The Story Of The Peasant's Revolt | Peasant's Revolt Of 1381 | Timeline

Today this is Smithfield, of course, it is famous as a meat market, but 600 years ago it was literally a field on the outskirts of London and then, on June 15,

1381

, it became the scene of one of the events most important in British hi

story

, whose climax was an extraordinary one. A fortnight in which ordinary British working men and women stood up and claimed their own place in hi

story

for the first time was called the Peasants' Revolt, an event in which people dared to challenge the rigid rules of society. medieval to rebel in 14th century Britain. risk everything and with so much at stake this story involves bloodier scenes than the market scene since the 14th century has been called the worst century in the world it was a terrible time to live on top of plague, famine and continuous wars there was oppression by the harshest of regimes when they could no longer bear it the response of the people shook the nation to its foundations the

peasant

revolt

was not a mutiny but a revolution its impact was so shocking that the historians of the ruling class deliberately silenced it its true meaning I hid the achievements of the common people by calling them mutinous hillbillies.

I want to restore the men and women who were here to their rightful place in history. I want to bring a whole cast of unsung heroes blinking into the spotlight and with the help of experts. We want to show how oppressed people organized to transform their world and how betrayal and tragedy destroyed that dream. Discovering the truth about the

peasant

revolt

means embarking on an epic journey of discovery. What the peasants did in

1381

has echoes down the centuries for us and has no resonance in terms of our own experience today it is the most important event in the social history of the English Middle Ages it set the pattern for Later centuries of revolt as I retrace the course of the revolution I will discover who some of these extraordinary men and women were and how exactly they handled the planning and logistics of their remarkable campaign.

What they never told me in school was that it all started from where I come from. This explained to me when I was growing up here in the 1950s. There was already the development of tape practically from Eastham to Southend-on-Sea, but it was very different in the Middle Ages, all the places I knew in my childhood were made of stone, Woodford, Barking and Brentwood, they were just small towns and I'm quite proud to say that. that it was the men and women of those villages who planned and led the peasant revolt. Today's politicians talk about the fight for the hearts and minds of the men of Essex.

Well, in 1381 they definitely lost it. The politicians of the time were taking, as they say now, everything. here and diabolical Liberty it was May 13, 81 and the English had been hit by a new tax the hundred years war with the French was dragging on and was very expensive so to pay for it they brought in a poll tax which meant that every adult in the country had to pay the same amount, whether the 14th century equivalent of the owner of a Jaguar or the proud owner of a Ford Fiesta. Margaret Thatcher's community charge was nicknamed the poll tax because it was based on the same principle and is 600 years old.

Afterwards it still didn't seem fair but it wasn't the tax itself that started the revolt at first the people seemed to be paying the problem it started when the government did the sums there was a deficit across the country people had been dodging the new taxes by canceling According to official records in Essex, more than a third of the population disappeared. If the authorities had turned a blind eye to tax evasion, then the problem could have been avoided, but they decided to send commissioners to pursue defaulters and what really happened. What sent people over the edge was the brutal and deeply personal way these commissioners behaved.

They go to a village and actually start talking about what caused the most offense was the way they treated the women of the village. These tax officials put their hands up the skirts of young women. find out if they were virgins or if they were married and therefore entitled to pay the poll tax. The Peasants' Revolt was sparked by this type of scandalous behavior and the man who put an end to it all was baker Thomas Baker from the village of Bobbing. On the Essex coast what we know about Thomas Baker is that he was brave.

The Chronicles say that no one dared to take the first step for fear of suffering irreparable harm, but Thomas Baker had the courage to organize a delegation from the surrounding towns and confront them. The commissioner of Brentwood, the commissioner's name was John Bampton, on May 30 settled in Brentwood with only a token bodyguard, blissfully unaware of what awaited him. Banton set up a makeshift table in the middle of town and everywhere amidst the anger. people pushing a lot of people from the surrounding towns there is a really ugly mood and from there Thomas Baker came out and told Bampton that all these people have already paid their taxes, there is no way you are going to get another penny out of them. and Bampton immediately ordered the arrest of a hundred people in the crowd, which was certainly not going to happen.

