DISPOSITION OF THE PENALTIES gg 



I. Period of the triennial grants of 1348 and 1352; the 

 claims of the taxpayers 

 The immediate economic effects of the plague, the fall in 

 rents, the rise in wages, and in prices,^ injured chiefly the 

 taxpayers, who were, for the most part, the owners of land 

 and the employers of labour, and rendered still heavier their 

 burden of taxation already grievous enough because of the 

 costliness of the French war." In view of continuous diffi- 

 culties in the collection of the full amount of the taxes, the 

 experiment was tried of applying in aid of the current sub- 

 sidy the money penalties under the statutes of labourers, 

 which, in by far the largest number of cases, must have 

 come from the pockets of the wage-earners.^ To the em- 

 ployers of labour there undoubtedly seemed a peculiar fit- 

 ness in the ingenious device to secure contributions from 

 the one class in the community the economic condition of 

 which had been improved by the plague. The scheme was 

 used twice, first in relation to the grant of 1348, and 

 secondly to the grant of 1352; but while the latter measure 

 has attracted some attention, the former has been almost 

 ignored * and must now be described in detail. 



A. The tenth and fifteenth of 1348 

 In the spring of 1348, a tenth and fifteenth were granted 

 by the commons to be paid at Michaelmas and Easter for 



' See pp. 4-5, 87-92. Gasquet. T/ie Great Pestilence, 197-198, even 

 claims that the king issued the ordinance for the express purpose of 

 preventing the landowners from making the high wages extorted from 

 them an excuse for their faihire to pay their taxes. 



"^ Rot. Pari., ii, 227a; the destruction by the plague of all the inhab- 

 itants of certain towns rendered still heavier the pressure of taxation on 

 the survivors in other districts. 



^Cf. pt. I, ch. ii, ss. 3, 4 and 5. 



*For a brief reference to this earlier attempt, see my article in E. H, 

 R., 519-521. 



