The Peasants' Revolt Of 1381 - Part Two (Medieval History Documentary) | Timeline

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[Music] the peasants revolt was the most astonishing popular uprising of the Middle Ages it was a response to a century that was held to living on top of plague famine and war the government had imposed a poll tax in 1381 the people snapped within two weeks a mixture of farmers tradesmen and landless laborers were on the brink of overthrowing the social order [Music] the rebels had marched on London to present their demands for justice to the boy king richard ii in person fifteen days in and two vast armies from Kent and Essex were camped north and south of the Thames we've discovered that the rebels who can't hear on Blackheath under their leader what Tyler weren't just yokels the so-called peasants were highly organized and politically sophisticated they wanted change and they wanted freedom right here on that Thursday morning on the day of the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi the rebel clergyman John Ball celebrated Mass and preached one of the most famous sermons ever a political manifesto as radical as Marxism 500 years later he asked when Adam delved and Eve span who was then the gentleman in other words the very first people that God created weren't Gentry they were ordinary working folk who dug their fields and made their own clothes the message was clear the whole system of nobility wasn't ordained by God in fact it ran directly counter to God's will so with God on their side the rebels set off to put that right King Richard and his court had no idea how radical the demands of the rebels were so they've got no plan to deal with them in fact they had little plan at all they agreed to an arm's length meeting this is an illustration of what seems to have been an extraordinarily impractical arrangement the king and his advisors got on barges at the Tower of London and sailed to rather hive to where the peasants were massing the idea was that they'd have a safe stretch of water between them and the mob and according to the chronicles the king told them to go home although I can't actually imagine the king said it himself presumably one of the heiress to craps said what should we do my lord and the King said tell them to go home and the aristocrat went the King says go home but that does seem to be a pretty pathetic tactic sorry this isn't working very well is it angled did you turn the engine off wait [Applause] I said it seems a pretty pathetic tactic to just simply have said go away it certainly was but there's chaos and the Kings and biases at this time his ministers do not really know how to deal with this they're not quite sure how large the revolt has become and their earlier efforts to send out messengers to try and intercept the rebels and tell them to go home simply hasn't worked so what did the King do well the king and a small footer of barges basically stopped in the river and wait for the rebels to shout what they want and what did they want the rebels asked can we meet the king in person and does he agree well we're not sure exactly what the Kings wants but it seems as ministers say to him definitely do not get off the boat it's not safe so they try and keep him on the boat so what did the peasants actually demand well what they asked for now is a list of important men to be handed over for them to deal with themselves like ho well it reads like a list of the who's who of late medieval England it's the top men in the Kings government including the Chancellor the treasurer the Lord keeper of the Privy seal and some senior judges who have been involved in prosecuting the men who are refusing to pay the poll tax so presumably some of them would have been in this little for tiller of barges but it seems more than likely the lot of these men are actually around Richards at the time so it puts both them and the young king in a difficult situation so presumably he didn't hand them over no he doesn't probably because he's been stalling for time and there was he do well the flotilla simply goes back to the tower but presumably the peasants weren't very happy about that the peasants are absolutely outraged by this and they simply decide what if the king is not going to come to us then we are going to come to him and force him to listen to us and they did they marched into Southwark and broke open the King's Bench Jail freeing the prisoners army deserter Thomas Wharton used the opportunity to pinch six Silver Spoons belonging to the jailers wife but the revolt had popular support across all classes the rebels were joined by respectable local citizens like John mocking he'd made a fortune importing wine for wealthy Londoners he was a leading member of the congregation at some olabs where his brother was rector London's last line of defense was the Thames in 1381 there was only one place to cross London Bridge [Music] by putting pillars of the community like John mocking at the front of the crowd the rebels persuaded the alderman defending London bridge to lower the drawbridge the peasant army swept across the bridge and into the defenseless City round I've only got a token force but we're following the exact route the revenues talk as they flooded into the city and out all to Fleet Street it must have been like an invading army many London has supported the revolt and turned out to welcome