such havoc with the labouring population that the beasts wandered untended in the pastures, and rich crops of corn stood rotting in the fields from lack of harvesters to gather them.  There was the same lack of clergy as of labourers, and the priest, like the peasant, demanded a higher wage for his services by reason of the scarcity of labour.  A mower was not to be had for less than a shilling a day with his food, and a chaplain, formerly glad to receive two marks and his board, demanded ten pounds, or ten marks at the least.  Non-residence, neglect of cures, and other evils followed.  As Langland wrote:—­

  Persones and parisch prestes — playneth to heore bisschops,
  That heore parisch hath ben pore — seththe the pestilence tyme,
  And asketh leue and lycence — at Londun to dwelle,
  To singe ther for simonye — for seluer is swete.[1]

The lack of clergy was in some measure compensated by the rush of candidates for orders.  Some of these new clerks were men who had lost their wives by the plague; many of them were illiterate, or if they knew how to read their mass-book, could not understand it.  The close social life of the monasteries proved particularly favourable to the spread of the disease; the number of monks and nuns declined considerably, and, since there was no great desire to embrace the religious profession, many houses remained half empty for generations.

    [1] Vision of Piers Plowman, i., p. g, ed.  Skeat.

No one in the Middle Ages believed in letting economic laws work out their natural results.  If anything were amiss, it was the duty of kings and princes to set things right.  Accordingly Edward and his council at once strove to remedy the lack of labourers by ordinances that harvesters and other workmen should not demand more wages than they had been in the habit of receiving, while the bishops, following the royal example, ordered chaplains and vicars to be content with their accustomed salaries.  As soon as parliament ventured to assemble, the royal orders were embodied in the famous statute of labourers of 1351.  This measure has been condemned as an attempt of a capitalist parliament to force poor men to work for their masters at wages far below the market rates.  But it was no new thing to fix wages by authority, and the medieval conception was that a just and living wage should be settled by law, rather than left to accident.  The statute provided that prices, like wages, should remain as they had been before the pestilence, so that, far from only regarding the interests of the employer, it attempted to maintain the old ratio between the rate of wages and the price of commodities.  Moreover it sought to provide for the cultivation of the soil by enacting that the sturdy beggar, who, though able, refused to work, should be forced to put his hand to the plough.  Futile as the statute of labourers was, it was not much more ineffective than most laws of the time.  Though real efforts