Social change
Life in Britain in the fourteenth century was 'nasty, brutish and short', and it had been that way for the peasantry since long before the Black Death. Britain in the early fourteenth century was horrendously overpopulated. This was very good for the land-owning classes, since it meant that they had a vast reserve of inexpensive manpower upon which they could draw. In fact, there was such a surplus on manpower, that most landlords found it convenient to relax the old feudal labour dues owed to them on the grounds that men could always be found to perform them.
'Life in Britain in the Fourteenth Century was 'nasty, brutish and short.''
This changed after 1348.
We can see in the example of Farnham the immediate consequence of the plague: a slash in the cost of livestock and inflation in the cost of labour. This pattern was repeated up and down the country. The immediate reaction of the elite was to legislate against this. The Ordinance of Labourers was published on 18th June 1349, limiting the freedom of peasants to move around in search of the most lucrative work. This was promulgated through Parliament as the Statute of Labourers in 1351:
It was lately ordained by our lord king, with the assent of the prelates, nobles and others of his council against the malice of employees, who were idle and were not willing to take employment after the pestilence unless for outrageous wages, that such employees, both men and women, should be obliged to take employment for the salary and wages accustomed to be paid in the place where they were working in the 20th year of the king's reign [1346], or five or six years earlier; and that if the same employees refused to accept employment in such a manner they should be punished by imprisonment, as is more clearly contained in the said ordinance.
Statute of Labourers, 1351.
Published: 2001-01-01
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