HistoryExtra Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast 2026-09-02T14:55:33.000Z https://www.historyextra.com/period/plantagenet/feed/atom Emily Briffett <![CDATA[Philip Augustus: the Plantagenets’ greatest rival]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/philip-augustus-the-plantagenets-greatest-rival/ 2026-09-02T14:55:33.000Z 2026-09-02T14:55:33.000Z King Philip Augustus of France was the Plantagenets’ ultimate enemy. A ruler with an iron fist and sharp political instincts, he consistently exploited the squabbles of the English dynasty, all while transforming France into a dominant power in Western Europe.

Speaking to Emily Briffett, historian and author Catherine Hanley reveals the cunning and ruthless tactics he employed against the English kings to become medieval England’s most formidable foe.

]]> James Osborne <![CDATA[King John was a monster – but did he really murder his own nephew?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/did-king-john-murder-his-nephew/ 2026-08-28T10:16:04.000Z 2026-08-28T10:15:53.000Z Sometime after the summer of 1202, a young teenage prince, Arthur of Brittany, vanished inside the vast dominions ruled by his uncle, John, King of England. He was John's nephew, a Plantagenet prince and, according to some interpretations of royal succession, the man who should have inherited the English throne instead of him – in 1199, both John and Arthur had plausible claims to inherit the throne from the deceased Richard I.

Arthur had rebelled against his uncle and been captured. Whatever happened next, Arthur disappeared for good. Naturally, the blame for the not-so-mysterious disappearance (and presumed death) of young Arthur fell at the feet of his uncle – the man who stood to gain the most from his murder.

For King John, the mystery was particularly damaging because it seemed to fit a reputation that was already taking shape. His reign saw the loss of Normandy, a bitter conflict with Pope Innocent III, financial and military pressure on his barons and, eventually, the rebellion that forced him to accept Magna Carta in 1215.

"This is a man you could not trust," says medieval historian Professor Nicholas Vincent, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. "He betrayed his father. He betrayed both his wives. He betrayed his closest friends."

The presumed death of young prince Arthur is, understandably, viewed through this prism, and raises a larger question about how contemporaries came to regard one of England's most notorious kings – and whether Arthur's probable death marked the moment when ordinary Plantagenet ruthlessness appeared to cross a bloody new line.

The rise of Bad King John

John was born in 1166 or 1167, the youngest surviving son of Henry II, the first Plantagenet king of England, and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

His family controlled an extraordinary collection of territories. Henry II ruled England, but his authority also stretched across much of what is now France. Through inheritance, marriage and conquest, the Plantagenets had assembled lands including Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine. It was a powerful but unstable family empire, held together by precarious threads.

Henry and Eleanor's sons repeatedly quarrelled with their father and with each other.
While John was still a child, he grew up within a dynasty in which brothers took up arms against each other, and sons bargained with foreign rulers against their fathers. Political betrayal was part of the family culture long before John became king.

Vincent argues that a pattern of disloyalty became one of the defining features of John’s own reputation.

"He turned on a tiny point against those that he regarded as his closest friends, or certainly who thought that they were friends of the king," he says. "He was a man who couldn't be trusted."

Did John betray Richard the Lionheart?

Richard became king in 1189 and soon departed on the Third Crusade, the military expedition launched by western European rulers after Saladin's capture of Jerusalem in 1187. He never retook Jerusalem, but his military successes made him one of the most celebrated warriors of the Middle Ages. However, his long absences from England also created opportunities for his younger brother.

Illustration of Richard I of England on horseback meeting Godfrey de Duisson during the Third Crusade in 1191.

On his journey home from crusade, Richard was captured in December 1192 and eventually handed over to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. While the king remained imprisoned in Germany, John attempted to exploit his predicament.

John, Vincent says, "rebelled against his brother, stabbed his brother in the back whilst Richard was in captivity in Germany, and did a deal with the King of France, the arch-enemy of the kings of England, to divide up the lands of Richard the Lionheart."

The episode did little to enhance John's reputation for loyalty.

Richard was eventually released in 1194 after an enormous ransom was raised. John's position promptly deteriorated. "That all unfolded because John ran away when Richard returned to England," Vincent says.

