Sunday, June 26, 2005

Wat Tyler Rebellion

When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman?
When Adam delved and Eve span, Spur if thou wilt speed,
Where was then the pride of man that now mars his meed?

My Good Citizens: Things will never go well in England - no shall they ever - until all things be held in common, and the lords are no greater masters than ourselves - John Ball, one of the leaders of the 1381 revolt (along with Wat Tyler, above), who was executed in 1381

http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/wat_tyler_1381.html


How does the evolution of revolution effect us today as we find our Progressive revolutionary hertitage on the edge of ruin thanks to the vitiation of post-revolutionary reaction, i.e. Progress taken from the Left and replaced by dhimmitude and philobarbarism, perhaps better known today as 'politically correct discourse?'

Socialism, according to Marx and his some of his socialist contemporaries, was not possible until economic conditions evolved according to the (imagined) inevitable laws of the historical dialectic to the point of bifurcation of the exploited and exploiter class conflict in which the urban proletariat could take over the means of production when the mode of production reached its apex in industrial production. No socialism without capitalism to progress out of and from. Prior to capitalist mode of production, e.g. feudalism, there could not be a socialist revolution because there was no dialectical ground to grow out of. Class conflict in the Middle Ages could not become socialist until the economic conditions created a proletarian revolutionary class; all that could come from feudalism was the further development toward capitalism, and peasant rebellions could only ever result in further reaction because of the necessity to progress toward the right conditions of capitalism. Our modern Left seem not to remember these ideas. They hearken back to the primitive feudal utopian revolutionism of Wat Tyler and others. Our modern Left has devolved socialist theory to the point of opaque "Post-modernist" discourse to write the utter simplicities that Ball wrote so clearly and beautifully in 1381. Left theory is now a rehash of John Ball and Wat Tyler, though dressed up in leather drag.

To know science deeply is to know pre-Socratic philosophy deeply. That does not mean one should espouse the atomic theeory of Lucretius/Democritus. Our problem today with the Left in the West is that, like modern scientists proclaiming a unified theory of the elements on the basis of writings from Anaxagoras, wonderful as those theories might be, our modern Leftists are basing Progressivism on the writings of John Ball.

The result of this utopian reactionism in the Left is that aside from scuttling Progressivism itself, they, our Left dhimmis, are collaborating with the barbarians of the Middle Ages in our time, Moslems, against the Progressive movements of History, of our own Progressivist, Modernist revolution itself in favor of our own destruction. It is a philobarbarism, a longing that is in theory and effect, fascism. Nor do they think of themselves, our typical liberal Leftist citizens, as fascists because they have little sense of the history of Progress as a historical dialectic, however historically contingent it might objectively be. The typical suburban liberal is as rational as the next, but that does not mean he is knowledgable about the agenda of the Leftist professional philobarbarist loser who, as a personal failure within the system of Modernity, works diligently for the reversion to primitivism and fascist reaction in which they might attain their personally desired height of social prominence.

Our roots of Modernity come from the Wat Tyler Rebellion and the Black Death. Below we'll insert two accounts of the Wat Tyler Rebellion; but first we'l discuss very briefly the socio-economic changes brought about by the labour shortage caused by the plague. In coming posts we'll look at the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII and Cromwell's standing army of the peasantry as further developments that lead to our Revolution of Modernity, from which we will see how the dhimmification of our time is a fascist reactionism.

