SYMHC Classics: Wat Tyler’s Rebellion

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class – Episode: SYMHC Classics: Wat Tyler’s Rebellion

Release Date: June 14, 2025
Hosts: Tracy V. Wilson & Holly Fry
Produced by: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In this insightful episode, Tracy V. Wilson and Holly Fry delve deep into one of medieval England’s most significant uprisings: Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, also known as the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Marking the 644th anniversary of this pivotal event, the hosts provide a comprehensive exploration of the socio-economic and political factors that ignited the rebellion, its unfolding, and its enduring legacy.

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Setting the Historical Context

The Black Death and Its Aftermath

Tracy opens the discussion by addressing misconceptions surrounding the Black Death, emphasizing that it was not a direct catalyst for the Renaissance but a part of a prolonged pandemic that had profound effects on European society. She states, “...there is not some kind of a switch that got flipped that magically turned the Black Death into the Renaissance” (03:01).

• Impact on Population: The Black Death decimated Europe’s population, killing between one-third to half of its inhabitants. In England alone, pre-plague populations of around 60,000 plummeted by half due to the pandemic (05:56).

• Economic Disruption: The massive loss of life led to labor shortages, disrupted agricultural production, and caused land and livestock markets to collapse as landlords struggled with an oversupply of animals (07:06).

• Undermining the Church: The plague severely weakened the Church’s influence as many clergy succumbed to the disease, leading to a distrust in religious institutions and their role in everyday life (09:26).

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Socio-Economic Conditions in Post-Plague England

Feudal System Strain

England’s agrarian economy was heavily reliant on the feudal system, where land was owned by the monarch and granted to nobles in exchange for service. This system extended down to serfs and unfree tenants, who were bound to their landlords. The aftermath of the Black Death exacerbated issues within this system:

• Labor Shortages: With a significant portion of the population deceased, the remaining workers found themselves in high demand, enabling them to negotiate better wages and conditions (12:08).

• Land Consolidation: Surviving landowners consolidated estates, often leading to larger but less labor-intensive agricultural operations, such as increased livestock farming (11:05).

• Inflation and Wage Dynamics: While wages for laborers increased, inflation and higher prices for goods offset these gains, leaving the poorest struggling even more (12:38).

Taxation and Political Climate

England was embroiled in the Hundred Years' War with France, necessitating substantial tax revenue. The heavy taxation, particularly the unpopular poll taxes, created widespread resentment:

• Poll Taxes: Introduced in 1377 and escalated in 1380, these flat-rate taxes burdened all individuals regardless of their economic status. Tracy notes, “...this poll tax didn't seem all that egregious to people. Four pence was about the price of a dozen eggs” (20:55).

• Tax Evasion and Enforcement: High rates led to rampant tax evasion, prompting the government to dispatch commissioners to enforce tax collection, which only intensified local animosities (24:00).

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The Spark: Taxation and Rising Tensions

Tracy explains that the oppressive taxation, coupled with economic instability and the remnants of plague-induced disruptions, set the stage for rebellion. In May 1381, commissioners John Bampton and Sir John Gilsburg faced fierce resistance in Essex when locals resisted tax enforcement, leading to heightened tensions that would soon explode into open revolt (24:34).

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The Rebellion Unfolds

Gathering Momentum

• Oath and Mobilization: On Whitsunday, June 2nd, approximately 40 Essex communities convened in Baching, pledging unity and planning the release of radical priest John Ball, a key agitator advocating for equality and the dismantling of the feudal hierarchy (25:23).

• Leadership Emerges: On June 7th, former soldier Walter ("Wat") Tyler was named leader of the rebels in Kent. Under his command, the rebels from Essex and Kent marched towards London, rallying more supporters along the way (25:58).

Confrontations and Violence

• Destruction of Records: Rebels systematically destroyed tax records and documents symbolizing serfdom, aiming to eradicate the written evidence of their oppression (31:02).

• Assaults on Officials: The uprising witnessed targeted killings, including high-profile figures like Archbishop Simon Sudbury and Lord High Treasurer Robert Hales. These acts were fueled by deep-seated resentment towards officials perceived as corrupt and exploitative (35:11).

• Anti-Fleming Sentiment: Ethnic tensions also surfaced, with Flemish communities in London becoming targets of looting and massacres, reflecting broader societal fractures (36:26).

