Popular Protest Flashcards
What is characteristic of M. Bonne’s approach?
Demonstration of interconnections between space and faction in Bruges during the 14th century.
M. Bonne: What did urban space permit?
Urban space was regarded as the forum for competition. This would be demonstrated by assuming control of public spaces - such as town halls, belfries, market squares, parish churches etc.
What happened to Bruges and Ghent in the thirteenth century?
Spatial configuration dramatically changed by canal systems - to connect to international trade.
What contrasts exist between Venice and Genoa?
Bonne contests that Venice was ‘open’, with a forum to perform rites of Republican unity. Contrastingly, Genoa was ‘closed’ and compartmentalised. This dismisses the potential to see economic rationale linked to urban development.
What happened in 1302 in Flemish cities?
Democratic Revolution against French overlordship - institutes guilds in major governing structures.
What is the underlying issue with the notion of a democratic revolution?
Bonne suggests a teleological narrative of decline has emerged to justify the emergence of the conditions for revolution (i.e. a tired patriciate). Bonne contests the patrician regime was to the contrary, extremely vigorous, and such an assumption undermines the nuance of the revolutionary movement.
What was considered a cornerstone of commune spatial expression?
Communal spatial expression came through the process of droit d’abatis - the destruction of the house of an ‘evildoer’
What does Begriffsgeschichte historian Oexle want to see in the history of communes?
The structure of medieval society within the confines of communal order provided the seedbed for rebelliousness.
What inspired social and political unrest in Flemish cities?
Waves of discontent in Northern France, responsive to rallying taxation under Philip IV.
What does O. Oexle suggest are demonstrations of the lack of revolutionary developments as the Pirennian tradition would have it?
Moerlemaaie (Bruges) and Cockerulle (Ypres) suggests that social demands were expressed through a cyclical motion of rebellion and reaction, not through Pirennian revolution.
What did religious solidarities among artisans result in?
Processions of holy relics - such as the procession of the Holy Blood in Bruges, 1302. Central to guild based government.
What was rare in Ghent and Bruges?
Public demonstrations of a purely secular nature.
What did the possession of Flanders by the Valois dukes of Burgundy, 1384, result in?
Internecine conflict between the Duke and the people.
What was a safety valve against outright war in Flanders?
Diplomatic negotiation - the dukes actually institutionalised the “Four Members”, with a strong tradition of bargaining. Evidence of the methods used to placate the people of Bruges.
Name an act which showed the Valois monopoly on the exercise of power?
Mass-executions, on loose charges of sexual misdemeanor.
What tensions existed throughout the fifteenth century, vis-a-vis the Flanders?
The Dukes of Burgundy focused on the centralisation of power in Burgundy. This was heavily resisted, and resulted in revolts such as 1436-8; which directly threatened Charles’ life.
Why was the rule of the French king clearly one which inspired dissent from the people of the Low Countries?
The King of France dispensed significant powers to ruling dukes - who had the capacity to demolish rebellious towns.
Why else did the dukes decide to threaten Bruges and Liège as much as they did?
Destruction or alteration of the urban patrimony. In the instance of Bruges and Liege, such proved to be impactful on public image and prestige.
What were fundamental turning points in Florentine domination over its hinterland?
By 1401-2;
- Shifting differential in taxation between contado and urban centre
- Increasing domination of contado
- Rising levels of migration to the centre
How have historians tended to treat revolts in central and Northern Italy?
Generally reject the significance of such uprisings - seeing most as minor until the “Ave Maria” revolts of the 1730s.
What has Philip Jones stated about armed risings in central and northern Italy?
“Peasant hatred, and even armed risings were mostly short and bloodless.”
What sort of sources do historians rely on?
Chronicles, diaries, ricordanze, criminal records.
Which families had observable factional tension in Florence?
The Panciatichi and the Cancellieri. The issue with this is that this is often projected as a solely elite conflict - peasantry is not considered.
Why should we caution applying too much emphasis on solely the elites?
Official narratives do not reconcile with criminal records and government decrees in Alpi Florentine.
What does Samuel Cohn Jnr. reveal, contra to the muted peasant line, about the revolts in Florence?
Significant tension existed around the imposition of the estimo, which raised the rate of rebelliousness fivefold.
Who is an eminent source on the political narrative of Florence in the 14th and 15th centuries?
Gino Capponi, a 19th century historian.
What did Gino Capponi argue about Giangaleazzo’s conquests of 1402?
