as a matter of fact, misery and discontent continued, even after the Peace of Bretigny, to increase day by day.1 § 96. Prices of Provisions. We must stop, however, to note the more economic effects of the Black Death. Now, although there was a great rise in the price of labour, the price of the labourers' food did not rise in proportion. The price of provisions, indeed, was but little affected,2 for food did not then require much manual labour in its production, and hence the rise of wages would not be much felt here. What did rise was the price of all articles that required much labour in their production, or the cost of which depended entirely upon human labour. The price of fish, for instance, is determined almost entirely by the cost of the fisherman's labour, and the cost of transit. Consequently we should under these circumstances expect a great rise in the price of fish, and such indeed was the case. So, too, there was an enormous increase in the prices of tiles, wheels, canvas, lead, iron-work, and all agricultural materials, these being articles whose value depends chiefly upon the amount of labour spent over them, and upon the cost of that labour. Hence, both peasant and artisan gained higher wages, while the cost of living remained for them much the same; while those who suffered most were the owners of large estates, who had to pay more for the labour which worked these estates, and more too for the implements used in working them. It has, however, been pointed out,5 on the other hand and with some truth-that the lords of the manors must have gained a great deal, in the years during and immediately after the Plague, from the fees of "heriots "6 1 Green, History, i. 438. 2 Grain, meat, poultry, etc., retain much the same prices as before the Plague, or are only a little dearer. Rogers, Six Centuries, 239. 3 Ib., 240. 4 + Ib., 238. 5 By Jessop, The Black Death in E. Anglia, in The Coming of the Friars, p. 255, who also thinks that the rise in wages had begun before the Plague, and was merely accelerated by it. The "heriot was a payment from "a dead man to his lord"; the "relief" was paid by the son before he could succeed to his father's lands. See Stubbs, Const. Hist., i. pp. 261 and 24 note, 157. and "reliefs" which they received consequent upon so many tenants' holdings changing hands through death. But any sums of money thus gained came of course only from a transitory condition of affairs, while the rise of wages and (in some cases) of prices was more permanent. We may, however, legitimately suspect, as an inference from modern cases, that the lords of the manors and the employers made the most of their hardships, in the hopes that arrears of taxation might be lightened by Parliament.1 § 97. Effects of the Plague upon the Landowners. 3 The fact that the larger landowners found the cost of working their land doubled or even trebled caused important economic changes. Before the Plague the cost of harvesting upon a certain estate, quoted by Professor Rogers,2 was £3, 13s. 9d.; afterwards it rose to £12, 19s. 10d. Moreover, the landlord had to consent to receive lower rents, for many tenants could not work their farms profitably with the old rents and the new prices for labour and implements. And, as rent is paid out of the profits of agriculture, it became obvious that smaller profits must mean lower rents. Now, in this state of things the landlord had two courses open to him. He could turn off the tenant and cultivate all his land himself, or he could try to exist upon the smaller income gained from lower rents. It was obviously impossible for him to cultivate all his land himself, for he would have to employ a large number of bailiffs for his various manors, and trust to their honesty to do their best for him. He therefore decided to allow his tenants to pay him a smaller rent. What is more, he in many cases decided under the circumstances to give up farming altogether, and to let even the lands which he had reserved for his own cultivation.1 The landlords, in fact, 1 Jessop, ut supra, p. 256. 2 Six Centuries, p. 241. 3 In the words of Henry of Knighton's Chronicle (ut supra, ii. p. 65), the ords had "either entirely to free them, or give them an easier tenure at a small rent, so that homes should not be everywhere irrecoverably ruined and the land everywhere remain entirely uncultivated." 4 This became even more frequent in the next century-the fifteenth. Stubbs, Const. Hist., iii. 552. The new tenants were known as firmarii had not, apparently, either the ability or the inclination to superintend agriculture under these changed conditions, and ceased trying to work their land themselves. One great result of the Plague, therefore, was that landlords to a large extent gave up capitalist farming upon their own account, and let their tenants cultivate the soil upon the modern tenant-farming method. There was, in fact, a complete change introduced into the agricultural system, the foundations of the modern arrangement of comparatively large farms,1 held by tenants and not by small owners, were laid, and the present distinction between the farmer and the labourer was more clearly established.2 § 98. Large and Small Holdings: the Yeomen. This change in the agricultural situation also operated in other ways. Concurrently with the greater development of the modern system of tenant farmers, there is reason to believe that the Plague caused in many places the concentration of several estates into one, in cases where numerous deaths had resulted in the succession of a single heir to the estates of his stricken relatives, and thus the tendency towards the combination of large estates in few lands was strengthened, and the great landowner became more clearly distinguished from his neighbours. "The gentry became richer and their estates larger." But at the same time there was also an undoubted tendency towards the multiplication of small holdings, both those in the hands of tenants and of owners, so that the class of peasant-farmers and yeomen greatly increased in numbers.