Wat Tyler: biography, creativity, career, personal life. Wat Tyler rebellion See what "Wat Tyler" is in other dictionaries

William Ainsworth

Wat Tyler

Book One

SMITH, MONK AND Fugitive

In 1381, in the fifth year of the reign of Richard II, in the picturesque village of Dartford, in Kent, there lived a blacksmith named Wat Tyler. He was a man of slightly above average height, very strong and stocky, with a broad, manly face, distinguished by a stern expression. His sunken eyes held a hidden, easily flaring light. Her dark curls, cut short, left a huge forehead open; a thick, bushy beard grew freely, going down to his chest.

The usual clothes of a blacksmith, which fully outlined his powerful figure, were: a blouse of coarse brown serge, descending below the waist, long, simple trousers and sandals tied with straps.

When leaving the house, he put on a hood over his head, which covered his neck and shoulders and left only his face exposed. He carried a bag at his waist and a dagger, the latter of his own manufacture.

One could positively admire the strong blacksmith when he, in his leather apron, with muscular arms bare to the shoulders, forged red-hot iron on the anvil, raising whole columns of sparks. Surrounded by assistants, most of whom resembled him in strong constitution, he seemed like a Vulcan among the Cyclopes.

Wat Tyler, who was under forty, reached the full flowering of his heroic powers. He was married and had an only child - a daughter whom he loved like the apple of his eye. In general, he is harsh with everyone, he was only affectionate with her alone.

He wasn't always a blacksmith. In his youth he had been a marksman, and he drew his bowstring like a true Sherwood forester. As a vassal of Sir Eustachius de Valletor, he was in the retinue of this noble knight and accompanied him on his campaigns in France and Brittany. In some fierce battles with the enemy, he attracted the attention of the Black Prince and the Duke of Lancaster. Seriously wounded during the siege of Rennes, he was left on the battlefield among those killed. But he recovered, and chance helped him to return to England with Sir Eustachius.

At that time, all peasants were serfs. They did not dare to leave the small plots of land given to them for cultivation, and could not shirk the service of their owners. The landowners had the right to require them to follow them to war. They could even sell them along with their dwellings, livestock, household supplies and families. In short, the Villani were in the same heavy serfdom as they had been after the Conquest; the owners rarely let their serfs go free, and only for a very large monetary ransom.

Going to war, Wat Tyler was still a serf, but on his return to England, as a reward for his diligent service, he was set free by the owner. Then he settled in his native village, Dartford, where he started a forge. There was no lack of work, Wat was a master of his craft; it was even said that he could forge strong armor or a cone better than any armorer in Kent.

Although Tyler had little reason to complain about his fate, he was still unhappy. Over the years, he became more and more gloomy, it seemed that some secret concern ate him. If we could look into his heart, we would see that it is overflowing with ardent and rebellious aspirations, implacable hatred of the rich and noble, a burning desire to avenge the oppressors of the people and an unbending determination to distribute all property among the lower classes of the people, if only a great indignation could succeed, which, he was sure, was about to flare up.

From the very accession to the throne of Richard II, in 1377, signs of popular unrest were already evident, but the nobles, confident in their power, did not pay attention to him. And now the storm that had been approaching for a long time now threatened to break out with terrifying fury.

The young monarch, who was then in his seventeenth year, ruled under the leadership of his uncles - the Duke of Lancaster and the Earls of Cambridge and Buckingham, who were later awarded the titles of Dukes of Cambridge and Gloucester. Their requisitions and cruelty eventually brought the people out of patience.

In addition, Richard had several other greedy favorites. They were led by his two half-brothers, the Earl of Kent and Sir John Holland, as well as the Earls of Salisbury, Warwick, Suffolk, and Sir Richard Scrope, the steward of the palace. All of them depleted the royal treasury, which constantly needed to be replenished.

To top it all, as a result of constant and fruitless wars with France, the spending of nobles and knights, who competed with each other in the number and brilliance of their retinues, was extremely large, they could only be covered by ever-renewable extortions from serfs.

