Module NumberEu06
Date: 7 February 2004
Title: Peasant Revolts and Urban unrest, 1290-1800
Legend/key/instructions to artist
This is a series of maps in chronological order showing urban and rural revolts in Europe from 1290 to 1800. For all but the first and last two maps, the period covered is a quarter century. The first has map begins with 1290 in order to incorporate the birth of the Swiss confederation. The next-to-last map ends at 1789 (for obvious reasons); the final map covers the decade between 1790 and 1800.
There should be a timeline running across the bottom and a space below that for captions.
The map series (EU06-01 thru EU06-20) distinguishes between urban and rural rebellions. The urban revolts (in blue on the reference maps) should be marked with a specially colored doodad, like a dot or a flash of some kind. The rural rebellions, when they were sufficiently extensive geographically, should show up on the map as a shared area. The color should be distinct from that used for the urban revolts. Also, a large number of rebellions were too confined geographically to show up on the map as a shaded-in area. For these smaller revolts, use same doodad used for urban revolts but in the color that designates rural revolts. Finally, rebellions that began in one period and continued into the next, such as the Flemish Rising of 1323-1327, should be included in maps on both sides of the chronological division.
Ignore the numbers on the reference maps. These are for your information in case you are unclear as to which area corresponds to which rebellion. There are a lot of them. For political boundaries, use the borders marked in red from the series 1300big-1800big. These geopolitical data are included for orientation and should not be given visual prominence.
Section Title: 1290-1424
Introductory Text (steve: this section will go in the HTML page before the actualy module.
The first rebellions in European that managed to rise above local problems and involve whole regions in social protest occurred from the late thirteenth through the fourteenth centuries. One of the earliest of these produced the Swiss confederation in 1291, thereby laying the foundation of an independent European state. The well-organized Flemish Rising of 1323-1327 united towns and villages in defense of custom and against a new tax and was defeated only with the help of France. The impact of other rebellions was more limited, but many shared the goal of eliminating the restrictions on personal freedom associated with serfdom. The English Peasants’ War of 1381 took steps toward the abolition of serfdom in England. In Catalonia, peasants allied with the king against nobles and towns to end serfdom there.
The most violent but also the shortest revolt was the “Jacquerie” around Paris in 1358. Other movements showed greater staying power, such as the “Tuchinat,” a guerrilla war in the mountains of south-central France. In the middle of this period, the Black Death (1348-1351) carried off one third of Europe’s population. This disruption contributed to urban upheavals right across Europe, from Seville in Spain to Florence in Italy to Lübeck in northern Germany, awk. in which artisans attempted to gain a seat and voice in civic government.
The period culminated with a religiously inspired uprising, the Hussite revolution in Bohemia (1420-1434), which united town and country behind the reform of religion and social order. As their strength grew, Hussite armies invaded territories to the north and west; eventually a peace settlement ended the fighting. Because it was directed in part against cultural and political domination from outside Bohemia, something wrong here finally, the Hussite revolution also represents an early instance of ethnic or proto-nationalist resistance.
Frame No: EU06-01a
Caption: 1290-1324
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-01.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1300big.jpg
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: The Swiss Confederation, 1291 (1); The Latter Pastoureaux Movement, 1329 (3); The Flanders Rising, 1323-1328 (4)
Frame No: EU06-01b
Caption: 1325-1349
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-02.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1300big.jpg
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: The Flanders Rising, 1323-1328 (4); Armleder Movement, 1336-1339 (7)
Frame No: EU06-01c
Caption: 1350-1374
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-03.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1300big.jpg
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Jacquerie, 1358 (10); Tuchinat, 1363-1384 (12)
Frame No: EU06-01d
Caption: 1375-1399
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-04.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1400big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Revolt of the Ciompi, 1378 (16); Tuchinat, 1363-1384 (22); English Peasants’ Revolt, 1381 (23, 25-26); Maillotin Riots, 1382 (27); Juderia, 1391 (32)
Frame No: EU06-01e
Caption: 1400-1424
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-04a; for political boundaries, use 1400big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Appenzell War, 1403-1408 (35); Caboche Riots, 1413-1414 (40); Hussite Revolution, 1420-1434 (43)
Section Title: 1425-1549
Introductory Text (steve: this text to go in HTML between section 1 and 2.
Beginning around 1400, distinct regional patterns of rebellion develop. A buildup of local revolts in the Alps and the border zone between France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Swiss Confederation, for example, reflected the increasing assertiveness of village communes and their efforts to defend customary rights against encroachments on them by nobles and princes; to lower rents and improve legal rights to land; and to oppose the restrictions of serfdom on the right to marry and take up residence freely. This trend continued right through the fifteenth century.
One prominent manifestation of its was the “Bundschuh” conspiracies, named for the peasant shoe that festooned the rebels’ banners. The movement was organized over a large geographical area and tried to mobilize city folk as well as rural people in far-reaching social and apostolic reforms. The “Poor Conrad” movement in the Duchy Württemberg, by contrast, reacted to new taxes, though it too included people from both sides of the town-country divide. In the East, the Hungarian Crusade (1514) transformed into a peasants’ revolt against the erosion of their property rights.
