<P> The 12th century also saw a concerted attempt to curtail the remaining rights of unfree peasant workers and to set out their labour rents more explicitly in the form of the English Common Law . This process resulted in the Magna Carta explicitly authorising feudal landowners to settle law cases concerning feudal labour and fines through their own manorial courts rather than through the royal courts . These class relationships between lords and unfree peasants had complex economic implications . Peasant workers resented being unfree, but having continuing access to agricultural land was also important . Under those rare circumstances where peasants were offered a choice between freedom but no land, and continued servitude, not all chose freedom and a minority chose to remain in servitude on the land . Lords benefited economically from their control of the manorial courts and dominating the courts made it easier to manipulate land ownership and rights in their own favour when land became in particularly short supply at the end of this period . Many of the labour duties lords could compel from the local peasant communities became less useful over the period . Duties were fixed by custom, inflexible and understandably resented by the workers involved . As a result, by the end of the 13th century the productivity of such forced labour was significantly lower than that of free labour employed to do the same task . A number of lords responded by seeking to commute the duties of unfree peasants to cash alternatives, with the aim of hiring labour instead . </P> <P> The Great Famine of 1315 began a number of acute crises in the English agrarian economy . The famine centred on a sequence of harvest failures in 1315, 1316 and 1321, combined with an outbreak of murrain, a sickness amongst sheep and oxen in 1319--21 and the fatal ergotism, a fungus amongst the remaining stocks of wheat . Many people died in the ensuing famine, and the peasantry were said to have been forced to eat horses, dogs and cats as well as conducted cannibalism against children, although these last reports are usually considered to be exaggerations . Poaching and encroachment on the royal forests surged, sometimes on a mass scale . Sheep and cattle numbers fell by up to a half, significantly reducing the availability of wool and meat, and food prices almost doubled, with grain prices particularly inflated . Food prices remained at similar levels for the next decade . Salt prices also increased sharply due to the wet weather . </P> <P> Various factors exacerbated the crisis . Economic growth had already begun to slow significantly in the years prior to the crisis and the English rural population was increasingly under economic stress, with around half the peasantry estimated to possess insufficient land to provide them with a secure livelihood . Where additional land was being brought into cultivation, or existing land cultivated more intensively, the soil may have become exhausted and useless . Bad weather also played an important part in the disaster; 1315--16 and 1318 saw torrential rains and an incredibly cold winter, which in combination badly impacted on harvests and stored supplies . The rains of these years were followed by drought in the 1320s and another fierce winter in 1321, complicating recovery . Disease, independent of the famine, was also high during the period, striking at the wealthier as well as the poorer classes . The commencement of war with France in 1337 only added to the economic difficulties . The Great Famine firmly reversed the population growth of the 12th and 13th centuries and left a domestic economy that was "profoundly shaken, but not destroyed". </P> <P> The Black Death epidemic first arrived in England in 1348, re-occurring in waves during 1360--62, 1368--69, 1375 and more sporadically thereafter . The most immediate economic impact of this disaster was the widespread loss of life, between around 27% mortality amongst the upper classes, to 40--70% amongst the peasantry . Despite the very high loss of life, few settlements were abandoned during the epidemic itself, but many were badly affected or nearly eliminated altogether . The medieval authorities did their best to respond in an organised fashion, but the economic disruption was immense . Building work ceased and many mining operations paused . In the short term, efforts were taken by the authorities to control wages and enforce pre-epidemic working conditions . Coming on top of the previous years of famine, however, the longer - term economic implications were profound . In contrast to the previous centuries of rapid growth, the English population would not begin to recover for over a century, despite the many positive reasons for a resurgence . The crisis would dramatically affect English agriculture, wages and prices for the remainder of the medieval period . </P>

In 17th century england the rise in population generated an increased demand for which of these