Statute of Labourers

Timeline

1. 1351Westminster · LondonEdward III summoned Parliament to pass the statute, which fixed wages and prices at pre-plague (1347) levels, forbade hired workers from demanding higher pay or leaving their employment without permission, and required all able-bodied persons under sixty to accept employment, with fines or branding as penalties for violations.
2. 1360The shires of England · EnglandThe 1361 revision of the Statute of Labourers extended regulation to craftsmen and established justices of the peace with special responsibility for labour cases; throughout the 1360s frequent prosecutions were brought across the country for excessive wage demands and illegally mobile labourers, and the statute became the landlords' core tool for maintaining the economic order of the manor.
3. 1365–1370Southeastern England · SoutheastThe statute provoked underground bargaining, work slowdowns, and local protests among hired workers, with sporadic disturbances in places such as Kent and Essex; by the late 1360s the tension between labour shortage and regulation intensified, planting the institutional and social seeds of Wat Tyler's Rebellion in 1381.