Vol 1: The Bluets - Lackham Countryside Centre

The Bluets 122
And, even closer to Lackham, Sheldon village was devastated by the
plague and never recovered, becoming one of the many English villages
that disappeared at this time.
The vast numbers of deaths brought about by the Black Death is well
documented. A very rough indication of the progress of the pandemic
can be gained by looking at the number of tenants in chief reported
dead over a year. These can be judged from the instructions to the
escheators to take land into the king‘s hands, which happened when a
tenant in chief died. (At this period the background number was
around 30 per year (averaged over the years 1330-1345). The figures
during the late 1340‘s were 537
1348 43
1349 378
1350 130
1351 53
Eleanor‘s Inquisition gives a useful idea of the holdings of the Wiltshire
Bluets at this time; Eleanor had land in several counties. In Hampshire
she held only Silchester 538 , no other land is recorded in the county. In
537
Compiled from data in writs in Calendar Fine Rolls vol 16 Edw III 1347 – 1356
It is noted that this only shows when a death was acted on, given the terrible
conditions in the country it is likely that information from remote areas took
longer than usual to be notified. The monthly figures, for what they are worth,
were:
1348 1349 1350 1351
January 1 January 8 January 17 January 3
February 4 February 10 February 9 February 4
March 3 March 17 March 5 March 1
April 8 April 35 April 39 April 3
May 4 May 25 May 11 May 6
June 2 June 40 June 20 June 4
July 2 July 36 July 8 July 13
August 2 August 57 August 3 August 3
September 2 September 37 September 2 September
October 7 October 48 October 10 October 5
November 7 November 48 November 5 November 6
December 1 December 17 December 1 December 5
538
Writ taken at Southampton Thursday after St Andrew (3rd December as the