treating swellings. swellings which were white in appearance and deep were unlikely to break and were anointed with oil of lillies or camomil. once the swelling rose to a head and was red in appearance and not deep in the flesh, it was broken with the use of a feather from a young pigeon's tail. the feather's fundament was held to the swelling and would draw out the venom. however, if the swelling dropped and became black in appearance, the physician had to be cautious when drawing the cold from the swelling. if it was too late to prevent, the physician would take the young pigeon, cut it open from breast to back, break it open and apply the pigeon (while still alive) over the cold swelling. the cupping therapy was an alternative method which was heated and then placed over the swellings. once the sore was broken, the physician would apply mellilot plaister with linimentum arcei and heal the sore with digence. victims death toll although historical records for england were more extensive than those of any other european country, it is still extremely difficult to establish the death toll with any degree of certainty. difficulties involve uncertainty about the size of the total population, as described above, but also issues regarding the proportion of the population that died from the plague. contemporary accounts are often grossly inflated, stating numbers as high as 90 per cent. modern historians give estimates of death rates ranging from around 25 per cent to more than 60 per cent of the total population. the pioneering work in the field was made by josiah william russell in his 1948 british medieval population. russell looked at inquisitions post mortem (ipms)—taken by the crown to assess the wealth of the greatest landowners after their death—to assess the mortality caused by the black death, and from this arrived at an estimate of 23.6 per cent of the entire population. he also looked at episcopal registers for the death toll among the clergy, where the result was between 30 and 40 per cent. russell believed the clergy was at particular risk of contagion, and eventually concluded with a low mortality level of only 20 per cent. several of russell's assumptions have been challenged, and the tendency since has been to adjust the assessment upwards. philip ziegler, in 1969, estimated the death rate to be at around one third of the population. jeremy goldberg, in 1996, believed a number closer to 45 per cent would be more realistic. a 2004 study by ole jørgen benedictow suggests the exceptionally high mortality level of 62.5 per cent. assuming a population of 6 million, this estimate would correspond to 3,750,000 deaths. such a high percentage would place england above the average that benedictow estimates for western europe as a whole, of 60 per cent. a death rate at such a high level has not been universally accepted in the historical community. in 2016, carenza lewis reported the results of a new method of assessing the death toll. she argued that pottery before and after the black death is datable because there was a change at that time from the high medieval to the late medieval style, and that counts of pottery of each type therefore provide a useful proxy for long term changes in population. she and her colleagues analysed pottery sherds from test pits in more than 50 continuously occupied rural settlements in eastern england, and found a decline in the number of pottery producing pits of 45 per cent. norfolk had the greatest drop of 65 per cent, while there was no drop in 10 per cent of settlements, mostly commercial centres. impact of the black death: 1349 archbishop zouche of york issued a warning throughout the diocese in july 1348 (when the epidemic was raging further south) of "great mortalities, pestilences and infections of the air". the great mortality, as it was then known, entered yorkshire around february 1349 and quickly spread through the diocese. the clergy were on the front line of the disease, bringing comfort to the dying, hearing final confessions and organising burials. this, almost by necessity, put them at a greater risk of infection. estimates suggest that the death rate of clergy in some parts of the archdiocese could have been as high as 48 per cent. this is reflected in the ordination register, which shows a massive rise in ordained clergy over the period—some being recruited before the arrival of plague in a clerical recruitment drive, but many once plague had arrived, replacing those who had been killed. in 1346, 111 priests and 337 acolytes were recruited. in 1349, 299 priests and 683 acolytes are named, with 166 priests being ordained in one session alone in february 1350." social distribution russell had trusted the ipms to give a true picture of the national average, because he assumed death rates to be relatively equal across the social spectrum. this assumption has been proven wrong, and studies of peasant plague mortality from manor rolls have returned much higher rates. this could be a consequence of the elite's ability to avoid infection by escaping plague-infected areas. it could also result from lower post-infection mortality among those more affluent, due to better access to care and nursing. if so, this would also mean that the mortality rates for the clergy—who were normally better off than the general population—were no higher than the average. ...destructive death (who seizes young and old alike, sparing no one and reducing rich and poor to the same level) has lamentably snatched from both of us our dearest daughter, (whom we loved best of all, as her virtues demanded). edward iii in a letter to king alfonso of castile the manorial records offer a good opportunity to study the geographical distribution of the plague. its effect seems to have been about the same all over england, though a place like east anglia, which had frequent contact with the continent, was severely affected. on a local level, however, there were great variations. a study of the bishop of worcester's estates reveal that, while his manors of hartlebury and hanbury had a mortality of only 19 per cent, the manor of aston lost as much as 80 per cent of its population. the manor rolls are less useful for studying the demographic distribution of the mortality, since the rolls only record the heads of households, normally an adult male. here the ipms show us that the most vulnerable to the disease were infants and the elderly. there seem to have been relatively few deaths from the black death at higher levels of society. the only member of the royal family who can be said with any certainty to have died from the black death was in france at the time of her infection. edward iii's daughter joan was residing in bordeaux on her way to marry pedro of castile in the summer of 1348. when the plague broke out in her household she was moved to a small village nearby, but she could not avoid infection, and died there on 2 september. it is possible that the popular religious author richard rolle, who died on 30 september 1349, was another victim of the black death. the english philosopher william of ockham has been mentioned as a plague victim. this, however, is an impossibility. ockham was living in munich at the time of his death, on 10 april 1347, two years before the black death reached that city. consequences