620 Constitutional History. [eiɪʌp,
aɪe c⅛rgy 0r as an ac^ Sratit tide. Tlie dispensation of alms was as a
rule left to the clergy, just as the duty of inculcating almsgivi∏g
was chiefly left to them. The beneficed clergy in their parishes,
the almoners of the monasteries, and the hosts of mendicant
friars, to some extent fulfilled the task, and certainly kept the
Sιjlfll''ids'y <ЫУ °t almsgiving prominently before men’s eyes. The guilds
too, in each of their aspects, whether they were organised for
police, for religious, social, or trade purposes, made the per-
formance of this duty a part of their regular work. In the
frith-guild of London the remains of the feasts were dealt to
the needy for the love of God ; the maintenance of the poorer
members of the craft was, as in the friendly societies of our
own time, one main object in the institution of the craft guilds ;
and even those later religious guilds, in which the chief object
seems at first sight, as in much of the charitable machinery of
the present day, to have been the acting of mysteries and the
exhibition of pageants, were organised for the relief of distress
Confiscation as well as for conjoint and mutual prayer. It was with this
of guild pro- , , φ
perty. idea that ɪɑen gave large estates in land to the guilds, which,
down to the Beformation, formed an organised administration of
relief. The confiscation of the guild property together with
that of the hospitals was one of the great wrongs which were
perpetrated under Edward VI, and, whatever may have been
the results of the stoppage of monastic charity, was one un-
questionable cause of the growth of town pauperism. The
extant regulations and accounts of the guilds show how this
duty was carried into effect; no doubt there was much self-
indulgence and display, but there was also effective relief ; the
charities of the great London companies are a survival of a
system which was once in full working in every market town.
Legislation. Side by side with the organisations for the relief of real
begging. poverty must be set the measures for the restraint of idleness
and begging. These formed a part of the legislation on labour
which was attempted from the middle of the reign of Edward
III, and which has been regarded by political economists as one
of the great blemishes of medieval administration. The same
principle of combination, which had its better side in the
XXi.] Legislation on Labour. 621
charity of the guilds, had, if not its worst, at least its most
dangerous side, in the associations of the artisans for the
purpose of enforcing a higher rate of wages. The great plague statutes of
of 1348 caused such a terrible diminution of the population
that the land was in danger of falling out of cultivation ; labour
was extremely scarce, and excessive wages were immediately
demanded by those who- could work ; excessive wages at once
produced improvidence and idleness. As early as 1349, in the
first ordinance on labour, it was found necessary not only to fix
the amount of wages, and to press all able-bodied men into the
work of husbandry, but to forbid the giving of alms to sturdy
or valiant beggars1. The quick succession of enactments on
this point shows the urgency of the evil and the inadequacy of
the remedy sought in the limitation of wages and of the prices of
victuals, and in peremptory interference between the employers
and the employed. The ordinance of 1349 was followed by the
statute of 1351 which, among other enactments, provided a
regular machinery by which the excess of wages paid to the
labourers could be recovered from them by process before
justices assigned for the purpose, the proceeds of these actions
being appropriated, where the masters did not sue for them, to
the relief of the local contributions towards the national taxes2.
In 1357 the money so recovered was assigned to the lords’ of
franchises on the understanding that they should contribute to
the expenses of the justices3. An almost immediate result of statutesand
,1 . . . .-, j, ,. n . . petitions on
this over-repression was seen in the formation of conspiracies labour,
among the carpenters and masons, the flight of labourers from
their native counties, and the crowding of the corporate towns
with candidates for enfranchisement. All these practices were
attacked by the statute of 1362, but ineffectually, as the results
showed4. The statutes of 1349 and ɪɜʒɪ were confirmed in
1368 on the prayer of the employers of paid labourers, , la com-
mune que vivent par geynerie de lour terres ou marchandie 6,'
who have no lordships or villeins to serve them. In almost
every parliament petitions were presented for the enforcement
1 Statutes, ɪ. 307. 2 Statutes, i. 311, 312. 3 Statutes, ɪ. 350.
1 Statutes, i. 375. 5 Rot. Parl. iɪ. 296,