The Black Assizes in the west / by Frederick Allcocks.

Willcocks, Frederick.

Date:: [1884]

Credit: The Black Assizes in the west / by Frederick Allcocks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$account is given by Stow in his Annals* * * § Lord Bacon also was evidently well acquainted with the “ Black Assizes ” of his time at Oxford and Exeter, and refers to them in the following words in his Natural History.] “Tlie most pernicious infection next the plague is the smell of the jail when the prisoners have been long and close and nastily kept; whereof we have had, in our time, experience twice or thrice, when both the judges that sat upon the jail, and numbers of those who attended the business, or were present, sickened and died. Therefore it were good wisdom that in such cases the jails were aired before they be brought forth.” It is worthy of note that both Bacon and Hooker draw a distinction between the gaol fever and the true plague, for Bacon calls the former the most pernicious infection next the plague, while Hooker says that it is “ not so violent as commonlie the pestilence is, neither doth there appear any outward ulcer or sore.” Cogan | speaks of the gaol fever at the Oxford Assizes in 1577 as being a “ neere cosin to the plague,” and as “ strange and unknowne to the most part of physicians ; ” but from his own account and that of other writers, there can be little doubt that the gaol distemper of the sixteenth century was really typhus fever, and differed in no respect from the various “ Black Assizes ” of the eighteenth century, which were undoubtedly outbreaks of typhus. The majority of Devonshire historians are remarkably silent with regard to this Exeter outbreak. There is no mention made of it either by Westcote, Lysons, or Pole, while Pol- whele § only briefly refers to it in the analysis of contents prefixed to his first volume, and gives no further details whatever concerning it. Eichard Izacke, in his Antiquities of the City of Eoceter,\\ places the Exeter outbreak in the year 1585 (27th Eliz.) i.e. one year earlier than the date given by Hooker. In other respects he practically follows Hooker’s account, but calls the judge of the Assizes Serjeant Flowerdby, and omits from the list of justices to whom the fever proved fatal the names of Thomas Carew, of Haccombe, John Fortescue, of Wood, and Thomas Waldron, of Bradfield. Prince,1F in his “Life of Sir Bernard Drake,” takes his account * Stow’s Annals (Howes edition), 1615, p. 718. See also LcyccsUr Correspo7ide7ice of 1585 and 1586, p. 224; and Diary of Philip JFyot (To^vn Clerk of Barnstaple, 1586-1608), appended to Mr. J. R. Chanter’s “Literary History of Barnstaple,” p. 90. t Bacon’s Works (Ellis and Spedding), vol. ii. p. 646. Exp. 914. X The Hauen of Health, Thomas Cogan, p. 318. § Polwhrle’.s History of Devon, 1797, p. 10. II Page 137, ed. 1677. H Worthies of Devon, p. 387, ed. 1701.$

The Black Assizes in the west / by Frederick Allcocks.

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