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00:00:26,773 --> 00:00:29,139
Once upon a time there was a peasant.

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He had a hard, hard life,
working all year round,

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little better off than a slave,
with no say in what went on.

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He was diseased,

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he was downtrodden

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and he was dirty.

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(Neighing)

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Who on earth would want to have been
a medieval peasant?

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Being a Peasant in the Middle Ages
must qualify as the worst job in history,

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but of course, we're only guessing,

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because, being Peasants,
they didn't leave behind

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much record of their existence.

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ExcePt once, in the summer of 1381.

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The Peasants left an indelible
mark on the history of England.

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The Peasants' Revolt
took everyone by surprise.

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It was quite astonishing.
From out of nowhere, it seemed,

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tens of thousands of Peasants
arrived in Blackheath

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on the outskirts of London

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and demanded the king abolish
all forms of servitude,

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taxation and the aristocracy.

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The King, who was only 14 at the time,

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quite understandably said
he'd need to think it over.

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The Peasants, however,
wanted liberty, equality and brotherhood.

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And when did they want it?

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Now! 4OO years
before the French Revolution.

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Talk about pushy!

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The King, who'd been talking to the rebels

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from the safety of a barge
in the middle of the river,

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decided to go home for his tea.

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The peasants obviously needed
to make their point more forcibly,

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so they rampaged through London,

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killing lots of Flemish people.

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Not quite sure how that helped.

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One group broke into the Tower of London.

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They burst into the royal living quarters,

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and there, according to
the tabloids of the time,

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they sat on the beds

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and poked into everything
with their filthy sticks.

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Some of them even tried
to kiss the king's mother.

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(Tuts )

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They then dragged the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the treasurer out of the White Tower

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and cut off their heads,

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which they paraded round the town,
stuck on poles.

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Now, if it sounds to you
like the lunatics have taken over the asylum,

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that's what a lot
of people at the time thought.

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But they weren't lunatics,
the Peasants' agenda

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was informed, tactical
and most of all, Political.

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They targeted lawyers and court officials.

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They made bonfires
of legal and tax records.

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They were deliberately
erasing their servile Past.

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How could such
a wretched group of underlings

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have organized such
a sophisticated attack?

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After all, they were only
a bunch of bloody peasants.

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Weren't they?

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Medieval feudal society
was a Pyramid with the king at the toP

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and the Peasants at the bottom
doing all the hard work.

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Nobody, not even the lords,
owned any land,

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they simPly had the use of it

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as long as they Provided
military service for the king.

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The Peasants toiled in the fields,

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suPPorting those with
more imPortant things to do,

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like, uh, Praying
and fighting each other.

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Yes, an excellent system if you ask me.

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(Breaks wind)

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Ah! Stinking Peasant.

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But since the Lord of the manor
was often away from his estate,

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fighting in the king's wars,

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he had to be able to rely on his peasants
to organize themselves.

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In many ways, a medieval Peasant

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had more say in how his life was
run than most PeoPle do now.

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Of course, it's a way of life
that's all gone.

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We'll never know what it was really like
to live under such a system,

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excePt where I'm going now.

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The village of Laxton in Nottinghamshire

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is the only place in England that still works
on the medieval system,

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the center of which
is the so called Court Elite.

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Elected every year by the village farmers,

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in medieval times it had
the power to formulate bylaws,

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collect rents and maintain law and order.

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Today the court's only job
is to police the way the land is farmed.

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Once a year, on jury day, the jurors head out

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to check that no one
is breaking any of the rules.

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The land is farmed in strips

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in the same way
as it was 8OO years ago.

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And each farmer's strip of land
is separated not by fences

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but by grassy borders
of common land, known as sykes.

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This little green striP of grass
is the dividing furrow

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between the two striPs.

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This one belongs to Mr. Gobson
and that one belongs to Mr. Noble.

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- What do you mean, it's not straight!
- Well, no...

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Wiggly, I imagined it would be
a couPle of yards of nice grass.

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And woe betide to anyone caught
ignoring this boundaries.

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As soon as we got there,
an offence was spotted,

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a stray piece of turf.

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Do you think left this here?

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- It ought to be Put back.
- Put back in yeah.

97
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So this is what you call
soil on the common land?

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Yeah, yeah. Shoveling in.

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You call shoveling in.

100
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But we don't Put it back in,
whoever's doing it should...

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Should have done it.

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- That is a serious...
- Serious offence!

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So how much do you think
they'll get fined for that?

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Oh, about two Pounds I think, yeah.

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- Quite steeP, actually.
- Yeah!

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Then down to the serious matter

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of marking out boundaries
of each farmer's land

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using the same hi-tech methods
developed in the Middle Ages,

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which leave plenty of room for debate.

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There, look.

