The brief life and abortive revolutionary career of William FitzOsbert, alias William Longbeard, came to a sad end, if our sources are to be believed, in a mad insurrection against the royal and municipal authorities in London in April 1196. His brief moment of fame or infamy can be used as a window into many aspects of late twelfth century culture. His life throws light on the experience of crusading and the possibly traumatic effects it could have; on the plight of the poor in a newly urbanized and monetarized society; and on the politics of London and of England as a whole. Indeed, a comparison of the events surrounding the massacre in York in 1190 and the events surrounding FitzOsbert's death provides a window into the tensions of Angevin England. This chapter will therefore consist of three parts. First, I provide a very brief narrative of the events of April 1196. Then I offer an extremely basic compare-and-contrast exercise between FitzOsbert's demise and the events of March 1190; and finally, I suggest what that comparison can say about the nature of English society in the 1190s.

Let me begin with a brief narrative of FitzOsbert's life. William FitzOsbert, the younger son of a rich London family, is first recorded as a participant on the Third Crusade. Following the example of a previous generation of Londoners, he joined with some fellow citizens to fit out a ship as a communal undertaking.