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Inside Britain's first refugee camp: a 300-year history of immigration
"This was the site for what may have been Britain’s first refugee camp", writes Kavita Puri
Blackheath in south-east London has a rich history. It was a rallying point for both the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 and the Kentish rebellion of 1450. Monarchs through the ages have passed through. But what is less known is that it was also the site for what may have been Britain’s first refugee camp. In 1709, army tents were temporarily erected in Blackheath to give shelter to some of the estimated 13,000 German refugees who had arrived in Britain from the Palatinate, which is the modern-day Rhineland. There were also camps in Camberwell, Clerkenwell and Greenwich. Initially, the refugees were supported with charitable donations. Many arriving were poor and they spoke a different language, but they were viewed as Protestants fleeing persecution from oppressive Catholic regimes. English parishes raised around £20,000 to support the Palatine refugees. The Rhineland had suffered significantly during years of warfare. Most recently, it had been invaded by King Louis XIV of France in 1707. However, when the Palatine arrivals came to England, there was not a particular ongoing dispute making them flee. As part of the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, the state was tolerant of Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists. The ruling ‘Elector’ was Catholic, yet both Catholics and Protestants used the most important church in the city of Heidelberg, the Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit), as a place of worship. Read more | Your guide to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 When the British government took a census of the people arriving from Germany, the authorities realised that about a third were Catholic. The reasons they were coming, it turned out, were complex. Many of the refugees had indeed been affected by religious persecution. But others were travelling in search of economic opportunities. They were escaping bad harvests, high food prices, poor prospects. And there were those who wanted to journey on, to America. Britain in 1709 was also facing its own economic difficulties. The country’s involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession had disrupted trade and pushed up prices. The numbers of people relying on charity through the Poor Law had increased. There were concerns that the Palatines were draining the economy, taking jobs away from the English poor. And although the newcomers were largely Protestants, they were not members of the Church of England and so could pose a threat to the nation’s security. Tradesmen and the labouring poor were especially suspicious. Politicians amplified a sense of fear that also found expression in pamphlets and newspapers. A report in The Daily Courant in August 1709 said: “They have not left their native land because their prince’s government is more intolerable than others… No, ’tis because their country is so unhappily situate, that it has felt the invenom’d rage of the enemy, and been expos’d to the calamities of war, more than any other.” Read more | Kavita Puri's hidden histories: "A UK museum that tells the long, rich history of migration is long overdue" In the end, many of the Palatines were eventually resettled across the Atlantic. They joined other German speakers to become the largest single group, aside from enslaved Africans, to enter the American colonies between 1680 and 1780. Around 3,000 Palatines were shipped to Ireland. Some made their way back to their homes in the Rhineland, preferring to be there than left begging on the streets in England. A few towns, such as Liverpool and Perth, had agreed to take in some settlers. Others found new homes in parts of rural Lancashire, but most local corporations refused to take in any newcomers. And yet for all the suspicion directed at the Palatines, there were those who tried to emphasise the advantages in offering them a home. A publication of 1710, The State of the Palatines for Fifty Years Past to this Present Time, said: “In the whole they appear to be an innocent, laborious, peaceable, healthy and ingenious people; and may be rather reckon’d a blessing than a burden to any nation.” Debates around immigration in the 18th century, it seems, weren’t so different to today. This column was first published in the February 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
How King John helped bring about a political miracle in medieval England
From the historic moment that 'bad' King John was made to put his seal to Magna Carta to parliament, taxation and the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries heralded many changes in England. In fact, Caroline Burt and Richard Partington explore how these changes laid the foundations for the modern British state
Good. But could do better. That was the message that the English people conveyed to their all-conquering monarch at the height of the Hundred Years’ War. In 1358, England’s great warrior-king Edward III asked parliament if he should accept a peace treaty he’d negotiated with the French, following a series of dramatic military victories. Parliament emphatically advised the king to fight again. Too much blood had been shed and too much treasure expended. The French, MPs declared, were not offering enough. For Edward’s distant predecessor King John, such a scenario would have been unthinkable. Then, at the dawn of the 13th century, there was no notion of shared national enterprise around foreign policy. The English king’s lands in France were a matter for the king alone – not for the community of the realm expressing its will through parliament. The people, if they had been courageous enough to venture their opinions to John, would have been told – not so politely – to keep their noses out. It was also unimaginable during John’s reign that other matters that parliament routinely considered in Edward III’s day – issues such as how much tax people paid, and the way in which law and justice was dispensed to the masses – might be a matter of nationwide debate. English state transformed Yet the 150 or so years between John’s reign and Edward’s victories over the French witnessed the utter transformation of the English state. This extraordinary period saw the introduction of a system of national taxation by consent, and the advent of the forum that approved that tax: parliament. It saw the legal system grow exponentially and a network of royal officers being appointed across the land. It saw striking advances in military organisation, including the professionalisation of the army. And, of course, it saw the introduction of Magna Carta, which established the much-cherished principle that the king was subject to the same law as his subjects. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/07/2PNNK27-b49fb23-e1721910912835.jpg" width="620" height="414" alt="Edward III, shown in a 15th-century miniature, sought parliament’s agreement before striking a treaty with the French (Photo by incamerastock/Alamy Stock Photo)" title="Edward III, shown in a 15th-century miniature, sought parliament’s agreement before striking a treaty with the French (Photo by incamerastock/Alamy Stock Photo)" /> Today we think of the 13th and 14th centuries as a period of protracted warfare and plague. It was undoubtedly both those things. But it was also the period that laid the foundations for many elements of the English, and by extension British, state as we know it today. So why did this transformation happen? And who were the main drivers behind this change? When John became king in 1199, it is doubtful that he gave any thought to these grand questions of statehood. That’s partly because the concept of the state as we know it did not exist. But it’s mainly because John had far more urgent concerns occupying his in-tray. He had to fend off a rival claim to the throne of England from his nephew Arthur, and he had to get to grips with a major assault launched by his great French rival, King Philip II. English losses in France Philip was determined to assert himself, and that meant seizing lands held in France by John. Those English possessions stretched far across France, from Normandy in the north to Aquitaine in the south-west – a block much larger than the territory directly controlled by the French king. Unfortunately for John, Philip was not only hugely ambitious but also vastly capable, and in 1204 the French king seized the jewel in the English crown, Normandy, shortly followed by many of the other English territories in France. The key moment in this English debacle was the loss of Château Gaillard, Richard the Lionheart’s extraordinary defensive system on the cliffs of the Seine at Les Andelys. Richard had declared that the walls of this mighty castle could hold out against the French even had they been made of butter. John’s manifold deficiencies as both a king and a military commander proved his older brother decisively wrong. The loss of Normandy in 1204 was a shattering blow. But it was also a turning point in English history: for it prompted a chain reaction that would lead to Magna Carta. Determined to regain his territories, John returned to England to regroup. Over the following decade, he raised vastly more money in England than any of his predecessors, money he used to build continental alliances and fund a new military expedition to France. Read more | Was King John really that bad? Yes! Funds flowed into the royal coffers through fines levied by the king on members of the nobility. These were extorted with threats, violence and the sale of justice to the highest bidder – and triggered a wave of resentment across the realm. John is rightly seen as one of England’s cruellest kings. According to one chronicler, he violated the wives and daughters of his nobles; in the words of another, he roasted French prisoners of war on tripods and gridirons. The unfairness and brutality of all this was not lost on England’s barons, who, as the wealthiest subjects, bore the brunt of John’s impositions. King John and Magna Carta If the common law – which since 1166 had offered all men and women cheap access to royal justice – dictated that the barons could not abuse, bribe and extort their fellow countrymen without facing legal action, then why, they asked, should the king be allowed to do it? And so, when John’s ambitions to regain lost territory came crashing down with military defeat in 1214, his opponents in England lost no time in demanding change. In Magna Carta, literally the ‘Great Charter’, they attempted to put an end, one by one, to all the questionable practices of their king. While John fought the rebels with all his might, his death in 1216, and the accession of his son as Henry III during a civil war that showed little sign of leading to any lasting settlement, meant that no government could hope to move forward in peace without compromise. Read more | Alternate history: what if Magna Carta hadn’t been written? That compromise was the confirmation of Magna Carta. By placing kings under the same law as their subjects, Magna Carta made it impossible for future monarchs to raise money for war arbitrarily. Doing so would bring political crisis, as Henry III discovered when, in an echo of his father, he began to threaten the landed property of his barons. It soon became abundantly clear that if the king wanted to defend his lands, he would have to find a new way of raising the money he required – one that involved accessing his subjects’ wealth in a legitimate manner. It was this imperative that led to the introduction of a national system of taxation by consent – and, in the 1230s, the emergence of the body that would grant (or refuse) such consent: parliament. Birth of the English parliament Parliament took its name from the French Parlement, ‘the place of discussion’, and true to that name, it soon became an arena for national debate on all areas of public policy. It was initially the exclusive domain of the very rich and powerful. But, by the end of the 13th century, a wider cross-section of the population was contributing to that debate. In 1258, when political crisis erupted in the face of Henry III’s unpopular foreign and financial policies, demands were made that angry knights, as well as disaffected barons, should be represented. This broader social representation was extended again during the reign of Edward I. In the 14th century, parliament came to consist of Lords and Commons, just as it does today – the latter elected to represent all the localities in the country. Read more | “He was not a great king but he was respected as a most Christian one”: David Carpenter on Henry III Under Edward, a partnership was established with parliament that led to repeated grants of taxation to support the king in wars in Wales, Scotland and France. This practice – of the crown co-opting the resources of the realm to royal military imperatives – led to a developing sense that foreign policy was not merely dynastic but national, in the interests of the entire country. By the time Edward I’s grandson Edward III was striding across Europe with aplomb in the mid-14th century, his subjects in parliament were fully engaged in consultation with the king, his ministers and judges on all aspects of national government. National taxation, approved by parliament, produced predictable and reliable war finance that enabled England to professionalise its army under Edward I and particularly Edward III. This enabled England to punch well above its weight internationally until the mid-15th century, most especially in the first half of the Hundred Years’ War with France. The battle of Crécy in 1346 and Poitiers in 1356 respectively saw the English destroy the French field army and capture the French king, John II. At the naval battle of Sluys in 1340, thousands of French soldiers drowned, fleeing English men-at-arms and archers charging across their decks. This was the English realm in its military pomp, producing arguably the country’s most significant naval triumph until the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. “How do we know that French knights are braver than English knights?” asked a jester of his master, the French king Philip VI, in the aftermath of Sluys. When Philip failed to provide an answer, the jester gave the sardonic reply: “Because English knights are afraid to jump into the sea.” Read more | 9 things you didn’t know about the history of parliament England's legal system Government, too, was growing increasingly sophisticated. The common law was in such demand that the courts struggled to keep up with the volume of business. The people of England were clearly hungry for the impartial, enforceable and centrally recorded justice provided by this ever-growing national legal system. Kings added to the pressure themselves because they regularly commissioned nationwide enquiries into crime and corruption. Edward I created so much legislation during his 35-year-reign that he was later called the English Justinian, after the famous law-giving Roman emperor. Such extensive legislating required a new professional cadre of judges, attorneys and justices of the peace. Government co-opted so many of the king’s subjects into its work that it is estimated that, by the mid-14th century, some 40 per cent of male house-holders were involved in some way – as sheriffs, jurors, constables, military recruiters, purveyors of supplies and tax collectors. England was hardly alone in all of this. Rapidly evolving ideas about the authority of the king as lawgiver were mirrored across Europe. Monarchs from Louis IX of France to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II embarked upon vast legislative programmes. In Iberia, Alfonso X of Castile ordered the compilation of law codes into a document, La Siete Partidas, that remains celebrated today. