An Example of What Happens When People Are Properly Feeded (2 photos)

In 1348, the Black Death came to England. By 1350, it had killed between a third and a half of the country's population. What happened next, from the perspective of the English nobility, was a catastrophe that had nothing to do with the plague. Suddenly, there was a catastrophic labor shortage.





The peasants who survived the plague found themselves in a position they had never had before: they had leverage. Lords needed laborers to harvest crops, tend livestock, and maintain estates. Workers could demand higher wages. They could demand better working conditions.

In the ensuing chaos, they could demand food. And when they had the opportunity, they demanded meat. The historical evidence on this point is quite revealing.

Employment contracts signed after the Black Death in the 1350s and 1360s often listed food, including meat, as payment. Fresh meat. Several times a week. Not on holidays or during harvest time, when peasants traditionally consumed a lot of protein. Regularly, weekly, as agreed upon.

Within a generation of access to sufficient animal protein, noticeable changes occurred in the bones of skeletons. The average height of the working class increased. Bone density increased. Signs of chronic malnutrition, characteristic of peasant remains before the Black Death, became less common. A well-fed working class is a productive working class, and that's a good thing.

However, it's also a physically fit working class, and with them, things are much more complicated. The English nobility was alarmed.

In 1349, Parliament passed the Statute of Labourers, attempting to freeze wages at pre-plague levels and prevent workers from demanding "excessive" compensation. The Statute was largely unenforced, as economic reality trumped legislative intent. Labor shortages persisted. Workers could still negotiate.

Wat Tyler's Rebellion in 1381 saw a well-armed army of commoners march to the gates of London. They burned the Savoy Palace. They beheaded the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord High Treasurer. They presented Richard II with a list of demands, including the abolition of serfdom and free access to land. Richard, then fourteen years old, rode out to meet them at Smithfield.

During the negotiations, his advisers assassinated the rebel leader, Wat Tyler. The rebellion was crushed. The lesson the ruling class learned was not that they needed to continue to provide food for the people.

The lesson was that conditions under which the peasants were well-fed could no longer be tolerated. Forest laws were tightened. Sumptuary laws were introduced, specifying what foods the lower classes were permitted to consume, and all of this was presented under the guise of moral decency. Religious fasting requirements were more strictly observed.

The experiment with equalizing meat lasted for about thirty years. The nobility suppressed it as quickly as they could. The Peasants' Revolt is presented as a failed rebellion. In reality, it can be seen as an example of what happens when people are properly fed.



A 15th-century miniature depicts the priest John Ball addressing the rebels. Wat Tyler, wearing a red robe, is depicted on the left.