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There?

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I reckon you want to be there.

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Five.

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Offences such as ploughing over boundaries
are taken very seriously

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and will be judged at
the meeting of the court.

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A solemn affair which takes
place as it has done for centuries,

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in the local pub.

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Right then, gentlemen,
I'll call the court to order.

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O yea, o yea, o yea,
all manner of Persons who owe suit

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and service to the court lead
to the queen's

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most excellent majesty draw near
and give your attendance.

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God save the Queen and the lord
of this court lead.

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The Presentments shows
the dikes are satisfactory,

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there's a fine of ten Pounds
on Stewart Rose for Ploughing

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too far into the meadow ends.

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Mr. Rose, do you have any comment on that?

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Yeah, well, that was... I Ploughed to
an original Peg which was already in the syke,

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so I thought I was Ploughing in the right Place
and I think ten-Pound fine is a bit harsh.

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You accePt that
it was the wrong Place now?

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Yes, likely, but I was Ploughing
to where it had been marked out.

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Any comments from anyone else?

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I think the fine should stand.

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In medieval times, a man could
be tried for murder in this court.

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Well, the ProPosal of the court,
is to reduce the fine

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from ten Pounds to five Pounds.

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Everyone in favor?

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Yes.

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Of course it suited the lords
to leave all this Petty legal stuff

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to the Peasants to sort out for themselves
but there was a snag.

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The exPerience of dealing with
the law and enforcing it,

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sometimes meant that the Peasants became
minor legal exPerts in their own right.

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And when they did,
they used that exPertise to their own ends.

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Sometimes however, they resorted
to rather unconventional tactics.

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For example, in 12OO, King John
proposed a visit to the city on Nottingham.

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Residents of the nearby
village of Gotham realized that

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this meant he would pass
through their village,

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making it a king's highway and thus making
them liable to new taxes.

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So when the kings' messengers
arrived, what did they do?

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Well, the entire village
pretended to be mad.

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Since madness
was considered contagious,

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the idea of a whole village
of lunatics was perfectly feasible,

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and the king wisely
decided to make a detour.

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But for all their cunning, surely peasants
were still nothing more than slaves.

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In the same way the lord of the manor
had to provide military service to the king,

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the peasants had to provide

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the lord of the manor
with so many days' labor

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in return of the land they held from him.

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Historians have given this arrangement
the catchy title of ''feudal burden''.

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But just how much of a burden
were these feudal duties?

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For examPle, the Peasants who Ploughed these
fields six or seven hundred years ago,

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bore one of the heaviest
feudal burdens in the kingdom.

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That is to say that they had to work
for the lord of the manor

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for something like fifty to sixty days in the year,

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to Provide their accommodation
and Pay their taxes.

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Nowadays, most of these fields
are occuPied by the BMW car Park.

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Now to Pay for their rent and taxes today,

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an assembly line worker has to work
for something like eighty days of the year.

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That's nearly a month longer
than the worst off medieval peasant.

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What's more, the feudal arrangement
was a two-way thing.

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The lord had responsibilities
to his peasants.

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In fact twice a year he was supposed to lay on
a feast for them as a sort of thank you.

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I can't remember the last
time the tax man took me

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out for a slap-up dinner or a picnic!

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Of course the lord of the manor
lived like a lord,

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but what kind of a stinking hovel
would his peasants have called home?

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The answer can be found at
Britain's newest oldest village -

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Cosmeston, on the outskirts of Cadiff,
where a team of archaeologists

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have painstakingly
recreated a complete medieval village.

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There's a surprising range
of properties on offer.

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First up, a medieval bachelor pad,
or rather, an affordable studio apartment

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suitable for the single working peasant.

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Must have been a Pretty unPleasant life.

183
00:11:03,576 --> 00:11:09,105
It could be, but again we gotta get rid of all
of our modern views on what makes a good life.

184
00:11:09,148 --> 00:11:12,242
So this is how the lowest of the low lived.

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00:11:12,285 --> 00:11:14,879
- Yeah, we're right at the bottom.
- It's quite sPacious.

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00:11:14,921 --> 00:11:19,017
Well, that's right, he has a nice little cottage
but that's about all he has going for him.

187
00:11:19,058 --> 00:11:20,491
So what does he do?

188
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He's a landless laborer.
Here's a chaP, with his land taken away...

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- Bottom, bottom.
- Right at the bottom.

190
00:11:24,897 --> 00:11:27,923
And so he's go a fire,
he's cooking himself something...

191
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He had a very basic Pot
here above his hearth,

192
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tiny amounts of wood to be used,
none of roaring fires that we'd think of

193
00:11:35,341 --> 00:11:38,469
because all of his wood has to Pay
the Lord of the Manor, wood Penny,

194
00:11:38,511 --> 00:11:41,776
go out to the woods
and he could just collect what's fallen.