Then, in April 1199, Richard died after being wounded by a crossbow bolt while besieging the castle of Châlus in France.

Richard's death was sudden and he had no legitimate child. A dynasty that possessed enormous territories, but no settled rule of succession was suddenly confronted with two plausible heirs – and the decision would affect not only England but the broader Plantagenet lands.

Was John actually the rightful king?

John had one obvious advantage: he was Richard's surviving younger brother and an adult capable of ruling immediately. But there was another candidate.

John and Richard had a brother, Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany. Geoffrey had died in 1186, but he had left a son: Arthur of Brittany. Should the throne pass sideways to the dead king's surviving younger brother, John? Or should the rights of John's elder brother descend to Geoffrey's son, Arthur?

This question meant that John "wasn't necessarily the rightful claimant to the throne," Vincent explains of John. "It was debatable."

Illustration of King John seated at Runnymede as armed barons present him with Magna Carta in 1215.

But Arthur had a major practical disadvantage. Born in 1187, he was still a child when Richard died. John, meanwhile, "was of mature age, by this stage in his early 30s".

"So John seized the throne," Vincent says, "because there were those who thought that it was probably better to have an adult king than a boy."

John was crowned king at Westminster Abbey on 27 May 1199, but the argument wasn’t yet over.

Why was Arthur of Brittany such a threat to John?

Arthur had powerful supporters, most dangerously Philip II of France.

The relationship between the kings of England and France was complicated by the fact that the Plantagenet monarch was simultaneously a sovereign king in England and the holder of substantial French territories for which he owed obligations to the French crown.

The dispute eventually erupted into renewed war. By 1202, Arthur was around 15 years old and actively participating in the struggle against his uncle, with the backing of significant continental nobility. In the summer, he joined forces attacking John's position in western France.

Arthur and his allies were besieging John's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, at Mirebeau, south of the Loire. Eleanor was by then in her late seventies – an extraordinary age for the period – and she remained hugely politically powerful. John moved rapidly to relieve her.

“Arthur was rapidly taken prisoner, following the battle outside Mirebeau, where Arthur was swooped upon by the King of England and the King of England's army," Vincent explains. Then came the problem of what to do with this young noble.

What happened to Arthur of Brittany?

Initially, Arthur was a prisoner. He was first held at Falaise in Normandy, where John apparently attempted to persuade him to abandon his claims and cooperate. A later account claims John asked Arthur to transfer his allegiance and possibly even recognise royal authority over Brittany, but the teenager refused.

"Then we just don't know what happened to him," says Vincent. "He disappeared completely."

Engraving depicting the imprisoned Arthur of Brittany pleading with armed men as he faces the threat of death.

"Some say that he was murdered by John in person," Vincent explains. "There are terrible descriptions by the French chroniclers of John murdering him on board a boat on the River Seine. Other accounts say that he was murdered at John's command by one of John's henchmen," says Vincent.

"Some say he died attempting to escape from imprisonment at Rouen. Some say that he just died in prison. But whatever happened, Arthur disappeared,” Vincent concludes. The presiding view was that he died at John’s orders, if not by his hands.

"John, from a very early date, was taxed with this reputation for disloyalty, for mistrust, and now for murder – murder of his own nephew," says Vincent. This added to the already growing view of John’s dark character.

Why was Richard the Lionheart's reputation so damaging to John?

John's problems were intensified by the king who had come immediately before him.

Richard I has hardly escaped criticism from modern historians. He spent relatively little of his reign in England, demanded huge financial resources for warfare and crusading, and was every bit as capable of the violence expected of a medieval warrior king. But his reputation for personal courage was without doubt.

The contrast between his personal virtues and John’s was drawn into particularly stark relief after Arthur's disappearance, as John's continental empire began collapsing.

In 1203–04, Philip II launched a devastating assault on the Plantagenet territories in Normandy. John failed to prevent the duchy from falling into French hands. This was a huge loss. Normandy had been ruled by the English crown since William the Conqueror's victory in 1066, and its fall effectively broke the political connection between England and the duchy after nearly 150 years.

