18. =The Statute of Labourers. 1351.=--This enormous destruction of life could not fail to have important results on the economic condition of the country. The process of substituting money rents for labour service, which had begun some generations before (see p. 168), had become very general at the accession of Edward III. so that the demesne land which the lord kept in his own hands was on most estates cultivated by hired labour. Now, when at least half of the labourers had disappeared, those who remained, having less competition to fear, demanded higher wages, whilst at the same time the price of the produce of the soil was the same or less than it had been before. The question affected not merely the great lords but the smaller gentry as well. The House of Commons, which was filled with the smaller gentry and the well-to-do townsmen--who were also employers of labour--was therefore as eager as the House of Lords to keep down wages. In =1351= the Statute of Labourers was passed, fixing a scale of wages at the rates which had been paid before the Black Death, and ordering punishments to be inflicted on those who demanded more. It is not necessary to suppose that the legislators had any tyrannical intentions. For ages all matters relating to agriculture had been fixed by custom; and the labourers were outrageously violating custom. Custom, however, here found itself in opposition to the forces of nature, and though the statute was often renewed, with increasing penalties, it was difficult to secure obedience to it in the teeth of the opposition of the labourers. The chief result of the statute was that it introduced an element of discord between two classes of society. [Illustration: Stacking corn.] [Illustration: Threshing corn with the flail.] 19. =The Statute of Treasons. 1352.=--In =1352= was passed the Statute of Treasons, by which the offences amounting to treason were defined, the chief of them being levying war against the king. As no one but a great nobleman was strong enough even to think of levying war against the king, this statute may be regarded as a concession to the wealthier landowners rather than to the people at large.