1574 - Serfs in England emancipated by Elizabeth I

In England, the end of serfdom began with the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 (see below). It had largely died out in England by 1500 as a personal status and was fully ended when Elizabeth I freed the last remaining serfs in 1574.

The Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt, also called Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years' War, and instability within the local leadership of London. The final trigger for the revolt was the intervention of a royal official, John Bampton, in Essex on 30 May 1381. His attempts to collect unpaid poll taxes in Brentwood ended in a violent confrontation, which rapidly spread across the south-east of the country. A wide spectrum of rural society, including many local artisans and village officials, rose up in protest, burning court records and opening the local gaols. The rebels sought a reduction in taxation, an end to the system of unfree labour known as serfdom and the removal of the King's senior officials and law courts.

Inspired by the sermons of the radical cleric John Ball, and led by Wat Tyler, a contingent of Kentish rebels advanced on London. They were met at Blackheath by representatives of the royal government, who unsuccessfully attempted to persuade them to return home. King Richard II, then aged 14, retreated to the safety of the Tower of London, but most of the royal forces were abroad or in northern England. On 13 June, the rebels entered London and, joined by many local townsfolk, attacked the gaols, destroyed the Savoy Palace, set fire to law books and buildings in the Temple, and killed anyone associated with the royal government. The following day, Richard met the rebels at Mile End and acceded to most of their demands, including the abolition of serfdom. Meanwhile, rebels entered the Tower of London, killing the Lord Chancellor and the Lord High Treasurer, whom they found inside.

On 15 June, Richard left the city to meet Tyler and the rebels at Smithfield. Violence broke out, and Richard's party killed Tyler. Richard defused the tense situation long enough for London's mayor, William Walworth, to gather a militia from the city and disperse the rebel forces. Richard immediately began to re-establish order in London and rescinded his previous grants to the rebels. The revolt had also spread into East Anglia, where the University of Cambridge was attacked and many royal officials were killed. Unrest continued until the intervention of Henry le Despenser, who defeated a rebel army at the Battle of North Walsham on 25 or 26 June. Troubles extended north to York, Beverley and Scarborough, and as far west as Bridgwater in Somerset. Richard mobilised 4,000 soldiers to restore order. Most of the rebel leaders were tracked down and executed; by November, at least 1,500 rebels had been killed.

The Peasants' Revolt has been widely studied by academics. Late 19th-century historians used a range of sources from contemporary chroniclers to assemble an account of the uprising, and these were supplemented in the 20th century by research using court records and local archives. Interpretations of the revolt have shifted over the years. It was once seen as a defining moment in English history, but modern academics are less certain of its impact on subsequent social and economic history. The revolt heavily influenced the course of the Hundred Years' War, by deterring later Parliaments from raising additional taxes to pay for military campaigns in France. The revolt has been widely used in socialist literature, including by the author William Morris, and remains a potent political symbol for the political left, informing the arguments surrounding the introduction of the Community Charge in the United Kingdom during the 1980s.

Richard II meeting with the rebels of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

Historiography concerning the protest, revolt and/or rising
Contemporary chroniclers of the events in the revolt have formed an important source for historians. The chroniclers were biased against the rebel cause and typically portrayed the rebels, in the words of the historian Susan Crane, as "beasts, monstrosities or misguided fools". London chroniclers were also unwilling to admit the role of ordinary Londoners in the revolt, preferring to place the blame entirely on rural peasants from the south-east. Among the key accounts was the anonymous Anonimalle Chronicle, whose author appears to have been part of the royal court and an eye-witness to many of the events in London. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham was present for much of the revolt, but focused his account on the terror of the social unrest and was extremely biased against the rebels. The events were recorded in France by Jean Froissart, the author of the Chronicles. He had well-placed sources close to the revolt, but was inclined to elaborate the known facts with colourful stories. No sympathetic accounts of the rebels survive.

