Editing Peasants' Revolt (section)

===Popular culture===
[[File:William.Morris.John.Ball.trimmed.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|alt=Engraved illustration|Illustration from title page to [[William Morris]]'s ''[[A Dream of John Ball]]'' (1888), by [[Edward Burne-Jones]]]]

The Peasants' Revolt became a popular literary subject.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|2010|p=208}}; {{harvnb|Crossley|2022|}}</ref> The poet [[John Gower]], who had close ties to officials involved in the suppression of the revolt, amended his famous poem ''[[Vox Clamantis]]'' after the revolt, inserting a section condemning the rebels and likening them to wild animals.<ref>{{harvnb|Fisher|1964|p=102}}; {{harvnb|Galloway|2010|pp=298–299}}; {{harvnb|Saul|2010|p=87}}; {{harvnb|Justice|1994|p=208}}; {{harvnb|Crossley|2022|p=47}}</ref> [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], who lived in Aldgate and may have been in London during the revolt, used the rebel killing of Flemings as a metaphor for wider disorder in ''[[The Nun's Priest's Tale]]'' part of ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'', parodying Gower's poem.<ref>{{harvnb|Justice|1994|pp=207–208}}; {{harvnb|Crow|Leland|2008|p=xviii}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Scales |first1=Len |date=15 June 2007 |title=Bread, Cheese and Genocide: Imagining the Destruction of Peoples in Medieval Western Europe |url=https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/preview/1537208/4440.pdf |journal=History |volume=92 |issue=307 |pages=284–300 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-229X.2007.00396.x |access-date=22 April 2022}}</ref> Although the Peasant's Revolt was only ever mentioned sparingly in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales,'' the Peasant's Revolt was one of the many historical incidents that occurred in Chaucer's life prior to his popular works.<ref name="auto"/> With other events such as The Black Death, the devastation that followed after the plague incited the peasants that survived to seek a better quality of life.<ref name="Justice" /> Evidence of the impression that the revolt made on Chaucer can be seen in the Miller's Prologue of ''The Canterbury Tales.'' Chaucer portrays the Miller as someone who is not entirely satisfied with the typical idea of what a peasant is and how they should live, and he uses metaphors in order to make this implication in the Miller's Prologue.<ref name="Justice" /> The notion that the Miller is able to tell a tale that can match, or is even better than one of the highest-ranking Knights in the pilgrimage shows the rebellion and persistence in bettering one's status, which is similar to what was seen in the attitudes of the peasants in their revolt.<ref name="Justice" /> Chaucer otherwise made no reference to the revolt in his work, possibly because as he was a client of the King it would have been politically unwise to discuss it.<ref>{{harvnb|Hussey|1971|p=6}}</ref> William Langland, the author of the poem ''Piers Plowman'', which had been widely used by the rebels, made various changes to its text after the revolt in order to distance himself from their cause.<ref>{{harvnb|Justice|1994|pp=233–237}}; {{harvnb|Crane|1992|pp=211–213}}</ref>

The revolt formed the basis for the late 16th-century play, ''[[The Life and Death of Jack Straw]]'', possibly written by [[George Peele]] and probably originally designed for production in the city's guild pageants.<ref>{{harvnb|Ribner|2005|pp=71–72}}</ref> It portrays Jack Straw as a tragic figure, being led into wrongful rebellion by John Ball, making clear political links between the instability of late-Elizabethan England and the 14th century.<ref>{{harvnb|Ribner|2005|pp=71–74}}</ref> The story of the revolt was used in pamphlets during the [[English Civil War]] of the 17th century, and formed part of [[John Cleveland]]'s early history of the war.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|2010|p=210}}; {{harvnb|Matheson|1998|p=135}}; {{harvnb|Crossley|2022|pp=89–100}}</ref> It was deployed as a cautionary account in political speeches during the 18th century, and a [[chapbook]] entitled ''The History of Wat Tyler and Jack Strawe'' proved popular during the [[Jacobite risings]] and [[American War of Independence]].<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|2010|p=210}}; {{harvnb|Matheson|1998|pp=135–136}}; {{harvnb|Crossley|2022|pp=131–136}}</ref> The historian James Crossley argues that after the [[French Revolution]], the Peasants' Revolt was seen more positively, especially among radicals and revolutionaries.<ref>{{harvnb|Crossley|2022|}}</ref> [[Thomas Paine]] and [[Edmund Burke]] argued over the lessons to be drawn from the revolt, Paine expressing sympathy for the rebels and Burke condemning the violence.<ref>{{harvnb|Matheson|1998|pp=138–139}};{{harvnb|Crossley|2022|pp=155–161}}</ref> The [[Romantic poetry|Romantic poet]] [[Robert Southey]] based his 1794 play ''Wat Tyler'' on the events, taking a radical and pro-rebel perspective.<ref>{{harvnb|Matheson|1998|p=143}}; {{harvnb|Crossley|2022|pp=161–183}}</ref>

As the historian Michael Postan describes, the revolt became famous "as a landmark in social development and [as] a typical instance of working-class revolt against oppression", and was widely used in 19th and 20th century [[socialist]] literature.<ref name=Ortenberg1981P79>{{harvnb|Ortenberg|1981|p=79}}; {{harvnb|Postan|1975|p=171}}; {{harvnb|Crossley|2022|pp=183–429}}</ref> [[William Morris]] built on Chaucer in his novel ''[[A Dream of John Ball]]'', published in 1888, creating a narrator who was openly sympathetic to the peasant cause, albeit a 19th-century persona taken back to the 14th century by a dream.<ref>{{harvnb|Ellis|2000|pp=13–14}}</ref> The story ends with a prophecy that socialist ideals will one day be successful.<ref>{{harvnb|Matheson|1998|p=144}}; {{harvnb|Crossley|2022|pp=268–297}}</ref> In turn, this representation of the revolt influenced Morris's [[utopian socialism|utopian socialist]] ''[[News from Nowhere]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Ousby|1996|p=120}}</ref> [[Florence Converse]] used the revolt in her novel ''Long Will'' in 1903.<ref name=Ortenberg1981P79/> Later 20th century socialists continued to draw parallels between the revolt and contemporary political struggles, including during the arguments over the introduction of the [[Poll tax (Great Britain)|Community Charge]] in the United Kingdom during the 1980s.<ref name=Ortenberg1981P79/>

[[Conspiracy theory|Conspiracy theorists]], including writer [[John J. Robinson|John Robinson]], have attempted to explain alleged flaws in mainstream historical accounts of the events of 1381, such as the speed with which the rebellion was coordinated.<ref>{{harvnb|Robinson|2009|pp=51–59}}</ref> Theories include that the revolt was led by a secret, [[occult]] organisation called "the Great Society", said to be an offshoot of the order of the [[Knights Templar]] destroyed in 1312, or that the fraternity of the [[Freemasons]] was covertly involved in organising the revolt.<ref>{{harvnb|Robinson|2009|pp=51–59}}; {{harvnb|Silvercloud|2007|p=287}}; {{harvnb|Picknett|Prince|2007|p=164}}</ref>{{#tag:ref|The term "the Great Society" emerges from indictments against the rebels, in which references were made the ''magne societatis''. This probably meant "large company" or "great band" of rebels, but was mistranslated in the late 19th century to refer to the "Great Society".<ref>{{harvnb|Hilton|1995|pp=214–216}}</ref>|group="nb"}}