The Risings in the EnglisJi Monastic Towns 65 1 liberty, and during the thirteenth century, and in the opening years of the fourteenth, there were serious conflicts between the antago- nistic forces of monasticism and communahsm.' It was, however, at the beginning of Edward III.'s reign that the crisis in the struggle came, and the year 1327 is marked by the number of risings which then took place. The political and social conditions in England during the latter part of Edward II. 's reign were deplorable, and the tendency to turmoil and rebellion was everywhere apparent throughout the realm. Especially was this the case in monastic towns and manors, and with the deposition of the weak king and the accession of his young son everything seemed favorable to an outbreak. The central power was weak and inef- fective, and the whole country was in a state of lawlessness. It was not strange, therefore, that the burgesses in several of the most important monastic towns rose in open revolt, and seized the op- portunity presented to throw off the yoke of their lords, and that they made a violent and long sustained effort towards liberty. In their struggle they were encouraged, no doubt, by the bold stand against the royal power made, at this time, by the citizens of Lon- don, emissaries from whom, in several cases, even came and invited the men of other towns to revolt against their lords. ^ So general, in fact, does the movement seem to have been, that one of the most reliable of the St. Albans chroniclers, in speaking of the troubles that took place there, informs us that the townsmen, in rising against the abbot and convent, were following the example of the com- munities of cities, boroughs and towns, which, acting with unbridled audacity, endeavored to extort charters and liberties from their lords.-' The contemporary evidence of widespread disorder and rebellions seems to warrant such a statement, for everywhere throughout England there were disturbances and risings, though it is only with several of the chief risings in the monastic towns that this article aims to deal. One of the most violent outbreaks took place in the town of St. Albans in Hertfordshire. There had already been half a century of conflict there between abbey and town, and the burgesses were eager and ready for a fresh revolt of an even more violent nature than any of the preceding ones. The inferiorcs, or lower class of townsmen, banded themselves together by oath to resist the abbot, • Mrs. J. R. Green, Tmuti Life in the Fifteenth Century, II. Chap. 9 ; Thompson, Essay on Municipal History, pp. 20 ff. 2 Gesta Abbatum Sancti Albani, R. S., II. 156. '"Quorum sequentes exemplum, civitatum, burgorum et villarura communitates, et irrefrenatam assumentes audaciam chartas et libertates ... a dominis suis per vim et violentiam extorquere nitebantur." Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum, II. 156.
