Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

This chapter explores how ordinary people in later medieval England expressed their interests and values, and in effect, exercised political power. Because the bulk of the population lacked formal political rights, popular politics did not involve participation in the national government. Yet, this did not mean ordinary people were powerless: by virtue of their crucial role in the economy, and their sheer numbers, they made their interests known through a range of legal and illegal means. Marxist writers have described these activities as class conflict or class struggle. However, popular politics is a more inclusive description of disputes, conflicts and expressions of interest that were sometimes class against class, for instance peasants against manorial lords, but were often more mixed, involving factions within particular social groups, or alliances between them. These disputes were sometimes about economic matters, such as the rent and fines paid for peasant holdings, sometimes about legal and personal rights and privileges, such as serfdom, and sometimes about the nature of government. Yet all can be understood as political in the broadest meaning of the word. The outcome of these disputes determined the balance of power within society: who accumulated wealth and who did not; who was protected by the law and who was not; who elected a town council and who did not. This opening ... log in or subscribe to read full text