THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM 57 



of the struggle which lasted to the close of the century. 

 At the same time such of the farming peasantry as 

 remained working on their land were being harassed in 

 other ways. Although the details of the questions at 

 issue between manorial lords and their tenants are not 

 very definitely understood, there were certain questions 

 well suited to cause controversy. It was clearly to the 

 lords' advantage to enforce, whenever possible, the old 

 custom of work on the land instead of money rents, 

 and thus secure the labour that was needed. Such a 

 demand for forced labour, when made, would have been 

 a fruitful source of quarrel, for the peasant farmers 

 throughout the country must have known that in many 

 districts their fellows had obtained their freedom from 

 their obligations, and must have been stirred by the 

 knowledge to secure such freedom for themselves. More- 

 over, there was another grievance ; such of the larger 

 farmers as needed labour could not in practice have 

 got the benefit of the Statutes of Labourers, which were 

 so framed as to give the lords the first claim on 

 the labour of the unemployed. Finally, the two classes, 

 the labourers and the peasant farmers, both of whom 

 appear at this time to have improved their position and 

 become better off than they had been in the earlier 

 centuries, made common cause against the manorial 

 lords ; and for thirty years or so following the Black 

 Death there were riots, strikes and other disorders, 

 amounting almost to a class war. 



This thirty years' controversy, which culminated in 

 the revolt of 1381, has many interesting features. Men 

 like the English peasants of that time, whether farmers 

 or labourers, belonging as they did to a class that had 

 co-operated in their work and their pleasure from the 



