PEASANT REVOLTS 119 



All the old chroniclers agree in vilifying" the insur- 

 gents. The vocabulary is exhausted to supply oppro- 

 brious terms to them. They are described as " filth, 

 scum, traitors, clowns, and scoundrels." The peasants 

 of Norfolk are " vile wretches and cruel traitors." 

 (Holinshed.) " They follow one another like beasts." 

 (Froissart.) As to the leaders of the peasantry, no 

 words are too strong to blacken their characters and 

 to belie their objects and aims. No condemnation is 

 uttered of the oppression and wrongs that had become 

 unbearable and had driven the people to revolt. The 

 peasantry themselves had no chroniclers. 



The Chronicles of Walsingham,^ which were con- 

 temporary with the events recorded, are to a large 

 extent the source from which later writers derived 

 their information and founded their opinions. Now 

 Walsingham was a monk of the priory of St. Albans. 

 As one of the regular clergy he had — as his writ- 

 ings show — the bitterest hatred towards the inferior 

 wandering priests, of whom John Ball was the most 

 prominent. The abbot and monks of the priory were 

 large landholders who seem to have enforced with 

 the utmost severity their " rights " over the peasantry 

 of all classes, and to be determined that " all tenants, 

 whether free or not, should not claim any further 

 liberties or privileges."^ 



1 " Historia Anglicana," by Thomas Walsingham. I cannot find that 

 these volumes have ever been translated into English. For a translation 

 of Walsingham's statements, and of the quotations from his work, here 

 used, I am indebted to the kindness of my friend Prof. Sonnenschein, of 

 the Birmingham University. 



2 In those days, whatever they may have been later on, the monks 

 were more or less popular. They held as tenants-in-chief of the king 

 a very large portion of the soil of England, and were more lenient and 

 considerate to those who held land under them than were the lay land- 

 lords. They recognized and practised the duty of relieving the poorer 