The German Peasants’ War of 1525 overshadows all other rebellions, urban or rural, of the sixteenth century. Indeed, no other rebellion came close to it in terms of sheer geographical extent and the numbers of people involved—perhaps as many as 100,000 rebels in April and May. Beginning in the heartland of late medieval communal rebellions, the Peasants’ War quickly spread across southern and central Germany. By April and May, the rebellion had spread into Switzerland in the south, to Alsace in the west, Thuringia, and Saxony in the north, and to the Tirolean Alps in the east. It also endured longest and took on its most radical forms in these mountainous regions. Nor was participation in the rebellion confined to rural people: urban uprisings also occurred in several major cities, including Frankfurt
Frame No: EU06-02a
Caption: 1425-1449
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-05.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1400big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Hussite Revolution, 1420-1434 (43); Bundschuh, 1439-1444 (49); The ‘Evil Union,’ 1445 (51)
Frame No: EU06-02b
Caption: 1450-1474
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-06.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1400big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Revolts of the Remensas, 1462-1486 (41); Bundschuh, 1450 (54); Revolt of the Forans, 1450-1453 (55); Bundschuh, 1460 (59); Pongau-Pinzgau Rising 1462-1463 (60)
Frame No: EU06-02c
Caption: 1475-1499
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-07.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1500big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Niklashausen Pilgrimage, 1476 (68); Waldmann Affair, 1489 (73); Savonarola Movement, 1490-1498 (75); Kempten Monastery Rising 1491 (76); Bundschuh, 1493 (77)
Frame No: EU06-02d
Caption: 1500-1524
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-08.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1500big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Bundschuh, 1501-1502 (81); The ‘Cruel Carnival,’ 1511 (84); Bundschuh, 1513 (87); Swiss Peasants’ Revolt, 1513-1516 (89); The Hungarian Crusade, 1514 (93); Poor Conrad Movement, 1514 (91, 92); Bundschuh, 1515 (95); Slovenian Revolt, 1515 (96); The First Germaniá, 1519-1523 (101); Comunero Revolt, 1520-1521 (102)
Frame No: EU06-02e
Caption: 1525-1549
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-09.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1500big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: The German Peasants’ War, 1524-1526 (108); East Prussian Peasants’ Rising, 1525 (109); AnabaptistKingdom, 1534 (116); Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536 (118); Revolt of the Pitauds, 1548 (126); Kett’s Rebellion, 1549 (127); Prayer Book Rebellion, 1549 (128)
Section Title: 1550-1699
Introductory Text (steve: this will go in the HTML space between section 2 and 3.
The period between 1550 and 1699 was so turbulent that many historians often speak of a “General Crisis” in European society and politics. From the standpoint of peasants and artisans, it was the great age of the tax revolt. War was the primary reason for heavier taxation, though not the only one. Nor did conflicts over taxes play out the same way in every region. In central and eastern Europe, the Turkish Empire’s expansion fueled increases in taxation and military recruitment. The many revolts of this period in the Austrian lands, as well as the Croatian revolt of 1572-1573, were of this type. In France, the centralization of royal power, the burdens of war, and the erosion of local autonomy lay behind most revolts. These particularly frequent in the south and southwest, where communes still were relatively strong and the king’s power relatively still remote. A series of tax revolts by so-called “Croquants” shook the region until 1707. Anti-tax revolts in other peripheral regions as well, such as Normandy (1649) and Brittany (1675).
This was also a period of uprisings against foreign rule, many of which carried strong social and religious overtones. The most prominent of these was the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule. Resentment against taxation erupted in Naples in 1647, a revolution that nearly toppled Spanish rule in southern Italy. Ireland rose twice against English rule, in 1641 and 1689.
Not every region fit these patterns, however. Events in Britain were dominated by civil war and the temporary overthrow of monarchy (1640-1660), but these were not driven primarily by the demands of rural people or artisans. Unique to Britain were revolts against enclosure, when lords seized common lands or converted farmland to pasture. In the Empire, urban and rural conflicts were less frequent and more local. In part, this reflected an official reaction to the great upheaval of 1525: by giving peasants better access to courts of law, social conflicts were more often waged through litigation than with violence.
