"Poor Law appeared first in the form of the Ordinance of Labourers
promulgated in 1349 under Edward III, which required work at legally
limited wages of all able-bodied workmen and workwomen 'free or
servile,' anyone who refused being jailed 'until he find security to
serve in the form aforesaid.' The occasion for this ordinance was the
Black Death, which had depleted the population so severely that workers
were in great demand, and accordingly able to ask for higher wages than
they had previously received."
Marilynne Robinson, Mother Country.