The Black Death destroyed the anchor of feudalism in England by wiping out so many people that there was a labour shortage that created competition for workers, men and women who were enticed from feudal bondage on the land in particular to any land that offered better conditions, regardless of rigid feudal ties that would have otherwise made any mobility, physical and economic, impossible. The Black Death in England is similar in effect to the atomic devastation of Hiroshima or the fire-bombing of Dresden and the attendant destrution of the social fabrics therein. The Black Death remade the ground of social relations in Britain. In short, it was a good thing. We argue that the destruction of Japan and Germany as military fascist tyrannies is also a good thing, as good and as necessary as the Terror of the 1790s. Further, we argue that the need is now for the destruction of Islam as an impediment to the furtherence of our revolution of Modernity. We argue that the plague, the rebellion of the populations, the Terror, the annihilations of societies of Islam, the invasion of 'Others' by the likes of such as William Walker is essential for the furtherence of Moddernitiy for the benefit of Humanity generally. Like the invasion and destruction by Athenians of the Melian, America and the West must invade, conquer, and colonize the world of the primitives for their own good, regardless of any sentimentalist ideologies of philobarbarism and Left reactionism. To acheive this World-Historical synthesis of Progress we must act in a manner that is professional and determined, planned, active, and co-ordinated by committes of revolutionary Modernity.

In these following accounts of the Wat Tyler Rebellion we can see the roots of our own revolutions, and we can see too the roots of fascist dhimmitude in our midst.
***

Wat Tyler's Rebellion - 1381 A. D.

The Court of Common Pleas (the civil court, as opposed to the Court of King's Bench, the criminal court) decided early in the 14th century that it "didn't have time for the affairs of peasants." The peasants immediately recognized that they had no rights enforceable at law.

By 1340 the judges in England had become so enamored of their own procedural technicalities that civil disputes languished for years. The English Parliament enacted a statute that year which allowed the Commissioners to move the judges aside and adjudicate their own cases.

In 1348 the Black Death reached England. As many as half of the people in the country died. The feudal lords, short of tenants, tried to make those remaining work even harder. Most of the people in England were treated no better than animals.

The common people had another barrier in their quest for rights. All English court documents from 1066 to 1500 A. D. were written in what is today called "law French." Most of the men who could teach the language were dead of the Plague.

In 1381 the effort to strictly enforce the collection of taxes created discontent throughout England. Wat Tyler's rebellion was ignited when a tax collector tried to make a determination that Wat Tyler's daughter was of taxable age (15) by stripping her naked and assaulting her. Tyler, who was working close by, heard the screams of his wife and daughter, came running and smashed in the tax collector's skull with a hammer. He was cheered by his neighbors and the commoners of the western division of Kent were brought together by his courage. Wat Tyler was elected their leader.

Wat Tyler's group joined another group led by two itinerant priests named John Ball and Jack Straw, and rose 100,000 strong to invade London. The enraged mob broke open every prison and beheaded every judge and lawyer they could capture. They were not allowed to enrich themselves in their rioting. Valuables found in their midst were destroyed. One man who hid a silver cup on his person was thrown into the river as punishment for his misdeed and as an example to others to refrain from such behavior.

They surrounded Richard II, who asked them what they wanted. Their answer was, "We will be free forever, our heirs and our lands." Richard II agreed.

In a face-to-face meeting with Wat Tyler a short time later, Richard II ordered the Lord Mayor of London to "set hands on him." Tyler was stabbed through the throat with a short sword and, as he lay writhing in agony on the ground after falling off his horse, stabbed through the belly.

Watching from a distance the peasants instantly arranged themselves in order of battle with their longbows. Richard II rode up to them and said, "Wat Tyler was a traitor. I'll be your leader." Confused, the peasants followed the king until his soldiers met him and dispersed the crowd.

Minus their leader, the peasants went home. Richard reneged on his promises and hanged 1500 of the rebels after "jury trials." Those trials were presided over by Judge John Tresilian, who told the jurors in each case that he would hang them if they didn't convict.

Tresilian was hanged himself seven years later.

Richard II was forced to abdicate in 1399.

