16 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



terrible visitation of the Black Death in 

 1348. As a signal example of the inscrutable 

 methods of Providence, a pestilence which 

 destroyed from one-third to one-half of the 

 population placed the labourer in a stronger 

 position than he had ever secured before, or 

 has ever secured since. The period which 

 followed has been called the Golden Age of the 

 English labourer. Never before or since was 

 his pay so good or his power of combination 

 so effective. Amid the widespread scarcity 

 of labourers, wages rose, until in 1375 twice 

 as much was paid for harvesting as was the 

 case before the Plague. The day labourer 

 in the fourteenth century received about a 

 quarter of the market price of the farm 

 produce : in the eighteenth, the proportion 

 which fell to his lot was, according to Young, 

 only one-tenth. A rising spirit of hope and 

 courage drew the survivors of the great 

 calamity together ; and the efficacy of their 

 combined efforts is apparent from the com- 

 plaints of the ruling classes and the enactment 

 of the " Statute of Labourers." In 1377 a 

 protest was made by manorial lords, " as well 

 as men of Holy Church," that " the villeins 

 . . . join themselves together in great 

 routs and agree by such confederacy that 

 every one shall aid them to resist their lords 



