Jacquerie

This article is about a specific 14th century French peasant uprising. For the general concept, see List of peasant revolts.

Prisoners in an illuminated manuscript by Jean Froissart

The Jacquerie (French: [ʒakʁi]) was a popular revolt by peasants that took place in northern France in the early summer of 1358 during the Hundred Years' War.[1] The revolt was centred in the valley of the Oise north of Paris and was suppressed after over two months of violence.[2] This rebellion became known as "the Jacquerie" because the nobles derided peasants as "Jacques" or "Jacques Bonhomme" for their padded surplice, called a "jacque".[3] The aristocratic chronicler Jean Froissart and his source, the chronicle of Jean le Bel, referred to the leader of the revolt as Jacque Bonhomme ("Jack Goodfellow"), though in fact the Jacquerie 'great captain' was named Guillaume Cale. The word jacquerie became a synonym of peasant uprisings in general in both English and French.[4]

  1. ^ Froissart's date of November 1357, is erroneous; the first incidents occurred on 28 May 1358 at Saint-Leu-d'Esserent and neighbouring villages (J. Flammermont, 'La Jacquerie en Beauvaisis', Revue historique, 9 (1879): 123–43.)
  2. ^ Firnhaber-Baker, Justine (2021). The Jacquerie of 1358: A French Peasants' Revolt. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198856412.
  3. ^ Barbara Tuchman. A Distant Mirror. Alfred A. Knopf, New York (1978). p. 155ff.
  4. ^ The first attestation of the word Jacquerie for the revolt comes from a manuscript of 1360, Paris, Archives nationales JJ 88, no. 43, fol. 29v 'Chartre de Jacquerie'. The term 'Jacques' for the rebels first appears in a manuscript from October 1358, Archives nationales JJ 86, no. 430, fol. 151r. It derives from the nickname Jacques Bonhommes given to common-born footsoldiers, attested well before the Jacquerie. See Justine Firnhaber-Baker, The Jacquerie of 1358: A French Peasants Revolt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.