Tuchin revolt

The Tuchin revolt (in French, the tuchinat) was a tax revolt of "workers and artisans" in Southern France between 1378 and 1384.[1]

In 1378, the town council of Le Puy imposed an indirect tax on consumption at a flat rate in order to subsidise the war with England. According to a letter written after the revolt, when the tax was announced the people cried, "O blessed Virgin Mary help us! How shall we live, how shall we be able to feed our children, since we cannot support the heavy taxes established to our own prejudice through the influence of the rich to reduce their own taxes?"[1]

During the Montpelier riot of 1380, according to one account, rioters "quarters the bodies of King's officers with knives and ate the baptized flesh ... or threw it to the beasts".[2]

The revolt spread west as people objected to heavy taxes to pay for the king's war. In September 1381, in response to unfair assessments for direct taxes, the workers of Béziers rebelled. A crowd stormed the town hall and lit the tower on fire, burning several councillors alive and forcing others to jump to their deaths. The Duke of Berry intervened quickly at Béziers, ordering forty-one rebels executed by hanging and four more beheaded in the town square as an example.[1]

The Tuchins were eventually suppressed by the Duke of Berry in 1384.[1]

Notes
  1. James R. Farr, Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 172.
  2. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Peasants of Languedoc (University of Illinois Press, 1976), p. 197.

Further reading
  • Boudet, Marcellin (1895). "La Jacquerie des Tuchins, 1363–1384". Annales du Midi. Paris: Champion. 8 (29): 98–100.
  • Challet, Vincent (1998). "La révolte des Tuchins: banditisme social ou sociabilité villageoise?". Médiévales. 34 (Hommes de pouvoir: individu et politique au temps de Saint Louis): 101–12. doi:10.3406/medi.1998.1418.
  • Challet, Vincent (2003). "Au miroir du Tuchinat: relations sociales et réseaux de solidarité dans les communautés languedociennes à la fin du XIVe siècle". Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes. 10 (Paysans en leur communauté): 71–87. doi:10.4000/crm.1563.
  • Challet, Vincent (2005). "Les tuchins ou la grande révolte du Languedoc". L'Histoire (298): 62–67.
  • Challet, Vincent (2006). "Le Tuchinat en Toulousain et dans le Rouergue (1381–1393): d'une émeute urbaine à une guérilla rurale?". Annales du Midi. 118 (256): 513–25. doi:10.3406/anami.2006.7152.
  • Challet, Vincent (2007). "Tuchins et brigands des bois: communautés paysannes et mouvements d'autodéfense en Normandie pendant la guerre de Cent Ans" (PDF). In Catherine Bougy; Sophie Poirey (eds.). Images de la contestation du pouvoir dans le monde normand (Xe–XVIIIe siècle). Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen. pp. 135–46.
  • Challet, Vincent (2009). "Un mouvement anti-seigneurial? Seigneurs et paysans dans la révolte des Tuchins". Haro sur le seigneur! Les luttes anti-seigneuriales dans l'Europe médiévale et moderne. Cahiers de Flaran, XXIX. Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Mirail. pp. 19–31.
  • Charbonnier, Pierre (1990). "Qui furent les Tuchins?". Violence et contestation au Moyen Âge: Actes du 114e Congrès national des sociétés savantes, Paris, 1989, Section d'histoire médiévale et de philologie. Paris: Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques. pp. 235–47.
  • Stouff, Louis (1990). "Une ville de France entre Charles de Duras et les Angevins: l'entrée des Tuchins dans Arles le 24 juillet 1384". 1388: La dédition de Nice à la Savoie. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne. pp. 144–57.
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