estate, which had been sown at the time of harvest, had miserably rotted as it could not be gathered for lack of reapers. By this they have been brought into great and manifest poverty." Looking at the circumstances, therefore, the King permits them for the future to engage servants and workmen on reasonable wages above the legal sum, provided that their time of service elsewhere had expired.[316] The second instance is recorded in the following year, 1355, and has reference to difficulties springing from the same regulations as to the employment of labourers:—"The prior and brethren of the Carthusians of Hinton, in the county of Somerset, have petitioned us," says the King, "that seeing that they have no support except by the tillage of their lands, and that the greatest part of their estates, for want of workmen and servants from the time of the last pestilence, have been unused and still remain uncultivated, and that they cannot get any labourers to work their lands," (and further) "that as many people and tenants were wont to weave the woollen cloth for the clothes of the brethren from their wool, and do other various services for them, now through fear of our orders as to servants that they may not receive greater salaries and stipends from the said brethren, do not dare to serve them as before, and so leave their dwelling, so that the brethren cannot get cloth to clothe themselves properly," they beg that these orders may be relaxed in their regard. To which petition the King assented, allowing the [p172] Carthusians of Hinton to pay the wages they had been used to do.[317] The diocese of Exeter, comprising the two counties of Devon and Cornwall, was stricken by the disease apparently about the same time as the county of Somerset. The institutions made by the Bishop of the diocese, in January, 1349, number some 30, which shows that death had already been busy among the clergy. The average number of livings annually rendered vacant in the two counties during the eight years previous to 1348 was only 36. In the year 1349 the vacancies were 382, and the number of appointments to vacant livings, in each of the five months from March to July, was actually larger than the previous yearly average. It would appear, therefore, that in 1349 some 346 vacancies may reasonably be ascribed to the prevailing sickness.