Guillaume Caillet
Guillaume Caillet (also: Karle, Cale, Carle or Callet - first name also: Jacques) was a middle-class farmer and in the middle of the 14th century the leader of the first open revolt of the peasantry against the aristocratic manor of French history, the so-called Grande Jacquerie .
Life
Caillet's origins, his family circumstances and his life dates are largely unknown. Its origin in the village of Mello (Oise) in Beauvais north of Paris is considered to be relatively certain . His name is attested by the so-called "Lettres de rémissions" - a kind of subsequent justification letter - of the royal administration at the outcome of the revolt. The chronicles and chartulars of his era describe Guillaume as a man with a certain charisma, "a man of good knowledge, eloquent and with a good figure". At a time when the Hundred Years War was already underway, conflicts among the nobility, in which the French crown and Navarre were particularly involved, gave rise not only to the citizens of Paris, but also to the peasants who were particularly hard hit by the famine caused by the devastation of the land to revolt.
King Charles V remained largely inactive during the uprising, from which Charles the Evil of Navarre initially benefited. Although this took advantage of the weakening of the king, the revolting peasants could be just as dangerous for him. He invited Guillaume Caillet as leader of the peasant troops, he should be granted safe conduct! He was captured, tortured, "appointed peasant king" with a glowing iron tripod as a crown and beheaded or slain on June 10, 1358.
Act
In May 1358 Caillet was urged by the insurgents, the "Jacques", to be their leader. They called him "King" or "Sovereign Captain of the Flat Country". He had initially refused the command, but then bowed down when threatened with death. A member of the Order of Malta and a certain Jacques Bernier de Montataire are mentioned as allies from the very beginning .
Caillet was primarily concerned with protecting country people from violent attacks by domestic and foreign nobles. The rebellion also seemed to contain an idea: "A world without noblemen must be possible!"
After the outbreak on May 21, 1358, the uprising quickly found sustenance and spread to the areas of Île-de-France , Picardy , Champagne , Artois and Normandy up to Lorraine . Caillet tried in vain to build a common front with the protest movement gathered behind the head of the Paris trade guild, Étienne Marcel , for whose favor Charles V vied at the same time.
The events in Paris had encouraged the peasantry to revolt against the aristocratic rulers. Guillaume was well aware that his farmers needed the support of the cities. But it was not the same in the cities. Urban poverty was undoubtedly on the peasant side. The wealthy merchants, however, felt more than uneasiness at the strength of the peasantry, although Marcel did not initially seem averse to Guillaume's plan. Guillaume hadn't properly assessed the situation. King Charles relied more than expected on the bourgeois class and promised far-reaching reforms of the royal state, as requested by Étienne Marcel . After the peasantry had been robbed of their charismatic leader Guillame Caillet by a stratagem by Charlemagne, the peasants could not achieve their desired goal and were crushed. The atrocities subsequently committed by the nobility against the peasants and a quarreling Parisian bourgeoisie caused the people to turn to the king again.
The nickname Jacques Bonhomme
Jacques Bonhomme is the name given to Guillaume Caillet by Jean Froissart . In reality, the name “Jacques Bonhomme” as such comes from the era of the peasant revolts in the 14th century and describes the peasantry (or their leader Guillsume or “Jacques” Caillet). According to the chronicle of Jean de Venette , nobles gave the peasants this nickname. In Old French, "Jacques" is a synecdoche for peasants, which was derived from the short vest typical of peasants, the “jacque”.
See also
literature
- Pierre Bonnassie, Les Cinquante mots clefs de l'histoire médiévale , private, Toulouse, 1981.
- Émile Morel, La Jacquerie dans le Beauvaisis, principalement aux environs de Compiègne, dans “Cabinet historique de l'Artois et de la Picardie”, 1891.
- Émile Bodin , by Albin Michel, Paris ny, ca.1930: Le roman de Jacques Bonhomme. Illustrations de ME-L. Cousyn. Beautiful HC, Paris 1930.
- Neithard Bulst , Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (eds.): Violence in Political Space: Case Analyzes from the Late Middle Ages to the 20th Century (Historical Political Research) [paperback], Campus Verlag, 2008.
- Barbara Tuchman : The Distant Mirror. The dramatic 14th century. Düsseldorf 1980 [11. 1992 edition], p. 170.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Histoire de la Jacquerie d'après des documents inédits de Siméon Luce (1859).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Caillet, Guillaume |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Caillet, Jacques |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Peasant leader |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 13th century or 14th century |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Beauvais , France |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 10, 1358 |