At some point in this space, we discussed the difference between a rebellion and a revolution. Drawing on Michael Walzer’s key work The Revolution of the Saints, I argued that a true revolution requires ideology, as it’s an attempt to fundamentally change society’s structure.
Therefore there were no revolutions in the Middle Ages or the Ancient World, only rebellions — even a nasty series of civil wars like The Wars of the Roses were merely bloody attempts to replace one set of rulers with another, without comment on the underlying structure. A medieval usurpation couldn’t help but raise questions about “political theory” in the broadest sense — how can God’s anointed monarch be overthrown? — but medieval usurpers understood this: They always presented the new boss as the true, legitimate king by blood. I forget how e.g. Henry IV did it — Wiki’s not clear — but he did, shoehorning himself into the royal succession somehow.
Combine that with Henry’s obvious competence, Richard II’s manifest in-competence, and Henry’s brilliant manipulation of the rituals of kingship, and that was good enough; his strong pimp hand took care of the rest. Henry IV was a legitimate king because he acted like a legitimate king.
A revolution, by contrast, aims to change fundamental social relations. That’s why medieval peasant rebellions always failed. Wat Tyler had as many, and as legitimate, gripes against Richard II as Henry Bolingbroke did, but unlike Henry’s, Tyler’s gripes couldn’t really be addressed by a change of leadership — they were structural. 200 years later, and the rebels were now revolutionaries, willing to give structural change a go.
Severian, “¡Viva la Revolución!”, Founding Questions, 2025-02-27.
December 28, 2025
QotD: The Middle Ages saw rebellions but no revolutions
Comments Off on QotD: The Middle Ages saw rebellions but no revolutions
No Comments
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