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/07/GettyImages-1768235900-ccfea11-e1721910986494.jpg" width="620" height="414" alt="Charles III and Queen Camilla at the state opening of parliament, 2023. The seat of British democracy grew into a force to be reckoned with in the late Middle Ages (Photo by Arthur Edwards - WPA Pool/Getty Images)" title="Charles III and Queen Camilla at the state opening of parliament, 2023. The seat of British democracy grew into a force to be reckoned with in the late Middle Ages (Photo by Arthur Edwards - WPA Pool/Getty Images)" /> The 13th-century rediscovery in Europe of Aristotle’s work added another flavour to this. Influenced by the ancient Greek philosopher’s ideas, writers began to see government as a force for good, not simply a necessary evil. Kings and their subjects eagerly embraced these ideas, both to claim power and to demand accountability. Yet not all nations experienced this thirst for power and accountability in the same way. In England, the quest for the common good was put under intense pressure by conflict and mass death. War in France and across the British Isles drove political change – and brought with it significant disorder. In the early 14th century, during a break in hostilities, demobbed soldiers formed armed bands that marauded across England, leaving a trail of outrages in their wake. That prompted one of the biggest enquiries into crime that had yet taken place in England – the so-called ‘trailbaston’ commissions. Black Death and Peasants’ Revolt Pandemic also shattered society’s sense of security. The Black Death, which first hit England in 1348 and re-appeared in several waves, killed at least 40 per cent of the population, forcing government to intervene to regulate the labour market. The Statute of Labourers of 1351 sought to constrain wage growth and labour mobility, as workers exploited their scarcity to demand higher pay and move to better paid jobs. Those in the upper echelons of society were clearly disturbed by this new thirst for social mobility. We can see this in the Sumptuary Law of 1363, which stipulated that the lower orders should not dress in clothes above their station. Such enforced restraint was hugely controversial, and the combination of a surprisingly buoyant economy and fierce opposition meant that the laws were widely ignored. What no one could ignore, however, was the crisis that struck the economy in the early 1370s. The fall-out from the financial downturn – caused by a collapse in prices, for reasons historians do not fully understand – was long and ultimately bloody. In the immediate aftermath, peasants experienced a double whammy of the sudden enforcement of earlier labouring legislation and the imposition of the first poll tax. Anger and resentment simmered away until, in 1381, they exploded in the popular uprising known as the Peasants’ Revolt. It took the authorities just a few months to put down the revolt, but not before the rebels had chopped off the heads of two of the most powerful men in the land – the archbishop of Canterbury and the lord high treasurer – and reduced the Savoy Palace, John of Gaunt’s opulent residence on the Thames, to a smouldering ruin. At the height of the uprising, the king himself – Richard II – felt compelled to ride out to Smithfield to listen to the rebels’ demands. Read more | The Peasants’ Revolt: did Richard II side with the rebels? Richard II survived his encounter with the peasants but it was a mere stay of execution. Like John before him, Richard was a weak, negligent and ultimately tyrannical ruler. And like John, his reign ended in ignominy, deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke in 1399. Yet there was a crucial difference – one that signals just how far the tectonic plates of the English state had shifted over the two centuries between the reigns of these hapless rulers. John’s downfall occurred in the midst of a chaotic war in which a tiny cadre of the most powerful men in the land sought to limit the power of the king on behalf of ‘the community of the realm’. When Bolingbroke ousted Richard II, he presented deposition articles for the approval of a packed parliament of Lords and Commons gathered from across the kingdom. Where John had failed his dynasty, Richard had failed the entire English nation. Caroline Burt and Richard Partington are medieval historians at the University of Cambridge, and the authors of Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State (Faber & Faber, 2024) This article was first published in the September 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
Why there’s no such thing as a typical medieval peasant
If modern film and TV depictions are anything to go by, ordinary people in the Middle Ages either enjoyed lives of rural bliss or unrelenting drudgery. Yet, writes Duncan Hardy, the truth is far more complex (and fascinating) than that
Judging by most film and TV depictions of Europe in the Middle Ages, one peasant looked much like another. A face, probably grubby, peeks out from beneath a hood; below, the body is clad in a tunic and woollen hose. Shoes – if feet are shod at all – are spattered with mud, from the farmyard or the quagmire of a road along which they’re tramping. Such was the lot of the ordinary man or woman. Whether in Britain or Brittany, Essex or Aachen, a common assumption is that the everyday lives of ordinary medieval people were fairly homogeneous – that their status, wealth, health, diet and, yes, clothing was largely the same across much of the continent. Yet even a brief look at records and chronicles from that period – which, of course, covers a vast timespan – gives the lie to that idea. Take the denizens of Ruislip, now a district in west London. In 1246, it was a small farming community in Middlesex. Here lived Roise, the miller’s wife; Nicholas Brakespear, a freeholder who flouted the local authorities’ orders; and Hugh Tree, whose flock kept getting into the lord’s garden. If you wandered through 13th-century Ruislip, you might also meet brewers such as Alice, the widow of Salvage; or Agnotta, the amica (“friend”, or mistress) of the shepherd. Read more | Social mobility in the Middle Ages: could medieval people improve their station? Some locals were richer than others. One, Roger Hamo, was sufficiently wealthy that he could afford to pay 20 shillings for a jury of 12 local men to investigate his rights to a plot of land claimed by another man, Gilbert Bisuthe. The authorities’ specification that some peasants, such as Nicholas Brakespear, were freeholders implies that others were tenants or serfs. Some people got along, but others got caught up in disputes – take William Slipper and the Widow Druet, for example, who argued over a hedge boundary between their properties. We know about the lives of these people because they were mentioned in the court records of Bec Abbey in Normandy, which was the lord of Ruislip’s manor. A document prepared by officials records information about justice administered to inhabitants of the manor on “Tuesday after Ascension Day [22 May]” 1246, including Roise, Nicholas, Agnotta and the others. Today they would all be lumped together as “peasants” – though this snapshot of one community at one moment in time reveals that generic label encompassed a range of people with quite different statuses and life experiences. Apart from the fascinating stories of its various inhabitants, then, Ruislip’s records tell us something important about medieval peasants: that their lives could be surprisingly varied. Two visualisations of medieval peasants All this should warn us against generalising about medieval peasants – yet, unfortunately, this is a warning that we, in the modern world, have failed to heed. In fact, so strong has been this urge to package our ancestors into stereotypes that we have fallen into the trap of visualising medieval peasant life in two ways. There is the “negative” vision, that peasants in medieval Europe (our stereotypes tend to derive from the Latin Christian west) lived short, miserable lives. In this depiction, they were not only afflicted by the widespread disease and lack of hygiene that we associate with all pre-modern people, but were also violently oppressed by a greedy clergy and nobility. Other modern imaginations have drawn a different picture: of a utopian conception of contented medieval peasants liberated from the constraints of constant regimented work, with autonomy for them selves and their communities. Read more | The surprisingly modern Middle Ages Such views are based largely on depictions of ordinary people on television and film. Most films set in the Middle Ages treat peasants as mere window dressing: a powerless, servile mass. Extras with dirt on their faces pose in crowd scenes while the real protagonists – royals, nobles and clergy – drive the plot forward. Where peasants have a role, it is often because they have joined a noble, military milieu: Milla Jovovich’s titular character in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), for example, or Heath Ledger’s fictional peasant turned-jouster in A Knight’s Tale (2001). Even more commonly, peasants are nameless and incompetent, reinforcing their inferiority to high-ranking main characters. Thus in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), the crusading nobleman Balian of Ibelin, played by Orlando Bloom, teaches starving Levantine peasants how to irrigate their lands – in reality, that technology had already existed in the Middle East for thousands of years. A few films have, by contrast, portrayed peasants as heroic freedom fighters in a good-versus-evil struggle with corrupt overlords. Take Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), or Braveheart (1995), which depicts the main protagonist, William Wallace (Mel Gibson), as a “commoner” and a man of the people; in fact, he was a member of the lower nobility. There is little room for nuance in such narratives: they are binary affairs pitting the masses against the aristocracy without intermediate social gradations. In Braveheart, for instance, even the Scottish nobles ostensibly on Wallace’s side betray him, whereas the common folk rally around his cause. Such stories really reflect an abiding modern concern – inequalities between distant, dishonest elites and down-to-earth “ordinary people” – but also contribute to the romanticisation of medieval peasants. Comedies have perhaps come closest to reflecting on the place of peasants in medieval society itself. Consider the 1975 classic film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, specifically the exchange between King Arthur (Graham Chapman) and two peasants (Michael Palin, seen below, and Terry Jones). The peasants’ assertion that they are “an anarcho-syndicalist commune” is partly a satire of modern leftist organisations. However, the reaction of Palin’s character when Arthur seizes him and tries to silence him – “Now we see the violence inherent in the system!” – is the most trenchant summary of lord-peasant relations in modern cinema. Peasants as violent, superstitious, backward and servile Like most stereotypes, modern views of peasant life are not entirely baseless. However, they tell us more about ourselves as modern inhabitants of an industrial civilisation than they do about the Middle Ages. Since the Enlightenment, people in the “west” have tended to view themselves as superior to all who came before. In that respect, the “medieval” functions as the antithesis of all that we flatter ourselves as being. We regard ourselves as civilised, rational, technologically advanced, free and egalitarian. By contrast, “medieval people” – above all, peasants – must have been violent, superstitious, backward and servile. The opposite fantasy – that medieval peasants lived idyllic lives – is rooted in the alienation many modern people have felt since the Industrial Revolution. To such people, the Middle Ages represent a romantic alternative to the corruption of modernity: it was a time when people lived more authentic lives, were more in touch with nature, and enjoyed stronger communities, undisrupted by the frenetic demands of modern capitalism. Read more | 12 myths about life in the Middle Ages – busted These two narratives, being products of modern preoccupations, are of limited use in illuminating the lives of people who lived in what we now term the Middle Ages – roughly, the early sixth to 16th