"Had Richard lived, had the French invaded Normandy as they did in 1203, 1204, where John just ran away, well, what would Richard have done?" Vincent asks.

"He would have been there wading through the ditches outside the city of Rouen, defending Rouen against the French. [Whereas] John was on board ship hightailing it off to England, unable to actually do anything to stem the flow of rebellion."

Professor Nicholas Vincent was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

]]> James Osborne <![CDATA[Margaret Beaufort catapulted the Tudors to the throne. But that wasn’t her original plan]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/margaret-beaufort-secured-tudor-throne-not-original-plan/ 2026-05-01T13:19:53.000Z 2026-05-01T13:19:53.000Z Who was responsible for the ascendency of the Tudor dynasty, defining over a century of English history? There might not be a single answer – but Margaret Beaufort must surely take as much credit as anyone.

Often depicted as a Game of Thrones-like schemer, Beaufort could be portrayed as a calculating woman who orchestrated the rise of her son, later Henry VII – and in doing so, sank the fortunes of the Plantagenets while simultaneously ending decades of ferocious civil war.

But how much of that view rests on hindsight?

Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, historian Lauren Johnson explains that, rather than following a carefully drawn blueprint for royal success, Margaret’s manoeuvring was born out of constant – though certainly canny – adaptation to changing and dangerous circumstances. Her relationship with her son, and her ambitions for his future, developed gradually. Indeed, in the first phase of her motherhood she seemed to want nothing to do with him.

A kingdom in crisis

Henry was born during the opening phase of the Wars of the Roses, which rumbled on for some three decades from 1455. This was a series of intermittent conflicts between rival branches of the English royal family: the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Both factions claimed descent from King Edward III, and competed for the throne.

Henry Tudor’s claim came through his young mother. Margaret was a descendant of John of Gaunt, a son of Edward III, though through a line that had originally been barred from royal succession. This made Henry’s claim relatively weak, especially compared with rival Yorkist claimants.

Engraving of Margaret Beaufort kneeling in prayer beside an open book, dressed in a black gown and hooded wimple.

At the time of his birth, there was no clear expectation that he would ever become king.

Henry was born on 28 January 1457 at Pembroke Castle, south Wales. His mother, Margaret, was only 13 years old. In the 15th century, noble girls were technically eligible for marriage at the age of 12 onwards, but actual childbirth at such an age was exceptionally rare – and dangerous.

“She was probably physically, as well as psychologically, damaged by the experience,” Johnson says. “We are not talking about a fully grown woman but a very young girl.”

Margaret was also isolated at Pembroke Castle, far from her family in England. Adding to that, her husband, Edmund Tudor, had died months earlier, leaving her an exceptionally young widow in a politically unstable landscape. “She has none of… her immediate female support network,” Johnson notes. Childbirth in this period was typically a communal and female-centred event, attended by midwives and relatives. Margaret appears to have faced it largely without any such support.

Distance, not maternal focus

The months following the birth of her son challenge the later image of Margaret as an intensely focused, domineering mother.

“I think it’s really telling that, within two months of childbirth, she sets off across Wales to go and arrange another marriage,” Johnson explains. Travel in 15th-century Britain was slow, physically demanding and potentially dangerous – especially for a woman recovering from childbirth.

“She’s still going to be suffering the physical after-effects,” Johnson says.

The implication is that she must have been desperate to escape Pembroke Castle – and connections to her former husband. She also left behind her infant son. This was not entirely unusual among the nobility – children were often fostered in other households –but, says Johnson, it seems as if “she gets away from that child as quickly as she can.”

Within a year, Margaret had remarried and established a new life in Lincolnshire. Henry, meanwhile, remained in Wales under the care of male guardians.

There’s no evidence of any emotional closeness between Margaret and her child at that stage, and certainly no clever political designs for him. “That baby is actually the source of a lot of pain and difficulty for her,” Johnson says.

So, for much of his early life, Henry grew up at a distance from his mother, and “there isn’t much of a relationship in the early years,” Johnson explains.

This reflects both aristocratic norms and Margaret’s specific circumstances. Noble children were frequently raised in other households to build alliances and receive training. Even so, the separation between Margaret and her son is stark. “As far as we know, the first time she visits him is when he is about 10 or 11,” Johnson says.

