217. THE ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE
AN ECONOMIC CHANGE
Thus far the Renaissance has been studied as an intellectual and artistic movement, which did much to liberate the human mind and brought the Middle Ages to an end in literature, in art, and in science. It is necessary, however, to consider the Renaissance era from another point of view. During this time an economic change of vast significance was taking place in rural life all over western Europe. We refer to the decline and ultimate extinction of medieval serfdom.
DECLINE OF SERFDOM
Serfdom imposed a burden only less heavy than the slavery which it had displaced. The serf, as has been shown, [22] might not leave the manor in which he was born, he might not sell his holdings of land, and, finally, he had to give up a large part of his time to work without pay for the lord of the manor. This system of forced labor was at once unprofitable to the lord and irksome to his serfs. After the revival of trade and industry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had brought more money into circulation, [23] the lord discovered how much better it was to hire men to work for him, as he needed them, instead of depending on serfs who shirked their tasks as far as possible. The latter, in turn, were glad to pay the lord a fixed sum for the use of land, since now they could devote themselves entirely to its cultivation. Both parties gained by an arrangement which converted the manorial lord into a landlord and the serf into a free tenant-farmer paying rent.
THE "BLACK DEATH"
The emancipation of the peasantry was hastened, strangely enough, as the result of perhaps the most terrible calamity that has ever afflicted mankind. About the middle of the fourteenth century a pestilence of Asiatic origin, now known to have been the bubonic plague, reached the West. [24] The "Black Death" so called because among its symptoms were dark patches all over the body, moved steadily across Europe. The way for its ravages had been prepared by the unhealthful conditions of ventilation and drainage in towns and cities. After attacking Greece, Sicily, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the plague entered England in 1349 A.D. and within less than two years swept away probably half the population of that country. The mortality elsewhere was enormous, one estimate setting it as high as twenty-five millions for all Europe.
EFFECTS OF THE "BLACK DEATH"
The pestilence in England, as in other countries, caused a great scarcity of labor. For want of hands to bring in the harvest, crops rotted on the ground, while sheep and cattle, with no one to care for them, strayed through the deserted fields. The free peasants who survived demanded and received higher wages. Even the serfs, whose labor was now more valued, found themselves in a better position. The lord of a manor, in order to keep his laborers, would often allow them to substitute money payments for personal services. When the serfs got no concessions, they frequently took to flight and hired themselves to the highest bidder.
FIRST STATUTE OF LABORERS, 1351 A.D.
The governing classes of England, who at this time were mainly landowners, believed that the workers were taking an unfair advantage of the situation. So in 1351 A.D. Parliament passed a law fixing the maximum wage in different occupations and punishing with imprisonment those who refused to accept work when it was offered to them. The fact that Parliament had to reenact this law thirteen times within the next century shows that it did not succeed in preventing a general rise of wages. It only exasperated the working classes.
THE PEASANTS' REBELLION, 1381 A.D.
A few years after the first Statute of Laborers the restlessness and discontent among the masses led to a serious outbreak. It was one of the few attempts at violent revolution which the English working people have made. One of the inspirers of the rebellion was a wandering priest named John Ball. He went about preaching that all goods should be held in common and the distinction between lords and serfs wiped away. "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" asked John Ball. Uprisings occurred in nearly every part of England, but the one in Kent had most importance. The rioters marched on London and presented their demands to the youthful king, Richard II. He promised to abolish serfdom and to give them a free pardon. As soon, however, as Richard had gathered an army, he put down the revolt by force and hanged John Ball and about a hundred of his followers.
THE JACQUERIE, 1358 A.D.
The rebellion in England may be compared with the far more terrible Jacquerie [25] in France, a few years earlier. The French peasants, who suffered from feudal oppression and the effects of the Hundred Years' War, raged through the land, burning the castles and murdering their feudal lords. The movement had scarcely any reasonable purpose; it was an outburst of blind passion. The nobles avenged themselves by slaughtering the peasants in great numbers.
[Illustration: RICHARD II After an engraving based on the original in Westminster Abbey. Probably the oldest authentic portrait in England.]
EXTINCTION OF SERFDOM
Though these first great struggles of labor against capital were failures, the emancipation of the peasantry went steadily on throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. By 1500 A.D. serfdom had virtually disappeared in Italy, in most parts of France, and in England. Some less- favored countries retained serfdom much longer. Prussian, Austrian, and Russian serfs did not receive their freedom until the nineteenth century.
CONDITION OF THE PEASANTRY
The extinction of serfdom was, of course, a forward step in human freedom, but the lot of the English and Continental peasantry long remained wretched. The poem of Piers Plowman, written in the time of Chaucer, shows the misery of the age and reveals a very different picture than that of the gay, holiday-making, merry England seen in the Canterbury Tales. One hundred and fifty years later, the English humanist, Sir Thomas More, a friend of Erasmus, published his Utopia as a protest against social abuses. Utopia, or "Nowhere," is an imaginary country whose inhabitants choose their own rulers, hold all property in common, and work only nine hours a day. In Utopia a public system of education prevails, cruel punishments are unknown, and every one enjoys complete freedom to worship God. This remarkable book, though it pictures an ideal commonwealth, really anticipates many social reforms of the present time.