14 THE PEASANTS’ REVOLT OF 1381. 
indignation at the falsehood, corruption, and oppression of the age. 
Inquiries began to be made into the principles on which the goods 
of this world were distributed, and it is little matter for surprise 
that men’s thoughts took a socialistic turn, however impossible 
the carrying out of such ideas may seem to us. 
We have now to seek the more immediate causes of the 
peasants’ revolt. In 1379 the country was found to have sunk so 
deeply into debt, owing to the expensive foreign wars, that both 
clergy and laity agreed to a graduated poll tax, which ranged from 
£6 13s. 4d., payable by John of Gaunt, to 4d., payable by the 
poorest man. This tax did not by any means produce as much 
as was expected, the total sum obtained not exceeding £22,000 ; 
and in November of the following year it was found that no less a 
sum than £160,000 was still required. To meet this, in addition 
to the ordinary taxes, Parliament once more fell back upon the 
expedient of a poll tax of a shilling upon everybody over fifteen. 
The unfairness of demanding from rich and poor alike the same 
amount was keenly felt by people of the peasant class. We must 
remember, too, that as each member of a family over fifteen 
years of age would have to contribute one shilling (a sum which 
would represent from twelve to fifteen shillings of our present 
money, and which would mean several days’ pay in the case of 
most of those from whom it was due), such an amount would be 
a serious drain on the resources of the poor. Frequent disputes 
arose in respect of those who were apparently about the minimum 
age. Parents and collectors could not agree, and the latter, by 
their brutality in attempting to prove their case, added the spark 
that alone was needed to turn the smouldering embers of 
discontent into an outburst of revolt. The peasants of the east, 
south, and a portion of the centre of England, arose almost 
simultaneously, as though by some pre-concerted signal, and those 
of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Durham would have made common 
cause with them, but for the sudden collapse of the whole move- 
ment. Though the rising may fairly be described as general, the 
cries which gave life to the movement were local. In Essex and 
Suffolk the labourer was exasperated by the tyranny of serfdom, 
