Rodney Hilton's superb account of these events remains a classic, widely read and admired since its first publication. Locating the revolt in the context of European class conflict, he argues that the peasant movements that disturbed the Middle Ages were not mere unrelated outbreaks of violence, but had their roots in common economic and political conditions and in a recurring conflict of interest between peasants and landowners – one that has endured through the ages.
This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Phillipp R. Schofield.
Rodney Hilton (1916–2002) was Professor of Medieval Social History at the University of Birmingham, UK, and one of the leading medieval historians of his generation.