not go away on account of the want of servants and the general dearness, some half the rent, some more, some less, some for two years, some for three, according as they could agree with them. Likewise, those who received of their tenants daywork throughout the year, as is the practice with villeins, had to give them more leisure, and remit such works, and either entirely to free them, or give them an easier tenure at a small rent, so that the homes should not be everywhere irrecoverably ruined, and the land everywhere remain entirely uncultivated.

(From Edward III and his Wars, ed. W. J. Ashley, Lond. 1887. p. 122.)

95. The Statute of Labourers

Statutes of the Realm

The existing relations of master and servant were disorganized by the Black Death. The demand for labour so far exceeded the supply that wages rose to a figure hitherto unknown. Unable, or unwilling, to pay the wages demanded; alarmed at the new tendency of labour to seek, regardless of habitation, a market where the return was highest; exasperated by the disregard paid by the bondmen to the ties of villeinage, the employers sought and secured harsh and far-reaching legislation in control of labour. A specimen of these enactments is given below; for further examples, consult Statutes of the Realm, Vol. I.

Edward by the grace of God, etc., to the Reverend Father in Christ, William, by the same grace Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, greeting. Because a great part of the people, and especially of workmen and servants, have lately died in the pestilence, many seeing the necessities of masters and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive excessive wages, and others preferring to beg in idleness rather than by labour to get their living; we, considering the grievous incommodities which of the lack especially of ploughmen and such labourers may hereafter come, have upon deliberation and treaty with the prelates and the nobles and learned men assisting us, with their unanimous counsel ordained:

That every man and woman of our realm of England, of what condition he be, free or bond, able in body, and within the age of sixty years, not living in merchandize, nor exercising any craft, nor having of his own whereof he may live, nor land of his own about whose tillage he may occupy himself, and not serving any other; if he be required to serve in suitable service, his estate considered, he shall be bound to serve him which shall so require him; and take

only the wages, livery, meed, or salary which were accustomed to be given in the places where he oweth to serve, the twentieth year of our reign of England, or five or six other common years next before. Provided always, that the lords be preferred before others in their bondmen or their land tenants, so in their service to be retained; so that, nevertheless, the said lords shall retain no more than be necessary for them. And if any such man or woman being so required to serve will not do the same, and that be proved by two true men before the sheriff, bailiff, lord, or constable of the town where the same shall happen to be done, he shall immediately be taken by them or any of them, and committed to the next gaol, there to remain under strait keeping, till he find surety to serve in the form aforesaid.

If any reaper, mower, other workman or servant, of what estate or condition he be, retained in any man's service, do depart from the said service without reasonable cause or license, before the term agreed, he shall have pain of imprisonment; and no one, under the same penalty, shall presume to receive or retain such a one in his service.

No one, moreover, shall pay or promise to pay to any one more wages, liveries, meed, or salary than was accustomed, as is before said; nor shall any one in any other manner demand or receive them, upon pain of doubling of that which shall have been so paid, promised, required or received, to him who thereof shall feel himself aggrieved; and if none such will sue, then the same shall be applied to any of the people that will sue; and such suit shall be in the court of the lord of the place where such case shall happen.

And if lords of towns or manors presume in any point to come against this present ordinance, either by them or by their servants, then suit shall be made against them in the form aforesaid, in the counties, wapentakes, and tithings, or such courts of ours, for the penalty of treble that so paid or promised by them or their servants. And if any before this present ordinance hath covenanted with any so to serve for more wages, he shall not be bound, by reason of the said covenant, to pay more than at another time was wont to be paid to such a person; nor, under the same penalty, shall presume to pay more.

Also, Saddlers, skinners, white tawyers, cordwainers, tailors, smiths, carpenters, masons, tilers, shipwrights, carters, and all other artificers and workmen, shall not take for their labour and workmanship above the same that was wont to

be paid to such persons the said twentieth year, and other common years next preceding, as before is said, in the place where they shall happen to work; and if any man take more he shall be committed to the next gaol, in manner as before is said.

