The earliest medieval Poor Law was the Ordinance of Labourers which was issued by King Edward III of England on 18 June 1349, and revised in 1350. The ordinance was issued in response to the 1348–1350 outbreak of the Black Death in England, when an estimated 30–40% of the population had died. The decline in population left surviving workers in great demand in the agricultural economy of Britain. Landowners had to face the choice of raising wages to compete for workers or letting their lands go unused. Wages for labourers rose, and this forced up prices across the economy as goods became more expensive to produce. An attempt to rein in prices, the ordinance (and subsequent acts, such the Statute of Labourers of 1351) required that everyone who could work did; that wages were kept at pre-plague levels and that food was not overpriced. Workers saw these shortage conditions as an opportunity to flee employers and become freemen, so Edward III passed additional laws to punish escaped workers. In addition, the Statute of Cambridge was passed in 1388 and placed restrictions on the movement of labourers and beggars.