The Ordinance and Statute of Laborers were two laws passed in 1349 and 1351, respectively, in response to labor shortages following the Black Death. Essentially, the workforce was significantly lessened by the large number of deaths, creating a labor shortage that poised workers to demand high wages, forcing manufacturers to increase prices to account for increased costs.

The Ordinance of Laborers froze wages at the pre-plague level by forbidding employers to offer and employees to ask for wages higher than those paid from "the twentieth year of our reign of England, or five or six other commone years next before" (1332 to 1338, note that plague was in 1348). [1] It also required the sheriff to commit to the gaol any unemployed able-bodied men and women. The Ordinance of Laborers was not very effective, and the subsequent Statute of Laborers was passed to aid its enforcement, because many workers continued to demand twice or thrice pre-plague wages. [2] The Statute of Laborers mostly contains more specific provisions of acceptable wages and and sales prices for specific workers.

At the time, the justifications for both the Ordinance and Statute of Laborers are plainly stated. Firstly, the King intended to discourage idleness, particularly because some able-bodied individuals were choosing to "beg in idleness" rather than work. [3] Indeed, the Ordinance of Laborers forbade giving alms to idle beggars to make the lifestyle of begging less profitable to potential workers and increase the safety of the realm ("many valiant beggars, as long as they may live of begging, do refuse to labor, giving themselves to idleness and vice, and sometime to theft and other abominations"). [4] An important justification, however, was essentially that fixing prices and wages was for the good of the realm. [5] Of course, it bears noting that these acts were passed by the King "by the assent of the prelates, nobles, and other of his council" and perhaps therefore were more favorable to the wealthy than the poor.

As noted by Palmer, the Statute of Laborers ultimately created a perverse incentive for workers to slack on the job because "[f]orced work and wage restrictions . . . result in less motivation to work well." [6]

Enforcement of the Ordinance and Statute of Laborers was generally light, so long as prices were sufficiently high. When prices dropped, and as a result profit margins shrunk, employers looked to enforcement of the statutes to drive wages back down. Therefore, enforcement was low for the two decades following the Black Death, but re-energized in the 1370s. [7] The Peasant's Revolt of 1381 is at least in part attributable to this increased enforcement. [8] In the following century, wages naturally rose beyond the levels set by the Statute of Laborers as up-and-coming lords and emerging industries and geographical areas were willing to pay above-statutory wages for workers. [9]

Ultimately, the statute in England was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1863, the purpose of which was to "repeal[] certain enactments which have ceased to be in force of have become unnecessary."[10] Therefore, its long-term existence on the books does not necessarily reflect a long period of enforcement. Indeed, I have not encountered any evidence of enforcement beyond the 14th Century.

[1] Ordinance of Laborers 1349, full text available at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/seth/ordinance-labourers.asp (I always thought Prof. Moglen was joking when he started writs with "The king to the sheriff, greeting," but it actually does begin exactly that way.)

[2] Statute of Laborers 1351, full text available at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/seth/statute-labourers.asp

[3] Ordinance of Laborers 1349 para. 1.

[4] Ordinance of Laborers 1349 para. 8.

[5] Statute of Laborers 1351 para. 1 (The labor shortage does "great damage [to] the great men, and impoverish[es] of all the said commonalty.").

[6] Palmer pg. 169.

[7] Lewis C. Vollmar, Jr., M.D., The Effect of Epidemics on the Development of English Law from the Black Death Through the Industrial Revolution, 15 J. Legal Med. 385, 394 (1994).

[8] Essex Session of the Peace, 1351,1377-1379, 102 U. Pa. L. Rev. 425 (1954)

[9] Vollmar, supra note 7, at 394.

[10] Statute Law Revision Act of 1863, 26 & 27 Vict c 125, full text available at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=u7ouAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA578#v=onepage&q&f=false

-- AllysonMackavage - 25 Sep 2014

I was wondering what the public policy/moral justification for what today appears to be a manifestly unjust law? How could the law have continued to exist for such a long period of time as new Enlightenment ideals and a rising belief in the importance of the free market increased in England during the 18th and 19th centuries?

-- MichaelCoburn - 25 Sep 2014

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