The Hospitallers and the 'Peasants' Revolt' revisited

Nicholson, Helen Jane ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1715-1246 2008. The Hospitallers and the 'Peasants' Revolt' revisited. Mallia-Milanes, Victor, ed. The Military Orders Volume 3: History and Heritage, The Military Orders, vol. 3. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 225-233.

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Abstract

On the evening of Thursday 13 June 1381 a large armed band broke into the Hospitallers’ priory at Clerkenwell and set it and the many houses around it on fire, beheaded several people and plundered documents, goods and money from the house. The leader of this band was one Thomas Farndon or Farringdon of London, who had been one of the leaders of the rebels. After sacking Clerkenwell priory, Farndon and other rebels spent the night drawing up a ‘black list’ of those in the government that they wanted dead. On Friday 14 June Jack Straw and other rebels, including some of those who had attacked Clerkenwell, burned down Highbury Manor, the property of the prior of the Hospital in England, and looted it. Farndon and his associates then went to the Tower of London, where they seized the chancellor Archbishop Simon Sudbury of Canterbury (the chancellor of England), the treasurer Robert Hales prior of the Hospital in England (treasurer of England), John Cavendish the chief justiciar and other leading royal officials, marched them out to Tower Hill and beheaded them. This article examines why Robert Hales and the Hospitallers became the target of the angry 'peasants' in 1381. It concludes that the Hospital as a religious order and a landowner, alongside other religious orders and landowners, and because of its role as a sort of government financial office. Hales, however, was thoroughly hated; and this article examines why this was so.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BR Christianity D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D111 Medieval History D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Peasants' Revolt; Knights Hospitaller; Military Orders
Publisher:	Ashgate
ISBN:	9780754662907
Related URLs:	Publisher
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2022 10:03
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/42994

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