The unfortunate peasants finally decided to throw off the yoke that oppressed them. Secret gatherings took place in various parts of Kent and Essex; and a strong Union was formed to force nobles, knights and gentlemen, to relinquish their privileges, which they had so shamelessly abused.

Secret methods were set in motion by which the allies could communicate with each other without being in danger.

The main instigator of this vast and dangerous conspiracy was Wat Tyler, who conceived to stand at the head of the rebellion; in his bold, resolute disposition, he really seemed quite suitable for this post.

Of the participants in Wat's rebellious design, the most useful was one Franciscan monk named John Ball, an ardent follower of the great religious reformer, John Wycliffe, whose teachings enjoyed at that time the extraordinary sympathy of the people.

In his gray cassock, girded with a simple rope, barefoot Bol moved from village to village throughout Kent, everywhere preaching equality, the need for a universal division of property and the abolition of the church hierarchy.

My dear friends! - he said to the peasants, who were going to listen to him. “Nothing in England will change for the better and cannot change until everything is common property, until vassals and lords disappear, until all differences are smoothed out so that we are the same masters as lords. How cruelly they treat us! And by what right do they keep us in serfdom? Are we not all descended from the same ancestors - from Adam and Eve? How, by what arguments can they prove that more than we have the right to be masters? They go about in velvet, in expensive fabrics trimmed with ermine and other furs, while we must wear the poorest clothes. They drink wine, eat sweets and rolls, while we must eat rye bread and drink only water. We are called slaves; and unless we do the work assigned to us, we are beaten. Let's go to the king, he's still young! Let us explain our slavery to him, say that we cannot bear it any longer. Let's demand a change, otherwise we'll find a way to help ourselves.

Such an ardent sermon, addressed to ignorant people, half-witted from cruel and unjust treatment, of course, could not fail to produce the desired effect. Anyone who heard the speeches of the rebellious monk was inspired by the determination to shake off the chains of slavery and achieve freedom.

Not content with a verbal appeal to the peasants, John Ball secretly forwarded to the elders of each village a letter composed in these verses:

John Ball sends you his regards.
Hear the call soon called,
And how will it be distributed
Rise at once, you thirsty for freedom!
Stay firmly united
Consent and fraternal unity!
Don't be afraid of anything:
The end is near!
The desired Freedom is coming!

However, John Ball conducted his business without sufficient caution, the Archbishop of Canterbury learned about him. He ordered the preacher to be arrested.

The archbishop regarded him simply as a half-crazed fanatic, infected with Wyclif heresy. He was far from any thought of his harmful influence, otherwise he would have immediately ordered his execution. That is why John Ball was imprisoned in the barbican of the old castle of Canterbury, destroyed by Louis of France in the time of King John.

Another influential member of the Union, although of a completely different temper, was one fugitive, the leader of the robbers; his real name was Gibald Maudui, although he adopted the nickname of Jack Straw.

He was guilty of violating the boundaries of the royal forest in the reign of King Edward III, that is, he killed a deer there. In those days, it was considered a serious crime punishable by death. Gibald went into hiding to avoid the consequences of his misdeed. And since he could not be caught since then, he was declared disgraced and a reward was placed on his head.

Soon he was joined by several robbers, just like him, hiding from justice. As the most gifted of all his hardened comrades, Jack was chosen to be the leader of the gang. He showed himself to be a very determined leader, demanding unquestioning obedience to his orders.

The Hundred Years' War caused an aggravation of the social situation not only in France, but also in England. Although the English peasants were deprived of the opportunity to "live" to observe the hostilities, money was demanded from them in the same way. In addition, other economic relations not directly related to the war also developed, also hitting the most disadvantaged, as happens regularly with any, even very progressive changes.

