Peasants' revolt

A peasants' revolt is a successful or unsuccessful social revolution in which the peasant class plays a major role. Such revolts typically aim to reduce or abolish feudal taxation, to secure or retain communal peasant privilege, and to abolish outstanding debts, and usually are triggered by poor harvests or intensifying feudal obligations. Peasant revolts are the most intense and direct form of class struggle within the peasant relation; however, even the most radical and most class conscious peasant uprisings in Europe, such as the radical German Peasants' War of 1524, lacked self-consciousness and expressed themselves in religious terms.

In western Europe, peasant revolts before the modern or capitalist era were typically unsuccessful due to the complicity of the middle class in their suppression and the military superiority of mounted, armored knights over farming tools like flails and axes. In other regions, however, such as dynastic China or ancient Rome and Byzantium, peasants were sometimes able to achieve concessions or changes of government, typically with the help of foreign intervention. After the intensifying economic and demographic crisis caused by the Black Death in the 14th century, peasant revolts became more frequent as class struggle grew sharper. These tensions were also spurred by the explosion of Protestant and proto-Protestant movements of the early modern era.