[117] See Appendix I.
[118] Putnam, op. cit., 221. The statute for the first ten years, however, kept wages from ascending as high as might have been the case.
[119] McPherson, Annals of Commerce, i. 543, says that as the plague diminished the number of employers as well as labourers, the demand for labour could not have been much greater than before, and would have had little effect on the rate of if Edward III had not debased the coinage. But if the owners did decrease the lands would only accumulate in fewer hands, and would still require cultivation.
[120] Page, End of Villeinage, pp. 59 et seq.
[121] Ibid. p. 44.
[122] Transactions, Royal Historical Society, New Series, xiv. 123.
[123] This had been done before, but was now much more frequent. Hasbach, op. cit. p. 17.
[124] 'After the Black Death the flight of villeins was extremely common.'—Page, op. cit., p. 40.
[125] Nasse, Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages, p. 1.
[126] Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 137.