This historical text was written by the monks from Evesham Abbey just after the uprising was stifled. These events took place on June 14th at a place called Smithfield, in the area of London and surrounding places due to the riots started around the south east of England and converged in London City. What we can extract of this text is the way of how a young king, Henry II, with the most valuable help of William Walworth, Mayor of London, defeated the insurgents by killing their leader Wat Tyler.The main idea we obtain of this writing is a formidable peasants’ army fighting for their freedom after being forced to be serfs by land owners and cut their incomes through low wages in order to raise benefits for their lords.
But not only peasants upraised also artisans and skilled labourers inside cities Additionally, the Church plays his own role. Some members of the Church support the fight of common people from parishes and beside them.Others protect the interest of the Church staying beside the King and protecting its incomes “…should be equality among all people save only the King…” “…clergy already in possession (of the goods of Holy Church) should have a sufficient sustenance from the endowments…” The events related in this document have been highly contrasted by different sources. It is easy to find references through prestigious sources as it is the Britannica Encyclopedia, the National Archives or authors like Charles Oman, R.
B. Dobson or Nigel Saul.Concerning to the type of document under this analysis we could call it a chronicle, it is the most similar to a journalist medieval account of happenings, carried out by the usual notaries, the monk. But, in contrast to today readers, medieval readers and copies were not so numerous.
The document is recounted as a narrative description. The events happen chronologically with the recount of the incidents one after another. The gathering of the king and the peasants, the meeting between Henry II and Wat Tyler, the requests made to the king, the charges (near insults) of the valet shouted against Tyler.The reaction and dead of Tyler and the response of the commons attacking the king, the surrounding of peasants by Walworth’s forces and killing of their leaders and later persecution of them and finally the pardon of the king after receiving twenty shillings form every peasant, artisan, etc. This revolt is directly related to other circumstances at that time in England. The Black Death of 1349 had decimated the English population with a shortage of between a third and a half of the labour force and available workers started to demand higher wages for their work.
The English landowner elites, through Parliamentary legislation and royal decrees, sought to raise a poll tax (an equal individual head tax) on the English population. The aim of this poll tax was to finance the Hundred Year? s War and it was highly unfair because poor people had to pay the same than the rich people. Beside, royal decrees tried to return the wage levels for common people to that of before the Black Death and providing the nobility a rising in their incomes, recovering their lost capabilities for maintaining their manorial status.Because Richard was only ten when he ascended to the throne on Edward's death in 1377, a series of regal councils ran the English government in Richard's name.
More significantly, no official regent was appointed to rule during the period of Richard's minority. Unfortunately, despite the massive outlay of economic resources supporting it, the war was going badly. The Hundred Years’ War supposed both a huge amount of money and a constant drain of men and resources. This war was successful for England at first, but France recovering its strength started to gain terrain and finally drove England out of continental Europe.The first known outbreak of violence occurred in the town of Brentwood in Essex County. When officials attempted to collect the tax, the town people rioted, killing six people.
After this incident, violence spread throughout the rest of Essex as well as the county of Kent. Dissidents from both regions began to march on London in an attempt to address the king and manifest their grievances. It is important to realize that the people did not blame the king Richard II for their problems…“the king said to Wat that either he nor his fellows would depart until they had got their charter…”; their ire focused instead on John of Gaunt (uncle of the king) and the Richard's ministers… “And he said (Wat) in a threatening fashion that the lords of the realm would rue it bitterly if these points were not settled…” Historians also note the role of a priest (John Ball) from Kent who had been a social agitator for many years and preached to the rebels. He has been called the "second notable figure in the rising". Ball believed in social equality and a "Christian democracy".
He also made letters that circulated around the countryside advocating unity and discipline among the rebels. On June 13, the rebels were to meet with King Richard. However, due to the number of rebels and the potential danger to the king, Richard arranged to meet the rebels and hear their demands near Greenwich on June 12. The rebels' first demands included "the heads of John of Gaunt and fifteen other traitors—among them those of the chancellor, the treasurer, and the chief justice". When Richard refused, the rebels entered London itself.
Accounts vary as to the extent of the rioting within London; both Saul and Oman agree, however, that the main places of attack were Gaunt's palace and the prisons. On Friday, June 14th, Richard II again met with the rebels, this time at Mile End. Saul states that this time, the rebels asked once more for the lives of those men whom they considered to be traitors, but also for "the abolition of serfdom and for a standard rent". Richard II acceded to these demands, drawing up charters of manumission, and promising that the rebels could execute those men found guilty by law.Nevertheless, after this meeting, rioting continued in London, including an attack on the Tower of London.
