Miriam Müller

Social control and the hue and cry in two fourteenth-century villages

This paper seeks to explore aspects of peasant community policing and keeping order in two fourteenth-century villages. The raising of the hue and cry was not only an important tool for policing local communities, it was also a communal ritual. The cases which caused the hue and cry to be raised, and which were then recorded in the manorial court rolls, can reveal a great deal about peasant attitudes to different types of offending behaviour, as well as local mechanisms of social control. At the same time such cases can be explored for peasant attitudes to gender, gender roles as well as peasant attitudes to seigniorial authority. Discrepancies in offending behaviour between men and women can be evaluated and compared between two manorial communities. Similarly peasant communities appear to have applied some degree of discretion in their dealing with particular offences, by, for instance, not drawing attention to some of them by raising the hue and cry. These issues allow us important insights into peasant mentalities and attitudes to order, disorder, gender and seigniorial authority.

The Aims and Organisation of a Peasant Revolt in Early Fourteenth-Century Wiltshire

In 1348 a group of villein tenants of the manor of Badbury of the Abbey of Glastonbury in Wiltshire attempted to go to court in order to prove that their manor was of ancient demesne status. Although the peasants were unsuccessful in their claim, they tried again in 1377. Their case is entered and explained in unusual detail in the court records of the manor, and therefore allows us valuable insights in this particular, and far from uncommon, form of peasant resistance. This paper explores the motives and aims of the peasants who planned the action, the organisation of their revolt, and the individuals involved, whose background and histories can be traced through the court records.

Conflict and Revolt: The Bishop of Ely and his Peasants at the Manor of Brandon in Suffolk c. 1300-81

Using the evidence of manorial court records, this paper examines in detail the developments in the relationship between the Bishop of Ely and his peasants at the manor of Brandon leading up to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Increasing levels of discontent among the peasantry can be observed across the period. This is expressed in rising reported numbers of various cases in the court rolls, such as non-compliance with the court, labour refusals, trespasses and cases of foot-dragging. This rising level of conflict, some open, some more hidden, can be seen as evidence both for increasing seigniorial concern to assert various jurisdictional rights, and the peasants’ increasing willingness to test the boundaries of seigniorial dominion, leading eventually to their participation in the Rising in East Anglia.

Arson, Communities, and Social Conflict in Later Medieval England

Fires played a central role in medieval communities, whether they were licit, as in annual communal rituals, or illicit, and fires could draw communities together in protest or celebration as well as in creating boundaries between feuding parties. Arson attacks were open and public demonstrations of discontent, at the root of which could lie inter-personal disputes, including feuds, as well as wider social protest and revolt. Incendiarism was therefore a very public crime affecting whole communities, which drew these communities into the dialogue between the arsonist(s) and their victim(s). This article examines some aspects of the relationship between arson and communities, as well as the role of arson in the reification of certain communal bonds.