The end of a revolt
Richard West
The climax of the Peasants' Revolt came in London, in June 1381, when the boy king, Richard II, confronted the mob and talked them, some would say tricked them, into obedience to the law. The rebels had murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury among many notables; Wat Tyler himself was cut down in front of the king; but there was no general massacre,. no revolution. The revolt ended for want of food in the capital.
But the events in London had two characteristics familiar to us today: hostility towards foreign immigrants, and fighting amongst the working class. The Flemish were the chief victims of xenophobia, the Jews having been banished earlier in the century. On Corpus Christi Day, the Commons (meaning the common people) 'broke down a brothel near London Bridge, occupied by Flemish women who had farmed it from the Mayor of London'. A few days later the Commons issued a proclamation 'that whoever catch any Fleming or other aliens of other nations might cut off their heads'. Some 30 Flemings who had taken sanctuary in a church were killed in this fashion. The only reference to the Peasants' Revolt by Chaucer, who may have been present in London, comes in the 'Nun's Priest's Tale' when Chaunticleer, the conceited cock, is borne away by the fox: Certes, he Jakke Straw and his meynee, Ne made never shoutes half so shrill When that they wolden any Fleming kille As thilke day was maad upon the fox The Commons, or mob, was split by a quarrel within the guilds and between different groups of guilds. In particular, the different victualling guilds wanted to get a monopoly of the food sold in London and other towns; an aim opposed by the manufacturing guilds like mercers, drapers and so on. Their leader, John of Northampton, tried to subvert the monopoly of the victuallers by allowing non-guild members, and even foreigners, to sell fish on the London market. The two groups of guild members took political sides, with Northampton and friends opposing the King, while the victuallers supported him. The hatred within the Labour Party, This Great Movement of Ours, dates back to before its very foundation.
Contemporary chroniclers of the Peasants' Revolt were accused of sensationalism; of being as bad as the modern press, to quote one recent critic. Some, like Walsingham, were opinionated but most of them tried to be accurate and fair. Accounts differ on certain events like Wat Tyler's death; but anyone who has heard reports of a car crash, for instance, will know how few people can give a good narrative of a sudden, violent happening.
The chroniclers of the time may have erred in reporting the aftermath of the Peasants' Revolt; they liked to imply that only the special leniency of the king prevented a dreadful vengeance against the rebels. But modern research has shown that legal proceedings later on were done with patience and justice. Those who were hanged, drawn and quartered had been responsible for at least one murder; some of those who were implicated were let off with fines or banishment.
It was later history books that tried to interpret the Peasants' Revolt as either an upsurge of Protestantism or Socialism. Certainly there were plenty of men in England in 1381 who castigated the vice and greed of the Church; but not all these men wanted doctrinal change. For instance Langland's story of Piers Ploughman sets out to contrast the principles of the church with the lives of some of the prelates; it does not attack the principles, any more than Dante had done when consigning his Popes to hell.
The levelling sermons of John Ball that s° appeal to our modern socialists were quoted by people like Froissart to show up what they considered Ball's absurdity. The equal division of worldly goods was not a popular or approved idea, even among the most radical 14th century thinkers, as one learns from Langland. When Piers Ploughman askes Lady Holy Church . . the money of this molde, that men so faste holdeth, Tell me to whom, Madame, that tresore appendeth', she quote Christ's saying about 'Render unto Caesar', then goes on to explain that . . . rightful reason shulde rewle you alle, And kynde wytte be wardeyne your welthe to kepe . . .
which is not quite the same as socialism.
The Peasants' Revolt has always been treated gingerly by later radical writers, who seem undecided whether or not it was really a good thing. It had unpleasant aspects such as the persecution of foreigners; it was really a middle-class rather than a peasants' rebellion; and some of the best radical writers, like Cobbett and Chesterton, recognised that life in the 14th century was in most ways better than in those that followed. In fact it is possible to maintain that the deposition and murder of Richard II started England's decline to the 'present barbarism. The Peasants' Revolt can be understood as a protest against the villein system or serfdom; but also against the future, far worse tyrannies of the House of Commons, the Civil Service and the trade unions, which now wield greater and more arrogant power than any mediaeval king. Reading about the Peasants' Revolt, I found that one contemporary chronicler tried to explain it away with a very modern catch-phrase, one parroted by Dr Heinz Kiosk, the arch psychiatrist of the Daily Telegraph's 'Peter Simple' column. His verdict on all events was coined 600 years ago by Thomas Walsingham, in the Historia Anglicana. After making his own eccentric observations about the Peasants' Revolt, which he blamed largely on mendicant friars Walsingham wrote 'Sed ne videamur livore scripsissa praesentia' — 'But lest it should seem that we have written these things out of spite' — 'fatemur nos omnes in cu/pa' — us admit that we are all guilty . .
This is the last of four 'articles commemorating the 600th anniversary of the Peasants' Revolt
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