Villeins spread political songs among each other, such as: "To seek silver to the King, I my seed sold; wherefore my land lieth fallow and learneth to sleep. Since they fetched my fair cattle in my fold; when I think of my old wealth, well nigh I weep. Thus breedeth many beggars bold; and there wakeneth in the world dismay and woe, for as good is death anon as so for to toil."
Groups of armed men took lands, manors, goods, and women by force. The villeins agreed to assist each other in resisting by force their lords' efforts to return them to servitude. A statute of laborers passed in 1351 for wages to be set at the pre-plague rates was ineffectual. Justices became afraid to administer the law. Villeins, free peasants, and craftsmen joined together and learned to use the tactics of association and strikes against their employers.
The office of Justice of the Peace was created for every county to deal with rioting and vagrants. This office required no education and was filled by volunteers. Cooperation by officials of other counties was mandated to deal with fugitives from its justice.
The Black Death visited again in 1361 and in 1369. The Black Death reduced the population from about 5 million to about 2 1/2 million. It was to rise to about 4 million by 1600.
When there were attempts to enforce the legal servitude of the villeins, they spread rhymes of their condition and need to revolt. A secret league, called the "Great Society" linked the centers of intrigue. A high poll tax, graduated from 20s. to 12d., that was to be raised for a war with France, touched off a spontaneous riot all over the nation in 1381. This tax included people not taxed before, such as laborers, the village smith, and the village tiler. Each area had its own specific grievances. There was no common political motive, except maladministration in general.
In this Peasants' Revolt, mobs overran the counties around London. The upper classes fled to the woods. Written records of the servitude of villeins were burned in their halls, which were also looted. Title deeds of landlords were burned. Rate rolls of general taxation were destroyed. Prisoners were released from gaols. Men connected with tax collection, law enforcement, attorneys, and alien merchants were beheaded. The Chief Justice was murdered while fleeing. The archbishop, who was a notoriously exploitive landlord, the chancellor, and the treasurer were murdered. Severed heads were posted on London Bridge. A mob took control of the king's empty bedchamber in the Tower. The villeins demanded that service to a lord be by agreement instead of by servitude, a commutation of villein service for rents of a maximum of 4d. per acre yearly, abolition of a lord's right for their work on demand (e.g. just before a hail storm so only his crops were saved), and the right to hunt and fish. The sokemen protested having to use the lord's mill and having to attend his court.
The revolt was suppressed and its leaders punished. The king issued proclamations forbidding unauthorized gatherings and ordering tenants of land to perform their customary services. The poll tax was dropped. For the future, the duty to deal with rioting and vagrants was given to royal justices, sheriffs, mayors, bailiffs, and constables as well as the Justices of the Peace. There was a high Justice of the Peace in each hundred and a petty constable in each parish. Justices of the Peace could swear in neighbors as unpaid special constables when disorder broke out.
The sheriff was responsible for seeing that men of the lower classes were organized into groups of ten for police and surety purposes, and for holding of hundred and county courts, arresting suspects, guarding prisoners awaiting trial, carrying out the penalties adjudged by the courts, and collecting Crown revenue through his bailiffs. Royal writs were addressed to the sheriff. Because many sheriffs had taken fines and ransoms for their own use, a term limit of one year was imposed. Sheriffs, hundreders, and bailiffs had to have lands in the same counties or bailiwicks [so they could be held answerable to the King].
Efforts were made to keep laborers at the plough and cart rather than learn a craft or entering and being educated by the church. The new colleges at the universities ceased to accept villeins as students.
Due to the shortage of labor, landlords' returns had decreased from about 20% to about 5%. But some found new methods of using land that were more profitable than the customary services of villeins who had holdings of land or the paid labor of practically free men who paid a money rent for land holdings. One method was to turn the land to sheep breeding. Others leased their demesne land, which transferred the burden of getting laborers from the landlord to the lessee-tenant. The payment was called a "farm" and the tenant a "farmer". First, there were stock-and-land leases, in which both the land and everything required to cultivate it were let together. After 50 years, when the farmers had acquired assets, there were pure land leases. Landlords preferred to lease their land at will instead of for a term of years to prevent the tenant from depleting the soil with a few richer crops during the last years of his tenancy. The commutation of labor services into a money payment developed into a general commutation of virtually all services. Lords in need of money gladly sold manumissions to their villeins.