The Jacquerie: France's Peasants' Revolt

Most British people have at least heard of the Peasant’s Revolt – the uprising in 1381 that was put down violently after the intervention of King Richard II, then aged only 14. However, they are much less likely to have heard of the earlier “Jacquerie”, a French Revolution that took place in 1358 and led to much more savagery than was to accompany the English version more than 20 years later.

In the late 1350s the French peasantry was having a terrible time. France had lost a third of its population to the Black Death and the countryside was being ravaged by bands of marauding mercenaries called the Great Companies. The nobility – who employed the peasants in conditions akin to slavery – had been humiliated by military defeat at the hands of the English at Poitiers in 1356, leading to the capture of King Jean II. They were in no mood to listen to demands from the peasants for relief from their desperate poverty.

The first outbreak of violence occurred on 28^th May 1358 when a band of about 100 peasants, armed with pitchforks, knives and other weapons, attacked the home of a noble at St Leu, about 25 miles north of Paris. They murdered the noble and all his family.

The revolt only lasted for a month, but during that time around 150 castles and manor houses were destroyed and their inhabitants tortured and butchered. On one occasion the word “butchered” was particularly apt, as the noble was roasted on a spit with his wife and children forced to watched. Not only that, but they were made to eat his cooked flesh afterwards.

The leaders of the Jacquerie, Guillaume Callet and Etienne Marcel, were followed by up to 100,000 peasants.

Not surprisingly, the rampaging bands were no match for organized armed forces, and two army brigades crushed the peasants in actions early in June. The revolt was all over by late June, after which the surviving nobles took their revenge.

It is estimated that up to 20,000 peasants were killed in the reprisals, and these included the two leaders mentioned above. Guillaume Callet, who had styled himself the peasants’ king, was crowned with a red-hot iron brand and then decapitated. Etienne Marcel was killed by one of his own men who had suspected Marcel of selling out to the enemy.

It would be more than 400 years before the French underclass would again feel emboldened to assert themselves against their rulers, but on that occasion they would be much more successful.

© John Welford