Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 2 (2008), p. 219

The rebellions of 1549 are in sore need of a new study, so the appearance of this book is a cause for celebration. It is not a straightforward narrative of the revolts, however, and its structure will confuse some readers. Chapters one and four deal most directly with the rebellions of 1549. Chapter one sets the scene, examining the political and religious situation in the run up to 1549 before undertaking a whistle-stop tour of the rebellions themselves. There is little new here, but Wood writes an engaging narrative. A more detailed analysis of the events and actions of 1549 is provided in chapter four, which, although titled ‘Rebel political language’, could just as happily be called ‘Rebel politics’. Chapter four concentrates heavily on Kett’s rebellion and dissects the actions, demands and the social make-up of the ‘commotioners’. This is Wood at his strongest: full of perceptive insights into what happened and why. Two further chapters are concerned with events after the revolt. Chapter two looks at the four years after 1549, examining the disorder and suppression which followed the rebellions, and linking the popular politics of 1549 with the commons’ role installing Mary as queen in 1553. This is interesting, and it is a pity the chapter is so short. Chapter six considers the afterlife of Kett’s Rebellion: how its history was constructed through the narratives of Neville and Sotherton, right up to the present day. Placing this chapter last has a certain logic, and makes a fitting ending to the book, but it means that detailed consideration of the historiography of Kett’s Rebellion is disconnected from the rather uncritical account provided in chapter one.

The book’s main fault is its uneven coverage. While events in Norfolk receive a reasonably full treatment, those interested in the equally large and bitter Western Rebellion of 1549 will be disappointed. Other than short sections in chapters one and two, and a smattering of references elsewhere, it gets little consideration and no new research. The same can be said of the disturbances elsewhere in England. In addition, the book has a curious emphasis on events after the revolts rather than before. Wood considers immediate political and religious context of the revolts, and makes a strong case for the benefits of breaking down the barriers between social and political history via the study of popular politics. However, at the same time he is setting up new barriers, disconnecting social history from the economy. Little consideration is given to the economic grievances voiced in 1549 and their origins. Enclosure receives no sustained treatment. Wood’s detailed analysis of class relations floats free from any roots in actual economic circumstances. Instead the book contains two further chapters which are largely superfluous to the history of 1549. Chapter three begins with an examination of the difficulties of recovering ‘rebel speech’, what Robert Kett actually said during the rebellion and in his confession, before continuing with a discussion of the role of speech in popular politics and resistance. This long exposition boils down to the uncontroversial statement that speech can be considered a form of action in early modern England. In a book on rebellion it might have been apt to give more consideration of obverse relationship: how, in the absence of detailed verbal statements of the rebels’ intentions, actions can be seen as a form of language. Rebellion is the point where speech turns into action, and a more detailed analysis of rebel actions would have fitted well here. Chapter five looks at the ‘decline of insurrection’. 1549 was England’s last great popular uprising, and it is uncontroversial to explain this in terms of the widening social and economic gulf in village society between wealthy tenants and the labouring poor in the late sixteenth century. Wood, however, wants to argue something rather different. For him the government deliberately extended the village elite’s inclusion in officeholding and local politics to widen the social gulf. The village elite’s increased hostility to their poorer neighbours provides evidence that this tactic was successful in undermining the roots of future rebellion. What is at fault here is the chronology: Wood wants to place these changes after 1549. But the emergence of the village elite, their role in office holding, and the criminalization of the poor, have origins which can be traced back to the Statute of Labourers in 1349–51, if not before, and are well documented in the late medieval studies of McIntosh and Dyer, which Wood does not consider. Instead he has mistaken a discontinuity in the historiography, the tranche of early modern studies which have a start date of 1550 or 1560, for a real discontinuity in sixteenth-century England. Despite these criticisms, at its best, this book has a great deal to offer the historian of popular rebellion. In places it is sophisticated and perceptive, even inspirational in its approach. But it is a patchy book, and will leave readers who hankered after a new history of 1549 dissatisfied.