Climactic Negotiations and Betrayal

• Charter of Demands: On June 14th, Wat Tyler presented a list of demands to King Richard II, including the abolition of serfdom and the establishment of a classless society. The King, appearing willing, granted these concessions by signing charters releasing serfs (34:26).

• Assassination of Wat Tyler: During a subsequent meeting on June 15th, a confrontation between Tyler and London Mayor William Walworth led to Tyler’s stabbing and eventual death, plunging the rebellion into disarray (36:51).

• Royal Reprisal: With Tyler’s demise, the government launched a brutal crackdown, resulting in weeks of violent suppression and the execution of hundreds, including prominent leaders like John Ball (37:17).

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Aftermath and Consequences

Despite initial promises, King Richard II reneged on most concessions, revoking the serfs' freedoms and maintaining the feudal structures (37:34). The rebellion, however, left an indelible mark as England's first large-scale popular uprising, showcasing the potential for mass social upheaval.

• Limited Immediate Gains: The primary tangible outcome was the cessation of the poll tax issue, but broader systemic changes remained unfulfilled.

• Long-Term Impact: The revolt underscored the shifting power dynamics post-Black Death, highlighting the increased agency of the lower classes and setting precedents for future social movements.

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Historical Interpretations and Misconceptions

Tracy and Holly address various historical interpretations, cautioning against oversimplified narratives that link the Black Death directly to the Renaissance or the 1381 revolt to the French Revolution. They emphasize the complexity and gradual nature of social transformations, noting that broader unrest across Europe during the 14th to 16th centuries was influenced by multiple interrelated factors, not solely the aftermath of the Black Death.

Holly remarks, “Yeah, the cause and effect stuff that sometimes happens when discussing history loses a little bit of track of timeline and nuance” (41:53).

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Conclusion

Wat Tyler’s Rebellion was a landmark event in medieval England, emblematic of the profound societal shifts wrought by the Black Death and economic upheaval. While the immediate goals of the rebels were largely unmet, the uprising signified the growing discontent among the lower classes and the fragile nature of feudal structures. Tracy and Holly conclude by reiterating the importance of nuanced historical analysis, steering clear of reductive cause-and-effect relationships that overlook the intricate tapestry of historical developments.

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Notable Quotes

• Tracy V. Wilson (03:01): “...it is not some kind of a switch that got flipped that magically turned the Black Death into the Renaissance.”

• Tracy V. Wilson (20:55): “...four pence was about the price of a dozen eggs. It was still more than a day's pay for the lowest paid laborers.”

• Holly Fry (41:45): “Yeah, the cause and effect stuff that sometimes happens when discussing history loses a little bit of track of timeline and nuance.”

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Timestamps

• [03:01] – Tracy discusses misconceptions about the Black Death and the Renaissance.
• [05:56] – Impact of the Black Death on England’s population.
• [07:06] – Labor shortages and economic disruptions post-plague.
• [09:26] – Decline in the Church’s influence after the Black Death.
• [11:05] – Land consolidation and shifts in agricultural practices.
• [12:08] – Labor shortages enabling better worker negotiations.
• [12:38] – Inflation and its impact on wages.
• [20:55] – Details about the 1377 poll tax and its effects.
• [24:00] – Government response to tax evasion.
• [24:34] – Commissioners faced resistance in Brentwood.
• [25:23] – Formation of the rebellion oath and plans.
• [25:58] – Appointment of Wat Tyler as rebel leader.
• [31:02] – Destruction of feudal records by rebels.
• [34:26] – King Richard II’s negotiations with Wat Tyler.
• [35:11] – Execution of prominent officials by rebels.
• [36:26] – Anti-Fleming violence during the uprising.
• [36:51] – Assassination of Wat Tyler and its repercussions.
• [37:17] – Government crackdown following Tyler’s death.
• [37:34] – King’s betrayal of rebel concessions.
• [38:04] – Amnesty and its implications for rebels.
• [41:45] – Discussion on historical narrative complexities.
• [41:53] – Emphasis on nuanced historical understanding.

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Final Thoughts

Tracy V. Wilson and Holly Fry expertly navigate the complexities of Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, shedding light on the interplay between pandemics, economic shifts, and social unrest. This episode serves as a compelling reminder of how historical events are interconnected and the importance of approaching history with depth and nuance.

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Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Tom Brokaw]

I'm Tom Brokaw.

[Holly Fry]

Hope to see you back here.

[Lester Holt]

I'm Lester Holt.

