Westward of Yorkshire the extensive but then sparsely populated county of Lancashire stretches between it and the Irish sea. Of this county there is practically little to be recorded. The number of benefices which existed in the county was about 65, whilst the number of chaplains and non-beneficed clergy generally must have greatly exceeded that number. In the deanery of Blackburn alone there were at the close of the reign of Edward III at [p156] least 55 capellani without benefices.[291] One document, of its kind unique, relating to Lancashire and to this great plague, is preserved in the Record Office. It was long ago referred to by the late Professor Thorold Rogers, and is now printed in the _English Historical Review_. It is a statement of the supposed number of deaths during the incidence of the great pestilence in the deanery of Amounderness. Unfortunately, as perhaps might be expected in such a mortality, when death came so suddenly and men followed one another so rapidly to the grave that vast numbers had to be cast as quickly as possible into the same plague pit, the figures are clearly only approximate, being in every instance round numbers. Still, as they were adduced at a legal investigation and before a jury, when the facts of the visitation of Providence must have been fresh in the minds of those who heard the evidence, it is difficult to suppose that they are mere gross exaggerations, and may at least be taken as proof that the mortality in this district of Lancashire was very considerable. The paper in question is the record of a claim for the profits received, or supposed to have been received, by the dean of Amounderness, acting as procurator for the Archdeacon of Richmond, for proof of wills, administration of intestate estates, and other matters, during the course of the plague of 1349. Ten parishes are named in the claim, including Preston, Lancaster, and Garstang. In those ten parishes it supposes that some 13,180 souls had died between September 8th, 1349, and January 11th, 1350. In both Preston and Lancaster 3,000 are said to have been carried off, and in Garstang 2,000. Nine benefices are declared to have been vacant, three of them twice, whilst the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, at Preston, is stated to have been unserved for seven weeks. The Priory of Lytham is also noted as having been rendered vacant by the sickness, [p157] whilst 80 people of the village were said to have died at the same time.[292] From the Patent rolls it would appear that Cartmel Priory, also, about this time lost its superior, as upon September 20th, 1349, the King's licence was granted to the community to proceed to a new election.[293]