To the facts showing how the monasteries were depopulated by the disease already given may be added the following:—In 1235 the abbey of St. Albans is supposed to have counted some 100 monks within its walls. In the plague of 1349 the abbot and some 47 of his monks died at one time, and subsequently one more died whilst at Canterbury, on his way with the newly-elected abbot to the Roman Curia. Assuming, therefore, that the community had remained the same in number as in 1235, St. Albans was at most left with only 51 members. At the close of the century, namely, in 1396, some 60 monks took part in election, and as this number includes the priors of the nine dependent cells, it would seem that the actual community still remained only 51. In 1452 there were only 48 professed monks in the abbey, and at the dissolution of the monastery, nearly a century later, the number was reduced to 39. This instance of the way in which the numbers in the monastic houses were diminished by the sickness, and by its effect on the general population of the country were prevented from ever again increasing to their former proportions, may be strengthened by the case of Glastonbury. This great abbey of the west of England has ever been regarded as in many respects the most important of the English Benedictine houses. It is not too much to suppose that in the period of its greatest prosperity it must have counted probably a hundred members. In 1377 the number, as given on the subsidy-roll, is only 45. In 1456 they stand [p216] at 48, and were about the same at the time of the dissolution of the abbey. A similar effect upon the members at Bath has already been pointed out.