Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XVII · RICHARD II. AND THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION. 1377—1381.

7. Results of the Peasants' Revolt.—The revolt of the peasants strengthened the conservative spirit in the country. The villeinage into which the peasants had been thrust back could not, indeed, endure long, because service unwillingly rendered is too expensive to be maintained. Men were, however, no longer in a mood to listen to reformers. Great noblemen, whose right to the services of their villeins had been denied, now made common cause with the great churchmen. The propertied classes, lay and clerical, instinctively saw that they must hang together. Wycliffe's attack on transubstantiation finding little response, he was obliged to retire to his parsonage at Lutterworth, where he laboured with his pen till his death in 1384. His followers, known by the nickname of Lollards,[22] were, however, for some time still popular amongst the poorer classes.