Two kinds of freedom : language and practice in late medieval rural revolts
Abstract
This article looks at the role of freedom as a motivation for rural rebellion in northern Europe from c. 1200-1450. It focuses comparatively on the English Rising of 1381 and revolts in France with some further comparison to other regions. While discourses of freedom were important in 1381 both in the chronicle texts and to the rebels themselves, most rebels did not articulate their demands in terms of liberty. The last section demonstrates that although demands for freedom were rare in revolts, the social networks through which uprisings were organized show that rural communal practices constituted a kind freedom, enabling peasants to engage in socio-political action.
Citation
Firnhaber-Baker , J 2020 , ' Two kinds of freedom : language and practice in late medieval rural revolts ' , Edad Media. Revista de historia , vol. 21 , pp. 113-152 . https://doi.org/10.24197/em.21.2020.113-152
Publication
Edad Media. Revista de historia
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2530-6448Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2020 Justine Firnhaber-Baker. This work is under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 international license. The authors continue to be the owners of their works, and can republish their articles in another medium without having to request authorization, provided they indicate that the work was originally published in the Middle Ages magazine History Magazine .
Description
This article is a result of the research project funded by the Spanish Government (MINECO) “Los nombres de la libertad : Comunidad política autonomía a fines de la de la Edad Media” (HAR 2017-30035 -P) and the research project “The Jacquerie and Late Medieval Revolts” funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/K006843/1)Collections
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