one knew what to do. Memory could not recall so universal and terrible a mortality since the time of Vortigern, king of the Britons, in whose reign, as Bede in his 'De gestis Anglorum' testifies, the living did not suffice to bury the dead. "In the following autumn no one could get a harvester at a lower price than eight pence with food. For this reason many crops perished in the fields for lack of those to gather them; but in the year of the pestilence, as said above of other things, there was such an abundance of crops of all kinds that no one, as it were, cared for them."[256] In the absence of any definite information as to the institutions made at this time in the county of Leicester it is only necessary to note that the number of benefices was about 250 at this period. There were also some twelve religious houses and several hospitals. In 1351, as we learn from the records, Croxton abbey still "remained quite deserted." The church and many of the buildings had been burnt, and "by the pestilence the abbey was entirely deprived of those by whose ability the monastery was then administered" (the abbot and prior alone excepted). [p141] The abbot was sick, "and the said prior (in November, 1351) was fully occupied in the conduct of the Divine Office and the instruction of the novices received there into the community, after the pestilence."[257]