[Tom Brokaw]

It's carried forward. Tom Yamas is there for us. Firefighters are still working around the clock. As the world changes, we look for what endures.

[Lester Holt]

We are coming on the air with breaking news right now, we look for.

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A constant and from one era to the next, trust is the anchor.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

For NBC Nightly News, I'm Tom Yamas.

[Tom Brokaw]

A new chapter begins NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas evenings on NBC.

[Lester Holt]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

Happy Saturday. On June 14, 1381, Wat Tyler presented a list of demands to King Richard II of England, one of the key moments in the uprising that has come to be known as Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Peasants Revolt. That was 644 years ago today on the day this is publishing. So our episode on the Peasants Revolt is today's Saturday classic.

[Holly Fry]

This originally came out on June 10, 2020. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

One of the kind of weird things to come out of the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic has been a phenomenon that I am liking to call bad takes about the Black Death. There are various articles and tweets and comments on our Facebook page that are all about how the Black Death was a good thing, actually, because, sure, while it did kill as much as half of Europe, it also did everything from increasing wages to literally causing the Renaissance. Medieval and early modern historians have done so much debunking of these ideas through tweets and blog posts and various op eds. And today we have a topic that really illustrates that there is not some kind of a switch that got flipped that magically turned the Black Death into the Renaissance. Like, it's not like in a video game where you grind up a certain amount of experience and then you unlock the Renaissance. It did not work that way. This incident has been known as Wat Tyler's Rebellion and as the Peasants Revolt of 1381. Today, it is more often called the Uprising of 1381 or the Great Rising. And I just want to take a minute. I can imagine people listening to this episode and thinking that maybe we chose it because of parallels to the current situation where there has been a lot of violence and destruction and property damage and in some cases, deaths through this ongoing week of protests and violence that have been happening in the United States. This episode was actually written the week of May 18th. So if people see parallels between this episode and what's currently happening, they are not something we tried to pick as some kind of political statement.

[Holly Fry]

Right. I also feel like we could do an entire episode of. This wasn't a magic switch.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Right. Like, there are a lot. A lot of the way that history is taught is that way, where it's like, this happened and it catalyzed this. And that's true to some extent. But it's not as though everything shifts gears suddenly. It's a very slow progression.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Well, in one of the op eds that's really been focused on debunking this whole idea says pretty clearly that a lot of AP World History classes have really framed the idea that the Black Death caused the Renaissance. But it's like a huge oversimplification.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It will become more clear as we get through this episode today.

[Holly Fry]

So we're not going to dwell on the details of the Black Death as an illness, but it is a necessary part of the context of this uprising. The Black Death was really one piece of a larger pandemic. The second plague pandemic, which progressed through Asia, Europe and Africa in waves from the 14th through the 18th centuries. The term the Black Death was coined in the 18th century to describe the plague that moved from eastern or Central Asia to through Europe, the Mediterranean and Northern Africa between 1346 and 1353.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Black Death was truly catastrophic. At least a third of the population of Europe died, and it was possibly as much as half. In some specific regions, that was as much as 80%. Today's episode is really focused on England. And England's population before the Black Death had been about 60,000 people. Afterward, it was half that. Although some of that drop came from people who fled to other parts of Europe to try to escape the plague. Between 20 and 30% of the English nobility died, along with about 45% of the clergy and between 40 and 70% of the peasant class. In some cases, those numbers were even higher. And then the disease itself was just horrifying. On top of having a high, high mortality rate, its progression, once somebody contracted it, was really gruesome because the plague.

[Holly Fry]

Recurred in waves over the course of several years. People also didn't know when it was really over. It would seem as though the danger had passed only for another wave of illness to strike. And since there were other outbreaks of the plague in the decades after the Black Death ended, it took generations for the population to really start to recover.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

England was largely agrarian, and the land was considered to belong to the monarch. The the monarch granted land to the nobility in exchange for service, including providing soldiers or funding in a time of war. This exchange of land for some kind of service was replicated on the lower rungs of the social and economic ladder. And this went all the way down to freeholders who owned or rented small amounts of land, and then the unfree tenants who were known as villens, bondsmen or serfs. And they were legally obligated to work for their landlord and, and subsist on a small plot that they kept for themselves. They were not free laborers. They were obligated to do this.

