17 June to 28 June 1354

The latest days

23 June. Midsummer Eve: the bonfire was lit on the common, and doors all down the street were hung with birch and St John's wort. John Carter and Agnes Fletcher leapt the fire hand in hand.

22 June. Word came up the road on 22 June that the king's purveyors are in the country, taking grain and beasts for the king at their own price. Nothing has reached Ambermead yet, but with the old grain running low and the harvest weeks off, people are listening to every traveler.

21 June. A chapman named Richard of Norton came in from the road with cloth, girdles and purses and took a bed at the inn. Joan Fisher lent the Brewers a spade, and over at the Millers' a swarm of bees went off from their skeps and over the crofts.

19 June. A tinker named William of Brookfield came in off the road with his little brazier and his bag of patches, ready to mend pots, kettles and pans, and took a bed at the inn. The priest's household sent a peck or two of peas to market with a neighbor, and that settled what they owed Beatrice Shepherd. Another clear day, the fourth in a row.

17 June. A pilgrim on his way to Walsingham, John of Westcott, came in from the road on a clear day with a staff and a scrip, and slept in the church porch.

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