Black Death Rakes

Here are some accounts of the Black Death found in the book The Black Death by Rosemay Horrox.

Beware, this article: uses spellings which have had foreign influence reverted.

A Rake from London
The, which first began in the land of the Sarakens, grew so strong that, sparing no lordship, it every stead in all the kingdoms streching from that land northwards, up to and  Scotland, striking dune the greater  of the  with the blows of swift death. It began in England in the shire of Dorset, the  of Hallow Peter in Fetters, and forthwith went on withute warning from stead to stead. It killed a great many healthy folk, taking hem from the world of man's cares in the span of a morning. Those marked for death were seldomly to live longer than three or four days. It showed to no one, but a small few of the wealthy. On the same day twenty, forty, or sixty bodies, and often many more, mite be laid dune for burying together in the same pit.

The cwild came to London at abute the of All Hallows' and daily  many of life. It grew so strong that, between Candelmas and Easter, more than two hundred were buried almost every day in the new grave grund made next to Smithfeeld, and thiss was in  to the bodies buried in other churchyards in the borow. It stopped in London with the coming of the of the Holy Goast, that is to say at, going forth unhindered towards the north, where it also stopped nie Mickaelmas in 1349.

A Rake from Bristol
In 1348, the feast of Hallow Peter in Fetters, the first cwild came to England at Bristol, born by  and sailers, and it lasted in the suthe lands  Bristol throute  and all winter. And in the following year, that is to say in 1349, the cwild began in the other shires of England and lasted for a whole year with the utecome being that the living could hardly bury the dead.

A Rake from York
In 1348, Michaelmas, there began a dying of men in England. After Cristmas, on the 31st of Ereyool, the  flooded and burst its banks at the bridge towards Mickelgate, a befalling which lasted until Lent. And after thiss, at, the dying began in the borow of York and  until the feast of Hallow James.

A Rake from Tomas Walsingham
Thiss year there was a great which lasted from midsummer to the following Cristmas, and it was speedily followed by a great dying in the east among the Sarakens and other unbeleevers. It was so great that hardly a tenth of the Sarakens were left alive, and hie, thinking that the cwild had been sent to hem for hir unbeleef, to the  of Crist. But when hie fund that the same cwild among Cristians hie went back to hir unbeleef like dogs to hir spew.

In 1349, that is in the 23rd year of the of King Edward III, a great killing went forth throute the world, beginning in the suthern and northern lands. Its was so great that hardly half mankind was left alive. Tunes onse brimming with folk were emptied of hir dwellers, and the cwild spread so thickly that the living could hardly bury the dead. It was reckoned by a handful of men that barely a tenth of mankind alive. A great dying of followed on the heels of thiss cwild. dwindeled and land was left untilled for want of who were nowhere to be found. And so much wrechedness followed these ills that afterwards the world could never go back to its former.

Meanwhile, as the cwild in England, Pope Clement, forthat the great sickness, full  for  to all those throute the kingdom who died truly sorry after hir.

A Rake from Scotland
in 1350 there was a great cwild and dying of men in the kingdom of Scotland, and thiss cwild also for many years before and after thiss in sundry spots of the world, indeed, throute the whole. So great a has never been heard of from the beginning of the world to the  day, or been written dune in books. For thiss cwild blew its illwill so thorowly that fully a third of mankind was killed. At God's bidding, moreover, the was done by an  and new shape of death. Those who fell sick of a kind of gross swelling of the flesh lasted for barely two days. Thiss sickness befell everywhere, but  the middling and lower ilks, seldomly the great. It such  that childer did not dare to  hir dying, or  hir childer, but fled for fear of  as if from leprosy or a.