STORY OF THE ENGLISH LAND 19 



north-east wind from off the Fen whistles 

 through them : and poor they be to the 

 letter : and there him whom the lord spareth 

 the bailiff squeezeth, and him whom the bailiff 

 forgetteth the Easterling chapman sheareth : 

 yet these be stout men and valiant and your 

 very brethren." Solid advantages had, it is 

 true, been generally secured freedom of 

 contract, better wages and the practice of 

 combination, but it was doubtless felt that 

 what had been largely conceded to the force 

 majeure of the Black Death and its results 

 might be reversed under changed conditions. 

 The peasant's advancement had been gained 

 through special circumstances ; he enjoyed 

 no permanent guarantee for its continuance. 

 The feudal system, no doubt, secured to the 

 peasant farmers some measure of real freedom, 

 but the latent possibility of evil inherent in 

 the system became terrible actualities when- 

 ever the strong arm of the English kings 

 was removed by civil strife. " No ghastlier 

 picture of a nation's misery," says Green, 

 " has ever been painted than that which closed 

 the English Chronicle, whose last accents 

 falter out amid the sorrows of the time," i.e., 

 the end of the twelfth century. 



The influence of the Church was not so 

 uniformly on the side of the authorities during 