The English legal system continued to incite wars and rebellions until Englishmen, Scots, and Irish threw off the yoke of English legal tyranny in the American colonies in 1776 and Ireland gained most of her independence in 1921.
http://home.earthlink.net/~dlaw70/wat.htm
***

Wat Tyler's Rebellion (Peasants' Revolt) (1381)

It was on this date, June 12, 1381, that the Peasants' Revolt or Great Rising of 1381, also known as Wat Tyler's Rebellion, began. Geoffrey Chaucer was about 41. The 1300s, or what historian Barbara Tuchman calls "The Calamitous 14th Century,"* was theoretically an Age of Chivalry, but in fact a time of superstition, faith, plague, great cathedrals, great poverty, great ignorance, brutal punishment (visited with a vengeance on the peasantry), sexual license and corruption, especially in the Church.

The Black Death (1348-50) and the religiously motivated Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) disproportionately affected the laboring classes, leaving the manors and the fields understaffed. Many lords bribed their serfs with their freedom and pay if they remained to work the land. But many peasant-serfs were compelled to work for free on church lands. This enriched the churches, but made it difficult for workers to support their families.

To prevent demand from driving up the price of labor, in 1351 the undertaxed ruling classes imposed price controls, known as the Statute of Laborers. Thirty years later, in 1380, 14-year-old King Richard II introduced yet another poll tax — poll from the Latin word for head. Walter Tyler (Wat Tighler), now known as Wat Tyler, who lived in Maidstone, Essex, was outraged when an overzealous tax collector sought to determine if Tyler's daughter was of taxable age (15). He stripped the girl naked and sexually assaulted her. With a hammer, Tyler smashed in the tax collector's skull.

His fellow peasants cheered this action. They banded together to seek redress from the king. Tyler's group was joined by two secular priests named John Ball and Jack Straw. Their party eventually numbered 100,000 strong and they converged on London. Artisans and tradesmen provided food and shelter along the way, and the rebels attacked abbeys and monasteries, those bastions of idle wealth and ecclesiastical corruption. The next thing the mob did was kill all the lawyers and judges they could find, and release their brother peasants from prison.

There were outbreaks of violence among the peasantry throughout England. In London, Tyler, Ball and Straw targeted the two people most responsible for the poll tax: Archbishop Sudbury, the chancellor; and Sir Robert Hailes, the treasurer. These two they found hiding in the Tower of London and that is where they were beheaded. But the rebels, still in the grip of the myth of the "divine right" of kings, believed Richard a natural ally of the poor.
Murder of Wat Tyler
The murder of Wat Tyler at Smithfield
All the peasants wanted were the repeal of
oppressive statutes, the abolition of villeinage,
and the division of Church property.
(French National Library)

The chronicler Jean Froissart, a partisan of the privileged classes and a loyal Roman Catholic, was 44 when these pre-Reformation events occurred. He records that on June 14 Richard met with Wat Tyler and ordered the Lord Mayor of London to "set hands on him." Tyler was murdered on the spot. Richard seized the moment and declared, "Wat Tyler was a traitor. I'll be your leader." The teenaged monarch immediately agreed to all the rebel demands — chiefly, the abolition of serfdom — and they went home. Thereupon the king reneged on his promises and hunted down and hanged 1500 of the rebels after "jury trials" — trials in which the judge told the jurors that he would hang them if they didn't convict.

Of the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt, Froissart writes,

John Ball and Jack Straw were found in an old house hidden, thinking to have stolen away, but they could not, for they were accused by their own men. Of the taking of them the king and his lords were glad, and then strake off their heads and Wat Tyler's also, and they were set on London bridge...**

So the oppression of the peasants persisted. The churches and priests continued to ignore them in preference to their royal patrons. And Richard, king of England by divine right, declared to the peasants seeking an end to their slavery, "Villeins ye are, and villeins ye shall remain."

* Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, 1978.
** The Tyler Rebellion, by Jean Froissart (1337-1410), translated by John Bourchier, Lord Berners, Edited by: G.C. Macaulay. Harvard Classics: P. F. Collier & Son Company. New York, 1910. The Harvard Classics, prepared by Judy Boss for University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center, 1994.

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http://www.ronaldbrucemeyer.com/rants/0612almanac.htm

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