[Holly Fry]

In this land for service system, when a household's main tenant died, his son or another heir had to pay a fee to take his place in England. For a baron, that might be £100. For a peasant, it was typically the household's best livestock animal. During The Black Death. So many English tenants died that landlords received more livestock than they could possibly take care of or use. And this was in spite of a livestock plague that had previously killed many of these animals. Landlords sold off so many surplus animals that the market collapsed.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Because the plague was the worst in the summer in a lot of areas, there wasn't enough labor alive by the fall to harvest the crops that had been planted in the spring. This labor shortage led to food shortages as unharvested crops rotted in the fields in the similarly, not like in a video game analogy, there's just not a one to one correspondence between how many people it takes to harvest the food and how many people that food will feed. In normal times, medieval manors also tended to be relatively self contained, with their own blacksmith and their own bakeries and their own mills, which tenants were obligated to use. If an estate's only blacksmith or miller or brewer died, there might not be anybody to replace them, or anybody else who really knew how to do that work.

[Holly Fry]

Although the medieval world wasn't exclusively Christian, the Christian Church was colossally powerful. High placed church officials also held high ranking government positions, and high ranking nobles were often prominent in the church. Aside from that, religion was threaded through virtually every aspect of everyday life.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

But the Black Death started to undermine the Church's power because the disease spread so easily. The most compassionate and most involved clergy, the ones who really tried to comfort and care for the sick and their families, they were among the plague's first victims. In general, the clergy who survived were the ones who had not been doing that work. The plague also really devastated monastic communities where people lived in very close quarters.

[Holly Fry]

This caused such a huge labor shortage within the church that it had to relax its criteria for clergy. And that led to an influx of people who were more interested in the income or living that came with the position than in actually carrying out a clergyman's duties. People became more distrustful of clergymen and of the Church and its involvement in everyday life, especially in the face of devastation so immense that people wondered if God was punishing them.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Aside from all of that and the Black Death's immediate aftermath, so many people had died and so much had been disrupted that things turned into a state of near lawlessness.

[Holly Fry]

And this brings us to some of the things that have led people to argue that the Black Death was maybe a good thing, although none of them are all that straightforward. Before the Black Death, England was in the middle of a land crunch. In addition to an increasing population leading up to the 13th century, people had divided their estates among their heirs, which had resulted in people holding smaller and smaller amounts of land. This led to a shift to primogeniture, in which the eldest son was the only one to inherit. But that shift couldn't really undo what had happened in those earlier generations.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After the Black Death, though, a lot of families were able to reconsolidate their holdings among the people who survived, and then, in some cases, to increase those holdings further through intermarriage with other neighboring families. People went from having estates that were just too small to be profitable to having ones that were actually lucrative. Again, people who had not been able to acquire land at all, because there just wasn't any, were able to buy or rent these newly available parcels.

[Holly Fry]

That said, because of the labor shortage, it wasn't uncommon for people to have trouble finding enough workers for these newly consolidated estates. Also, a landlord whose tenants had died or left was no longer being paid rent. He was no longer collecting fees for the use of the manor's mills or ovens. If he couldn't find hired labor to replace his previous workers, his crops went to waste and his livestock went untended. With an excess of land and a shortage of workers, many turned their attention from cultivated crops to livestock, which was less labor intensive.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The massive labor shortage made it easier for surviving workers to negotiate better terms for themselves. People who were dissatisfied with their pay or their working or living conditions could find a different job on another manor, or they could move to a city or a town more easily. Tenant farmers were able to negotiate lower rents or to rent larger amounts of land that could, at least in theory, yield a bigger income. In general, wages increased often by as much as 50%, and sometimes more than that.

[Holly Fry]

However, in many cases, it probably wasn't that people were being paid more for the same work. People were working more to make up for the shortage of labor. The increase in incomes was also at least partially offset by rising inflation and higher prices on goods that were now in short supply.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There's also the part where, for the lowest paid people, they sort of went from making not enough to live on to barely enough to live on.

[Holly Fry]

2 times 0 is zero, right?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

People who moved from the country to the city after the Black Death generally had more opportunities available to them, especially because urban employers were dealing with their own labor shortages. Trade guilds started shortening the lengths of their apprenticeships to try to replenish their numbers. But this really meant that there was also a big loss of knowledge, skill, and quality among the various trades. And in some cases, the number of newcomers to the cities just outstripped the number of available jobs, causing these recent arrivals to just become a drain on resources.

