Compulsory Service in Late Medieval England

Bennett explores the case for reinstating compulsory service as a critical component of labor regulation for the three generations that survived and then immediately followed the Great Pestilence of 1347-9. Combining a documentary base that is strong before 1400 and sparse for a century thereafter,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Past & present 2010-11, Vol.209 (1), p.7-51
Main Author: Bennett, Judith M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Employment
England
Forced labor
History
Imprisonment
Labor
Labor law
Labor Policy
Labour
Labour history
Labour law
Labour market
Labour relations
Legislation
Men
Middle Ages
Parliaments
Peasants
Plague
Regulation
Serfdom
Statutory law
United Kingdom
Wages
Workers' rights
Workforce
Working women
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Summary:Bennett explores the case for reinstating compulsory service as a critical component of labor regulation for the three generations that survived and then immediately followed the Great Pestilence of 1347-9. Combining a documentary base that is strong before 1400 and sparse for a century thereafter, he aims not to exhaust the subject, but instead to place it on the archival and interpretative agendas. His argument begins by setting out what is currently known about the history of compulsory service, both before 1349 and in the five decades thereafter; it then turns to the gendered history of this practice, which seems to have been imposed on women more often than men. Bennett concludes by considering how the histories of labor and laboring women look different when compulsory service is given a more prominent place in the understanding of late medieval England.
ISSN:0031-2746
1477-464X
DOI:10.1093/pastj/gtq032