Primary Source 11.4: The Statute of Laborers

The English population had declined by about one-third because of the Black Death, and rural and urban workers responded by demanding higher wages. In 1351 the English Parliament and King Edward III passed a law ordering wages to be set at their pre-plague levels, and attempting to force people to work.

image Because a great part of the people and especially of the workmen and servants has now died in that pestilence, some, seeing the straights of the masters and the scarcity of servants, are not willing to serve unless they receive excessive wages, and others, rather than through labour to gain their living, prefer to beg in idleness: We, considering the grave inconveniences which might come from the lack especially of ploughmen and such labourers … have seen fit to ordain: that every man and woman of our kingdom of England, of whatever condition, whether bond or free, who is able bodied and below the age of sixty years, … if he, considering his station, be sought after to serve in a suitable service, he shall be bound to serve him who has seen fit so to seek after him; and he shall take only the wages … or salary which, in the places where he sought to serve, were accustomed to be paid in the twentieth year of our reign of England [1346], … and if any man or woman, being thus sought after in service, will not do this, the fact being proven by two faithful men before the sheriffs or the bailiffs of our lord the king, or the constables of the town where this happens to be done, — straightway through them, or some one of them, he shall be taken and sent to the next jail, and there he shall remain in strict custody until he shall find surety for serving in the aforesaid form.

And if a reaper or mower, or other workman or servant, of whatever standing or condition he be, who is retained in the service of any one, do depart from the said service before the end of the term agreed, without permission or reasonable cause, he shall undergo the penalty of imprisonment….

Likewise saddlers, skinners, white-tawers, cordwainers, tailors, smiths, carpenters, masons, tilers, shipwrights, carters and all other artisans and labourers shall not take for their labour and handiwork more than what, in the places where they happen to labour, was customarily paid to such persons in [1346]; and if any man take more, he shall be committed to the nearest jail in the manner aforesaid….

And because many sound beggars do refuse to labour so long as they can live from begging alms, giving themselves up to idleness and sins, and, at times, to robbery and other crimes — let no one, under the aforesaid pain of imprisonment presume, under colour of piety or alms to give anything to such as can very well labour, or to cherish them in their sloth, — so that thus they may be compelled to labour for the necessaries of life. image

Source: Ernest F. Henderson, trans. and ed., Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages (London: George Bell and Sons, 1892).

EVALUATE THE EVIDENCE

  1. Question

    aiKPBRVtwEuIHYZc17XfgSAtolml9PJZ9P6sB0tcf+lpIkeuDfuz4058k0S5twgOdJRyKkn+vZbww5GKpuOnWrRDYfnfTKRUdi6QcueJTCTLqL1k0dkDKrv4XEjbV6g1uJB5Wqho39DbdMK+EtGcVHwEu+htPlCZolKPFLf7Rm9kl5lMUHwXMxmrT4+ZcywX
  2. Question

    K5ZMOVfh26FnmzWKRFEUwZ+QaQrbslCPGVyHQjwv+n2kk8ud5wnq6vlwuxyqXv5oDwsvgcIp4FWVGCTWwx4J5C451/iKbenr4V7GcwU/0HozlshYvWYXv9+xZN85h9lQKRxcT3+uVYMAPmhWXTUHaE2bGAhNFGaKidx+i1oi1XY=