A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

It is perhaps in the lower commons that social change is most obvious. The great insurrection of Wat Tyler is a sign of something more than mere temporary discontent. Agricultural villeinage was disappearing, and giving birth to a new class almost peculiar to England, the free but landless labourer. The existence of this class first comes prominently into notice in the Statute of Labourers. In the terrible pestilence of the Black Death which had ravaged England, a third, perhaps a half, of the population had been carried off. Labour became scarce. The labourers took the opportunity of making what we should now call a strike for higher wages. Such a demand, however consonant with economical principles, was quite repugnant to the feelings of that age, when prices were a constant matter of legal enactment. The Statute of Labourers, stating in its preamble that servants, taking advantage of the necessities of their masters, would not serve except for excessive wages, enacted that every able-bodied man should be bound to serve any one who required him at the old wages under pain of imprisonment; and that every master giving more than the old wages should forfeit thrice the sum he had offered. Such an ordinance could not be kept; but strenuous efforts were made to insist upon it, and again and again in some form or other it was re-enacted. But whether successful or not, it shows the existence of labour for wages, and of a rising knowledge on the part of the labourers of the value of their work. Several causes combined to create this labouring class. The early form of agricultural society may be roughly described as a village of serfs lying round the manor-house of their lord. Each serf had his share in the common fields of the village, and was bound to join in the cultivation of his lord’s domain or manor farm. For the simple farming at that time prevalent this forced labour was sufficient; and the lord valued his serfs more for military purposes than as agricultural labourers. As subinfeudation and alienation went on, the holders of small properties were obliged to work their land to better profit. The alienations also were chiefly made from the lord’s domain, but it was not usual to part with serfs. Consequently, their number increased, while the domain land diminished; there were more hands than the lord could employ, and the tenant working for profit could therefore find labour among the surplus serfs who would work for wages. A change in the character of war took place at the same time. The insular condition of England made the feudal arrangement with its limited term of service inconvenient; in the highest ranks, therefore, military service was changed to scutage or money payment, and a large number of dependants became less desirable than money; proprietors were willing to work their farms with fewer servants and to receive money rent instead of service. There were thus at work the two principles which broke down villein labour; labour paid by wages, and land held for money rent. The change in war had another effect. Armies were raised by contract with some great lord. The payment was beyond the ordinary agricultural wages. The earl himself received a mark a day, the common foot-soldier, 3d. or 4d., and the archer, 6d.[80] Anxious to fulfil his contract, the leader would not be careful to inquire whether he was enlisting serfs or not. On his return from a war, the well-paid soldier would be unwilling to fall back into a state of serfdom. He swelled the ranks of wage-paid labour. Again, the residence of a year and a day uninterrupted within the limits of a borough gave freedom. Serfs, seeing the advantage of money payments, fled thither and became free. Again, the Church, in whose eyes all men were equal, would not refuse to admit them within its ranks; a serf could thus become a priest or monk, and withdraw himself from his lord’s power. On the same principle, the Church constantly urged the manumission of serfs. To all these causes was now added the disarrangement of labour consequent on the Black Death. With a general demand for labour all superfluous hands would find easy employment, perhaps at a considerable distance from their old homes. With a sufficient supply himself, the lord would not waste time or money to redeem them. We thus see how there may have been a vast number of free labourers in England. The Statute of Labourers, destroying their freedom of bargain, attempted, though with but partial success, to force these free labourers back into a semi-servile condition. But they had now joined the ranks of freemen, such as the small farmers of Kent, and the unincorporated artisans of towns. The spirit of equality fostered by the teaching of the mendicant friars, who had reached England in Henry III.’s reign, and who took up their abode among the poor city populations, was still further increased by the teaching of Wicliffe and his poor priests.

“When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman?”

a doggerel couplet frequent in the mouths of the insurgents of 1382, shows how the lessons of the Bible made public by Wicliffe’s translation could be turned in the same direction. The feeling that it was the plebeian archer, and not the lordly man-at-arms, who had won the great victories in France, and the success with which, during the last half century, the smaller trade corporations had in the cities forced themselves into an equality with the great ones, all led to the same democratic feeling. The lower freemen made common cause with the villeins. They had all felt the heavy pressure of the tax-gatherer. The popular songs of the day are full of wretchedness. One, said to belong to the reign of Edward I. or II., speaks thus—

“To seek silver for the King, I sold my seed, wherefore my land lies fallow and learns to sleep. Since they fetched my fair cattle in my fold, when I think of my old wealth I nearly weep; this breeds many bold beggars. There wakes in the world consternation and woe, as good is it to perish at once, as so to labour.”[81] The democratic outbreak of Wat Tyler was the consequence.

The nobility.

While the two sections of the commons were thus rising in social position, a change had also taken place in the character of the nobility. It may be roughly characterized as the change from feudalism to chivalry.[82] Many of the same causes which had conduced to the freedom of the labourer had tended to loosen the territorial system on which the ancient strength of the nobility rested. Especially had the voluntary character of military service dealt heavy blows at the practical side of feudalism. Soldiering was no longer the necessary duty of every man; but the military spirit remained, and to the bulk of the aristocracy fighting became a pastime. The subordination of proprietors gave place to a sort of system of freemasonry, to which all knights were admitted. Knighthood made its holder any man’s equal for actual military purposes. It was no longer the great noble, but the good soldier, who was the commander. Manny, Chandos, Knowles, all of them simple knights, were the generals to whom Edward III. trusted. As an amusement war was decked with ostentatious ornament. This is the period of showy tournaments, of armorial bearings, and of grotesque vows, like that of the young knights who attended Edward with black patches over their eyes. It is this chivalrous aspect of war which explains the short-lived character of Edward’s expeditions. But it had a more important effect. Importance in the country became a more personal matter; partly from love of show, partly to produce respect, great men began to surround themselves, not with feudal followers, but with paid retainers. To these they granted liveries. It was a point of honour among these retainers to stand by each other and by their chief. Quite in the beginning of Richard II.’s reign, the Commons petitioned against these liveries and the bands of maintainers,[83] who upheld each other in illegal actions. Thus great households, and by degrees factions, were formed, and things were ready for the great outbreak of faction fighting, which ended in the destruction of the old nobility in the Wars of the Roses.

Literature.

The feeling of national life, which is one of the characteristics of the time, had shown itself in literature. Public transactions were still carried on in French or Latin; but it will be remembered that as early as the Provisions of Oxford it had been found necessary to publish any important proclamation in English as well. Up till that time the languages of the nobility and of the common people had been distinct. From that time onwards they begin to blend. This, as it happens, can be very well observed. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote a Latin Chronicle of England in 1130. Before the end of the century it was versified by two writers; one wrote for the nobles and the aristocracy, the other for the common people. Master Wace, a native of Jersey, translated Geoffrey for Henry II. into Norman-French. Layamon, who wrote about 1180, translated it into a language which may be fairly called Anglo-Saxon, although of a somewhat degraded type. We have here a perfect division of the languages. But about the middle of the next century the same work was translated by Robert of Gloucester. In his language there is a much nearer approach to English, and a considerable number of French words are easily to be traced. Some fifty years afterwards, Robert Mannyng, or De Brunne, again rewrote the Chronicle; and again the further introduction of French words is striking. We have thus means of testing, as it were, at three different points, the process of amalgamation that was going forward. The Court language still continued to be French, but French not much like the language of France, and it was ceasing to be thoroughly understood by the bulk of the people. By the time that Chaucer wrote, he could laugh at English-French. His Prioress spoke Cockney-French,

“After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,