The development of commodity-money relations led to the replacement of payments in kind by high cash rents, the expansion of the sphere of hired labor, but at the same time, corvée and other serf duties intensified, especially on large estates. Social contradictions escalated even more after the plague. The shortage of workers led in England to the issuance of a number of royal decrees that infringed on the rights of workers. (But objectively speaking, the state of the labor market was such that these workers could count on big money, which they knew about.)

Thus, the ordinance of 1349 required that all adult men and women not older than 60 years old, who did not have their own land or other means of subsistence, were hired by the one who offered them work. For refusal to hire or for unauthorized departure from the owner, punishment was provided, up to imprisonment. In 1351, the “Statute of Workers” was adopted, according to which employers who violated the law were punished with a fine, and workers were beaten into stocks and imprisoned. New laws (for example, the Statute on Workers of 1361) further increased the severity of punishments: workers who left their employers were branded with a red-hot iron and outlawed. All kinds of alliances that the workers concluded among themselves in order to fight for higher wages were subjected to persecution.

The lower classes of English society grumbled more and more. The movement of the Lollards (in literal translation - “mumbling prayers”) became widespread among the peasant-plebeian masses. Lollards first appeared in Antwerp around 1300, and in England from the early 1360s. The village priest John Ball became the leader of the Lollards. Following Wycliffe, the Lollards, who spoke in the streets and squares, rejected the privileges of the Catholic Church and demanded the secularization of its property. At the same time, Ball and his followers sharply criticized the feudal system itself, demanding the abolition of corvée, tithes and taxes, and the equalization of estates. They did not make direct calls for an uprising, but, of course, they had a great influence on the formation of the radical ideology of the grassroots.

Naturally, the war forced the feudal lords and the king to increase the exactions even more. In 1377 a head tax was introduced. In 1380, compared with the previous year, it was tripled. This was the immediate cause for the uprising. It began in May, 1381, in the southeastern counties of Essex and Kent, and quickly spread through most of England. The rebels were led by the village roofer Wat Tyler, probably a former soldier. Ball, who had previously been imprisoned and released by the rebels, became his close associate. Wat Tyler's people plundered feudal estates, killed their owners, executed judges and tax collectors, putting their heads on stakes, burned documents that recorded peasant duties.

On June 12, 1381, the rebels were already close to London. On the banks of the Thames, John Ball delivered a famous speech in which he proved the original equality of all people. “When Adam plowed and Eve spun, who then was a nobleman?” Ball asked. On June 13, the rebels approached London and, without meeting resistance, entered the capital. The townspeople, also dissatisfied with the lords and the monarch, joined the peasants. The rebellious people surrounded the Tower. On June 14, in the suburb of London, Mile End, a meeting of 16-year-old King Richard II (son of Edward, the Black Prince) with the rebels took place, at which the rebels put forward a number of demands that made up the so-called Mayland program. Tyler demanded the abolition of serfdom and the duties associated with it, the establishment of a uniform and moderate cash rent, free trade, and an amnesty for the participants in the uprising. Frightened by the magnitude of the movement, Richard agreed to all the demands. On the same day, hundreds of letters of liberation of communities and villages were issued.

Wealthy peasants considered their mission completed and began to leave the city, but many remained and on June 15 met the monarch again. Their new, Smithfield, program was even more radical. It provided for the return to the peasants of communal lands taken by the feudal lords, the abolition of all working statutes, the elimination of noble privileges and the equalization of all estates, the secularization of church and monastery lands and their division among the peasants. For that time, these requirements were utopia.

During the negotiations, approaching the king, Wat Tyler grabbed his horse by the bridle - and at that moment the mayor of London, William Walworth, stabbed him in the neck. The crowd exploded with a cry of indignation, hundreds of rebels pulled their bowstrings, but Richard did not lose his head. “I am your king, I am your leader! he shouted. “Follow me and you will have everything you want!” Richard managed to get the peasants involved in the negotiations. Having received promises and letters, the rebels released the king and returned to their villages, while the king, meanwhile, called all the nobility of the country to London. Three days later, 40 thousand knights gathered in the capital; Richard declared his promises null and void and sent punitive detachments into the villages. They overtook disparate groups of former Tylerites. Bloody terror swept across the country. John Ball was executed.

