The Popular Revolutions of the Late Middle Ages

Michel Mollat, Philippe Wolff, A.L. Lytton-Sells

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000535464
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book, first published in 1973, examines the period when wars, famines and epidemics bred widespread conflicts, culminating in the revolutionary years of 1378–82 with the Florentine 'Ciompi', revolts in Flanders and France and the risings among English labourers. The analysis ends with the Hussite crisis which gave the movement a new aspect. The troubles were varied, with hunger riots in cities and brigandage in the country, open struggles between lords and peasants, urban conflicts over municipal power, and labour conflicts over pay and hours.

[ Chapter Four ] The Years of Revolution (1378-82)

From the spring of 1378 to the first months of 1383 a large part of Europe was shaken by social conflicts of unexampled seriousness, and almost simultaneous occurrence. While we cannot say that they were strictly synchronized, the closeness of their occurrence, as illustrated by the accompanying chart, is no less striking.

These revolutions had some influence on each other, as we shall show; but if there was a “symphony”, it was not at all played to time. The troubles seem to have broken out without any connecting links, and the authorities were able to repress them one after the other. News did not yet travel quickly enough for there to have been a real revolutionary contagion.

Nevertheless the Black Death, thirty years before, had revealed a new cohesion between the peoples of a Europe in which connections of every kind were growing numerous. Thirty years mark a generation. Is it unreasonable to see a connection between the wave of pestilence which overwhelmed one country after another and the years of revolution which were also to come so closely together?

The outbreaks of trouble were, on the other hand, diverse in character, each of them hingeing on a local or regional tradition. We have indicated their antecedents, and should also describe their individual features. But, without losing sight of certain similarities or of the closeness of their occurrence in time, it seems better now to describe these revolutions separately.

chronology of events between 1378 and 1382

date	france	netherlands	england	italy, the empire
1378	April: riot at Le Puy, agitation at Nîmes.	1 September: beginning of disturbances at Ghent.		July: revolt of the Ciompi at Florence. Agitation at Dantzig.
1379
	October: insurrection at Montpellier and environs. November: insurrection at Alés.	1 December: concession from the Count of Flanders.
1380		Early months: new insurrection in Flanders. 29 May: defeat of the weavers of Bruges. June: siege of Ghent.
	September-October: university agitation in Paris. 16 September: death of Charles V. 3 October: agitation against the aides (taxes) at Saint Quentin, Compiégne and Laon. 15 November: demonstration in Paris against the aides. Anti-Jewish riot.			13 August: submission of the ruling class in Brunswick.
1381	May: riot at Saint Quentin.	Spring: new revolt at Ghent.	End of the year: poll-tax voted. End of May: beginning of the revolt in Essex. 2 June: revolt in Kent. 10 June: taking of Canterbury. 13 June: the rebels enter London. 15 June: death of Wat Tyler. July-August: repression.	December: trial of strength at Lübeck.
1382	8 September: riot at Béziers. 24 February: Harelle at Rouen (and agitation at Amiens and in Normandy). 1 March: the Maillotins in Paris. 15 March: suppression of the Maillotins. 29 March: Charles VI at Rouen.	26 January: Philip van Artevelde, Captain-General of Ghent.		January: final defeat of the Ciompi.
	1 August: second Harelle at Rouen. Autumn: agitation in Paris.	3 May: capture of Bruges by the men of Ghent.
1383	January-February: repression in Paris. March: repression in Rouen.	27 November: battle at Roosebeke.
1384		July: success of Franz Ackerman in Flanders. 30 January: death of Louis de Male, Count of Flanders.
1385		18 December: peace of Tournai.		17 September: arrest the conspirators of Lübeck.

Florence was the first city to be affected. Everything concurs in explaining this: the level of economic development which had been attained by the Tuscan metropolis, the degree of its political consciousness, the difficulties of every kind which afflicted it in the years preceding the great outbreak, and especially the war against the Holy See, known as the War of the Eight Saints (Otto Santi), that is, the eight magistrates who had been invested with plenary powers to wage it.

