Eynsham Abbey

Eynsham Abbey matters in the book as a concrete instance of the plague’s institutional consequences. In 1349, with scarcely two tenants remaining in the manor, those who stayed threatened to leave unless the abbot agreed to reduce their burdens. Their leverage turned a demographic catastrophe into a renegotiation of feudal obligations.

The Manor and Its Obligations

The surrounding feudal order placed peasants beneath lords who controlled land and local authority. In return for the land allocated to them, peasants owed extensive unpaid labor and were subject to fines and taxes; their status as serfs tied them to the land and restricted their ability to leave without permission. The manor at Eynsham Abbey was one setting in which those obligations could be challenged when circumstances changed.

The 1349 Agreement

The plague had created a severe scarcity of labor. At the manor, the surviving tenants demanded reductions in fines and unpaid work, making clear that they intended to leave unless the abbot, Brother Nicholas of Upton, made a new agreement. The contract itself recorded the force behind the demand: during the mortality of 1349, scarcely two tenants remained. The abbot accepted their terms, and a new agreement began.

Wider Significance

The episode illustrates how the loss of population weakened the customary claims of landlords: with so few tenants left, peasants could bargain over obligations that had previously been enforced as part of a hierarchical order. The book presents what happened at Eynsham as part of a wider transformation, as peasants elsewhere began to free themselves from compulsory labor and other duties, while wages rose.

The government tried to reverse that shift. In 1351, it passed the Statute of Laborers, requiring men and women to serve employers at wages customary in 1347 or in the preceding common years. The law’s attempt to restrain wages shows the political response to the same labor scarcity that had enabled the tenants at Eynsham Abbey to secure a new contract.