![[Reeve_and_Serfs.jpg]] The poor died in higher numbers than the rich, in both cities and the countryside. Of course, there had always been more poor than rich, in both places; but the sudden lack of surplus people who could be expected to meekly obey orders, produce agricultural surpluses that could be paid to the rulers in taxes, and serve the nobility in a variety of roles upset the feudal order that had persisted throughout the Middle Ages across most of Western Europe and Britain. During most of this period, despite the occasional famine, Europe had more people than were strictly necessary to work the land, and feudal lords could easily replace runaways or rebellious peasants. The loss of half the population created a shortage of farm workers, artisans, and domestic servants, even after the initial chaos created by the plague. Wages doubled in the generation after the plague, and lords found they could no longer live on the traditional in-kind rents they had received from peasants. After 1350, tenant farmers also began refusing to do the two to five days per week of work on the lord's behalf that had been traditional, and they began breaking the laws and customs that tied them to particular lands. Peasants fled either to towns or to manors that offered lower rents and more freedoms. ![[Jean_Froissart,_Chroniques,_154v,_12148_btv1b8438605hf336,_crop.jpg]] *The boy-king [Richard II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_II_of_England "Richard II of England") meets the rebels on 14 June 1381* The landlords and their governments tried to prevent these changes. In 1349, the English king, Edward III, issued an *[Ordinance of the Labourers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinance_of_Labourers_1349#:~:text=The%20Ordinance%20of%20Labourers%201349,another's%20servants;%20and%20other%20terms.)* that tried to prevent wages from rising above pre-plague levels, impose price controls, prohibit the wealthy from enticing away each other's servants, and require all people under sixty years old to have a job. The law was ineffective and was followed by another *Statute of Labourers* in 1351 which was equally unsuccessful. Ongoing attempts by the government and feudal lords to regulate a peasant class that had discovered how necessary their work was to social order led ultimately to a peasant's revolt in 1381 called [Wat Tyler's Rebellion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt) that caused the young king, Richard II, to promise to abolish serfdom. This form of semi-slavery that bound peasants to particular estates was not abolished (the king lied to the rebels to get them to stand down), but over the next century, the shortage of workers gradually raised wages and living conditions for the poor. ----- Next: [[13.8 - Peasant Revolts]] Back: [[13.6 - Danse Macabre]]