the peasants but there was fear and panic too as the peasants started to hunt down there they didn't just hate the priests and the nobility they load the lawyers especially the corrupt ones who rigged trials in favor of the rich so when they arrived at the Courts of Justice they burst in dragged out the lawyers and cut their heads off these were tough countrymen with their own idea of rough justice there was no mercy for the people they believed had betrayed the king and the chief traitor in their eyes was Jonathan the King's uncle the rebels believed he was the evil power behind the throne pushing the young King into making all the wrong decisions and getting rich himself lucky for him gaunt was on the Scottish border when the peasant struck or he would have been a dead man instead the peasants vented their anger on his palace at the Savoy where the Savoy Hotel stands now was one of the grandest palaces in the kingdom it was a storehouse for Gaunt's wealth a treasure trove of jewels exquisite furniture robes finery and cash which the people believed had been siphoned off from the poll-tax around four o'clock on the afternoon of the 13th of June it became the chief target for all the pent-up hatred and passion of the peasants revolt I came bursting in here smashing everything up tearing up clothes they've got arrows which they set fire to and then they fired the arrows into the clothes it would have been absolute chaos oh yeah can we ride our horses into your nice hotel I got them I got 300 peasants outside can I bring those into now where can we park the horses in the stables round the back nothing much changes in a few hundred years does it can I come in on my own I'm booked in for a cup of tea oh no get a cup of tea 600 years ago the gatekeepers at the Savoy were on the peasant side they let them right in thousands of them peasants gentry countrymen and Londoners we've got the names of over 500 John knocking the wine merchant was there along with the Manningtree men John Sumner and Robert Pierce [Music] there were also lowlifes like richard scott a street con man who'd scratched a living cheatin gullible visitors to the capital with loaded dice John and Joan Ferrer from Rochester liberated a chest containing a thousand pounds rode it across the river to Southwark and shared it out with their mates they'd taken a risk though the rebels were prepared to use extreme violence in their fight against corruption but looting was banned on pain of death for them raiding the Savoy wasn't about gain it was a symbolic act of destruction the rebels burnt Colts clothes smashed his furniture cut up his silver and gold plates and threw them in the Thames it was very nice tea actually they do do a good tea at the Savoy I think one of the things that our experiments have shown is how different the world was in the Middle Ages of nature a bit of cake by the way fantastic from how it is today for instance the kind of violence that they meted out in the peasants revolt it's unlike anything that there's been in London in my lifetime I completely destroyed this place and left it in ruins for decades just to show people what a terrifying thing it was when the peasants revolted caralho in the old Savoy doesn't look nearly as grand round the back as it does from the front does it no but I think perhaps in 1381 this side would have been quite as impressive as the front so he's got loads of rioters here not just people from Kent and Essex but local people too would they have just left their work and mucked in I'm quite sure the Londoners participated in the attack on four they were obviously opportunist but they had their own reasons for disliking John of gold they disliked him because he had tried to extend the jurisdiction of the crown and threatened the privileges of the City of London do you think this would have had any impact nationally or was it just a London event no it had a massive impact nationally and in Europe I mean it was well-known all over Europe that this had happened I think there's some very close parallels with 9/11 and the kind of impact that that had but only two or three hundred people died here compared with thousands in 9/11 but think of the population of London population London was perhaps 40,000 so two or three hundred people is about you know 1 in 800 whereas if you think of New York population of 8 million 2,000 died that's perhaps 1 in 16,000 massive the greater death toll in the peasants revolt in relation to the size of the population people whom you perhaps disregarded and thought robbers lower than vermin have no education like animals suddenly you find they're capable of organizing something on a massive scale and coordinating it and bring about a successful breakdown of law and order and I think after 9/11 everybody was shocked that people have been able to achieve such a coordinated impact and it was exactly the same in 1381 the chronicles are horrified that rusty key and rustic people are able to bring the king's government and government of london to its knees as the rebels took control of london richard ii became a virtual prisoner in the tower [Music] looking out across the city he would have seen columns of smoke rising from the Savoy Palace [Music] someone with the atmosphere have been like here in London during the revolt well if you are a lawyer or a priest you'd probably have been hiding in a cupboard or under the