A Plague of Insurrection: Popular Politics and Peasant Revolt in Flanders, 1323-1328

by William H. Tebrake

Beginning as a series of scattered rural riots in late 1323, peasant insurrection escalated into a full-scale rebellion that dominated public affairs in Flanders for nearly five years. Following their own leaders, peasants defied the authority of the count of Flanders by driving his officials and their aristocratic allies from the countryside. In A Plague of Insurrection, William H. TeBrake has written the first full-length account of the rebellion.

Genres: History

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1993

Reviews

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of all of the books I read for my senior seminar paper on Medieval Flanders, Tebrake wrote his in the most entertaining and interesting way. I didn't feel like I was reading a textbook and having information thrown at me. Instead it felt like he was telling a story about Flanders. 10/10.

[Anatolikon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book examines the peasant revolt in Flanders in the 1320s. The centre of this book is a narrative account of the revolt but TeBrake is keep to emphasize a few key points. He wants to break the myth of a peasant revolt without peasant agency, and notes that peasants were political in their behavior. He also emphasizes the complicated relationship between the urban and rural areas and that not all unrest and violence, especially that committed by Bruges, can be considered as part of the revolt. TeBrake does not see the rebellion as extreme: while the peasants eventually set up independent “republics”, their early actions were to replace county officials they viewed as corrupt. TeBrake places the outbreak of the rebellion on long-term anti-French politics emerging from Philip IV’s invasion of 1300 and on the general incompetence of count Louis II. One wonders how the passage of a generation shaped the anti-French attitude, and how much this mattered outside of urban areas, and the role of the famine remains unmentioned.