CHAPTER IV. The Great Plague and Its Economic Effects

THE GREAT PLAGUE AND ITS ECONOMIC EFFECTS

§ 1. MATERIAL PROGRESS OF THE COUNTRY—In the preceding chapters we have attempted to give an idea of the state of industry and commerce in England in the Middle Ages. We now come to a most important landmark in the history of the social and industrial condition of the {68} people—viz. the Great Plague of 1348 and subsequent years. Almost two centuries had elapsed since the death of Stephen (1154), and the cessation of those great civil conflicts which harried England in his reign. These two centuries had witnessed on the whole a continuous growth of material prosperity. The wealth of the country had increased; the towns had developed and had aided the growth of a prosperous mercantile and industrial middle class, who regulated their own affairs in their gilds, and also had a voice in municipal management. The country at large was mainly devoted to agricultural and pastoral pursuits, and the mass of the people were engaged in tilling the ground or feeding cattle. The mass of the people too were now better fed and better clothed than those of a similar class on the Continent, and a great proof of their general prosperity is to be found in the nature of their food. It is a significant economic fact that wheaten bread was then, and has generally since been, the staple food of the English labourer. In most other lands, bread made from rye and other cereals was generally good enough for the working classes. If rye failed they had nothing to fall back upon, and thus famines were frequent. But the English labourer always had some other cereal besides wheat in reserve.

§ 2. SOCIAL CHANGES. THE VILLEINS AND WAGE-PAID LABOURERS—Besides the growth of material prosperity in these two centuries, we find that the commutation of villeinage services into money payments to the lord of the manor—a tendency frequently commented upon—had been growing apace. This commutation had been going on for a long time, in fact ever since the Conquest, if not before, and the villeins in general had freed themselves not only from labour-dues, but from the vexatious customary fines or “amercements” which they had to {69} pay to the lord of the manor on certain social occasions—such as the marriage of a daughter, or the education of a son for the Church. But of course this freedom was not complete, though it is important to notice its growth, for we shall see that it formed the occasion of a great class struggle some years after the Great Plague.

There is another feature which is also of importance, and which had come more and more into prominence during the past two centuries. I refer to the increase in the numbers of those who lived upon the labour of their hands, and were employed and paid wages like labourers of the present day. It has been mentioned before that they arose from the cottar class, who had not enough land to occupy their whole time, and who were therefore ready to sell their labour to an employer. These two features, the commutation of labour-dues for money payments, and the rise of a wage-paid labouring class, are closely connected, for it was natural that, when the lord of a manor had agreed to receive money from his tenants in villeinage instead of labour, he should have to obtain other labour from elsewhere and pay for it in the money thus received by commutation. The tendency of these social changes was greatly in favour of the villeins, whose social condition had steadily improved, and whose tenancy in villeinage was more and more becoming a “free” tenancy. Neither were the villeins, whether comparatively well-to-do yeomen or agricultural labourers, so much bound to the manor as formerly, for in proportion as their labour services were no longer necessary, their lord would let them leave the manor and seek employment, or take up some manufacturing industry, elsewhere. It had always been possible for the villeins (or serfs) to do this on payment of a small fine (capitagium), and it is certain that as money payments {70} became increasingly the fashion, the lord would not object to receiving this further payment, unless perchance he would require a good deal of labour done upon his own land.

