Now that we have gone through the main claims of Medieval Marxist Historian Rodney Hilton, that the Peasants Revolt of 1381’s primary objective was to abolish serfdom. Looking at the actual data of the crimes that occurred during this revolt, it can be concluded that Hilton’s theory is not correct. From the actual data of those who were prosecuted and the victims of the riot, it can be concluded that there were other primary grievances that occured on June of 1381.The main ‘revolutionary activity’ took place in Cambridgeshire, England and for the most part, the victims of the Cambridgeshire rebels were state actors rather than landlords (Xu 882). If this truly was a rebellion to overthrow serfhood, wouldn’t they attack the primary perpetrators of violence towards serfs, the landlords?
Other Probable Reasonings for the Peasant Revolt
Besides the abolition of serfdom, other claims for the revolt were for the abolition of corrupt government officials and as a response to unreasonable taxation. In the years leading up to the revolt, several unpopular government officials imposed taxes specifically on serfs, poor peasants and rich peasants.
“an unpopular and corrupt government imposing a succession of new taxes to meet the costs of an unpopular war and making a raft of innovative and profoundly divisive legal interventions in the labor and commodity markets to try and reverse gains made in the wages and bargaining power of all the commons.” (Xu 882)
In Essence, they were pissed about some new, dumb tax and wanted someone’s head.
The Victims of The Peasants Revolt of 1381
Now that we have heard an alternate cause for this violent few days, we will now look at the actual violence and the victims of that summer. The Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, was one of the most hated national figures in 1381 and several other folks who were affiliated with John of Gaunt were executed. William Croyser, who served as a steward for the Duke had his house burned down (Xu 13). Thomas Haselden was a retainer for Gaunt and also had his house burnt down. Edmund de Walsingham was a Justice of the Peace and the rebels seemed to have misplaced his head (Xu 18).
Image: Portrait of John of Guant, Duke of Lancaster
Speaking of beheadings, The final named victim that will be mentioned is Grand Master Robert Hales, who was Lord High Treasurer and was responsible for the controversial poll tax that was one of the probable causes of the rebellion (Xu 13). He was beheaded on June 14th. During the entire revolt in Cambridgeshire, only 5 landlords were victimized. The following graphs are a reveal the origins of violence caused during this event:
Image: Depiction of the Violence caused from Peasant Revolters
Rebel Damage
The main damage caused by the rebels was arson, destroying manorial documents (land deeds), and a couple of beheadings of political officials. The main reason why these rebels purposefully went out of their way to destroy these land deeds was that it was “a prime symbol of a challenge to manorial rule” (Xu 18). As we can see in the following graph, most of the destruction that occurred was property damage and looting. It is also important to note that the largest category of victims was 22 people who held office for the crown (Xu 11).
Rebel Organization
Now how exactly did these rebels organize all this chaos? The rebels who committed these actions in Cambridgeshire formed different gangs and typically had a gang leader. Surprisingly, these gang leaders were typically small landowners, not serfs or very poor peasants. For example, John Hanchach was a leader of a rebel band and a well-off landowner (Xu, 14). Robert Tanell and John Cook, who were also leaders of rebel gangs, were also free peasants and landowners who were heavily involved in their respective local communities. Now, these different groups didn’t work as separate entities, they often collaborated and targeted different government officials.
Image: Depiction of Rebel Leader, Watt Tyler leading the rioters
When the rebels successfully caused enough chaos and violence to deliver demands to the crown, their demands were rather convoluted and often included ending serfdom, but that wasn’t all of their grievances or even the top demand. They called for the “Abolition of the hierarchy of the church and the redistribution of most ecclesiastical property among parishioners…The grievances held against the agents of government's novel policies in taxation and the labor market” (Xu 12).
Overall, due to the demographics of the victims of the Peasants Revolt of 1381, the makeup of the rebel leaders, and the type of violence executed in June 1381, the primary grievance of those rioters was not for the abolition of slavery but rather for the abolition of unfair taxation. It is important to note that in 1381, only 20-25% of England’s population were serfs (Xu 19). So what does this have to do with Spamalot? According to Medieval historian and enjoyer of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, John Alberth claims:
“Monty Python is only carrying to extremes the misguided attempts of Marxist scholars to impose their thoroughly modern historical models on the medieval past, where Dennis's obnoxiously com- bative jargon would sound just as foreign as in a medieval film.” (27)
We have seen in part one through Hilton’s writings about the awkward terminology placed in historical periods that makes no sense to place such phases in there. Hilton is immeasurably wrong about the cause for the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and by debunking his claims, it makes it even funnier to show how wrong he and his other Marxist Historian goons are.
Work Cited:
Mingjie, Xu "Analysing the actions of the rebels in the English Revolt of 1381: The case of Cambridgeshire" The Economic History Review, November 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13122