31 March 1348
My father, with the sadness of my mother’s death, has now contracted the Black Death. Many of the other people in my town say that it serves him right for staying with my mother and the bad air from mother had attacked father. I do not believe this; I do not know what to believe. My father has different symptoms to mother. Father is finding it increasingly difficult to breath and he frequently coughs up blood. My husband has forbidden me from venturing into my fathers room. He says that if the other town’s folk are correct, then I must not breathe in the stale air from my father’s room. My husband has locked himself in with my father vowing only to come out to get food and drink. He has told me that the food we eat must not contain any hot substances such as pepper, garlic and onions as they generate excess heat. Instead I have been told to use cucumber, fennel and spinach. Every morning I inhale a sweet smelling perfume before going to buy our daily shopping. I do not see how this helps, but I continue to do it as to please my husband.
28 April 1348
My father has joined my mother in the mass grave at the edge of our town. The alderman ordered that thee be no stranger entering the town unless on urgent business. If for that reason a stranger did enter, no one was to look directly at him. He believed many strangers to be carries of the Black Death. Now my husband has been struck with this seemingly incurable ailment. He has taken it upon himself that he must have displeased god. He now wanders round town in nothing but a linen cloth with red crosses painted on the hood. He carries with him a whip with three thongs. Each thong has a knot in it and through each not he has put a sharp needle. He travels through crowded areas of the town whipping himself. Three times in each procession, he lays down on the ground with his arms outstretched din the shape of a cross. This is in order, he says, to show god that he is punishing himself, so that god does not have to punish him with the Black Death.
30 April 1848
My husband, mother and father all lay next to each other in the same grave.
2 June 1848
My family all contracted the pestilence. They all tried various methods to cure themselves. They all have left me. I am alone, sad and dying of the plague with nobody to look after me. The rich can not offer any aid, as there are none of them left. My fellow poor cannot share in my burden as they have been lunber4ed with it themselves. They only place I may find aid, is the mass grave. There I will find people who have suffered as I have, but have got over it and gone to a better place.