He completely misjudged his movements. A mutiny began and Banton's men had to flee before they were hit. Nobody knew it at the time, but that was it. the beginning of the peasants' revolt and it was a baker who started it. He had never thought of Baker's as peasants, but Thomas de Baker had a very firm place in a social order that had been fixed for centuries and to understand the Peasants' Revolt I have to know where everyone was in the pecking order. I have driven from Brentwood to Penn in South Wales on the M4 which is a long drive I am trying to see if I can feel anything. of what medieval Barks, Billericay and Dagenham would have been like in this town rebuilt to fool the untrained eye, these buildings all looked more or less the same even though that is a barn that belongs to the pig man, this one here is Baker's house, Thomas Baker would say They probably lived in a place like this, but everyone knew their place in this close-knit hierarchy, for example, inside the Baker's house, everything seems quite impoverished, in fact, the Baker He had everything he needed to survive, which made his life a misery.

He was officially a serf, he could own land and property, but he still belonged to the lord of the manor. Serfdom meant that he could not move or work for anyone else, not even marry his daughter without his permission, not even the most important man in the village, the Reeve. he was subject to the same system he had plenty of space lots of possessions nice furniture a few acres to farm he was like a successful small businessman but he was still considered a peasant because he was under the control of the lord of the manor anyway everything was going quite well while there was plenty of food on the table, but then in the middle of the 14th century something happened that changed in 1348, the Black Death devastated Britain, there was no cure, communities like these were devastated by the Black Death. killed up to half of all the people in Europe to put this into some kind of context, we all know someone who died in the first or second world war and if you add up all the people who died in the world wars in Bosnia in the massacres Hitler and Stalin's civilians still only reach 3.7 percent of the European population if you wanted to double the effect of the Black Death in Europe you would have to have 20 world wars well, in many ways the Black Death was a disaster for many peasant communities , many rural communities were completely destroyed, entire communities were devastated and the Black Death is seen as a kind of punishment imposed by God or humanity for their sinfulness, but if you are lucky enough to survive the attack of the plague, then you will have great opportunities .

Well, there was plenty of land available. The land had been short before the Black Death. In the wake of the Black Death, there is great abundance and also wages start to rise really dramatically, so you could be a lot more. mobile, you could be more mobile and you could also aspire to earn much more and the consumption power of the peasantry is growing in this period, so how did the employers deal with this labor shortage? Well, they're basically trying to counter the market. the government acting on their behalf introduces legislation to restrict the movement of labor and also restrict wage levels and this obviously produces considerable tension and discontent and then this huge tax is dumped on the people.

Yes, a series of pressures are building up within the peasant community within the peasant economy. you have restrictive legislation coming from the center and, in addition, you have a novel form of tax that has never been seen before. King Richard II was only 14 years old when the revolt began. People don't blame him. For the oppression and chaos, they believed that the king was divinely appointed and implicitly trusted him, the only problem was that he was young, a little boy couldn't be expected to rule alone, so when things started to go wrong Worse, people started blaming his advisors, who seemed to be coming out of all the disasters quite well.

The most hated figure was John of Gaunt, the king's uncle, whom he helped institute the poll tax. People suspected him of diverting funds for his own use and joining more peasants. On the hated list were two clergymen, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, who was Chancellor of England, and the Treasurer, Robert Hales, together they were responsible for organizing the collection of the poll tax. A cup of tea please bring it, know that it was not unusual in the In the Middle Ages, churchmen held high political and economic positions and it was not unusual for them to perform their duties in an unchristian manner, but Sudbury and Hales made Today's loan sharks look like the Salvation Army because the commissioners were so extraordinarily heavy-handed it was completely their fault the bacon roll is hot what amazes me is why people didn't fall apart before they would have a plague they have They had landowners trying to force them to lower their salaries They had to pay for wars in France with an unfair tax that always seems to end up in the pockets of the nobility but the commissioners sexually assaulted their wives which pushed them over the edge the pen revolt began when Thomas de Baker's men expelled the tax commissioners from Brentwood the reaction came almost immediately, the next day, another tax official appeared in Brentwood with a small troop of soldiers to calm the crowd and quell the riots, but they underestimated completely the force of popular sentiment.