[Holly Fry]

As a trend, merchants fared better than rural landlords because their work didn't require the large labor force that agriculture did. This was especially true as increasing wages and ongoing shifts in supply and demand allowed more people to buy better quality luxury goods.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Of course, England's wealthiest classes saw all of this, the increased freedom for workers, the rising wages and the luxury goods becoming more available to the masses. As a threat, they tried to return things to the way they had been before the plague. Parliament passed the Ordinance of laborers in 1349 and the statute of laborers in 1351 to return wages to their pre pandemic levels. Also to require able bodied men and women under the age of 60 to work and to prevent people from moving to find different or better work. These statutes were not always enforced very well, but when they were, the focus was most often on the working people who were being paid more money, not on the employers and the landlords who were paying them. In 1363, Parliament also passed a sumptuary law to try to keep the trappings of wealth only with the wealthy. This was like the latest in a series of these laws, some of which had been back before the Black Death.

[Holly Fry]

So by the time of the 1381 uprising, things were at least somewhat better for some of England's population. But in general, the people who had gained the most in the wake of the Black Death were the people who already had some wealth to start with. To many working people, it had seemed like they were going to have meaningfully more money and opportunities. But thanks to things like shortages, other illness outbreaks, and the Statute of Laborers, those theoretical gains had largely disappeared or plateaued. And England's poorest people, the serfs, were still not free.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We have not even talked about taxes yet, and taxes were really the spark that started this rebellion. We will get into that after a sponsor break.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Black Death took place during the warfare between England and France that came to be known as the Hundred Years War, even though it was really a series of intermittent conflicts that played out over a span of 116 years.

[Holly Fry]

In England, the primary way to raise money for war was through taxes, and at the time the only acceptable reason to directly tax the population was to deal with an immediate threat to the realm. This meant that warfare and taxation were tightly linked in people's minds. So if the war was going badly for England, public opinion was more likely to blame corruption and ineptitude from Parliament and royal advisors who had demanded their tax money rather than blaming the military.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Hundred Years War is generally noted as starting in 1337, and England saw a series of victories in the 1340s and 50s. But then the tide started to turn. France allied with Scotland and attacked parts of the English coast and started reclaiming territory that it had previously ceded to England. France's Castilian allies also destroyed the English fleet in 1372, and English forces on the ground in France suffered various setbacks.

[Holly Fry]

After using a variety of taxation strategies to raise the money to pay for all of this, Parliament passed a poll tax in 1377. That same year, Richard II, who was age 10 at the time, ascended to the throne after the death of his grandfather Edward iii. Richard's father, who had been next in line for the throne, had died the year before.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Earlier taxes had been fractional taxes. Like their name suggests, they were based on a fraction of how much someone's movable goods were worth. These were assessed at the community level based on how large and affluent the community was, and they left it up to each community to figure out who should pay what. So at least in theory it was based on your ability to pay the tax. But the 1377 poll tax was different. It was a flat rate of 4 pence per person, required of everyone over the age of 14, with the exception of beggars.

[Holly Fry]

Even though everyone was paying the same amount regardless of how much money they had, this poll tax didn't seem all that egregious to people. Four pence was about the price of a dozen eggs. It was still more than a day's pay for the lowest paid laborers, though.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

England still needed more money, though in early 1378, parliament passed another fractional tax that was due that February. Many towns were also required to build ships to bolster the English fleet, and since they had to pay for this themselves, this was perceived as yet another tax. Then in 1379, Charles V of France annexed the Duchy of Brittany and there was another poll tax to try to fund efforts to restore its independence. This second poll tax was on a sliding scale based on a person's profession, with 33 different professions listed at different tax rates. Anybody who wasn't a member of one of those professions was again taxed at 4 pence.

[Holly Fry]

The government had pawned the King's jewels and had secured loans from several towns. But combined with the poll tax, this still wasn't enough, in part because of increasing tax evasion. And then the newly raised English fleet was scattered in a storm and nearly 20 ships were wrecked. Another fractional tax followed, this one framed as a loan that would be repaid rather than an actual tax.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Taxes had to be approved by Parliament, and Parliament was not expected to be in session again for the next 18 months. So people believe this tax, but really alone would be the last one for a while. Instead, Parliament was summoned again in November of 1380 to once again approve another poll tax to fund the ongoing war.

