A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE of their geographical position far from London and the eastern counties, and with little means of communication therewith. Besides, the reaction in favour of the ruling classes was so swift that the news of the rising probably only reached this county with the additional information that it had been put down by the most vigorous methods. Yet there is reason to suppose that the effects of the Black Death in depopulating the county were not quite so serious in Staffordshire as in some parts of England, and that, in con- sequence, the peasants here suffered somewhat less from the operation of the Statutes of Labour which had attempted, though vainly, to fix the rates of wages according to those which prevailed before the plague. There is a tradition that Wolverhampton was partially devastated by the disease, 86 and here and there in the records there are indirect references to its ravages. 88 It was of course most unlikely that this county should have escaped the pestilence, and the general scantiness of the ordinary judicial records at this time renders it dangerous to make serious general statements. There is, however, a distinct statement on the matter in a letter directed to an official of the archdeaconry of Coventry and Lichfield in 1361, which points to the comparative immunity of the county in the second great visitation of 1361-2, if not in the earlier one of I 348-9." The pestilence (says the letter) with which God is visiting the sins of the people, has not yet come into this diocese, but many other parts of the country are rendered empty by it ! Prayer is therefore to be made in all churches for the staying of the Plague. Certainly it was felt severely round about the Staffordshire borders, as appears from various entries in the Episcopal Registers. Thus in 1380 a request was made by the monks of Bordesley, in the diocese of Worcester, for the appropriation of the church of Kinver in the archdeaconry of Stafford, the abbot pleading poverty on the ground that his chief endowment is in land and agriculture, which bring in nothing through lack of labourers owing to the pestilence. He states that an unusual number of guests have visited the monastery, and that the cattle plague has further reduced his resources. 88 As regards the commercial and industrial development of Staffordshire, it is quite evident that there was but little progress between the eleventh and the sixteenth century. We know that the county suffered considerably in the civil war of Stephen's day, being for some time in the campaign of 1153 the head quarters of Matilda's son Henry. In 11878 the sheriff reports that 84 hides of geldable land were so desolated that he could levy nothing on it. ' Lo it was near one-fifth of the geldable area of the county.' 89 The growth of the towns was certainly late. From the Subsidy Roll of 1332-3 we see that Stafford, one of the ten fortified English towns mentioned in Domesday Book, comes first, with a contribution of 13 8j. io</. 40 Lichfield is next on the list, and pays 12 ; the third town is Newcastle under Lyme, paying 10 1 3-r. 4*/., whilst Burton contributes only 8, and the other towns are inconsiderable, and come far behind. 41
- F. Burleigh, Hist, and Descriptive Guide to Wolverhampton, 4.
" The mil. Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. vii, 38 ; ibid, xii, 98 ; ibid, xiv, 73. 57 Reg. of Bithop Robert de Stretton (Lich. Epis. Reg.), printed in The Will. Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. viii (New Ser.), 99. >s The Will. Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. viii (New Ser), 141. 89 Ibid. x. Ibid, x (i), 79-1 32. Ibid. 282
