Popular Protest in the Middle Ages Flashcards
What is characteristic of M. Bonne’s approach?
Seeks the interconnection of economics with politics in urban space and conflict in the context of Flanders.
M. Bonne: What did urban space permit?
Factions concrete sites for the consolidation of power and expression of discontent. In Flemish urban regimes, whilst economic interests were indispensable, power was only realised in the act of seizing and marking public and private places - such as buildings, town halls, belfries, market squares, parish churches and the like.
What happened to Bruges and Ghent in the thirteenth century?
Underwent important changes in their spatial design - including the creation of major canals which made a direct link to the sea possible - for international trade.
What contrasts exist between Venice and Genoa?
Venice had a central public space upon which the republic could stage its politic al rituals of unity - Genoa, by contrast, remained an extremely compartmentalised city. This difference is a reminder that economic rationale alone does not explain a chronologically similar trajectory of urban development.
What happened in 1302 in Flemish cities?
Democratic revolution - the takeover of political power wtihin the cities by artisans and guild representatives.
How does the notion of a democratic revolution complicate the narrative of social unrest?
It is often suggested that the patriciate was exhausted by the mid-1200s - resultantly, regime weakness was the reason why the democratic revolution occurred. This, argues M Boone, underestimates the vigour of the patrician regime, and fails to appreciate the nuances at work in the collective social actions of protest.
What forces were strong inside the Flanders commune?
Ecclesiastical presence - literally in the shadow of the cathedral
What was considered a cornerstone of commune spatial expression?
The Burgher’s right to judge the private use of space within a city - represented by the droit d’abatis - destruction of the house of an evildoer
What is begriffsgeschichte?
German for cultural history
What does Begriffsgeschichte historian Oexle want to see in the history of communes?
The unity of the medieval city came through the social units of guilds and confraternities - with spatial dimension. This provided the seedbed for rebelliousness.
What inspired social and political unrest in Flemish cities?
Larger waves of discontent present in Northern France.
What does O. Oexle suggest are demonstrations of the lack of revolutionary developments as the Pirennian tradition would have it?
Movements such as the Moerlemaye in Bruges or the Cockerulle in Ypres (both dating from 1280) indicate how, instead of being revolutionary developments as the Pirennian tradition would have had it, followed a relatively fixed pattern that reveals how political and social demands were formulated in and through space by collective protest and public written grievances.
What could Flanders draw upon in terms of popular revolt?
A long tradition of collective action and rebelliousness, known to scholars as the “little tradition” of revolt, as distinguished from the great tradition that opposed cities to princes throughout the late Middle Ages and sixteenth century.
What did religious solidarities among artisans result in?
Spatial manifestations of the role of relics in politics - in Bruges, 1302 - the procession of the Holy Blood became central in the establishment of the guild based government
What was rare in Ghent and Bruges?
Purely secular manifestations of guild power thoruhg street processions were rare.
What did the possession of Flanders by the Valois dukes of Burgundy, 1384, result in?
Incessant conflict between cities and state in which princes and townspeople used political space to test their boundaries of power.
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
Name an act which showed the Valois monopoly on the exercise of power?
One of their strategies was to execute a large number of people for the crime of sodomy so as to express their mastery over the social body and public space.
What tensions existed throughout the fifteenth century, vis-a-vis the Flanders?
Duke of Burgundy became increasingly focused on securing rule in Netherlands - resulted in strong demonstrations of force - such as the punishment of Bruges after the revolt of 1436-8.
Why was the rule of the French king clearly one which inspired dissent from the people of the Low Countries?
They ruled by fear. In principle, they accorded the duke-who had started to dream more or less openly of kingship-the right to destroy any city in open revolt against his authority.
Why else did the dukes decide to threaten Bruges and Liège as much as they did?
Destroying or altering functions belonging to the urban patrimony were not the only ways Burgundian and Habsburg rulers dealt with potentially rebellious cities. The destruction or submission of Ghent and Liege were good publicity for the Burgundian dynasty; these cities also had a reputation, a judicial system, and collective identity vulnerable to state power.
Who demolished Liège and punished Ghent?
Charles the Bold.
What were fundamental turning points in Florentine domination over its hinterland?
- Trends in household wealth
- Differential in wealth between plains and mountains
- Rates and direction of migration
- Changes in tax rates
By 1401-2.
What followed the revolt of the Ciompi?
Rule of the Minor Guilds - although this did not alter Florence’s attitudes and policy towards its Hinterland
How have historians tended to treat revoltrs in central and Northern Italy?
Treat as hazy, and spared from the ‘true’ peasant uprisings until the “Ave Maria” revolts of the 1790s, if then.
