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If a seigniorial reaction did not materialize in the generation after the arrival of Black Death, and if villeinage really was dissolving rapidly during that period, how then do we explain the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381? The arguments and evidence for the centrality of serfdom to the revolt are discussed, and the latest research into the targets and participants considered. This chapter takes its lead from new approaches to medieval revolts, which move away from modern preoccupations with class and revolution to reconstruct how common grievances united disparate groups of people. It explores the experience of royal justice—principally the labour laws and the leasing of hundreds—from ‘below’, based upon a fresh dissection of the legislation and original research into petitions, the sessions of JPs and King’s Bench, and other court records. The nature of the legislation, the mechanics of its enforcement, the powers and discretion vested in local officials well below the level of the JPs, and the wide range of jurisdictions for handling and sanctioning the same offence resulted in wide inconsistencies in its enforcement. This created divisions within communities, not just along class lines between lord and peasant, and generated common cause and forged temporary alliances among diverse groups. The unifying aim of the rebels was the removal of all forms of lordship other than the king and the removal of all intermediary private and royal courts: opposition to serfdom was one element within this greater aim.

This chapter reviews the various ways in which the shared bodiliness of humans and animals has been shown to haunt medieval texts and images. Further avenues for research are suggested, such as the role of animal lore and fables in collections of exempla, or the grotesquely blended bodies that people the margins of medieval manuscripts. Lastly, a close reading is offered of some further works in which the human-animal interface is an important thematic element, shaping (and constraining) the kinds of texts that are produced: the romance of William of Palerne, and the various accounts (including that of Gower in Vox Clamantis) of the Rising of 1381.

The following two chapters introduce aspects of popular revolt during the Italian wars that trace convergences with the late Middle Ages. First, Italy did not follow European paths north of the Alps with widespread insurrections comprised largely of peasants that cut across states and linguistic divides. From 1494 to 1559, peasant revolts increased (1) with extensions of the ‘German Peasants’ Revolt’ into northern Italy in 1524–25 and (2) with resistance against billeting and military abuses throughout this period. Their number, however, remained distinctly in the shadows of urban revolt. Second, alliances between urban and peasant rebels also increased. However, in comparison with other European regions, indifference or hostility between urban and rural rebels in Italy largely remained. Third, if mutinies of soldiers are discarded, economic revolts between employers and labourers were even sparser in Italy, 1494 to 1559, than they had been in the Middle Ages. The most striking exception was the year-long Lucchese revolt, called Gli Straccioni (1531–32), that began as a protest of silk workers against new impositions from their bosses, but like Florence’s revolt of the Ciompi in 1378, quickly grew into a revolt of the city’s popolo to extend political representation. Finally, Italy did not follow trends north of the Alps, where religious ideals and doctrines and the role of clerics became central to insurrection. Revolts spawned by religious ideology and influenced by clerics in Italy instead declined below levels even seen in the late Middle Ages.