Why the People Rebelled

A biography of Wat Tyler, described as a hero of the people (from the New York Times, October 28, 1852, with references to Hume and Froissart!)

1381. “The faint dawn of the arts and of good government in that age, had excited the minds of the populace, in different states of Europe, to wish for a better condition, and to murmur against those chains, which the laws, enacted by the haughty nobility and gentry, had so long imposed upon them. The commotions of the people in Flanders, the mutiny of the peasants in France, were the natural effects of this growing spirit of independence; and the report of these events, being brought into England, where personal slavery, as we learn from Froissard, was more general than in any other country in Europe, had prepared the minds of the multitude for an insurrection.” (Hume, History of England, Vol. 2, Ch. 17)

If we put what Froissart and Hume say together, I think we get an idea of why the people rebelled. Froissart speaks of how comfortable the people were becoming. Hume speaks of the "faint dawn of...good government in that age." These two things go hand in hand. When there is good government, that is, a government that protects person and property, then people prosper--even the most humble.

As I understand it, the relationship between lord and serf originally made some sense. The lord was able to protect the serf and the serf was in need of protection. There was originally no effective central government to protect person and property. The king was not yet sufficiently powerful to provide that protection. So the lord protected the serf and in exchange the serf provided certain services--such as planting, harvesting, etc. It was a roughly fair exchange.

But as government became more effective and more able to provide effective justice, the people turned more to the king for the kind of protection they used to get from their lords, the nobility. Once this happens, then the feudal system no longer makes and sense and loses all appearance of fairness. The serfs serve their lord and receive nothing in return. It is a system that the lords naturally want to maintain, but it is clearly unjust. So the peasants have good reason to rise up against it.

They simply want to be paid for their work and to rent their land from their lord--in other words, to participate in a fair exchange for what they give and for what they receive. The article from the NY Times noted above emphasizes the justice of the peasants' cause and regards Wat Tyler as a hero.

(It also looks forward in time--that is, from 1381--to Cade's rebellion, which if I remember correctly is dramatized by Shakespeare in Henry VI.)