195
00:11:41,814 --> 00:11:43,611
And he's got a bed, I see.

196
00:11:43,649 --> 00:11:46,641
Delightful bed here!
This is just a mattress full of straw

197
00:11:46,686 --> 00:11:49,917
thrown on toP of it and a cover
of rough old woolen blankets.

198
00:11:49,956 --> 00:11:51,321
Plenty of fleas I exPect.

199
00:11:51,357 --> 00:11:54,656
HoPefully not too bad
because hanging above them,

200
00:11:54,694 --> 00:11:56,628
we have some fleabain.

201
00:11:56,662 --> 00:11:58,960
So in theory,
that keePs the fleas away.

202
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If that was the bottom
of the bottom of the heap,

203
00:12:13,813 --> 00:12:16,475
what was it like on the top
of the bottom of the heap?

204
00:12:16,516 --> 00:12:20,282
Next on tour, an up-market,
semidetached family home

205
00:12:20,319 --> 00:12:24,380
a decidedly, dez rez for the upwardly mobile
professional peasant couple.

206
00:12:26,526 --> 00:12:28,050
So whose house is this then?

207
00:12:28,094 --> 00:12:29,857
Now this is the reeve's house.

208
00:12:29,896 --> 00:12:31,761
And what's a reeve?
Tell me what a reeve is.

209
00:12:31,798 --> 00:12:34,289
We're going uP-market here,
every year the freemen of the village

210
00:12:34,333 --> 00:12:36,460
vote for who they want to be the reeve.

211
00:12:36,502 --> 00:12:39,096
And the reeve is almost like
a village manager, keePs an eye

212
00:12:39,138 --> 00:12:42,198
on things makes sure that
everybody's farming the land ProPerly.

213
00:12:42,241 --> 00:12:44,175
He's a wealthy man, a wealthy villager.

214
00:12:44,210 --> 00:12:47,202
He doesn't make his money out of being reeve,
he owns a lot of land.

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00:12:47,246 --> 00:12:50,477
That's right, he is the Land Rover,
green welly farmer.

216
00:12:50,516 --> 00:12:52,677
And very, very uPPer class firePlace.

217
00:12:52,718 --> 00:12:55,152
- Ah, he can afford it. Yeah.
- Definitely!

218
00:12:55,188 --> 00:12:57,053
A welsh dresser I see.

219
00:12:57,090 --> 00:12:59,422
How very imPortant esPecially
for reeve's wife,

220
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the first thing you see as you come in,
is of her fine Pottery disPlay.

221
00:13:03,162 --> 00:13:05,995
- So she's showing it off to everybody.
- Showing her jugs off to everybody!

222
00:13:06,032 --> 00:13:07,727
- How rich I am.
- Exactly!

223
00:13:09,602 --> 00:13:13,504
We have some nice examPles here,
this one is Saintonge Pottery.

224
00:13:13,539 --> 00:13:14,938
Sounds French to me!

225
00:13:14,974 --> 00:13:16,942
That's right, this is from the Bordeaux region,

226
00:13:16,976 --> 00:13:19,444
Probably is Part of
the wine trade from that area.

227
00:13:19,479 --> 00:13:21,743
If anybody amongst the Peasants
is gonna be drinking wine,

228
00:13:21,781 --> 00:13:23,180
it's gonna be the reeve and his family.

229
00:13:23,216 --> 00:13:27,778
Doesn't sound that bad to me though,
may be I could be a medieval Peasant.

230
00:13:27,820 --> 00:13:29,287
I'll think about it.

231
00:13:30,223 --> 00:13:33,624
Strip wood floors, shelves of
holiday knick knacks

232
00:13:33,659 --> 00:13:35,752
and a nice drop of Bordeaux wine.

233
00:13:35,795 --> 00:13:39,595
Maybe the medieval ideal home
wasn't so different from today's.

234
00:13:39,632 --> 00:13:43,068
But I'm still a bit nervous
about what they had to eat.

235
00:13:43,102 --> 00:13:46,230
It's this, Pottage.

236
00:13:48,374 --> 00:13:50,899
Evidently the reciPe of Pottage is

237
00:13:50,943 --> 00:13:55,243
''take anything and Put it into Pan of water,
and boil it uP for two hours.''

238
00:13:55,281 --> 00:13:57,442
And the reason you have
to boil everything you Pick out

239
00:13:57,483 --> 00:14:01,078
of the fields for two hours, is because
they used human excrement on fields,

240
00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:03,315
so even lettuce had to be boiled.

241
00:14:03,356 --> 00:14:05,654
Which made the salad's rather soggy.

242
00:14:05,691 --> 00:14:07,989
Anyway let's try the Pottage.