The very name of the Tumulto dei Ciompiy traditionally used to describe the events of June, July and August 1378, not only expresses their violence and the part played in them by the humblest of the lower strata (sottoposti) of Florentine industry; it also illustrates their confusion, and the fact that they were improvised and had no aftermath.

Towards 1340-2, as we have seen, Florence had already experienced great agitations and, after that, some difficult times between 1360 and 1368. The taxes, especially the personal tax of the catasto, the jurisdiction in the service of the grassi of the ufficiale forestiere, the problems of food supply and of wages, the claims made by the new Arts for the benefit of the dyers and other crafts of the second rank—all these factors made up a sum of grievances on the part of the popolani minuti against the employers. Were the events of 1378 the outcome of a worsening situation and an accumulation of motives of discontent? Did their explosion result from the initiative and action of a few individuals? What were their objects, what were the results? And what was the bearing of these events?

The information we dispose of reflects, usually, a similar point of view. Contemporary chroniclers, whose works have been mostly published, are nearly all hostile to the Ciompi. They wrote after the rising and even after the reaction, and their feelings were of retrospective fear and of a hatred untempered by fear. One is struck by the manner in which one of the most famous chronicles, ascribed first to Gino di Neri

Capponi and later to Alamanno Acciaiuoli who witnessed the Tumulto when he was young, subsequently described the rebels: “Ruffians, malefactors, thieves ... useless men, of base condition.” For him, “Ciompi means nothing but what is fat, dirty and ill-clad”. He insists on their violence, he judges and condemns. Marchione di Coppo Stefani is a quieter chronicler; he does not apply prejorative adjectives to the Ciompi but words indicating their trades. In a desire to be impartial he observes that the insurgents set fire to the houses of the rich “so that it should not be said that they were stealing”. Chronicles favourable to the Ciompi, of which the best known is that of the Squittinatore, are rare; but we also have unpublished fragments of the journal of a cloth-cropper named Paolo di Guido.

Archives are also fragmentary. We have at least the record of a few deliberations of the Signoria and the Balia of 1378, protocols of the Mercanzia and the Art of Wool, tax lists, and accounts; not forgetting private archives, such as those of the Strozzi and of Francesco Datini, a great merchant. These documents allow us to modify the views which the chroniclers present, perhaps too simply, in their tragic or picturesque vision of the past. On the above foundations, followed by the researches of A. Doren, G. Renard and N. Rodolico, the works of A. Sapori, F. Melis, V. Rutenberg, E. Werner and G. A. Brucker throw the light of varied sources and colours on the causes of the “Tumult”, on its actors and its historical bearing.

The succession of events in Florence may be summarized in three phases: a reforming stage in May and June; a revolutionary explosion in mid-July; and towards the end of August the beginning of a reaction which grew inexorably over the years that followed.

As to whether the beginning of the difficulties should be ascribed to a worsening of the economic situation, interpretations differ. It is evident that the social and industrial structure already described—a system involving the existence of a great number of ill-paid sottoposti whose way of life was precarious—still subsisted. Their wages were modest, paid in copper coinage which had been devalued in relation to the currency in gold and silver, and subject to the rule of a maximum. The number of feast days, about 122 in the year, further reduced their income, and one must also take account of some unemployment. Indebtedness was widespread. Since 1371 any advance on wages had to be repaid by work. Insolvency brought the debtor before the court of the ufficiale forestiere, who was inclined to severity since he pocketed 25 per cent of the fines. Moreover the sottoposti could not legally act together to defend themselves, all forms of association being prohibited.

