On the other side of London, the dioceses of Canterbury and Rochester divide between them the county of Kent. The Archbishop had jurisdiction over the south-eastern portion with its long line of coast stretching from the Medway to the boundaries of Sussex. The diocese of Rochester included the western portion of Kent, which lies on the southern bank of the Thames from London to Sheerness. The diocese of Canterbury was in many respects peculiarly exposed to the chances of contagion. In it were situated both Dover and Sandwich, the two chief points of communication with the ports of France, and through the city of Canterbury passed the main line of road between the coast and London. Thrice, within a few months, the Archiepiscopal See was deprived by death of its ruler; and one, at least, of these, and very probably two, died of the prevailing sickness. The register of the prior and convent of Christchurch, Canterbury, during the vacancy, shows that institutions to livings in the diocese followed one another in rapid succession, and that deaths must have occurred in a large proportion of the benefices of this part of England.[179] "In the year of our Lord, 1348, immediately after the close of the Nativity," writes Stephen Birchington, in his history of the Archbishops of Canterbury, "arrived the common death of all people; and it lasted continuously till the end of the month of May, in the year 1349. By this pestilence barely a third part of mankind were left alive. Then, also, there was such a scarcity and dearth of priests that the [p103] parish churches remained almost unserved, and beneficed persons, through fear of death, left the care of the benefices, not knowing where to go."[180] At Canterbury itself there is some evidence of the epidemic. The abbot of St. Augustine's had died of the disease at Avignon; but no information has been preserved of what took place at the monastery itself, although the fact that abbot Thomas asked for and obtained from Pope Clement VI dispensations, "on account of defect of birth," for six monks, whom he desired to have ordained at this time, makes it more than probable that the pestilence had carried off many members of the community, whose places it was necessary to fill.