The Peasants’ Revolt has gone down as one of the first great popular uprisings in British history.
In 1381 the down-trodden English peasantry, armed to the nines with sticks, marched on London, and demanded change.
It’s certainly well documented that they decapitated the Archbishop of Canterbury (his head is now in the vestry at Sudbury church in Suffolk), and put the wind up Richard II and his court.
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Historians, however have since shown that peasants were not the kind of landless serfs we would like them to be.
Many had horses – a serious luxury in the average village – and an income well above the poverty line.
They were, in general, well-heeled peasants, the kind who today would have a semi-detached in Acocks Green, and a Volvo tethered to the porch.
The kind of upwardly mobile farmers who set off for Smithfield were beginning to prosper in the later 1300s, and resented government measures such as the Poll Tax, designed to drive them backwards.
My thoughts turned to 1381, when I heard about the mass demonstrations in Turkey and Brazil.
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Much as I’d love it to be the dispossessed from the shanty-towns of Rio and Istanbul who are challenging the status quo, I fear it’s not they who are on the streets.
Revolutions – if that is even the best word for them – tend to begin with the aspirational.
And there’s plenty to aspire to in Brazil and Turkey.
Unlike our own sorry state of affairs, both the Brazilian and Turkish economies have been moving upwards in recent years, as part of the wider club of resurgent BRICs.
But, as always, this new wealth is unevenly distributed, and subject to tight controls.
Welcome to the Industrial Revolution, comrades. We went through this a couple of centuries ago.
This is not to say that the results of such protests might not be profound.
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But if the rallying call is for better roads and the protection of trees, then I think you can assume that we’re not talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat here.
* As always, Dr Chris Upton is waiting to be proved wrong at Newman University Birmingham