STATUTE OF LABOURERS 43 



that wages had already gone up greatly. ' Many, seeing the 

 necessity of masters and great scarcity of servants, will not 

 serve unless they get excessive wages ', and it is, therefore, 

 hard to till the land. Every one under the age of 60, it was ( 

 ordered, free or villein, who can work, and has no other means 

 of livelihood, is not to refuse to work for any one who offers' 

 the accustomed wages ; no labourer is to receive more 

 wages than he did before the plague, and none are to givd 

 more wages under severe penalties. But besides regulating 

 wages, the proclamation also insists on reasonable prices for 

 food and the necessaries of life : it was a fair attempt not only 

 to protect the landlords but the labourers also, by keeping 

 both wages and prices at their former rate, so that its object 

 was not tyrannous as has been stated. 1 It was at once dis- 

 regarded, a fate which met many of the proclamations and 

 statutes of the Middle Ages, which often seem to have been 

 regarded as mere pious aspirations. 



Accordingly, the Statute of 1351, 25 Edw. Ill, Stat. 2, c. i, 

 states that the servants had paid no regard to the ordinance 

 regulating wages, ' but to their ease and singular covetise do 

 withdraw themselves unless they have livery and wages to the 

 double or treble of that they were wont to take '. Accordingly, 

 it was again laid down that they were to take liveries and 

 wages as before the Black Death, and ' where wheat was wont 

 to be given they shall take for the bushel icd. (6s. 8d. a 

 quarter), 2 or wheat at the will of the giver. And that they be 

 hired to serve by the whole year or by other usual terms, and 



1 See Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 335. Also in an age 

 when the idea of Competitive price had not yet been evolved, and when 

 regulation by authority was the custom, it was natural and right that the 

 Government in such a crisis should try to check the demands of both 

 labourers and producers, which went far beyond what employers or con- 

 sumers could pay. Putnam, Enforcement of the Statute of Labourers, 220. 



2 The average price of wheat in 1351 was los. i\d., which went down to 

 7s. 2d. next year, and 4^. 2,\d, the year after; but judging by the ineffective- 

 ness of the statute to reduce wages, it probably had little effect in causing 

 this fall. 



