GENERAL SIGNS OF RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL REVOLT Peasant revolts of a sporadic character are to be met with throughout the Middle Ages even in their halcyon days.

Some of these, like the Jacquerie in France and the revolt associated with the name of Wat Tyler in England, were of a serious and more or less extended character.

But most of them were purely local and of no significance, apart from temporary and passing circumstances.

By the last quarter of the fifteenth century, however, peasant risings had become increasingly numerous and their avowed aims much more definite and far-reaching than, as a rule, were those of an earlier date.

In saying this we are referring to those revolts which were directly initiated by the peasantry, the serfs, and the villeins of the time, and which had as their main object the direct amelioration of the peasant's lot.
Movements of a primarily religious character were, of course, of a somewhat different nature, but the tendency was increasingly, as we approach the period of the Reformation, for the two currents to merge one in the other.