“Things would not go well with England until everything was held in common….”[1]
The summer of 1381 saw widespread discontent among ordinary workers, which resulted in the largest popular uprising in Medieval England.[2] Peasants, agricultural workers, craftsmen and villagers marched on London and demanded freedom from the bonds of serfdom. For two whole days they controlled the City, murdering the Archbishop of Canterbury and assaulting the king’s mother in the process. But what caused these so-called ‘peasants’ to revolt? The Poll Taxes of 1377-81 were certainly the catalyst for the uprising, placing a financial burden on ordinary people in order to pay for Richard II’s failing military campaigns abroad. But the origins of the revolt are to be found in the events of the summer of 1348…
Sitting in St Albans Abbey, the chronicler and monk, Thomas Walsingham, wrote these famous words describing the events of that year,
‘towns once packed with people were emptied of their inhabitants, and the plague spread so thickly that the living were hardly able to bury the dead.’[3]
The Black Death was a deadly disease caused by the bacterium, Yersinia Pestis. The first signs of this fatal illness were betrayed
‘by the emergence of certain tumours in the groin or armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg.’[4]
The Black Death spread rapidly along the major trade routes from the Far East, through Europe and arrived in England in the late summer of 1348. It killed between a third and half of England’s population and had lasting effects on late medieval society and the economy.[5]
The most obvious and immediate effect of the Black Death was the significant reduction in population size. Before its arrival, England’s population had been growing and resources, such as land and food, were becoming strained. However, after the Black Death there were fewer people, meaning that these resources could go much further and the price of land and food dropped significantly. This meant that those who were lucky enough to survive the Black Death could afford more than ever before. Survivors also realised that there was the same amount of work to be done with fewer people, so they started to demand higher wages.[6] For the majority of ordinary people, this was the first time they could choose who they worked for and at what price.
However, the government were opposed to this and began implementing legislation to prevent it. In 1351 they introduced the Statute of Labourers. This fixed wages at pre-Plague levels and tried to stop men and women moving to different (and often better paid) jobs.[7] Then in 1363, the government introduced sumptuary legislation. This introduced rules about what people could and couldn’t wear depending on their social class. For example, merchants couldn’t wear the same clothes as gentlemen. The colour and type of material, along with the amount of jewels and adornment you could wear, were dictated depending on your social status.[8]
The drastic drop in England’s population and the increased opportunities and resources available to those lucky enough to survive meant that ordinary workers could earn more money and purchase land, property and luxury items. The rising aspirations of ordinary men and women, combined with the desire of the king and nobility to keep them in their place, meant that from the mid-fourteenth century there were increasing tensions between the government and the commons. This increasing tension was finally brought to a head by the poll taxes, as seen in the explosive events of the summer of 1381.
By Claire Kennan.
Claire is a Citizens 800 Project Officer and PhD researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London.
[1] John Ball’s observations in ‘The Causes of the Revolt according to Froissart’, in R. B. Dobson, The Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 (London: Macmillan, 1970), p. 371.
[2] Nigel Saul, Richard II (London: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 56.
[3] ‘The Plague according to Thomas Walsingham’ in Rosemary Horrox, The Black Death (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 65-6.
[4] ‘Giovanni Boccacio: The Plague in Florence’ in Horrox, p. 27.
[5] Saul, p. 59.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] ‘Sumptuary Legislation, 1363’ in Horrox, pp. 340-2.
