Whose Middle Ages?

 Memory studies teach us that those who control the past control the present (and future).  That is, if one can create a particular version of history, and have it accepted, one can seek to have the present (and future) shaped to be more like the Good Old Days.

Historians are always acutely aware of this.  We try to present a history that matches the records and do our best not to portray a past that was like what we would have preferred it to be like.  (This can of course work both ways:  the past could be a Golden Age to which we need to return, or the past can be a horrible, savage time, and we need to do the exact opposite of everything they used to do.)

Every generation thinks it's finally gotten it right, only to have the next generation raise their eyebrows at such evident bias.  But I do think that, over the two-plus generations that I've been a medievalist, we may be getting closer.  At least historians tend to focus on medieval records rather than some romantic vision.

Though here one has to be aware that "the records," things written down in the Middle Ages, supplemented with archaeology, do not give a unitary result.  When you have millions of people doing various things, it's always possible to find someone in the past who said something about their period that matches what you wanted them to say.  One of the great challenges for any historian is approaching the archives with an open mind, not going in determined to find only certain things, because if you do, that's all you'll find.

There's been a recent surge of interest in the general population in the Middle Ages, due in part to the fantasy versions found in the wildly popular Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.  Although medievalists are delighted to have people interested in our period, it does give us pause when people create their own version of the Middle Ages, trying to shape the medieval past to match what they'd like to be the situation now.

Specifically, there has been a strong effort to portray medieval Europe as completely white and completely Christian, where lower-class people "knew their place," so that the wealthy could dominate them, and where women were "properly" subservient to men.  The Crusades are sometimes portrayed as a wonderful time when Christians beat the heck out of Muslims (leaving out the tidbit that all Crusades after the first were disastrous for the West).  Now historians know that none of this is true.  As I have discussed before, there were certainly people of color in medieval Europe, there were significant minority populations of Jews and Muslims, and both women and peasants were entirely capable of resisting any effort by powerful men to dominate them.

And yet the Middle Ages have such a hold on the population that it is often invoked as informing the present.  A great many white, male organizations call their members "knights."  This needn't mean they are white supremacists, but it does indicate an effort to invoke a period believed to be one of honor, strength, and willingness to sacrifice for a higher goal.  (In a period today where such things seem to be in short supply, one can appreciate their approach, though I continue to find men in nice suits, glasses, and a comb-over calling themselves knights somewhat, shall I say, droll.)

Now, as in LotR and GoT, one can create fantasy imbued with at least some medieval aspects.  Part of fantasy's appeal is that honor and glory can find a home.  Just make it clear this is not historical fiction.  After all, medieval people wrote such fantasy themselves, creating larger-than-life versions of their own world for their heroes and heroines to run around in.  But it seems mean-spirited at best (not to say a-historical) to make up a fantasy Middle Ages in which everyone is white and Christian, except for the bad guys, and where women and lower-status people can safely be ignored.

(Interestingly, the "Indiana Jones" movies, deliberately using the language of Crusade as the heroes rampage around the Middle East, did not have Muslims as bad guys.  Rather, the bad guys were Nazis.  Nazis make a convenient all-purpose villainous enemy, though it's disturbing to see Nazi flags show up at some rallies.  Guys, we beat them.  They were not only evil, they were losers.)

There is a new book out, called Whose Middle Ages?, by Andrew Albin et al. (Fordham University Press, 2019), full of ideas for those teaching the Middle Ages, to avoid modern prejudices and stereotypes.

 © C. Dale Brittain 2022

For more on medieval society and religion, see my new ebook, Positively Medieval:  Life and Society in the Middle Ages.

Peasant Revolts

 There's an old, rather tasteless joke:  "The peasants are revolting!"  "Yes, I agree, they smell like cows."  This blog post isn't about the joke.  Rather, it's about fourteenth-century peasant reactions to oppression.

There had been very little of what we would call class consciousness for most of the Middle Ages; that is, people on a manor or in a village or city had thought of themselves as a unit, but they didn’t think of those living on the next manor or in the next village or city as being inherently similar to them.  This changed in the fourteenth century.

Now, for the first time, peasants in one area began to think they had more in common with peasants in another area than they did with the rich and powerful close to whom they lived.  And they were intensely angry at the rich and powerful.

The result was not just the kind of rebellion that had occurred intermittently, when for example peasants on a particular manor felt they were being treated grossly unfairly and fought back.  This was widespread revolution, where peasants across large territories decided they needed to work together.

The elites had brought it on themselves.  In response to crop failures and a decreased number of farm workers after the outbreak of the Black Death, landlords attempted to crack down, enforcing rents and labor dues and making new demands, such as freezing wages for day laborers.  Taxes were also being imposed throughout England to pay for the war with France.  The peasants, not surprisingly, were not about to put up with this treatment.  Questions began to be asked:  What gave the powerful the right to be powerful?

It had long been assumed theologically that a hierarchical social organization on earth mirrored that of Heaven (God, archangels, regular angels, and so on), and that divisions of power and wealth were a sad necessity due to humanity’s sinful nature, the only way to keep all that sinning in check.  But now some people started saying openly that such divisions of power and wealth were themselves sinful.

In England, where the revolts became the fiercest, a popular little ditty went around, “When Adam dug and Eve span [past tense of to spin], Who was then a gentleman?”

The biggest revolt started in in 1381 in southeast England, led by a firebrand named Wat Tyler and by a radical cleric, John Ball.  Peasants, villagers, and townspeople joined together, burning manorial rolls and court records.  They reached London, convinced that King Richard II (seen below, a teenager at the time) would sympathize with them if he only knew what was going on.

Initially the young king negotiated with the revolutionaries, though one must wonder how sincere he was.  Wat Tyler’s group killed a number of leading figures, including the archbishop of Canterbury, then supposedly used his head as a football.  Having had enough, the crown cracked down, and the rebellion was brutally crushed, and its leaders killed.

Although no further peasants’ rebellion was as big, there continued to be smaller ones.  They were all put down, but in response concessions were quietly made, as those in charge realized that maybe the rebels did have a point.  There were no more attempts to impose taxes on peasants to pay for the war.  By the late fifteenth century, English peasants were much better off than they had been earlier.

Note:  I believe in non-violence.  But one does indeed need to stand up to oppression.

© C. Dale Brittain 2018


For more on peasants and other aspects of medieval history, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.