floorboards but for the ordinary people it would have been very different you know what it used to be like on a hot night during the Notting Hill Carnival in the old days everyone had had a good time and it was loads of rubbish all over the place and there were people lying face down in the street but behind all the singing and laughter there was none the current of something much more violent and sinister some started to use the revolt as a cover to settle private grudges it wasn't just corrupt officials that were fall doubt for summary executions one of the nastiest aspects of the revolt was a series of what nowadays we'd call racist attacks the targets were the Belgians or the Flemish as they were then known what are they done wrong well they were foreign and they made a lot of money and that was enough the rioters would seek them out they grabbed someone throw them against a wall and get them to say the words of bread and cheese if they used the Flemish phrase brought and Kassar that was proof they were dragged away and their heads were cut off after the first chaotic day in London that had seen the destruction of the Savoy Palace and summary executions on the street the peasants had turned the world upside down [Music] holed up inside the tower the king was presiding over a desperate debate about strategy some wanted to launch an immediate attack on the rebels but Richards sided with those who counseled delaying tactics [Music] he sent a message to the rebels to determine the fate of his kingdom the next day he would meet them face to face [Music] England was in disarray in just over two weeks the peasants revolt had shattered the rigid rules of medieval society peasants from Kent and Essex had overrun London and forced the King to agree to a face-to-face meeting the Essex rebels camped here a mile outside of London on the road to Essex and a place appropriately called Mile End there's the station over there it was here on the 14th only a fortnight after the revolt had started that the King of England himself rode out to meet the rebels it was confusing scary the key himself was under threat he was Daniel in the lion's den but was the Royal party right to be so scared they were the the threat was very serious indeed half the country was involved with the rising now they were in very serious trouble in the US so when they got here what happened well they approached the crowds you have to bear in mind there's a huge crowd you had the Essex Army here about 30,000 peasants and yet autonomy the London population had turned out to join this enormous gathering this is an extraordinary moment in English history and what did they want they drove for demands one was for an end to bonded labour which meant that the peasant would be able to work for any law they chose to work for so they wouldn't be serfs anymore exactly that'll be the end of serfdom absolutely rise the second related demand was that any person will be able to sell their produce as they chose on the London market or wherever in other words they wouldn't they wouldn't be forced to hand over tribute to the local Lord so these are guys arguing for a free market basically well they certainly wanted the freedom to trade us as they chose that rise and the third the third demand was for land rent to be reduced to four pence an acre now this is interesting because land rent varied enormously across England some peasant had spurts of two shillings a year per acre for their land so to reduce that to four pence an acre across the country suggests they had a national plan a national vision for how things could be different this was Demond based on economic theory maybe theories too strong a word but they certain had economic ideas this wasn't some crazy chaotic outburst some irrational outburst they had an economic plan and how England could be organized differently so that's three demands the force demand was that nobody should be punished for having taken part in the rising so the king is confronted by all these radical demands what does he do he concedes he knows he has no choice they're ready in a corner at this point how did the rebels know he'd keep his word they got it in writing it's same today isn't it you don't just take someone's word for it you get it in writing they demanded charters of freedom for every single village represented at my land that day this was unbelievable the king had granted every one of the peasants demands at a stroke he'd agreed to dismantle the entire structure of medieval society ending serfdom and producing signed documents to make it official and this is the evidence a contemporary copy of one of the charters recorded by a chronicler in trying to hang on to his kingdom Richard was willing to sacrifice almost anything and anyone the Ruggles thought they'd got what they wanted but the hated government officials were still in power so they demanded the heads of Sudbury and Hales who'd been left behind at the tower and when the king murmured something about giving them justice a group of them broke away Taron London police and raced back to London with the news that the king was throwing the traitors to the wolves [Music] the Tower of London had never once fallen in its entire history at this time it was different where the rebels arrived they found the drawbridge was down and the doors were open the king or someone close to him was clearly on their side on one level