STORY OF THE ENGLISH LAND 17 



with a strong hand : " and the re-enactment 

 of repressive measures against the combination 

 of workmen would appear to indicate that 

 difficulty was experienced in the execution of 

 such measures. 



At first sight, it might seem paradoxical 

 that a period when the peasantry had reached 

 their high-water level of social betterment 

 should be marked by the greatest agrarian 

 revolt in English history the peasant war 

 of 1381. Moreover, it was in the most 

 independent and most advanced part of rural 

 England, East Anglia, that the fiercest out- 

 bursts of popular violence took place. " It 

 has been noted," writes Professor Oman, 

 " that peasant revolts all over Europe were 

 wont to spring up not in the regions where the 

 serf was in the deepest oppression, but in 

 those in which he was comparatively well- 

 off, where he was strong enough to aspire to 

 greater liberty and to dream of getting it by 

 force." The great German rising of 1525 

 took place in districts where the burdens of 

 feudalism were least felt. It is noticeable, too, 

 that the most successful strike of recent years 

 in rural England occurred not amongst the 

 badly paid labourers of the South, but in a 

 district of Lancashire where the average 

 wages already reached the respectable figure 