It was dangerous to rebel against the representative of the Kings, but these were people who had passed the point of no return. They did not care that they were committing treason for the first time. The rebellion became violent. Six of the male kings were beheaded. The rest fled. The rebels had crossed. one line there was no turning back the English nobility saw the people who worked for them as little more than savages, but within days they would organize a revolt with a specific agenda and carry it out with ruthless efficiency. Thomas the Fobbing Baker had lit the torch of freedom in a matter of days.

They plunged the land into fire when an angry mob beheaded the Kings' tax collectors at Brentwood, sparked further outbreaks of violence and riots, the riots quickly spread across Essex and, further afield, four days later, anger over the poll tax exploded in Kent. At first glance, you wouldn't imagine the south side of the Thames to be packed with history, but it was here that the Peasants' Revolt stopped being just a bunch of riots during a long, hot summer and began to become something much more like a military campaign. Further ahead is the rebels' first major objective, Les Mis Abbey.

Now you might think that's a pretty easy target and a million miles away from the poll tax, but in reality Abbey is like this and the vast majority of land in England and the Abbotts, who ran them to those who like CEOs of financial institutions, not only that, but they were employers, so all the tax records would have been there. These tax tapes were directed by a man called Abel Kerr from Erath, a nearby port on the Thames. Abel brought his men. here and he surrounded the Abbey in the face of an angry mob of peasants and fearing for the monastery in his lifetime, the abbot surrendered with limited resources.

Abel had secured his first victory, then crossed the river into Essex and tried to mobilize men there, he collected a hundred The barking men brought them back here and they continued the chaos, but Mike, when I was a boy on the borders of London and Essex, We never went south of the river. I think the first time I went was when I was on vacation inFolkston, when it was about 12, wouldn't it have been the same? So quite the opposite in the 14th century there was a tremendous estuary culture the Thames here was full of ships flying back and forth between Essex and Kent the only land crossing was London Bridge down the river there but here tremendous agricultural region in Kent ramones farming region Essex produces cattle people exchange hundreds of boats back and forth but Mike Abel started barking and was back here in an instant I think there is a lot of logistics to this rebellion and a lot of issues related to the Medieval journeys that we need to explore and experience, without a doubt, must have used horses.

One of the things about the Chronicles is that they are great at telling us what happened, but absolutely useless at telling us how it happened, so I've brought in Mike as Mr. How It Happened and your first challenge is to figure out how Abel and his horsemen would cross the river. Do you think you can do that? I will certainly take on the mantle of the rebels and depict their journey through this uprising, as Mike begins the business of Retracing a Part of the Revolt with Abel Ker. He headed me back north of the river because what made the revolt so confusing to the authorities was that it was breaking out everywhere before they had time to react.

Essex was the birthplace of the revolt and events were developing there at breakneck speed at exactly the same time as Abel Ker and his men surrounded Knar. In Kent, the ringleaders and founders of the rebellion launched their manifesto here walking through Essex. Contemporary chronicles dismissed the peasants as a disorganized rabble, but the summit held here on June 2, 1381, provided a vital clue to the true nature of the rebellion. revolt were not just a group of rioters the agenda was drawn up by prominent and respected members of their communities who thought they were being truly patriotic by defending traditional rights on June 2 they declared their intention to destroy several King's Li Jie which means getting rid of Sudbury and Gorm and those they thought were corrupting the king and having no laws in England, only those they themselves pushed to be ordained.

This was dynamite the claim that people really could govern themselves and they made sure that everyone was going to hear that message they sent messages to the surrounding villages these people were well organized right? They were certainly organized in areas such as Colchester, which was the heart of the Great Society, and we believe in villages across the south-east of England. It would have been a nucleus of radicals who had been organizing for some time, so do you think there were radical cells spread across the country that somehow connected with this feeling of revolt, certainly in the south east and the counties around London ? if you look at the rhymes and the coded messages they sent us, they should have sent coded messages, yes they sent coded messages, that's right, well I have one here, this is a good example of one of the surviving messages where, for true, they were based. found in the pockets of the rebels, but here is one.

