II THE GREAT PLAGUE AND ITS RESULTS 25 



But Vinogradoff reminds us that this would be neutralized 

 by the financial panic and dislocation of trade which 

 necessarily ensued. 1 That in any case there was any 

 general attempt on the part of the lords to redemand 

 services from those villeins who had already commuted 

 them, as Mr. Thorold Rogers asserted/ is an assumption 

 for which there is no proof, while as to eviction, that is 

 still less likely. For why should the lord wish to evict 

 those villeins who remained, when he had already more 

 vacant holdings than he could dispose of? 



Nor is there any reason to believe that the lords rejoiced 

 in the disappearance of the villein. We must remember 

 that at that date England was only thinly populated, and 

 that labour was of much more value to the lords than land 

 which they had difficulty in cultivating, especially when 

 the price of labour was rising and the labourers had just 

 learnt the value of their labour, and were resisting the 

 fixing of the price by labour statutes. Nay, we have 

 evidence to the contrary. In the Court rolls of the time, 

 shortly after the plague, we often find a notice that certain 

 lands have been temporarily granted for a definite rent, 

 until some one shall be found who is willing to pay the 

 old labour services, or until the heirs of the villeins who 

 are dead or have" fled may be found, 3 or until the children 

 have grown to man's estate. There was, in short, no 

 remedy open to the lord, except either to allow his 

 demesne lands to lie waste, or to let them to farmers on 

 lease, or to turn them into pasture whereby he would 

 escape the necessity of demanding much labour. 4 



1 Page, Villeinage, p. 57 ; English Hist. Review, ix. 280. 



2 Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Wages, pp. 218. 219, 254 ; Page, 

 End of Villeinage, p. 38. 



8 Page, Villeinage, pp. 55, 85 ; Maitland, English Hist. Review, ix. 

 429; Scrope, Castlecombe, p. 161; Oxford Hist. Soc., Cartulary of 

 Eynsham, ii. xxvi. 



* In the manor of Forncett, however, half the manor was leased by 



