25.10.2022 Lecture
Medieval Popular Protest and Craft from Between the Cracks
with Anna Reutinger
In the 13-15th centuries, a contagion of revolts swept through Europe often led by a growing middle class of craftspeople and peasants. After the Plague dramatically decreased their numbers, they seized their newfound power and demanded from the ruling elite more just levels of taxation, fair wages, fair rent, the right to citizenship and other measures of equity. These uprisings often ended in brutal suppression, and most surviving records of them contain obvious bias as they were produced and maintained by the elite whose control they targeted. Reading between the lines of these accounts alongside a study of crafts of the era, the perspectives of those who led these uprisings are reimagined and commemorated.
Further Reading:
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., Popular Protest in Late Medieval Europe: Italy, France and Flanders (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004).