centuries. The length of that timespan – a millennium – should provide one clue about the limits of any generalisations made about it. Even if we focus only on Europe, we’re dealing with a panoply of different geographies, climates and regimes of lordship that evolved over 10 centuries, resulting in an array of peasant experiences. And finally, as Ruislip shows, even in one specific location the people we group together under the label “peasants” could be diverse in terms of gender, wealth, free or unfree status, and so on. In light of this, can we say anything specific and meaningful about medieval European “peasant” experiences? We can certainly point to some shared patterns in the Latin Christian heartlands during key phases of the Middle Ages. In the early medieval period, the political structures of the Roman empire crumbled in western Europe, but its successor states under the Frankish kings and their neighbours perpetuated some Roman ideas and practices. One was the distinction between free individuals and slaves or serfs (servi or mancipia), with the latter experiencing various restrictions on their personal, judicial and economic rights. Precise forms of unfreedom changed over time, but important differences in legal status remained in most places in medieval Europe. On the podcast | Chris Dyer answers the key questions about life in the Middle Ages, including bodily hygiene, sleep patterns, love and marriage, policing and retirement Those peasants fortunate enough to be of free status probably experienced a period of relative independence in the immediate post-Roman centuries. The urban centres of the former empire shrank everywhere, and the power of landlords dwindled, while local settlements gained substantial autonomy. Sources for rural life are rare for the sixth to eighth centuries, but those we do have suggest that free peasants enjoyed less pressure from exploitative landlords than at any other time in medieval history. The power structure of various aristocratic and clerical elites, which depended on extracting surplus wealth from peasant production, became more complex and onerous during the Carolingian period that reached its zenith under Charlemagne, King of the Franks from AD 768 and Emperor of the Romans, 800–814. In that period, dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses, bishops and monasteries received grants of vast estates and attendant rights over their inhabitants from the powerful Carolingian court. Surviving sources show these landlords trying to exercise more control over the peasantry in their lands. For instance, around AD 868 a mother and daughter, Cotefrida and Hungund – both free women – transferred their lands to the mighty Carolingian monastery of Saint-Gall, and obtained them back as tenures. There was a reciprocity implicit in this new relationship – they were now considered to be under the monastery’s protection – but this certainly curtailed their personal freedoms and uses of their land. Free and unfree status among peasants Such arrangements began to blur the previously sharp distinction between free and unfree status among peasants. This blurring accelerated after the Carolingian empire gave way to smaller kingdoms during the so-called “High” Middle Ages (950– 1300). Most historians agree that this period saw a localisation and privatisation of power into the hands of small-scale, violent lords in what has sometimes been called the “feudal transformation”. In Europe’s core regions – including much of England, France, the Low Countries, western Germany and northern Italy – peasants found themselves living under lords who controlled most aspects of their lives. That included aspects that had previously been publicly managed, such as village law courts. Lords increasingly extracted labour dues as well as rents, even from their tenant farmers who were not serfs. Beyond this densely populated core, however, peasant life could be much freer. A population boom in these centuries prompted outward migration, and conquests on Latin Christendom’s frontiers – from Iberia to eastern Europe – encouraged the conquerors to offer favourable conditions to migrating peasants, often at the expense of existing populations. In 1159, for example, Archbishop Wichmann of Magdeburg in eastern Germany attracted one Herbert to settle in the nearby village of Pechau with a promise of six hereditary holdings, no labour obligations, and a judicial office from which Herbert could derive one-third of the profits. The final phase of the Middle Ages – from the 14th to the early 16th centuries – is the best documented, shedding light on the diversity of life at every level of society, including that of peasant men and women. Famines and repeated pandemics – including the devastating Black Death of 1347–51 – caused misery and demographic decline, but their impacts were mixed and depended on local circumstances. In much of western Europe, especially England and France, serfdom disappeared in the late medieval period, though some poorer peasants still lived very precarious lives as penniless tenants or owners of dwindling smallholdings. East-central European regions such as Prussia and Poland, by contrast, experienced a “second serfdom”: the nobility imposed stricter controls over the peasantry than ever before. Meanwhile, other areas, such as Dithmarschen on the Danish German border and Appenzell in what is now Switzerland, became self-governing peasant “republics” using force to repel would-be coercive overlords. Read more | Post pandemic: how the years after the Black Death briefly became a ‘golden age’ for medieval women Plentiful evidence from the late Middle Ages also shows that peasants were not passive victims of the biological, economic and political hardships that they faced. Whether in law courts or, occasionally, through armed rebellions, peasants actively sought to navigate these difficult circumstances to their own advantage. Outright revolts became increasingly common, with different groups rising up for different reasons – another reminder of the sheer variety of “peasant” experiences. Famous examples include the Jacquerie in northern France in 1358, the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and Jack Cade’s Rebellion in Kent in 1450. All of these not only involved protest against taxes and landlords’ impositions, but also saw spokespeople representing the peasants using prevailing discourses about the “common good” of the realm. It is in the context of these revolts that we can get closest to hearing medieval peasant voices, some of whom said quite radical things. In his 14th-century Chronicles, Jean Froissart recounts how, at the outbreak of the Jacquerie revolt, an assembly of villagers asserted that “all of the nobility of the realm of France, knights and squires, were betraying the realm, and that it would be a very good thing if all of them were destroyed”. And in England, according to the chronicler Thomas Walsingham, when the priest John Ball gave a sermon to peasants who assembled at Blackheath in 1381, he voiced their opposition to serfdom with the famous words: “Whan Adam dalf, and Even span, Wo was thanne a gentilman?” [When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then a gentleman?] <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/10/BAL4630349-c8c75e2.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="English priest John Ball was a major figure in the 1381 Peasant's Revolt, seen on horseback in an illumination from Jean Froissart's Chronicles (Photo by Florilegius)" title="English priest John Ball was a major figure in the 1381 Peasant's Revolt, seen on horseback in an illumination from Jean Froissart's Chronicles (Photo by Florilegius)" /> For some peasant rebels, religious concerns were even more central. In early 15th-century Bohemia, for example, the Hussite movement that broke away from the Catholic church included peasant adherents who formed the backbone of armies that repelled multiple crusades. A century later, in the 1520s, the early Reformation coincided with Europe’s largest revolt – the so-called Peasants’ War of 1524–25 – in which bands of farmers across the southern and central Holy Roman Empire took up arms against their princely overlords. Although that latter movement was brutally crushed, it briefly produced a flurry of radical publications. One, The Twelve Articles of the Peasantry, combined peasants’ grievances against landlords with religious teachings, most profoundly in an article calling for the abolition of serfdom: “It has been customary until now to hold us as bondspeople, which is to be deplored, as Christ redeemed and purchased us all with the precious shedding of his blood, the shepherd as much as the highest noble.” Such late medieval texts allow us to glimpse peasants as they always were throughout the Middle Ages, across all kinds of geographic, political and social contexts: diverse three-dimensional actors with their own ideas and agendas. We should neither romanticise them nor write them off as an undifferentiated mass of abject lower orders, but respect them as complex and fully rounded historical agents. And we should seek to capture the echoes of their voices in our fragmentary source material wherever we can. Duncan Hardy is associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida, specialising in medieval and early modern Europe This article was first published in the November 2022 issue of BBC History Magazine
The Peasants’ Revolt: everything you wanted to know
Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
Helen Carr responds to listener questions on the major uprising that rocked medieval England in 1381
In 1381, thousands of men and women surged into London, attacking jails, burning down palaces, murdering the Archbishop of Canterbury and confronting the king. But what caused the Peasants’ Revolt? Is it even accurate to describe the rebels as “peasants”? Was Richard II sympathetic to their grievances? And how brutal was the authorities’ response to the revolt? Speaking to Spencer Mizen, Helen Carr answers your top queries on the turbulent events of 1381.
Part eight in our 20-part series looking at decisive moments of the last 1,000 years in British history explores 1350–1399. Caroline Barron looks at the year when thousands of people converged on London in a mass armed protest
Thousands of men – and some women – from south-east England converged on London in June 1381 in a mass armed protest. The young king, Richard II, was virtually held hostage in the Tower of London, some of his leading councillors were murdered in the streets of London, and the news of the rising sparked off further localised protests as far afield as Cornwall and Yorkshire. This mass protest, popularly known as the Peasants’ Revolt, has achieved iconic status in the English political memory, most recently in the protests organised to resist the proposed new community charge (aka the Poll Tax) in 1990. The Revolt was extremely important but not necessarily for the reasons for which it is remembered. It was called the Peasants’ Revolt because that is how the hostile monastic chroniclers viewed it: a revolt of the rustici who were, in their eyes, scarcely human. But any revolt on a mass scale in late medieval England was bound to be composed of country people since they comprised over 90 per cent of the population. Thus there could be no mass revolt in which they did not participate. Moreover it is clear that many who were not “peasants” also took part: local gentry and knights, townspeople and clergy. These were not the poor and downtrodden but men whose social status did not correspond to their prosperity. People from all social groups, except perhaps the aristocracy, were involved. It’s hard to discern the objectives of the protesters, but there are routes into an understanding of their motives. Two sets of “Demands”, apparently presented to the King in mid-June, have been preserved in chronicle accounts. On the first occasion the protesters asked for freedom from serfdom and a standard rent for land of 4d an acre, and on the second, the demand for the abolition of serfdom was repeated along with the demand for an end to lordship and the redistribution of ecclesiastical property among the people of the parish. On neither occasion was there any reference to the Poll Tax or to the burdens of taxation. The organisers of the rising chose to focus on the day of the Christian festival of Corpus Christi, which was always marked throughout England by communal activity such as processions. In 1381 the feast fell on Thursday 13 June. The trigger for the risings seems to have been the activities late in May of Justices of the Peace at Brentwood in Essex who were enquiring into Poll Tax evasion. The third Poll (or per capita) Tax had been agreed by Parliament in November 1380. All lay people (the clergy were separately taxed) over the age of 15 were to pay three groats each (one shilling) which amounted to about one week’s wages. Only genuine paupers were to be excused. But, as was usual with medieval taxation, it was expected that the rich would help the poor, and in many places this happened. But this was the heaviest of the three poll taxes and there was considerable evasion, hence the Essex commission. When Sir Robert Bealknap, the King’s chief justice, rode into Essex to help the local JPs he was nearly ambushed and “travelled home as quickly as possible”. The rising had begun. 