I will read it briefly. John spent some time for Mary the priests of York and now in Colchester greet a... the well Nameless John and John Miller and John Carter and ask the dock farmer to go to his work and punish well, hob to the thief, I didn't understand a word of that, what does it mean? Well, the Crypt, if you have written that we have to interpret from Middle English now, if I can translate quickly, yes, please, John, check John the. pastor that that is a New Testament reference sometimes from a priest of Mary of York referring to John Bull who was an important leader of the rebellion who was excommunicated, therefore he sometimes greeted well John, nameless , ordinary people, and John Miller and John Carter, are business people. working people and asks Piers Plowman to go to his work and punish, well, jump, hug the thief, the thief was the nickname for thieves' tales, he was the government treasurer, he was a hated, hated figure, we had to understand here that one of the causes. of the rebellion was a hatred of taxes this was a rebellion against poll taxes on a large scale now this is a very specific instruction punish him well this is a deadly instruction they know what they are saying means very clear messages implying that you can read that you know what's happening on a national scale that there is some kind of network that you can take messages to why were people so well informed and so organized?

I believe that in every village there would be someone who could read and who would have been They were informed that at the local Abbey they would have relied on someone standing on a small bush or barrel to read the coded messages and interpret them for the audience, but I believe that Communication must be understood in terms of the technology and society of that day, in the same way that today, anti-globalization protesters depend on the Internet or email. In the '60s, people listened to their Trani radios to get the latest news from the last demonstration or back in 1381, that's how people did it, so I guess.

Although technology changes the feeling of excitement and joy at the latest information or the latest story from London, it is more or less the same, it is the same feeling of being in a movement, the same feeling of liberation, the same feeling of enthusiasm and not know it at all. What's going to happen next? But knowing that you want to participate, these messages were fired from Essex in all directions to signal the start of the riot. This explains why southern England appears to spontaneously combust in the summer of 1381 and that brings us. Returning to our own medieval traveler, Mike Loades is on the first leg of a journey that will take him through Kent and eventually to London, but first, like a Booker, he has to cross the Thames.

He asked me to meet him at Tilbury Docks, which doesn't sound very medieval, Mike. I know this place where my grandfather used to work here when I was a child. He was a steward on a ship exactly the same during his life at Union Castle, so surely that's your answer: we got the horses up there and took them. through, far from being the answer, it is sent like this, that is our problem how over the last few centuries the Thames has been dredged into a deep channel and that has made it much wider and a much stronger current, it has more tides due to ships. so in the 14th century it would have been a narrower, smoother, much easier crossing, ok, so the app is on on the other bank.

The Curse of Abel, come here to get some Essex men back to Kent, how can he cross? How can he? move to the horses, well I've been looking into it, the first thing I thought, well the answer is going to be a concern for the Thames because it's a traditional Thames cargo vessel and what they discovered was that they're not deep enough and we'd have to I had to tack a lot to get across there and the boom didn't clear the horses' heads, so that was out of the question. I thought maybe it would be some kind of barge, but then we're having trouble loading and unloading them and the piers aren't ready.

First of all, then, there would have been a lot of traffic here during the 14th century, wouldn't it have been nice to stop it in an empty year like now? I'm sure it would have been colossal because don't forget at this point the The only bridge that crossed the Thames was London Bridge and that's miles up the river so I'm sure they were applying back and forth all the time with cattle and sheep and agricultural products, so if we don't have a roll-on/roll-off theory, what are we going to do right? There are so many tides, there are so many upheavals that it would be too dangerous for the horses, so I have decided to try my luck and take them on the Tilbury passenger ferry.

I'm not sure he's very happy with that, no. I know, but I'll take two with me because I have a long trip. Now we're going to Canterbury and back and we need a relief of horses so I'm going to try to get these two on the road. Fairy six days after the revolt Abel kur returned to Kent with one hundred men from Essex landed at Dartmouth two days later Abel reinforced with reinforcements launched the first rebel attack against an important military objective which they moved from Dartford to Rochester a week after the At the beginning After the revolt, the peasants had the confidence to attack one of the best defended fortresses on earth.

Rochester Castle and a fearsome reputation. The peasants risked everything just to free a serf from the dungeons. There was a guy named Robert Belling who had been living. I was in Gravesend for some time and one of the King's Knights came up and said, "Oh, I recognize you, you're one of my runaway servants, you're my property, I want you back and Belling said I'm not and a big uproar broke out." dispute and While waiting to decide who was right, Belling was beaten here at Rochester Castle, the local people were absolutely furious, he became a celebrity of the cause on the 6th, Dartford rioters appeared here and surrounded the castle.

