18 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



of some 22/- a week. The desire for comfort 

 and well-being becomes atrophied in time : 

 the desolate and oppressed gaze dimly on 

 such blessings " but not nigh, they behold 

 them, but not now." It is only when freedom 

 lies closer at hand that men will rush into the 

 fray to secure it. The rebellious peasants of 

 the fourteenth century were inspired by a 

 burning sense of social wrong and a zeal for 

 freedom which flashed like a bright meteor 

 trail across the sombre history of our English 

 land and was lost once more in the surrounding 

 gloom. The peasants, we are told by a con- 

 temporary, " affirmed themselves to be utterly 

 discharged of all manner of serfage." 



Nor must it be forgotten that amid the 

 outward signs of betterment in this golden 

 age certain basic facts of social oppression re- 

 mained unshaken. A very large proportion 

 of the villeins were still deprived of the full 

 protection of the King's Courts : they were 

 forbidden to sell their land or leave it without 

 permission : unworthy and harassing dues 

 and services, though gradually yielding to the 

 force of custom, were still inscribed on the 

 Statute Book. In the days of the great 

 uprising the good " hedge-priest " Ball tells 

 how " in the Eastern counties dwell men in 

 four walls of wattled reeds and mud, and the 



