x; 



2 ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



representing perhaps two and a half millions of deaths/ 

 While the plague was by no means confined to the 

 labouring classes, the consensus of opinion is that the 

 death rate was highest among the poor ; " complaints as 

 to the scarcity of labour of all kinds, especially agri- 

 cultural, of the exorbitant wages demanded by the lab- 

 ourers fortunate enough to survive, and of the consequent 

 inability of landowners to till their lands, arose immedi- 

 ately, and have been recorded by all commentators from 

 the contemporary chroniclers ^ down to the modern 

 economic historians.* Parliament being unable to meet 

 on account of the pestilence, the responsibility of dealing 

 with the emergency fell upon the king's council ; ^ the 

 result was the issue on i8 June, 1349, of the famous 

 ordinance of labourers.^^yThe continuance of the serious-^ 

 ness of the labour problem is given as one of the reasons ] 

 for the summoning, for February, 1351, of the first parlia- ' 

 ment that sat after the plague ; ^ the statement of the 

 commons that the council's decree is not obeyed is met I 

 by the statute of labourers, not as a re-enactment of the I 

 ordinance, but as a supplement to it.^ The provisions of \ 



^The total number of deaths is also a debatable question; Cunning- 

 ham, o/>. cit., i, 331-332, summarizes the controversy between Seebohm 

 and Rogers on this point. See my bibliography for references to their 

 articles. 



^ Gasquet, vp. cit., 195; Creighton, op. cit., i, 124. 

 - 'Of the chroniclers Knighton gives the fullest 'description; ii, 58-65, 

 74. Cf. also Eulogium Historiarum, iii, 213-214; Chronicon Angliae, 

 2y\ Le Baker, 98-100; Avesbury, 406-407. 



*Gasquet and Cunningham both contain references to many valuable 

 manuscript documents. 



*Stubbs, Const. Hist., ii, 418, note 2, 428, note i. 



*App., 8-12. '' J^^ot. Part., ii, 225b. 



^ Ibid., ii, 227b; for the text of the statute see app., 12-17. The usual 

 opinion, even that of Stubbs, is that the statute re-enacted the ordi- 

 nance. In reality the latter was not made a statute until the next reign; 

 Statutes, 2 R. II, st. i, c. 8. 



