At Winchelsea the King, in the year of the plague, 1349, granted to John de Scarle, the parson, a messuage to the east of the cemetery of the church, which formerly belonged to Matilda Lycotin, who had died without leaving any heirs. "Out of devotion to St. Thomas," the King gives this house to the church for a rectory house for ever.[200] That the town suffered considerably seems clear from the fact that in this year, 1349, "ninety-four places in the said town lie altogether deserted and uninhabited."[201] [p115] And both here and at Rye the bailiffs claim that in 1354 they have not received £8 1s. out of £11. 17s. 5d., supposed to be due from them, for taxes on these towns, because so many houses are destroyed and lie desolate there."[202] Incidentally it is known that John de Waring, abbot of Boxgrove, died some time before May 20th, on which day the monks had leave to elect another superior. Also from a chance entry in the Ely registers it appears that on July the 25th, 1349, a new vicar was instituted to Whaddon, in Cambridgeshire, on the presentation of the fourth prior of the Monastery of Lewes, to which the living was appropriated. It is explained that the reason why the fourth superior in the house had presented was because "the prior, sub-prior, and third prior were all dead."[203] Lastly, a year or two after the epidemic had passed, even Battle abbey is said to be in great straits, and "in many ways dilapidated" (_multipliciter dilapidatur_), about which the King orders an inquiry.[204] FOOTNOTES: [154] _Eulogium Historiarum_ (Rolls series), iii, p. 213. [155] _Annales de Bermundeseia_ in _Annales Monastici_ (Rolls series), iii, p. 475. [156] _De gestis Edwardi III_ (Rolls series), p. 406. [157] Rymer, _Fœdera_, v, p. 655. [158] _Survey of London_ (ed. Strype), ii, p. 13. [159] Dr. Creighton, _History of Epidemics in Britain_, p. 128, quotes Rickman, _Abstract of the Population Returns of 1831_, as estimating the total deaths in London at 100,000, and considers even the 50,000 as altogether impossible. In fact, he is inclined to think that in 1349 the population of London "was probably not far from" 44,770 only. [160] Brooke Lambert, _London_, i, p. 241.