“The contado was fatigued by taxes and in the Mugello the peasants gave a hand to those in the Alps, where the Ubaldini, even though exhuasted, were able to take the mountain crest together with others fed up with the Republic”
what account from the 1420s reflects the emergence of an official silence on civil unrest?
The accounts of Leonardo Bruni
What issues exist with the Panciatchi Chronicle?
Panciatchi Chronicles emphasises the failings in Milan and mutes the troubles in Florence - essentially partisan in nature.
What do criminal records contribute toward our understanding of the Alpi Florentine rebels?
- Much longer and wider than suggested officially
- Rejects the minimal function of the peasantry in the uprisings
- Contrastingly, the peasantry made up the rank-and-file of the movement, and were even involved in planning.
What damaged the process of source analysis in the Florentine archives?
Florentine archives impacted in 1966 by flooding, however 1298-1305 records remained intact – the Podestà, the Capitano del Popolo, and the vicariate courts, remained unaffected.
What does Cohn’s analysis suggest about the rebels?
- Not exclusively a youth movement, but included heads of households
- Not driven by the extremely poor
What does Cohn remark about the early 1370s?
Remarkable absence of strife, especially given ongoing war, pestilence and famine. Even during the Ciompi revolt, the contado remained relatively quiet.
What were more traditional sources of revolution? (In Arezzo)
Traditional feudal families, including:
- Tarlati
- Battifolle
- Ubertini
What other, grassroots, signs of discontent can be seen in Arezzo?
1387: Five normal men attacked and occupied a Florentine castle
1390: 13 men attempted to “subvert and change the present liberty of the people and Guelf state of Florence” by retaking their castrum of Cacciano
What stimulated the resumption of fresh violence and insurrection in 1397, Florence?
Resumption of Milanese and Sienese incursions into the Florentine countryside. Farm violence was present, as in much of the periphery.
Where did the most explicit case of resentment emerge towards Florentine authority?
Most explicit case of resentment came from the Contado, in its expression of discontent with the Estimo.
What did Cohn conclude from his investigation into the Florentine criminal records?
Increased taxation from 1395 had a direct corrolation with the rejection of the Estimo and tax collection.
What had the Neckar Anabaptists seemingly set out to do in 1528, Esslingen?
Set up the Kingdom of God by force of arms
How many ecclesiastical centres were there in Münster?
Thirty. The clergy carried out trade and handicraft, but were exempt from taxation.
What had happened in Holland?
As the cloth industry collapsed in Flanders, Holland leaped ahead - most important centre of industry was Leyden. Holland now contained the greatest concentration of insecure and harrassed workers. Was probably worse than centuries ago - now, there was a stronger system of capitalism whereby aristans worked in their own homes. This made the usual mechanisms of guilds ineffective.
What did John Merfold proclaim in a public alehouse?
Should the people rise up again, ‘they wolde leve no gentilman alyve but such as thym list to have’
What did Hare argue was the motive for rebellion?
“Economic distress might, for some rebels, have been as powerful a motive as political dissatisfaction”.
Mollat and Wolff support by highlighting that prosperity followed by recession in the 15th century was important for instigating strife.
What caused the later recession?
Deflation, caused by the bullion famine in Europe, as a result of the drain of gold and silver to the Near East, alongside the closure of some mints and mines in Europe. English mint output reached its nadir in 1448 and remained generally low until the 1460s, and the Calais mint, whose silver groats and halfpennies circulated in England, ceased minting in 1440.
What did the rebels in Eastbourne declare?
the rebels aimed “to destroy the ancient customs of fairs and markets in Robertsbridge.”
At Eastbourne the men declared their unwillingness to pay more than 2d. an acre for land.
What demographic causes of malcontent were there in the fifteenth century?
Population fall in the 1430s due to pestilence/ other disease
1439-40 esp. vulnerable as suffered from successive years of bad harvests
What happened as a result of the decline of population?
Population declined faster than food production, resulting in overproduction and price collapse. Cloth exports, for example, had reached a peak in the early I440s, having doubled in volume in just 30 years; then they quickly lost all their gains
What does M. Mate aruge about the English reasons for rebellion?
Political corruption and misgovernment – linked to death of Duke of Suffolk, loss of Normandy. The rebels, in their written public manifestos, stressed administrative abuses and proposed political solutions-the removal of evil counsellors and the return of York from Ireland
Traditional Quote: “the causes of the rebellion, unlike the Peasants’ Revolt of I381, were more political than economic.”
What is a challenge in the analysis of the English rebels?
Cannot tell whether the primary ambition was to redistribute wealth or to increase personal wealth.
