Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381 (UC Press Voices Revived)
Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381 (UC Press Voices Revived) by Steven Justice
English | December 1, 1996 | ISBN: 0520206975, 0520083253 | True EPUB | 304 pages | 4.5 MB
English | December 1, 1996 | ISBN: 0520206975, 0520083253 | True EPUB | 304 pages | 4.5 MB
In this compelling account of the "peasants' revolt" of 1381, in which rebels burned hundreds of official archives and attacked other symbols of authority, Steven Justice demonstrates that the rebellion was not an uncontrolled, inarticulate explosion of peasant resentment but an informed and tactical claim to literacy and rule.
Focusing on six brief, enigmatic texts written by the rebels themselves, Justice places the English peasantry within a public discourse from which historians, both medieval and modern, have thus far excluded them. He recreates the imaginative world of medieval villagershow they worked and governed themselves, how they used official communications in unofficial ways, and how they produced a disciplined insurgent ideology.