However, Wat Tyler's rebellion made a great impression on the representatives of the "cream of society". From now on, the idea of ​​liberating the peasants was constantly discussed at the top. The aristocrats realized that the incessant increase in feudal oppression would not lead to anything good.

Wat Tyler is remembered by history as an ardent defender of peasant rights. The representative of the lower class showed incredible courage and ingenuity in the fight against the serfdom of the peasants.

Tyler's biography

Walter was born in the small village of Broxley, which geographically belonged to the county of Kent. The future rebel received his name in honor of his father, Walter Hillard. The latter was a civilian and always worked as a roofer. All the events of Tyler's youth were restored page by page in a well-known 1851 work. Walter's biography tells that an unsuccessful love affair prompted a young man to enlist in the military. Walter went to France, where he managed to prove himself in several battles of the Hundred Years War. The young man stood out from the rest of the soldiers with courage and ingenuity. King Edward, who ruled in those years, repeatedly noted the courage and courage of Walter. Then Tyler returned to his native village, mastered the skill in the forge and married the girl he liked. But England is restless - a rebellion is brewing due to the successful uprisings of the French peasants.

Great peasant uprising

A major industrial leap in the middle of the 14th century led to the fact that the labor of the English serfs turned out to be unproductive. The feudal lords began to transfer them to a cash quitrent and often gave personal freedom. Some peasants were able to get rich by taking up their own production. And others went bankrupt, not getting what they wanted, and were forced to return again as laborers to their former owners. On the way to capitalist agriculture, a new form of holding land was introduced - they could be rented. But this did not help the majority of peasants to improve their way of life. Many of them became low-paid hired workers, worked for a piece of bread. But the lords still expected to return to their old positions. A conflict was brewing. But the main reasons for the peasant uprising in 1381 were:

• endless hostilities - all the hardships fell on the common people who dreamed of ending the Hundred Years' War;
• the introduction of a poll tax - 3 grottoes or a silver coin equal to 4 pence became unbearable for citizens;
• problems with the eradication of serfdom for family peasants - loners became free, but other people had no chance to take their wife and children to the city, to earn a normal living.

The peasants had already made concessions earlier. But there was no growth in the well-being of ordinary citizens, which caused mass unrest. Against the backdrop of riots in France, a serious uprising broke out in Essence County in the south-east of England. The year was 1381. The rebels were joined by peasants from Kent, who were led by Wat Tyler. A military career gave him great experience, so the man confidently led the campaign against London. In total, peasants from 25 counties of England took part in the uprising.

The capture of the impregnable Tower, the murder of the Lord Chancellor and the Archbishop - these events led King Richard to sad thoughts about the seriousness of what was happening. The ruler at the age of 14 was savvy and cunning. He decided to gather a council of courtiers and ask for advice. But the nobles were too scared to make recommendations. Then the king ordered to notify the people that he would speak to them in one of the suburbs of London (Mile End). The result of this cunning event was the elimination of part of the rebels. For the rebels, royal power remained sacred, so many did not disobey Richard's decree.

The "Mile End Program" included a set of demands of the people to their king. The peasants at that time were in dire need of the following transformations:

• complete abolition of corvée and serfdom;
• the establishment of a single monetary rent - 4 pence per acre of land;
• free trade throughout England;
• amnesty for participants in the uprising.

No one encroached on the existing feudal system. Hungry peasants only wanted to improve their life. Wat Tyler also played an important role in compiling the list of requirements. King Richard gave his word that he would keep his promise, and this inspired many people to stop hostilities. But Tyler did not trust the ruler and, along with other rebels, continued to stay in London. The unrest did not subside, so the king had to promise people a new meeting. As a result, Richard arrived in Smithfield and demanded a meeting with the leader of the uprising. Tyler and the king met on June 15, 1381 on the battlefield. The peasant put forward new demands that became the basis of the "Smithfield Program". Now they affected the entire feudal system. Wat Tyler proposed a union of free communities. But the king did not resist such an idea and promised to fulfill the requirement, reserving the right to wear the crown.

