90. The Jacquerie Smashes Property, France 1358

Here we may observe the end of the Jacquerie, when the French nobility ended the peasants’ revolt by slaughtering the peasants. Apparently they threw a bunch of them into the river. You’re welcome. (Loyset Liedet, miniature in Grandes Chroniques de France by Jean Froissart, held in
Bibliotheque Nationale de France)

In the summer of 1358, French peasants took up arms — this means mostly sticks — and attacked the nobility. They did indeed murder some of them, but mostly, almost entirely, the burnt down property. They didn’t even loot. They just destroyed stuff. The nobility had gotten problematic, certainly, what with running away from important battles and then trying to squeeze more out of the peasantry so they could pay for further military adventures, though apparently not any  training. So the peasants were fed up, and they put great fear into the nobility, who then imagined that the peasants were committing lots and lots of atrocities, so the nobility had to go commit atrocities on the peasants, so as to make them harmless. It was a really really really bad summer. 

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