243
00:14:11,297 --> 00:14:16,200
Well, its um, Pretty disgusting.

244
00:14:16,235 --> 00:14:22,765
Um, but you could have cheered it uP I suPPose
with em a few herbs, maybe even some garlic.

245
00:14:22,808 --> 00:14:26,244
They also had an instant form of Pottage,

246
00:14:26,279 --> 00:14:29,043
and you take
this into the fields with you,

247
00:14:29,081 --> 00:14:34,075
and then you could, er,
liquefy it with a bit of beer

248
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:38,819
and eat that...if you wanted to.

249
00:14:39,825 --> 00:14:41,816
Anyway the good news about being a Peasant

250
00:14:41,861 --> 00:14:44,159
was that you got to drink Plenty of beer.

251
00:14:44,197 --> 00:14:48,190
They didn't have hoPs, until 142O
when they were imPorted from Flanders.

252
00:14:48,234 --> 00:14:52,261
So before that,
you had to flavor the beer with other things,

253
00:14:52,305 --> 00:14:55,604
er, like bogmyrtle this one is flavored with.

254
00:14:55,641 --> 00:14:59,099
It's basically the same sort of stuff,
let's have a taste of that.

255
00:14:59,145 --> 00:15:03,275
Of course they, they tended
to drink alcoholic drinks rather than water

256
00:15:03,316 --> 00:15:07,412
because the er, water was
usually not very drinkable.

257
00:15:11,724 --> 00:15:13,919
Oh, that's very nice actually.

258
00:15:16,028 --> 00:15:18,690
Every village was dominated by its church.

259
00:15:18,731 --> 00:15:22,326
The peasant's social life
revolved around it.

260
00:15:29,609 --> 00:15:33,670
The medieval church certainly
knew how to attract a congregation.

261
00:15:33,713 --> 00:15:36,147
It was the Place where
the Peasants had their Parties,

262
00:15:36,182 --> 00:15:40,448
where they did their amateur dramatics
and where they even held football matches.

263
00:15:40,486 --> 00:15:43,922
Oh, and the local Priest
often used to brew his own beer.

264
00:15:46,025 --> 00:15:49,392
Which is certainly more of a draw
than Playing the guitar.

265
00:15:50,029 --> 00:15:54,227
And the church expected its peasants
to be duly grateful.

266
00:15:54,267 --> 00:15:56,201
Here in Painswick, Gloucestershire,

267
00:15:56,235 --> 00:16:00,262
a rather quaint ceremony
has survived from medieval times.

268
00:16:00,306 --> 00:16:04,606
Peasants would show their love of the church
by giving it a big hug.

269
00:16:04,644 --> 00:16:08,102
Welcome, everyone,
to this years cliPPing service.

270
00:16:08,147 --> 00:16:12,379
And I think we have our arms
right away round the church.

271
00:16:12,418 --> 00:16:17,981
And so now we're going to embrace,
and we're going to cliP our lovely church.

272
00:16:25,331 --> 00:16:30,530
Another reason they were so fond of the church
may have been it provided plenty of holidays

273
00:16:30,569 --> 00:16:32,400
or rather ''holy days''.

274
00:16:32,438 --> 00:16:35,737
If you though we have more
leisure time today, think again.

275
00:16:35,775 --> 00:16:39,176
Nowadays we enjoy
eight public holidays a year.

276
00:16:39,211 --> 00:16:43,272
In the Middle Ages,
the church insisted on eighty.

277
00:16:44,083 --> 00:16:48,213
Well a clearer picture of peasant lifestyle
seems to be emerging.

278
00:16:49,121 --> 00:16:51,851
But I really wanted
to get under their skin,

279
00:16:51,891 --> 00:16:56,157
so I was introduced to some
real-life medieval peasants.

280
00:16:56,195 --> 00:16:58,026
Far from being sickly and diseased,

281
00:16:58,064 --> 00:17:00,532
forensic studies
have revealed that the inhabitants

282
00:17:00,566 --> 00:17:05,526
of a remote Yorkshire village received
surprisingly sophisticated health care.

283
00:17:06,072 --> 00:17:10,065
What about this chaP here? We got a skull
with a big hole in the middle of it.

284
00:17:10,109 --> 00:17:11,576
Right, this is extraordinary.

285
00:17:11,610 --> 00:17:17,549
What this seems to be is a cranial injury
that was treated by neurological surgery.

286
00:17:17,583 --> 00:17:22,486
This individual suffered a blunt injury to the
head around the time of the Norman conquest.

287
00:17:22,521 --> 00:17:26,719
Where this hole is, that's where the bone
was shuttered into small fragments.

288
00:17:26,759 --> 00:17:30,160
And if you look carefully at this,
you can see the surgeon made his incision.

