THE LABOURERS* GAIN AND LOSS 53 



scarcity of labour is proved by the fact that the severity of the 

 Labour Statutes was relaxed in the case of immigrants into London, 

 and, temporarily, into Norwich. That the chances of town life 

 were in themselves sufficient inducements for flight from the manor 

 is shown by the willingness of villeins to surrender their holdings, 

 and purchase licences to live within the walls of cities. But very 

 often another cause must have made the voluntary severance from 

 the land a Hobson's choice. The yield of arable land on open- 

 field farms was so small that farming scarcely provided necessaries. 

 Throughout the closing years of the fifteenth century, successive 

 outbreaks of murrain had killed numbers of cattle and sheep, swept 

 off geese and poultry, and even destroyed the bees. If the results 

 of similar outbreaks in the sixteenth century justify the conclusion, 

 it may be supposed that it was the live-stock of open-field farmers 

 which suffered most. Without stock small holders or cottagers 

 found common rights valueless, and their few acres of arable land 

 rather a burden than a profit. To such men the voluntary surrender 

 of holdings, with or without flight, might well seem the choice of a 

 lesser evil. For a time they may have prospered as labourers for 

 hire. But when the conversion of tillage to pasture had begun, 

 their daily employment and their harvest earnings were in peril. 

 In such conditions it must have been useless, if not impossible, to 

 enforce residence within the limits of the manor. 



The possibility that the manor itself might not provide work for 

 its inhabitants was recognised in the labour legislation of the 

 period. Indirectly the Labour Statutes, though manifestly not 

 passed in the interest of labourers, aided their progress towards 

 freedom of movement and of contract. They* broke down the 

 exclusive right which lords of the manor claimed over the personal 

 services of their manorial dependents. Hitherto no one could 

 employ a villein from another manor without the risk that this 

 superior claim might be asserted. Under the king's proclamation 

 of 1349, the lord's right is recognised, preferentially, but not 

 exclusively. He has the first claim, not the only claim, to the 

 services. He may not employ more labour than he absolutely 

 needs. When his requirements are satisfied, his villein may, and 

 on demand must, work for other employers. In the statutes them- 

 selves the same principle is carried further. Servants in hus bandry 

 are bound to appear, tools in hand, in market towns to be pu blicly 

 hired, as, five centuries later in many parts of England, they 



