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Peasants revolt in england school project
A 1200 word essay on the Peasants Revolt
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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.
Joint action against `Bad' lordship: The peasants' revolt in Essex and Norfolk.
Russell, Josiah Cox (1948). British Medieval Population. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Henderson, Ernest F. (__) Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages
The Great Revolt of 1381
Anonimalle Chronicle: The English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 Charles Oman, The Great Revolt of 1381 , (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), pp. 200-203, 205
England in the Aftermath of the Black Death
GOOGLE BOOKS The English Rising of 1381
'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
Peasant road to capitalism
Peasant Politics and Class Consciousness: The Norfolk Rebellions of 1381
Farmers were once known for being able to do everything themselves. They grew their own food and sewed their own clothes. People often yearn for the old days and complain about so many people living in cities. Many farmers had to give up their farms and move to the cities, because of something that happened in the late nineteenth century.
One final effect that the Black Death had on Medieval Europe was that the demand for labor was high. Due to the death of many laborers, the chances of being employed were high. One piece of evidence stated,” the new winners, the people at the bottom of the social ladder, saw their one valuable asset-labor- increase dramatically in value, and with it their standard of living rise (Document 8).” Another piece of evidence to go along with it states,” Due to the shortage of workers all labor became very valuable and in-demand (Document
[17] Marion L. Starkey, A Little Rebellion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1955), xiv.
The causes of the peasants’ revolt included lack of compensation for services, feelings of spiritual inequality, lords refusing peasant freedom without reimbursement, and the peasants’ manipulation of Lutheran principles; while the responses to the revolt incorporated negativity, violence, and authority
German peasants faced monetary injustices and oppression from their lords during the 16th century which sparked revolts to occur in 1524. The peasants sought to overthrow the feudal system as they realized that they were being treated unjustly by their lords with the unsuitable compensation they were receiving for their labor and the heavy taxes that were being placed on them. Religious teachings such as of those of Martin Luther were also a motive behind the revolts. The primary causes of the German peasants’ revolts were based off of economic and religious factors. These revolts provoked many responses by figures of nobility and citizens that varied from disapproval to those of sympathy.
McFall, J. Arthur. "Ill-Fated Crusade Of The Poor People." Military History 14.6 (1998): 26. MAS
So the peasants were extremely poor at that time. After the Black Death, population decreased, serfs and peasants were able to move around and they had much more freedom than before. They were no longer belong to the lord, and had choices of who they would work for. Most peasants chose to work for high paid jobs. The landowners, in order to attract people to work for them, provided the workers tools, housing and land. “The worker farmed all he could and paid only the rent.” The better treatment of serfs weakened the manorialism, as well as the decline of nobles.The plague killed so many people, and even nobles could not escape. The wealthy families were incapable of continuing growing, because their descendants died. So their position could not be passed on. Many families extinct. To fix this problem, the government setted up a new inheritance law which allowed both sons and daughter inherited property.
The Peasant’s Revolt occurred in 1525 because the wealth of the nation was not being distributed among the people equivalent, in conjunction with the wealth not being equally divided the sharecropper wanted serfdom to be abolished. The farmhands used the Word of God to show they were in the right to rebel. Public affairs also had a role in the revolution. The laborers forced the hand of the nobles to collaborate in the insubordination.
In the 1340’s, an epidemic named the Black Death, erupted through Europe, killing nearly ⅓ of its population. The Black Death originated in China, rapidly spreading to western Asia and Europe. It killed about 30 million people in Europe plummeting its population. A lot of these people were peasants. This was because they had the least money, therefore putting them in the worst living conditions. There were so many of them that no individual could make a substantial amount of money. When the plague hit, the peasants were strongly affected. A huge population of them were killed. After the epidemic, the population of peasants was far less than before. This provided them with a chance to really improve their lives. The Black Death caused a change
One of the most important results of the Black Death is the end of feudalism. The labor force was so low that workers could refuse to work, demand a wage, and the aristocrats had no choice but to listen. Peasant revolts in France and England also played an important role in the end of feudalism. The French government, in an attempt to pay ransom to England for the return of their king, spiked tax rates on the French residents. The peasants at the time felt that the government was weak, and the increased taxes infuriated them, resulting in a rebellion that came to be known as the Jacquerie. Similar events took place in England a generation later. In 1381, peasants rebelled against high tax rates and frozen wages by marching on London an...
De France, Marie. Lanval The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Middle Ages. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: New York, 2006.
A hierarchical society of Kings granting land to nobles, who would then give a fief to a knight in return for service. The knight would then have peasants or serfs working on their fief. However, as the plague spread, many peasants died and their labour could not be replaced. This loss of workforce had a significant impact upon the economy as grain was not being harvested and livestock roamed free. The agrarian economy had been severely damaged, the land became uncultivated and returned back to its natural state.
From the Middle ages, the church faced many problems such as the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism that hurt the prestige of the church. Most of the clergy lived in great luxury while most people were poor and they set an immoral example. The clergy had low education and many of them didn’t attend their offices. Martin Luther had witnessed this himself, “In 1510 he visited Rome and was shocked to find corruption on high ecclesiastical places”
Carswell, John. The Descent on England; a Study of the English Revolution of 1688 and Its European Background. New York: John Day, 1969. Print.
The Roman Catholic Church had complete influence over the lives of everyone in medieval society, including their beliefs and values. The Church’s fame in power and wealth had provided them with the ability to make their own laws and follow their own social hierarchy. With strong political strength in hand, the Church could even determine holidays and festivals. It gained significant force in the arts, education, religion, politics as well as their capability to alter the feudal structure through their wealth and power. The Church was organised into a hierarchical system that sustained the Church’s stability and control over the people and lower clergy, by organising them into different groups.