A gradual shift in priorities

By the mid-1460s, Margaret’s attitude toward her son began to change. One likely factor was the absence of other children: Margaret had expected to have more with her new husband, but didn’t.

“Margaret must think: ‘If Henry is it, I need to invest more in him’,” Johnson says.

This marks a turning point at which Henry clearly became more central to her thinking, not necessarily as a future king but certainly as her only heir.

In 1471, Henry’s own situation became far more precarious. After major Yorkist victories, the Lancastrian cause effectively collapsed. Leading figures were killed, and Henry – one of the last viable Lancastrian heirs – was forced into exile in Brittany.

Meanwhile, in England, the Yorkist King Edward IV strengthened his rule. “He kills a number of Margaret’s cousins,” Johnson notes, eliminating rivals.

In this context, it would have been extremely dangerous for Henry to return to England. “I think Margaret, quite rightly, is thinking he should not come back,” Johnson says.

By the early 1480s, though, the political situation appeared more stable.

Edward IV was firmly in power, and there were discussions about bringing Henry back safely. Indeed, with Margaret’s involvement, “there start to be whispers of a marriage alliance,” between Henry and one of Edward’s daughters – a sign that the king was trying to decisively end the internecine violence.

This was a pragmatic solution but still, says Johnson, “Margaret wasn’t trying to manoeuvre her son onto the throne.”

Illustration of Richard III fighting on horseback at the battle of Bosworth, surrounded by armoured soldiers in combat.

Crisis and opportunity

That changed in 1483.

Edward IV died unexpectedly. His 12-year-old son briefly succeeded him as Edward V, but within weeks the boy’s uncle seized power, having himself crowned as Richard III. The disappearance of Edward V and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York – the Princes in the Tower – further destabilised the Plantagenet dynasty.

The threat to Henry’s life – as a potential rival to the new king – was so great that “there’s no way he can come back. And it is only then that [Margaret] starts to manoeuvre for Henry to become a rebel,” Johnson explains.

Margaret’s role in the political rise of her son then became far more active. She began to build alliances among disaffected nobles, coordinating support and promoting Henry as an alternative ruler. These efforts culminated in Henry’s invasion. Landing in Wales on 7 August 1485, he won a pivotal victory at the battle of Bosworth just over two weeks later – during which Richard III was killed. After the clash, Henry was crowned king.

In hindsight, Margaret might well seem like the primary architect of a new dynasty. But, as Johnson says, this perspective smooths over decades of complexity and uncertainty when Margaret had no plans for Henry to become a king.

Lauren Johnson was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

]]> Emily Briffett <![CDATA[History's Greatest Battles: The Wars of the Roses]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-battles-the-wars-of-the-roses/ 2026-10-07T10:37:47.000Z 2026-04-14T15:59:58.000Z History’s Greatest Battles returns with a new run, focusing on that blood-soaked 15th-century struggle for the English throne: the Wars of the Roses.

In the company of historian Lauren Johnson, Emily Briffett revisits five of the most gripping clashes of this dynastic showdown. Along the way, they spotlight the decisive moments and power players who flipped fate on its head, and explore what these brutal encounters reveal about power, propaganda and survival in late medieval England. How might history have twisted differently if a single charge, arrow or act of treachery had gone another way?

]]> Emily Briffett <![CDATA[History's Greatest Battles: Bosworth]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-battles-bosworth/ 2026-04-14T15:53:50.000Z 2026-04-14T15:53:50.000Z In 1485, England stood at a crossroads, scarred by decades of civil war. Against this grim backdrop, two armies headed for a fateful confrontation: one led by a battle-hardened king determined to ensure the success of a dynasty he had fought to protect for years; the other by a new challenger in an old conflict. In this final episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett is joined by historian and author Lauren Johnson to explore how, in one fateful meeting on one remarkable day, a new king would be crowned – and history would never look the same again.

History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.

