The peasants’ revolt 1381
Power in the Middle age was held by the king, the barons and the Church. The peasants and the workers in town could not vote and had few rights. But they were very hungry, felt over-taxed or that their rulers needed to be challenged, there was a course of action they could take: they could group together, refuse to do as they were told, arm themselves to take the streets. This is called rebellion or revolt.
Reasons for revolt
On May 1381 tax collector called John Bampton was going about his work in Fobbing, Essex. He was collecting tax known as the Poll tax. Bampton asked the villagers for more money. But instead of paying, they told him they had already paid enough tax and would not pay anymore. Bampton got angry and threatened the villagers. They chased him and the soldiers, who had come with him out of the village. This was the spark of the peasants’ revolt.
ASSINGMENT 1
Imagine you are a peasant from Fobbing. You have heard your villagers’ reasons for revolt against the tax collector and his soldier.
Click on this link to read the list of reasons below, as they are said by villagers. Then, link the causes, writing sentences as shown in the example.
ASSINGMENT 2: SUM UP OF THE CAUSES
Three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, peasants were still villains who belonged to their lords under what some people think of as the feudal system.
The Black Death (1348–1350) had killed many people. This meant there was a shortage of workers and wages went up. Parliament passed the Statute of Labourers (1351), which set a maximum wage and said that people would be punished with prison if they refused to work for that wage. This meant poor people stayed poor.
Since 1360, a Lollard priest called John Ball had been preaching that people should ‘throw away the evil lords’. In a famous sermon, he asked, ‘when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’ meaning all people are born equal.
After 1369, the war against France began to go badly. This would have made people despise the government.
In 1377 Richard II — a boy of 10 — became king and his uncle, John of Gaunt, ran the country. This meant that the government was weak.
John of Gaunt introduced a Poll Tax to pay for the war against France. The Poll Tax had to be paid by everyone over the age of 15 no matter how much money they earned. In March 1381, the government demanded the third Poll Tax in four years. When people avoided paying this, Parliament appointed commissioners to make them pay.
On 30 May 1381, Commissioner Thomas Bampton entered the village of Fobbing in Essex. His brutal methods made the villagers angry and — led by Thomas Baker — they rioted. Soon both Essex and Kent were in revolt.
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Did you know?
John Ball believed it was wrong that some people in England were rich while others were poors. Ball’s church sermons about this upset people in power so much that he was arrested and sent to Maidstone prison.
If you had been a peasant in 1381, what would you have done?
The year is 1381 and tempers have snapped. Peasants in Essex and Kent have refused to pay the Poll Tax and demanded change. You are about to find out what happened during the revolt by using the information and questions on this slideshow. Make your choice every time you are asked to decide what would you do. Use the answers to help you move onto the next stage after you have answered each question.
Download the ppt for playing the game.
Have a glance of the events, consulting online the timeline of the revolt.
Click here
Check your knowledge with a simple exercise
Download the pdf or sign in with your account @acairoli.edu.it in order to answer the multiple choice question online.
After signing in, click on this link to open the test online.
Evaluate the event:
Listen to the video about “The significance of the Peasants’ Revolt”.
Then, explain your view on a scale of 1:10 (1 being the least and 10 being the most)
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After signing in, click on this link to open the test online.
To conclude your work, explain the reasons of your evaluation in a short text (about 100 words)
Download the paper in order to do the assignment
Did you know?
It wasn’t just the English peasants who were revolting.
In 1358 a group of French peasants rebelled, led by a man called Guillaume Cale. They were much nastier than Wat Tyler and his gang. When the French peasants seized one castle, they cooked a captured knight on a spit and made his wife eat some of his cooked body. This rebellion was called jacquerie.