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Popular Unrest and the Rise of a Labour Class-Consciousness in Late Medieval England (1300’S-1500’S)

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Popular Unrest and the Rise of a Labour Class-Consciousness in Late Medieval England (1300’S-1500’S) Université d’Oran 2 Mohamed Ben Ahmed Faculté des Langues étrangères THESE Pour l’obtention du diplôme de Doctorat en Sciences En Langue Anglaise Popular Unrest and the Rise of a Labour Class-Consciousness in Late Medieval England (1300’s-1500’s) Présentée et soutenue publiquement par : Mr. Tedj GHOMRI Devant le jury composé de : Membres du Jury Désignation Université Pr. BOUHADIBA Zoulikha Président Oran 2 Pr. LAHOUEL Badra Encadreur Oran 2 Pr. MELLOUK Mohamed Examinateur Sidi Belabbes Pr. MOULFI Leila Examinateur Oran 2 Pr. OUERRAD Belabbes Examinateur Sidi Belabbes Dr. MOSTEFAOUI Aziz Examinateur Adrar Année 2016 DEDICATION To Naima, Houssam Eddine, and Salsabil i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am immensely grateful to my teacher and supervisor Professor Badra LAHOUEL for her sincere commitment, endless patience, suggestions and advice, and for her support and encouragements throughout the development of this thesis. Special thanks are due to all the members of the jury for having eagerly and willingly accepted to read and assess this work. I would also like to thank several people who helped in various ways in the fulfilment of this thesis. My thanks are also due to my colleagues in the Department of Foreign Languages at Tahri Mohamed University of Bechar for their encouragements during the realisation of this thesis. Most of all, I would like to thank my wife, my son, and my daughter for their invaluable patience, understanding and unfailing support. ii ABSTRACT Most historians attribute the founding of modern England and the rise of labour class-consciousness to the period after the Industrial Revolution when workers started to call for the improvement of their conditions and for appropriate wages in an organized way under the leadership of their respective trade unions. This work aims to demonstrate that the roots of modern England as it is known today are even deeper in the history of this country. Following the Great Famine and the Black Death (1348), a severe labour shortage occurred, and the labourers in towns and villages saw it as their legitimate right to ask for higher wages and lower rents of land. The lords responded with an Ordinance and Statute of Labourers (1351) to keep wages to their pre-plague level. In the fourteenth century, the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) had taken a different course; around 1360, English victories and plunder of the French lands turned into defeats and humiliation. Most of the blame was put on the government of the period. To finance such an unrewarding war, Parliament decided that the commons had to contribute to this enterprise; hence three successive poll taxes were imposed on all the English population whatever their status or wealth. The combination of all such elements as increasing demand for labour and low wages after the Black Death, excessive war taxation, and the government’s corruption that led to defeats in the Hundred Years’ War against France, led to a common feeling of oppression and discontent among the common people. This explains the calls for revolt in 1381 and 1450, to mention but a few, and the full-scale response to them. The important number of facts about social unrest in fourteenth and fifteenth century England provided in this work, and the sources used to support these facts make it possible to assume that the late medieval class was fully aware of its strength and the importance of its role in society as a homogenous class having the same sufferings and goals. Hence, the idea of labour class-consciousness in this period is fully justified. iii List of Acronyms J.P. : Justice of the Peace L.M.A.: Late Middle Ages E.M.A. : Early Middle Ages P.R. Peasants’ Revolt iii Map: Extention of the Revolt of 1381 in England 136 iv Table: Number of taxable population registered in 1377 and 1381 133 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acronyms Iii Map Iv Table V General Introduction 1 Chapter One: Popular Politics and Social Conflict in Late Medieval England 10 I. Approaches to Popular Politics 13 II. Analysing Conflict in Village Society 28 III. Urban Social Conflict 39 Chapter Two: Lord-Peasant Disputes in the Early 53 1300s I. The Bocking Petition 1300 56 II. Peasant Plaint and Judicial Reform 64 III. Villeins’ Hardships in Lords’ Plaints 75 IV. Peasant Plaint and Vernacular Poetry 94 Chapter Three: Famine, Plague, and War Defeats 1315-1381 105 I. The Great Famine of 1315–1317 105 108 A. Causes of food shortage: B. Consequences of the Great Famine: 112 II. The Black Death: 1348-49 113 vi A. Origins of the Epidemic 114 B. Labour Shortage and the Issue of Wages 122 C. Religious and cultural consequences 124 III. The Unsuccessful Turning Point of the Hundred Years War: 1360 126 A. The