[Holly Fry]

Like the 1377 tax, this poll tax was a flat rate. Every person over the age of 15 was required to pay 12 pence or 1 shilling. To add insult to injury, this tax was due in two installments, the first at the end of February and the second at the beginning of June. There was not a lot of time to plan for that first payment, and since it was due toward the end of winter, it was also at the hardest time of year for rural people.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It's possible that no tax would have possibly gone well at this point, but this tax was despised. It was three times as large as the previous flat rate tax, and for large households, it just added up to enormous amounts of money. People also doubted that the tax was really necessary. The King's uncle, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who was highly placed in the administration, had asked for more tax revenue than the military budget really seemed to require. People thought he was either lining his own pockets with this money or using it to pay for his own ventures that weren't directly related to the military needs of the kingdom.

[Holly Fry]

So England's fed up population, sick of paying taxes, just, just didn't. Tax evasion was widespread, with as many as 30 to 50% of people simply vanishing from the local tax rolls.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Now people Were like my widowed mother, not part of my household, just not. Not gonna lay Neymar on there. When the government realized that the amount of money that had been collected was way less than they expected, they dispatched commissioners to investigate this rampant tax evasion. Investigations started in late May of 1381, when John Bampton and Sir John Gilsburg arrived in Brentwood in Essex, which is northeast of London and is part of the greater London metropolitan area today.

[Holly Fry]

Bampton was a justice of the peace, and when delegates from Brentwood and the surrounding communities arrived to meet with him, they may have thought that he was there for the upcoming June court session. When they learned that it was really a tax investigation, the delegates were angry and astonished. Thomas Baker of Fobbing insisted that everyone had paid already and that they had a receipt from Bampton saying so and that they would not be paying any more.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When the commissioners ordered their guards to start making arrests, the delegates ran them out of town, armed with things like bows and arrows. Then the delegates returned to the 15 or so towns and villages where they lived, and they started organizing a resistance, including spreading the word into other nearby towns. In Essex, meanwhile, the unrest also spread into Kent.

[Holly Fry]

June 2nd was the day that the final tax payment was due. It was also the holiday of Whitsunday or Pentecost. On that day, people from at least 40 Essex communities met in Baching, which is northeast of Brentwood, and swore an oath to their cause. They also started making plans to break radical priest John Ball out of prison. Ball preached on things like equality and the abolition of England's class structure. His ideas were considered heretical, and he had been excommunicated by the archbishop of Canterbury. Ball had been incarcerated at an ecclesiastical prison.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On June 7, rebels in Kent named former soldier Walter Tyler, known as Watt, as their leader. People from Essex and Kent then marched on London, with the people of Kent first converging on Canterbury and making their way to London via the pilgrimage road. At some point during all of this, John Ball was broken out of prison, and his speeches to the rebels continued to advocate for a classless society, including the widely quoted quote, when Adam delved and Eve span, who then was a.

[Holly Fry]

Gentleman, as we said at the top of the show. For a long time, this was known as the peasants revolt, and the word peasants generally conjures up an image of poor agricultural workers or landless people. And some of the people involved with the revolt definitely do fit that description. But there were also free tenants and small landholders, as well as clergy, apprentices, and tradespeople. Thomas Baker and Wat Tyler were, as their names suggest, a Baker and a Tyler.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That doesn't necessarily mean the uprisings. Trades people were all free, though. There were definitely Bakers and Tylers and other workers who were classified as serfs. At the same time, some of the people involved were also relatively powerful people in their communities, including having previously served as assessors or constables or bailiffs.

[Holly Fry]

Women were also a huge part of the uprising, both as participants and as targets of the taxes and policies that were being protested. And as had been the case with most of the other protests, uprising and strikes that we have talked about on the show, women were generally the ones who were making men's participation possible by making sure that the demonstrators stayed clothed and fed.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As the uprising moved toward London, some of the nobility became involved and some of the city's merchants as well. And we will get into the uprising in London after a sponsor break.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

That late May incident in Brentwood had ended with John Bampton and the other commissioners being run out of town. And although the commissioners said that the delegates had been pursuing them with the intent to kill them, it seems as though everyone escaped without injury. But as this uprising progressed in the early June of 1381, things became increasingly violent.