they were like kids let loose in a sweetshop they've rampaged through the corridors they burst into the Queen's bedroom they ransacked her drawers they bounced up and down on her bed but that was just the fun part they knew what they were really after the blood of the poll-tax traitors Sudbury and Hales and Coe must have known what was coming to them as this great crowd of men and women swept through the tower sabri tried to escape but he was spotted by a woman as he scrambled into a boat and was dragged away and thrown into this Chapel the country's number one bishop and tax collector had got nothing left to do but pray it took a blows to sever Sudbury's head from his body Robert Hales was also executed their heads were paraded on spikes in celebration of the peasants total victory after just two weeks of rebellion the peasants had overturned medieval society they'd won their freedom and seen their hated enemies executed in cold blood they trusted Richard to deliver so even while the newly won charters of freedom were being signed satisfied peasants started drifting back to their homes if Richards concessions had been intended to divide and rule the tactic had worked down this little alleyway is the site of Richard the second bolt hole a fortified house in the city walls known as the Wardrobe it was here on the night of the 14th the special team of 30 mounts was drafted in to copy out the royal charters of freedom but the amazing games made at Mile End weren't enough for a hardcore of Kentish rebels led by what tyler their ambition was nothing less than the overthrow the entire system and the next day a final showdown between the roofer from Maidstone and the boy king would shape england's destiny for centuries [Music] when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 there was this extraordinary feeling of excitement and euphoria that ordinary people had overthrown a superpower something similar must have been in the air in June 13 81 in just two weeks the peasantry had thrown this rigid and oppressive regime it's a total disarray the King had given in to all their demands not only that but they got this paper to prove it royal charters actually signed by the king which promised to do away with serfdom not only that but he sacrificed the heads of some of the most hated and highest officials in the land just to appease their anger the status quo had been stretched to breaking point when news reached the authorities that what Tyler wanted further concessions they must have realized a showdown with the hardcore rebels was inevitable [Music] they had to come up with a strategy there planned to fight back all rested on the shoulders of a 14 year old boy richard ii knew he was going to need all the help he could get at 3 o'clock on the 15 the deeply religious young king came here to westminster abbey to pray at the shrine of his venerable ancestor the Saints and King Edward the Confessor he'd only have had the hazy estai dear of how badly his kingdom was falling apart but what he did know wasn't for him the next six hours will make or break he had won trump card to play the peasants absolutely trusted Richard to do the right thing by them they were wrong [Music] the crunch meeting was make-or-break for both sides it was arranged for later that day here on neutral ground outside the city walls in 1381 it was a field by the monastery and hospital of st. Bartholomew Smithfield [Music] Smithfield meat market grew up here outside the city walls no one wanted the dirty business of butchery in the heart of the city and Smithfield was also a place for dirty political deeds a few years before William Wallace Braveheart had been hung drawn and quartered on the 15th death was once again in the air the peasant started to assemble late in the afternoon they knew that the political future of England was theirs - gross the demonstrations I've been on in London they've all tended to start pretty much the same first of all little rather desultory groups of people arrived looking round wondering what's going to happen and then more and more people fill the square until suddenly there's a sense that you actually occupy the place in a way that you never have before then someone arrives with all the banners and posters and all of a sudden you've got an identity but presumably they didn't have banners and posters in the 14th century well I think there's evidence that suggesting they did my way modern academics are suggesting that they found evidence they're carrying the Sun George's flag and that Richard to indicate his ascent to this had given some of them permission to carry the royal standard [Music] the peasants may have had their 14th century equivalent of plaque arts but that's as far as the parallel with a demonstration goes they were a far more formidable fighting force than a bunch of modern protesters they had to be Richards men had state-of-the-art equipment this guy would have been a bit more threatening than coppering the riot shield absolutely it so the status quo guard and we're 35 years into the Hundred Years War these are meant with real military experience so man clad in steel is an intimidating thing so what kind of weapons would the Kings forces have has predominant weapon of the period of course is the sword yes so they'd have been armed with the sword sword can be used I'll see the cut and can thrust with you can cut with you can use the other