Protests, riots & REBELLIONS

1. THE EUROPEAN WORLD SECTION ‘POLITICS’ Protests, riots &REBELLIONS Beat kÜmin Onofrio Palumbo (attrib.), ‘Portrait of Masaniello’,a 17thC Neapolitan rebel. Naples, Museo San Martino.

2. LECTURE outline • ‘Popular Politics’ & the Role of ‘Public Opinion’ • Gradations of resistance • Some examples & types of early modern risings • Thematic analysis in terms of: • Causes / Carriers / Aims / Processes / Ideologies / Frequencies / Outcomes • Conclusions Powerpoint & Handout on ‘Programme’ page

3. ‘Popular politics’ ‘[I]t is useful to regard politics as an ongoing bargaining process between those who claim governmental authority in a given territory (rulers) and those over whom that authority is said to extend (subjects)’. Wayne te Brake, Shaping History: Ordinary People in European Politics (1998), p. 6.

4. ‘public opinion’ • Rebellion is NOT the only form of popular participation • Biggest & most institutionalized participation in republics • Elsewhere: varying forms of local government in towns, villages, parishes & often some provincial / territorial representation (case study on Thursday) • Growing significance of ‘public opinion’ • Face-to-face exchange and ‘representational’ public sphere in traditional societies of the Middle Ages • Gradual extension / diversification through distance media like print • Independent / regular ‘observation’ transforms early modern politics

5. The Tatler, no. 1 (Tuesday, 12 April 1709) ‘Though the other papers which are published for the use of the good people of England have certainly very wholesome effects, and are laudable in their particular kinds, yet they do not seem to come up to the main design of such narrations, which, I humbly presume, should be principally intended for the use of politic persons, who are so public spirited as to neglect their own affairs to look into transactions of State. Now these gentlemen, for the most part, being men of strong zeal and weak intellects, it is both a charitable and necessary work to offer something, whereby such worthy and well-affected members of the commonwealth may be instructed, after their reading, what to think; which shall be the end and purpose of this my paper: wherein I shall from time to time report and consider all matters of what kind soever that shall occur to me, and publish such my advices and reflections every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in the week for the convenience of the post.’

6. GRADATIONS of resistance • (Paradigm-changing) revolutions • (Constitutional) rebellions • (Socio-economic) riots • Written petitions • Personal pleas (e.g. at audiences) • Weapons of the Weak (Scott) • Grumblings and rumours The Holy Roman Emperor granting a favour; woodcut in Ulrich Tengler, Layen Spiegel [The Mirror of the Laity] (Augsburg, 1509), f. 73r.

7. Scholarship

8. Primary Sources

9. Prominent examples • 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace, England • 1562-98 French Wars of Religion • 1566-1609 Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule • 1524-25 Croquants risings in France • 1648-1653 Fronde, France • 1647-48 Masaniello rebellion against Spain in Naples • 1653 Swiss Peasants’ War • 1715 / 45 Jacobite rebellions in British Isles

10. 1. Food riots in England – 1586, 1594-7, 1622 & 1629-31, after succession of bad harvests (on background of c. 45 % growth in English population 1540-1600) 2. Christopher Hudson (Lancashire JP, 1596): the poor ‘always apt to rebel and mutiny ... on the least occasion’. Socio-economic riots ‘In the political sphere, [popular] mentality helped trigger petitions and protests over changes to land usage, such as enclosures and fen drainage, or food supplies. A ‘bread riot’ might occur in England or France after a poor harvest, when local people saw grain being carried away to be sold abroad or in some distant city [1]. The rioters would stay the grain, demanding that it be sold locally. They were also trying to force local magistrates to intervene, using the riot to remind them that they were failing in their duty [2]. Very often the move succeeded, for though magistrates might briefly arrest a few leading rioters, they generally took the remedial action the protesters had demanded. Similarly in enclosure riots [like the Midland Revolt, 1607; Western Rising 1626-32], the protesters believed they had a moral and legal right to defend traditional rights of access to common lands and were sometimes eager to see the issue brought before a law court. If that did not happen, they might wear the landlord down by tearing up hedges and fences faster than he could replace them, forcing him to abandon the project or compromise. Women often played a prominent part in such episodes, which made it easier for magistrates to agree to the demands without losing face. To give way to a crowd of armed men would look like weakness, whereas accepting women’s demands could be presented as Christian compassion. But tolerance went only so far. Magistrates responded positively to the demands of Ann Carter, who led a grain riot at Maldon (Essex) in March 1629, but when she led another, larger and more threatening riot in May that year she was promptly arrested, tried and hanged.’ Bernard Capp, ‘Popular Cultures’, in The European World (3rd edn, 2018)

