Images de page
PDF
ePub

done by the modern boards of guardians. They were the doctors, nurses, and advisers of the cultivating classes among whom they lived and (many of them being cultivators) alongside of whom they worked, and generally they mingled freely with the people and took an intelligent personal interest in the social life of the districts in which their houses were placed.

The religious orders, in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, were easy landlords.1 Those holding under them were rarely liable to be ousted from their holdings by excessive fines and other forms of eviction so often practised by the lay landlords. All this was changed when the lands fell into private hands. The "new families" which were founded on monastic spoils recognized none of the public and charitable duties referred to. They repudiated the charges for national works to which the land had been subject. They adopted a course dictated by personal gain, and put the lands which they had grasped to the most profitable use, regardless of the dwellers on the soil whose rights were far superior to their own. They found that sheep farming was the most easy and profitable system they could adopt, but in order to turn tillage land into sheep farms it was necessary to evict the yeomanry, peasantry, and cottagers, and accordingly they evicted them with a merciless hand.

Froude describes the situation by saying: "As to the mass of the people, hospitals were gone, alms

1 This has frequently been denied, but it is certain that when the monastic lands came into private hands rents were raised and fines increased in order to get rid of the sub-holders. As to the lands that remained in the hands of the king, a main object of the "Augmentation Courts," established by the Act 27 Henry VIII, chap. 27, and other Acts was to increase the revenues of the Crown.

E

houses swept away, every institution which Catholic piety had bequeathed for the support of the poor was either abolished or suspended till it could be organized The poor, smarting with rage and suffering, and seeing piety and honesty trampled under foot by their superiors, were sinking into savages.'

anew.

[ocr errors]

The old feudal aristocracy, oppressors of the husbandmen as they were, had some regard for those rights of the cultivators which were founded on custom law and tradition, but the new aristocracy had none. "Ingrossing" and inclosure and other forms of confiscation were carried out with vigour. Some of the

unfortunates who were thus dispossessed of their holdings-uprooted from the soil-entered into trade and other callings, others sunk into the position of hirelings, but most of them, rendered houseless and landless, went to swell the ranks of the vagabond class.

To these must be added the vast number of persons belonging to the religious houses, who, with their dependents, were cast adrift. Altogether, this social revolution resulted in such widespread misery and destitution as can hardly be estimated. The process of turning public lands into private property was the direct cause of the great rebellions of 1549 under Kett and other leaders. Further, it created a multitude of beggars, rogues, and vagabonds, which governments tried in vain to put down by the gallows and other severe punishments, and which, in a later reign, had to be dealt with by the establishment of our poor-law system, and the creation for the first time in England of a class of legal paupers."

1 "History of England," Vol. V, p. 273.

2 The rebellions under Kett and others will be referred to in a later chapter.

CHAPTER XI

PEASANT REVOLTS

ANY review of the English land system would be incomplete, and could not indeed be properly understood, without some reference to the peasant revolts which occurred during its development. These uprisings are usually called "rebellions," but the most striking circumstance connected with them was the great personal loyalty of the insurgents to the reigning monarch. They believed that if they could lay their case before him, their wrongs would be righted. Their anger and grudge were against the minions that surrounded him. and against their tools.

The second circumstance in order was the demand of the "rebels" that the rapacious territorial magnates, who were confiscating their rights, should be made to obey the laws affecting the land. The struggles of the English peasantry and yeomanry, continued throughout the centuries against force, fraud, and oppression, form an interesting and an important part of the story of our nation.1

In all these struggles the spirit which animated the contending parties was the same, from the days of Wat Tyler to those of Joseph Arch.

In every age the rural population have had their

1 The peasantry and yeomanry were so much allied, the principles of their land tenure were so much alike, they were so united in interests and in action that, for historical purposes, they must be looked upon as parts of the same body. The insurrections were composed of husbandmen of all classes.

poets, their champions, and their martyrs, whose action and utterances can only be fully understood when considered in connection with the evils with which they dealt. Most of these utterances were quaint or allegorical and are apt now to be looked upon as mere literary curiosities. But they were well understood by the masses of the people to whom they were addressed, to whose dumb feelings of misery and despair they gave a welcome voice.

"The Vision of Piers the Plowman," when interpreted, pictures the oppression, injustice, and selfish arrogance which characterized the ruling classes. It describes the "homely poor in their ill-fed, hardworking condition, battling against hunger, famine, injustice, oppression, and all the stern realities and hardships that tried them as gold is tried in the fire." The writer of the "Vision" is constrained to speak out all the bitter truth, and his cry is as earnest as that of "an injured man who appeals to heaven for vengeance."

But it was by the crude and figurative writings and sermons of John Ball, the "crazy priest of Kent," for which he was hung, drawn, and quartered, that the rustic population had their eyes opened to the true cause of their sufferings, and caught the first glimpse of their natural rights as men. From that hour slavery,

1 By William Langland, a poor priest, said to have been born at Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire. His poem, written for the most part on the Malvern Hills, was published in its more complete form in 1377, some years after the "Black Death," and four years before Wat Tyler's rebellion. Unlike John Ball, Langland had no intention of inciting the people to resistance, but trusted to milder influences to secure reform.

2 "Piers the Plowman," edited by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, M.A. (Clarendon Press), 1869. An edition published by the Early English Text Society, also by Skeat, is perhaps the more interesting, as the side-notes, being in modern English, allow the text to be read with greater ease.

in its different forms, was doomed in England. In Wat Tyler-stabbed in an hour of truce, by a treacherous sycophant-was found a leader who, by his courage, power, and ability, was able to rouse the people, so prepared, to the only form of resistance then open to them.

In the annals of the English peasantry Wat Tyler's rebellion demands a foremost place and an extended notice, for the reason that it was the first occasion in English history in which the idea of freedom-of personal liberty-was openly received and formulated into a distinct demand. Throughout the villages the eager listening peasantry were told that the time for action had come, that John Ball "hathe rungen youre belle," that by nature all men were born equal; that the distinction of bondage and freedom was an invention of their oppressors, and contrary to the views of the Creator; that God now offered them the means of gaining their liberty, and that if they continued slaves the blame must rest with themselves.

In order to understand the character of the outbreak it is necessary to refer to the condition, at the time, of the cultivating classes who formed the great bulk of the nation. The subject, however, as has been stated, is extremely complicated. Customs varied on different manors. Men under the same name lived in various parts of the country under different conditions, but all of them were under the most oppressive serfage. Speaking generally, there was a number of feudal lords and lordly prelates who held the land as tenants-in-chief of the king. To hold the great mass of the people in servile bonds was in their eyes a divine right. All legislation-they being the legislators-was based on this

« PrécédentContinuer »