In the winter of 1348-49 the Black Death struck the town, killing up to 1,500 people including the Abbot and Prior of St John's Abbey by the time it began to die down in August 1349. The Abbey had pleaded poverty in the 14th century in order abstain from obligations to the King. A conflict arose with the nearby St. Botolph's Priory, reported by the abbot to the pope, that the canons of St Botolph's, with two hundred supporters, attacked a monk of the abbey called Thomas Stuckele, whilst laying siege to the abbey. Some of them had forced their way inside, and injured the abbot and convent. The cause of the riot is not stated, but it may have arisen through a dispute about a pension out of the church of St Peter's, in Colchester, which was settled the following year.