Contiguous to the township of Heacham lies Hunstanton--not the
pleasant little watering-place which the million will persist in
calling by that name, though scarcely forty years ago the maker and
builder of the modern town, the man who marked out its streets and
planned its roads, and foresaw its future before a brick of the place
was laid, gave it the name of St. Edmunds--Hunstanton, I say, in the
fourteenth century was a parish less than half the size of Heacham,
and probably much further from the sea than it is now. When, on the
20th of March, 1349, the steward of the manor of Hunstanton held his
court there he entered the name of only one old woman who had died
within the last month--that is, up to the 20th of March the plague
had not yet appeared. Five weeks after this, on the 23rd of April,
the next court was held. Five petty disputes had been entered for
hearing. Sixteen men were engaged in them as principals or witnesses.
When the day came eleven of the sixteen were dead. On the 22nd of May
again there was a court, and again three suits for debt were set
down. The defendant in one case, the plaintiff in a second, both
plaintiff and defendant in the third, died before the court day
arrived. In June no court was held--was there a panic? Except in this
month and in September the meetings were carried on as regularly as
if it had all been done by machinery.
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