Andrew Garfield's 'The Uprising' Explores Christian Roots of 1381 Peasants' Revolt, Historian Says

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A new film spotlights one of the most significant yet overlooked revolts in English history – an event that some say helped sow the seeds of later democratic movements and that had a debate over Christian teaching at its core.

"The Uprising" (rated R) stars Andrew Garfield and tells the story of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, when thousands of commoners – joined by tradesmen and others – did something unheard of for the era: They rose up against government officials and demanded change. The monarch – 14-year-old King Richard II – survived, although several of his top officials were killed as rebels stormed London and breached the Tower of London.

Although the revolt was ultimately crushed, it challenged the social order and helped change how common people were viewed.

“This is one of the first times you can really see ordinary people enter the stage in politics in the English-speaking world,” historian Dan Jones told Crosswalk Headlines. He is the author of "Summer of Blood: The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381." “Before this, politics was a matter of kings basically thrashing things out with the elites.”

A series of events helped lead to the Peasants’ Revolt, beginning in the aftermath of the Black Death, a deadly pandemic that killed perhaps half of England’s population. The resulting labor shortage should have given workers more leverage, but the government responded by limiting wages and restricting their ability to leave for better-paying jobs. The final spark came in 1381, when an unpopular tax – and aggressive efforts to collect it – triggered violence.

Jones described it as a “genuinely popular uprising of ordinary people who feel that they've been pushed to the limit.”

A radical priest named John Ball helped lead the revolt. His actions are featured prominently in the film.  

“You can't understand the uprising without religion,” Jones told Crosswalk Headlines.

Jones described Ball as a man who is “starting to articulate ideas that will become … at the center of the Reformation” – that is, the “tearing apart of the old church and the building of a new.”

Ball is known for the famous line, “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman (nobleman)?” – arguing there were no class systems in the Garden of Eden when Adam dug (delved) and Eve spun thread (span). The message was simple: Why, then, should there be classes in England?

“This famous rhyming couplet asks a deep religious question, which is: At the time of the creation in the Garden of Eden, God didn't create lordship,” Jones said. “He didn't create these systems of laws, these institutions that seem to be oppressing people. God created a pure Earth in which His love was mediated through humanity. That is at the core of the peasants’ belief.

“They have these fundamental, simplistic, antediluvian ideas of what religion means and what the relationship between God and man should be, and they want to see a sort of a pure society restored along religious principles. All of these things are sort of bubbling away underneath this rebellion.”

Although the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 is taught in American history classes, it doesn’t receive the same attention as it does in Britain, where the rebellion unfolded. Its most famous leader, Wat Tyler, remains a recognizable name in British history.

“This is an opportunity to reflect,” Jones said, “on where the world we live in came from – where the ideas that underpin American democracy, European democracy emerged 700 years ago.”

The Uprising opens in theaters Sept. 11. It is rated R for violence/bloody images.

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Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel. 

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