Commotion Time: The English Risings of 1549

by Jones,Amanda

• ISBN13: 9781851969432
• ISBN10: 1851969438
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2030-01-22
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In July and August 1549, rebels gathered in camps across twenty-five English counties, stretching from Yorkshire to Cornwall. They produced sixteen petitions expressing a variety of discontents. The geographical scale of the disorder across England eventually led to Protector Somerset's fall. Kett's Rebellion in East Anglia and the South-Western Rebellion have traditionally been treated as isolated episodes. The former was concerned primarily with the enclosure of common grazings, and the latter with the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer to the Church of England's liturgy. However, Jones shows how these rebellions were part of a broader movement, also comprising lesser revolts in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Contemporaries called this the 'commotion time'. Jones contextualises local uprisings within an overarching pattern of protest. This continuum model of disorder allows a comparative approach to different geographical areas, and demonstrates the longer-term consequences of the events of 1549 for the development of the Tudor state.