Popular revolts in late-medieval Europe

Richard II of England meets the rebels of the Peasants' Revolt

Popular revolts in late medieval Europe were uprisings and rebellions by (typically) peasants in the countryside, or the bourgeois in towns, against nobles, abbots and kings during the upheavals of the 14th through early 16th centuries, part of a larger "Crisis of the Late Middle Ages". Although sometimes known as Peasant Revolts, the phenomenon of popular uprisings was of broad scope and not just restricted to peasants. In Central Europe and the Balkan region, these rebellions expressed, and helped cause, a political and social disunity paving the way for the expansion of the Ottoman Empire.

Background

Before the 14th century, popular uprisings (such as uprisings at a manor house against an unpleasant overlord), though not unknown, tended to operate on a local scale. This changed in the 14th and 15th centuries when new downward pressures on the poor resulted in mass movements of popular uprisings across Europe. To provide an example of how common and widespread these movements became, Germany between 1336 and 1525 witnessed no fewer than sixty instances of militant peasant unrest.

Most of the revolts expressed the desire of those below to share in the wealth, status, and well-being of those more fortunate. In the end, they were almost always defeated and the nobles ruled the day. A new attitude emerged in Europe, that "peasant" was a pejorative concept, it was something separate, and seen in a negative light, from those who had wealth and status. This was an entirely new social stratification from earlier times when society had been based on the three orders, those who work, those who pray, and those who fight, when being a peasant meant being next to God, just like the other orders. Now peasants gained an image as almost sub-human.

Causes

Michele di Lando, placed in the office of gonfaloniere of Florence by the revolt of the Guild-less Ciompi

There were five main reasons for these mass uprisings: 1) an increasing gap between the wealthy and poor, 2) declining incomes of the poor, 3) rising inflation and taxation, 4) the external crises of famine, plague and war, and 5) religious backlashes.

The first reason was that the social gap between rich and poor had become more extreme. The origins of this change can be traced to the 12th century and the rise of the concept of nobility. Dress, behaviour, manners, courtesy, speech, diet, education — all became part of the noble class, making them distinct from others. By the 14th century the nobles had indeed become very different in their behaviour, appearance and values from those "beneath".

The second reason was a crisis for the nobles with declining income. By 1285 inflation had become rampant (in part due to population pressures) and some nobles charged rent based on customary fixed rates, based on the feudal system, so as the price of goods and services rose from inflation, the income of those nobles remained stagnant, effectively dropping. To make matters worse, the nobles had become accustomed to a more luxurious lifestyle that required more money. To address this, nobles illegally raised rents, cheated, stole, and sometimes resorted to outright violence to take what they wanted.

Third, kings who needed money to finance wars resorted to devaluing currency by cutting silver and gold coins with less precious metal, which resulted in increased inflation and in the end, increased tax rates.

Fourth, the 14th century crisis of famine, plague, and war put additional pressures on those at the bottom. The plague drastically reduced the numbers of people who were workers and producing the wealth.

Finally, layered on top of this was a popular ideological view of the time that property, wealth and inequality was against the teachings of God, as expressed through the teachings of the Franciscans. The sentiment of the time was probably best expressed by preacher John Ball during the English Peasant Revolt when he said, "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?", criticizing economic inequality as human-made rather than a creation of God.

Notable rural revolts

The rebellion of György Dózsa in 1514 spread like lightning in the Kingdom of Hungary where hundreds of manor-houses and castles were burnt and thousands of the gentry killed by impalement, crucifixion and other methods. Dózsa is here depicted punished with heated iron chair and crown

