The English Peasant Uprising

The English Peasant Uprising was motivated by a growing contempt with the government and clergy following the Black Death which was finally set off by a series of immediate social and economic causes. A shortage of workers followed the Black Death with an estimated forty-five per cent of the population dying in England . As entire towns were either deserted or left devoid of life, rural peasants increased their mobility into major cities. This shortage of rural workers led to famine as fields were left to go fallow, placing further economic pressure on the peasant classes who survived as the price of food increased. Due to the lack of labourers, the labourers who survived demanded greater wages as they now had increased leverage over employers. This ultimately led to economic inflation due to the increased labour cost to the upper classes. This was met with resistance from King Edward III and parliament, who issued the Ordinance of Labourers 1349 and the Statute of Labourers 1351 in an attempt to fix workers’ rates to that of before the Black Death and prohibit an increase in wages beyond pre-established limits . This put great stress on the peasantry as they were forced to work throughout famine for greater hours for limited pay under inflated prices and seeded an antipathy for the government.

The general attitude towards the Church as an institution was also responsible for the English Peasant Uprising. At this time, the Church was still a major landowner with almost 60% of English land held by the Church . However, 40% of priests and monks died to the Black Death and the shortage of ecumenical authorities lead to good wages offered for people to step into the clergy . This lead many people unsuited to the roles of religious...

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...ts Revolt of 1381. Bath: Pitman. pp. 373.

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Russell, Josiah Cox (1948). British Medieval Population. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

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'The Peasants Revolt', in The Medieval Reader, edited by Norman Cantor (New York: Harper Collins, 1994), 284-93.

E.B. Fryde, The Great Revolt of 1381, London: The Historical Association, 1981, 5-33

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