r paineful as in
others, in whom it was greater cause.

[_The causes._] Hetherto I haue shewed the beginning, name,
nature, & signes of this disease: nowe I will declare the
causes, which be ij.: infection, & impure spirites in bodies
corrupt by repletion. Infection, by thaire receiuing euel
qualities, distempring not only y^e hete, but the hole substance
therof, in putrifieng thesame, and that generally ij. waies. By
the time of the yere vnnatural, & by the nature & site of the
soile & region--wherunto maye be put the particular accidentes
of this same. By the time of the yeare vnnaturall, as if winter
be hot & drie, somer hot and moist: (a fit time for sweates) the
spring colde and drye, the fall hot & moist. To this mai be
ioyned the euel disposition by constellation, whiche hath a
great power & dominion in al erthly thinges. By the site &
nature of the soile & region, many wayes. First & specially by
euel mistes & exhalations drawen out of the grounde by the sunne
in the heate of the yeare, as chanced among the Grekes in the
siege of Troy, wherby died firste dogges & mules, after, (14) men
in great numbre: & here also in England in this m.d.lj. yeare,
the cause of this pestilent sweate, but of dyuers nature. Whiche
miste in the countrie wher it began, was sene flie from toune to
toune, with suche a stincke in morninges & eueninges, that men
could scarcely abide it. Then by dampes out of the earth, as out
of Galenes _Barathrum_, or the poetes _auernum_, or _aornum_, the
dampes wherof be such, that thei kil y^e birdes flieng ouer them.
Of like dampes, I heard in the north country in cole pits, wherby
the laboring men be streight killed, except before the houre of
coming therof (which thei know by y^e flame of their candle) thei
auoid the ground. Thirdly by putrefaction or rot in groundes aftre
great flouddes, in carions, & in dead men. After great fluddes,
as happened in y^e time of Gallien themperor at rome, in _Achaia_
& _Libia_, wher the seas sodeinly did ouerflow y^e cities nigh
to y^t same. And in the xi. yeare of _Pelagius_, when al the
flouddes throughe al Italye didde rage, but chieflye _Tibris_ at
Rome, whiche in many places was as highe as the walles of the
citie.

In carions or dead bodies, as fortuned here in Englande vpon the
sea banckes in the tyme of King Alured, or Alfrede; (as some
Chroniclers write) but in the time of king Ethelred after
Sabellicus, by occasion of drowned Locustes cast vp by the