Other and more lasting effects were experienced everywhere, for town and village life was completely disorganized: magistrates, city officials, priests, and doctors had perished in such numbers that it was difficult to replace them: criminals plundered deserted houses unchecked: the usually law-abiding, deprived of the guidance to which they had been accustomed, gave themselves up to a dissolute life, trying to drown all thoughts of the past and future in any enjoyment they could find in the present. Work almost ceased: the looms stood idle, the ships remained without cargoes, the fields were neither reaped of the one harvest nor sown for the next. The peasants, when reproached, declared that the plague had been a sign of the end of the world and that therefore to labour was a waste of time. ‘All things were dearer,’ says a Frenchman: ‘furniture, food, and merchandise of all sorts doubled in price: servants would only work for higher wages.’ In the years following the Black Death the labouring classes of Europe discovered for the first time their value. They were the necessary foundation to the scheme of mediaeval life, the base of the feudal pyramid; and, since they were now few in number, masters began to compete for their services. Thus they were able to demand a better wage for their work and improved conditions; but here the governments of the day, that ruled in the interests of the nobles and middle classes, stepped in, forbade wages to be raised, or villeins and serfs to leave their homes and seek better terms in another neighbourhood. The discontent of those held down with an iron hand, yet half awake to the possibilities of greater freedom, seethed towards revolution; but few mediaeval kings chose to look below the surface of national life, and in the case of England Edward III was certainly not enough of a statesman to do so. In 1355 he renewed the war with France, hoping that by victories he would be able to fill his own purse from French ransoms and pillage as well as to drug the disordered popular mind at home with showy triumphs. His eldest son, Edward, the Black Prince, who had gained his spurs at Creci, landed at Bordeaux and marched through Guienne, the English armies like the French being mainly composed of ‘companies’, that is, of hired troops under military captains, the terror of friends and foes alike; for with impartial ruthlessness they trampled down corn and vineyards as they passed, pillaged towns, and burned farms and villages. [Sidenote: Battle of Poitiers]