1381: in context England’s prosperity leads to increased confidence and social unrest, spawning an uprising that is unique in being truly national Throughout the British Isles in the later 14th century the standard of living was rising as the population decline brought about by the Black Death of 1347–50 led to an increase in per capita wealth. But in England, in particular, this increased prosperity was eroded by the rising costs of the war with France. Edward III’s early aggressive campaigns onto French soil, which had yielded prestige, booty and ransoms, were now replaced by a more defensive, and expensive, strategy. The French had turned the tables and in the 1370s raided the south coast of England, burning Rye and Winchelsea. Edward III was an old man, his son the Black Prince died in 1376 and his young grandson, Richard II, succeeded him as King of England in 1377. He inherited a rich country saddled with an unwinnable war. The individual prosperity produced by the population decline led to increased confidence and social unrest. Since the 13th century there had been localised protests against the demands by manorial lords for compulsory services (serfdom), but protests had become more frequent since the Black Death had shifted the balance of power away from manorial lords in favour of labourers and craftsman. These protests were becoming more sophisticated as peasants hired lawyers to argue that their particular manor had once formed part of the royal estate (where all men were free). As a result the Commons claimed in the Parliament of 1377 that villeins (serfs) had “withdrawn the customs and services due to their lords, holding that they are completely discharged of all manner of service due both from their persons and their holdings”. All over Europe, in Paris in 1358, in Florence and Ghent in 1378, groups of protesters were making their voices heard in armed clamour. There is no single explanation for this volley of protests, since the pressures of population decline, price fluctuations, the imposition of taxation, the spread of literacy and the consequences of warfare affected different groups in different ways. But what was unique about the rising in England was that it was the only one which was truly national: it was the most widespread and the most co-ordinated. The small size of England and its centralised government provided the protesters with a single objective: the king and his council. Surprisingly, perhaps, neither the Scots nor the Welsh chose to exploit the temporary discomfiture of the English government by armed incursions. Probably it was all over too quickly. There were no comparable mass protests in other parts of the British Isles although resistance to the pretensions of the English became more marked towards the end of the century. Meanwhile the English government turned its attention to ending the French war. It was hard for Richard II to sell the idea of peace with France to a generation brought up on the victories of Crecy and Poitiers. But peace reduced the burden of taxation and the risk of mass protest. The Lancastrians, however, chose to take up once more the expensive aggressive policies of Edward III. The first rebels arrived at Blackheath from Kent on Wednesday 12 June. John Ball, whose unorthodox preaching had landed him in Maidstone prison, had been released by the rebels and at Blackheath preached on the theme: “When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?”. The aim of the rebels was to meet the King and explain to him their grievances, and to remove those councillors around him whom they held responsible for the failures in the French war, the heavy taxation and the judicial injustices which they suffered. Richard, standing in a barge in mid-stream at Greenwich, received the list of the nine “traitors” whose heads the rebels wanted. These included Richard’s uncle John of Gaunt (luckily for him he was away from London negotiating a truce with the Scots), the Chancellor (Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury), the Treasurer (Robert Hales), the Chief Justices, as well as local officials in Kent and Essex. When Richard refused their demands the rebels swarmed towards London. They opened prisons, sacked the Archbishop’s Palace at Lambeth, destroying manorial documents, and burned the Savoy Palace of John of Gaunt. From the security of the Tower, Richard and his councillors looked out on the smoking buildings and the fires of the rebels camped on Tower Hill. Why did the peasants really revolt? The following day Richard, leaving behind the unpopular councillors, rode out with a small entourage to try to draw the rebels off to Mile End. It was recognised that the rebels had no hostility to Richard himself, and when he arrived at Mile End the king was treated respectfully. When the rebels asked for the abolition of serfdom Richard agreed that charters of manumission should be written out. And this was indeed done. Satisfied, the Mile End rebels began to disperse. But Richard’s decoy action had not saved Sudbury and Hales. The rebels who had not gone to Mile End broke into the Tower and dragged Sudbury and Hales out to be executed on Tower Hill. Saturday 15 June marks the climax of the rising in London. Richard rode out once more to meet the rebels, this time at Smithfield. Here the rebels were led by Wat Tyler who treated the King in a familiar way and called him “brother”. Although Richard granted the new demands of the rebels, “saving his regality”, a scuffle broke out. Tyler was mortally wounded and as he rode back towards his companions, he fell from his horse. At this moment of tension, Richard rode out and called to the rebels, “I will be your king, your captain and your leader. Follow me.” And he led them away from the city to Clerkenwell Fields. The Mayor of London later dragged Tyler into Smithfield, where he was executed. When Richard met his mother that night he told her he had “recovered my inheritance, the realm of England, which I had nearly lost”. As indeed was true. And so the retribution begins As soon as the King and his councillors had regained the upper hand, the retribution began. Although the rebellion in Kent died down quite rapidly, the embers continued to smoulder in Essex. On 28 June the remaining rebel army was easily defeated. And on 2 July the King revoked all the charters of freedom and pardon that he had granted. Commissions were appointed to collect accusations against the rebels and, in all, several hundred were executed. Although the rising in the summer of 1381 had a cascade effect on other parts of England – there were protests as far away as Cornwall and Yorkshire – there were no repercussions in other parts of the British Isles. The Black Death had struck Scotland, Wales and Ireland as fiercely as in England, yet their social structures and economies were different. In Scotland, for example, personal servitude had disappeared by the mid-14th century: Scottish lords exploited their rural workers in different ways, but there was a conscious decision to avoid heavy taxation. In all three countries protest took the form of a heightened national consciousness rather than class warfare. So the pressures that led to the rising in England, in the rest of the British Isles led to renewed struggles against the English, seen most forcefully in the revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr in Wales. On the face of it, the rising of 1381 appears to have achieved nothing. So why is it a turning point? It did not lead to a Statute abolishing serfdom but it did lead lords to take the safer course, and instead of farming their demesne lands with unwilling servile labour they leased the lands and lived on the rents rather than the produce. In this way villein tenure (land held in return for compulsory labour services) disappeared, although personal serfdom or bond status remained. As late as 1549 the rebels who followed Robert Kett demanded that “all bondmen may be made free”. It largely ceased to matter, but it survived as an instrument of extortion since men would pay large sums to be free of the stigma of servile status. It is true that no government – until 1990 – again attempted to introduce per capita taxation. The attempt of the medieval poll taxes to spread taxation more widely failed because the burden was not also spread more equitably: the rich paid less, proportionately, than the poor. So this novel form of taxation was discredited. But the English rising of 1381 was a turning point because it destroyed the complacency of the English ruling classes and in so doing it ensured that those who ruled England must in future be responsive to the wider political community. Those who governed England and those who owned the land were conscious, even if they could not bring themselves to admit it, that the despised rustici were capable of bringing the realm to its knees and that they had the organisational and military skills, and literacy, to bring this about. Just as 9/11 brought home to western Governments not only the strongly held views of Islamic believers but also the ability of Islamic extremists to organise protests on a massive scale, so too in 1381 the followers of John Ball and Wat Tyler demonstrated that they could make their voice heard. In future British governments chose to listen. History facts: 1350–1399 Impact of the 1380 Poll Tax at the flat rate of three groats (one shilling or 12 pence) a head as percentage of annual income Duke of Lancaster | 0.0005% An earl | 0.001% A knight| 0.125% A labourer | 2.5% Key years: Other important events in the second half of the 14th century 1356 – The Battle of Poitiers. Edward the Black Prince, when successfully raiding French territory from Gascony on 18 September, collided, near Poitiers, with the French army led by their king, John. The following day, more by luck than strategy, Edward, “fighting like a cruel lion”, defeated the French and took their king prisoner. This marked a high point in English ambitions in France but proved to be only a flash in the pan. 1359 – Birth of Owain Glyn Dwr who claimed the title Prince of Wales in September 1400 and led the most successful rebellion against English rule in Wales since the Conquest of 1282. Owain summoned a Welsh Parliament, promoted the Welsh language and proposed to set up two universities in his Principality. But after 1406 the revolt degenerated into guerrilla warfare which ended with Owain’s death c 1416. 1376 – The Good Parliament. In this “great” parliament the Commons seized the initiative, led by their Speaker, Peter de la Mare, and devised a new procedure “in common” – impeachment – to challenge the corrupt and self-seeking councillors around the ageing king Edward III. And for the first time in 50 years they refused to make a grant of taxation. Their self-assertion was to echo down the years. 1377 – The London ‘Jubilee Book’. The citizens of London drafted a new constitution for the city, known as the 'Jubilee Book' since it was put together in the 50th year of Edward III’s reign. Job descriptions for city officers (in the form of oaths) and procedures for election were written down to make civic government more accessible. But this attempt at transparency led to acute factionalism and the Jubilee Book was publicly burnt in 1387. 1387 – The Canterbury Tales. Although Geoffrey Chaucer began to write his best known work in this year, it was still incomplete when he died in October 1400. Undoubtedly the greatest medieval English poet, Chaucer raised the status of English as a language of courtly literature, and made it a vehicle for poetry which could also be read privately for personal enjoyment. 1388 – The battle of Otterburn. The Scots, led by James, earl of Douglas (who was killed in the battle) inflicted a notable defeat on the English at Chevy Chase in which Henry Hotspur, son of the earl of Northumberland, was captured. The defeat ended the domination of the northern border by the Percy earls of Northumberland. The subsequent truce severed the Franco-Scottish alliance which had divided the English war effort. 1394 – English expedition to Ireland. Richard II was the first English king to lead an expedition to Ireland since 1210, and the last to do so until William III fought the Battle of the Boyne nearly 300 years later. The Gaelic chiefs were persuaded to become royal vassals, royal authority extended beyond the Pale and, for a brief time, much of Ireland was incorporated into the British political system. 1395 – The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards. The Lollards nailed their outspoken criticisms of the Church, written in Latin and in English, to the doors of Westminster Hall and St Paul’s when Parliament was sitting. These Conclusions reflected the populist interpretations of the ideas of John Wycliffe (d 1384) and provoked a sharp clerical backlash. But the criticisms continued and finally triumphed in the Reformation of the 1540s. 1399 – Deposition of Richard II. Henry Bolingbroke deposed his cousin Richard as king of England by a blatant act of force, which his garbled claim citing rightful descent, divine favour and victory in battle barely concealed. The deposition of the legitimate king seriously damaged royal authority and ultimately exposed England to the miseries of the civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses. More turning points in British history Read next: 1415: The battle of Agincourt Go back: 1348: The Black Death <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2006/10/TP-Images-with-overlay7-78b4b75.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Miniature depicting a couple suffering from the blisters of the Black Death, the bubonic plague that swept Europe in the Middle Ages. From the Swiss manuscript the Toggenburg Bible, 1411. Pigment on vellum. (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)" title="Miniature depicting a couple suffering from the blisters of the Black Death, the bubonic plague that swept Europe in the Middle Ages. From the Swiss manuscript the Toggenburg Bible, 1411. Pigment on vellum. (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)" /> Caroline Barron teaches at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she is professor of the history of London. Her book, London in the later Middle Ages: Government and People, was published by Oxford University Press in 2004 This article was first published in the November 2006 issue of BBC History Magazine
Revealed: the true identity of the rebels of the Peasants' Revolt
Far from being an ill-disciplined explosion of rage, the popular uprising of 1381 was organised with near military precision. And one of the reasons for that, a new research project has revealed, was the participation of hundreds of soldiers just returned from the battlefields of France. By Adrian R Bell, Anne Curry, Herbert Eiden, Helen Killick, Helen Lacey, Andrew Prescott, Jason Sadler and Ian Waldock
