swellings, that appeared on the necks and armpits of
victims) was the most common, probably because it
had a slightly longer incubation period than the other
forms and so was more easily carried from one place to
another. All three were routinely fatal, and the septice-
mic form, in which the skin blackened as blood coagu-
lated throughout the body, had a nearly 100% mortality
rate and killed its victims in as little as a day.
The Black Death, as the fi rst occurrence of the
plague came to be called later (at the time, it was
referred to simply as “the Great Mortality”), horrifi ed
those who witnessed its effects. Seemingly healthy
people died within days or even hours.
Few religious or secular institutions were able to
function. Communication between different parts of
the countryside was exceedingly scarce. Contemporary
accounts most often held that the plague was a divine
punishment. WILLIAM LANGLAND wrote in PIERS PLOW-
MAN that “thise pestilences were for pure synne,” while
the chronicler Henry Knighton called the 1349 plague
“God’s... marvelous remedy” for the decadent life-
style of the noble and merchant classes.
The plague’s survivors found themselves in a much-
changed world. Laborers, plentiful and comparatively
powerless before 1348, suddenly became scarce.
Edward III and his successor, Richard II, issued a series
of labor laws, beginning with the 1351 Statute of
Laborers, designed to buttress preplague pay scales
and tenancy agreements. The changed circumstances
of the peasant class, however, made this unenforce-
able. Employers competed for laborers, who felt they
had the upper hand. Social unrest resulted in incidents
such as the PEASANT’S REVOLT.
The culture of England after 1350 was somewhat
darker than it had been. Saints’ cults and the trade in
relics grew, as the pardoner in GEOFFREY CHAUCER’s
“THE PARDONER’S PROLOGUE AND TALE” demonstrates.
Architecture became more austere, with few of the
adornments that characterized buildings of the 13th
and early 14th centuries. The arts refl ected a height-
ened sense of the inevitability of death, with increased
use of cadaver images on tombs and church windows,
while the popularity of poems such as Danse Macabre
(dance of death) and Disputacione betwyx the Body and
the Wormes gives testament to the morbid fascination
plague survivors had for the dead.
See also “LITANY IN TIME OF PLAGUE, A”; HUNDRED
YEARS WAR; PEASANTS’ REVOLT.
FURTHER READING
Hatcher, John. “England in the Aftermath of the Black
Death.” Past and Present 144 (1994): 1–35.
Ormod, W. M., and P. G. Lindley, eds. The Black Death in
England. Stamford: Watkins, 1996.
Platt, Colin. King Death: The Black Death and its Aftermath
in Late Medieval England. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1996.
John P. Sexton“BLAME NOT MY LUTE” SIR THOMAS WYATT
(ca. 1535) Despite the title, this poem does not por-
tray the poet as a man inspired to poetry by his lady’s
disdain. Instead, this lyric is addressed to a lady who
has blamed the poet’s lute for reporting her infi delity
and broken its strings in her anger. The poet, however,
asks her not to blame his instrument: “And though the
songs which I indite / Do quit thy change with rightful
spite, / Blame not my lute” (ll. 19–21). He goes on to
argue that it is not the lute’s fault because he is its mas-
ter, and, in fact, the lady has no one to blame but her-
self: “Then since that by thine own desert / My songs
do tell how true thou art, / Blame not my lute” (ll. 26–
28). Although the speaker chastises the lady, it is a
gentle rebuke. He reminds her just as the lute is but
the poet’s instrument, so, too, is the poet the instru-
ment of truth. He must record the truth about the lady,
and any spite she feels is only felt through her own
design.
The poem’s recipient remains unidentifi ed. Since
court poetry was meant to be performed and not pub-
lished, the intended addressee might only have identi-
fi ed herself by the details in the lyric or by a meaningful
glance from the poet, and similarly only revealed her-
self through a blush: “And if perchance this foolish
rhyme / Do make thee blush at any time, / Blame not
my lute” (ll. 40–42).
The game of COURTLY LOVE depended on the servility
of the lover and his need to publicize that enslavement
in verse. This poem illustrates SIR THOMAS WYATT’s
plain style as well as his ethical exploration of the
courtly love scenario. Instead of humbly submitting to
the lady’s punishment, Wyatt will—must—speak the84 “BLAME NOT MY LUTE”