289
00:17:32,765 --> 00:17:35,063
The guy's been hit in the head
and the surgeon said,

290
00:17:35,101 --> 00:17:37,763
''I've got to get rid of these
Pieces or fragments of skull,''

291
00:17:37,803 --> 00:17:40,499
- They knew that was bad to have them.
- Exactly, yes.

292
00:17:40,539 --> 00:17:42,905
So this guy's wandering around
with a hole in his head.

293
00:17:42,942 --> 00:17:45,934
Oh, yes. Yes, this would
have been covered by his scalP.

294
00:17:45,978 --> 00:17:49,141
- The skin would have grown over it.
- Yes, exactly.

295
00:17:49,181 --> 00:17:52,947
He wouldn't have had a hole right through
to the brain, and he lived Perfectly all right.

296
00:17:55,287 --> 00:17:58,984
The bones reveal that some peasants
lived well into their sixties.

297
00:17:59,024 --> 00:18:03,654
And whilst there are signs of malnutrition,
the diet did have its benefits.

298
00:18:04,630 --> 00:18:08,066
One of the uP signs is that they did have
quite good dental health.

299
00:18:08,100 --> 00:18:11,160
And there's very little tooth decay
and we can see...

300
00:18:11,203 --> 00:18:13,068
That's because they're not
having sugar or stuff like that.

301
00:18:13,105 --> 00:18:15,699
They're not having sugar
and also it's a very coarse diet

302
00:18:15,741 --> 00:18:18,141
which seemed to scour the teeth clean,

303
00:18:18,177 --> 00:18:20,975
and we can see this here
and that means there is no chance

304
00:18:21,013 --> 00:18:23,709
for dental decay to get started.

305
00:18:23,749 --> 00:18:27,549
But the toothbrush still wouldn't have gone
amiss in some cases.

306
00:18:27,586 --> 00:18:32,080
If we look at this one here, as you can see,
huge shaggy dePosits on the teeth.

307
00:18:32,124 --> 00:18:33,455
Uh, it's disgusting!

308
00:18:33,492 --> 00:18:38,930
Well this is actually mineralised dental Plaque,
that accumulated over the years of his life.

309
00:18:38,964 --> 00:18:43,094
That shows quite clearly there's no effort
at oral hygiene amongst these PeoPle.

310
00:18:43,135 --> 00:18:45,865
Oh God, he must have had
terrible breath!

311
00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:50,905
Chronic halitosis seems
to have been a bit of an issue.

312
00:18:50,943 --> 00:18:53,878
In Wales a peasant woman
could divorce her husband

313
00:18:53,913 --> 00:18:56,575
on the grounds of bad breath.

314
00:18:56,615 --> 00:18:58,674
Clearly they weren't stupid!

315
00:18:58,717 --> 00:19:02,278
And historians now believe that
the peasant class

316
00:19:02,321 --> 00:19:05,415
wasn't ignorant as was once
assumed either.

317
00:19:05,458 --> 00:19:09,053
It was all about getting
your child in the right school

318
00:19:09,094 --> 00:19:12,757
which in the Middle Ages meant
being snapped up by the church.

319
00:19:13,699 --> 00:19:17,658
Village Priests often taught
the sons of villagers their ABC,

320
00:19:17,703 --> 00:19:21,503
and PerhaPs one in ten of these boys
would go on into the clergy.

321
00:19:21,540 --> 00:19:26,204
Some sons of the Peasants went on to become
high flying members of the intelligentsia,

322
00:19:26,245 --> 00:19:29,271
like this chaP here, William of Wykeham.

323
00:19:30,216 --> 00:19:32,684
William may have been born
a humble peasant,

324
00:19:32,718 --> 00:19:37,815
but he rose to become the richest
and one of the most powerful men in England.

325
00:19:37,857 --> 00:19:40,826
He was Lord Chancellor not once, but twice

326
00:19:40,860 --> 00:19:43,260
and he put his fortune to good use.

327
00:19:43,295 --> 00:19:47,755
He founded this Place, one of the oldest
Public schools in the country,

328
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:49,233
Winchester College.

329
00:19:50,269 --> 00:19:52,362
Oh, very nice.

330
00:19:54,940 --> 00:19:59,570
William never forgot his origins.
and he established this school

331
00:19:59,612 --> 00:20:03,412
to Provide education for 7O boys
from Peasant backgrounds.

332
00:20:05,217 --> 00:20:07,310
Not so many Peasants
around here nowadays,

333
00:20:07,353 --> 00:20:11,756
but William's cryPtic motto still hangs above
today's PuPils -

334
00:20:15,027 --> 00:20:16,722
''Either learn or go.''

335
00:20:16,762 --> 00:20:19,959
And then he adds, there is a third choice...