Frame No: EU06-03a
Caption: 1550-1574
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-10.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1500big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Wyatt’s Rebellion, 1554-1555 (129); The ‘Wonderyear,’ 1566 (137); Morisco Revolt, 1568-1570 (141); Northern Rising, 1569 (142); The Croatian Revolt, 1572-1573 (143)
Frame No: EU06-03b
Caption: 1575-1599
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-11.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1600big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Revolt of the Viverais, 1575 (143a); Ligue des Vilains, 1579-1580 (144); Carnival in Romans, 1580 (145); Revolt of the Gautiers, 1589 (150); War of the Penny, 1591-1592 (154); Upper Austrian Peasants’ War, 1592 (155); Revolt of the Bonnets rouges, 1594 (158); Lower Austrian Peasants’ War, 1596 (165)
Frame No: EU06-03c
Caption: 1600-1624
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-12.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1600big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Midland Revolt, 1607 (180); War of the Penny, 1612-1614 (187); Fettmilch Uprising, 1614 (196); Croquants, 1624 (200)
Frame No: EU06-03d
Caption: 1625-1649
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-13.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1600big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Upper Austrian Peasants’ War, 1626 (202); Western Rising, 1628-1631 (206); Cascavéoux Uprising, 1630 (208); Lanturelu Uprising, 1630 (209); Fenlands’ Rising, 1630-1638 (210); Vizcayan Tax Revolt, 1631 (213-214); Upper Bavarian Peasants’ Revolt, 1633-1634 (217); Ormée Revolt, 1635 (221); Croquants, 1636 (223); Croquants, 1636-1637 (224), Croquants, 1636-1637 (225), Croquants, 1637-1641 (227); Revolt of the Va-Nu-Pieds, 1639 (230); Catalan Revolt, 1640 (233); Croquants, 1643 (239); Valbelle Revolt, 1644 (241); Revolt of Masaniello, 1647-1648 (250)
Frame No: EU06-03e
Caption: 1650-1674
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-14.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1600big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Ormée Revolt, 1651-1653 (264); Swiss Peasants’ War, 1653 (267); Guyenne Rising, 1655-1656 (268); First Villmergen War, 1656 (269); Revolt of the Sabotiers, 1658 (272); Revolt of the Lustucrus, 1662 (278); Wildeneck Uprising, 1662-1663 (279); Chalosse Uprising, 1663-1665 (281); Audijos Uprising, 1664-1667 (281a); Revolt of the Roure, 1670 (284); Orangist Revolt, 1672 (286)
Frame No: EU06-03f
Caption: 1675-1699
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-15.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1700big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Torrébens Revolt, 1675 (290); Bohemian Peasants’ Uprising, 1680 (292); Revolt of the Gorretes, 1688-1689 (297); Irish Rising, 1689-1691 (298); The Second Germaniá, 1693 (299); Second Villmergen War, 1698-1706 (302)
Section FOUR Title: 1700-1800 (again, this text goes into the HTML space between sections
Introductory Text
In comparison with the explosive seventeenth century, the early eighteenth was one of relative quiet in western Europe. This is attributable to several factors. One is simply that the machinery of state power was more efficient and the collection of taxes better regulated. Another factor was the waning of religious hostilities, although as the “Camisard” revolt (1703-1705) showed, these could still inspire extremes of violence. Finally, urban and rural social protest movements were more and more involved with international and dynastic politics: Rákóczi’s Revolt of 1703-1709, for example, was led by Hungarian nobles but owed much of its strength to peasant grievances against serfdom. Similarly in 1705, normally peaceful Bavarian peasants rebelled against foreign occupation and the unaccustomed burdens it entailed.
This began to change in the mid-eighteenth century. Beginning in the 1770s, many governments in central and western Europe attempted to abolish labor services and restrictions on the ability of peasants to marry and take up residence freely. Pressure from below played an important role. Ongoing resistance to labor services in Bohemia, for example, further discredited the institution of serfdom. Then in 1775, another rebellion prompted the formal abolition of labor services there. But dissolving the economic power of lords over peasants proved to be far more difficult. Estate-management had become both more efficient and more resented. But top-down reforms also disrupted local customs, which inspired resistance to the centralization of state power.
These tensions erupted in the late 1780s. In 1789, Flemish “patriots” rebelled against a reforming but heavy-handed Austrian regime. That same year in France, a wave of rural unrest provoked the National Assembly to abolish noble privileges and accelerated the revolution of state and society there. News of the Revolution also inspired peasants elsewhere to rebel against noble privilege, as they did in Saxony (1790). In its turn, however, revolutionary France proved even more hostile to local customs than its predecessor. As its power expanded through western Europe, the Revolution met with determined resistance in defense of tradition and, outside France, against foreign rule.
Frame No: EU06-04a
Caption: 1700-1724
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-16.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1700big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Plooierijen, 1702-1708 (305); Rakoczi’s Revolt, 1703-1709 (305a); Revolt of the Camisards, 1703-1705; Bavarian Peasants’ Revolt, 1705-1706 (309); Catalan Peasants’ Revolt, 1705-1706 (310); Toggenburg War, 1712 (315); Upper Austrian Hunting Revolt, 1716-1721 (320); Jacobite Rising, 1719 (322); Levellers’ Revolt, 1724 (325)
Frame No: EU06-04b
Caption: 1725-1749
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-17.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1700big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Salpeter Wars, 1725-1745 (327-328, 333, 336); Upper Styrian Rising, 1739-1740 (334); Bohemian Peasants’ Revolt, 1741 (335); Jacobite Rising, 1745 (337); Orangist Rising, 1747-1751 (338)
Frame No: EU06-04c
Caption: 1750-1774
Use Map inventory number(s): EU06-18.jpg; for political boundaries, use 1700big
Legend/key/instructions to artist
Please bubble the following rebellions, which you can locate by their identifying number on the draft map: Esquilache Revolt, 1766 (345); Bohemian Peasants’ Revolt, 1774-1775 (351)
Frame No: EU06-04d
Caption: 1775-1789