A HISTORY OF NORFOLK garden. On another occasion there is a charge for trimming the vines. The medicines used are seldom specified, but among the drugs and spices were liquorice, aniseed, turbit (a cathartic drug), dragon's blood, airgarik, mace, cloves, pepper, and nutmeg. Other purchases of the infirmarer were almonds, dates, figs and pomegranates, and white sugar, but these were for convent feasts. The number requiring medicine, and the names of particular cases, are sometimes entered. Thus, in 1346, twenty-four required medicine, of whom two are named, Thomas de Wisbech, whose drugs cost 8d., and Adam de Erpingham, 2s. 2d. The same year medicines for the blooded cost 13a'. In 1394 dinner and drink of the physicians {medicorum) cost 3^. 8;^. The sum of 3;. "jd. is entered under the head of medicines and the wages of the physician. This year there also occurs an entry, subsequently often repeated, of 2J. i)d. to the clerk (attendant) of the blooded, in earlier rolls he is called the servant {servitori minutorum). Physicians and medicines cost 41J. id. in 1400. A few years later the wages of Master Marck, the physician, are entered as 13^. i.d. In 1429 Master Marck received 3;. ^d. pro impeccione urine (an entry afterwards often repeated), and 6j. %d. for clysters given and other labour. A surgeon was called in during 1 43 I. There are occasional entries of medicine given to the poor outside the infirmary. In 1446 begins the definite entry at the two feasts of the Conception and Assumption of the Virgin of the number of monks in the house, on each of whom 12c/. was spent in ' spices ' or extra sweets. This went on down to the disso- lution, and similar entries are made on some of the precentors' rolls. This enables us to form a fairly correct estimate of the fluctuating numbers of the priory monks for the last century of their existence. The numbers cannot be taken as precisely accurate, for on two of the three occa- sions where there are returns for the same year both on the precentor's and the infirmarer's rolls they do not exactly tally. The average number works out at about forty-five.^ It would generally also happen that two or three of the Norwich monks would be absent for health's sake at their cells of either Lynn or Yarmouth. One other comment must be offered on the infirmarer's rolls. As they are extant from 1346 to 1350, it is only natural to turn to them with unwonted interest to see what references there are to the Great Pestilence or Black Death, which raged with such peculiar fierceness in the city of Norwich. Was the infirmary crowded ? What were the drugs used ? and other like queries at once occur to the mind. At first sight, however, these particular rolls seem most disappointing ; but after all their very silence is ' Ranging from fifty-six in 1 44 1 to thirty-one in 1512, rising again to thirty-nine in 1533. eloquent, and the complete breakdown of the machinery that usually sufficed to meet the needs and the pains of sickness speaks clearly of the overwhelming character of this awful tragedy, before which human agency sank down aghast. The summer and autumn of 1348 were abnor- mally wet throughout England, and there was much sickness before ever the plague reached our shores. The roll for 1347—8 ends with entries of medicines for Robert de Walsingham and others of the brethren, and the very last entry is the sum of 25. paid to Master Adam for his labour about our brethren at Yarmouth, whither some had doubtless gone for better air. The epidemic did not reach East Anglia until 1349 had begun. The roll from Michaelmas, 1348, to Michaelmas, 1349, is left unfinished. Ralph de Swantone, the infirmarer, began it, but he must have died when the plague was raging terrifically in the city (70,000 perished, whole parishes being blotted out) ; for John de Heders began to act as infirmarer on 10 July. Evi- dently the usual organization was paralyzed. True, each of the brothers had an electuary, but the whole expenditure dropped to jTs 95. 3//. Heders drew up a further roll from Michaelmas, 1349, to Christmas Eve; William de Len had another electuary, but there was merely ^^5 spent. At Christmas the roll ends, Heders died, and the last entry records that 52J. d. was stolen in the general disorganization from the infirmarer's ofSce. So little is known with certainty of mediaeval gardening, that the various gardeners' rolls of this priory, in addition to the herb garden refer- ences in the infirmarers' rolls are of particular value.^ They are thirty in number, beginning in 1340 and ending in 1419. It is obvious that the monastery gardens pro- duced more than was required even for their great household. Among the receipts of the year 1400, are the sum of 45. ld. for the sale of apples and pears ; 245. d. for onions ; 6j. d. for leeks ; 3;. i d. for garlick ; and 6f. od. for herbs and herb plants. The receipts for the year 1379 amounted to £^ Js., and included i6d. for onions ; 18/. ^d, for garlick ; 18/. for mustard seed ; osiers and faggots 41. d. Among the details of other years in these gardener rolls occurs the mention of peas and beans and bean-straw, though these vegetables were usually cultivated only for cattle in mediaeval England. Mention is made of filberts in 1340, of beets and carrots in 1320, and of cherries in 1452. The sacrist also had a small garden which occasionally produced filberts. ' There are four garden rolls extant of Abingdon Abbey (see Kirk, Jats. of the Obedientiary, 1892). Some attention is given to the Norwich gardeners' rolls in Miss Amherst's Hist, of Gardening in Engl. (1896) ; the roll of 1340 is reproduced in extenso. 324
