Though the political and economic aspira tions of the peasantry formed the backbone of the revolt of 1381, there were other important factors. The lower classes of the towns sym pathized with the insurgents. In some eases the city like Canterbury- and Bridge water in the south and York, Scarborough. and Beverley in the north, were implicated. A very important factor was a general uprising against the monasteries, both of tenants and especially of inesne towns. At Saint Albans, both towns men and peasants extorted charters of liberties. There were similar movements at Dun stable, and many other smaller foundations; at Cambridge the movement took the form of an uprising against the university. In Sussex it centred iu a tieree revolt against Abbey Saint Edmunds, the prior of which was bf.headed. John Wrawe, the captain of the county, was a priest, as were several others of the leaders. In Norfolk the plundering was especially severe; under the leadership of Geoffrey Lister and Sir Roger Bacon, ambassadors with a large sum of money were sent to the King to obtain the liberties desired. All of these local outbreaks
were more or less connected with the central movement. There was rather less plundering than might have been expected, and violence was usually directed against persons connected with the Government or local oppressions, and espe cially those known as adherents of John of Gaunt. After the rebels had retired, the remnants of the revolt were stamped out with great severity; the liberties granted were everywhere revoked, and the reaction was far bloodier than the revolt. The effect of the movement was to abolish for the time the poll-taxes, to do away prac tically with the Statute of Laborers. and to hasten the general tendency toward the aboli tion of villeinage.
Consult Krielm, in A m erica n Historical Re view, vol. vii. (New York, 1902) ; also Powell, The Rising in East Anglia in 1381 (Cambridge, ISM) ; R6ville, Sonli'rement des trarailleurs d'Angleterre en. 1381 (Paris, 1893) ; Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wycliffe (London, 1899) : id., The Peasant Rising and the Lollards 1899).