And then something happened that became a real symbol of the treachery of the representatives of the nobility. Mayor of London William Walworth made an attempt to arrest the leader of the rebels. But Tyler was not going to give up - he hit the enemy with a kiptala, but could not break through the chain mail. In response, the mayor mortally wounded Wat with a sword. After that, one of the servants hit the rebel again. Companions managed to help their leader leave the battlefield. But the mayor of London with troops broke into the hospital and demanded that Tyler be handed over to him, the leader of the uprising was beheaded. The story mentions that Walworth presented Richard with the head of an enemy impaled. And for this, the king awarded the mayor with silver, a land fiefdom, and granted him a knighthood. After the assassination of Wat Tyler, the rebellion ended. But London was flooded with rivers of peasant blood for a long time. King Richard could not calm down and massacred hundreds of families.

An image preserved in literature

Wat Tyler made a huge contribution to history. After his death, the London authorities did not return to the former order, which oppressed the rights of the peasants. The life of this man is immortalized in books. In 1794, therefore, a drama of the same name, Wat Tyler, was written in English. In 1922, the Soviet writer Andrei Globa created a poem on a similar theme. And the English composer Alan Bush dedicated an opera to the events of the peasant uprising of 1381.

) - the leader of the largest peasant uprising in medieval England in 1381.

Biography

Little is known of his early life, he was probably born in the village of Broxley (Kent), the son of roofer Walter Hillard.

The events of Wat Tyler's youth have been reconstructed by historians in the book Life and Adventures of Wat Tyler, the Brave and Good (). In the book, after an unsuccessful romance, Tyler enters military service in the English army and is sent to France. Wat takes part in a number of battles in the Hundred Years' War. King Edward himself is distinguished by his courage and bravery. Returning to his native village, Tyler marries and works as the village blacksmith.

Great peasant uprising of 1381

After the epidemic of 1348, known as the Black Death, the population decreased by one-third according to medieval estimates. Agriculture fell into decline. There was no one to sow and harvest. Prices have doubled. Demands for higher wages followed. The village community, where peasant families have been accustomed from generation to generation to live on the same land, began to disintegrate. Some of the peasants run away to the cities and become hired workers. Direct coercion on the part of the landowners did not help. A new type of land holding is beginning to be introduced: the leasing of land, livestock, and implements, which was an important step on the path to capitalist agriculture. But the lords tried to regain their old positions, because. now they had to reckon with the freer peasants and wage-workers. This situation gave rise to the Great Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

Escape from serfdom was possible only for a loner. For a person with a family, there was organization and an armed uprising. Peasant unions gradually begin to grow. The uprising of 1381 was the work of people who had already won a certain degree of freedom and prosperity and now demanded more. The Villans have awakened human dignity. The demands of the peasants were as follows:

• The destruction of serfdom
• Commutation of all duties (replacement of natural duties with monetary ones)
• Establishment of a uniform cash rent of 4 pence per acre.

With the rebels demanding the abolition of serfdom, on June 14, 1381, King Richard II meets in Mile End, who promises that all demands will be met. The next day (June 15), there is a new meeting with the king, on the Smithfield field, near the city wall of London, with a huge confluence of people. Now the rebels are demanding equal rights for all estates and the return of communal lands to the peasants. However, during the meeting, Wat Tyler is killed by the king's associates (the mayor of London, William Walworth, stabbed him in the neck with a dagger, one of the knights completed the job by driving up to Tyler from behind and piercing him with a sword). This brings confusion and confusion to the ranks of the rebels, which Richard II took advantage of. The uprising is quickly suppressed by the forces of the knightly militia. Despite the fact that the uprising was crushed, there was no complete return to the previous order. It became obvious that the ruling classes could no longer treat the peasants without some degree of respect. the peasants were brave, but their strength was only enough to decide on such an act, but no one had the courage to do it

