In the year 1349 the Black Death, that most terrible plague, swept over England, killing nearly one half of the people; fifty thousand of its victims were buried in London, and the Abbey was not spared, for the Abbot and twenty-six of the monks caught it and died. They were buried in one grave in the south cloister, covered by a large stone, which you will easily find, although it has a wrong name, that of Gervase de Blois, carved upon it; and that vast stone, says Dean Stanley, "is the footmark left in the Abbey by the greatest plague which ever swept over Europe." Abbot Bircheston, who thus died, had not been very satisfactory. "It is well of this place that he continued no longer," says the chronicler severely; "for he ran the house into a great deal of debt, being himself extravagant and his relations being wasteful people." His successor was that remarkable man Simon Langham, the only Abbot of Westminster who ever became Archbishop of Canterbury, and he did such great things for the monastery that he won for himself the name of the second founder. Not only did he pay off the debts of his predecessors, but he managed with great prudence all the estates and revenues under his care, saved large sums of money by his frugality, and, perhaps most difficult task of all, brought the house once more into excellent discipline. This is what Plete, himself a monk at Westminster, has to say of Abbot Langham: "He rectified many abuses which had crept in, truly a service as it is most useful to any place, so commonly is it the most difficult also; and accordingly it cost him a great deal of study, pains, and resolution to effect it, as having many ill tempers to deal with, some being indolent, others odd and particular, some extravagant, and others perverse." While he was Archbishop, and afterwards when made a cardinal and living abroad, he never forgot the Abbey where he had been educated and where he had laid the foundation of his great career, but left to it a sum equal to £200,000 to be spent on building, and desired that he should be buried there. So you will find his tomb of marble and alabaster in the little chapel of St. Benedict at the entrance to the south ambulatory, the first monument of any importance set up to the memory of a bishop or abbot. He was followed by the Prior, Nicholas Litlington, "a stirring person, very useful to the monastery," whose mind was set on improving the buildings. This was an easy task enough, thanks to the legacy of Langham and the good favour in which he stood with king and queen. So at once he set to work, the monastery being the object of his care. He built the south and west cloisters, setting his initials on the roof; the Abbot’s Palace, the College Hall, the Jerusalem Chamber, houses for the bailiff, the cellarer, the infirmaries, and the sacrist, a malt-house and a water-mill; and besides this he presented the Abbey with much valuable plate and many rich vestments.