LibGuides: Middle Ages: Peasants' Revolt

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The Peasants' Revolt

BBC The Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt in 1381 is viewed as a turning point, enabling peasants together, to demand more freedoms from their Lords.
Peasants and their role in rural life
By exploring illuminations depicting rural life, Dr Alixe Bovey examines the role of the peasant in medieval society, and discusses the changes sparked by the Black Death.
Peasants' Revolt - reasons
What were the peasants angry about and why had they come to London?
Wat Tyler and the Peasants' Revolt
An account of the march the peasants undertook to London and the encounter with the Kind and Wat Tyler and the Lord Mayor.

Impact of the Peasants' Revolt

1381: The Peasant’s Revolt
In 1381, however, centuries of feudal serfdom and a changed social situation lead to a widespread revolt of the downtrodden peasants across the country. Though the revolt was defeated by the King’s forces, it was certainly the instigator of social change in Medieval England, and has been referenced by left-leaning historians and politicians ever since.
Why was the Peasants' Revolt so significant?

Podcast: The Peasants' Revolt

The Peasant's Revolt
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the Gentleman?" these are the opening words of a rousing sermon, said to be by John Ball, which fires a broadside at the deeply hierarchical nature of fourteenth century England. Ball, along with Wat Tyler, was one of the principal leaders of the Peasants’ Revolt – his sermon ends: "I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty". (43 mins 2006)
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The subsequent events of June 1381 represent a pivotal and thrilling moment in England’s history, characterised by murder and mayhem, beheadings and betrayal, a boy-King and his absent uncle, and a general riot of destruction and death. By most interpretations, the course of this sensational story threatened to undermine the very fabric of government as an awareness of deep injustice was awakened in the general populace.But who were the rebels and how close did they really come to upending the status quo? And just how exaggerated are claims that the Peasants’ Revolt laid the foundations of the long-standing English tradition of radical egalitarianism? With Miri Rubin, Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London; Caroline Barron, Professorial Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London; Alastair Dunn, author of The Peasants’ Revolt - England’s Failed Revolution of 1381.

Historian Juliet Barker provides the real reasons for the revolt. She also likes to call it the Great Revolt because it involved all members of society, not just peasants.

Focus Questions

What were the key causes of your event?
What were the key stages/moments and locations in your event?
How, when and where did it happen?
What were the impacts of your event on medieval society (both short-term and long-term) i.e. how did your event change the structure or ideas of society.
In your opinion was the impact of this event largely positive, negative or both?
Explain with reference to at least two different historians’ opinions.

Poll Tax

The word "poll" is an English word that once meant "head," hence the name poll tax for a per-person tax.

In 1377, everyone over the age of 14 and not exempt had to pay a groat (2 pence) to the Crown. In 1379, the tax was again levied, but on a graduated scale by social class. John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, paid ten marks, and the scale descended from him to the peasants, who paid one groat each, every person over sixteen years of age being liable.

In 1380, the tax was also graduated, but less steeply. The levy in 1381 was particularly unpopular, as each person aged over 15 was required to pay the amount of one shilling, which was a large amount at the time. This provoked the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, due in part to attempts to restore feudal conditions in rural areas.

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Middle Ages: Peasants' Revolt

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