Biographical note
Dr Helen Killick
Dr Helen Killick is one of the Research Assistants on 'The People of 1381' project, based at Mansfield College, University of Oxford. Her research examines late medieval British political, social and economic history, with an explicit focus on the documents produced by the central government administration. Specific research interests include: late medieval finance and the market in freehold property, Thomas Hoccleve and the office of the Privy Seal; scribes and book production; parliamentary petitions; multilingualism in late medieval documentary culture, and digital humanities, in particular the use of relational databases as a means of storing and analysing historical information.
Professor Andrew Prescott
Andrew Prescott is Professor of Digital Humanities, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow. He has published widely on medieval history, archives and digital humanities. He was a Curator of Manuscripts at the British Library from 1979-2000, where he was the principal curatorial contact for Electronic Beowulf. Andrew has also worked in digital humanities units and libraries at the University of Sheffield, King’s College London and University of Wales Lampeter.
Event details
This talk will illuminate Kentish participants in the so-called Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 drawing on The People of 1381 (www.1381.online) an innovative new research project set to produce the most comprehensive interpretation of the Peasants' Revolt to date. The revolt was one of the largest popular uprisings in medieval Europe and rocked the country in the summer of 1381. 'The People of 1381' sheds new light on the complex economic, social and political dynamics of the rebellion.
Central to the project is the creation of a database to provide the first overview of events, places and people involved. Judicial and manorial documents are combined with records of central and local government, poll tax records and more, to reconstruct collective biographies of the people caught up in the rising. The project will be a 'history from below', using an unparalleled set of medieval records to investigate the participation of social groups whose role has been little investigated. This presentation will look at some of the Kentish people of 1381, exploring their lives and showing how we can recapture the voice and concerns of these forgotten protestors.