Listen to this article: “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” This radical challenge to the social order was delivered by the priest John Ball as he preached to rebel leader Wat Tyler and his companions at Blackheath in June 1381 – and it has resonated ever since. What gave lords their rights to power and land, the insurgents asked. To hammer home the point, crowds of them marched on London. “Commoners” from Essex, Kent and Hertfordshire rushed through the city gates on 13 June with support not only from the lower classes of Londoners – craftsmen, journeymen, labourers, servants and lower clergy – but also from richer citizens. Public order collapsed. The houses of ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries were broken into and plundered. Amid the chaos, the young king, Richard II, and his advisers sheltered in the Tower of London. Just outside, on Tower Hill, an unbelievable drama unfolded as the rebels beheaded five men – among them Simon Sudbury, chancellor of England and archbishop of Canterbury, and Robert Hales, prior of the Knights Hospitaller and Treasurer of England – before displaying their heads on poles. Coordinated violence was breaking out across the country: at Lakenheath in Suffolk, 80 miles north-east of the capital, the rebels hunted down and beheaded the highest judge of the land, Sir John Cavendish. Large parts of England, from Somerset to Kent, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and parts of Yorkshire were in turmoil. Tensions that had been smouldering under the surface in a society already disrupted by the Black Death and inconclusive wars with France had finally erupted into unprecedented levels of rioting. It was a perfect storm: “the hurling time”, as it was afterwards to be remembered. A plan of action But who were the rebels plunging the country into chaos? The events of the summer of 1381 have traditionally been called the Peasants’ Revolt, implying that the insurgents were rural labourers, who had been pushed into rebellion by the overbearing demands of their lords. However, our major new project, “The People of 1381”, is revealing that the picture was far more complex than that. A team of historians and computer scientists has analysed a vast database of legal, governmental and manorial records relating to the revolt, among them indictments produced by jurors summoned to appear before royal justices. Our research has revealed that the rebel bands weren’t exclusively manned by rural peasants, but were instead made up of several distinct groups. And of all these cohorts, one in particular stands out. It consisted of veteran soldiers – men who had served in England’s wars with France – and they brought to the rebellion levels of planning and strategy typical of campaigning armies in the field. Their presence helped transform what otherwise may have been a chaotic explosion of public rage into a disciplined and – for a few weeks, at least – effective insurgency. The legal records indicate that the degree of organisation in the revolt was astonishing; we could even say that the actions were implemented with military efficiency. How else was it possible for insurgents from different areas to coordinate their attacks on landlords and royal officials in their localities? How else could hundreds of men from around the country advance on London together, arriving at exactly the right place, and at the right time? So what drew so many former soldiers to the rebellion? In many cases, it appears to have been a combination of anger at a raft of new taxes levied to cover the escalating cost of the French wars, and fading faith in the state. The imposition of a poll tax – which tripled between 1377 and 1380 – caused enormous resentment. It was bad enough having to pay this heavy tax, but even worse when the government’s military policies had failed. The English were losing the war. And now the French were sufficiently emboldened to launch raids on the ports and villages of southern England. With rebels in Kent feeling that they had little choice but to take the defence of the coast into their own hands, their faith in their government ebbed further still. Stirring up trouble One distinctive role of those with military experience in what we now call the Peasants’ Revolt appears to have been in actively encouraging others to join the insurgency. Indictments against the rebels give prominence to charges against those who rode from place to place spreading word of the rising. An indictment against the rebels in Cambridgeshire states that John Peper of Linton – who had fought in France under Thomas of Woodstock, Richard II’s uncle – rode with one of the main rebel groups in Cambridgeshire “carrying a lance with a pennant”. Another man, John Quenyld of Edenbridge in Kent, had received letters of protection for military service in France in 1380 but was in the King’s Bench prison in Southwark at the time of the rising. As they passed through Southwark to cross London Bridge into the city, the rebels opened the prisons, a clear statement of their lack of confidence in royal government and justice. Quenyld escaped. He had connections in Surrey and first headed in that direction. We find him triggering major disturbances in Guildford. Quenyld also joined in the attack on the city authorities in Winchester, bursting into the merchants’ hall and burning the records. Why did the peasants really revolt? This was far from an isolated incident. Across the country the rebels sought out and destroyed documents (both manorial records and government archives), symbolising both their rejection of authority and criticism of how the country was being run at a local and a national level. Often the rebels were accused of acting “in warlike manner”. In other words, they behaved as though they were at war: raising banners (seen in this period as a declaration of war), brandishing weapons commonly used in conflict – and employing these weapons with lethal force. They also used their specialist military skills. We can see from the legal records that rebels were deliberately arming themselves in preparation for their collective action. Robert Glover of Strood and Drerlyng Ceode, a barber, seized from the house of William Topcliff (a senior official of the archbishop of Canterbury) “a hauberk [shirt of mail], a target, a lance, a bow and two sheaves of arrows”. Other rebels plundered armour and protective jackets. Once in London the rebels made a beeline for the Great Wardrobe stores in the Tower of London. The list of items they stole – which included everything from mail shirts and helmets to axes and arrows – suggests that they knew what they were looking for. Rebel fighters Military veterans who waged war on the state in the summer of 1381 Robert Hull was accused of joining the rebels who entered the abbey of St Mary Graces near the Tower of London. They assaulted the abbot and forced him to give up possession of their London properties. They also tore up books, charters and muniments. Back in 1355, Hull had been the master of the king‘s ship La Isabelle, based in King’s Lynn. He was authorised to impress 30 mariners and sail for Gascony. Over 20 years, Hull travelled numerous times in royal service. It seems that he was motivated to join the rebels because his lands were close to the abbey of St Mary Graces and he resented its property acquisitions. The Stathums, from Morley in Derbyshire, came from a gentry family headed by a powerful woman, Goditha Stathum. On 18 June 1381, with news of rebellion reaching Derbyshire, Goditha seems to have encouraged her sons to attack targets linked to John of Gaunt, the king’s uncle and a man with whom the family had a longstanding feud. Four of the five brothers can be linked to military service: Ralph is likely to have fought with Sir Hugh Calverley at Calais in 1375; Thomas and William served with the Earl of Buckingham in 1380; and Robert served at Brest in 1393. John Stakepoll was listed as one of four “principal leaders and traitors” of the rebellion and was beheaded for his part in the rebellion. Yet very little was recorded about him. What we do know is that when Stakepoll died, his posses- sions consisted of a red gown, a cloak made of red and green cloth, three hoods and a pair of worn-out stockings, a pair of worn-out thigh-boots, an earth- en-ware pot, as well as a harp and a gittern (similar to a lute). The colourful clothes and musical instruments suggest that Stakepoll might have been a minstrel. However, one more item points in another direction: an overslop (an overgarment or cover) for a chain mail covering the head and neck. Could John Stakepoll also have served as a soldier? Crushing revenge Thanks to talents they had acquired on campaign, some rebels were capable of wreaking substantial damage to even the sturdiest of fortified houses – as William Topcliff discovered to his cost. Topcliff had been involved in heavy-handed judicial sessions at Dartford, provoking the residents and making him a target for the rebels. On 7 June 1381, they took their revenge. Thomas Crowe of Snodland “dragged large boulders onto the house causing it to be crushed”. The term used for Crowe’s action in dragging the boulders is “trectum”, suggesting that he might have used a large sling or trebuchet to launch the boulders that smashed Topcliff’s house to bits. Crowe was an ex-soldier with garrison experience at Calais, where he would have learned how to use a trebuchet. A number of Kent rebels were masons, and it is likely that some had been engaged in military service. Gilbert Stork and Lawrence Rockacre were accused of participating in one of the most notorious incidents of the entire revolt: the attack on the Savoy Palace, London residence of Richard II’s uncle John of Gaunt. The “expertise” these masons had gained in military service may help explain why the palace was so badly damaged that it was never rebuilt. Some of the rebels were army deserters, who had been lying low in Maidstone and Rochester after taking wages for a campaign to France but then absconding. One such was Thomas Wootton, who had been engaged to go on campaign to Brittany in the spring of 1381. Intriguingly, Wootton was named as one of the leaders of the revolt by another rebel, Robert Bennett of Barford St John in Oxfordshire, who later “turned king’s evidence” and informed on his former friends. Bennett was in prison in Southwark when the revolt erupted. He claimed that Wootton had led a band of rebels that burst into the prison and freed those inside. Bennett also claimed that, in the panic, the wife of the keeper of the prison gave him six silver spoons to keep out of rebel hands. Bennett insisted that Wootton had forced him to hand over the spoons. As a result of the allegations, all Wootton’s possessions were held until £30 had been levied in compensation for the wages he had been paid to serve with the army. The truth of Bennett’s allegations was tested through trial by battle at Newgate gaol. Bennett vanquished Wootton, who was duly executed. But this was not enough to save Bennett’s skin. For his role in the revolt, he, too, was put to death. Sea-going insurgents The rebellion didn’t just attract veterans of England’s land campaigns in France; mariners, it seems, played a role, too. In Kent, John Ellis, master of a balinger (a small sea-going vessel used to counter French raids), was said to have risen with others in the Isle of Sheppey on 11 June and to have seized land and livestock belonging to the unpopular Kentish royal official Nicholas Herring. John Ailrugge, shipman, is named in actions relating to disturbances in Bridgwater. He had served under John of Gaunt in Aquitaine in 1378. Another future rebel served on the same expedition. This was William Paynot of Weeley in Essex, who – along with an accomplice with a suggestive name, Woodgrave Mariner – was accused of inciting a rising in Essex on 27 June 1381 following the execution of the rebel John Preston of Hadleigh. Some rebels were described as “travelling-men”, representing a rootless, wayfaring way of life. One of these was John Young of Hereford, who was involved in the wool and cloth trade between Wales and England. He was engaged in 1383 to participate in a military “crusade” in Flanders under the bishop of Norwich, Henry le Despenser. Young wasn’t alone among Despenser’s future troops to have been embroiled in the revolt. The authorities attempted to prosecute Richard Crisping of Catfield for his part in the destruction of the archives of the abbey of St Benet of Holme in Norfolk in 1381. Yet the case had to be dismissed because Richard was serving in Despenser’s campaign in Flanders. By the end of June, the king and his advisors had recovered their equilibrium, the rebel leader Wat Tyler was dead, and the insurgency’s initial successes were quickly being reversed. Ironically, Henry le Despenser was heavily involved in the suppression of the revolt, leading the army that would deliver it a fatal blow at the battle of North Walsham on 25 or 26 June. But, as the case of Richard Crisping proves, that didn’t stop him recruiting a number of former rebels for his army – these were, after all, useful men to have with him on the battlefield. For generations, English soldiers – men like Crisping – had been acquiring military expertise in the many wars the nation had waged against the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish and, of course, the French. In 1381, they employed these martial skills to devastating effect once again – against the very state they fought for. Adrian R Bell, Anne Curry, Herbert Eiden, Helen Killick, Helen Lacey, Andrew Prescott, Jason Sadler and Ian Waldock are the team behind The People of 1381, a research project producing a comprehensive new interpretation of the Peasants’ Revolt. Find out more here This article was first published in the May 2021 edition of BBC History Magazine
Your guide to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381
In spring 1381, a group of rebels marched on the city of London, attacking houses and towns on their way to confront the teenage king Richard II. Historian Helen Carr explores what happened and answers key questions about the episode known as the Peasants’ Revolt, from the reasons for the unrest to the identity of Wat Tyler
