Most stories about the Peasant’s Revolt end with the violent death of Wat Tyler, but there is so much more to this story than the attack on London. In our final episode Matt travels to East Anglia to explore newly uncovered sources that can tell us so much more about the vicious events that happened in the summer of 1381.

We head to Norfolk, an extremely wealthy city in the medieval world, and find out about its canny citizens like the self proclaimed, ‘king of the commons’ local dyer Geoffrey Lister, a man stoking the coals of rebellion into a new fire on the streets of Norwich. Lister travelled across the county calling men to arms against the status quo, much like Wat Tyler had done months before. But these rebels had a problem, there was one man in the way of their fight for what they saw as a better England, a group of knights led by Henry Despenser, the fighting bishop, a man of god AND a man of war, a truely terrifying opponent! To find out what kind of weapons knights would have used against peasants, we meet back up with weapons expert Lee Warden and we also find out the answer to a curious question, how would a bishop or a clergyman fight on the battlefield if they weren’t allowed to draw blood?

Lister and Despenser’s men clashed in the rural township of North Walsham, Norfolk, where the only pitched battle of the peasants revolt took place. We meet up with Dr Rob Knee, a historian who has extensively studied this site and the myths and legend that surrounds it.

But what happened ot some of our figures we met in episode one and two? Matt travels to Sudbury to visit one of the most intriguing relics of the medieval world, the mummified skull of the former Archbishop of Canterbury Simon Sudbury’s. This head has been hidden away in the back room of St Gregory’s Church, Sudbury since it was squirrelled away from the rebels in the heady days in London in mid June 1381. After deciphering what this relic means to us today, we meet back up with Dr Helen Castor to get into the mind of Richard II and the impact of as well as exploring the impact of the revolt on the rest of his life and reign, including his famous disposition of 1399 by Henry Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, who we last saw being hidden in a cupboard on the raid of the Tower of London, and how is on Richard’s disposition, Henry IV of England.

Finally we head back to the National Archives to meet up with Dr Helen Lacey and Dr Adrian Bell to uncover more intriguing documents investigated by the 1381 project. We meet a document that contains information of a formidable mother, Goditha De Stathum (no relation to Jason!) and her five sons from Derby who highlight just how far the revolt has reached across the country and dig deeper into a story of a possible miltiary rebel with a musical edge, all of whom get caught up in the later events of the long hot summer of 1381.

Did you like this series? Let us know in the comments!

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Fancy going to some of the locations featured in this film?
Norwich: https://www.visitnorwich.co.uk/
North Walsham: https://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/medieval/battleview.asp?BattleFieldId=96
St Gregory’s Church, Sudbury: https://www.stgregorychurchsudbury.co.uk/simon/
Temple Church: https://www.templechurch.com/
The National Archives: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
Cosmeston Medieval Village: https://www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/en/enjoying/Coast-and-Countryside/cosmeston-lakes-country-park/cosmeston-medieval-village/Cosmeston-Medieval-Village.aspx

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Explore more about the real people of the Peasants Revolt from the People of 1381 Project: https://www.1381.online/