NOTORIOUS SALT MARSHES

The exceptionally high and unstable mortality levels of the marshlands of south-east England have been emphasised continuously throughout this study; their mortal environments have been documented repeatedly using each of the measures of mortality variation (Chapters 3 and 4). These high mortality levels also aroused frequent notice in the period. Almost every writer of south-east England topography dwelt on their unhealthiness (Chapters 1 and 2) and contemporary comments, like the mortality data, sum up time and again the association of a marshland environment and an unhealthy population. Some of these comments have been tabulated for individual south-east England parishes, alongside their burial:baptism ratios, in Table 6.1. The combination of these descriptions of extreme unhealthiness and a high excess of burials over baptisms leaves no doubt that marsh parishes were the most notorious of all black spots during the early modern period. Sheerness was described as ‘the most fever- ridden place in the whole of England’ and the notoriety of the south-east England marshlands was firmly recalled in the old Kentish proverb:

Many observers, moreover, recognised a sharp distinction between the extreme unhealthiness of saline marsh situations and the more favourable environment of other types of marshy places.