When was the Peasants' Revolt? The Peasants’ Revolt took place between 30 May–15 June 1381. What happened in the Peasants' Revolt? The uprising began in the counties of Kent and Essex and snowballed from there as both rebel groups marched on London, attacking towns and villages as they went. They specifically targeted the homes of the nobility and even attacked fortifications like Rochester Castle, where they released all the prisoners held inside. At Canterbury, they demanded that the archbishop – whom they saw as an instigator of their oppression – was replaced. As they marched, the rebels accumulated huge support, in part due to fear – they threatened to destroy people’s homes unless they joined – but also due to a collective anger against the government. They reached London around 11 June and attacked suburbs of the city such as Lambeth, where they destroyed huge quantities of government records. Listen | The Peasants’ Revolt – who were the rebels of 1381? Richard II, who was only 14 at the time of the revolt, sent a message to the rebels asking the reason for their furious backlash at the crown and the country’s officials. According to the Anonimalle Chronicle, they responded that it was their desire to “save him and destroy the traitors to him and the kingdom”. Richard agreed to hear their grievances at Blackheath the following day, the Eve of Corpus Christi (12 June). As it became clear that the rebel force – growing by the day – was a threat to the safety of the king, Richard took refuge in the Tower of London along with the terrified treasurer, Robert Hales, and the archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury; both men were also targets. Peasants’ Revolt timeline: what happened when? November–December 1380 | The third Poll Tax in four years is agreed by Parliament in Northampton. 30 May 1381 | Riots begin in Kent and Essex. 7 June 1381 | Wat Tyler is appointed leader of the rebels in Kent. 7–12 June 1381 | The rebels march towards London through Rochester and Canterbury. 12 June 1381 | The rebels demand entry into the City of London. 13 June 1381 | Richard meets the rebels at Rotherhithe, but soon flees. The Savoy Palace is destroyed. 14 June 1381 | Richard meets the rebels at Mile End and agrees to their terms for the first time. Meanwhile, rebels break into the Tower of London and execute Simon Sudbury and Robert Hales. 15 June 1381 | Richard meets the rebels again at Smithfield and urges them to depart. William Walworth, the mayor of London, fights Tyler and kills him. With Tyler dead, Richard rides forward and tells the rebels to go home, and their requests would be heard. 23 June 1381 | Richard II withdraws all of the charters that had been agreed with Wat Tyler. 5 July 1381 | The pacification of the rebels begins, and executions are ordered. 13 July 1381 | John Ball is captured. After being tried for treason he is hanged, drawn and quartered on 15 July 1381. As Richard’s barge approached Rotherhithe to meet with the marchers, he was faced with thousands of armed rebels – an intimidating spectacle. On one side of the river were 50,000 Kent rebels and on the other side, another 60,000 from Essex. Unprepared for such a massive confrontation, the king’s councillors implored Richard to retreat – and the royal barge fled. The rebels were furious, and Richard’s hasty departure only added fuel to the fire. On 13 June they set about to do the most damage as had been seen in their campaign so far, destroying property – most significantly, the Savoy Palace of John of Gaunt, the third son of the deceased Edward III and the uncle of the current king Richard II. They also murdered foreign people – particularly the Flemish – and those dressed in livery, mounting their severed heads on spikes. Richard eventually agreed to meet with the rebels again to hear their terms at Mile End, but as he left the Tower of London, a band of rebels made their way in. They dragged Simon Sudbury and Robert Hales from the Tower, along with Brother William Appleton, a physician in the employ of John of Gaunt. All men were brutally executed on Tower Hill. There was one survivor, however; the young Henry of Bolingbroke, Gaunt’s son, who had allegedly been hidden in cupboard as the rebels stormed the Tower. (If he had been caught, it is unlikely he would have ever become King Henry IV 18 years later.) The Peasants’ Revolt: did Richard II side with the rebels? Eventually, at another parley on 15 June in Smithfield, the rebellion ended after an altercation between one of its leaders, Wat Tyler, and the mayor of London, William Walworth. After a skirmish, Walworth killed Tyler and the rebels disbanded, only to be pursued and made an example of in the weeks and months that followed. Who were the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt? John Ball and Wat Tyler were the most well-known leaders of the revolt. Ball, a socialist priest, was described in the Anonimalle Chronicle as “a chaplain of evil disposition”. He was a clergyman and a prophet-like figure to the rebels, stating to them that “now was a time given to them by God”. Ball counselled them with the belief that “there be no villeins not gentleman, but that we may all be united together and that the lords be no greater masters than we be”. ‘Watt Teghler’ emerged from the Kent faction of rebels as the rebellion’s head. He was a tiler of houses and represented the labouring people who took part in the revolt. There was also another leader called Jack Straw, from Suffolk, but there is speculation over his role, or even if he and Tyler were the same person. It is important to remember that, despite the name of the rebellion, it was not just ‘peasants’ who revolted; in fact, this is an incorrect description of the rebels. There were members of the clergy, ex-soldiers, landowners, women, bailiffs as well as serfs or ‘peasants’, all demanding justice and equality. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/06/GettyImages-601070198-2eae0da.jpg" width="1024" height="801" alt="Engraving depicting John Ball, an English Lollard priest who took a prominent part in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" title="Engraving depicting John Ball, an English Lollard priest who took a prominent part in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> What caused the Peasants’ Revolt? The origins of the revolt lie in the Parliament held in 1380 at Northampton. Tensions had already been high between John of Gaunt and the citizens of London, after he threatened the bishop of London and involved himself in city and mercantile affairs. It was for this reason that Parliament was held in Northampton, rather than Westminster. Here, it became clear that the crown was in a precarious financial state. The French and Spanish intimidated the coastline, and funds were urgently needed to defend both the country and important military garrisons such as Calais. It was decided that another tax would have to be implemented – and it was the labouring classes that would have to bear the brunt. The tax was raised to three times its normal amount; three groats to any person over the age of 15. Initially, this was due to be collected in two waves: the first in the early spring and the second in the summer. But the treasurer Robert Hales pushed for a single, brutal collection. This inevitably resulted in clashes and abuse – there is even evidence of collectors investigating young girls’ virginities. Eventually, it faced so much backlash that bailiffs were known to flee towns, or even refuse to collect in fear for their lives. A more formal backlash began in the town of Brentwood in Essex, as the people threatened a collector, John Bampton, who ran for his life back to London. What did the ‘peasants’ do in the Peasants' Revolt? The Kent faction, led by Wat Tyler, torched a brothel run by Flemish women on London Bridge. Once they were admitted into the city, they gathered more recruits and stormed Fleet Prison, Temple, and the property of the master of the Hospital of St John in Farringdon. Read more | This medieval ‘apocalypse’ left a legacy no one saw coming The most damage they did in London was to the Savoy Palace, the home of John of Gaunt, who was one of their main targets. Fortunately for Gaunt, he was not at home at the time and was instead negotiating with the Scots in Berwick. Although the rebels targeted Gaunt, he actually had no involvement in the raise in tax, for during the 1380 Parliament he had been on his way south from Scotland and only arrived after the arrangement had been agreed. However, this was the common people of London’s opportunity to get their revenge for his treatment of them in the past. Much of the damage done during the revolt was enacted by opportunists. London rebels broke into the Savoy and formed a pyre of Gaunt’s belongings, igniting a huge inferno. The point of the destruction was to show the wealthy the limits of their power, but some rebels unfaithful to the cause sought to fill their pockets. As they tried to sneak away laden with riches, they were struck down by their contemporaries and immediately executed for not staying true to the cause. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/06/GettyImages-515870574-6dbb5f4.jpg" width="1024" height="963" alt="King Richard II and his council go down the Thames in a barge to confer with the rebels during he Peasants' Revolt of 1381. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)" title="King Richard II and his council go down the Thames in a barge to confer with the rebels during he Peasants' Revolt of 1381. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)" /> As the damage ensued in the Great Hall, a party of around 30 rebels went exploring in the cellars, where they came across Gaunt’s supply of wine. Delighted with their discovery, they had a party and became more and more drunk. Meanwhile, two barrels were rolled onto the pyre in the Hall. It was believed the barrels were packed with gold. But, in fact, they were filled with gunpowder that, once ignited, ripped through the palace, crumbling its walls and destroying the building completely. To the horror of the rebels, the pyre exploded into a furnace that could be seen throughout London. This type of destruction was typical of the revolt. But there was also a human cost. Foreign people were caught and killed, particularly Flemings who were closely connected to the cross-Channel trade network (therefore associated with Mercantile wealth). According to the Annonimalle Chronicle, a proclamation was made stating that everyone who could lay their hands on “Flemings or any other strangers of other nations might cut off their heads". It has been suggested that some 150 or 160 foreign people were murdered in various places. A particularly barbaric attack resulted in 35 Flemish people being dragged out of the church of St Martin in the Vintry, and beheaded on the same block. Any person who was wearing Lancastrian livery – pertaining to Gaunt – also suffered the same fate. The collection of heads on spikes would have made an intimidating spectacle to terrified onlookers. The most notable victims were the two king’s councillors, Simon Sudbury and Robert Hales. Both were beheaded, and Sudbury suffered eight bloody blows before his head was finally severed from his body. What was the result? Did the Peasants' Revolt change anything? After the death of Wat Tyler on 15 June, the rebels dispersed at the request of the king. But it was not over, and Richard was keen to make an example of the rebels. The remaining ringleaders were hunted down and executed. Richard visited Essex where the rising began and ordered a pacification of its people. Uprisings were quashed outside of London and the bishop of Norwich, Henry Despenser, took it upon himself to execute rebels in his domain, without trial. 10 dangers of the medieval period After the revolt, government were cautious about imposing further tax and it was decided that the country’s war effort would need to be frugal, rather than chasing multiple opportunities. John of Gaunt never rebuilt his palace and his personal situation dramatically changed. He was left vulnerable and in fear for his life, and lived under the protection of the Scots (who were still enemies of the crown). He even ended his long-term love affair with his mistress Katherine Swynford, due to the animosity exercised towards him during the revolt. Generally, peace in the realm was considered to be the priority in the aftermath of the Peasants’ Revolt. Did the Peasants' Revolt end feudalism? The revolt didn’t end feudalism, but it paved the way for its decline. In the decades that followed, there were fewer people bonded to their lords in serfdom and landowners were fearful of their workers rising against them. This in turn lead to fairer treatment of the working classes and their wages – which had been capped in the aftermath of the Black Death – were less regulated. How did the Peasants’ Revolt change King Richard II? After the death of Wat Tyler, Richard bravely and impulsively rode up to the rebels and stood before them. He told them to depart for their homes, that the rebellion was over. He performed the role of a benevolent king, merciful to his people and bade them to leave peacefully. He swore that he would grant their wishes and no harm would come to them. How much do you know about Magna Carta, the medieval document sealed by King John in in 1215? This was a major and decisive moment in his early kingship and confirmed his sense of self-importance. Up until this point, he had relied heavily on his uncle, John of Gaunt, and the guidance of his councillors, but after 1381, Richard began to act of his accord and of his own will. This self-confidence, arrogance and sense of entitlement led to another rebellion, by his own lords, that would eventually end his reign. Discover more learning from week three of our course on life in late-medieval England Video lecture: political communities – watching time 18 mins King's justice: raising a grievance in medieval England – reading time 7 mins Henry IV: the usurper king – reading time 10 mins Richard II: "I find myself a traitor" – reading time 6 mins
The Peasants’ Revolt: who were the rebels of 1381?
