Great Jacquerie

The Jacquerie or Grande Jacquerie is a country rising which has occurred in 1358 in the campaigns of Ile-de-France, of Picardy, of Champagne, Artois and Normandy, at the time of the Guerre One hundred Year old in a contexe of social political crisis, soldier and. This revolt draws its name from Jacques Bonhomme, nickname of unpleasant, then nickname appointing the French peasant, probably because of the wearing of jackets short, known as Jacques. It had as a named chief a Guillaume Carle. Its causes are multiple, but not very obvious. Thus, the unpopularity of the nobility in is one (after the defeat of Poitiers). However, the cause of misery cannot be retained because the insurrectionists are primarily of rich person plowmen and the middle-class men, resulting from the most fertile grounds of the kingdom. The simultaneity of the revolts of the Paris basin in May - June 1358, the insurrectionary movement of Etienne Marcel in Paris and the movements which agitate the towns of Flanders prohibited to treat them like isolated phenomena.

This revolt is at the origin of the term Jacquerie taken again to indicate all kinds of popular risings.

The event

According to the majority of the sources, the Great Jacquerie bursts the May 31st 1358 at the border between the Île-de-France and Clermontois and more particularly in a small village called Ponleroi (today Pronleroy) like in the surroundings of Saint-Leu-in Esserent.

The immediate origins of this revolt are badly known but seems to result from scuffles between noble and country or a victorious resistance of a group of peasants against noble buildings. In a more general way, this revolt falls under the difficult context of the One hundred Year old war, obscured since 1348 by the Grande plague. The nobility, after the defeats of Crécy in 1346 and of Poitiers in 1356, is discredited. The Grandes companies, when they do not guerroient for one or the other of the parties, hold to ransom the country. Beyond, the tax pressure, due to the payment of the ransom of the king, the price-cutting of the agricultural productions place the peasants in an intolerable situation. Etienne Marcel knowingly maintains agitation with its profit.

Some can be the spark which starts the revolt, this one is immediately described with horror under the term of Effrois and ignites, gradually, the northern half of the country. The chronicles of time draw up a catalog of violences antinobiliaires which break out then on the country.

Thus, the chronicler Jean Froissart, depicts, under the term of cruelties of the “Jacques Bonhommes”, a at the very least sinister table of the misdeeds of those which it describes as " dogs enragés" : " They declared that all noble kingdom of France, knights and riders, hated and betrayed the kingdom, and that would be large goods that all destroy them. At the time collected themselves and from went away without another council and null armor, only armed with the shoed sticks and knives, in first at the house of a knight who close from there remained. If broke the house and killed the knight, the lady and the children, small and large, and burned the house. " This account is punctuated facts which want to underline the animality of the rioters: " They killed a knight and pared in a hâtier and turned it to fire, and roasted it in front of the lady and its enfants". Whatever the fear of the contemporaries, other chroniclers show themselves less eloquent on its atrocities and one can wonder about the veracity of the furnished informations by Froissart, which seems to offer an pro-aristocratic version of the events. Thus, Pierre Louvet, in his History of Beauvoisis , recalls that " the war called the Jacquerie of Beauvoisis which was done against the nobility of the time of king Jean, and in its absence, arrived by the ill treatment that the people received from the nobility " and the Cartulaire of an abbey of Beauvais stresses that " cruel and painful sedition between the popular one against the noble ones rose aussitôt."
The exit of the revolt, a form of against jacquerie, was marked by a great violence which marked the contemporaries as much as that made by the peasants. After having exterminated good number of revolted, the count de Foix, the captal of Buch and the duke of Orleans set fire to the town of Meaux. Of dimensioned sound, Charles the Bad took part in repression and, at the time of the carnage of Mello, put an end to the revolt with great reinforcements of atrocities. The chief of revolted, Guillaume Carle, having received the insurance of a truce and a remission, were pulled by treachery in the camps of the noble ones where he was torture victim and were decapitated. However, thereafter, a certain royal leniency appeared towards the principal leaders.

Interpretations

Interpretations of this revolt are numerous and, beyond its circumstantial character, it can be attached to number of the revolts and the medieval country emotions.

It thus could be compared with the English of 1381, said revolt Révolte of the workers of England, with the insurrection of the remensas in Catalogne, with the movement taborite in Bohemia or with the movement Hussite. To a certain extent, the revolt of 1358 fact the bond between the country revolts of the central Middle Ages and Messianic movements of the modern time.

The historians discuss of his character of class struggle and, being given the presence of noble elements within the camp of the Jacques, wonder about the homogeneity of the movement. Lastly, beyond of a refusal of the tax pressure, the revolt of 1358 can be read like the expression of one claim to dignity on behalf of the agricultural work force. The Jacquerie was deeply to mark the spirits and its name was retained to indicate any country revolt.

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