Literature

Categories:

• Personalities in alphabetical order
• January 4th
• Born in 1341
• Deceased June 15
• Deceased in 1381
• Revolutionaries of Great Britain
• Leaders of the uprisings
• Rebellions in England
• Executed revolutionaries

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See what "Wat Tyler" is in other dictionaries:

- (died in 1381) the leader of the largest anti-feudal uprising in medieval England. There is little biographical information about him. He was a village craftsman (probably a roofer), knew military affairs well. Led the campaign against London... Historical dictionary

Wat Tyler- Treacherous murder of Wat Tyler. Miniature from Froissart's Chronicle. 2nd half of the 15th century The treacherous murder of Wat Tyler. Miniature from Froissart's Chronicle. 2nd half of the 15th century Wat Tyler (.) the leader of the largest in medieval England ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary "World History"

- (Wat Tyler) (d. 15.VI.1381) the leader of the largest in cf. century. England anti-feud. uprisings (see Wat Tyler uprising of 1381). Biographical little information about U. T. has been preserved. He was a village craftsman (probably a roofer), knew the military well. ... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia

Death of Wat Tyler Walter "Wat" Tyler (born Walter Wat Tyler; January 4, 1341 (13410104) June 15, 1381) was the leader of the largest peasant uprising in medieval England in 1381. Biography About the early years of life ... ... Wikipedia

- (English Tyler) English surname, which can be translated as "innkeeper". Notable wearers Tyler, Arthur (1915-2008) American bobsledder, bronze medalist at the 1956 Olympics. Tyler, Bonnie (b. 1951) Welsh ... ... Wikipedia

TYLER (Tyler Tiler) Wat (? 138..1), the leader of the peasant uprising in England (see Wat Tyler uprising 138..1). Treacherously killed during negotiations with the king... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Tyler Wat- (Tyler, Wat) (d. 1381), English, rebel, leader of a peasant uprising, ex. soldier, elected in June 1381 leader of the Kentish peasants. Led by T. and John Ball, in just two days (11 June 13) they reached from Canterbury to Blackheath (a suburb ... ... The World History

- (Tyler, Tiler) (? 1381), the leader of the peasant uprising in England (see Wat Tyler uprising 1381). Killed while negotiating with the king. * * * TYLER Wat TYLER (Tyler, Tiler) Wat (? 1381), the leader of the peasant uprising in England (see Wat Tyler ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Tyler W.- TYLER (Tyler, Tiler) Wat (?–1381), leader of the cross. uprisings in England, a rustic craftsman. Treacherously killed while negotiating with the king... Biographical Dictionary

historical background

In 1348, the plague epidemic that raged in the Old World reached England. The Black Death claimed a colossal number of lives - from 25 to 60% of the country's inhabitants. Due to the death of a significant part of the able-bodied population, the peasants began to demand higher wages in the feudal estates. The shortage of workers led to the impoverishment of the nobility (gendry). The state came to the defense of the privileged class and issued a Decree and Regulations on workers. The laws set strict limits on wages - and prices were set at levels that had existed even before the plague. Peasants who did not want to agree to such onerous conditions were first fined, and then branded and sent to prison.

English serfs

Also, the situation of commoners worsened due to the Hundred Years War between England and France. The more resources the army fighting on the continent needed, the stronger the tax burden became. The amount of arrears has steadily increased in the country. On May 30, 1381, the tax collector John Bumpton arrived in the town of Brentwood, who demanded that the unpaid poll tax be collected from neighboring villages. Local residents rebelled: that day the first blood was shed.

The plague epidemic claimed from 25 to 60% of the population of England

The uprising was attended not only by the enslaved peasants (Villans), but also by middle-class villagers: carpenters, masons, weavers, innkeepers, shoemakers, etc. There were rebels among the townspeople. Most of the rebels were united by illiteracy and the absence of their own representatives in parliament, which directly affected their plight. The rebels often took on the same aliases. The southeast of England was filled with Petra Plowmen, Jackie and many other "Robin Hoods", burning estates and robbing the rich.