Now look at this place, its purpose was built. To withstand a siege when King John came here in the year 1215, siege engines and tunnels were needed before the castle surrendered, but the Darth arrived and the gates opened; There must have been plenty of support for both outside the castle and at the heart of each of these momentous events were individual men and women and amazingly 600 years later we know who some of them were. The Peasants' Revolt wasn't just about the workers, there were all sorts of regular guys like soldier Thomas Wooden. He had been paid £30 in advance to sail to France with the army, but he abandoned ship at Dartford and joined the rebels who stormed Rochester Castle.

You would never call Sir Thomas Raven a peasant, even though he was deputy and constable of Rochester Castle. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the revolt, but the man who emerged as its overall leader was a merchant. We know this because his name has resonated throughout the centuries. I don't remember much about my school, but a name that sticks in my head will probably stick in yours. It's also what Tyler when the riot started there were many local leaders but when they came here to Maidstone they elected a national leader which was short for Walter and he really was a Tyler he probably worked on Abbey roofs and churches that kind of Other than that, we know practically nothing about him.

Some say he was a local radical, others that he was from Dartford or even Essex, but it was here that he came to the fore in Maidstone, where he was elected leader and where he helped rescue another. of the main figures of the revolt, John Ball, who was being held in the Archbishop's palace, which is now a registry office, so Tyler and his men destroyed the palace and broke into jail, freeing John Ball and the others prisoners, why the hell? Wouldn't the archbishop have a prison? I guess it all really depends on us understanding what an archbishop is in the late 14th century and thinking that an archbishop is a really powerful prince, but she's thicker, yes, yes, and none older than the Archbishop of Canterbury and she has two main domains that he is going to use as a prison for people who infringe his ecclesiastical courts and he will use it for people who have offended his local customs, which he has on his vast estates and who will be brought here. to be imprisoned and at the same time what Juan Pablo was doing in prison well Juan Pablo is in prison because he is acting as a radical preacher and it seems that he has been in prison three or four times and that he has been brought in each time to operate as a preacher without license and also because the text of his sermons and the text of his teachings radically undermine the traditional authority of the church in England and what was a radical is a radical because he wishes to reform the church from within in terms of its care for the poor and the sick and the distribution of weapons, and he is a radical because he wants to fundamentally return to the way the church was a long time ago, he is symptomatic of new attitudes among the clergy, he was not just John Ball. rescued John Ball is just one among many prisoners at that time we should probably give more importance to those other prisoners who are local rebels in the official courts but also to those who since the 13 70s although they could be held and taken to the war in northern France they actually refused to do that and it's pretty clear that the area around Meister and indeed Tunbridge was a hotbed area for that sort of refusal, if you like that sort of people who don't they would fight not even as At the end of May 1381 militia groups were forming in Kent and each of those militia groups had its own leader and a small group of potential combatants who had been raised to fight like the French and the Castilians; of course, it is immediately a recruiting ground for the peasants' revolt.had become a crusade the rebels were organized they had a manifesto and were using selective violence to achieve their objectives after destroying the Archbishop's prison they headed to Simon Sudbury's headquarters 30 miles away in Canterbury he was the boss The man in charge of the poll tax and the rebels wanted his blood, they marched into Canterbury on the morning of the 10th, they joined that with the local people defeated and executed all those who were identified as traitors and then camped here at the Cathedral, broke in and completely disrupted .

The mass which would have been deeply offensive in itself demanded the removal of Archbishop Sudbury and that John Bull should be put in his place. Now these chairs would have been here. This entire area would have been a vast open space with people completely cut off. away from the priests by that choir screen over there, but the rebels ignored everything they marched, straightened this whole place, which normally would have been so quiet, would have suddenly been filled with angry voices and people demanding that Archbishop Sudbury come in front to them all the time. It must have all seemed like complete anarchy, but of course Sudbury wasn't here.

