From the time I am writing this [1 March 1555] before 177 years, 3 months
and 11 days, by pestilence, long famine, and wars, and more still by
inundations, the world between this day and that, before and after, shall be diminished, and its
population so reduced that there will hardly be hands enough to attend to
agriculture, and the lands will be left as long without culture as they have been under tillage.