Popular rebellionsPopular rebellions

Socio-economic contextSocio-economic context  Labourers are able to command higher wages  Landowners are struggling to adapt to new conditions  Landowners try to revive feudal services  Squeezing of tenants in manorial courts

Poll tax of 1381Poll tax of 1381  Regressive tax, falling on every adult male  Higher in 1380 than before  Falls hardest in most populous parts of country, esp. East Anglia  After mass tax evasion in first assessment, the crown insists on harsher enforcement of collection

Chronology of eventsChronology of events 30 May 1381 – Refusal to pay poll tax in Brentwood, Essex 4 – 5 June – Rebellion breaks out in Kent (Dartford) 10 June – Rebels arrive in Canterbury 12 June – Rebels arrive in Blackheath in London 14 June – King meets rebels at Mile End. Execution of Simon Sudbury (Chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury) and Robert Hales (Treasurer of England). 15 June – fFrther meeting of king and rebels at Smithfield. Killing of Wat Tyler. Outbreak of violence between city militia and rebels Collapse of rebellion soon thereafter

Uprisings elsewhereUprisings elsewhere  Other uprisings in 1381 in East Anglia, Hertfordshire  These provoke disobedience across southern and midland England  Abbeys of St Albans and Bury of St Edmund prominent targets of urban anger (the monasteries are harsh urban landlords)

Authorities strike backAuthorities strike back  From 22 June 1381 royal household goes on progress through the counties involved in the uprising – more or less a military campaign  Many who take part are given punishments in court  Still, remarkably few people put to death. Probably the crown is too afraid to take severe reprisals.

Who were the rebels?Who were the rebels?  Most participants are peasant farmers, with a plot of land.  They are well below gentry status, but are generally not landless labourers.  Slight bias towards the better off.  Many of the rebels have played a role in local government (as reeves, chief pledges, bailiffs, jurors, etc.)

What do the rebels do?What do the rebels do?  Destruction of court records  Attacks on property and manorial estates  Personal violence and abuse towards shire officials, such as JPs (but relatively little bloodshed in regions)  Murder of high-ranking political figures such as Sudbury

Targeting  Very few of the first collectors of the poll tax are persecuted.  Those who enforce the collection of the tax are punished  Mark Ormrod: Peasant uprising is ‘a protest against twenty years of mismanagement’.  Rebels want a return to the law of Winchester, i.e. return to a system of community policing

Ideology  Violence not confined to personal retribution  Rebellion cannot be explained solely in terms of immiseration or widespread serfdom  There are general aims – to protect newfound rights from the encroachment of lords  Religious ideas of Christian equality (John Ball’s sermon)

Jacquerie of 1358Jacquerie of 1358  Uprising north of Paris, around the towns of Compiègne and Senlis  Sparked by imposition of tallage by cathedral chapter of Laon.  Participants are mainly rural artisans  Appears to be part of wider patterns of anti-noble aggression, sponsored in part by Etienne Marcel, a bourgeois in charge of Paris government at this time

Ciompi rebellion of 1378Ciompi rebellion of 1378  Primarily an urban phenomenon  Seems to be an outgrowth of organized forms of political association among craft workers  Leads to the overthrow of patrician government in Florence in Replaced with a council of 32 elected by the popolo minuto (labouring classes)  Measures are taken to regulate the wool industry, providing greater protection for workers