II THE GREAT PLAGUE AND ITS RESULTS 31 



that it was to their own advantage so to do. They realized 

 that the old method of cultivating the demesne with com- 

 pulsory labour was clumsy and ineffective, and as they now 

 leased a large part of the demesne they no longer required I 

 the labour, and preferred the money commutation. Thus 

 commutation went on apace. 1 



From statistics furnished by Mr. Page in his pam- 

 phlet on ' The End of Villeinage in England ,', 2 based 

 on Ministers' (manorial officials) Accounts and Court 

 Rolls, which are unfortunately not as complete as one 

 could wish, I have drawn the following results. 

 Taking 28 manors in different parts of England, most 

 of them in the hands of ecclesiastics who appear to have 

 been slower to change than was the case with lay lords, and 

 as to which there is a fairly consecutive account from 1325 

 to 1440, I find that, whereas in the thirty years following 

 the Black Death (1350-80) commutation had only been 

 introduced into 9 manors (in 4 with regard to half, in 3 

 with regard to most, and in 2 with regard to all), and 

 that whereas in the ten years following the revolt of the 

 peasants, 1380-90, it had been introduced into one more 

 only, while in one commutation had advanced from half to 

 nearly all the services and in 2 to complete commutation, 

 in the following thirty years (1390-1420), when the im- 

 mediate effects of the Plague had passed away, commuta- 

 tion had begun in 9 more manors, w r as nearly complete in 7, 

 and complete in 2, while in only 2 of the 28 did services 

 still remain intact, and by 1440 half the services had been 

 commuted in 4 more and nearly all in another 4. 



Transactions Royal Hist. Soc. xiv. 140 ; English Hiat. Review, 

 u 1900, p. 29. 



Page, Villeinage, American Economic Assoc., Series iii, vol. i. 2, 

 45, 60, 78. 



