Statute of Labourers 1351

After the Black Death, the English Crown tried to freeze wages at pre plague levels and force laborers to accept work.

Overview

The Black Death killed a large share of the English population in 1348 and 1349, and surviving workers demanded much higher pay. The Ordinance of Labourers of 1349 and the Statute of Labourers of 1351 fixed wages at the levels of the years before the plague, required able bodied people to work, and penalized those who left employers for better offers. Enforcement was widespread but never fully effective, and real wages rose anyway over the following decades. Resentment of the labor laws is often counted among the grievances behind the Peasants Revolt of 1381.