LABOURERS, STATUTE OF

Labourers, Statute of: translation

1351. This statute's purpose was to give oversight of the Ordinance of Labourers of 1349. It began, 'Because a great part of the people and especially of the workmen and servants has now died in that pestilence, some, seeing the straits of the masters and the scarcity of servants, are not willing to serve unless they receive excessive wages'. It concluded, 'because many sound beggars do refuse to labour so long as they can live from begging alms, giving themselves up to idleness and sins, and, at times, to robbery and other crimes, let no one, under the aforesaid pain of imprisonment presume, under colour of piety or alms to give anything to such as can very well labour, or to cherish them in their sloth, so that thus they may be compelled to labour for the necessaries of life'. -

Cf. Labourers, Ordinance of