hould have caused it, but it
was precipitated by such. The immediate occasion was the indignation
which was aroused at an outrage committed by one of the tax collectors
on the daughter of Wat the Tyler. As the indignation which centred
in the sentiment against this act served to cement the feeling of
injustice which was prevalent among the peasantry, so it is probable
that the act itself was not a solitary instance, but only one of many
indignities which were suffered by the peasantry at the hands of the
representatives of those above them. Although the insurrection soon
came to an end, and those who were responsible for it suffered the
severest penalties, nevertheless the various "statutes of laborers"
which from this date appear on the statute book show that the day had
gone by when the lords of manors could require the personal services
of tenants in return for the lands they held; so that the one thousand
five hundred persons who were executed for this social uprising died
as a protest against grievances of the poor tenantry, which were
corrected by legislation.

By the close of the fourteenth century the manorial courts had lost
much of their former vigor; and there were frequent instances of
villain tenants sending their daughters to service beyond the bounds
of the manors, in spite of the requirement of a license so to
do. Daughters were also married without reference to the lord, or
obtaining his permission, or paying the fee. As a result of their
extended liberties, women as well as men deserted the country in
large numbers and resorted to the towns. The population thus became
much more mobile, and among the people there was a wider degree of
intelligence because of this fact and of their more varied experience.
As women are the progenitors of the race, it is always important for
the intelligence of a people that the mothers shall not be stupid
and inane creatures such as were for the most part the women of the
agricultural classes in England during the greater part of the Middle
Ages. They were limited to the narrow confines of homes, humble
indeed, and yet homes which they could not feel were their own, and
they could not leave these habitations excepting under conditions
which were practically prohibitive. Their days were spent in an
unvarying monotony of domestic duties and farm labor, which afforded
no stimulus to the mind or food for the soul. It is not strange that
morals were as depraved as manners wer