As every one knows, the revolt was a failure; and whether it ultimately helped much to extinguish serfdom is doubtful.  It probably, like the pestilence, accelerated a movement which had been for some time in progress and was inevitable.  There is ample evidence to prove that there was a very general continuance of predial services after the revolt, though they went on rapidly decreasing.  One of the chief methods adopted by the villeins to gain their freedom was desertion, and so common did this become that apparently the mere threat of desertion enabled the villein to obtain almost any concession from his lord, who was afraid lest his land should be utterly deserted.  The result was that by the middle of the fifteenth century the abolition of labour services was approaching completion.[162] It lingered on, and Fitzherbert lamented in Elizabeth’s reign the continuance of villeinage as a disgrace to England; but it had then nearly disappeared, and was unheard of after the reign of James I.[163]

Seven years after the Peasants’ Revolt another attempt was made to regulate agricultural wages by the statute 12 Ric.  II, c. 4, which stated that ’the hires of the said servants and labourers have not been put on certainty before this time’, though we have seen that the Act of 1351 tried to settle wages.  In the preamble it is said that the statute was enacted because labourers ’have refused for a long season to work without outrageous and excessive hire’, and owing to the scarcity of labourers ‘husbands’ could not pay their rents, a sentence which shows the general use of money rents.

The wages were as follows, apparently with food:—­

s. d.

A bailiff annually, and clothing once a year       13  4
A master hind, without clothing                    10  0
A carter,          "        "                      10  0
A shepherd,        "        "                      10  0
An ox or cow herd  "        "                       6  8
Swine herd or female labourer, without clothing     6  0
A plough driver, without clothing                   7  0

The farm servants’ food would be worth considerably more than the actual cash he received; a quarter of wheat, barley, and rye mixed every nine weeks was no unusual allowance, which at 4s. 4d. would be worth about 25s. a year.  He would also have his harvest allowance, though the statute above forbids any perquisites, worth about 3s., and sometimes it was accompanied by the gift of a pig, some beer, or some herrings.[164] His wife also, at a time when women did the same work as the men, could earn 1d. a day, and his boy perhaps 1/2d.  If his wages were wholly paid in money, we may say that in the last half of the fourteenth century the ordinary labourer earned 3d. a day, so that as corn and pork, his chief food, had not risen at all, he was much better off than in the preceding 100 years.