]]> Emily Briffett <![CDATA[History's Greatest Battles: Tewkesbury]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-battles-tewkesbury/ 2026-04-14T15:53:48.000Z 2026-04-14T15:53:48.000Z Survivors desperately fleeing to the apparent safety of a nearby abbey. A young prince on the brink of death. A dynasty on the precipice. The battle of Tewkesbury, which played out during May 1471, certainly had its fair share of high drama, and high stakes, as armies clashed and the Lancastrian cause was shattered. In this fourth episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett joins historian and author Lauren Johnson to consider those remarkable events – and their legacy.

History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.

]]> Emily Briffett <![CDATA[History's Greatest Battles: Barnet]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-battles-barnet/ 2026-04-14T15:53:46.000Z 2026-04-14T15:53:46.000Z April 1471: a thick, blinding fog smothered the fields near Barnet, swallowing banners, muffling orders and turning friend into foe. Opposing armies became disoriented – and then one mistake proved fatal. In this third episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett joins historian and author Lauren Johnson to chronicle the clash at Barnet, in which lines buckled and trust collapsed.

History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.

]]> Emily Briffett <![CDATA[History's Greatest Battles: Towton]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-battles-towton/ 2026-04-14T15:53:44.000Z 2026-04-14T15:53:44.000Z In the bitter spring of 1461, the freezing fields of Yorkshire became a blood-soaked battlefield in which two rivals fought for the throne of a divided nation. But who would emerge victorious? In this second episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett joins historian and author Lauren Johnson at the 1461 battle of Towton.

History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.

]]> Emily Briffett <![CDATA[History's Greatest Battles: The First Battle of St Albans]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-battles-the-first-battle-of-st-albans/ 2026-04-14T15:53:36.000Z 2026-04-14T15:53:36.000Z History’s Greatest Battles is back! This time around, Emily Briffett and historian and author Lauren Johnson will be chronicling the most momentous clashes of the Wars of the Roses. In this first episode, they explore 1455’s First Battle of St Albans, a bitter brawl that sparked a dynastic struggle and set in motion a chain of events that would redefine power in England for centuries to come.

History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.

]]> James Osborne <![CDATA[It felt like the end of the world, but this medieval ‘apocalypse’ left a legacy no one saw coming]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/14th-century-middle-ages-apocalypse-famine-war-plague/ 2025-07-17T15:32:48.000Z 2025-07-17T15:32:48.000Z In 14th-century England, the prevailing experience wasn’t of medieval splendour, of chivalric knights, illuminated manuscripts and mighty monarchs.

Rather, according to historian Helen Carr, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, it was a time of continuous catastrophe.

From the early 1300s to the century’s close, England endured a sequence of calamities so severe and overlapping, that to many it felt like the end of the world had arrived.

“The greatest human catastrophe, the Black Death, happened in the 14th century. That was also a period of famine and two major wars. I think it's reasonable that it’s been called the ‘calamitous century’.”

But while this period of a hundred years is often defined by collapse, it was also a century that laid the foundations of immense social and cultural transformations that created the framework for a better future.

A very wet disaster

The first crisis of the 14th century was brought about by rainfall of biblical proportions.

Beginning in 1315, England was struck by years of near-continuous rain that resulted in widespread crop failure. What followed was the Great Famine, a disaster that ravaged much of northern Europe, but hit England particularly hard.

Harvests failed and food stores ran dry. Grain prices soared. Disease wiped out herds of livestock. Entire villages “ceased to exist because of the famine”, says Carr, and they disappeared from the record.

The “appalling situation”, says Carr, “often gets overshadowed by the Black Death, but the famine was pretty bad as well,” Carr explains. “It just constantly rained.”

Malnutrition made the population more vulnerable to disease, and the social fabric began to fray. In some regions, reports of theft, cannibalism and infanticide spread.

Though the rains would eventually ease by 1317, the memory of the disaster, and the collapse precipitated by it, remained stark and keenly felt. But the population would have little time to recover.

This scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1330) shows two men threshing grain — a glimpse into the rhythms of rural life in 14th-century England. The manuscript is famed for its detailed depictions of everyday medieval labour.

How wars and brutality abroad led to strain at home

England’s kings soon plunged the realm into another ordeal: the Hundred Years’ War.

