Note 119 — Chapter III
Reading edition
McPherson, Annals of Commerce, i. 543, says that as the plague diminished the number of employers as well as labourers, the demand for labour could not have been much greater than before, and would have had little effect on the rate of if Edward III had not debased the coinage. But if the owners did decrease the lands would only accumulate in fewer hands, and would still require cultivation.