British Ordinance of Laborers

[Tamrin]

British Ordinance of Laborers

[Exzcerpt - Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon - Linked Above]

The history of the ordinance of Laborers, from 1349 until 1562, can be viewed as a record of the conflict between the aristocracy of England and the growing insistance on the part of skilled labourers that the results and management of their own labour should belong to them and not to the landed classes that employed them. Several of the statutes have been used by anti-masons to "prove" Freemasonry’s historical conflict with established government, and to "prove" government’s hostility to the customs and beliefs of Freemasonry. Taken as a whole though, these statutes are clearly an attempt to regulate labourers and can have no relevence to any analysis of society’s views on modern speculative Freemasonry.

[Tamrin]

The Statute of Laborers; 1351

[Excerpts - Article by Ernest F. Henderson, Yale Law School - Linked Above]

Edward by the grace of God etc. to the reverend father in Christ William, by the same grace archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, greeting. Because a great part of the people and especially of the, workmen and servants has now died in that pestilence, some, seeing the straights of the masters and the scarcity of servants, are not willing to serve unless they receive excessive wages, and others, rather than through labour to gain their living, prefer to beg in idleness:

Likewise saddlers, skinners, white-tawers, cordwainers, tailors, smiths, carpenters, masons, tilers, shipwrights, carters and all other artisans and labourers shall not take for their labour and handiwork more than what, in the places where they happen to labour, was customarily paid to such persons in the said twentieth year and in the other common years preceding, as has been said; and if any man take more, he shall be committed to the nearest jail in the manner aforesaid.

Henderson's Note

The Statute of Labourers, was issued after the great plague of the Black Death, which raged in Europe from 1347 to 1349. The same fields remained to be tilled, the same manual labour to be performed; but a large proportion of the labourers had died, and the rest could command what wages they pleased. Edward III, to stop this evil, issued this rather Draconian decree.

[Tamrin]

Oct 10, 2008 12:39:33 GMT 10 Tamrin said:

Taken as a whole though, these statutes are clearly an attempt to regulate labourers and can have no relevence to any analysis of society’s views on modern speculative Freemasonry.

If one wishes to attach significance to the 'Old Charges,' e.g. the Regius Poem, they may be relevant to our origins, arguably as links in a chain of events:- ...; Crusades; Black Death; labour shortage; Statute of Labourers; Peasants' Revolt; Parliamentary calls for Charters; Regius Poem; other Old Charges; ...