end as now you can use the cross start as a hook it's a very versatile fighting tool they also would have had daggers daggers would be on both sides daggers a wonderfully versatile weapon again great London good for street fighting getting close with stab people in the shoulder which has a particular resonance in this circumstance yeah but with this armor and the sword surely though the rebels would have easily been hammered well I think the important thing to remember with this rebellion is this was an armed rebellion and in London there were two opposing forces heavily armed there was no inequality here so what did the rebels have well I had a variety of things obviously they weren't all peasants in the way that people today think they were but even if some of them were the poorest man in the land can afford a stick you can get a stick for free in the woods is that much good though yeah I could beat a man in armor with a stick ever first of all I've got rich his main job he's going to get near me I could have hit him 20 times then if he's clever enough to get hold of my stick and comes in I can use the stick to block with now I've got a wonderful leader he's off balance and I can hit him and hit him again so a stick is very useful but even if you're not a skilled person with a stick even if you're somebody who hasn't done much but just has anger in your heart you could do a lot of damage with that I think that's for me that one's for me yeah I like that about this isn't it agricultural tool it's called a hedging bill it's for trimming the hedges laying the hedges getting them neat it's a weapon in its own right that popped down to your local blacksmith and get him to spend ten minutes in the Forge and put a spike on it and you can see look it's the same tall this is like the yeoman of the Guardians nowaday exactly this with a spike on becomes the English military bill and it was a classic weapon of the Hundred Years War English Billman were famed the world over and it's got reach you can get to people on horseback it's got power even simpler you just need to take a size blade so aside for reaping the corn down to the blacksmith and put it on a long pole now you've got a devastating awesome cutting weapon so you've got the reach to sign up at that night sitting six foot high over his horse or chop the horse what's this thing I have to say this does look a bit Joey Joey it's a flail it's you've seen Bruce Lee movies yeah and I have the nunchakus - little short sticks and they do all that stuff from deal like that that's because they use it to Thresh the rice what they did in Europe was they use this with a longer pole to Thresh the wheat so again we're a few weeks away from harvest the wheat is still green but once that's golden brown you need to Thresh it you need to separate the wheat from the chaff so it's simply a tool and they do that on the floor to separate the wheat from the chaff sticks and nails in it and you've got a military weapon well I would love to be on the receiving end of that and even if you're wearing armor then there's going to be a level where you get some blunt trauma let's have a go and adding to this homegrown our slaw was the deadly firepower of the people's weapon the longbow 900 bows have been stolen from the tower the day before and every peasant was trained to use one so we've got two opposing armies bristling with weapons nose-to-nose in the middle of London pretty scary thought well it's not quite in the middle of London Tony it's right on the outer edge of the city even now today it's right by the ring of steel marks the sensitive inner core of the city more like a ring of solid plastic now well I know it yeah in 1381 it would have also been still very dramatic from the events of the revolt behind us you'd have been able to see the ruins of one of the Priory's that the rebels would attack still burning away so why here I think because it was a controlled space where you could easily assemble the two sides in order to try and conduct some sort of negotiation how many rebels do you think they might have been well it's always difficult to say with numbers in 1381 we know that some rebels had left the city after the concessions of Marland but when what we were left with a Smith field was a recalcitrant hard core almost like head banging hey bangers rebels I guess there probably would be about three or four hundred of them left by that stage Kingsman well the king is likely to have had about 200 men with him including bodyguards and his personal servants and his attendants so they're they really getting prepared for this encounter and probably quite concerned at the stage when you say prepares what do you reckon their plan was well it's very difficult to work out but it seems that there's some suggestion that the king's men might have expected some kind of trouble and may well have been planning for an armed encounter otherwise they're probably concerned to see what Tyler is actually gonna ask for at this second meeting so do you reckon the whole thing was actually a stitch-up well many people have said that right really since the few days after the revolt people have argued that this occasion may well have been set up as a sting against Tyler and the other rebels and what you thought it's so difficult to tell but one problem with this theory is that the king is quite exposed throughout the encounter and his life really