fallen in the war in France in the old king's time, and the Black
Death had slain a many; so that the lords had bethought them: "We are
growing poorer, and these upland-bred villeins are growing richer, and
the guilds of craft are waxing in the towns, and soon what will there
be left for us who cannot weave and will not dig? Good it were if we
fell on all who are not guildsmen or men of free land, if we fell on
soccage tenants and others, and brought both the law and the strong
hand on them, and made them all villeins in deed as they are now in
name; for now these rascals make more than their bellies need of
bread, and their backs of homespun, and the overplus they keep to
themselves; and we are more worthy of it than they. So let us get the
collar on their necks again, and make their day's work longer and
their bever-time shorter, as the good statute of the old king bade.
And good it were if the Holy Church were to look to it (and the
Lollards might help herein) that all these naughty and wearisome
holidays were done away with; or that it should be unlawful for any
man below the degree of a squire to keep the holy days of the church,
except in the heart and the spirit only, and let the body labour
meanwhile; for does not the Apostle say, 'If a man work not, neither
should he eat'? And if such things were done, and such an estate of
noble rich men and worthy poor men upholden for ever, then would it be
good times in England, and life were worth the living."

All this were the lords at work on, and such talk I knew was common
not only among the lords themselves, but also among their sergeants
and very serving-men. But the people would not abide it; therefore,
as I said, in Essex they were on the point of rising, and word had
gone how that at St. Albans they were wellnigh at blows with the Lord
Abbot's soldiers; that north away at Norwich John Litster was wiping
the woad from his arms, as who would have to stain them red again, but