The scarcity of laborers caused by the ravages of the Black Death
caused a general strike for higher wages on the part of free
workingmen, and also induced thousands of villeins to run away from
their masters, in order to get work on their own account. The general
uprising which a heavy poll tax caused among the villeins (S150), or
farm laborers, and other workingmen, though suppressed at the time,
led to the ultimate emancipation of the villeins by a gradual process
extending through many generations.