is in danger in several points it's a real high-risk strategy if it water plot if it was a conspiracy they're taking an enormous risk especially as they must have been aware that they were dealing with the toughest and the most recalcitrant of the rebels but just as much as conspiracy it may well have been that this illustration is from Jean Fras arts history of the revolt written just seven years after the event it's the climactic showdown between Richard the second and what Tyler there's a complete hush it's really tense the artists have got their fingers on the bows but what ambles up to the King in a familiar relaxed way shakes him by the hand hello brother he says and then he tells him what they want freedom abolition of the aristocracy apart from the king abolition of the senior clergy except for John Ball who was going to be made the next Archbishop of Canterbury local courts local police forces to be run by the people themselves and all the money that previously belonged to the bishops and the Lords would now be divided up among the common people and all the while what was telling this to the king playing with his knife flicking it from hand to hand although whether it was because he was tense or because he was really relaxed no one knows when he'd finished the King didn't argue or tried to negotiate he just said yes with the tiny caveat that the people should continue to respect the monarchy what was thirsty he called for some water he took a drink swirl it round in his mouth and spat it out then he ordered some beer he drank that and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and at that moment when they seemed to be on the verge of the greatest social revolution the world had ever known things started to unravel boy shouted a squire near the king I know you you're the biggest thief in Kent that not what he said come here and say that and he ordered his men to lop off the Squires head but no one moved instead the Mayor of London rode forward either to reason with Tyler or to provoke him The Chronicles differ as to precisely what happened next but what is clear is that some kind of scuffle broke out what tried to stab the mayor but he was wearing armor and stabbed what in the back of the neck instead then someone else whacked him what tried to ride back to the safety of his men but before he'd got 80 paces he fell off his horse the peasant bowmen tensed ready to rain down arrows on the king and his men behind them were others with flails and billhooks there was enough firepower to wipe out the entire bodyguard even the king himself was in danger but on the brink of disaster Richard himself dealt the fatal blow to the peasants revolt he was only 14 but he was brave he rode straight towards the sea of rebel bowmen [Music] you shall have no other king but me he shouted follow me to Clarke and well it seems that he was being spontaneous if so it was very brave but it was also a brilliantly ambiguous phrase did he mean that he was taking the rebels cause or was he telling them that from now on they had to submit to the authorities the peasants lowered their bows breathed a sigh of relief and followed their king to the fields of Clarke and well all through the revolt they'd appeal to him for justice now their fate and that of the wounded what Tyler lay in his hands surely the divinely appointed monarch would see them right what Tyler's outrageous demands for a new social order had led to a bloody confrontation at Smithfield now the peasants revolt hung in the balance richard ii led the remaining rebels off to the fields of clark and well on the promise that he would be their new leader meanwhile Tyler himself was bleeding to death here in the Abbey of Sun Bartholomew's [Music] he'd been dragged here after he'd been stabbed the monks were trying to keep him alive when the king's men burst in and dragged him outside for a show execution they severed his head from his body and with that blow the revolution ended they stuck a head on a spike and took it off to the fields of Clarke and well where the King had led the rebels but at the same time all the available loyal forces in every ward in London converged on Clarke and well and surrounded them when they saw Tyler's head and the show of force the rebels threw away their weapons and dropped to their knees in the corn begging forgiveness the rebels had come within an inch of transforming the country but with what Tyler's death the momentum of the revolt was broken and as the shock waves of failure spread the rebellion slowly died [Music] Richard had never been on the peasant side he organized a ferocious backlash the people of England were about to find out the price of revolution in the 14th century the establishment wants to make sure nothing like this ever happened again after the disaster at Smithfield thousands of rebels went home hopeful that they wouldn't be identified but a small Corps cloners outlaws in the Middle Ages if you were an outlaw then like Robin Hood you tended to hide in the forests and 500 of them were cornered in the woods of Billericay and massacred then the king appointed commissioners to seek out and destroy the leaders of the rebels who'd returned home they were to be punished said the King either according to the laws of the kingdom of England or else by other means and methods by beheading by mutilation of limbs as seems to you both expeditious and sensible