The most common historiographical stance regarding early modern revolts is that rebels were motivated by ‘blind rage’ and their actions were merely reactive responses to grievances brought on by a backdrop of climate crises, economic hardship and religious affront. However, while early modern rebels did require a trigger to enact protest, they actually aimed to achieve political negotiation through their actions – due to the lack of widespread lower-class representation coupled with the expansion of early modern monarchies “over new territories that often were ethnically quite different from the rest of their realms,”[1] mass crowd revolt was necessary for significant change to be affected. Through an examination of the Naples Revolt of 1647 and other contemporary European rebellions, this essay will argue that although economic and religious grievances were causes for the outbreak of riots, ultimately they can be seen to be factors leading to an organisation and unity of the crowd and are thus mediums through which rebels attempted to further their political and social organisation.
The revolt of Naples in 1647 is totemic of early modern urban revolt. With the city being ruled by a Spanish viceroy and the rumour of the gabelle (salt tax) to be soon implemented, the preconditions provided the perfect mixture of factors required for popular revolt. Although initially seeming a disorganised mob, the revolt quickly became unified under Masaniello, leading to a successful burning of the palace of the tax collector. It is interesting to note how the rebels attempted to legitimate their movement through their use of religious doctrine - they believed that the Virgin Mary and other saints were on their side, painting the bourgeoisie in a pejorative light. Through this, along with the clear contempt at an increase in tax, Mousnier’s idea of a ‘vertical’ revolt (i.e., one going against the hierarchical idea of state domination) is proven. Briggs summarises Mousnier’s position, stating that he saw early modern revolts “as a reaction against the expansion of centralised royal power,”[2] and this is evidenced in the 1647 revolt as the rebels sought to use economic and religious injustices to attempt to negotiate politically. Furthermore, the success of the revolt can be evidenced through the creation of the Neapolitan Republic in November 1647, intended to secure autonomy from Spanish rule, hence giving more support to Mousnier’s position. In this way, therefore, although historiographical accounts tend to focus on the preconditions of revolt to be “social and economic grievances” brought on by “rising food prices, dearth and taxes,”[3] and hence the aims of the rebels to be merely to quell such problems; instead, what is more convincing is that rebellion was a form of political negotiation which required mass cohesion and unity of the crowd to elevate and bring to the fore a protection of peasant desires, ultimately culminating in achieving a successful implementation of rebel aspirations.
Davis defines religious riot in sixteenth-century Europe as “any violent action, with words or weapons, undertaken against religious targets by people who were not acting officially and formally as agents of political and ecclesiastical authority.”[4] This definition suggests that early modern rebels sought to protect their sacredness of their religious and desired to keep it ‘pure’ above all else. In France during this period, Davis also argues that the main goal of religious violence was “the defence of true doctrine and the refutation of false doctrine” combined with ridding the community of “pollution.”[5] This is evidenced through Catholic crowds in Angers throwing a French bible into the river; alongside Protestant masses rioting against the Catholic conceptions of the altar rail, which meant the only way to get to the cross was through association with a priest, in contrast to the only requirement in Protestant churches to connect with God being through the Bible. Hence, the defence of religious doctrine was the main aim of early modern rebels. However, she fails to consider the broader aims of early modern rebels, instead choosing to focus on instances of iconoclasm and riot between Catholics and Protestants in France. While the protection of religious doctrine was a significant aim, what is more convincing is to argue that this goal was a stepping stone for rebels to then express political discontent. The German Peasants’ War of 1525 provides a perfect example of this. Brought about in the wake of the Reformation, farmers and peasants were inspired by Luther’s Protestant theology, in particular the correct use of tithes, the refusal to render of which becoming “widespread during 1523 and 1524, the very years when peasant indebtedness mounted because of stringent collection of rents and taxes at a time of bad harvests”[6]. Yet Cohn goes further in highlighting the political negotiation of a rejection of serfdom amongst the peasants, stating that there emerged “political conflict between a well-established tradition of peasant self-government and the growing power of the German territorial states.”[7] The growing popular tide of anti-serfdom throughout the nation could only have been brought to the fore having had inspiration from a portrayal of religious grievances stemming from the Reformation, and therefore the revolt provided the perfect opportunity for the peasants to declare autonomy from a centralised state despite its ultimate failure. Therefore, when comparing this with the Revolt of Masaniello in Naples in 1647, in which the crowd believed that the saints and the Virgin of the Carmine were providing religious justification to their movement, it is evident that religious grievances, although important, were the perfect opportunity at which to express a united political discontent.
Marxist historiographical thought argues that rises in food prices and food shortages caused revolt, and that early modern rebels did so in order to survive. This is displayed in the riots in the French town of Agen in June 1635 as a result of the rumour of an imposition of the gabelle. The town councillors highlight the power of the mob, emphasising the range and scale of influence through a particularly graphic and vivid account of those of the upper-class who were killed, stating that the mob “killed and butchered [the sieur d’Espalais] on the spot.”[8] Although the source must be handled with caution on account of its perspective (the rebels protesting against the councillors provides an inherent conflict), the source is still useful in presenting the extent of displeasure which the rioters express, showing how serious the prospect of economic ruin was in the collective mind of early modern peasants. Yet despite economic affrontery contributing to early modern discontent, once more the defence of community and the notion of political representation was more appealing to rebels. As shown in Bordeaux in 1675, French taxpayers protested in light of the king’s imposition of numerous taxes on the sale of tobacco, stamped paper and juridical business. Culminating in numerous authority deaths, corpse mutilations, and eventually forcing “a package of demands...effecting a broad range of changes,”[9] such as the exiling of Parlement from the city until 1690 and the implementation of shared peasant demands, the revolt provides a perfect example of how a voice was given to long-standing political grievances under the guise of economic distress. In this way, the similarities between this and the Naples revolt are clear: urban protestors using the prospect of economic despotism to go further in expressing their united political and social agenda. Thus, although Marxist historiography is not wrong in its belief that early modern rebels aimed to achieved economic security, it is limited in its extent – it refuses to deal with the broader political aims which had been brewing amongst the popular community, only now displayed when economic grievances can be used as justification.
