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Writing and Rebellion

England in 1381

Steven Justice author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of California Press

Published:21st Nov '96

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Writing and Rebellion cover

In this compelling account of the "peasants' revolt" of 1381, in which rebels burned hundreds of official archives and attacked other symbols of authority, Steven Justice demonstrates that the rebellion was not an uncontrolled, inarticulate explosion of peasant resentment but an informed and tactical claim to literacy and rule. Focusing on six brief, enigmatic texts written by the rebels themselves, Justice places the English peasantry within a public discourse from which historians, both medieval and modern, have thus far excluded them. He recreates the imaginative world of medieval villagers--how they worked and governed themselves, how they used official communications in unofficial ways, and how they produced a disciplined insurgent ideology.

  • Winner of Modern Language Association Prize for a First Book 1994

ISBN: 9780520206977

Dimensions: 234mm x 156mm x 20mm

Weight: 454g

330 pages