The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was a key moment in the reign of King Richard II. New research is revealing just how well-organised an operation it was
The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was a key moment in the troubled reign of King Richard II. New research is revealing how, far from being an ill-disciplined explosion of rage, it was actually organised with military precision. Professor Adrian Bell and Dr Helen Lacey tell us more. You can find out more about the Estuary Festival here
Plague, famine and sudden death: 10 dangers of the medieval period
It was one of the most exciting, turbulent and transformative eras in history, but the Middle Ages were also fraught with danger. Historian Dr Katharine Olson reveals 10 of the biggest risks people faced…
Plague The plague was one of the biggest killers of the Middle Ages – it had a devastating effect on the population of Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. Also known as the Black Death, the plague (caused by the bacterium called Yersinia pestis) was carried by fleas most often found on rats. It had arrived in Europe by 1348, and thousands died in places ranging from Italy, France and Germany to Scandinavia, England, Wales, Spain and Russia. The deadly bubonic plague caused oozing swellings (buboes) all over the body. With the septicaemic plague, victims suffered from skin that was darkly discoloured (turning black) as a result of toxins in the bloodstream (one reason why the plague has subsequently been called the ‘Black Death’). The extremely contagious pneumonic plague could be contracted by merely sneezing or spitting, and caused victims’ lungs to fill up. Coffee, plague and the Great Fire: the pleasures and perils of living in Restoration London The Black Death killed between a third and half of the population of Europe. Contemporaries did not know, of course, what caused the plague or how to avoid catching it. They sought explanations for the crisis in God’s anger, human sin, and outsider/marginal groups, especially Jews. If you were infected with the bubonic plague, you had a 70–80 per cent chance of dying within the next week. In England, out of every hundred people, perhaps 35–40 could expect to die from the plague. As a result of the plague, life expectancy in late 14th-century Florence was just under 20 years – half of what it had been in 1300. From the mid-14th-century onwards, thousands of people from all across Europe – from London and Paris to Ghent, Mainz and Siena – died. A large number of those were children, who were the most vulnerable to the disease. Read more Why did 17th-century plague doctors wear peculiar beaked masks? Vanessa Harding describes the events of the 1665 Great Plague Black Death facts: your guide to "the worst catastrophe in recorded history" Travel People in the medieval period faced a host of potential dangers when travelling. A safe, clean place to sleep upon demand was difficult to find. Travellers often had to sleep out in the open – when travelling during the winter, they ran the risk of freezing to death. And while travelling in groups provided some safety, one still might be robbed or killed by strangers – or even one’s fellow travellers. Nor were food and drink provided unless the traveller had found an inn, monastery, or other lodging. Food poisoning was a risk even then, and if you ran out of food, you had to forage, steal, or go hungry. Medieval travellers could also be caught up in local or regional disputes or warfare, and be injured or thrown into prison. Lack of knowledge of foreign tongues could also lead to problems of interpretation. Illness and disease could also be dangerous, and even fatal. If one became unwell on the road, there was no guarantee that decent – or indeed any – medical treatment could be received. Listen | Elma Brenner of the Wellcome Library examines the state of healthcare in the Middle Ages and reveals some unusual remedies that were offered for people with injuries or diseases Travellers might also fall victim to accident. For example, there was a risk of drowning when crossing rivers – even the Holy Roman emperor, Frederick I, drowned in 1190 when crossing the Saleph river during the Third Crusade. Accidents might also happen upon arrival: in Rome during the 1450 jubilee, disaster struck when some 200 people in the huge crowd crossing the great bridge of Sant’ Angelo tumbled over the edge and drowned. While it was faster to travel by sea than land, stepping onto a boat presented substantial risks: a storm could spell disaster, or navigation could go awry, and the medieval wooden ships used were not always equal to the challenges of the sea. However, by the later Middle Ages, sea travel was becoming faster and safer than ever before. An average traveller in the medieval period could expect to cover 15–25 miles a day on foot or 20–30 on a horse, while sailing ships might make 75–125 miles a day. Famine Famine was a very real danger for medieval men and women. Faced with dwindling food supplies due to bad weather and poor harvests, people starved or barely survived on meagre rations like bark, berries and inferior corn and wheat damaged by mildew. Those eating so little suffered malnutrition, and were therefore very vulnerable to disease. If they didn’t starve to death, they often died as a result of the epidemics that followed famine. Illnesses like tuberculosis, sweating sickness, smallpox, dysentery, typhoid, influenza, mumps and gastrointestinal infections could and did kill. Read more | Stretched, crushed and impaled: 10 shocking torture methods from medieval history The Great Famine of the early 14th century was particularly bad: climate change led to much colder than average temperatures in Europe from c1300 – the ‘Little Ice Age’. In the seven years between 1315 and 1322, western Europe witnessed incredibly heavy rainfall, for up to 150 days at a time. Farmers struggled to plant, grow and harvest crops. What meagre crops did grow were often mildewed, and/or terribly expensive. The main food staple, bread, was in peril as a result. This also came at the same time as brutally cold winter weather. At least 10 per cent – perhaps close to 15 per cent – of people in England died during this period. Childbirth Today, with the benefits of ultrasound scans, epidurals and fetal monitoring, the risk for mother and baby during pregnancy and childbirth is at an all-time low. However, during the medieval period, giving birth was incredibly perilous. Breech presentations of the baby during labour often proved fatal for both mother and child. Labour could go on for several days, and some women eventually died of exhaustion. While Caesarean sections were known, they were unusual other than when the mother of the baby was already dead or dying, and they were not necessarily successful. Midwives, rather than trained doctors, usually attended pregnant women. They helped the mother-to-be during labour and, if needed, were able to perform emergency baptisms on babies in danger of dying. Most had received no formal training, but relied on practical experience gleaned from years of delivering babies. New mothers might survive the labour, but could die from various postnatal infections and complications. Equipment was very basic, and manual intervention was common. Status was no barrier to these problems – even Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, died soon after giving birth to the future Edward VI in 1537. Infancy and childhood Infancy was particularly dangerous during the Middle Ages – mortality was terribly high. Based on surviving written records alone, scholars have estimated that 20–30 per cent of children under seven died, but the actual figure is almost certainly higher. Infants and children under seven were particularly vulnerable to the effects of malnutrition, diseases, and various infections. They might die due to smallpox, whooping cough, accidents, measles, tuberculosis, influenza, bowel or stomach infections, and much more. The majority of those struck down by the plague were also children. Nor, with chronic malnutrition, did the breast milk of medieval mothers carry the same immunity and other benefits of breast milk today. Being born into a family of wealth or status did not guarantee a long life either. We know that in ducal families in England between 1330 and 1479, for example, one third of children died before the age of five. Bad weather The vast majority of the medieval population was rural rather than urban, and the weather was of the utmost importance for those who worked or otherwise depended on the land. But as well as jeopardising livelihoods, bad weather could kill. Consistently poor weather could lead to problems sowing and growing crops, and ultimately the failure of the harvest. If summers were wet and cold, the grain crop could be destroyed. This was a major problem, as cereal grains were the main food source for most of the population. With less of this on hand, various problems would occur, including grain shortages, people eating inferior grain, and inflation, which resulted in hunger, starvation, disease, and higher death rates. 10 dangers of Georgian London This was especially the case from the 14th through to the 16th centuries, when the ice pack grew. By 1550, there had been an expansion of glaciers worldwide. This meant people faced the devastating effects of weather that was both colder and wetter. Medieval men and women were therefore eager to ensure that weather conditions stayed favourable. In Europe, there were rituals for ploughing, sowing seeds, and the harvesting of crops, as well as special prayers, charms, services, and processions to ensure good weather and the fertility of the fields. Certain saints were thought to protect against the frost (St Servais), have power over the wind (St Clement) or the rain and droughts (St Elias/Elijah) and generally the power of the saints and the Virgin Mary were believed to protect against storms and lightning. People also believed the weather was not merely a natural occurrence. Bad weather could be caused by the behaviour of wicked people, like murder, sin, incest, or family quarrels. It could also be linked to witches and sorcerers, who were thought to control the weather and destroy crops. They could, according to one infamous treatise on witches – the Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1486 – fly in the air and conjure storms (including hailstorms and tempests), raise winds and cause lightning that could kill people and animals. Violence Whether as witnesses, victims or perpetrators, people from the highest ranks of society to the lowest experienced violence as an omnipresent danger in daily life. Medieval violence took many forms. Street violence and brawls in taverns were not uncommon. Vassals might also revolt against their lords. Likewise, urban unrest also led to uprisings – for example, the lengthy rebellion of peasants in Flanders of 1323–28, or the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 in England. Medieval records demonstrate the presence of other types of violence also: rape, assault and murder were not uncommon, nor was accidental homicide. One example is the case of Maud Fras, who was hit on the head and killed by a large stone accidentally dropped on her head at Montgomery Castle in Wales in 1288. Blood feuds between families that extended over generations were very much evident. So was what we know today as domestic violence. Local or regional disputes over land, money or other issues could also lead to bloodshed, as could the exercise of justice. Innocence or guilt in trials were at times decided by combat ordeals (duels to the death). In medieval Wales, political or dynastic rivals might be blinded, killed or castrated by Welsh noblemen to consolidate their positions. Killing and other acts of violence in warfare were also omnipresent, from smaller regional wars to larger-scale crusades from the end of the 11th century, fought by many countries at once. Death tolls in battle could be high: the deadliest clash of the Wars of the Roses, the battle of Towton (1461), claimed between 9,000 and 30,000 lives, according to contemporary reports. Discover more about crime and punishment through history Heresy It could also be dangerous to disagree. People who held theological or religious opinions that were believed to go against the teachings of the Christian church were seen as heretics in medieval Christian Europe. These groups included Jews, Muslims and medieval Christians whose beliefs were considered to be unorthodox, like the Cathars. Kings, missionaries, crusaders, merchants and others – especially from the late 11th century – sought to ensure the victory of Christendom in the Mediterranean world. The First Crusade (1096–99) aimed to capture Jerusalem – and finally did so in 1099. Yet the city was soon lost, and further crusades had to be launched in a bid to regain it. Jews and Muslims also suffered persecution, expulsion and death in Christian Europe. In England, anti-Semitism resulted in massacres of Jews in York and London in the late 12th century, and Edward I banished all Jews from England in 1290 – they were only permitted to return in the mid-1600s. From the eighth century, efforts were also made to retake Iberia from Muslim rule, but it was not until 1492 that the entire peninsula was recaptured. This was part of an attempt in Spain to establish a united, single Christian faith and suppress heresy, which involved setting up the Spanish Inquisition in 1478. As a result, the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and Muslims were only allowed to stay if they converted to Christianity. Holy wars were also waged on Christians who were widely considered to be heretics. The Albigensian Crusade was directed at the Cathars (based chiefly in southern France) from 1209–29 – and massacres and more inquisitions and executions followed in the later 13th and 14th centuries. Hunting Hunting was an important pastime for medieval royalty and the aristocracy, and skill in the sport was greatly admired. The emperor Charlemagne was recorded as greatly enjoying hunting in the early ninth century, and in England William the Conqueror sought to establish royal forests where he could indulge in his love of the hunt. But hunting was not without risks. Hunters could easily be injured or killed by accidents. They might fall from their horse, be pierced by an arrow, be mauled by the horns of stags or tusks of boars, or attacked by bears. Status certainly did not guarantee safety. Many examples exist of kings and nobles who met tragic ends as a result of hunting. The Byzantine emperor Basil I died in 886 after apparently having his belt impaled on the horns of a stag and being dragged more than 15 miles before being freed. In 1100, King William II (William Rufus) was famously killed by an arrow in a supposed hunting accident in the New Forest. Likewise, in 1143, King Fulk of Jerusalem died in a hunting accident at Acre, when his horse stumbled and his head was crushed by his saddle. The weird and wonderful world of Victorian entertainment Early or sudden death Sudden or premature death was common in the medieval period. Most people died young, but death rates could vary based on factors like status, wealth, location (higher death rates are seen in urban settlements), and possibly gender. Adults died from various causes, including plague, tuberculosis, malnutrition, famine, warfare, sweating sickness and infections. Wealth did not guarantee a long life. Surprisingly, well-fed monks did not necessarily live as long as some peasants. Peasants in the English manor of Halesowen might hope to reach the age of 50, but by contrast poor tenants in same manor could hope to live only about 40 years. Those of even lower status (cottagers) could live a mere 30 years. The final days and death of Queen Victoria By the second half of the 14th century, peasants there were living five to seven years longer than in the previous 50 years. However, the average life expectancy for ducal families in England between 1330 and 1479 generally was only 24 years for men and 33 for women. In Florence, laypeople in the late 1420s could expect to live only 28.5 years (men) and 29.5 years (women). Dying a ‘good’ death was very important to medieval people, and was the subject of many books. People often worried about ‘sudden death’ (whether in battle, from natural causes, by execution, or an accident) and what would happen to those who died without time to prepare and receive the last rites. Written charms, for example, were thought to provide protection against sudden death – whether against death in battle, poison, lightning, fire, water, fever or other dangers. Dr Katharine Olson is a lecturer in medieval and early modern history at Bangor University This article first appeared in BBC History Magazine's 'Medieval Life' bookazine
In 1381, a vast rebel army ransacked the Tower of London, burned palaces and murdered government officials. What, asks Laura Ashe, provoked this explosion of popular rage: the excesses of England’s landowners, or hatred of King Richard II?