He was too shrewd a political animal. He was in London, not in his Abbey church, but they had gone too far to give up. Instead, they released lightning. In London, what would happen when this wave of angry peasants arrived in the capital after just 12 days of the peasants' revolt? A carefully ordered medieval world was destroyed. Most of southern England was beyond the rule of law in search of an end to unfair taxation. and the servants the rebels had opened prisons and invaded the headquarters of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury then the Chronicles tell us that they embarked on a bold strategy to attack the capital itself the stories seemed almost impossible so we are going to put them to the test later Al assault on the Cathedral they were told that the rebels left for mass for London on the morning of the 11th and that 60,000 of them showed up at Blackheath, on the outskirts of the capital, the following night, but that seems a long way to go. going to such a big crowd in such a short time, so Mike and his team will put the Chronicles to the test and see how easy it would have been to have done so much in the 36 hours we know were from Canterbury via Maidstone because they caused a lot of problems, which It means that they were actually going on a small curve.

Not directly on the A2, so we're going to follow a similar route, but obviously we're going to have to move around a bit because we can't take these main roads with the horses. I think at least some of us could get there. I will certainly try it. Would you like to try it with us? I'm probably the worst rider in the world, but I'm going to be splendid. I think you should use this. Could you help me with how well we have a wonderful horse for you named Mallanna and she will make you look good, she is very stable, very good, and you will have to sit there, grit your teeth and take the pain, I will look great, you promise , oh yes, this is Malala.

It's mommy, I've been doing this for a long time, my leg is up. Oh, we want to establish whether 60,000 peasants could really reach London in a day and a half. Okay, let's go to London. We are giving ourselves all the advantages, although most. the peasants would have gone on foot we are using the fastest mode of medieval transport we have lined up horse changes and the advantage of 21st century planning and communications but there are some obstacles that medieval peasants would not have had these roads have had in the 21st century 14, well, I think once we're out of the enclosures, if it had been dirt roads because that's what all the drafts thought was horse transport and that's a lot kinder to the horses, things make noise, It is not like this?

Well, I think noise stress is going to be one of our most draining factors. Yes, one thing is for sure: the medieval peasant must have tired of me after an hour, so I started to suffer and then disaster struck. This is what happened. We continue forward. for about an hour and then I had to stop a little because I had to get off and film a little and they kept going because they were already later, they needed to make up the time and when I finished filming we were able to. We didn't find him and that's why we've been looking for them ever since, so we lost radio and phone contact and I'm stuck here with the whole film crew.

We have to be here because we have to exchange. about the horses because nowadays with animal welfare you can't ride the same group of horses for the full 36 hours and we have completely lost the rest of the riders and in a funny way maybe this is what would have been in small communities along the road without knowing what was happening, so perhaps without realizing it we have recovered the whole spirit of the peasant revolt, perhaps we have simply made a mistake, but this forced separation gave me the opportunity to investigate a equally important part of the revolt.

In other parts of the school what you learn is about peasants marching from Canterbury, but that's not even half the story north of the Thames. Thousands of peasants from hundreds of villages were forming the second arm of a coordinated pincer movement that threatened to crush Londoners across the East. Anglia had joined the Essex rebels, men like John Sumner of Manningtree, near Ipswich, we know that he owned goods worth 400 marks and which today are worth over one hundred and thirty thousand pounds. His neighbor Robert Pearce was also a wealthy landowner. Both were totally different from a caricature of a peasant.

Pearson Sumner joined 40 other people from his village the focus of his anger remained the injustice of the poll tax along the Manningtree Road Man United with others his road to London was marked by a carefully targeted campaign of violence the first stop went here and coggle shawl at the Essex headquarters at the chief tax collector of Essex this is his house here they took him out of the window they beheaded him in the street and stuck his head on a post then they ransacked the whole house looking for the hated green stamped poll tax documents they destroyed could replace the tax collector, but how would they know who to tax?

Then the rebels headed five miles down the road toward the way of the Knights Hospitaller at the temple of Cresson. This was the order led by the tax villain. Robert Hales, they were joined by others from across the county who chose the mansion as their meeting point and incredibly, the huge barns are still standing. They were people who lived in shacks and small cabins and we used two buildings the size of small parish churches. this was architecture designed by the enemy and would not have been empty as it is today; It would have been packed from floor to ceiling with peas, beans, corn and barley, and where would the profits have gone if not to the local people? everything would have gone to the Knights Hospitaller headquarters in Malta and there wasn't just one of these things, there was another one just as big right there, the local people must have been hacked, so why didn't they burn them?

