SOYMB previously discussed the English peasant revolts of the middle ages and it has covered the German Peasant Uprising here , as well as the Central European Taborite events here .
In France a similar rural resistance movement also emerged.
The Jacquerie was a popular revolt by peasants that took place in northern France in the summer of 1358, during the Hundred Years' War. The revolt, which was violently suppressed after a few weeks of violence, centered in the Oise valley north of Paris. This rebellion became known as the Jacquerie because the nobles derided peasants as "Jacques" or "Jacques Bonhomme" (Goodfellow).
The French privileged classes, the nobility, the merchant elite, and the clergy, forced the peasantry to pay ever-increasing taxes and to repair their war-damaged properties without compensation. The passage of a law that required the peasants to defend the châteaux was the immediate cause of the spontaneous uprising. The serfs and villeins turned upon their ravagers and began a war of reprisals, in the course of which many castles and chateaux were burnt to the ground by the infuriated “Jacques” who wreaked a terrible vengeance upon their enemies who fell into their hands.
The peasants involved in the rebellion seem to have lacked any real organization, instead rising up locally as an unstructured mass. Additionally it seems that the rebellion contained some idea that it was possible to rid the world of nobles. The revolt was suppressed by French nobles led by Charles the Bad of Navarre. When Guillaume Cale, the leader of the rebellion, was invited to truce talks by Charles, he went to the enemy camp, where he was seized by the French nobles, who considered that as he was of low birth, the customs and standards of chivalry did not apply to him; he was tortured and decapitated. His now leaderless army of 20,000, was ridden down by divisions of knights' cavalry in the ensuing Battle of Mello, which was followed by a campaign of terror throughout the Beauvais region, where soldiers roamed door to door in the countryside lynching countless peasants. While a few hundred aristocratic victims of the Jacquerie were known to the chroniclers, who detailed the outrages practiced upon them; some 20,000 anonymous peasants were killed in the fury that followed. Devastation and horror reigned supreme. Following the declaration of amnesty, such heavy fines were assessed the regions that had supported the Jacquerie that a general flight of peasantry ensued.
Nevertheless, the Jacquerie traumatized the aristocracy. It was the fear inspired, rather than the success achieved, which gave the upheaval its importance.
In Paris at the same time, there was the uprising of its citizens under the leadership of Etienne Marcel the head of the merchants and trades guilds of that city. Marcel intended to end royal despotic authority by enforcing the recognition of the self-government of the communes of France combined in a federation after the model of the good towns of Flanders, and having at their head the Commune of Paris. Payment and equipment of the army and more important still, the power to carry on or to suspend war decided by arbitration of the States; open and transparent government, the treasury under the control of public functionaries elected and audited by the States. The collapse of the Jacquerie plus political intriques led to the end of the first Paris Commune.
The uprising of peasants in England had put an end to serfdom and the Jacquerie in France had so severely checked serfdom in its development that from then on the institution simply vegetated, without ever expanding.
In France a similar rural resistance movement also emerged.
The Jacquerie was a popular revolt by peasants that took place in northern France in the summer of 1358, during the Hundred Years' War. The revolt, which was violently suppressed after a few weeks of violence, centered in the Oise valley north of Paris. This rebellion became known as the Jacquerie because the nobles derided peasants as "Jacques" or "Jacques Bonhomme" (Goodfellow).
The French privileged classes, the nobility, the merchant elite, and the clergy, forced the peasantry to pay ever-increasing taxes and to repair their war-damaged properties without compensation. The passage of a law that required the peasants to defend the châteaux was the immediate cause of the spontaneous uprising. The serfs and villeins turned upon their ravagers and began a war of reprisals, in the course of which many castles and chateaux were burnt to the ground by the infuriated “Jacques” who wreaked a terrible vengeance upon their enemies who fell into their hands.
The peasants involved in the rebellion seem to have lacked any real organization, instead rising up locally as an unstructured mass. Additionally it seems that the rebellion contained some idea that it was possible to rid the world of nobles. The revolt was suppressed by French nobles led by Charles the Bad of Navarre. When Guillaume Cale, the leader of the rebellion, was invited to truce talks by Charles, he went to the enemy camp, where he was seized by the French nobles, who considered that as he was of low birth, the customs and standards of chivalry did not apply to him; he was tortured and decapitated. His now leaderless army of 20,000, was ridden down by divisions of knights' cavalry in the ensuing Battle of Mello, which was followed by a campaign of terror throughout the Beauvais region, where soldiers roamed door to door in the countryside lynching countless peasants. While a few hundred aristocratic victims of the Jacquerie were known to the chroniclers, who detailed the outrages practiced upon them; some 20,000 anonymous peasants were killed in the fury that followed. Devastation and horror reigned supreme. Following the declaration of amnesty, such heavy fines were assessed the regions that had supported the Jacquerie that a general flight of peasantry ensued.
Nevertheless, the Jacquerie traumatized the aristocracy. It was the fear inspired, rather than the success achieved, which gave the upheaval its importance.
In Paris at the same time, there was the uprising of its citizens under the leadership of Etienne Marcel the head of the merchants and trades guilds of that city. Marcel intended to end royal despotic authority by enforcing the recognition of the self-government of the communes of France combined in a federation after the model of the good towns of Flanders, and having at their head the Commune of Paris. Payment and equipment of the army and more important still, the power to carry on or to suspend war decided by arbitration of the States; open and transparent government, the treasury under the control of public functionaries elected and audited by the States. The collapse of the Jacquerie plus political intriques led to the end of the first Paris Commune.
The uprising of peasants in England had put an end to serfdom and the Jacquerie in France had so severely checked serfdom in its development that from then on the institution simply vegetated, without ever expanding.
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