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After the Black Death of 1346–1353 killed an estimated 30 to 60 per cent of Europe's people, there were too few hands to work the land. Surviving labourers could ask for more, and in England farm wages roughly doubled between 1350 and 1450, despite laws meant to hold them down.

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In England, Edward III issued the Ordinance of Labourers in 1349, and Parliament followed with the Statute of Labourers in 1351: wages were capped at their 1346 level, and anyone able-bodied had to accept work when it was offered. The laws were resented and poorly enforced, and they were among the grievances behind the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Over the longer run, rents fell, land became easier to get, and serfdom, the system that tied peasants to a lord's land, faded away in western Europe. The gains were neither immediate nor universal. In the first decades after the plague, rising prices ate into the real income of many workers who lived on money wages alone, and in eastern Europe landlords later bound peasants to the land more tightly than before.

Türkçe oku
Kara Ölüm 1346–1353 yılları arasında Avrupa nüfusunun tahminen yüzde 30 ila 60'ını öldürünce toprağı işleyecek el çok azaldı. Hayatta kalan işçiler daha fazlasını isteyebildi; İngiltere'de tarım işçilerinin ücretleri, yasal sınırlamalara rağmen 1350 ile 1450 arasında aşağı yukarı ikiye katlandı.

İngiltere'de Kral III. Edward 1349'da İşçiler Kararnamesi'ni çıkardı; Parlamento da 1351'de İşçiler Yasası'yla (Statute of Labourers) onu pekiştirdi. Ücretler salgından önceki, 1346 yılındaki düzeye sabitlendi; çalışabilecek durumdaki herkes kendisine önerilen işi kabul etmek zorundaydı. Bu yasalar hem tepki topladı hem de pek uygulanamadı; 1381 Köylü Ayaklanması'na yol açan şikâyetler arasında onlar da vardı. Uzun vadede kiralar düştü, toprak edinmek kolaylaştı ve köylüyü bir beyin toprağına bağlayan serf düzeni Batı Avrupa'da yavaş yavaş ortadan kalktı. Ama kazançlar ne hemen geldi ne de her yerde görüldü. Salgını izleyen ilk on yıllarda yükselen fiyatlar, yalnızca para ücretiyle geçinen pek çok işçinin gerçek gelirini eritti; Doğu Avrupa'da ise toprak sahipleri sonraki dönemde köylüleri toprağa eskisinden de sıkı bağladı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Black Death
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