INTRODUCTION xxxiii 



and manumissions were often cancelled, and labour service again 

 demanded from the villeins or freemen. 



The STATUTE OF LABOURERS led to a gradual union of labourers 

 and tenants of all classes against the landowners. There came 

 a visitation of the plague in 1361, and also in July and September, 

 1369, each of which rendered labour scarcer and labourers more 

 bold in their demands. These were met by repressive measures 

 of Parliament and landowners, which in turn gave inducement 

 to combinations of workmen in towns, and to gatherings of villeins 

 and fugitive serfs in the country districts, where the manorial 

 lords, in difficulties, were pressing the villeins to render actual 

 service. 



The outcome of the conflict between the combinations and con- 

 federacies of labourers sympathised with by John Wy cliff e and his 

 disciples the "poor priests," as distinguished from the beneficed 

 and landed, and the repressive and coercive measures of Parlia- 

 ment and the manorial lords, was the PEASANTS' REVOLT, though 

 the proximate cause was the poll-tax, which, levied at first with 

 mildness, but farmed out to courtiers, was exacted with great 

 severity, the recusants being handled very severely and un- 

 courteously, " almost not to be spoken." 



On the morning of June 14, 1381, a proclamation was issued 

 to a multitude that crowded Tower Hill, and they were told 

 that if they would retire quietly to Mile End the king would 

 meet them there. King Richard III was surrounded by upwards 

 of sixty thousand peasants, mild and respectful in demeanour, 

 and they presented no more than four demands : (i) the total 

 abolition of slavery for themselves and their children for ever ; 



(2) the reduction of the rent of good land to fourpence the acre ; 



(3) the full liberty of buying and selling, like other men, in all 

 fairs and markets ; (4) a general pardon for all past offences. The 

 king, with a gracious countenance, assured them that all these 

 demands were granted, and in returning to town he employed 

 upwards of thirty clerks to make copies of the charter containing 

 the four clauses. In the morning these copies were sealed and 

 delivered, and then an immense body of the insurgents, consisting 

 chiefly of the men of Essex and Hertfordshire, quietly withdrew 

 from the capital, but the more dangerous men remained behind. 



Wat Tyler and the leaders with him rejected the charter which 

 the men of Essex had so gladly accepted. Another charter was 

 drawn up, but it failed to please, and even a third, with still larger 

 concessions, was rejected with contempt. The next morning the 

 king went to Westminster, where he heard Mass, afterwards mount- 

 ing his horse, and with a retinue of barons and knights rode along 

 the " causeway " towards London. On coming into West Smith- 

 field he met with Wat Tyler. In the front of the Abbey of St. 

 Bartholomew Richard drew rein, and said he would not go thence 



