Jacquerie

Jacquerie, the name given to an insurrection of peasants in France in 1358, when the French king John was a prisoner in England. The nobles called the peasants contemptuously 'Jacques Bonhomme;' hence the word Jacquerie. The rising was caused by long-continued oppression on the part of the nobles. It broke out in the neighbourhood of Paris, but extended to the banks of the Marne and the Oise. The magnitude of the danger forced the nobles to make common cause, and on 9th June the peasants were defeated with great slaughter near Méanx. This put an end to the insurrection.