It was during this attack that certain groups of rebels executed both the chancellor, Archbishop Sudbury, and the treasurer, Sir Roger Hales. In addition to these two killings, the rebels killed between 150-160 foreigners living in the city. The next day, Richard II met with Tyler and the rebels at Smithfield. Once again, there are conflicting accounts of what occurred during that meeting. It is certain, however, that William Walworth, the mayor of London, and Tyler fought and that Tyler died as a result of that conflict.Some people claim that Walworth killed Tyler himself, while others state that a squire named Ralph Standish actually did the killing.
As soon as Tyler was dead, the government took control of the situation. The king himself offered to lead the rebels, saying, "You shall have no captain but me. Just follow me to the fields without, and then you can have what you want". Oman relates a similar tale, with Richard shouting, "Sirs, will you shoot your king? I will be your chief and captain; you shall have from me all that you seek. Only follow me to the fields without".
At this point, with Tyler dead, the rebels had lost their leadership, and as Saul states, "In London, certainly, the rebellion was over. The royal authorities had regained the initiative, and the threat to public order was effectively ended". Afterwards, 110 rebels were tried and sentenced to death. Many of the sentences were carried out on July 15. However, by August 30, "Richard and his council issued orders that all further arrests and hangings were to cease. This brought the hangings to an end, and one after another the surviving prisoners were pardoned and released.
The English government revoked the charters of manumission on July 2. While some landlords might have learned caution, the overall majority of them actually became stricter than before. Oman notes, “if we had not the story of Tyler and Ball..
. preserved in the chronicles and the judicial proceedings, we should never have guessed that there had been an earth-shaking convulsion in 1381". Overall, the rebels failed to achieve their goals. The Great Revolt did not end serfdom; that would come later with changing economic conditions in the fifteenth century.Until John of Gaunt's death in 1399, he remained the king's main advisor.
Finally, throughout his reign, Richard II would remain an absolute monarch with a firm belief in the divine right of kings. This chronicle helps us to understand the demands of the peasants, which shows their political, social, economical and to some degree religious discontent. This can be seen through the argument that “no lord should have lordship save civilly…there should be equality among all people save the King. ” This implies how the author tries to show how socially, the peasants are discontent.In religious respects, being it written by a monk he shows sympathy towards Church’s arguments, is this a bias view? The author also shows economically how the peasants are less fortunate in their ownerships as they demand that “land held by them should be confiscated and divided among the commons. ” Although, with the information available to us, we understand that it would be dangerous to write against the King, the author very ingeniously shows his support for the king, to be discussed later, but still picking out that the peasants were not actually wrong for demanding these rights.
We must note the wider effects of the uprising. It failed to reform the labour laws, but no more systematic attempts to devise a poll tax would be made for 600 years. On the other hand, the revolt marked the moment when Richard II changed from being an impressionable child to a vindictive tyrant. He was permanently scarred by his encounter with the mob, and after 1381 showed a profound distrust of all his subjects, especially the nobles whom he believed had let him down.
In his struggles with parliament, he aimed to free himself and his favourites from scrutiny.He acquired a taste for tyranny that exposed him to noble insurrection, leading to his deposition by Henry of Bolingbroke in 1399. Despite its name, participation in the Peasants' Revolt was not confined to serfs or even to the lower classes. The peasants received help from members of the noble classes - one example being William Tonge, a substantial alderman, who opened the London city gate through which the masses streamed on the night of June 12.
Although the most significant events took place in the capital, there were violent encounters throughout England, particularly in East Anglia.The last battle of the revolt took place near North Walsham around 23 June, when the 'Fighting Bishop' Henry le Despenser soundly defeated a rebel force led by Geoffrey Litster. Those involved hastened to dissociate themselves in the months that followed. Although the Revolt did not succeed in its stated aims, it did succeed in showing the nobles that the peasants were dissatisfied and that they were capable of wreaking havoc.Also it is ironic to think that these peasants were fighting against corruption in government, the abolition of serfdom, etc.
n the name of the king, but it was treachery, deception, and betrayal on the part of the king that destroyed their leader and their ability to fight. In the longer term, the Revolt helped to form a radical tradition in British politics (a development explained by Christopher Hampton). After the revolt, the term 'poll tax' was no longer used, although English governments continued to collect broadly similar taxes until the 17th century. The Community Charge, introduced 600 years after the peasant’s revolt, was popularly known as the poll tax (particularly by its opponents).
