1549: THE LAST MEDIEVAL POPULAR REBELLIONS

Although historians usually situate the 1549 rebellions within the early modern period, the long-term significance of the risings lies in their place at the end of a long tradition of medieval popular revolt. This tradition stretched back to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and included insurrections in 1450, 1469, 1489, 1497, 1525 and 1536–7. Diverse though they were in other respects, these risings had five unifying characteristics. Firstly, there was a remarkable consistency in popular political language, hinting at a shared tradition of popular protest. Secondly, the causes of rebellion were often similar. Thirdly, there were clear continuities in their leadership and organisation. Fourthly, some communities and regions were repeatedly involved in insurrections. Lastly, there is the possibility that rebels were conscious of these continuities: that is, that a red thread bound one rebellion to another, producing an ideology of popular protest.

Nonetheless, the rebellions of 1549 differ in two important respects from this tradition. Firstly, the early Reformation strongly influenced the politics of the commotion time of 1549. Secondly, 1549 saw the climax of a longer-term social conflict which pitched the gentry and nobility against the working people of southern and eastern England. Although fissured by significant social divisions, yeomen, poorer farmers, labourers, artisans and urban workers united in 1549 against their rulers. In some respects, the confrontation of 1549 had similarities with the conflicts that had generated the 1381 rising.