The answer is because they were rural people, what they set fire to was behind those walls, the offices and the kitchens and the monks' refectory. As far as the rural people were concerned, these were useless but they were really useful, do you think? who did an enormous amount of damage when they were here, yes, they must have done an enormous amount of damage at that time because there was food and wine stored for the general chapter of the Knights Hospitaller by order of Robert Hales and apparently the rebels. They ate all the food and drank all the wine.

The Chronicle says that one story in the chronicle says that there were 3 barrels of wine, which is 3 barrels or the equivalent of 9,200 gallons and 450 liters, which is quite a lot, and they were quite fortified when they sat down in their seats. In some ways, this was the only place associated with hailstones that were attacked. I know quite a few Knights Hospitaller threats were attacked and in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire, three places in Cambridgeshire, places in London plus Clarke and well, the Highbury men, so it was a deliberate attack. the manners of the gentlemen hospitalists and Robert Hales himself, how many people do you think appeared here?

We can be sure that at least one hundred and ten people from 50 different parishes across Essex turned up and, interestingly, one person from North Fleet and Kent. presumably 410 were charged, there must have been more than that here, yes I suppose so; It is very difficult to know anything about the real number, but there must have been several hundred who gathered here on the morning of June 10 afterward. destroying Crescent Temple the Essex rebels began their advance on London at dusk on the 11th they were burning tax documents in Chelmsford meanwhile south of the Thames the other arm of the pincer movement was still pressing on the capital where Tyler and his men were camping the first night of the march from Canterbury to London somewhere around Maidstone Mike made good progress following the same route without foot soldiers to support him, he has advanced five miles beyond Maidstone but it took him all day actually surprisingly well surprisingly well They couldn't have done it.

We have covered the same distance as we did today on foot. I think people who are on foot and just keeping a steady pace will probably only be four or five hours late, and obviously as they go, they're picking up new people as they arrive, so no. Everyone's feet are sore like everyone else, but it's already 10pm, so foot soldiers four or five hours late would have had to travel an enormous distance to make up for it. The idea of ​​60,000 farmers moving en masse through Kent is beginning to seem implausible. With the twin peasant armies converging on London, the city was gripped by rumors and panic.

The boy, King Richard and his court, including his hated advisors. The kicker. Westminster's rapid retreat to the Tower of London. all the resources of the crown at the disposal of the king and his chief ministers, Archbishop Sudbury and Lord Treasurer Hales, have had to take the tower for their own safety due to reports reaching him of the extent of the unrest in London and Southeast. We have to remember that at this moment there is no permanent police force nor a permanent national army. The crown's professional soldiers are currently fighting in France and where they are needed, so Richard only has a limited number of men at his disposal right now, okay, so he is outnumbered here, what are they planning to do? good?

Clearly, Richard, among his ministers, has to come up with some kind of strategy to get the rebels out of London, but he's fourteen. Well, it's remarkable how Rich's ministers are behaving like rabbits caught in the headlights and have simply been blindsided by this national revolt that they were completely unprepared for, so the young King seems to be the person who has to call the shots. decisions for himself, how easy it would have been! Had the rebels stormed here, what we see now are some of the most modern defenses of late medieval England. The tower was an exceptionally well defended building in the 14th century, there would have been even more perimeter defences. than what we see now, so if the garrison had wanted to put up a tough fight, they could have done so with a fairly small number of men, but the problem is that they don't have enough men to take the fight off site. tower and confront the rebels who are vastly outnumbered, so it's fine as long as he's here, but there's nothing else you can do, he has to stay put, the king could only wait for information as the rebels steadily advanced from Canterbury.

On the second day of their trip, Mike and his men have made efforts thanks to authentic medieval technology. They have exchanged horses. These specialized Icelandic ponies are the closest we can get to the medieval horses called Angelus. It's a relief to see you. I thought you were lost, yes it's been a long trip, we've made this one about 18 cool miles, that's right, these aren't the horses you started with, I hope they've shrunk a little, yes, these are Icelandic horses, the meaning is not that. They are Icelandic but the Icelandic horses are the ones that have kept the lateral gene and their words have a different type of gait if I show you yeah look how it goes if it goes this way look how it goes it is and I'm not bouncing up and down because what's happening is his legs are going, these two are going in that direction, so it's a side to side movement, so I'm just gently rolling in the chair.

