OBSERVANCE OF HOLY-DAYS 115
coincidence and made no allowance.1 It was in the main to holy-
days that the serf had to look for any lightening of his burden,2
and they are a real item to be reckoned with in our estimation
of the burdens laid on him.
The Church, from time to time, had laid down rules concerning
the due observance of holy-days, and these may be seen from a
passage of Piers Plowman:
holy churche hoteth alle manere puple
Under obedience to bee and buxum to the lawe...
Lewede men to labourie; and lordes to honte...
And vpon Sonedayes to cesse godes servyce to huyre,
Bothe matyns and messe and, after mete, in churches
To huyre here euesong every man ouhte.
Thus it by-longeth for lorde, for lered, and lewede,
Eche halyday to huyre hollyche the seruice,
Vigiles and fastyngdayes forthere-more to knowe,
And fulfille tho fastynges.3
The man who tried to live up to such a standard would find
himself ceasing work on fifty or more holy-days in the year, and
certain modern writers have assumed that something like this did
actually happen.4 Dr Cunningham nowhere commits himself to
a definite figure, but says that "the holidays were frequent",
and "must have made a difference to the wage-earner",5 while
Mr Denton calculates that a man in the fifteenth century could
reckon on being able to work only four and a half days a week.6
They, however, are considering conditions in the late fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, and are mainly concerned with wage-
earners. The position of such folk was controlled theoretically
by an enactment of 1403, which forbade labourers to work for
1 V.C.H. Hants, v, 414; Ramsey Cart. I, 47, 464; Suff. Inst. Arch. XI,
2, etc.
2 V.C.H. Sussex, n, 183.
8 C. x, 219 f.: " Holy Church orders all kinds of people to be obedient and
to comply with the law. The uneducated have to work and the lords to hunt.
And on Sundays this should cease in order that they may hear God's service:
both matins and mass, and after meat each man ought to hear evensong in the
church. And thus it behoves lords, as well as the learned and the ignorant, to
hear the whole of the service every holy day, and also to know the vigils and
days of fasting and to observe them."
4 Evolution English Farm, 179, and 200," The festivals averaged nearly one
day a week."
5 Growth of Industry, 390, 449.
6 England in the Fifteenth Century, 219, 222.
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