When we find ourselves confronted with the rhetorical stuff which the
literature of preambles and parliamentary petitions in the fourteenth
century flaunts so liberally before our eyes, we must learn to accept
the statements of draughtsmen _cum grano_, and to read between
the lines. The Commons were quite equal to making the most of any
calamity that occurred. When the Parliament, which had not met since
mid Lent, 1348, assembled once more in February, 1350, the plague was
not forgotten. In the petitions presented to the King, the havoc
wrought is dwelt upon and deplored, _not_ with a view to remedy
any of the distress that had ensued, but in the hope that the arrears
of taxation due from the dead might be excused to the survivors who
had succeeded to the others' property. If they complain of the
scarcity and dearness of corn, this is to give point to their protest
against the King's servants taking it for the victualling of his army
and the town of Calais. If, again, they sound a note of alarm at the
outrageous insolence of the labourers who presumed to demand a large
increase of wage, and would not work at the old scale of pay, there
is no pretence that the employers could not afford to accede to the
increased demand; the "grand meschief du poeple" consisted in this,
that the tillers of the soil should have dreamt of asserting
themselves in any way whatever.
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