Arrowstorm by Richard Wadge

Author:Richard Wadge [Wadge, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750967129
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2015-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

What were an Archer’s Wages Worth?

Large numbers of medieval English men and women took up some wage earning work as a normal part of their working year in the centuries under discussion.1 These people fell into two categories, servants either skilled or unskilled who lived and worked in their masters’ houses, and the labourers who took employment as they could find it, and who ranged from the completely unskilled to the craft journeymen. In 1300 only 20 per cent of the population of England and 10 per cent of that of Wales and Scotland lived in towns. Both categories of wage earner could be found equally in town and country. Rural wage earners in the first half of the fourteenth century who had little or no land were in a weak position, because the population was relatively large, keeping wage rates low, and land rentals high. The Black Death changed this so that by the fifteenth century the rural landless and small holding population had dwindled as land prices and rentals had fallen because of the shortage of potential tenants. The unskilled workers gained most from this.

After the Black Death the middle and upper classes used their influence through Parliament to pass eight pieces of legislation between 1349 and 1445 to help employers maintain their position in the labour market. This legislation began while the Black Death was still active in England with the Ordinance of Labourers 1349 and the Statute of Labourers 1351. If these and the subsequent pieces of legislation had been rigidly enforced throughout the country they would have fixed pay at pre-plague levels, enforced contracts of employment and made it compulsory for workers to accept offers of work. The craft guilds supported these efforts by developing their ordinances to control wage rates and terms of service. While control of wage rates was a major concern, the refusal of wage earners to accept annual contracts, preferring instead to agree day rates or piece work rates for work, was also seen as a problem by employers. In doing this the wage earners were trying to take control of their working lives by deciding themselves how long they would work for particular employers. The Crown and Parliament did not only attempt to control wages, at the same time there were regulations that attempted to fix the prices of a wide range of commodities to try to limit the economic pressure for higher wages.

Mobility of labour increased after the Black Death. Before 1349, when there was a surplus of labour, there seems to have been some movement of men and women seeking work, often regardless of their status as serfs. In general, because of the surplus, landlords were not greatly concerned by this. After the Black Death the wealthy elements of the population in both town and country were anxious to control and limit the mobility of the now scarce labour. The 1388 Statute of Cambridge laid down that those moving from place to place in search of work should carry documents.

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