Exercises on Medieval Peasant Revolts

(Unifor-CE) The situation of extreme poverty in the countryside, due to natural calamities, combined with the oppression of servile obligations, led the peasants of medieval Europe to revolt against the nobility. Of these insurrections, the most significant were:

1. The Struggles at Poitiers in 1355 and the Brétingny Revolt in 1356.
2. The Jacquerie of 1358 in France and the Lollards' Rebellion of 1381 in England.
3. Bertrand Duglesclin's in 1364 and the Armagnac Rebellion in 1380.
4. The taking of the Fort of Orleans by Joan of Arc, in 1429, and the Rebellion of the Burgundians, in 1430.
5. The conquest of Bordeaux in 1453 and the conflict with the English bishop Thomas Becket.

Peasant revolts showed that the feudal world was not a period of harmony between lords and serfs as was said by medieval clerics. On the reasons that led to these conflicts in European fields, in the 14th century, mark the incorrect alternative :

1. The Black Death reduced the number of labor available for work, intensifying the exploitation of those left alive.
2. The decrease in production due to the Black Death and climatic factors led feudal lords to increase the amount of taxes levied.
3. The decrease in manpower forced the lords to increase the barriers to the departure of the serfs from their lands.
4. Climate change did not influence the outbreak of conflicts.

The Jacqueries in France, which took place in the 14th century, convulsed the rural world of the country, characterizing the French pioneer in the revolts that would occur in almost all of Western Europe, in the Low Middle Ages. About the Jacqueries, reply:

1. Why were these revolts so named?
2. In the context of which war did they enter?

On the peasant revolts that took place in Western Europe and their causes, indicate the incorrect alternative :

1. The lack of food incited many feudal lords to promote the increase of taxes and obligations to be levied on the servile class, which revolted them.
2. In urban areas, the lack of food did not affect free workers, as they maintained their wages by supporting the existence of the consumer market.
3. The climatic changes that took place at that time were of great importance for the outbreak of several peasant revolts.
4. In the 1320s, urban revolts by Belgian day laborers marked the beginning of the crisis that had formed in Europe, which generated conflicts in several regions of the continent.
5. France became the scene of the first peasant revolts, which became known as the “Jacqueries” or “Revolt of the Jacques”.

Letter B . The importance of the two revolts is linked to the fact that they gained great amplitude in France, in the case of the Jacqueries; and in the English case, for having represented the beginning of the end of servitude in the country.

Letter D . Climate change influenced the outbreak of revolts by reducing the amount of food produced, resulting in increased taxes and intensification of work, in addition, of course, to having caused hunger.

1. These revolts were named after the expression “Jacques bom homme”, which means Jacques the simple, a pejorative nickname given to peasants in the period.

2. The Jacqueries took place in the context of the Hundred Years' War, fought between France and England, in the period 1337-1453.

Letter B . The causes that led to the outbreak of revolts, such as the lack of food, also affected free workers, who had nowhere to find food to meet their needs.