THE PEASANT REVOLT

A consequence of the plague

THE FEUDAL SYSTEMBritain’s economy inyears leading up to

the Black Death was booming.

The Feudal Systemhad normalised

unequal remuneration for service

The country was terribly

overpopulated

Labour was very cheapwith little opportunity

to seek out abetter deal

THE PLAGUEIt is argued by some that the Black Death brought about the end of feudalism. It would be more fair to say that the Black Death did not start the process of the substitution of a monetary payment for labour and service but there is no doubt that the plague speeded up the process. It reduced the numbers of peasants and artisans, the main workforce.During and immediately after the Black Death we see a raft of documents echoing Baccaccio’s account of the:

…greed of servants, who worked for inflated salaries…

Statute of Labourers, 1351.This increased price for labour continued after the Black Death. The authorities tried to arrest this inflation in the price of labour by introducing legislation such as the Statute of Labourers in 1351, which stated that:

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.

NOT HAPPY RICHO’What the authorities did not realise was that:

Skilled and unskilled workers were so rare now that employers would continue to compete for their service, and;

The workers would be very unwilling to go back to their old ‘wages’.

Both factors worked against the authorities. As a result when authorities began to force

the population to revert many openly rebelled against the government of King Richard II.

This rebellion is known as the Peasant Revolt.