84 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLT
tinian^ that " whether by chance or Providential design it strictly spared the most wicked/' and it was " the nniversal testimony of those who lived through the period of the Black Death, " that it seemed to rouse up the worst passions of the human heart, and to dull the spiritual senses of the soul/' Nevertheless the author is able to present a better side, and his words are so eloquent and so significant for modern times that I quote at length:
In dealing with this subject it is difficult to bring home to the mind the vast range of the great calamity, and to duly appreciate how deep was the break with then existing institutiouB. The plague of 1349 simply shattered them; and it is, as already pointed out, only by perpetual reiteration and reconsideration of the same phenomena that we can bring ourselves to understand the character of such a social and religious catastrophe. But it is at the same time of the first import- ance thoroughly to realize the case if we are to enter into and to understand the great process of social and religious reedification, to which the immediately suc- ceeding generations had to address themselves. The tragedy was too grave to allow of people being carried over it by mere enthusiasm. ... It was essentially a crisis that had to be met by strenuous effort and unflagging work in every depart- ment of human activity. And here is manifested a characteristic of the middle ages which constitutes, as the late Professor Freeman has pointed out, their real greatness. In contradistinction to a day like our own, which abounds in every facility for achievement, they had to contend with every material dificulty; but in contradistinction, too, to that practical pessimism which has to-day gained only too great a hold upon intelligences otherwise vivacious and open, difficul- ties, in the middle ages, called into existence only a more strenuous and more determined resolve to meet and surmount them. . . . Many a noble aspiration which, could it have been realized, and many a wise conception which, could it have attained its true development, would have been most fruitful of good to humanity, was stricken beyond recovery. Still no time was wasted in vain la- ments. What had perished was perished. Time, however, and the power of effort and work belonged to those that survived.
Subsequent to the plague of 1348-9, and its recurrence in 1361, the conditions of labor were greatly altered, in ways presenting an interesting parallel to what we see going on to-day. Mr. Edgar Powell, in his account of '^ The Bising in East Anglia in 1381, takes up this phase of the subject, giving many details. In the rural districts great numbers, in some places nearly one half, of the population had been swept away, and naturally the supply of labor was extremely scarce. This led to a demand for higher wages, but the landowners, quite unable to adjust themselves to the new conditions, resisted by every means in their power. They even secured legislation establishing — ^not the minimum wage we hear so much of to-day — ^but a maximum wage, with punishments for all those who gave or received more. The principal result of this was to exasperate the working classes, who were further infuriated by the severe penalties which the law permitted; even, if the prosecuting individuals desired, extending to branding the foreheads of those convicted. Added to all this, came the heavy burden of the poll-tax, which was the final
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