§ 3. THE FAMINE AND THE PLAGUE—The position of the labouring class had been further improved by the effects of the famines which occurred in A.D. 1315–16. Of course they suffered great hardships and their numbers were considerably thinned, but at the same time this loss of life and diminution in their numbers caused their services to become more valuable in proportion to their scarcity, and they gained a rise of some 20 per cent. in wages. From this date till the coming of the Great Plague, some thirty years later, they and the rest of the English people enjoyed a period of great prosperity. It was on the whole a “merry England” on which the Great Plague suddenly broke. The prosperity of the people was reflected in the splendour and brilliancy of the court and aristocracy, and the national pride had been increased by the recent victory of Crecy, and by the other successes in the French war, which brought not only glory but occasionally wealth, in the shape of heavy ransoms. But in 1348 the prosperity and pride of the nation was overwhelmed with gloom. The Great Plague came with sudden and mysterious steps from Asia to Italy, and thence to Western Europe and England, carried some say by travelling merchants, or borne with its infection on the wings of the wind. It arrived in England at the two great ports of Bristol and Southampton in August 1348, and thence spread all over the land. Its ravages were frightful. Whole districts were depopulated, and about one-third of the people perished. Norwich and London, being busy and crowded towns, suffered especially from the pestilence, and though the {71} numbers of the dead have been grossly exaggerated by the panic of contemporaries and the credulity of modern historians, there can be no doubt that the loss of life was enormous.

§ 4. THE EFFECTS OF THE PLAGUE ON WAGES—The most immediate consequence of the Plague was a marked scarcity in the number of labourers available. For being of the poorest class they naturally succumbed more readily to famine and sickness. This scarcity of labour naturally resulted in higher wages. The land-owners began to fear that their lands would not be cultivated properly, and were content to buy labour at higher prices than would have been given at a time when the necessity of the labourer to the capitalist was more obscured. Hence the wages of labourers rose far above the customary rates. In harvest-work, for example, the rise was nearly 60 per cent., and what is more it remained so for a long period; the rise in agricultural wages generally was 50 per cent. So it was also in the case of artisans’ wages, in the case of carpenters, masons, and others. It seems the upper classes and the capitalists of that day very strongly objected to paying high wages, as they naturally do. The king himself felt deeply upon the point. Without waiting for Parliament to meet, Edward III. issued a proclamation ordering that no man should either demand or pay the higher rates of wages, but should abide by the old rate. He forbade labourers to leave the land to which they were attached, and assigned heavy penalties to the runaways. Parliament assembled in 1349 and eagerly ratified this proclamation, {72} in the laws known as the Statutes of Labourers. But the demand for labour was so great that such legislative endeavours to prevent its proper payment were fortunately ineffective. Runaways not only found shelter, but also good employment and high wages. Parliament fulminated its threats in vain; and in vain increased its penalties, by a later Statute of 1360 ordering those who asked more than the old wages to be imprisoned, and, if they were fugitives, to be branded with hot irons. For once the labourer was able to meet the capitalist on equal terms.

§ 5. PRICES OF PROVISIONS—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, for food did not 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, ironwork, 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; and 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.

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§ 6. EFFECTS OF THE PLAGUE UPON THE LAND-OWNERS—The fact that the larger land-owners found the cost of working their land doubled or even trebled caused important economic changes. Before the Plague the cost of harvesting upon an ordinary estate, quoted by Professor Rogers, 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 was obvious even to the landlord that smaller profits meant 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 and 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. Moreover, he would have to pay his bailiffs, while after all his tenants paid him something, though less than formerly. So he decided to allow his tenants to pay him a smaller rent. What is more, he decided under the circumstances to give up farming altogether, and let even the lands which he had reserved for his own cultivation. The landlords, in fact, had not apparently either the ability or the inclination to superintend agriculture under these changed conditions, and gave up trying to work their land themselves. So that one great result of the Plague was that landlords to a large extent gave up capitalist farming upon their own account, and let their tenants cultivate the soil, and also pay them for continuing to do so.

§ 7. RISE OF THE TENANT FARMER OR YEOMAN CLASS—The {74} natural effect of this change on the part of the land-owners was that the small peasant farmers greatly increased in numbers. The circumstances of the time favoured them, for the rise in the price of labour was not so severely felt by them, since they could and did use the unpaid labour of their families upon their holdings. Then, when they had 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. 42), 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.

§ 8. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE VILLEINS—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, 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 gradually became practically extinct after the Plague, though the landowners, backed up by the lawyers, interposed many obstacles in the path of emancipation, and a great Revolt was necessary to enable the villeins to show their power. This Revolt and its success must now engage our attention.

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