I don't have it all. This action while I'm riding when you're traveling a long distance you want comfort and it's also a good thing for horses because what they do is they don't put the impact directly on the ground, they run like that, yeah, because even when we were just trotting on those metal surfaces because there wasRiding for years I came away quite shocked, yes, because you're getting that, you're getting the maginot that's doing to that part of a horse's leg, yes, that wasn't a problem in the Middle Ages because they didn't have metal roads, we have One problem, the harsh little blurs of the morning have Mike within striking distance of his destination, but we can't use them again today and our original horses are worn out from the previous day on the roads hour after hour on metal roads he doesn't wander, does the trot, yes, and there he is suffering from a concussion and this is not that bad, but the first signs that he has a little inflammation here, yes, which means that today, because I saw this horse, I don't want to pressure him to I don't feel any discomfort, so we're going to have to walk now and that hurts, right?

We know we could have done it, yes, but we have to do it. Let's take care of the horses first, so I think that will set us back a lot. Now we'll see how far we go. Desperate medieval peasants might have risked their horses, but this is just television. As Mike reaches the suburbs, it's a question of how much. plus your horse can handle something he's fine he's healthy he's not yet he's not lame it's just that if you pushed him then he might become lame I'll see you in black hey I'll see you in black more than five hours later.

I'm waiting for Mike with my own rebel academic, we're in Black Heath where 60,000 rebels gathered and it's 8:12 and Mike was supposed to be here at five o'clock and we're losing power and it's starting to rain, but At least we have a real bonfire, very nice and warm, unfortunately we have not received any tax documents to burn it, as the rebels must have done in 1381, they chose a fantastic place to meet there, didn't they? nice and open today, this welcome to the municipal area at 1381 would have been more rough and ready, but the most interesting thing is that there would have been direct access to the back, look at this, I'm afraid we have a taxi, we are waiting for the clip-clop three horses ain't goin' well done buddy, well done, well done, about two more hours after we left Judah, so probably another 8 10 miles and then what happened, well, bluey, nobody's not lame, lame , but I was starting to be very gentle about it, who's funny, I need you to take care of the horse, I'd call it a day, stick it down there, but we didn't make it, but in a way we did very well, so we did it, I want That is, they have covered at least the same distance and probably did more.

Yeah, it's no big deal for a medieval traveler to have covered that kind of distance on horseback. Yeah, Mike, no big deal for a medieval traveler of the right kind. of horses, but hasn't this idea that thousands of people came from Kent and Essex because there weren't going to be many horses available really blown out of the water? Having so much food available, I certainly believe that the idea that a single group descended on London from Canterbury is difficult to hold in light of this experiment, what fascinates me is that it certainly demonstrates the need to use horses and the need to have backup and that is absolutely critical, which seems to me to possibly suggest what we are talking about a small group of riders who were really going around encouraging others to get up by coordinating events and really acting as a kind of minute and spearhead in the movement towards London.

The suggestions that arose from this experiment seem to be confirmed by court records of the proceedings against the rebels, which suggest a similar type of mixture: a few actual militant leaders from Kent who came from Canterbury, presumably riding horses in the same way as what you did with other supporters who joined them when they gathered here in Blackheath, does that work for you? I wish it were huge, Lee, I mean, I see it as a striking force, as people stoking the fervor of those who had the financial ability to travel. rules but you say small groups one hundred riders can you remember the sound of those blurry cups? three of them arising imagine that a hundred times the dust the noise entering a small town that was a big event and would have gathered like a Like a snowball and more and more people we got closer to London, the kind of things I learned in the school of thousands and thousands of ignorant peasants marching through the countryside and then ending up in London seems not to be the case, but what we can see is the idea of ​​flying pickets intelligent people experienced people people with good horses only a few come here gathering and lashing everything is a complex image much more varied than the classical view will have us believe that we have the authentic place where We have the authentic rebels.

We have the real campfire. I suggest we turn it off and go down to the Boozer game. Yes, north of the Thames, Essex's other rebel army camped outside the city walls at Mile End. These twin armies had. burned in the countryside of the capital, people waited in fear as the peasants of Kent and Essex threatened to change the country forever.