Though the conflict formally began in 1337, its roots lay in earlier tensions between the English and French crowns, particularly over English territorial claims in France.

Edward III’s campaigns during the 1340s and 1350s became legendary for their triumphs at battles like Crécy and Poitiers, where English longbowmen routed larger French forces. But the supposed heroism often celebrated in later chronicles – which Carr describes as having been “glamourised” – came at a terrible cost for those living through it.

“It was appalling, what the English did in France and at the behest of Edward III,” says Carr. “Rape, torture and the killing of innocents; people's homes were destroyed. Their very existence destroyed, their families were wiped out.”

At home, the war required huge taxation and military levies. The Crown’s efforts to finance its continental ambitions stretched the economy, fuelling resentment among taxpayers, and added to the general climate of strain and instability.

The arrival of pestilence

The hardship wasn’t over. In 1348 the Black Death arrived, and it swept through the population with devastating speed.

“It completely turned the world upside down,” says Carr. “Fifty to sixty per cent of the population were killed,” as the disease left no part of society untouched; even “the king and the queen lost three children to the Black Death.”

With no effective medicine and the scale of death incomprehensible, many turned to divine explanation. The plague was seen as punishment for sin, evidence of divine wrath, or a sign that the end of days had come.

Read more | 10 shocking torture methods from medieval history

Writing in a feature for BBC History Magazine, Professor Samuel Cohn explained that “The devastation wrought by the Black Death was massive and unprecedented. Such was the Black Death’s lethal power, it’s been estimated that it took the world population 200 years to recover to the level at which it stood in the early 1340s. And this was a psychological calamity for the people of Europe, as well as a physical one.”

It was, all things considered, a cataclysmic event that shattered England– and Europe.

“It was like an apocalypse,” Carr explains. “And I think that's what people thought it was … they thought it was the wrath of God, and this was a divine punishment.”

This 1493 image shows the Brothers of the Cross — a flagellant sect who, during the Black Death, paraded through European towns whipping themselves in a bid to atone for society’s sins and avert what they saw as God’s wrath.

Revolt, resistance and the rise of new voices

As the plague’s death toll slowly receded, England now faced a new type of reckoning.

With so much of the population gone, labour became scarce. The survivors of the plague were able to demand better wages, more freedom and improved living conditions. But the ruling classes attempted to clamp down.

Laws like the 1351 Statute of Labourers tried to freeze wages at pre-plague levels, provoking widespread resentment.

This tension built through the following decades, erupting in 1381 when thousands of peasants, artisans and urban labourers rose up in revolt. Marching on London, the rebels demanded lower taxes, an end to serfdom and greater accountability from their rulers. Though the rebellion – known as the Peasants’ Revolt – was ultimately suppressed, it was a moment that signified a social shift.

“The Black Death actually really is the initiator of the Peasants' Revolt,” Carr explains. It sparked “the shifting of the class system and the development of these social groups… They didn't want to be taxed as much. They wanted something akin to Magna Carta.”

For the first time in centuries, the structures of medieval feudalism faced serious and sustained challenge.

How medieval England limped through the crisis

Dragging itself through the trauma and upheaval, and limping out the other side, England survived the 14th century and emerged a changed country.

The labour shortages caused by the Black Death gave workers more autonomous power. Tenants negotiated better terms. Skilled workers gained mobility. Urban life expanded.

“There [was] no serfdom anymore,” says Carr. “With so few people, they suddenly were quite worth something and they could demand higher wages… London became much more of a commercial hub.”

Trade networks, too, became more ambitious. “There was a lot more globalisation happening,” she adds. “People were traveling, people were working seasonally.” New guilds formed. New industries grew. And novel ideas began to circulate, laying the groundwork for later shifts in politics, culture and thought.

The 14th century was a time of unrelenting horrors: of rotting crops, weeping skies, battlefield butchery and mass graves. It was an age when famine, plague and war struck in endless waves. But, Carr explains, this century of calamity was also one of incredible change that spurred on immense progress – albeit at an unfathomable cost.

This article is based on an interview with Helen Carr, speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

The Black Death

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