the Billericay deaths were just part of a campaign of terror that shocked even the chroniclers at the time scholars estimate that hundreds died before official prosecutions began and what about the individuals whose stories we've been following what Tyler was probably already dead from his wounds when he was beheaded johnboll suffered the full torture of being hung drawn and quartered some months later he died still proclaiming his simple faith many wealthier rebels like John mocking the wine dealer Thomas Raven the MP and the men from Manningtree were pardoned and lived out lies of respectability unlike Thomas wooden the army deserter he denied his part in the revolt and staked his life on a trial by combat he lost then there was Richard Scott he ended up in the pillory the next year not for taking part in the revolt but for cheating too Scotsman at dice and the man who started it all Thomas the baker was hunted down on the 4th of July just a month after he sparked the revolt he too was hung drawn and quartered over the next five months the last embers of the peasants revolt were extinguished but the authorities not only wanted the peasants defeated they wanted the rebellion forgotten official spin started the process of masking the true nature and achievements of the summer of 1381 this is Sudbury and Suffolk which seems to me to be the perfect place to end this journey because despite the official pardons the period after the revolt saw a vicious bloodbath of unofficial executions without trial they weren't recorded of course so we've no idea how many but in the 1930s a whole cache of headless skeletons was found just over there and local people believed there the bodies of the last remnants of the rebels they were reburied of course covered up just like the true story of the peasants revolt [Music] this church was once the heart of an institution founded by Simon Sudbury the hated Archbishop who'd enforced the poll tax his head had been hacked off by the rebels at the Tower of London we know that the summer of 1381 was gloriously hot but if he want proof of the fact it's here Sudbury supporters rescued his head from the spike on which the rebels have stuck it and brought it back to this church it's in this little cupboard here can you see that the air was so hot and dry that it actually mummified all the skin on the lower half of his skull that is the head of the man who collected the very first poll tax it was this that was paraded round on a spike on the 14th of June 1381 and there you can see the sword marks where his head was hacked from his neck it's quite a bizarre historical relic and it's just about the only tangible thing I can show you from the peasants revolt [Music] there's no shrine for any one of the men and women who came so close to changing their world so was the peasants revolt just a blip on history's radar did so many people die for nothing or is there a more lasting legacy from 1381 [Music] the global impact the peasant revolt showed that ordinary people could get together and think about politics on a broader level beyond their own lives since 1381 no British government and nowadays that means the House of Commons has lords but then it meant the king and his council in Parliament can disregard the wider political community and for this to have happened at the end of the 14th century was truly remarkable that set the pattern for later centuries of revolt we find more of them in the 15th century in the sixteenth century and beyond there's a real sense I think that in 1381 the peasantry has arrived as a factor in politics people today protecting against exploitation and warfare so what the peasants did in 1381 does echo down the centuries to us and it does have a resonance in terms of our own experience today [Music] my search for the truth about the peasants revolt has given me an entirely new perspective on the Middle Ages all right they were tough and horrible for the majority of ordinary people who were trapped inside this tyrannical and oppressive regime but we're not talking about brain-dead yokels like something out of a Monty Python film these are smart politically sophisticated people separated from us by just a sliver of historical time and what I find really moving is the way that they were able to express really complex desires and demands about things like religion and tax and local government and freedom and weld them all together into a really well-crafted manifesto not only that but many of them were prepared to risk prosecution and death even though they weren't directly involved they lost of course but what they did sent a clarion call down the ages that's never been completely forgotten that in the end government can only work if the people are prepared to be governed [Music] [Music]

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Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Keywords: Full Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, BBC documentary, 1381, documentary history, Documentaries, peasants revolt, tony robinson, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, rebelion, Channel 4 documentary, stories, Documentary, History, history documentary, real, Full length Documentaries

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Length: 48min 49sec (2929 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 04 2018

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