Veneto was thought to have only felt ‘unease’
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, surviving diaries and recollections of Floretine citizens, the ricordanze
Between whom did revolts in the mountains of Pistoia occur?
Urban factional conflict between the families of 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?
By contrast, from the perspective of the criminal records and the government’s decrees, these events register little more than a ripple in comparison with the numerous inquests, sentences, and peasant petitions unleashed by the insurrections of the opening years of the fifteenth century in the Alpi Fiorentine.
What does Samuel Cohn Jnr. reveal, contra to the muted peasant line, about the revolts in Florence?
The insurrection was caused by direct taxation on the contado (the estimo), which had increased fivefold since the start of the decade (1300s) - and had risen again
Who is an eminent source on the political narrative of Florence in the 14th and 15th centuries, despite being a bit old?
Gino Capponi, who wrote in the 19th century
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 is a famous and enduring contemporary source of the 1420s?
That of Leonardo Bruni - who makes no reference to peasant discontent.
Why must we caution using sources uch as the Panciatichi chronicler?
Panciatichi chronicler glories in the Lombard rebellions against the Visconti and in the collapse of the Milanese empire following Giangaleazzo’s death but denies that the same was happening in Florence.
What is the emergent picture in the account of Cohn?
Florentine/ Alpi (basically the mountainous area north of Florence) peasant discord was suppressed in official narratives.
What do criminal records contribute toward our understanding of the Alpi Florentine rebels?
First, the uprisings’ temporal and geographical dimensions are much more extensive; second, the criminal records bring into question the chroniclers’ assertions that the revolts were simply the rising of Florence’s traditional feudal enemies assisted by a few Florentine patrician malcontents. Instead, these records show peasants as the bulk of the rank and file, part of leadership, and at times even planning military strategy.
What troubles faced the Florentine archives?
A flood, in 1966, badly damaging documents. Thankfully, to , for the three main criminal tribunals that adjudicated such cases – the Podestà, the Capitano del Popolo, and the vicariate courts, remained safe
What does Cohn’s analysis suggest about the rebels?
Not in abject poverty, not merely the youth, not completely the homeless
What does Cohn remark about the early 1370s?
Surprisingly quiet, riot-wise. Especially given the ongoing war with the Ubaldini in the mountains, and the wave of pestilence, war and famine.
The countryside remained relatively quiet even into the Ciompi period.
How long was Minor Guild rule?
August 1378 - January 1382
What were more traditional sources of revolution? (In Arezzo)
Old feudal families - such as the Tarlati, Battifolle or Ubertini
What other, grassroots, signs of discontent can be seen in Arezzo?
1387 - five men without family names or distinctions were accused of attackign and occupying a Florentine castle.
1390 - 13 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?
Although not labeled as conspiracy or rebellion, the most explicit case of peasant resentment against Florentine authority during these years came from the contado, in fact from the prope Alpes of the upper Mugello where Florence’s tax rates were the highest.
A father, his wife, and their two sons from San Niccolò at Montecarelli attacked officers and a notary of the Podestà, stabbing one while they were capturing a neighbor who had not paid his taxes (estimo) to Florence.
What did Cohn conclude from his investigation into the Florentine criminal records?
In short, the years immediately following the sharp rise of Florentine taxes in did register the first outright assaults by townsmen and peasants against the estimo and the tax collector that I have found in the criminal records.
Why did Luther fail to hold allegiance with great multitudes of common people?
Because of the content of his doctrine of salvation, and because of his alliance with established secular rulers.
Anabaptism was not a homogeneous movement. How many independent sects of anabaptism existed?
40 different sects
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 was the German Peasant’s War?
The German Peasants’ War, Great Peasants’ War was a widespread popular revolt in the German-speaking areas of Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of the intense opposition by the aristocracy, who slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and farmers.
What had caused the German Peasants war?
A series of both economic and religious revolts in which peasants and farmers, often supported by Protestant clergy, took the lead. The German Peasants’ War was Europe’s largest and most widespread popular uprising prior to the French Revolution of 1789.
What did the German Peasants’ Revolt lead to in the North-West?
Not the uprising of the peasantry or the towns, but the ecclesiastics of Osnabrück, Utrecht, Paderborn and Münster
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 onccentration 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 else was more prevalent, according to Cohn?
More unemployed and unorganised - among these did Anabaptism flourish
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?
Underlying this deflation was a general European bullion famine caused by the drain of gold and silver to the Near East and exacerbated by the widespread closure or contraction of European mints and mines. English mint output reached its nadir in I448 and remained generally low until the I460s, and the Calais mint, whose silver groats and halfpennies circulated in England, ceased minting in I440.
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?
The population, moreover, had declined faster than production, and this too helped to reduce prices. More grain, stock, and wool was being produced than the market could absorb. 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
