What then did cause a rebellion as determined and as wide-spread as that of 1381? Petit-Dutaillis, who may be said to have spear-headed the attack on the established point of view, considered that it was a compound of irritating feudal burdens, mainly in the form of financial exactions, and the clumsy tax policy of the royal advisers. ‘The contradiction which existed between their legal state and their economic advancement was evidently a source of daily exasperation.’{476} Professor Hilton, who saw the genesis of the Peasants’ Revolt at the very beginning of the thirteenth century, has analysed the factors which led to unrest.{477} Many of them, it will be obvious, were active irritants long before 1348. The undue conservatism of the landlord who sought to preserve the irritating frills as well as the essential spirit of the manorial system, the denial to the peasant of the right to dispose of his chattels, the fact that prices rose faster than wages, the resentment of the villein who saw his free neighbour exploiting the new circumstances to the full, the inequity and uneven incidence of the poll taxes, the abduction of peasants by labour-hungry landlords, the curbs on liberty of action imposed by the new legislation: these were the elements which finally provoked explosion.
But because the Black Death was not an immediate cause it does not follow that it should not bear a large share of the responsibility. If there had been no plague it is arguable that the circumstances which so disturbed society in 1381 would eventually have arisen. The break-down of the structure of a society can never be painless and, by the second half of the fourteenth century, the disintegration of the manorial system was inevitable and already well advanced. But the Black Death immeasurably aided the process; exacerbated existing grievances, heightened contradictions, made economic nonsense of what previously had been a situation difficult but still viable.
‘The Black Death did not, in any strictly economic sense, cause the Peasants’ Revolt or the break-down of villeinage, but it gave birth, in many cases, to a smouldering feeling of discontent, an inarticulate desire for change, which found its outlet in the rising of 1381.’{478} Dr Levett’s cautious judgement may be termed the lowest statement of the Black Death’s claim to have inspired the social unrest of the later fourteenth century. It cannot be said, in short, that the Black Death directly caused the Peasants’ Revolt, nor can it be said with certainty that, but for the Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt would never have taken place. But what can be asserted with some confidence is that, if there had been no Black Death, tension and bitterness would never have risen by 1381 to the level that it did.
‘We must really not raise the plague to the dignity of a constant, economic force.’{479} Vinogradoff’s magisterial warning should be written in scarlet above the desk of every historian dealing with the fourteenth century. But we must really not lower the plague to the level of an isolated phenomenon having no significant influence on the development of the country. The more extravagant claims of its champions may be discounted but so also may the excessive denigration of those who sought to cut it down to size. The extent to which the Black Death can be said to have initiated rather than accelerated or modified any major social or economic trend is the subject of endless academic debate. There is at the moment a sentiment in favour of reinstating the Black Death as a major originating factor in its own right.{480} Such a counter-reaction is desirable and, indeed, overdue. It should not be taken too far but it will not have been taken far enough until it is generally accepted that the Black Death was a catalytic element of the first order, profoundly modifying the economic and social forces on which it operated. Without it the history of England and of Europe in the second half of the fourteenth century would have been very different.
SUCH modifications of the social structure of the country were bound to find their reflection in almost every sphere of human activity. There can have been very little in English life which survived the Black Death wholly unchanged, though in some fields the changes were at first almost imperceptible and only gradually revealed their true significance.
