England in the 1330s

In the 1330s England was a feudal society ruled by Edward III. Society was like a pyramid:

• the king at the top, then the nobles and Church, who held the land;
• at the bottom, the peasants — most people — who farmed the land.
• Many peasants were villeins (serfs): unfree, tied to their lord's manor and forced to work his land.

Key idea: most people were poor, unfree peasants who owed labour and dues to their lord — a system soon to be shaken by war and plague.

The Hundred Years' War begins

In 1337 Edward III went to war with France, beginning the long conflict later called the Hundred Years' War. Edward even claimed to be the rightful King of France.

• England won famous victories, such as the naval Battle of Sluys (1340) and the land Battle of Crécy (1346), where the English longbow proved deadly.
• War was expensive: it had to be paid for through heavy taxes on the ordinary people.

The costs of war — and the taxes needed to fund it — created deep resentment that would later help spark rebellion.

The war with France

The Black Death strikes

In 1348 the terrifying plague known as the Black Death reached England. Within about a year it may have killed a third or more of the population.

• People had no idea of the real cause and blamed God's punishment, "bad air" (miasma) or the planets.
• "Cures" like prayer, herbs and fleeing did not work; whole villages were wiped out.

The Black Death was one of the greatest disasters in English history — and it changed society forever by killing so many workers.

How the plague changed England

With so many dead, workers became scarce and valuable. This shifted power towards the surviving peasants:

• Surviving peasants could demand higher wages and better conditions, or move to lords who paid more.
• Alarmed lords and the government tried to hold wages down with the Statute of Labourers (1351), fixing pay at pre-plague levels.

The Statute of Labourers angered peasants who felt they deserved better after the plague — a major cause of the anger behind the 1381 revolt.

The year the plague came

Why the peasants rebelled

By 1381, anger had been building for years. The main causes of the Peasants' Revolt were:

• the Statute of Labourers holding wages down after the plague;
• resentment at serfdom and the demands of lords;
• the cost of the war with France; and above all
• a hated new tax — the Poll Tax — charged on every adult, rich or poor alike.

A third Poll Tax in 1380–81 was the final straw. When officials tried to collect it, rebellion broke out.

Name the hated tax

The Peasants' Revolt of 1381

In 1381 rebels from Kent and Essex marched on London. Their leader was Wat Tyler, and the radical priest John Ball preached that all people should be equal.

• The rebels entered London, burned the Savoy Palace and executed the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• The young king, Richard II (only 14), met the rebels to hear their demands.

Who led the revolt?

The death of Wat Tyler

At a meeting with the king at Smithfield, things turned violent. Wat Tyler was killed by the Mayor of London during the confrontation.

• The teenage Richard II bravely rode forward and persuaded the rebels to go home, promising to meet their demands.
• But once the rebels dispersed, the promises were broken. The revolt was crushed and its leaders, including John Ball, were executed.

In the short term the revolt failed — its leaders died and its demands were rejected.

Person / event ↔ who or what

Tap an item on the left, then tap the correct description on the right.

Did the revolt achieve anything?

The Peasants' Revolt failed in the short term, but it still mattered:

• The hated Poll Tax was not collected again in the same way — a real, if quiet, victory.
• It showed that ordinary people could challenge their rulers, frightening the ruling class.
• Over the following decades serfdom slowly declined, though this was mainly due to the long-term effects of the Black Death rather than the revolt itself.

Interpretation point: historians debate whether the revolt "achieved" anything — it was crushed, yet it marked a turning point in the relationship between the people and their rulers.

What happened to the revolt?

The year of the revolt

Holding wages down

Timeline: 1337 → 1381

Put the events in order

Tap the events in the correct time order, from earliest to latest.

Name the young king

Sources and interpretations

In the exam you handle sources and interpretations about this period. Two habits win marks:

• Ask who made it and why (provenance). Most surviving accounts of the revolt were written by monks and chroniclers who sided with the rulers and were hostile to the rebels.
• Use your own knowledge to judge it — support or challenge a source with facts (the Poll Tax, the Statute of Labourers, the Black Death).

Interpretations differ: some see the rebels as dangerous troublemakers; others see them as ordinary people bravely demanding fairness and freedom.

Thinking like a historian

Why these years matter

The years 1337–1381 packed in three great upheavals — war, plague and revolt — that were closely linked:

• the war demanded taxes that squeezed the poor;
• the Black Death killed so many that surviving workers gained bargaining power;
• attempts to hold the peasants down led, in 1381, to open revolt.

Together these events began to weaken the feudal system and shifted, slowly, the balance between rulers and ruled.

The period in one line

In just over 40 years, war, disease and rebellion shook medieval England to its foundations and began to loosen the grip of the feudal order.

The essentials to remember

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