* The circumstances of the time favoured these, for the rise in the price of labour was not so severely felt by this class, since they could and did use the unpaid labour of their families upon their holdings. Then, when they had (i.e., those who paid a firma or fixed rent), "fermors," or "farmers." Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. ii. 267. 5 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. ch. xvi. 400; Rogers, Hist. Agric. and Prices, i. 667. 2 Ib. 3 Jessop, The Black Death in East Anglia, in The Coming of the Friars, p. 251. 5 lb. 4 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 241, tided over the immediate results of the Plague, they took larger holdings as they grew richer. They were helped in this by the stock and land lease system already referred to (p. 114), which gave them the use of a larger quantity of agricultural capital than they could otherwise have commanded. But when the tenant-farmer's wealth increased he found himself able, as a rule, to keep his own stock. § 99. The Statute of Quia Emptores. It also would appear that, independently of the effects of the Plague, the number of substantial yeomanry (some of whom helped later to swell the numbers of the country gentry) was increasing from another cause. Little more than half a century before the Black Death, the Crown had thought it necessary to introduce the well-known Statute of Quia Emptores. This enactment was intended to prevent the practice of "subinfeudation," whereby the tenants of the greater lords received other and smaller tenants on condition of their rendering to them feudal services similar to those which they themselves rendered to their original lords. The Statute of Quia Emptores 2 purposed to check this process by providing that in any case of alienation of land to a sub-tenant, this sub-tenant should hold it, not of the other tenant, but of the superior lord or real owner. The intention undoubtedly was to prevent the alienation of land, but, as so often happens with legislative enactments, the actual result was of a directly opposite character. The tenant who, previously, had been compelled to retain in any case at least so much of his holding as enabled him to fulfil his feudal obligations to his overlord, was now able (by a process similar to the modern sale of "tenant right") to transfer both land and services to new holders.3 The estates thus transferred, however large or small they might be, were now held directly of the Crown or superior lord; and the class of 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. ch. xv. p. 180; Taswell Langmead, English Const. Hist., pp. 62, 138, 228. 2 The king (Edward I.) enacted this "by the instance of his magnates only” (ad instantiam magnatum regni sui) on July 8th, 1290 (18 Ed. I., c. 1). 3 Green, History, i. 336. small gentry and freeholders grew steadily from this time both in numbers and importance. The Plague assisted the tendency of the Statute, and an important social change was thereby wrought. The facilities thus given to the alienation and subdivision of lands; the transition of the serf into the copyholder, and of the copyholder by redemption of his services into a freeholder; the rise of a new class of 'farmers,' as the lords ceased to till their demesne by means of bailiffs, and adopted instead the practice of leasing it at a rent or 'farm' (firma) to one of the 'customary' tenants; the general increase of wealth which was telling on the social position, even of those who still remained in villeinage-all undid more and more the earlier process which had degraded the free ceorl of the English Conquest into the villein of the Norman Conquest, and covered the land with a population of yeomen, some freeholders, some with services that every day became less weighty and already left them virtually free." 1 The yeomanry of England formed henceforth for several centuries an important factor in national life, and their decline was a national misfortune.2 § 100. The Emancipation of the Villeins. In fact, the gradual amelioration of the conditions of villeinage or serfage received a forcible impetus from the Great Plague. Those villeins who had not already become free tenants, and especially those who lived on wages,3 shared in the advantages now gained by all who had labour to sell. Their labour was more valuable, and they were able with their higher wages to buy from their lord a commutation of those exactions which interfered with their personal freedom of action, with their right to sell their labour to other employers, or with their endeavours to reach a better social position. Serfage or villeinage gradu 1 The extract, which gives a good summary of the conclusions of other writers, is from Green, History of the English People, i. 420. 2 For this decline, see below, p. 276. Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 242. "Money payments were substituted for service." Hist., II. ch, xvi. p. 454, Stubbs, Const. |