AGRARIAN REVOLUTIONS OF THE PAST 21 



their services on the demesnes. The common fields 

 were overrun with the unherded live stock off the 

 waste." 5 



This situation resulted in a series of statutes of 

 labor that undertook to regulate farm labor condi- 

 tions. As Parliament could not meet in 1349, the 

 first was in the form of a royal ordinance that or- 

 dered that "every man or woman, free or bond," 

 who was not otherwise employed and had no income 

 from land must serve when required at wages no 

 higher than heretofore received. In 1351 Parlia- 

 ment passed the famous Statute of Labourers. Un- 

 der the provisions of this statute laborers were 

 ordered to appear, tools in hand, in the market 

 towns where they would be available for work. 

 Wages were fixed by the statute and laborers were 

 required to take an oath to observe the ordinance. 

 This remarkable statute was followed by other simi- 

 lar acts, all of which were rather ineffective in ac- 

 complishing the desired purpose, but the net result 

 of all statutory requirements to enforce labor to 

 work at fixed wages was increasing discontent and 

 animosity toward landlords. 



Green, in his History of the English People, says 

 with reference to the effect of these statutes that 

 "the landlords were claiming new services, or forcing 

 men who looked on themselves as free to prove they 

 were not villeins by law. The free laborer was 



6 Annals of the British Peasantry (1895), Chapter V, p. 57. 



