Facing up to the Plague

Mary and I had arranged to meet up in Ashwell, about half way between our two homes.  We ambled around the charming Hertfordshire village with its half-timbering and pargetting.

We discussed our own work-life balance and the news of our two parallel families.

But we could not avoid talking about the flooding and fires caused by climate change and the threat of the corona virus.  

And sadly, we could not laugh either of them off.

We drifted, as we knew we would, into the church where, in the bell tower at the west end is some extraordinary graffiti. 

Each time we visit, we like to check and make sure that after hundreds of years, it is still there.

High on the wall, is the very old, deeply incised writing.

Pestile (n) cia
M.C.T.(er)x penta
miseranda ferox violenta
(discessit pestis) superset plebs pessima testis in fine qevent(us) (erat) valid(us)
(...h)oc anno maurus in orbe tonat MCCCLXI

A board underneath tells us that it says:

There was a plague
1350
a pitiable, fierce violent plague departed;

a wretched populace survives to witness and in the end
a mighty wind, Maurus, thunders in this year in the world, 1361

The inhabitants of Ashwell must have suffered great losses and lived through times that seemed to them hellish.

“Well,” said Mary, “A plague and a great storm!  It just goes to show there’s nothing new under the sun.”

http://www.stmarysashwell.org.uk/church/graffiti/decode.htm