Note 46 — Chapter III

All that Parliament would do in the face of the starvation and unemployment that brooded over many parts of England, was to pass penal legislation for the homeless and workless—so that it seemed to many that Government had got rid of Papal authority only to bring back slavery. The agrarian misery, the violent changes in the order of church services and social customs, the confiscation of the funds of the guilds, and the wanton spoiling of the parish churches[46]—all these things drove the people to revolt.