11. ‘RELIGIOUS’ RISINGS – the Pilgrimage of grace:Pontefract articles (1536) 1. "The first touching our faith":—To have the heresies of "Luther, Wyclif, Husse, Malangton, Elicampadus (sic), Bucerus, Confessa Germanie, Apolugia Malanctons, the works of Tyndall, of Barnys, of Marshall, Raskell, Seynt Germayne, and such other heresies of Anibaptist," destroyed. 2. The supremacy of the Church touching "cura animarum" to be reserved to the See of Rome as before. The consecrations of the bishops to be from him, without any first fruits or pension to be paid to him, or else a reasonable pension for the outward defence of the Faith. 3. That lady Mary may be made legitimate, and the former statute therein annulled for the danger of the title that might incur to the crown of Scotland. 4. The suppressed abbeys to be restored to their houses, lands, and goods. 6. To have the Friars Observants restored to their houses. 7. To have the heretics, bishops & temporal, and their sect, to have condign punishment by fire or such other, or else to try the quarrel with us and our part-takers in battle. 8. Lord Cromwell, the Lord Chancellor, and Sir Ric. Riche to have condign punishment, as subverters of the good laws of the realm and maintainers and inventors of heretics. 15. To have a parliament at Nottingham or York, and that shortly. 17. Pardon by Act of Parliament for all recognisances, statutes and penalties new forfeited during the time of this commotion. [http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/24articles.htm]

12. Aristocratic rebellions • Reaction against royal programmes for administrative standardisation and political uniformity within a domain e.g. France: reforms of Henri II, Richelieu; Spain: Olivares (‘one king, one law, one coinage); Tudor centralisation projects in Ireland. • Dutch revolt originates with aristocratic protest: early leaders Egmont, Hoorn, William of Orange had sat on Council of State for the Spanish Netherlands. • Ireland – Fitzgerald family lead Kildare Rebellion (1534) and Desmond Rebellions – protest against political dispossession of Ireland’s Anglo-Norman aristocracy.

13. Popular revolts & ‘revolutions’ Micco Spadaro, ‘Masaniello’s Revolt’. Napoli, Museo di San Martino Niklaus Leuenberger (d. 1653) Ringleader of the Swiss Peasants War

14. The moral economy of the crowd (E. P. Thompson 1971) Popular protest stimulated by more than purely material concerns. Food rioters not just upset about loss of resources, but identifying what customs and practises were being violated; crowds declare themselves authorities because authority had been corrupted. 1647 Naples rioters impale loaves of bread on stakes. No class warfare, as resistance often involves mixture of social groups. analysis • Causes Taxes, Succession, Bad Government, Religion … • Carriers Aristocrats, Middling/Communes, Charismatic …. • Aims Power, Custom, Equity (‘Good King’), Livelihood, Salvation … • Processes Alerting, Rallying, Threatening, Demanding, Rising … • Ideologies ‘Conservative’ (equity) / moral economy / freedom … • Frequency Common, ‘Constitutive’, esp. in times of crises … • Outcomes Mostly ‘failures’ (BUT: 1500, 1649) & often indirect effects …

15. Peasant Victory at Battle of Hemmingstedt(rural republic of Dithmarschen vs Princes of Denmark & Holstein, 1500)

16. Conclusions • Many aristocratic and princely challenges to status quo • Yet politics is no elite prerogative – mind social depth • Common people participate on several levels in a variety of (customary to revolutionary) ways • Cultures of resistance range from ‘weapons of the weak’ via political participation to violent risings • Protests often triggered by a combination of motives/causes • Key principles of custom/equity/livelihood, common good, status and (occasionally) personal/political freedom • Popular political activity interacts with state building