Heretic and Roofer

As often happened in times of mass popular unrest, people who had previously found themselves at the bottom of the social ladder stood at the head of the protest. One of the "heralds of the English people" turned out to be a wandering priest, John Ball. For 15 years before the uprising, he was forbidden to preach and since then he has been either in an illegal position or in prison.

John Ball

John Ball was imprisoned three times

The Catholic Church accused Ball of heresy. His ideas really ran counter to the then accepted dogmas. The preacher considered serfdom evil, declared that God created all people equal and called for the establishment of universal freedom. When the peasant uprising began, John Ball was serving another term in Maidstone prison. The rebels who captured the city released the priest on June 7, after which he immediately became the universally recognized spiritual mentor of the discontented. Ball often addressed the rebels with simple verses that provoked the poor:

Truthful John tells you all:

Here falsehood and baseness rule,

And the truth is kept under lock and key

And the lie is proud of its sin.

In the same Maidstone, another leader of the rebels appeared, after whom that peasant war was named. Wat Tyler lived in Colchester and was a modest roofer. The Hundred Years' War did not bypass the commoner: he went to France, where he gained military experience, which allowed him to take leadership of the discordant ranks of serfs into his own hands during the uprising. It was Tyler who formulated the program of the disgruntled:

1. Loyalty to King Richard.

2. Fight against John of Gaunt, a powerful feudal lord and founder of the Lancaster dynasty.

3. The abolition of all fees from the working people, with the exception of fifteen (tax in the amount of 1/15 of income).

4. Willingness to fight to the end to achieve these goals.

Triumph and tragedy

King Richard II was only 14 at the time of the uprising. The boy was taken to the Tower. The army could not quickly come to the rescue of the monarch, as it was either on the border with Scotland or in France. The rebels took advantage of the helplessness of the authorities - already on June 13 they entered London. Massacres began against officials and feudal lords. It was them, according to the formula of "bad boyars", that the peasants blamed for their plight. With Richard, the common people were ready to enter into a dialogue. In the negotiations, the king agreed to satisfy most of the peasant demands. Serfdom was abolished and taxes were reduced. This victory, however, turned out to be pyrrhic.

Death of Wat Tyler

On June 15, Wat Tyler was killed in Smithfield (today part of London). At the same time, the authorities of the capital gathered their own militia from loyal citizens and dispersed the rebels. The uprising was still going on in the provinces, but the strategic initiative was already in the hands of the government. By autumn, the unrest was finally suppressed. An unenviable fate awaited John Ball. In Coventry he was taken prisoner, after which he was quartered. This second head of the rebellious Lernaean Hydra was put on display on London Bridge in front of King Richard. In total, about 7 thousand people died in battles or on the chopping block and the gallows.

Inevitable Outcome

Although the state managed to suppress the uprising, the authorities learned a serious lesson and stopped increasing taxes, which were a heavy burden on the shoulders of commoners. In this regard, the foreign policy of England also changed. The flywheel of the war with France continued to unwind, while the possibilities of the London treasury ceased to keep up with the growing needs of the army. There followed a gradual reduction in spending on the campaign on the continent. In 1396 - 1415. the warring countries lived in a state of fragile truce.

Richard II

The serf villans were replaced by free yeomen

After the restoration of order, Richard II renounced his concessions to the peasants, including the abolition of serfdom. However, the old order was dealt a serious blow. In the future, land relations in the English countryside embarked on an evolutionary path of development. There were no more radical upheavals on the scale of the events of 1381: the former feudal order died out by itself by the 16th century. The corvée was replaced by cash rent, the connection between the serf villans and the land was broken. The formation of English capitalism led to the emergence of a new class of yeomen - personally free small landowners.  .