The challenge
Write an alternate history about an ordinary person whose private choices your chosen source cannot recover. Begin with evidence, identify what it leaves unanswered, then make one fictional decision change the course of your story.
The Black Death reached England in 1348. London Museum’s account provides an introduction to the outbreak. In its aftermath, labour shortages increased workers’ potential to seek higher wages and more flexible working arrangements, as historian Chris Given-Wilson explains.
Your story need not predict a different future for all of Europe. A changed bargain or a decision to stay rather than leave can be enough.
Historical starting points
The Ordinance of Labourers was issued in June 1349; the Statute of Labourers followed in February 1351. These dates are confirmed in Mark Bailey’s study of the legislation.
The legislation sought to restrict wages and workers’ mobility and enforce employment contracts. These are the principal aims identified in Given-Wilson’s discussion.
For a manageable starting source, choose one of these translated texts:
- Ordinance of Labourers, 1349: it prescribed imprisonment for leaving agreed service without reasonable cause or permission before the term ended. It also restricted employers from paying above the prescribed wage levels.
- Statute of Labourers, 1351: it names occupations including ploughmen, shepherds and dairy workers. It restricts summer movement for work when prescribed employment is available locally, but includes specified exceptions. Read those qualifications before imagining an absolute ban on movement.
Reading principle: a legal requirement is evidence of what authorities prescribed, not sufficient evidence of what happened in every household. Do not turn a rule into a universal description of lived experience.
Bailey’s *The implementation of national labour legislation in England after the Black Death, 1349–1400* distinguishes public presentments from private litigation and examines manorial, borough and royal courts. His open-access study offers a way into investigating enforcement rather than assuming it from a law’s wording.
Choose a fictional route
The following are invented premises, not accounts of documented people or places:
- Two offers, one worker. A fictional worker must choose between remaining in an existing post and accepting another offer. What changes if the worker stays? Check the relevant legal provision before deciding what risks to invent.
- An order interpreted differently. Imagine a community where an official reads a provision differently. Mark that interpretation and its consequences as counterfactual assumptions, not established local history.
- A household beyond the text. Invent the dependants, obligations and private worries of someone in an occupation named by the statute. Explain that the law supplies the occupational setting, not this person’s biography.
For each route, specify the point where your imagined history diverges. Give the character limited knowledge and competing needs rather than treating the outcome as inevitable.
Keep an evidence note beside the story
Use three short headings:
- Documented: identify the source and the precise provision or fact you used.
- Interpretation: explain what you infer, and what evidence might challenge that inference.
- Fiction and divergence: identify invented people, conversations and documents, then state the decision or event you change.
An imagined court entry or letter must be labelled as fiction wherever it appears. Do not give it an archival reference that could make readers mistake it for a surviving document.
Self-review and next steps
Before sharing, ask:
- Can readers distinguish the source’s wording from my explanation?
- Have I checked exceptions and qualifications?
- Does my outcome follow from the divergence, or have I merely asserted it?
- Have I left uncertainty visible rather than filling every gap with apparent fact?
This is a self-guided writing exercise, not a prize competition. Start with one source and one consequential choice. To continue on Nexus Historia, visit the creation page.
Related reading
- After the Black Death: What Labour Records Can Tell Us
- Black Death Burials: How Archaeologists Read the Evidence
- Weekly Challenge: The Black Death, Wages and Who Held Power
FAQ
Which ordinary person could I choose?
A fictional plough worker, shepherd or dairy worker would connect directly to occupations named in the 1351 statute. The character’s household and motives remain your inventions unless separately documented.
Does the legislation prove that everyone obeyed it?
No. Treat its provisions as requirements, then seek separate evidence for enforcement. Bailey’s distinction between public presentments and private litigation is a useful starting point in his study of implementation.
Can I invent a document?
Yes, for this exercise—but label it clearly as a fictional reconstruction. Cite the real source that informed it, and keep the invented document separate from your historical evidence.
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