At the end of the 19th century there was a surge in historical interest in the Peasants' Revolt, spurred by the contemporary growth of the labour and socialist movements. Work by Charles Oman, Edgar Powell, André Réville and G. M. Trevelyan established the course of the revolt. By 1907 the accounts of the chroniclers were all widely available in print and the main public records concerning the events had been identified. Réville began to use the legal indictments that had been used against suspected rebels after the revolt as a fresh source of historical information, and over the next century extensive research was carried out into the local economic and social history of the revolt, using scattered local sources across south-east England.

Interpretations of the revolt have changed over the years. 17th-century historians, such John Smyth, established the idea that the revolt had marked the end of unfree labour and serfdom in England. 19th-century historians such as William Stubbs and Thorold Rogers reinforced this conclusion, Stubbs describing it as "one of the most portentous events in the whole of our history". In the 20th century, this interpretation was increasingly challenged by historians such as May McKisack, Michael Postan and Richard Dobson, who revised the impact of the revolt on further political and economic events in England. Mid-20th century Marxist historians were both interested in, and generally sympathetic to, the rebel cause, a trend culminating in Hilton's 1973 account of the uprising, set against the context of wider peasant revolts across Europe during the period. The Peasants' Revolt has received more academic attention than any other medieval revolt, and this research has been interdisciplinary, involving historians, literary scholars and international collaboration.

The name "the Peasants' Revolt" emerged in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and its first recorded use by historians was in John Richard Green's Short History of the English People in 1874. Contemporary chronicles did not give the revolt a specific title, and the term "peasant" did not appear in the English language until the 15th century. The title has been critiqued by modern historians such as Miri Rubin and Paul Strohm, both on the grounds that many in the movements were not peasants, and that the events more closely resemble a prolonged protest or rising, rather than a revolt or rebellion.

Cultural use of the Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt became a popular literary subject. 

The poet John Gower, who had close ties to officials involved in the suppression of the revolt, amended his famous poem Vox Clamantis after the revolt, inserting a section condemning the rebels and likening them to wild animals.








An illustration from Vox Clamantis by John Gower, a poem which described the revolt.

Geoffrey Chaucer, who lived in Aldgate and may have been in London during the revolt, used the rebel killing of Flemings as a metaphor for wider disorder in The Nun's Priest's Tale part of The Canterbury Tales, parodying Gower's poem.[



Chaucer otherwise made no reference to the revolt in his work, possibly because as he was a client of the King it would have been politically unwise to discuss it.

William Langland, the author of the poem Piers Plowman, which had been widely used by the rebels, made various changes to its text after the revolt in order to distance himself from their cause.














The revolt formed the basis for the late 16th-century play, The Life and Death of Jack Straw, possibly written by George Peele and probably originally designed for production in the city's guild pageants. It portrays Jack Straw as a tragic figure, being led into wrongful rebellion by John Ball, making clear political links between the instability of late-Elizabethan England and the 14th century. 





The story of the revolt was used in pamphlets during the English Civil War of the 17th century, and formed part of John Cleveland's early history of the war. It was deployed as a cautionary account in political speeches during the 18th century, and a chapbook entitled The History of Wat Tyler and Jack Strawe proved popular during the Jacobite risings and American War of Independence.

Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke argued over the lessons to be drawn from the revolt, Paine expressing sympathy for the rebels and Burke condemning the violence. 

The Romantic poet Robert Southey based his 1794 play Wat Tyler on the events, taking a radical and pro-rebel perspective.

As the historian Michael Postan describes, the revolt became famous "as a landmark in social development and [as] a typical instance of working-class revolt against oppression", and was widely used in 19th and 20th century socialist literature.

William Morris built on Chaucer in his novel A Dream of John Ball, published in 1888, creating a narrator who was openly sympathetic to the peasant cause, albeit a 19th-century persona taken back to the 14th century by a dream. 

The story ends with a prophecy that socialist ideals will one day be successful. In turn, this representation of the revolt influenced Morris's utopian socialist News from Nowhere.

Later 20th century socialists continued to draw parallels between the revolt and contemporary political struggles, including during the arguments over the introduction of the Community Charge in the United Kingdom during the 1980s.