Cirencester seems like a typical
High-Tory Cotswold sort of town,
Men in yellow and red cord trousers –
Profuse pocket kerchiefs, tweed jackets,
Highly polished shiny brown brogue shoes,
Conservative ladies who take luncheon,
Just one silent beggar in a shop doorway,
Just one busking troubadour in the streets
To remind us of medieval days of yore …
But when I sit down by the weathered cross,
Down there by the church in mid-winter,
With a cheese and onion pasty,
And a warming cardboard cup of tea,
I wander through the fourth wall to read
The 1381 Poll Tax and its hated demands:
574 Cirencester subjects over the age of fifteen,
To pay the hated iniquitous tax,
No matter how indigent they might be,
A peasantry taxed to pay for a ruling class war,
Over the sea in France;
I glimpse, too, the Feudal Lord, the Abbott,
Studying his imposingly long list of tenant duties:
Thresh corn, plough fields, scythe hay,
Mow the fields, hedge and ditch;
Tenant’s corn to be ground in the Abbot’s mill,
Pay for the privilege, ditto at market;
If you grind corn on your own mill-stones,
The bailiff will take or break your mill-stones …
Pasture and turbary,
Estovers and piscary;
Pannage and housebote,
Shack and ploughbote.
Opposition and complaint was endemic
In the fourteenth century,
Imprisonment, too,
‘Until they made very grievous fines’;
And even though conflict climaxed with the
Peasants’ Revolt and consequent defeat,
Matters did not end there: four years later
The abbey was attacked by townspeople:
‘Divers of the king’s lieges of Cirencester … assembled
And gone to the abbey … done unheard-of things
To the abbot and convent and threatened
to do all the damage they could’;
Fifteen years later they beheaded
The Earl of Salisbury and the Earl of Kent,
Just there, where the red and yellow trousers,
Walk briskly by their wives, at their luncheon,
Where I eat my pasty and drink my tea,
Down by the beggar and he busker,
In the modern medieval market place,
Where I dream like some modern day Piers Plowman:
‘The rebels petitioned the king that all preserves of water, parks, and
woods should be made common to all: so that throughout the kingdom the poor
as well as the rich should be free to take game in water, fish ponds, woods and
forests as well as to hunt hares in the fields – and to do these and many other
things without impediment.’
‘You wretches, detestable on land and sea; you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues. Rustics you were and rustics you are still: you will remain in bondage not as before but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity. However, we will spare your lives if you remain faithful. Choose now which you want to follow.’