Template:1235-05-17-Limoges

1235, May 17 – 1235, September 29 VN: thousands + 22 monks

Outbreak of an epidemic in Limoges after a year of dearth. Precise numbers for the mortality of monks and indicators of mass graves.

AM°.CC°.XXXV°. fuit tanta caritas blade quod ante messes anni sequentis vendebatur sextarium siliginis xvj. solidis et amplius; sextarium albi vini, si inveniri posset, iiij. Solidis; unum pomum, vj. Denariis, et plus et minus, secundum quod erat magnum; urinale, ix. denariis; gallina, xviij. Denariis; malum punicum, xj. solidis et plus; ij pruna, uno denario vel duobus. Et erat tanta in illo anno mortalitas et fuit in Lemovicensi diecesi et circa, quod vix inveniebatur qui ad foveam deferret. Audivi quod Capellanus et sacristia deferebant quandoque in cimiterio Sancti Geraldi, quotidie triginta, xl. velita sepeliebantur; et etiam legi ibi fuisse centum pauperes sepultos una die. Multa (p. 156) millia tunc temporis perierunt tam fame quam peste. In abbatia Sancti Martialis obierunt illo anno, a festo Ascensionis usque ad festum Sancti Michaelis, xx. Duo monachi, exceptis illis qui obidierunt in obedientia.

In the year of the Lord 1235, there was such a dearth of grain that before the harvests of the following year a sextarius of wheat was sold for sixteen solidi or more; a sextarius of white wine, if it could be found, for four solidi; an apple, for six denarii or more, according to its size; a urinal, for nine denarii; a hen, for eighteen denarii; a pomegranate, for eleven solidi or more; two prunes, for one or two denarii. And there was such mortality in that year, and it was in the diocese of Limoges and around, that scarcely anyone could be found to carry the dead to the ditch. I heard that the chaplain and the sacristan sometimes carried [the dead] into the cemetery of Saint Gerald, where thirty, forty, or even a hundred were buried daily; and also I read that there were buried there a hundred poor people in one day. Many thousands perished at that time from both hunger and disease. In the Abbey of Saint Martial, in that year, from the Feast of the Ascension until the Feast of Saint Michael, twenty-two monks died, apart from those who died in obedience (?). (Translation: Martin Bauch)

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