Contemporary Complaints about “Strivings against the
statute”
Commons' Petition
against Vagrants, 1376
Rot. Parl., II 340-1
Complaints about the
ineffectiveness of the Statute of Labourers showed no signs of decreasing in
the years immediately before the Peasants' Revolt. The following petition of
the commons, presented in the Good Parliament of 1376, presents an alarming
picture of widespread vagrancy and disorder. To the gentry and burgesses of late
fourteenth-century
To our lord the king and his wise parliament, the commons show and request that, although various ordinances and statutes have been made in several parliaments to punish labourers, artificers and other servants, yet these have continued subtly and by great malice aforethought, to escape the penalty of the said ordinances and statutes. As soon as their masters accuse them of bad service, or wish to pay them for their labour according to the form of the statutes, they take flight and suddenly leave their employment and district, going from county to county, hundred to hundred and vill to vill, in places strange and unknown to their masters. So the said masters do not know where to find them to have remedy or suit against them by virtue of the said statutes. If such vagrant servants be outlawed at the suit of any party, the suitor receives no profit and the fugitives no penalty or punishment because they cannot be found, and never consider returning to the district where they had served previously. Above all and a greater mischief is the receiving of such vagrant labourers and servants when they have fled from their masters' service; for they are taken into service immediatdy in new places, at such dear wages that example and encouragement is afforded to all servants to depart into fresh places, and go from master to master as soon as they are displeased about any matter. For fear of such flights, the commons now dare not challenge or offend their servants, but give them whatever they wish to ask, in spite of the statutes and ordinances to the contrary--and this chiefly through fear that they will be received dsewhere, as is said above. But if all such fugitive servants were taken throughout the kingdom when they came to offer their services, and then placed in the stocks or sent to the nearest gaol, to stay there until they confessed from where they had come and from whose service, and made surety to return to their old service; and if it were known in all areas that such vagrants were to be arrested and imprisoned in this way and not received, as they now are, into service, they would have no desire to flee from their districts as they do--to the great impoverishment, destruction and ruin of the commons, if remedy is not applied as quickly as possible.
And let it be known to the king and his parliament that many of the said wandering labourers have become mendicant beggars in order to lead an idle life; and they usually go away from their own districts into cities, boroughs and other good towns to beg, although they are able-bodied and might well ease the commons by living on their labour and services, if they were willing to serve. Many of them become 'staff strikers' and lead an idle life, commonly robbing poor people in simple villages, by two, three or four together, so that their malice is very hard to bear. The majority of the said servants generally become strong thieves, increasing their robberies and felonies every day on all sides, to the destruction of the kingdom. Therefore let it please our said lord king and his parliament, for the common profit of the said commons, the safe-keeping of the peace and the destruction of such felons and felonies, to forbid (under certain penalties and both within and without franchises) any sustenance and alms to be given to such false mendicants and beggars who are able to serve and work, to the great profit and ease of the said commons. Alms should be given only to those who cannot help themselves or purchase food. And let it be established by statute that all such false beggars as well as the said 'staff strikers' shall be apprehended throughout the realm within and without franchises, wherever they shall be found; and their bodies should be placed in stocks or led to the nearest gaol, until they show themselves willing to submit and return to their own areas and serve their neighbours according to the form of the said ordinances and
statutes...[the procedure by which these proposals are to be enforced is then specified at length].
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Although difficult to measure
in quantitative terms, there is little doubt that the 1370s were a decade which
coincided with a growing tide of peasant discontent against the landlord.
Several petitions presented to Richard II's first parliament in the autumn of
1377 reflect serious concern at the political dangers of this prevailing trend.
