It was at Bunwell, too, that William Sigge was by way of becoming a
terror to his neighbours. It was laid to his charge, generally, that
he had from time to time during the pestilence carried off and
appropriated various articles of property _(diversa catalla)_
too numerous to specify. They must have been a very miscellaneous
lot, for they included several hurdles and the lead stripped off a
dead man's roof, not to mention such trifles as garments and pots and
pans. Sigge was a very successful plunderer, and, his success rather
turned his head. When the autumn of 1350 came, he refused to do his
autumn service, protested that there was none to do, and was fined
accordingly; not only so, but he was found to have stubbed up a hedge
which had been the boundary of the land of Robert Attebrigge, who had
died with no one to represent him. The women were as bad as the men;
they had their rights in those days. One of these beldames was caught
walking away with a couple of handmills from a plague-struck
dwelling, and another had looted a tenement where John Rucock's
corpse lay; she too had stripped the dead!
It is not a little curious to notice how that love of going to law
which old Fuller two hundred years ago remarked upon as a
characteristic of Norfolk men comes out again when the confusion had
begun to subside.
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