What is interesting to note is that the idea of self-protection and a defence of peasant interests is a common factor which runs throughout different types of early modern revolts - in the case of both urban and rural protest (and sometimes even civil war), rebels continually used religious and economic factors as mediums through which to politically negotiate. The Naples Revolt, the German Peasants’ War and the riots in Agen all took place in different geographical locations (Naples in the urban environment, Peasants’ War in the countryside and Agen in the town), yet all demonstrate similar overarching aims of illustrating popular discontent in an attempt to maintain traditional peasant ideas of economic and social security. Bercé sheds light on the rebellion by the Tard Avisés (the nickname ascribed to the peasants of the movement) in 1593 in the wake of the French Wars of Religion of 1589. Despite there being minimal religious factors contributing to the outbreak of protest, the increasing taxation as a result of the costly wars in the previous decade proved too constrictive for the peasants and is commonly perceived to be its cause. Bercé states that “waves of revolt had rolled across the country from the […] Limousin-Périgord region and were spreading south into Agenais, Quercy, and even Gascony,”[10] which seeks to support this accepted view of popular discontent as a result of economic constraints. Yet what is more convincing is that there was a more basic aim at the heart of this rebellion due to civil war; namely that the growing power of those implementing the taxation sought to reduce the peasant population to “slavery,” whilst also “snatching away their rustic liberties, encroaching on their lands, and shattering the old cohesion of their small communities.”[11]This proves that at the core of revolts from civil wars, alongside urban and rural revolts, a shared, cohesive idea of preservation and protection of tradition and community was actually the intended aim of early modern rebels, with economic and religious grievances thus acting as foundations upon which discontent could be presented. It is therefore significant to note that, although many early modern rebels across Europe were perceived to be simply reactive, disorganised mobs, they all had a shared idea of self-preservation and aimed to protect their established livelihoods amid a turbulent climate of global crisis. As previously mentioned with regards to the Agen source, this ‘blind fury’ narrative could perhaps be as a result of the perspective of the writers of the timelines of events - the inherent conflict between literate councillors and disgruntled peasants is certain to shift the focus in favour of the former. After all, Farge corroborates this view in claiming that such documenters “took advantage of social discontent so as to launch their gross and ill-intentioned products,”[12] and hence their social prestige.
Therefore, it is clear that the primary goal which early modern rebels aimed to achieve was the protection of their own livelihood through the only effective and viable way of political negotiation – revolt. Although precipitated by economic and religious trigger, these simply acted as justifiable issues upon which they could convey their distaste and attempt to settle their own political matters, the same matters which the early modern state did little to represent. It is also intriguing when considering the similarities between Western European revolt and Eastern rebellion – early modern Ottoman riots such as the Celali Revolt prove that this trend of ‘global crisis’ was not limited to Western Europe. White states that “it is no longer tenable to blame the empire’s troubles of the 1600s simply on the decay of old institutions or the challenges of a rising Europe.”[13] Especially with regards to the Celali Rebellion, where gangs of bandits coalesced into one united force as a result of famine caused by the Little Ice Age crisis, it is apparent that Ottoman despotism was actually taken down from within, contradicting the traditional perception of corruption as the Empire’s downfall. Thus, early modern rebels across Europe appear to have had similar motivations for revolt.
Matthew Ainsby has just completed his first year of a BA in History and German at Durham University (University College).
Notes: [1] Julius R. Ruff,, ‘Riots, Rebellions and Revolutions in Europe’, In Robert Antony, Stuart Carroll, Caroline Dodds Pennock (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Violence (Cambridge, 2020), p. 473. [2] Robin Briggs, ‘Peasant Revolt in its Social Context’ in Briggs, Communities of Belief: Cultural and Social Tension in Early Modern France (Oxford, 1989), p. 2. [3] Peter Burke, ‘The Virgin of the Carmine and the Revolt of Masaniello’, Past & Present, Vol. 99 (1983), p. 4. [4] Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays (London, 1975), p. 153. [5] Ibid., p. 156. [6] Henry J. Cohn, ‘Anticlericalism in the German Peasants’ War 1525’, Past & Present, Vol. 83 (1979), p. 7. [7] Ibid., p. 14. [8] Richard Bonney, [trans.] (ed)., ‘Description, by the town councillors of Agen, of the sedition which arrived in the town on 17 June 1635’, Society and Government in France under Richelieu and Mazarin, 1624-61 (London, 1988), p. 203. [9] William Beik, Urban Protest in Seventeenth-Century France: The Culture of Retribution (Cambridge, 1997), p. 157. [10] Yves-Marie Bercé, Revolt and Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Manchester, 1988), p. 105. [11] Ibid., p. 106. [12] Arlette Farge, Subversive Words: Public Opinion in Eighteenth-Century France (Cambridge, 2004), p. 34. [13] Sam White, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (New York, 2011), p. 298