• The peasants' revolt of 996 in Normandy.
• The Ivaylo rebellion in Bulgaria 1277-1280. In the wake of some disastrous Mongol incursions into the Bulgarian Empire, the swineherd Ivaylo led a popular revolt against the Bulgarian tsar Constantine I who was proving inadequate when it came to dealing with the threat. He gained notable popularity among his fellow peasants and managed to overthrow the tsar (reportedly killing him personally), ascending to the throne in 1278. For a certain period of time, he was successful against the Mongols and managed to decisively defeat a larger Byzantine army in the battle of Devina. His success was short-lived however and eventually he lost support.
• The Peasant revolt in Flanders 1323–1328. Beginning as a series of scattered rural riots in late 1323, peasant insurrection escalated into a full-scale rebellion that dominated public affairs in Flanders for nearly five years.
• The St. George's Night Uprising of 1343-1345 in Estonia.
• The Jacquerie was a peasant revolt that took place in northern France in 1356-1358, during the Hundred Years' War.
• The English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 or Great Rising of 1381 is a major event in the history of England. It is the best documented and best known of all the revolts of this period.
• The revolt against the regency of Elizabeth of Bosnia as Queen of Hungary from 1382 onwards.
• The Irmandiño Revolts in Galicia in 1431 and 1467.
• The Budai Nagy Antal Revolt broke out in Transylvania in 1437. The military tactics of the rebels were inspired by the Hussite Wars (for example, the use of battle wagons).
• The Kent rebellion of 1450 led by Jack Cade.
• The Rebellion of the Remences in Catalonia in 1462 and 1485.
• The Cornish Rebellion of 1497 in Cornwall and London.
• The Cruel Fat Thursday Revolt in Friuli in 1511.
• The 1514 peasant's war led by György Dózsa in the Kingdom of Hungary.
• The Slovene peasant revolt of 1515 engulfed most of what is now Slovenia.
• The Jelali revolts in the Ottoman Empire.
• The Knights' Revolt of 1522-1523 in Germany.
• The German Peasants' War of 1524-1526 in the Holy Roman Empire.
• The Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 in England.
• The Dacke War of 1542 in Sweden.
• The Wyatt's rebellion of 1554 in England.
• The Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549 in Cornwall and Devon.
• The Croatian–Slovene peasant revolt of 1573 was a large peasant revolt in Croatia.
• The Cudgel War uprising 1596 in Finland.
• The peasant wars of Ivan Bolotnikov and Stenka Razin in the 17th-century Russia.
• The Swiss peasant war of 1653.

Notable urban revolts

• The Zealots, Thessalonica, Byzantine Empire, 1342-1350.
• The revolt of Cola di Rienzi in central Italy in 1354.
• The Revolt of the Ciompi in 1378 in Florence.
• The Hammermen's revolt in Rouen and Paris in 1382.
• The uprising in Dalarna, Sweden in 1434, 1519 and 1524
• The Revolt of the Germanies from 1519–1523 in Aragon.
• The Revolt of the Comuneros from 1520–1521 in Castile.

Terminology

Defeat of the Jacquerie

Different historians will use different terms to describe these events.

Peasant

The word peasant, since the 14th century (or even before), has a pejorative meaning and is not a neutral term. However, it was not always that way; peasants were once viewed as pious and seen with respect and pride. Life was hard for peasants, but life was hard for everyone. As nobles increasingly lived better quality lives, there arose a new consciousness of those on top and those on bottom, and the sense that being a peasant was not a position of equality. This new consciousness coincided with the popular uprisings of the 14th century.

Research by Rodney Hilton in the 1970s showed that the English Peasant Revolt of 1381 (or Great Rising) was led not by peasants, but by those who would be the most affected by increased taxation: the merchants who were neither wealthy, but not poor either. Indeed, these revolts were often accompanied by landless knights, excommunicated clerics and other members of society who might find gain or have reason to rebel. Although these were popular revolts, they were often organized and led by people who would not have considered themselves peasants.

Peasants is typically a term used for rural agrarian poor while many uprisings occurred within towns and cities by tradesmen, thus the term is not fully encompassing of events as a whole for the period.

For historical writing purposes, many modern historians will use the word peasant with care and respect, choosing other phrases such as "Popular" or "from below" or "grassroots", although in some countries in central and eastern Europe where serfdom continued up to the 19th century in places, the word peasant is still used by some historians as the main description of these events.

Further reading

• Mollat and Wolff, The Popular Revolutions of the Late Middle Ages, 1973 ISBN 0-04-940041-X
• Fourquin, The Anatomy of Popular Rebellion, 1978 ISBN 0-444-85006-6
• Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., ed. and trans., Popular Protest in Late Medieval Europe: Italy, France and Flanders, Selected Sources Translated and Annotated, Manchester University Press, 2004.