Peasants In The 16th Century Summary

Introduction: Complaints of the Peasants in the Sixteenth Century written by Jacob S. Schapiro was the source for this study. The article depicts many protests from the peasantry class during the sixteenth century in Western Europe. Many countries were facing a new problem after the settling of the Black Plague, that problem was peasant unrest. Areas of particular discontent were England, Germany, Switzerland, and smaller surrounding areas such as Upper Swabia. This unrest was caused by a variety of factors during this time. Some of the more popular reasons are that there was a surplus of work and need for labourers and few working men due to the devastation of the Black Plague. The landlords tried to over work labourers with less pay and
The various perspectives presented as the initial factors for starting the Peasants Wars’ and involving the Reformation generally connect to social, religious, and economic change in the sixteenth century. These sources are written by scholars in their own specialized area, some authors comparing a critiquing others works whereas others are just analyzing events. I enhanced my understanding of the topic by doing background research on smaller subtopics relating to the complaints and to the Peasants’ War, also by gaining a better basis understanding it allows you to have a better in-depth understand of the more complicated and situational events that happened throughout the
The author exhibits his knowledge on the subject and has done the research and analysis to verify his claims about wages and prices and how those factors affected economic states at the time. When focusing on the economic history the author analyzes preceding authors who have completed similar works on the topic, comparing to fully understand the economic state of various countries across Europe. The author argues that the prices and wages analyzed have a direct correlation to the standard of living all across Europe. This standard of living can also be theorized to have a connection to discontent in peasants and lower classes and therefore leading to the Peasants’