[Holly Fry]

All over southeast England, people attacked manors, abbeys and the homes of sheriffs, escheaters and other officials. The escheater handled various matters related to what we describe today as the feudal system that includes collecting of the fee after the death of a tenant. And yes, that is the etymology of the term cheater. Rebels burned records, including tax records and documentation of people's serfdom. In Cambridge, a woman named Marjorie Starr was described as throwing the ashes of these burned documents into the wind, saying away with the learning of clerks. Away with it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Some of the chroniclers who wrote about this uprising in the 14th century framed all of this as the product of the rebels willful ignorance and illiteracy. But it was really a coordinated effort carried out by the residents of communities all over England, especially in the southeast, to destroy all the written records of a system that they felt was oppressive and corrupt. If there was no record of their taxation and their bondage and their rents or all the other expenses and commitments that were associated with their lives, then they could be free of it. Documents were seized or destroyed in more than 150 places around England.

[Holly Fry]

This also went beyond property destruction. On June 10, a mob in Essex killed escheater John Ewell before burning his records. That same day, the King's minister started attempting to negotiate with the rebels, who were demanding an audience with the king.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

By June 12, as many as 30,000 people had encamped at Blackheath, which is part of London today. And the King's court had moved from the palace of Westminster into the Tower of London out of fear for their own safety. Outside of London. Crowds from Essex and Suffolk had ransacked the home of Henry English, which was in Birdbrook, and Richard Lyons, which was Enliston. English was the sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, and Lyons was a widely hated merchant and financier.

[Holly Fry]

The assembled forces from Kent, Essex and Suffolk vastly outnumbered the King's available army. So the King agreed to negotiate with the rebels. He traveled down the Thames by boat to meet them, but once he arrived at the meeting point, it was decided that it was just too dangerous for him to go ashore.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This, of course, stoked the rebels anger and resentment. And at some point on June 13, somebody, it is not clear who, opened the gates of London to the assembled crowd. Once inside, they burned Savoy palace, which was the home of John of Gaunt. They also looted and burned the homes of other prominent officials, as well as the buildings that were situated along London Bridge.

[Holly Fry]

On June 14, the king met with Wat Tyler and men from Essex at Mile End. Tyler presented the King with a series of demands, including the abolition of serfdom, community self governance, execution of several widely hated public officials who he described as traitors, and a general amnesty of the rebels.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There are various interpretations of the King's response. Either his youthful inexperience meant that he wasn't a very good negotiator, or he really did feel some sympathy for the rebels. He also might have felt like there was no other option because these rebels vastly outnumbered his army and had done all kinds of destruction and killed people. He made some really, really sweeping promises, including that he would abolish serfdom and forced labor, that he would bring the so called traitors to justice, which included some people that were high up within his own court, and that he would issue a blanket pardon for anybody who had participated in the uprising. The King gave Tyler signed charters that granted the serfs their freedom.

[Holly Fry]

However, as that was happening, other rebels broke into the Tower of London. The future King Henry IV was protected by hiding him in the cupboard. The rebels captured and beheaded several prominent people. One was Simon Sudbury, who was both the Archbishop of Canterbury. That was the one who had excommunicated John Ball, who we mentioned earlier, and the Chancellor of England. Another was Lord High Treasurer of England, Robert Hales, who was also the Admiral of the west and Grand Prior of the Knights of Malta. Their heads were reportedly put on display and paraded around London. Among others, John Legge, a Royal Sergeant at Arms, was also executed. In some of the chronicles of this event, he was described as putting his hands up teenage girls skirts under the pretense of determining if they were old enough to work. Richard Lyons was killed as well.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The targets of this violence also went beyond the officials who were associated with taxes and serfdom and other issues that were being protested. The mob focused on Flemings, who were a widely hated ethnic group in London. Flemish homes and businesses were targeted, looted and burned, and roughly 140Flemings in London were massacred.

[Holly Fry]

Watt, Tyler and the King met for a second time on June 15. The goal was to persuade Tyler to get the rebels to disperse from London. Instead, Tyler presented additional demands, including an end to tithing and a redistribution of wealth. During a heated argument between Tyler and London mayor William Walworth, Tyler was stabbed, probably by Walworth, but that is not entirely clear.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The King at this point did something which is fascinating to me, which is that he rode out to the assembled mob, told them that he was their leader now, and led them out of town. Tyler was taken to the Hospital of St. Bartholomew, where Walworth later went and killed him. Walworth had also raised his own fighting force of about 5,000 men, and he dispatched them to start putting down this rebellion.

