42 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 



series of Acts extending over the next 150 years.^ The stocks, 

 imprisonment, outlawry, and branding were the punishments of 

 those who refused to work, or absented themselves without licence 

 from the hundred where they lived. Every boy or girl, who had 

 served in husbandry up to the age of twelve " at the plough or cart," 

 was bound to " abide at the same labour." Justices, either of the 

 Peace or under a special commission, were sworn to enforce the 

 Acts, and to fix the rates of wages at which labourers could be 

 compelled to serve. 



How far this legislation attained its immediate ends it is difficult 

 to say ; the repeated re-enactment of labour laws, the petitions 

 of employers, and the preambles to successive statutes may seem 

 to suggest that it failed. On the other hand, there is abundant 

 evidence ^ that the law was rigorously enforced, and this would 

 naturally be inferred from the fact that its administration was 

 entrusted to officials who were directly interested in com]3elHng 

 obedience to its provisions. The rise both in wages and prices was 

 great. But the statutes undoubtedly prevented either from 

 reaching famine height. Whether they were completely successful 

 or not, they embittered the relations between employers and 

 employed, and so prepared the ground for the Peasants' Rising of 

 1381. Confronted by a discontented peasantry, burdened with 

 large tracts of land which threatened to pass out of cultivation, 

 hampered by the scarcity and dearness of labour, landlords turned 

 in new directions for relief. Here and there, where the climate 

 favoured the expedient, they reduced their labour-bills by laying 

 dowTi tracts of arable land to pasture. Elsewhere the demesnes 

 were let off in separate farms at money rents. Often, in order to 

 secure tenants, the land was let on the " stock and land " system, 

 similar to that of the metayer, the landlord finding the stock and 

 implements. Sometimes the entire manor was leased to one or 



^E.g. 1360- 1 (34 Ed. III. cc. 10, 11) ; 1368 (42 Ed. III. c. 6) ; 1377 (1 Ric. II. 

 c. 6) ; 1385 (8 Ric. II. c. 2) ; 1388 (12 Ric. II. cc. 3-9) ; 1402 (4 Hen. IV, 

 c. 14) ; 1405 (7 Hen. IV. c. 17) ; 1423 (2 Hen. VI. c. 18) ; 1427 (6 Hen. VI. 

 c. 3) ; 1429 (8 Hen. VI. c. 8) ; 1444 (23 Hen. VI. c. 12) ; 1495 (11 Hen. VII. 

 c. 22) ; 1496 (12 Hen. VII. c. 3) ; 1514 (6 Hen. VIII. c. 3) ; 1563 (5 Eliz. 

 c. 4). 



"Miss Putnam's Enforcement of the Statutes of Labourers (1908), (Columbia 

 University : Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, vol. xxxii.) is 

 an exhaustive commentary on the administration of the law from 1349 to 

 1360. 



