St. Frideswide's, Oxford, was in much the same case. In May, 1349, as we may suppose from the death of the superior during the time of the epidemic at Oxford, the plague had visited the monastery, and had, in all probability, carried off many of its inmates. The deaths of many of its tenants, moreover, must have gravely affected its financial condition, and three years later it was found necessary to put the temporalities in the hands of a commission. "By want of good government," it is said, "and through casual misfortunes, coming upon the said priory, both because of the debts by which it is much embarrassed, and for other causes," it is reduced to such a state that it might easily lead to the dispersal of the canons and the total destruction of the house.[363] Of the tenants of one manor belonging to a religious house in the county of Oxford, it is said "that in the time of the mortality of men or the pestilence, which was in the year 1349, there hardly remained two tenants on the said manor. These would have left had not brother Nicholas de Lipton, then abbot, made new agreements with these and other incoming tenants."[364] To take but two instances more in other parts of England. The year after the plague was over, in 1351, the abbey of Barlings had to plead poverty and to beg for the remission of a tax. It is true, they urge the building of their new church, but likewise declare that they have been "impoverished by many other causes." An _Inquisitio post mortem_ gives the same picture. Two carucates of land, for example, brought in only forty shillings, on account of the pestilence and general poverty and deaths of the tenants. "For a similar reason," a mill, [p193] which used to produce £2 in rent, now yields nothing; and so on throughout every particular of the large estate. In this part of the country, too, the King's officer experienced the greatest difficulties in getting his dues, and the Escheator pleads, in mitigation of a small return, that during the whole of 1350 tenements have been standing empty, in Gayton, near Towcester, in Weedon, in Weston, and in Morton, ten miles from Brackley, as tenants cannot be found "by reason of the mortality." He further excuses himself for not levying on the lands and goods of the people "on account of the pestilence."[365] FOOTNOTES: [303] B. Mus. Harl. MS. 6979, f. 64. [304] _Institutiones clericorum in Comitatu Wiltoniæ_, ed. Sir J. Phillipps. [305] Originalia Roll, 23 Ed. III., m. 37. [306] Rot. Pat., 23 Ed. III., pars 1, m. 20. [307] R. O., Chancery Inq. p. m., 23 Ed. III. (1st numbers), No. 77. [308] _Ibid._, No. 78. [309] _Ibid._, No. 74. [310] _Ibid._, No. 87. [311] Escheator's Inq. p. m., Series i, File 95. [312] _Ibid._ [313] Records of the Manor of Gillingham, which I was permitted to examine by the kindness of the present Steward of the Manor, R. Freame, Esq., of Gillingham. [314] B. Mus. Add. Roll 24, 335.