HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-03-05T16:04:15.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Inside Britain's first refugee camp: a 300-year history of immigration
items: How King John helped bring about a political miracle in medieval England
items: Why there’s no such thing as a typical medieval peasant
items: The Peasants’ Revolt: everything you wanted to know
items: 1381: The Peasants’ Revolt
items: Revealed: the true identity of the rebels of the Peasants' Revolt
items: Your guide to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381
items: The Peasants’ Revolt: who were the rebels of 1381?
items: Plague, famine and sudden death: 10 dangers of the medieval period
items: Why did the peasants really revolt?

Inside Britain's first refugee camp: a 300-year history of immigration
type: item
date: 2026-03-02T15:30:01.000Z
creator: Kavita Puri
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
description: "This was the site for what may have been Britain’s first refugee camp", writes Kavita Puri
encoded: 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. …

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How King John helped bring about a political miracle in medieval England
type: item
date: 2024-08-07T20:02:44.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Hundred Years War
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: 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
encoded: 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.…

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Why there’s no such thing as a typical medieval peasant
type: item
date: 2022-10-20T08:21:46.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Medieval life
description: 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
encoded: 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 A…

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The Peasants’ Revolt: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2022-07-10T11:32:54.000Z
creator: Spencer Mizen
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
description: Helen Carr responds to listener questions on the major uprising that rocked medieval England in 1381
encoded: 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.

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1381: The Peasants’ Revolt
type: item
date: 2021-12-27T07:08:18.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Turning points in British history
description: 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
encoded: 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 T…

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Revealed: the true identity of the rebels of the Peasants' Revolt
type: item
date: 2021-06-16T13:47:53.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: 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
encoded: 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 rebellio…

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Your guide to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381
type: item
date: 2021-04-28T18:45:56.000Z
creator: Helen Carr
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Medieval life
description: 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
encoded: 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 C…

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The Peasants’ Revolt: who were the rebels of 1381?
type: item
date: 2021-04-28T11:28:08.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: 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
encoded: 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

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Plague, famine and sudden death: 10 dangers of the medieval period
type: item
date: 2020-07-10T15:00:05.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Medieval life
description: 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…
encoded: 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 r…

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Why did the peasants really revolt?
type: item
date: 2019-06-13T14:50:17.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Medieval life
description: 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?
encoded: 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, l…

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