'i|.8 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



fray, of ballad fame, was but one of many border fights of that 

 time between England and Scotland. In the fourth decade of 

 that century, England and France began their " hundred years' 

 war./' of which the battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Calais, and 

 the sea fight at Sluys were incidents. Pestilence and riot did 

 not fail in those days to follow, as is their wont, on the heels 

 of war. The Black Death stalked without hindrance through 

 the world, leaving its pathway heaped with victims. In France, 

 v^rith recklessness begotten of hunger and despair, the cottage 

 made war on the castle. Froissart's chapter on the Jac^uery, 

 as the revolt of the peasants was called, shows the savagery of 

 that encounter betwixt rich and poor, and the horror of his 

 realistic word-picture haunts like a nightmare the memory of 

 all w^ho read it. Froissart also gives a graphic account of the 

 similar revolt in England under Wat Tyler in 1381, nearly a 

 quarter of a century after the outbreak in France. 



Throughout Europe, the XIV century was a period of 

 transition. New ideas took possession of men's minds, and 

 awakening to a fuller life, society began to throw aside its 

 swaddling clothes. Dante, Occam, and others, ventured to 

 question the doctrine that the head of the church had supreme 

 authority over things temporal as well as things spiritual. In 

 the State, unwonted words of command were spoken which 

 even kings had to obey. English rule in the middle ages was 

 defined by the dictum : the Commons petition ; the King 

 enacts ; the Lords sanction. But the old order of things was 

 changing. Parliament ceasing to be suppliant, took into its 

 hands even right of succession to the throne ; deposed Richard 

 II and crowned Henry IV King of England. 



The statute books of these days shew that the feudal system, 

 which like some ubiquitous, sti'ong man armed, had long con- 

 trolled society by crude semi-barbarous methods, was losing 

 strength, and would soon have to confront forces stronger than 

 its own. Under the old order of things, the slave could be 

 sold at his master's will ; the serf bred on and attached to the 

 glebe, could be sold only with the land itself ; au'^ the villein 

 \who could not be sold, but must plough and garner the harvest 