Also, That butchers, fishmongers, innkeepers, brewers, bakers, poulterers, and all other sellers of all manner of victuals shall be bound to sell the same victuals for a reasonable price, having respect to the price that such victuals be sold at in the places adjoining, so that the same sellers have moderate gains, and not excessive, reasonably to be required according to the distance of the place from which the said victuals be carried; and if any sell such victuals in any other manner, and thereof be convicted, in the manner and form aforesaid, he shall pay the double of the same that he so received to the party injured, or in default of him, to any other that will sue in this behalf. And the mayors and bailiffs of cities, boroughs, merchant towns, and others, and of the ports and maritime places, shall have power to inquire of all and singular, which shall in any thing offend against this, and to levy the said penalty to the use of them at whose suit such offenders shall be convicted. And in case that the same mayors and bailiffs be negligent in doing execution of the premises, and thereof be convicted before our justices, by us to be assigned, then the same mayors and bailiffs shall be compelled by the same justices to pay the treble of the thing so sold to the party injured, or to any other, in default of him, that will sue; and nevertheless toward us they shall be grievously punished.

And because that many strong beggars, as long as they may live by begging, do refuse to labour, giving themselves to idleness and vice, and sometimes to theft and other abominations; none upon the said pain of imprisonment, shall, under the colour of pity or alms, give anything to such, which may labour, or presume to favour them in their idleness, so that thereby they may be compelled to labour for their necessary living.

(Ed. from Statutes of the Realm, I, 307, 308.)

CHAPTER XIII

LOLLARDY

96. Wycliffite Conclusions: Ten Condemned as Heretical and Fourteen as Erroneous

In the fourteenth century began a resistless movement against the Catholic Church. This movement was in the sixteenth century to end in the establishment of Protestantism in England. The movement rolled on in three great waves: that for reform in the personal behaviour of recreant clerics; that for a more Christian life among the laity; and that for a reformation in doctrine. The great leader in these agitations was John Wycliff, and the Lollards were encouraged and directed by him and his "poor priests." As the central figure in the Lollard movement, it is fitting that there should be given Wycliff's doctrinal conclusions, the Bull of Pope Gregory against him, and his reply to the summons to appear at Rome.

I. That the material substance of bread and of wine remains, after the consecration, in the sacrament of the altar. II. That the accidents do not remain without the subject, after the consecration, in the same sacrament.

III. That Christ is not in the sacrament of the altar identically, truly and really in his proper corporal presence. IV. That if a bishop or priest lives in mortal sin he does not ordain, or consecrate, or baptize.

V. — That if a man has been truly repentant, all external confession is superfluous to him, or useless.

VI. Continually to assert that it is not founded in the gospel that Christ instituted the mass.

VII. That God ought to be obedient to the devil.

VIII. That if the pope is foreordained to destruction and a wicked man, and therefore a member of the devil, no power has been given to him over the faithful of Christ by any one, unless perhaps by the Emperor.

IX. That since Urban the Sixth, no one is to be acknowledged as pope; but all are to live, in the way of the Greeks, under their own laws.

X. To assert that it is against sacred scripture that men of the church should have temporal possessions.

XI. That no prelate ought to excommunicate any one unless he first knows that the man is excommunicated by God.

XII. That a person thus excommunicating is thereby a heretic or excommunicate.

XIII. — That a prelate excommunicating a clerk who has appealed to the king, or to a council of the kingdom, on that very account is a traitor to God, the king and the kingdom. XIV. That those who neglect to preach, or to hear the word of God, or the gospel that is preached, because of the excommunication of men, are excommunicate, and in the day of judgment will be considered as traitors to God.

XV. To assert that it is allowed to any one, whether a deacon or a priest, to preach the word of God, without the authority of the apostolic see, or of a catholic bishop, or some other which is sufficiently acknowledged.

XVI. To assert that no one is a civil lord, no one is a bishop, no one is a prelate, so long as he is in mortal sin.

XVII. That temporal lords may, at their own judgment, take away temporal goods from churchmen who are habitually delinquent; or that the people may, at their own judgment, correct delinquent lords.

XVIII. That tithes are purely charity, and that parishioners may, on account of the sins of their curates, detain these and confer them on others at their will.

XIX. That special prayers applied to one person by prelates or religious persons, are of no more value to the same person than general prayers for others in a like position are to him.

XX. That the very fact that any one enters upon any private religion whatever, renders him more unfitted and more incapable of observing the commandments of God.

XXI. That saints who have instituted any private religions whatever, as well of those having possessions as of mendicants, have sinned in thus instituting them.

XXII. That religious persons living in private religions are not of the Christian religion.

XXIII. That friars should be required to gain their living by the labour of their hands and not by mendicancy. XXIV. That a person giving alms to friars, or to a preaching friar, is excommunicate; also the one receiving. (Fasciculi Zizaniorum, pp. 277-282. Rolls Series. Translation reprinted by permission of the University of Pennsylvania.)