A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



in October, 1350, none of the tenants were fined on account of their 

 poverty. 1 At Stanhope in the south-west no commutation money was paid 

 at all for the works due in 1350 and 1351, and the bishop could not recover 

 the arrears till 1360.* 



Despite the distress, however, there were a large number of fines for 

 merchet on marriage paid in the early spring of 1350, especially by widows 

 in the Chester Ward. 8 It is probable, therefore, that the violence of the 

 plague had somewhat abated, but the prospect was disheartening. There 

 were many patches of untilled land in every field, for the old groups for 

 co-aration had lost many of their members. The peasantry at Byers probably 

 only spoke for their fellows elsewhere, when in April, 1351, they complained 

 that they would be compelled to give up their holdings as they could not 

 plough them sufficiently.* Upon the vacant lands the cattle grazed, and as 

 a way out of the general chaos the steward allowed the reeve and jury in 

 each vill to let the vacant holdings for what they would fetch as pasture. 6 



The demands of the surviving peasants in the south of England for 

 increased wages had caused the king to issue an ordinance straitly forbidding 

 employers to consent. Parliament met again in 1351 and turned the ordi- 

 nance into a stringent statute. As usual a copy was sent to the Palatinate, 

 and this statute of labourers being put in force by the bishop 6 in 1351 

 brought matters to a crisis in Durham. Its provisions are admirably sum- 

 marized by Rogers 7 as follows : 



(i) No person under 60 whether serf or free shall decline to undertake farm labour 

 at the wages that had been customary in 1347, except they lived by merchandise, were 

 regularly engaged in some mechanical craft, were possessed of private means, or were occu- 

 piers of land. The lord was to have the first claim to the labour of his serfs, and those 

 who decline to work for him or for others are to be sent to the common gaol. (2) Im- 

 prisonment is decreed against all persons who may quit service before the time that is fixed 

 in their agreements. (3) No other than the old wages are to be given, and the remedy 

 against those who seek to get more is in the lord's court. (4) Lords of manors paying 

 more than the customary amount are to be liable to treble damages. (5) Artificers are to 

 be liable to the same conditions, certain trades being enumerated. (6) Food must be sold 

 at reasonable prices. (7) Alms are strictly forbidden to able-bodied labourers. (8) Any 

 excess of wages taken or paid can be seized for the king's use towards the payment of a 

 fifteenth and tenth lately granted. 



The statute provides for the difference between summer and winter 

 wages, and guards against the emigration of the town population to country 

 places in summer. Time after time we find from entries on the Durham 

 Chancery Rolls that justices were sent round to enforce this statute together 

 with such important enactments as the Statute of Winchester. 



There are singularly few passages that bear upon the working of this 



statute in the Bishop's Rolls perhaps because they were dealt with by the 



justices, 8 but the Prior's Rolls give more information. At Billingham, in 



1358, John son of Gilbert was fined 40^. for paying a salt-maker above the 



usual rate of wages. However, the terrarer let him off with the payment 



1 Dur. Curs. No. 1 2, fol. 1 3 d. ; cf. ibid. 1 20 < * Ibid. 247 d. 



'Ibid. 25 et seq ; the amount is nearly always crossed out, and so was perhaps remitted. 

 'Ibid. 53. 'Ibid. 35, 49, 65. 



'It is entered on Hatfield's Reg.; see Dur. Curs. 30, m. 6J. 

 'Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, i, 228. 



8 It is also possible that the lettings at penyferme removed a certain amount of friction. However, it 

 must be remembered that the Halmote R. of Bishop Fordham (1382-8) are almost all missing. 



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