First Poll Tax: March 1377 128 B. The Second Poll Tax: 1379 130 C. The Third Poll Tax: March 1380 131 IV. The English Rising of 1381 135 A. Causes of the Revolt 137 B. A Brief Account of the Revolt 138 C. The Aftermath of the Revolt 140 Chapter Four: Social Unrest after the 1381 Rising 143 I. The Kentish Rebellion: May 1450 143 A.Social Disorder and Government Bankruptcy 144 II. B. The Outbreak of Rebellion 146 C. Government Reaction and Revolt Suppression 150 III. John and William Merfold Revolt: July 1450 153 A. Start of the Great Slump 1450 153 B. Social Unrest in Fifteenth-Century England 157 IV. The Cornish Rebellion of 1497 162 A. Outbreak of the Rebellion 163 B. Suppression of the Rebellion and Its Aftermath 166 V. Social Inequality as Represented in Medieval Literature 169 A. Social Inequality in Medieval Literature 170 B. Social Deference and Ambition 172 C. Social Conflict 190 vii General Conclusion 196 Glossary of Medieval Terms 200 Bibliography 203 Appendices 218 viii General Introduction A fourteenth-century English King, Richard II, and a host of fifteenth-century French observers described medieval Englishmen as treacherous, rebellious people who killed their kings. This opinion, though biased, was not without factual basis. In the period from 1215 to 1415, five out of eight Kings fought wars with their subjects; four out of eight were either captured or deposed, and two were killed. Two others escaped open warfare but encountered vigorous resistance or conspiracy. These dramatic episodes have captured the imagination of professional historians and political theorists for centuries. Yet the forms that resistance to authority took in medieval England have not been directly observed despite the widespread interest in medieval popular rebellion in the 1970s, and the revival of the study of violence in medieval society. Several studies have focused on violence among the nobility or between kingdoms, with little attention to the use of violence by and against the people. Such violence, however, was a repeated feature of political relations between the medieval labouring force and the upper strata of the English society. This reveals the existence mature political ideas, as well as changes that reflect developments in government, society, and political culture. Therefore, understanding medieval English revolt is essential to comprehend later English politics. 1 General Introduction To focus on violence between peasants and nobles is not to deny that cooperation was the common pattern of medieval life, nor does it suggest that resistance had an organic continuity throughout the later medieval period. Parliament was not yet a central player in its own right, and periods of conflict varied widely in their motivation, quality, and results. Different revolts were nurtured by quite specific problems under quite particular conditions. Moreover, serious conflict did not arise during the reign of politically skilful Kings such as Edward III (1327-1377) 1. Nonetheless, one cannot ignore the fact that during the two hundred years between 1300 and 1500, there were several occurrences of social conflicts. The latter can definitely not be overlooked in the study of medieval English life. This work attempts to answer such questions as what happened then, and why, and with what result. Since individual revolts had long roots, this work is a study not just of revolts themselves, but also of political crises and a general view of the overall scene that characterised the period. It attempts to demonstrate how members of the working class proposed, implemented, and defended their version of good governance against what they regarded as bad rulership. 1 King Edward III (1312–77) of England from 1327 to 1377, and son of Edward II. He had continuous problems with the Scots, but he had some success in his attempts to become the king of France, for example at the battles of Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1355). After his death, his grandson became the king of England as Richard II, because his son Edward, the Black Prince, had died the year before. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 8th Edition, Oxford University Press, 2010. 2 General Introduction Twentieth-century historians tended to study peasants with the assumption that using force against the King was both illegitimate and disruptive. This viewpoint may be a result of the tendency to study history from the King’s perspective. Nevertheless, one of the great achievements of history in the last century has been the involvement of scholars in the study of archives, which are generally royal ones. In any event, the royal view of the illegitimacy of using force against the king was rarely questioned; this is evident even in the vocabulary employed to designate that use of force, ‘rebellion’ and ‘revolt.’ The modem dislike for violence, in opposition to the medieval love of war and the depiction of nobles as those who fight, has also resulted in a somehow obsolete disapproval of revolt.
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