On the night of 13 June 1381, the 14-year-old king Richard II looked out from the Tower of London to see his city burning, the streets in chaos. Thousands of armed men and women from the countryside, self-appointed representatives of the ‘Commons of the realm’, had poured into the city over London Bridge, hunting down the lords and officials they called traitors for their corruption and oppression of the poor. They targeted and attacked symbols of power, and the property of men who wielded it. They broke into the Marshalsea and Fleet prisons, releasing all the prisoners, and ransacked the lawyers’ offices in the Temple, burning all the documents they could find. Next they raided Lambeth Palace, the official residence of the hated lord chancellor, Archbishop Simon Sudbury. And, in pursuit of the king’s despised treasurer, Robert Hales, high master of the Knights Hospitallers, rebels burned down the whole estate of St John’s Priory, Clerkenwell. Meanwhile, a formidable Kentishwoman called Johanna Ferrour, together with her husband, led a party that destroyed John of Gaunt’s palace at the Savoy, hurling his valuables into the river. Gaunt’s family and servants were allowed to leave the house before it was torched, but he escaped death only because he was away from London. According to the chronicler Froissart, the shouts and cries that floated up to the king and his ministers in the Tower sounded as if “all the devils of hell were amongst them”. The Peasants’ Revolt: did Richard II side with the rebels? 10 dangers of the medieval period How bloody was medieval life? The rebels’ hit list Earlier that day, one of the uprising’s leaders, the chaplain John Ball, had told the waiting rebels, encamped on the south bank of the Thames at Blackheath, that “now was a time given to them by God”, to seize their liberty. This could not be a bloodless revolution: it would be a coup d’etat. “First the archbishop and great men of the kingdom were to be slain,” Ball declared. “After, lawyers, justices, lastly whomsoever they knew like hereafter to be hurtful to the Commons, they should dispatch out of the land.” The royal party had hoped to avoid this apocalyptic scenario by heading off the rebels before they entered the city. The insurgents agreed to parley with the king at Blackheath. Richard approached cautiously by barge down the river, but got no further than Rotherhithe, for the rebel leaders suddenly demanded that 15 of the king’s councillors – Gaunt, Sudbury and Hales chief among them – be beheaded as traitors. No further negotiation seemed possible, and the king’s party retreated in alarm. Within hours the crowd had crossed the bridge into the city. In a night of confusion and fear in the Tower, Richard’s advisors debated their course of action. Some were in favour of a violent response – hundreds of household knights under their lords’ command were stationed across London, and the mayor of the city, William Walworth, was keen to raise the militia. But the loyalties of the Londoners could not be reliably known, streets were no place for a pitched battle, and the risk of failure was too great. The Earl of Salisbury is said to have counselled the king to negotiate with the commons, and “to grant them everything that they desire, for if we start something we cannot finish we shall never recover, but we and our heirs will lose everything, and England be destroyed”. As a growing crowd surrounded the Tower, the king made his decision. He had a bland charter drawn up, and ordered a man to stand on a chair and read it out. The charter promised the rebels pardon for “all their illegal offences”, as long as they would now go home in peace and send him a letter detailing their grievances. The enraged crowd met this feeble offer with derision, and “had it cried round the city that all lawyers, all the men of the Chancery and the Exchequer and everyone who could write a writ or a letter should be beheaded”. The leaders renewed their demand that the king himself come to speak with them. So Richard sent messengers asking them to meet him on the morning of 14 June at Mile End: “a fair plain place where the people of the city did sport them in the summer season”, some distance out of the city and away from its streets. The king, Mayor Walworth and the rest rode out to meet them, leaving Sudbury and Hales alone in the Tower. 10 terrible taxes in history 5 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Plantagenets Monarchy timeline: from the Middle Ages to the modern era Death to oppressors The rebels placed their demands before the king, and they were momentous. They asked for the end of serfdom: no man henceforth was to be bound to a lord’s service or his land, but should be free to rent or buy his own property. Property rental was to be set at an affordable four pence per acre. All men were to be free to buy and sell goods at market and to bring any legal grievance to the king’s court. The rebels also demanded that all the traitors who had presided over current oppression and corruption be executed and that all who had taken part in this uprising should receive a full amnesty. Richard agreed to all these conditions – and, in doing so, apparently signalled the end of a social structure that had maintained the exploitative hierarchy of lords and serfs for centuries. But he also equivocated, saying that all “those found to be traitors” under the law would be justly punished. With this he asked the rebels to disband and go home in peace. While negotiations continued at Mile End, a separate group of rebels, again led by Johanna Ferrour, entered the Tower of London – let in by an uneasy and intimidated garrison – and proceeded to ransack it. They seized Sudbury and Hales, dragged them out to Tower Hill, and beheaded them as traitors. Some historians have suggested that Richard’s party intentionally abandoned the chancellor and treasurer in the Tower, hoping that the mob would be appeased by their deaths. The king would certainly have been unable to convince the commons of his goodwill had he been flanked by the two man held responsible for the hated taxes that had sparked the revolt. Whatever his intentions, Richard immediately, dramatically agreed to all the commons’ demands, ordering 30 scribes to issue charters on the spot, granting “freedom from bondage” to all the men of the counties. It’s unclear whether the rebels believed him. Either way, they did not disband. When news of Sudbury and Hales’ execution reached Richard, his party retreated in confusion. As for the rebels, they now sought out further targets across London, taking effective control of the city. Among those they executed was Richard Imworth, the warden of the Marshalsea prison, described by a contemporary chronicler as “a tormentor without pity”. That afternoon the king came to Westminster Abbey in procession with his party, praying at the altar and making confession, before sending out messengers and criers to announce his desire for a second meeting with the commons, this time at Smithfield. It was here, on Saturday 15 June, that Richard finally met Wat Tyler, the most famous of the rebel leaders. Tyler came forward out of the crowd, riding a little horse, and approached the king’s party. He didn’t bow, or take off his hat. He seized the king’s hand and shook it, congratulating him on making peace with the commons. We have no idea what the king’s reaction was, but all the chroniclers express horror at Tyler’s “rude and villainous manner”. Apparently, he asked for a cup of water. He then rinsed his mouth out and spat, before asking for a jug of ale, which he drank while Richard waited. The king’s party simply couldn’t stomach such provocation, it seems. Insults were hurled, and a scuffle broke out. Then the Mayor of London himself, William Walworth, lunged forward with a knife. Tyler was stabbed, before falling to the ground. At this moment, everything hung in the balance. The king’s party was small, facing a huge crowd of angry and confused rebels, whose leader had just vanished from view, surrounded by enemies. But Richard spurred his horse forward toward the crowd, shouting that he was their king, and they should follow him. He commanded them to reassemble in Clerkenwell, where he would meet them. Meanwhile Mayor Walworth rode back into the city at speed and raised the militia. When the crowds converged on Clerkenwell they found themselves leaderless, and surrounded by armed men, the mayor’s militia and the king’s knights and men-at-arms. Walworth had Wat Tyler’s head, spitted on a pike, shown to the crowd. They broke and fled. An ignorant rabble? The Peasants’ Revolt was all but over and, as events would prove over the following weeks, King Richard was in no mood to show mercy to its leaders. What irony then that the rebels never intended to do any harm to the king. On the contrary, the commons looked to Richard to be their champion, to eradicate his corrupt advisors and councillors and acknowledge all men to be equal, saving his own sovereign dignity. As they planned the advance on London, the rebels devised a password exchange: “With whom do you hold?”, to which the answer was: “With King Richard and with the true commons.” As it turned out, the rebels’ faith in their king was to prove their undoing. The revolt may have ended in chaos but it had begun as a highly organised challenge to the establishment, directed with precision by charismatic leaders, and aimed at specific revolutionary goals.Though serfs were certainly involved, it was not really a ‘peasants’ revolt’: the majority of those who can be identified were property owners, substantial people with important roles in their local communities – reeves, bailiffs, jurors, and constables, as well as clergy and local officials. Your guide to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 These men were genuinely egalitarian. Their ideology is perhaps best captured by John Ball, when he preached “that from the beginning, all men were made alike by nature, and that bondage and servitude was brought in by oppression of naughty men against the will of God. For if it had pleased God to have made bondsmen he would have appointed them from the beginning of the world, who should be slave and who lord.” This was a movement of the people, seeking wholesale social change. And it wasn’t confined to London. Across hundreds of villages in Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire and Suffolk, commoners rose up against the local authorities, burning and destroying the court records and estate archives that represented the rights and powers of their lords. The leaders of the rebellion co-ordinated strategies over many miles through letters and messengers. Their targets were political, and they wrote down their grievances and demands. They even sought written agreement and acknowledgement from the king. Those grievances were both numerous and legitimate. The devastation wrought by the Black Death in 1348–49 had had a hugely destabilising effect on the the labour market, as demand for workers outstripped supply, and wages rose. The government responded with heavy-handed attempts to prevent the rural population from benefiting at the expense of landowners. It capped wages, outlawed free movement, and strengthened the hold of lords over serfs and labourers. Mass tax evasion Serfdom lay at the very centre of public disaffection: for the unfree could be exploited by their lords at every turn. They could not withhold or charge more for their labour, had to pay a fine to marry or to inherit their position, and were liable to maintain their lords’ buildings and property. Records show that vast numbers were arbitrarily fined for attempting to find work elsewhere, or for ‘trespassing’ on the lord’s land. They were given punitive conditions in return for limited freedoms; to offer just one example, they may have been permitted to work for someone else but compelled to return to help the lord with the harvest each year. All the while, taxation became ever more burdensome, as the unending war in France took its toll. In November 1380 parliament voted to levy a poll tax at the flat rate of a shilling per head – this was three times the rate of the first poll tax, in 1377, and no longer graded according to ability to pay, as a second levy had been in 1379. There was widespread evasion and refusal, and as spring warmed into the hot summer of 1381, the government misjudged the mood of the counties in ordering ever stricter enforcement of the tax. At the end of May, a group of villagers in Brentwood, Essex set upon a tax collector, saying that they would not pay another penny. This was not purely a local protest in resentment at a punitive tax, but a conscious, and soon widespread, uprising against corruption and oppression. Within a fortnight, rebels held the Tower of London. In the revolt’s aftermath, it appeared that the commons had comprehensively lost their battle. The rebel ringleaders were rounded up and executed. John Ball, who had preached his incendiary egalitarianism so persuasively, was hanged, drawn and quartered on 15 July. All legal concessions Richard had made to the commons were repealed in parliament the following month. The king himself took part in a “visitation” of Essex to crush the remnants of rebellion there, and apparently dismissed their spokesmen with threats of death, declaring them “wretches… unworthy to live”. “You will be forever in bondage,” he promised, “not as you have been, but incomparably more vilely.” The king was wrong. The atmosphere had changed, and over the next half-century dealings between lords and their tenants shifted irrevocably. Many fines and penalties were no longer enforced, and rents fell. In 1381 there had been tens of thousands of unfree families, bonded to their lords’ service; by the mid-15th century, only handfuls remained, and the rules under which they served were only sporadically enforced. In the longer term, it is unclear how much of a legacy the leaders of the revolt could claim. In 1450 Jack Cade raised rebellion in Kent and advanced on London in indictment of Henry VI’s flawed reign, but he was captured and put to death. In 1549 Robert Kett led a rebellion that overtook much of East Anglia. In an echo of John Ball’s sermons, he demanded that “all bond men may be free, for God made all free with his precious blood shedding”. Kett too was executed as a traitor, and the establishment coupled his name with those of Wat Tyler and Jack Cade as a grim deterrent against further uprisings in the 16th and 17th centuries. When a revolution, led by Oliver Cromwell, eventually did sweep away England’s establisshment, it was directed to dramatically different ends. While the rebels of 1381 sought to construct a new, egalitarian society under the stewardship of their king, Cromwell and his comrades would send theirs to the block. Laura Ashe specialises in the literature, history and culture of medieval England at the University of Oxford and is the author of Richard II: A Brittle Glory (Allen Lane, 2016). To listen to Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Peasants’ Revolt on Radio 4’s In Our Time, click here. This article was first published in the Christmas 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine