Publisher's Synopsis
Originally published 1973 The Popular Revolutions of the Late Middle Ages looks at the eleventh to thirteenth century Europe and examines how this period passed through a phase of demographic and economic expansion. The book analyses the rise in prominence of differences in fortune and how this affected social regrouping during this period. The book continues chronologically to the thirteenth century and examines how this expansion ran out of steam, and subsequent disturbances arose in the more developed regions of Europe. During the fourteenth century wars, famines and epidemics marked an almost general recession, and the conflicts grew in size and depth. The book examines how these conflicts culminated in the revolutionary years of 1378-82 with the Florentine "Ciompi", and the revolts in Flanders and France, as well as the rising among English labourers. The book's survey of the period ends in the Hussite crisis and looks at the issues during this period, including hunger riots, open struggles between the lords and the peasants, as well as urban conflicts for access to municipal power and the achievement of greater fiscal justice. This book presents a comprehensive overview of the political and economic shifts during the later middle ages and will be of interest to academics and students of the medieval period, as well as economic historians.
