Thomas Bradwardine
Scholar and theologian who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1349 and died weeks later, probably of the plague.
c. 1300–1349
The Plague in the Bishop of Rochester’s Household
William Dene (attributed), History of the Church of Rochester, printed in Henry Wharton’s Anglia Sacra (1691) · soon after the events of 1348–1349
Per idem tempus Capitulum Cant. M. Thomam Bradewardyn de Condennâ Roffensis Dioceseos oriundum, quem mox post mortem Archiepiscopi elegerant, secundò nunc elegerunt; & priusquam electio ad Papam pervenit, Papa M. Thomae more solito dedit Archiepiscopatum Cant. malens grates habere ipsemet quàm eligentes. Sed post collationem suam Dominus Rex pro Electo scripsit, qui aliàs eum impedivit.
Around the same time the monks of Canterbury Cathedral elected Master Thomas Bradewardyn of Condenna, a native of the diocese of Rochester, for the second time. They had first elected him soon after the archbishop's death. Before the election even reached the pope, the pope gave Master Thomas the archbishopric himself, as usual. He preferred to have the thanks rather than let the electors have it. After the pope's grant, the king, who had blocked him before, wrote in support of the man elected.
Igitur M. Thoma de Curiâ Romanâ revertente consecrato, versùs Londoniam festinavit, & in Hospitio Episcopi Roffensis apud La Place per quatuor dies infirmus pausans obiit.
So Master Thomas came back from the papal court, already consecrated, and hurried toward London. At La Place, the Bishop of Rochester's house, he lay ill for four days and died.