BOND MEN MADE FREE: Medieval Peasant Movements and the English Rising of 1381

by Rodney Hilton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1973

There are those who would challenge Professor Hilton's view of the medieval peasantry as a ""class"" since, as E. P. Thompson has shown in his seminal The Making of the English Working Class, the notion of ""class"" must include a consciousness of itself, and this the medieval peasantry acquired only as it was undergoing transformation toward capitalist farming and a market economy and then only negatively, i.e., it manifested itself simply as a bitter hatred of the land-owning nobility. The real value of Bond Men Made Free comes from Hilton's demonstration that antagonisms and violent physical clashes between laborer and lord were endemic in the medieval order erupting throughout Europe from Flanders to Sicily, from England to the Elbe in defiance of a social theory that stratified the world into ""those who work, those who fight, and those who pray."" Hilton further shows the remarkable diversity of peasant rebellions which ranged from highly localized jacqueries in which a single manor was sacked or burned to the long-lived movements of ""social banditry"" which approximated ongoing guerrilla warfare. About half of Hilton's book is devoted to the social composition, organization and goals of the War Tyler Rebellion of 1381, probably the best documented of early peasant risings. For the rest Hilton covers a lot of ground -- from the Tuchins who operated in France during the Hundred Years' War to the Catalan remesas of the 15th century, from the impact of millenarian preachers to the slow evolution of peasant institutions of self-government on the village level. Primarily for specialists, the book significantly advances understanding of the submerged and inarticulate toilers whether they were legally classed as serfs, coloni, tenant farmers or smallholders.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION