Peasants' Revolt: Medieval Rebellion (Part 1)

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

History Hit

Myths, Folklore, Mystery, History, Ghosts, Society & Culture, Murder, Ufos, True Crime, Paranormal, Supernatural, Serial Killers

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

1381, England, the world turned upside down as the commoners rise up and dismantle the mechanisms of power. They're angry about taxes, serfdom, about being forcibly kept in their place by corrupt lords...about a lot of stuff. But will they prevail? Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney about how the uprising began.

Edited by Tomos Delargy, produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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All music from Epidemic Sounds.

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, we're your host's Anthony Delaney and Maddie Pelling.
0:03.7	And if you would like After Dark myths, misdeeds and the paranormal, ad free and get early access, sign up to History Hit.
0:11.1	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week.
0:20.7	Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week.
0:24.8	Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:38.6	It's 1381 and a red-breasted Robin is is bobbing across the fields and headrows of England.
0:40.4	What does he see?
0:47.5	He sees an empty kingdom, a population ravaged by the black death a generation earlier.
0:51.6	He sees a kingdom locked in an endless war with France.
0:57.7	So far, so medieval. But the England in which this bird flips and swoops is changing beneath his wings. This is a kingdom about to erupt with new opportunities.
1:06.0	All this disaster promises those surviving in its wake a new way of doing things.
1:13.6	Presiding over all of this, though, is a bureaucracy of paperwork. Records of transfers and fines,
1:20.6	punitive laws, and worst of all, newfangled taxes that threaten to crush the ordinary working man.
1:29.8	Unaware of this, our gallant Robin Redbreast is singing merrily on a summer's day late in May of 1381,
1:37.5	when he draws towards a hubbub in the village of Brentwood in Essex.
1:44.0	A crowd has gathered,
1:45.0	summoned from the surrounding villages
1:47.0	to await the arrival of royal commissioners.
1:50.0	They don't know what for, but they have their suspicions.
1:55.0	The commissioners arrive,
1:57.0	their horses trotting into the middle of the crowd, their brows furrowed.
2:01.8	Their leader, John Brampton, produces documents and announces that they are here to investigate
	...

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