Of these, perhaps the first of the following documents is the best known as it
is certainly the most revealing. The innumerable previous complaints that
agricultural workers had evaded the operations of the statutes of labourers are
now followed by the more general allegation that villeins are withholding their
services completely from their lords and are engaged in widespread
conspiracies. The open reference to the possibilities of a popular rebellion
like that in
COMMONS' PETITION AGAINST REBELLIOUS VILLEINS, 1377
Rot. Parl., III 21-2
To our lord the king and the council of parliament, the
commons of the realm show that in many parts of the
lordships, both ecclesiastical and
secular, have (through the advice, procurement, maintenance and abetting of
certain persons) purchased in the king's court for their own profit
exemplifications from the Book of Domesday--concerning those manors and vills
where these villeins and tenants live.[1] By
colour of these exemplifications, and through misunderstanding them as well as
the malicious interpretation made of them by the said counselors, procurers,
maintainers and abettors, they have withdrawn and still withdraw the customs
and services due to their lords, holding that they are completely discharged of
all manner of service due both from their persons and their holdings. These men
have refused to allow the officials of the lords to distrain
them for the said customs and services; and have made confederation and
alliance together to resist the lords and their officials by force, so that
each will aid the other whenever they are distrained for any reason. And they
threaten to kill their lords' servants if these make distraint upon them for
their customs and services; the consequence is that, for fear of the deaths
that might result from the rebellion and resistance of these men, the lords and
their officials do not make distraint for their customs and services.
Accordingly the said lords lose and have lost profit from their lordships, to
the great prejudice and destruction of their inheritances and estates. Moreover
in many parts of the realm the corn lies unharvested for this reason and is
lost for all time, to the serious damage of all the commons. Therefore it is feared that, unless a speedy
remedy is applied, either war might easily break out within the realm because of
the said acts of rebellion, or the villeins and tenants will, to avenge
themselves on their lords, adhere to foreign enemies in the event of a sudden
invasion. To sustain their errors and rebellion they have collected large sums
of money among themselves to meet their costs and expenses; and many of them
have now come to
court to secure assistance in their designs. Therefore let it please our lord
king and his council to ordain a due and speedy remedy, directed against the
said councillors, procurers, maintainers and abettors as well as the said
villeins and tenants and especially those who have now come to court. Action
should be taken so that those who stay in lodgings (a l'hostel) should now of their punishment and in order to avoid a
danger of the sort that recently occurred in the realm of
The Reply. As regards the exemplifications made and granted in Chancery, it is declared in parliament that these neither can nor ought to have any value or relevance to the question of personal freedom; nor can they be used to change the traditional terms
of tenure and its customs or to the prejudice of the lords' rights to have their services and customs as they used to be in the past. If they wish, the lords may have letters patent under the Great Seal according this declaration. As for the rest of this article, the lords who feel themselves aggrieved shall have special commissions of inquiry appointed under the Great Seal and directed either to the Justices of the Peace or to other suitable persons. These commissions shall investigate all such rebels, their counsellors, procurers, maintainers and abettors. Those indicted before the commissioners, for either past or future offences, shall be imprisoned; and they shall not be released from prison either by mainprise, bail or any other method without the assent of they lords until they are attainted or acquitted. And if such rebellious tenants are attainted of the offences mentioned above, they shall not be released until they have made a fine with the king and have the consent of their lords. Such fines shall not prejudice the franchises and liberties of lords who have a right to fines and amercements from their tenants. As for the counsellors, procurers, maintainers and abettors, let there be a similar procedure; if the lords proceed against them by writ or by bill they shall not be released until they have (according to their estate and the seriousness of their offences) made a fine with the king and have the permission of the aggrieved lords. Saving the franchises and liberties of the lords, as is said above.
from R.B. Dobson, ed., The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (St. Martin’s Press, 1970), pp. 72-78
[1] The contemporary patent rolls confirm that
exemplifications of Domesday
Book were in considerable demand for at least a century before
1381. Their
relevance to the facts of
late fourteenth-century law and society seems doubtful:
conceivably several
petitioners for exemption from seignorial services relied,
very naively, on the lack of reference to such services in
Domesday itself. More
specifically,
exemplifications from Domesday Book enabled many tenants to
claim the legal privileges of
ancient demesne and so royal protection against an
increase in services to their lords.