The Peasants’ Revolt

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the Gentleman?” these are the opening words of a rousing sermon, said to be by John Ball, which fires a broadside at the deeply hierarchical nature of fourteenth century England. Ball, along with Wat Tyler, was one of the principal leaders of the Peasants’ Revolt - his sermon ends: “I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty”. The subsequent events of June 1381 represent a pivotal and thrilling moment in England’s history, characterised by murder and mayhem, beheadings and betrayal, a boy-King and his absent uncle, and a general riot of destruction and death. By most interpretations, the course of this sensational story threatened to undermine the very fabric of government as an awareness of deep injustice was awakened in the general populace.But who were the rebels and how close did they really come to upending the status quo? And just how exaggerated are claims that the Peasants’ Revolt laid the foundations of the long-standing English tradition of radical egalitarianism? With Miri Rubin, Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London; Caroline Barron, Professorial Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London; Alastair Dunn, author of The Peasants’ Revolt - England’s Failed Revolution of 1381.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Miri Rubin 13 episodes
  Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London
• Caroline Barron No other episodes
  Professorial Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London
• Alastair Dunn No other episodes
  author of The Peasants' Revolt - England's Failed Revolution of 1381

Related episodes

• The Putney Debates
  
  18 Apr, 2013 320 Political science
• Republicanism
  
  3 Feb, 2000 940 History of Europe
• The Anarchy
  
  1 Nov, 2012 940 History of Europe
• The Peterloo Massacre
  
  15 Dec, 2005 940 History of Europe
• The Tudor State
  
  26 Oct, 2000 940 History of Europe
• The Gordon Riots
  
  2 May, 2019 940 History of Europe
• Seventeenth Century Print Culture
  
  26 Jan, 2006 000 Computer science, knowledge and systems
• The Morant Bay Rebellion
  
  3 Nov, 2022 970 History of North America
• The Trial of Charles I
  
  4 Jun, 2009 940 History of Europe
• The Glorious Revolution
  
  19 Apr, 2001 940 History of Europe

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: p0038x8s

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0038x8s

Auto-category: 942.04 (History of England - Plantagenets, 1154-1485)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. When Adam delved at Eve's span, who was then the gentleman?