In 1358, northern France was rocked by a vicious peasant revolt that came to be known as the Jacquerie. The uprising got its name from the nobility’s habit of contemptuously referring to all peasants as Jacques or Jacques Bonhomme, after a padded over-garment worn by them called a “Jacque”. Below are some fascinating facts about the Jacquerie, a revolt that temporarily shook the French aristocrats’ hold on the downtrodden commoners.
Fed Up Peasants
The Jacquerie was led by a well off peasant named Guillaume Cale, from Beauvais, about fifty miles from Paris. France at the time was in the middle of a rough patch following the outbreak of the Hundred Years War. The peasants, upon whose toil all rested and through whose fields the rival armies marched and pillaged, endured the roughest patch of all.
Their overlords, the French nobility, were not doing well, either, and their prestige had sunk to a low ebb after decades of humiliating defeats. Early in the century, France’s aristocrats had turned tail and fled at the Battle of the Spurs, leaving the infantry commoners to be slaughtered, and more recently, they had suffered catastrophic defeats at the hands of the English in the Battles of Crecy and Poitiers.
Downtrodden Peasants Were So Mad, They Roasted Their Oppressors on Spits
The latter battle was particularly humiliating because the nobility allowed the French king’s capture. Its aftermath was also particularly onerous upon the peasantry, because the English demanded a huge ransom for the king’s release, which ransom was ultimately squeezed from the peasants. Finally, the French nobility failed in their basic function and the raison d’etre that justified their high status: the protection of the populace from enemy depredations.
Unchecked by the peasants’ aristocratic overlords and supposed protectors, bands of English and Gascon mercenaries roamed the countryside, and indulged in orgies of assault, pillage, and murder at will. Matters came to a head on May 21st, 1358, when peasants near the Oise River slew a knight. They then roasted him on a spit, and forced his children to eat his flesh. The revolt spread quickly, as peasants razed local castles and slaughtered their inhabitants.
Chaos and Terror Across France
Chaos and terror engulfed the French countryside. Eventually, the disparate rebel bands in the countryside began to come together under the leadership of Guillaume Cale,. He then joined forces with Parisian rebels under Etienne Marcel. The revolt burned hot, but it also burned out quick. The rebels were undisciplined and untrained. They were soon routed once the militarily trained and better armed nobles organized and set out to suppress the revolt.
The Paris revolt collapsed after its leader was assassinated. Guillaume Cale, with his peasant army assembled to meet that of the nobles. He unwisely accepted an invitation for truce talks with the armed nobles’ leader, Charles the Bad of Navarre. Cale was treacherously seized when he showed up, tortured, and beheaded. The now-leaderless peasant army was then ridden down by knights and routed. Afterwards, the peasants were subjected to massive collective reprisals and a reign of terror. By the time the aristocrats had vented their wrath, more than twenty thousand peasants had been slaughtered.
_________________
Some Sources & Further Reading
History Halls – Peasant Rebellions: When the Downtrodden Fight Back
Tuchman, Barbara – A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (1978)