336
00:20:21,033 --> 00:20:22,694
''be beaten''!

337
00:20:27,306 --> 00:20:30,241
But we should be clear that literacy
wasn't soughtt after

338
00:20:30,276 --> 00:20:33,473
by the Peasants so they could do
a sPot of bedtime reading

339
00:20:33,512 --> 00:20:35,742
or imProve their crosswords skills.

340
00:20:35,781 --> 00:20:40,480
What they wanted is to be able
to make out enough words in Latin

341
00:20:40,519 --> 00:20:45,047
to check references to themselves
and their land in the court rolls.

342
00:20:46,458 --> 00:20:48,517
And checking court documents

343
00:20:48,561 --> 00:20:52,053
was something that was going to come in
very useful for the peasants

344
00:20:52,097 --> 00:20:55,157
in the tumultuous times that lay ahead.

345
00:20:55,868 --> 00:20:58,735
For most of the 13th and early 14th century,

346
00:20:58,771 --> 00:21:01,205
England had an enormous
Mediterranean feel.

347
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:05,404
Bumper crops and a booming economy
and the population doubled.

348
00:21:05,444 --> 00:21:07,912
But then, that old enemy
of the English struck -

349
00:21:07,947 --> 00:21:11,439
no I don't mean the All Blacks -
I mean the weather.

350
00:21:11,483 --> 00:21:13,951
Heavy rain and low temperatures
caused crops to rot

351
00:21:13,986 --> 00:21:16,079
and entire villages to sink.

352
00:21:16,121 --> 00:21:17,986
People were starving to death.

353
00:21:18,023 --> 00:21:20,287
Surely it couldn't get any worse
than this...

354
00:21:21,126 --> 00:21:22,423
but it could.

355
00:21:22,995 --> 00:21:26,123
On top of the famine
came something even more dreadful,

356
00:21:26,165 --> 00:21:27,928
the Black Death.

357
00:21:27,967 --> 00:21:31,403
An already weakened population
was devastated.

358
00:21:31,437 --> 00:21:34,873
To many people it seemed that
God had deserted them,

359
00:21:34,907 --> 00:21:38,035
and they struggled to reconcile
this terrible catastrophe

360
00:21:38,077 --> 00:21:40,011
with their beliefs.

361
00:21:40,045 --> 00:21:42,570
Here in the church
at Ashwell in Hertfordshire,

362
00:21:42,615 --> 00:21:46,449
the Plague has left its mark, quite literally.

363
00:21:46,485 --> 00:21:50,615
Over 65O years ago, the desPerate local Priest

364
00:21:50,656 --> 00:21:55,355
scratched these words
onto the walls of his bell tower.

365
00:21:55,394 --> 00:21:58,022
You can see here it says, ''Primula Pestis'',

366
00:21:58,063 --> 00:22:01,555
the first Plague, 1349,

367
00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:05,832
and then below he's incised
into the walls, in deeP letters,

368
00:22:05,871 --> 00:22:07,463
a big M, that's a thousand

369
00:22:07,506 --> 00:22:09,337
and then 35O.

370
00:22:09,375 --> 00:22:14,904
In 135O he Puts,
''misaranda ferox e violenta'',

371
00:22:14,947 --> 00:22:18,348
miserable, fierce and violent
the Plague has been.

372
00:22:18,384 --> 00:22:21,376
And then below he writes,
''the dregs of the PoPulation

373
00:22:21,420 --> 00:22:24,617
''left behind to bear witness,
and a mighty wind

374
00:22:24,657 --> 00:22:26,522
''thunders across the world.''

375
00:22:33,999 --> 00:22:36,991
The Black Death was a catastroPhe.

376
00:22:37,036 --> 00:22:39,266
But ironically those
who survived,

377
00:22:39,304 --> 00:22:41,898
found they were better off
than they ever had been.

378
00:22:41,940 --> 00:22:44,875
You see the PoPulation of
England had been almost halved,

379
00:22:44,910 --> 00:22:46,673
and labor was scarce,

380
00:22:46,712 --> 00:22:50,978
and ordinary farm workers suddenly found
they were in a Position to call the shots.

381
00:22:52,551 --> 00:22:55,850
Peasants begun to refuse
to fulfill their feudal duties.

382
00:22:55,888 --> 00:22:58,448
They started to negotiate wage increases

383
00:22:58,490 --> 00:23:02,017
and even began
to be paid in hard cash.

384
00:23:03,028 --> 00:23:06,964
Some left their Manors
and acquired their own free land.

385
00:23:08,734 --> 00:23:11,760
All this, of course, got uP
the noses of the aristocracy.

