The histories of religion and empire are intertwined, and for that reason, socialism and religion have had a contentious relationship. Whether it is the Roman Empire’s slaughter of pagan peoples or various empires’ use of religious texts as a moral justification for colonization, religion and the state apparatus have maintained a symbiotic relationship of control. At the same time, religion and 
spirituality have been at the root of resistance movements for social justice throughout history. Dialectically, religion can liberate or subjugate, but it is nearly never a harmless tool.
Because dominant religious structures have often led to the oppression of the lower classes, some socialists have discarded liberatory spirituality. As a socialist, I believe that religion and spirituality can be just as liberatory as Marx’s work. For one of many prominent examples, I turn to Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, also known as The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.
In 1377, forty years into the “forever war” that would later be called the 100-Year War, a ten-year-old Richard II inherited the kingdom of England and a costly war with France. England had been ravaged by the Black Death, a pandemic that killed up to 50% of Europe’s population from 1346 to 1353. It caused widespread hardships, mostly suffered by the lower classes, that included food scarcity, collapsing social structures, and, of course, a labor shortage.There were fewer workers and no one to replace them. Essentially, all living members of the underclass had work and were necessary to produce the wealth needed for the ongoing war with France.
However, the English lower classes had their own wants. With fewer people working the land and the monarchy increasingly dependent on peasant and serf labor, peasants and serfs sought appropriate compensation for their work. Instead of compensating them more equitably for their work, Richard II implemented a “poll tax.” This was a flat tax applied in 1377 that each subject over the age of fourteen would pay one groat (four pence) to the Crown.
The justification and ideological enforcement of the poll tax came from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury. A longtime leader of the Catholic faith who advocated England’s control of the French Crown, he instructed church leaders to emphasize the importance of people submitting to the poll tax. For the serfs and peasantry, participation in faith required ideological adherence to the kingdom and to the ongoing war. And they weren’t happy about it. Two more poll taxes followed quickly, and the spark for the largest peasant revolt in history was lit.
The ideological groundwork had been laid by the Lollard movement of the 14th century. While the church was busy justifying taxes, war, and obedience to the Crown, the Lollards translated the Bible into English and advocated a direct relationship with God, not one mediated by the Church. John Ball, an excommunicated priest, preached an early form of socialism. Ball’s teachings were simple: each toiler, each tradesman, was entitled to the world they created. Ball saw the church as a means of appropriating and distorting the goodness and holiness of Christ. For him, the war in France was not blessed by God but a cruelty forced upon the people by the greed of the Crown.
Ball’s words resonated with the people, and the spirit of the Lollards spread throughout England. Though we can’t attribute every act of resistance by the peasantry in 1381 to Ball and the Lollard movement, they provided the revolutionary ideas, giving peasants an ideological justification for the rebellion to come. When royal officials and tax collector John Bampton attempted to collect taxes in Essex and met resistance from a peasant baker known as Thomas Baker, Bampton ordered Baker to be arrested. A fight broke out, and peasants seized three of Bampton’s clerks, who were later killed. Bampton managed to retreat to London.
The news of the revolt spread quickly. Wat Tyler, a blacksmith, roof tiler, and former soldier, proved to be a great revolutionary leader. Armed with intelligence and an unbreakable spirit, Tyler helped channel the peasants’ outrage against the ruling class. He also seemed to deeply understand that the conflict facing the peasants would require a well-organized set of demands.
Tyler led thousands of peasants to London, with several acts of rebellion along the way. He freed John Ball from Maidstone prison and took Canterbury, where they deposed the archbishop and destroyed tax records. On the way, Tyler proved himself a skilled strategist and leader capable of channeling his fellow peasants’ outrage against the crown and religious institutions. Estimates of those who joined the rebellion range from 60,000 to 100,000.
In Blackheath, just outside London, the peasants camped. It was here that the uprising took its true revolutionary form. John Ball stood among groups of peasants and delivered a speech that captured their egalitarian imagination. Ball’s words resonate through the years:
“When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men.” In other words, the first man dug in the soil as his work and the first woman spun thread. There were no class distinctions.
No longer were the rebels marching just to end the poll tax, but for a world free from the Crown’s domination and hierarchy, and for a society in which people cooperated and hierarchy among the people was eliminated.
In London, the peassants ransacked Crown institutions and burned the Savoy Palace, the personal property of John of Gaunt. Archbishop Simon of Sudbury was killed and his head placed on a spike and displayed on London Bridge.
With most of his armed forces in France, Richard was forced to meet and negotiate with the peasants. Tyler had an initial meeting with him in which the king gave in to all the peasants’ immediate demands. Richard declared that the poll tax would be lifted, he would abolish serfdom, and the wage cap on workers would be removed. However, Tyler and the rebels saw no concrete evidence that Richard would follow through on his promises. They demanded another negotiation. During this negotiation, Tyler was attacked and killed. Somehow, Richard was able to subdue the peasants, promising that their demands would be met. A majority of the peasants believed him and left London.
However, the demands were not met. Instead, many participants were tracked down and killed. Ball was publicly hanged, and his head placed on London Bridge.
However, one promise was kept. The Crown would not levy another poll tax for 300 years. The Wat Tyler Rebellion would go on to become a symbol for radicals. The 19th-century socialist William Morris would write about Tyler in his famous science-fiction novel A Dream of John Ball. Sculptor Emily Hoffnung created a Peasant Rebellion memorial, which was unveiled by the socialist filmmaker Ken Loach.
In this country, as we fight our own forever wars, a coalition of right-wing “Christian” nationalists is following in the tradition of the 14th-century Roman Catholic Church. That tradition can be defined as the appropriation of people’s faith and spirituality to reinforce a state apparatus that is actively harming the people who support it. As for strategy, I doubt that we will get the religious and spiritually minded working class to abandon faith. And why would we want to do that? Faith can fortify the spirit of working people and give strength in the fight against injustice.
It is not the mission of socialists to persuade people to abandon their faith but rather to decouple people’s faith from state institutions. The Wat Tyler Rebellion shows us that when faith is in the hands of working people, free from the interference of the bourgeoisie, class struggle flourishes. In the name of our God or faith, we can tear down the machinery of torment known as capitalism.
Sources:
Raymond Tyler is a writer from Appalachian Georgia currently residing in Nyack, NY. He’s a longtime social justice and labor activist, mostly bridging “history from below” with comics. His work includes Black Coal and Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars, Partisans: A Graphic History of Anti-Fascist Resistance, and Democratic Socialists of America: A Graphic History.
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