than can be accorded them at the present moment, but a few general observations can be made.
It would indeed be a remarkable tribute to the intellectual powers of Edward I if it could be shown that he set his face against the whole pattern of contemporary society as it existed throughout civilised Europe. The demand for a new social structure is common enough in our own day because we have numerous examples, both contemporary and in the history of the last two generations, of revolutionary attempts to remodel society on the lines of military and economic dictatorships, communes, soviets and the like. But it is hard to imagine a statesman of the year 1300 suggesting an alternative to the social structures over which three such legal-minded monarchs as Edward I, Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII presided.
If Edward’s legislation is examined, it will be seen that its general tendency is not to weaken, but to strengthen, the position of feudal lords. Lords must have been grateful for two statutes which gave them immense power over their bailiffs;1 the feudal rights of wardship and marriage were protected by new civil and criminal procedures;2 the default of tenants in paying services (which at this moment left the lord in a very weak position) was for the future visited with the forfeiture of the tenement;3 and lords were also given extended powers of appropriating commons.4 Most striking of all, Edward I risked a bitter quarrel with the Church over mortmain in order to prevent lords losing their feudal incidents when land passed to ecclesiastical bodies,5 and Quia Emptores itself was designed in order to preserve those same rights of wardship, marriage, relief and escheat.6 Continued sub-infeudation would probably have introduced such chaos into the system of tenures that these incidents would have eventually been evaded almost universally, but Quia Emptores perpetuated them. Edward I certainly did a great deal for the feudal lord. But he was not prepared to tolerate abuses, and he was equally active in assuring to tenants their rights. Many great statutes defined the law of distress and replevin,7 and the action of mesne (which protected a sub-tenant when his lord defaulted in services to the lord above) was made more practicable.8 There seems no escape from the conclusion that this legislation assumed the reasonableness and desirability of the feudal structure, and deliberately strengthened it. The fact that all the incidents of military tenure survived until the sixteenth century, and that the persons interested in them were to enjoy them for an additional century (thanks to the statute of uses), is all testimony to the soundness of the legal structure of feudalism as Edward I left it. His policy in fact was based on that simple and straightforward idea of “justice” which was taken as an axiom in the middle ages—the rendering to every man his own. Edward assured to the tenant the peaceful enjoyment of his lands with the same impartial justice as he confirmed to the lord the fruits of his seignory.
EDWARD II AND THE ORDINANCES
The troubles which began in the reign of Edward I became chronic under his son, Edward II (1307-1327), and once again an attempt was made by a series of “Ordinances” (1311) to put the Crown under the domination of a group of barons.9 For a time they were successful, but in the end a counter-revolution repealed the Ordinances by the famous Statute of York (1322). This Statute contains the important declaration that matters relating to the estate of the King and the country must be agreed upon by the prelates, earls, barons and commons in parliament. It has been very persuasively argued1 that this statute already shows a feeling that matters which would now be called “constitutional” ought to be reserved for very special deliberation in a parliament which contained commons as well as lords. In any case,
“it is not too much to say that one result of the reign of Edward II was the establishment of the practice of regarding only those parliaments as true parliaments which contained representatives of the commons”.2
EDWARD III: THE BLACK DEATH
The tragic ending of the reign and the mysterious death of the unfortunate Edward bring us to the reign of his son, Edward III (1327-1377), and a period of fifty years of uneasy tension. Once again we find the Charters solemnly confirmed in 1352. The middle of his reign was marked by a series of fearful calamities which have left their mark upon society and the law. The nation was already weakened by a succession of famines when the arrival of the Black Death (1348-1349) from the East wrought a revolution in social and economic conditions. The terrible mortality from this plague completely disorganised the manorial system, which had hitherto depended upon a plentiful supply of labour born and bred within the manor. The plague accelerated and intensified forces which were already at work, and the result was a very serious depletion of the labour supply. The population of the manor was no longer sufficient to work the lord’s estates. Consequently lords began to compete among themselves for such free labour as was available. This tempted servile inhabitants of manors to leave their holdings and become hired labourers. So keen was the competition that a series of ordinances and statutes beginning in 1349 regulated for the first time the relationships between master and servant, and provided machinery for the establishment of scales of wages above which any payment would be unlawful.3 This system depended largely for its operation upon the “justices of labourers” (later justices of the peace), and remained in force as late as the eighteenth century.
RICHARD II: THE PEASANTS’ REVOLT
The situation culminated in the next reign in the Revolt of the Peasants of 1381. Into the long controversy over the causes and character of this rising we cannot enter at this moment, but very briefly stated, the history of the revolt may be summarised like this. In the first place, it is clear that the old theory which saw the cause of the revolt in a supposed attempt by landlords to reimpose the conditions of serfdom after having first abandoned them is no longer tenable. It seems rather that in this, as in many other revolts, the motive of the movement was not so much a blank despair as a certain hopefulness. It is not in the depth of the night that social revolutions occur, but with the first gleam of dawn. The economic results of the Black Death had already brought a considerable improvement in the lot of the agricultural labourer, and it was the disappointment that this improvement had not been spread more equally among the masses, or proceeded more rapidly, that provoked the impatient peasants to rebellion. The insurgents were mainly those who had not yet been able to establish their position as free labourers, and their hatred was principally directed against the lawyers and the stewards who kept manorial records. Wherever possible the rebels destroyed the manorial rolls which contained the legal evidence of their servitude. The parochial clergy seem to have viewed the movement with considerable sympathy, although the higher ecclesiastics were markedly indifferent. It is now clear, moreover, that the ideas of the early reformer Wyclif played very little part in the movement, although it is certainly true that there were active agitators who were preaching a somewhat crude form of communism. Several independent risings occurred in different parts of the country, and one body of rebels was welcomed by the mass of the Londoners who were at odds with the mayor. A serious massacre took place in the streets of the city, and the rebels beheaded John Cavendish,1 Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Treasurer.
It is very difficult to find any clear results of the revolt. Indeed, the latest opinion tends to lay stress upon the ineffectiveness of the whole movement. It was one of the very few occasions in English history when a definitely social, as distinct from a political, revolution, was proposed, and its failure was immediate and complete. Fortunately, the natural movement towards the emancipation of villeins, which had long been in progress, continued as before the revolt, and during the following century a great silent revolution slowly took place. The majority of the populace who had been serfs gradually acquired economic independence. Lords of manors who could no longer find servile labour, either leased their lands to free labourers (or to labourers who were soon to become free), or else tacitly conceded to their peasants the benefits of ownership in their holdings. This latter process is truly remarkable, and deserves close attention from students of legal history. Through the machinery of custom, which was always a powerful influence for experiment or change in the middle ages, the rightless villein slowly acquired customary
