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In 1381, some 35 years after the Black Death had swept through Europe decimating over one-third of the population, there was a shortage of people left to work the land. Recognizing the power of ‘supply and demand’, the remaining peasants began to re-evaluate their worth and subsequently demanded higher wages and better working conditions.
Not surprisingly the government of the day, comprising mainly of the land-owning Bishops and Lords, passed a law to limit any such wage rise. In addition to this, extra revenue was required to support a long and drawn-out war with the French, and so a poll tax was introduced.
Richard IIIt was the third time in four years that such a tax had been applied. This crippling tax meant that everyone over the age of 15 had to pay one shilling. Perhaps not a great deal of money to a Lord or a Bishop, but a significant amount to the average farm laborer! And if they could not pay in cash, they could pay in kind, such as seeds, tools, etc. All of which could be vital to the survival of a farmer and his family for the coming year.
Things appear to have come to a head when in May 1381 a tax collector arrived in the Essex village of Fobbing to find out why the people there had not paid their poll tax. The villagers appear to have taken exception to his inquiries and promptly threw him out.
The following month, the 15-year-old King Richard II sent in his soldiers to re-establish law and order. But the villagers of Fobbing meted out the same unceremonious treatment to them.
Joined by other villagers from all corners of the southeast of England, the peasants decided to march on London in order to plead their case for a better deal before their young king. Not that the peasants blamed Richard for their problems, their anger was aimed instead at his advisors – Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, whom they believed to be corrupt.
In what appears to have been a well-organized and coordinated popular uprising, the peasants set off for London on the 2nd of June in a sort of pincer movement. The villagers from the north of the Thames, primarily from Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, converged on London via Chelmsford. Those from the south of the Thames, comprising mainly of Kentish folk, first attacked Rochester Castle and then Sudbury’s Canterbury, before setting off for Blackheath on the outskirts of London.
More than 60,000 people are reported to have been involved in the revolt, and not all of them were peasants: soldiers and tradesmen as well as some disillusioned churchmen, including one Peasant leader known as ‘the mad priest of Kent’, John Ball.