Fig. 3 Florence in the Middle Ages

It was contingent circumstances that caused the complications of May and June 1378; mainly the consequences of the war with the Holy See. Already in 1375 central Italy, like other regions, had suffered from a serious dearth in the corn supply. The interdict issued by Gregory XI was of a kind to interfere with the provisioning of Florence, to hamper the importing of English wool, and to close certain markets for the export of cloth: in short, to disturb the economy and the social order. According to some historians, the production of textiles suffered a notable decline in 1377, falling to some 24,000 pieces of cloth, in marked contrast with the prosperity which Villani describes as prevailing before 1340. Other authors, notably G. A. Brucker, who base their views on the archives of the Art of Wool, deny the opinion that a severe economic depression followed the War of the Eight Saints. Merchants less scrupulous than the English in regard to the interdict, are held to have supplied Florence with wool, while neither Pisa, nor Siena, nor Venice, nor Hungary, nor the Levant would seem to have discontinued buying cloth. The effect of unemployment should not be exaggerated, and the rise in prices was probably not as great as suggested. One should therefore look elsewhere for the real cause of the political crisis.

The Ciompi did not intervene at the outset and the outburst of discontent first came from “middle-class” groups, from political motives. If in fact it be admitted that during the first months of 1378 discontent was neither more nor less great than before, it evidently increased in the spring. In April the consuls of the Art of Wool decided to make it more difficult for the lanaioli to obtain office and quadrupled the fee for matriculation; and this inopportune measure turned the upper class of sottoposti into opponents of the regime by disappointing their hopes of social and professional advancement. But, generally speaking, it was the “Guelphic terror”, with its proscriptions (ammonizioni), that unleashed the tension. The penalty was very heavy because it included the loss of social “status”, thus depriving the victim of any influence or possibility of access to office; and it was hereditary, into the bargain. These ammonizioni affected every social category, which explains why the most varied kinds of people joined in opposition to the regime. The entry into the Signoria, on 1 May 1378, of Salvestro dei Medici, a man already known for his demagogical attitudes, could only in such circumstances appear as a provocation.

As Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, Salvestro did not delay two days in challenging the policy of ammonizione; even among the Guelphs abuse of the system was provoking protests. We may suppose that some bargaining and a compromise attenuated the system of proscriptions; but six weeks later, on 14 June, when the captains of the Guelphic party accused a dyer and a tanner of being Ghibellines, the very class which it would have been wise to conciliate was roused to indignation. Four days later the agitation began. Salvestro dei Medici supported by arguments of a demagogical kind a proposal to renew the application of the Ordinances of Justice. He won wide support by declaring himself the spokesman of the merchants, the artisans, the poor and the weak who “desire to live and work in peace”, in order to “be able to live in security and freedom, and so that justice in the city may be restored”. The proposal, regarded as an ultimatum, was so strongly opposed that Salvestro threatened to resign from the Signoria and he stirred up the crowd in the square who responded with cries of “Long live liberty! Death to the traitors!”

One should read the chronicle in which Alamanno Acciaiuoli, one of the priors and therefore an eye-witness, recorded at the time the way in which the riot started, on 18 June 1378. First, the words and theatrical movements of Salvestro:

“Wise men of the council, I wish to heal this city of the maleficent tyranny of the great and powerful, and I am not allowed to act. ... I am not believed. .. . Therefore, since people do not follow me, I consider that I can do nothing more as prior or as gonfaloniere di giustizia. Consequently, I decide to withdraw to my home. Appoint another gonfaloniere and make your arrangements with God.”

While Salvestro, draped in his dignity, was reaching the stairway, the other members of the council played their part:

“Some retained him and brought him back into the hall . .. where they began to recriminate violently.... It was then that Benedetto di Nerozzo degli Alberti... presented himself at the window and began to shout: ‘Long live the people’ and to call to all those who were assembled in the square: ‘Cry: Long live the people!’ That was why a great rumour immediately arose throughout the city, the shops were closed ... and people began to arm themselves.”

The days of moderation and compromise were over. Most of the chronicles place the responsibility on Salvestro dei Medici and his followers, who were accused by Ser Nofri of being the “promoters of so many evils and scandals”. On 22 June, the rioters, with the furriers in the lead, reinforced by prisoners who had been liberated, set fire to a dozen palazzi, one after the other, and began to attack the monasteries. The communal treasury narrowly escaped pillage; this was prevented by the pork-butchers who seized five strangers, said to be Flemings, and hanged them at the cross-roads: a sign of xenophobia inspired by immigrants who were specialists in a craft then in a state of crisis.

Instead of attempting repression, the Signoria appointed a balia, a commission of eighty members entrusted with reforms, and adopted measures of appeasement: on the one hand, purgation of the governing body and sanctions against some of the most powerful; on the other, rehabilitation of a few Ghibellines, and the right of appeal against ammonizione. The situation however remained tense. Some people were so disquieted that they removed their goods from the city and closed their shops and work-rooms. While the militia patrolled the streets and stood guard at key-points, a few patrician families recruited body-guards in the contado. At the beginning of July, Florence seemed to be expecting a civil war.

The shilly-shallying of the Signoria and the half-measures adopted led to the second phase, the phase of revolutionary explosion. The minor Arts took the initiative by presenting a petition supported by a crowd in arms on 8 July. The movement was evolving step by step in a democratic direction. The petition did not tend to reverse the established order, those who had written it being as hostile to the arrogance of the grassi as they were to the audacity of the Ciompi; they wished to promote, within the traditional corporative structure, civic equality between the small shopkeepers and business men concerned with international trade, the people living on private means, and the magnates. In their view, the representatives of the twenty-one Arts should, without exception, share in the voting for the Signoria; on the other hand, those who exercised no professional work should not have access to communal office. The petition, although no doubt conservative in tenor, reflected the revolt of the artisans against the monopolizing by their employers of communal offices and of the control of crafts. The fundamental claim logically implicit in the petition was, as in the days of Gautier de Brienne, the establishment of supplementary “Arts” for the dyers, the makers of doublets and the lower class of Ciompi who could not be assimilated to the various specialized crafts.

The step over into illegality had been secretly prepared by a few conspirators bound by an oath, during meetings held in a church in the Via San Gallo, then in a place called Ronco in the quarter of the Santo Spirito. Agitation broke out next day simultaneously in four places, mainly in the popular quarters of Santo Stefano and San Giovanni. The chronicle ascribed to Alamanno Acciaiuoli contains a detailed account of what followed. The Signoria had had wind of the conspiracy and had arrested a few suspects, including one of the leaders, a certain Simoncino. At the head of the movement, with him, were a rich cord-maker, a druggist and two artisans. Simoncino admitted that the cloth-workers wanted, above all, to be freed from the “Art of Wool”. “They were”, he said, “badly treated by the officials of the craft, who punished them for peccadilloes, and by the employers who paid them badly. For a piece of work worth twelve soldi they give eight. ... We wish to have no dealings either with the lanaioli or with their officials. We wish to share in the government of the city.”

The movement was growing wider. The crowd had been stirred to riot by the revelation of a clock-maker who, having come to the Palazzo Vecchio to wind up the clock, involuntarily witnessed the questioning of the prisoner, under torture. On 20 July several thousand armed men besieged the Signoria, demanding the liberation of Simoncino. The priors in the Palazzo Vecchio passed that day in a critical situation. Only from certain quarters did the militia answer the summons of the gonfalonieri, and the priors had to wait until the evening for reinforcements, which had been urgently called for, to arrive from the contado. The Ciompi had assembled near the Palazzo Vecchio. The night was illumined by the burnin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Maps
• Introduction
• One The Social Consequences of Economic Expansion
• Two The Middle “Class” Versus the Magnates
• Three Revolts Against Poverty
• Four The Years of Revolution (1378–82)
• Five Conflicts Old and New
• Six Outline of a Conclusion
• Index