During the
year ending March, 1350, considerably more than two-thirds of the
benefices of the diocese had become vacant.
In the religious houses the plague wrought, if possible, worse havoc
still. There were seven nunneries in Norfolk and Suffolk. Five of
them lost their prioresses. How many poor nuns were taken who can
guess? In the College of St. Mary-in-the-fields, at Norwich, five of
the seven prebendaries died. In September the abbot of St. Benet's
Hulm was carried off. Again we ask and receive no answer--what must
have been the mortality among the monks and the servants of the
convent? And yet sometimes we do get an answer to that question. In
the house of Augustinian Canons at Heveringland prior and canons died
to a man. At Hickling, which a century before had been a flourishing
house and been doing good work, only one canon survived. Neither of
these houses ever recovered from the effects of the visitation; they
were eventually absorbed in other monastic establishments.
It is one of the consequences of the peculiar privileges granted to
the Friars that no notice of them occurs in the episcopal records.
They were free lances with whom the bishops had little to do. It is
only by the accident of every one of the Friars of our Lady who had a
house in Norwich having been carried off, and the fact that their
house was left tenantless, that we know anything of their fate.
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