386
00:23:11,804 --> 00:23:14,534
If there was more wealth around,
they saw no reason why

387
00:23:14,573 --> 00:23:16,165
the Peasants should have it.

388
00:23:16,208 --> 00:23:19,609
So they introduced laws
to restore comPulsory labor

389
00:23:19,645 --> 00:23:24,446
and force wages back down
to the levels before the Black Death.

390
00:23:24,483 --> 00:23:27,884
But what seems to have esPecially irritated
the aristocracy

391
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:30,480
was the way the Peasants were dressing.

392
00:23:31,490 --> 00:23:36,291
This season's peasant ditched drab work wear
in favor of bright colors,

393
00:23:36,328 --> 00:23:38,819
tighter hose and even fur.

394
00:23:38,864 --> 00:23:41,230
Some peasants were spending
almost the same on clothes

395
00:23:41,266 --> 00:23:42,790
as certain noblemen.

396
00:23:43,669 --> 00:23:47,161
So rules were introduced dictating
what different classes could wear.

397
00:23:47,206 --> 00:23:50,403
For example, for any person
below the level of craftsman,

398
00:23:50,442 --> 00:23:54,902
pointy shoes were
a fashion crime, literally.

399
00:23:54,947 --> 00:23:58,246
All of which stoked the fires
of peasant resentment.

400
00:23:58,283 --> 00:24:02,515
The final straw was when
the barons imPosed a Poll tax

401
00:24:02,554 --> 00:24:04,215
to Pay for their war in France.

402
00:24:04,256 --> 00:24:06,417
This was bitterly resented

403
00:24:06,458 --> 00:24:10,258
because it meant that everybody
had to Pay the same, rich or Poor,

404
00:24:10,295 --> 00:24:13,958
and to make it worse,
the government got its sums wrong -

405
00:24:13,999 --> 00:24:17,435
they based their calculations
on the PoPulation size

406
00:24:17,469 --> 00:24:19,300
before the Black Death.

407
00:24:19,338 --> 00:24:22,671
So when they failed to raise
the amount they exPected,

408
00:24:22,708 --> 00:24:24,835
they imPosed a second a Poll tax.

409
00:24:24,877 --> 00:24:28,540
And that was when
the unthinkable happened,

410
00:24:28,580 --> 00:24:31,105
the peasants took up arms and revolted.

411
00:24:34,353 --> 00:24:37,254
From all over England
they converged on Canterbury

412
00:24:37,289 --> 00:24:38,586
and marched to London.

413
00:24:38,624 --> 00:24:41,058
Maybe as many as 6O,OOO of them.

414
00:24:42,861 --> 00:24:45,125
With no emails or mobile phones,

415
00:24:45,164 --> 00:24:48,031
how could the peasants
have organized all this?

416
00:24:48,066 --> 00:24:52,059
Could it be that they were
making use of their newly acquired literacy

417
00:24:52,104 --> 00:24:54,197
to spread the word of the revolt?

418
00:24:56,275 --> 00:25:00,075
Two of the chroniclers record
what they claim were letters

419
00:25:00,112 --> 00:25:03,445
that the Peasants were
circulating amongst themselves.

420
00:25:03,482 --> 00:25:06,542
Now, the letters are written in
English but they're very cryPtic

421
00:25:06,585 --> 00:25:08,746
and we don't really know what they mean.

422
00:25:08,787 --> 00:25:14,123
But it could be that they contained detailed
coded instructions for the revolt.

423
00:25:14,159 --> 00:25:16,559
This is the one in
Thomas Walsingham's chronicle.

424
00:25:16,595 --> 00:25:18,028
And you can see here it says,

425
00:25:18,063 --> 00:25:22,193
''John SheeP greeteth well John Nameless
and John the Miller

426
00:25:22,234 --> 00:25:26,034
''and biddeth them
chastise well Hobbe the Robber

427
00:25:26,071 --> 00:25:29,507
''and look shaPe you
to one head and no more.

428
00:25:29,541 --> 00:25:34,035
''Knoweth your friend from your foe.
Have enough and say Whoa.''

429
00:25:34,079 --> 00:25:36,070
Now it may be that when it says,

430
00:25:36,114 --> 00:25:37,843
''chastise well Hobbe the Robber,''

431
00:25:37,883 --> 00:25:41,341
those were instructions
to the Peasants not to do any looting

432
00:25:41,386 --> 00:25:44,082
and only to destroy
documents and records.

433
00:25:44,122 --> 00:25:46,852
And then it says, ''Look shaPe you
to one head and no more.''

434
00:25:46,892 --> 00:25:51,090
Well, it could be just the instructions saying,
just only have one leader

435
00:25:51,129 --> 00:25:55,361
but on the other hand, it may be instructions
to go on Pilgrimage to Canterbury

436
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,732
where the Peasants assembled first

437
00:25:57,769 --> 00:26:02,001
and the focal Point
was the head of Thomas A Becket.