[Holly Fry]

With Tyler gone, the government moved to put down the rebellion, an aggressive and bloody effort that went on for weeks. Hundreds of people were killed in fighting all around southeastern England. John Ball was captured on July 13 and he was hanged, drawn and quartered two days later.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Although the King had made a series of very broad promises to Wat Tyler, most of them were Never carried out. He withdrew the charters that had given the serfs their freedom on June 23, reportedly saying, Villains ye are, and villains ye shall remain. In case you're curious, just like escheater is the etymology for cheat, this is where the word villains come from. So people thought the escheaters were cheaters, and they thought the serfs were villains. He never carried out the other reforms he had promised in that meeting either.

[Holly Fry]

The people who were believed to be ringleaders of this whole rebellion were rounded up. Some were hanged, some were drawn and quartered. But after the executions were done, the king did order a general amnesty. And amnesty records are one of the sources of information for who these rebels actually were and where they lived at the same time. A lot of people took this as an opportunity to get a pardon for crimes that they had not committed, either fearing that they might be accused of something later, or just thinking that a documented pardon might be a useful thing to have in a time that was clearly so socially and politically chaotic.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The only thing that this uprising really concretely achieved was that the government stopped pursuing this whole poll tax issue. At the same time, though, this was England's first large popular uprising. So on a more intangible level, it demonstrated to everyone that such a thing was even possible.

[Holly Fry]

This kind of peasant uprising really was not unique to England in the 14th century. The same conditions that led people in England to rise up existed in most of the rest of Europe, as well as popular revolts, civil wars, and other social unrest were widespread all across Europe from the 1300s through the 1500s. A lot of the gains that the lower classes did see during these centuries were not simply because the Black Death had killed so many people. It came out of this widespread unrest and violence.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As is always the case with everything in history, this uprising has been interpreted and reinterpreted in the centuries of since then. Even though the rebels destroyed a lot of the records of their own lives and personal histories, the uprising is still pretty heavily documented through court records, medieval chronicles, and works of literature. But all these sources have their own biases. The court records, for example, are from a legal system that was innately biased against the defendants. And then the chroniclers who detailed the day to day occurrences of the uprising often disagree with one another on the specific details.

[Holly Fry]

The chroniclers in general, also didn't necessarily understand the people involved or what their grievances were. There are eight different accounts of the whole uprising, including the anonymous chronicle, which was probably written at Byland Abbey, the chronicles of Henry Knighton, who was an Augustinian canon, the Chronicles of Thomas Walsingham, who was a Benedictine monk, and the Chronicles of Jean Froissoir, who was a medieval poet and court historian in general, their lives were fairly removed from the people that they were writing about, and they lumped the rebels together as uneducated peasants motivated by willful ignorance. Frozart characterized John Ball as mad so.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We kicked off this episode by talking about bad takes about the Black Death, which sort of compress the whole timeline between the Black Death and the Renaissance, just skipping over centuries of unrest and also something we didn't really get into in this episode, imagining the Renaissance as a time that was a lot better for working people than the medieval period had been, which was not necessarily true at all. But there have also been some bad takes about the 1381 rebellion, including that it literally inspired the French Revolution. While there is some similarity between the uprising's focus on freedom and equality and the French Revolution ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity, I guess you could also make comparisons between the Reign of Terror and the beheading of officials and parading their heads around London. That idea just leapfrogs over 400 years of history.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, the cause and effect stuff that sometimes happens when discussing history loses a little bit of track of timeline and nuance.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can make lots of arguments about all kinds of things where, like we see patterns in history when we look back on them, or how one thing set conditions in place that made another thing more likely. But the Black Death caused the Renaissance. Really oversimplified. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive, if you heard an email address or a Facebook URL or something similar over the course of the show that could be obsolete now. Our current email address is historypodcastheartradio.com youm can find us all over social media istinhistory and you can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio Mission, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Lester Holt]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway, now through June 24th. Score hot summer savings and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags on Items like Pepsi 2 liter bottles, poppy prebiotic sodas, all laundry detergent and kinder seasoning blend. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery subject to availability restrictions. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.

[Tom Brokaw]

And here we have a specimen from the early 2000s a legacy investing platform. Please don't touch the exhibit folks. It could crash. Ready to step out of the Financial history [e-mail] you can invest in almost everything stocks, bonds, options and more. You could even put your cash to work at an industry leading 4.1% APY. Leave your clunky, outdated platform behind. Go to public.com and fund your account in five minutes or less. Paid for by Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. Full [e-mail] disclosures Are you still quoting.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast.