The
Peasants Revolt was one of many uprisings that have happened in England
over centuries of popular resistance and class conflict.
The Peasants Revolt of 1381 has been seen as a watershed in the evolving relationship between the people and the state and interestingly here we see the first operations of the emergent capitalist class and its collusion with government and centralised state power. Wikipedia says:- The (Peasant's) revolt later came to be seen as a mark of the beginning of the end of serfdom in medieval England, although the revolt itself was a failure. It increased awareness in the upper classes of the need for the reform of feudalism in England and the appalling misery felt by the lower classes as a result of their enforced near slavery. This is in essence the popular reading of the anti-Poll Tax rising led by Wat Tyler, John Ball and Jack Straw, but in itself the statement does not take account of the massive impact of the Black Death on England (like most other places in late Medieval Europe) which actually changed just about everything, completely. The massive pandemic that killed millions around the world had its first point of entry to England at the southern port of Weymouth in the county of Dorset, where it was first reported in June 1348. The Black Death (which is thought to have begun in China and travelled the Silk Road) is estimated to have killed 30% – 60% of Europe's population, reducing the global population from an estimated 450 million in the mid 14th century, to between 350 and 375 million in 1400. The labour shortages that resulted from this massive cull of the population had a number of very important social and political effects, one of which was to increase the cost of labour, which now according to the law of market forces was a much scarcer and therefore more expensive commodity. This in turn changed the nature of the state which for the first time in history began to attempt to regulate the labour force in the interests of the employers, who were still at that time mostly the land owning gentry. At the same time as the Black Death England was embroiled in the Hundred Years War which were in fact a series of conflicts with France that went on for a hundred and sixteen years from 1337 to 1453. This too had an impact on the availability of (male) labourers which meant that the survivors of both the wars and the pestilence eventually found themselves with unprecedented bargaining powers within the emerging free labour market. While medical historians have disagreed about what exactly the Black Death was, the generally accepted view has been that it was Bubonic Plague other conditions may have also played a part in the mortality rate. Whatever the true cause of the deadly pandemic, the Black Death and its aftermath was to change the course of English history forever in both the temporal and the spiritual realms. It was a major driver of the social and intellectual currents that eventually resulted in capitalism, protestantism and the emergence of the centralised nation state, all trends that were already under way by the mid 14th century but which were accelerated and modified by the Black Death. In 1351 King Edward III enacted The Statute of Labourers the first law in England that could be called 'social policy' and a measure which had ramifications that are still being felt today. The economic crisis afflicting England first because of the perpetual wars with France and then the plague led to the government introducing new legislation based upon a prices and incomes policy. We therefore see the first real appearances of a 'command economy' in which the crown attempts to regulate labour in ways previously unheard of. Wikipedia comments upon the Statute of Labourers thus:- "The statute set a maximum wage for labourers that was commensurate to wages paid before the Black Death, specifically, in the year 1346. These changes, however, failed to take into account the changing economic conditions during the Black Death, and furthermore the period from which wage levels were taken was one of economic depression in England as a result of The Hundred Years War. Therefore, wages during the Black Death were set even lower to match those during this depression. It also mandated that able-bodied men and women work, and imposed harsh penalties for those who remained idle. In practice, the statute was poorly enforced and unsuccessful, but it set a precedent that distinguished between labourers who were "able in body" to work and those who could not work for whatever reasons. This distinction resurfaced in later laws regarding poverty." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Labourers_1351 As the above quote from Wikipedia suggests the effectiveness of the Statute of Labourers was compromised, in some large degree by the guile and ingenuity of the labourers themselves, but its unintended consequences was that new legislation intended to control the movement of vagrants and beggars became the first manifestation of England's welfare state. The distinction between "deserving" and "undeserving" poor has resonated in the governance of this country for more than 600 years and all our recently cobbled together Con-Dem alliance are presently doing is having that same old debate, which they of course want to dress up as 'innovative' and forward looking policy initiatives. An interesting twist in these events were the political influence of Florentine banks in London at the time of the Peasants Revolt. Earlier social tensions and economic crisis during the anti-Jewish pogroms of the latter half of the 13th century had forbidden Jews from moneylending -usury- under the Statute of Jews in 1275. Italian bankers were not so constrained and on the back of the impoverishment of England's Jews they became increasingly profitable and therefore influential in the medieval English state. When this antisemitic moral panic finally led to the mass expulsion of Jews in 1290 the London headquarters of the Riccardi merchant company of Lucca, Italy were established to fill the finance gap. Interestingly at that time all debts to Jews were written off in a way I have been promoting on this site as the modern response to alleged debt to banking institutions, finance houses etc, it is a historical precedent for ignoring demands of self appointed creditors. At this time we are seeing the beginning of the historic economic and political journey that we are now at the end of, the rise and fall of the state institutions of global capitalism. In the 13th and 14th centuries we see Lombard bankers financing the British crown and the arrival of Florentine banking institutions of the Bardi, Peruzzi and Frescobaldi companies joining the Riccardi in a finance elite with European connections. The old English coin the florin took its name at that time from the Florentine banks in London that issued them, like the contemporary Euro it was legal tender across all of Europe, although that was mostly because it was made of gold. However, the picture is of banking institutions not only subsidising the English crown but also merchant banking groups were gaining direct political power in London in their own right. As we move into the 14th century other European trading multinationals in the shape of the Hanseatic League in Germany are spreading their tentacles both east into Russia and west toward England. German export traders set up their own communities in medieval London:- "The first mention of a Hansa Almaniae (a "German Hansa") in English records is in 1282, concerning merely the community of the London trading post, only later to be made official as the Steelyard and confirmed in tax and customs concessions granted by Edward I, in a Carta Mercatoria ("merchant charter") of 1303." http://www.tititudorancea.com/z/steelyard.htm Part of that deal allowed the Hanseatic Steelyard community to elect their own alderman which initially were drawn from their own community, but as their power and influence grew this political lobby came to include local representatives (or hangers-on perhaps?) from the indigenous community. One of these first English Hansa alderman was Sir William Walworth (died 1385), who went on to become Lord Mayor of London. This is where we encounter again the Peasants Revolt because Walworth a dubious businessmen with underworld contacts a political representative of the merchant banking class and anti-usury campaigner played a decisive role in the rebellion. Here is Wikipedia's account of what happened:- His most famous exploit was his encounter with Wat Tyler during the English peasants' revolt of 1381, in his second term of office as Lord Mayor. In June of that year, when Tyler and his followers entered south London, Walworth defended London Bridge against them; he was with Richard II when he met the insurgents at Smithfield, and killed the rebel leader in circumstances which are unclear, though there is a theory that when Tyler's peasants attacked The Clink, they also damaged and destroyed many brothels, some of which belonged to Walworth, causing him a loss in revenue. Walworth raised the city bodyguard in the king's defence; for which service he was rewarded by knighthood and a pension and that is how he became 'Sir William'. He subsequently served on two commissions to restore the peace in the county of Kent. Walworth actually rode up and knifed the unarmed Tyler who had been tricked into riding out to address the young king in the hope of reaching a settlement to end serfdom and swinging, unfair Poll Tax. Wat Tyler was murdered in cold blood in front of his supporters and the Peasants Revolt ended, for a while at least. The point of this post though is to suggest that the current struggles in England against a Con-Dem axis in the thrall of alien influences and bankster corruption and crime at the highest levels of society is nothing new at all. So was the Peasants Revolt in England the failed attempt by the working classes to free themselves from bondage and tyranny during the birth of mercantile capitalism? Official 'school' histories have tended to portray it that way, a defeat for popular political power a bad omen for subsequent notions of democracy and 'socialism', because the rebel leaders were challenging the preordained order of medieval English society after the plague. Foremost amongst these was heretical proto-Protestant cleric John Ball, who coined the famous verse; "While Adam delved (dug) and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?" There had been no group of non- working layabouts in that time said Ball, so why should they be tolerated now? Labour was extolled as grace over indolent privilege. But of course Protestantism was not halted in its tracks even if one of its earliest expressions in England Lollardism was ruthlessly suppressed, but unstoppable changes were set in train.
On the surface, the peasants were crushed, their demands denied, and many executed.
However, the land owners had been scared, and in the longer term several things were achieved
EPILOGUE
The period briefly touched upon in this post is the time when the conditions we are now faced with first emerged as responses to physical, economic, political, religious and cultural changes after the initial shock of the Black Death. Many complex social forces were set in train at the beginning of the capitalist hegemony and now it is itself decaying and folding under its own contradictions we are confronting some of the old issues again. They have set in motion another Hundred Years War and another economic crisis to be the mutual benefit of the bankers and the figureheads. It's all been done before! Again the maxim forewarned is forearmed demonstrates its utility.....never ride out unarmed and alone to negotiate with the CEO of Monsanto or of Exxon Mobil, that's one of the overwhelming lessons of the Peasants Revolt to me...always have an army close by! One final point of history...today Wat Tyler has a country park named after him near his birthplace in Basildon, Essex (including the sculpture park in the picture at the top of the page)... more here
But,
no such distinction for his murderer and Hanseatic patsy William
Walworth....so maybe the Peasants Revolt was a lot more successful than
its enemies would have us think it was?
2 CommentsChronological Reverse Threaded
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Archive Post "Perpetual War, Medieval Bankers" Nov 2010
Aaron,
I'm inclined to agree with you - we're set up for a new Peasant's
Revolt - it would be interesting to speculate on its character and
conclusion.... 
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