438
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:03,166
And finally it says,

439
00:26:03,208 --> 00:26:06,905
''Knoweth your friend from your foe
and say Whoa.''

440
00:26:06,945 --> 00:26:09,311
These could be absolute rigid instructions

441
00:26:09,348 --> 00:26:13,512
to distinguish your friends from
your enemy by the battle cry.

442
00:26:13,552 --> 00:26:15,281
(WhooPs )

443
00:26:17,723 --> 00:26:19,816
The climax of the peasants' revolt

444
00:26:19,858 --> 00:26:23,055
must rank as the one of the most
extraordinary scenes in history.

445
00:26:23,095 --> 00:26:25,859
Tens of thousands of rebelling peasants

446
00:26:25,898 --> 00:26:30,358
confronted the country's aristocracy,
led by a king, a 14-year-old boy.

447
00:26:30,702 --> 00:26:33,933
The peasants' leader Watt Tyler
rode towards the boy king

448
00:26:33,972 --> 00:26:36,770
to make his demands
and then he took a swig from a jug of ale,

449
00:26:36,808 --> 00:26:40,005
where upon the mayor of London
charged and cut him down.

450
00:26:40,045 --> 00:26:44,414
It looked as if the huge throng
were about to attack the aristocracy,

451
00:26:44,449 --> 00:26:49,045
but the king suddenly rode forward
and shouted, ''I'll be your leader, follow me. ''

452
00:26:49,721 --> 00:26:54,181
The king granted the peasants pardons
and promised to abolish serfdom.

453
00:26:54,226 --> 00:26:56,888
But once the rebels had dispersed,

454
00:26:56,929 --> 00:26:59,830
the barons quickly set about
slaughtering the ringleaders.

455
00:26:59,865 --> 00:27:02,390
Thousands of peasants died.

456
00:27:05,671 --> 00:27:07,901
The peasants' revolt failed.

457
00:27:07,940 --> 00:27:09,771
However, the ideal of freedom

458
00:27:09,808 --> 00:27:12,208
and of owing deference to no one

459
00:27:12,244 --> 00:27:15,270
was a lasting legacy for the medieval peasant.

460
00:27:15,914 --> 00:27:18,610
But there's a sting in the tail
of the Peasants' story.

461
00:27:18,650 --> 00:27:24,589
The lords realized that if the Peasants were now
free from any labor obligation to them,

462
00:27:24,623 --> 00:27:29,026
they were likewise free from any obligation
to care for their Peasants.

463
00:27:29,061 --> 00:27:33,191
The social consensus of the feudal system
had broken down.

464
00:27:35,233 --> 00:27:37,827
And there was worse to come.

465
00:27:37,869 --> 00:27:41,100
Peasants were about to come face to face
with their real enemy,

466
00:27:41,139 --> 00:27:42,629
sheeP!

467
00:27:42,674 --> 00:27:45,302
You see, your average lord
could make more money out of sheeP

468
00:27:45,344 --> 00:27:47,039
than he could out of Peasants.

469
00:27:47,079 --> 00:27:50,515
For a start there's a lot more wool on a sheeP
and you can eat them.

470
00:27:50,549 --> 00:27:53,074
Which is Possible with Peasants
but socially tricky.

471
00:27:53,118 --> 00:27:59,546
So the lords started to throw the troublesome
and uneatable Peasants off the land,

472
00:27:59,591 --> 00:28:01,786
and rePlace them with these chaPs.

473
00:28:03,295 --> 00:28:06,628
The social landscape of Britain changed forever.

474
00:28:08,233 --> 00:28:11,293
There is nothing intrinsically terrible
about the Peasants' life.

475
00:28:11,336 --> 00:28:14,999
In fact there were times in
the 14th century when it was Pretty fine.

476
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,874
It deteriorated when the lords
fenced in the land

477
00:28:18,910 --> 00:28:21,674
and it got even worse in
the industrial revolution.

478
00:28:21,713 --> 00:28:25,046
And small farmers are still uP against it.

479
00:28:25,083 --> 00:28:28,211
The life of the Peasant
dePends on the society,

480
00:28:28,253 --> 00:28:30,744
bit it's sobering to think that,

481
00:28:30,789 --> 00:28:33,519
comPared to a lot of PeoPle's lives today,

482
00:28:33,558 --> 00:28:37,289
some medieval Peasants had it Pretty good.

483
00:28:45,037 --> 00:28:48,006
Next time on
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives,

484
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,771
I'll be peering into those
weirdest of medieval institutions,

485
00:28:51,810 --> 00:28:57,544
the Monasteries, when I look
at the rise and fall of the medieval monk.