xxxiv INTRODUCTION 



until he had appeased the rioters. The meeting resulted in the 

 death of Wat Tyler, and in Richard, soon after, finding himself 

 at the head of 40,000 horse, telling the people that all the charters 

 meant nothing, and that they must return to their old bondage. 

 Then courts of commission were opened in different towns to 

 condemn rather than to try the chief offenders. Jack Straw, the 

 " riotous priest " of Essex and one of Tyler's chief lieutenants, 

 whose intention was to get rid of the magnates and create local 

 communes, was executed. John Ball, the "wicked priest" of 

 Kent, chaplain of Tyler's host, and first great propagandist for 

 the equality of all men, abolition of the whole system of Society, 

 based on class and social distinctions and individual ownership 

 of land and wealth which is socially produced, now called " Social- 

 ism," was captured at Coventry, tried at St. Albans on July 13, 

 hanged in that city on July 15, " drawn and quartered," and the 

 parts dipped in pitch and set up in populous centres of the rising. 

 Geoffrey Litster, leader of the revolt in Norfolk, a dyer by trade, 

 and West broom, " king of the commons " of Suffolk, with several 

 hundreds more, were executed. The whole number of executions 

 amounted to 1,500. 



While these events were passing in London and its neighbour- 

 hood, the servile war had spread over a great part of England. 

 The nobles shut themselves up in their strong castles, but Henry 

 Spencer, the Bishop of Norwich, armed his retainers, collected 

 his friends, and kept the field against the insurgents of Norfolk, 

 Cambridge and Huntingdon. He surprised several bodies of 

 peasants and cut them to pieces ; others he took prisoners, and 

 sent straight to the gibbet or the block. 



The first great effort on the part of the peasants of England 

 to free themselves from the immediate and personal control which 

 the lords had over them under the system of serfdom, failed 

 through the lack of organisation and the riotous proceedings of 

 the peasants, which evoked retaliation on the part of the upper 

 classes of society, who showed how little they were prepared for 

 the recognition of the rights of the poor by the Parliament annul- 

 ling the charters of manumission which the king had granted, 

 and by the way the propriety of abolishing villeinage was 

 scouted by both lords and commons. Nevertheless, the Peasants' 

 Revolt, 1381, marked the beginning of a great economic change 

 in England, for the supply of workers being short of the demand, 

 wages began to rise rapidly after the custom began to pay wages 

 in lieu of demanding labour services for land ; and of course the 

 free labourer, who sought for employment where he could, lost 

 his title to the land which he had as a serf in return for his labour. 

 The difficulties of the landowners to obtain labour cheap enough 

 to carry on arable agriculture at a profit caused a number of land- 

 owners to turn their land into pastures for sheep-rearing, the 



