Long Reads: Class Struggle in Medieval England w/ Dominic Alexander

Jacobin Radio · Nov 16, 2023 · 1h 1m

For centuries, the English Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 only appeared in the historical record through bitterly hostile sources. Medieval chroniclers like Froissart presented it as a terrifying eruption of savagery from the lower classes. But the rise of modern social movements organizing workers and farmers encouraged historians to take a fresh look at this early challenge to aristocratic power.

Dominic Alexander, historian and the author of Saints and Animals in the Middle Ages, joins Long Reads to discuss this revolt and a much earlier one, in the twelfth century, led by a man called William…