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"The Comprehensive Program for Socialist Economic Integration was set up in 1971, laying the guidelines for Comecon activity until 1990. The distinction between "market" relations and "planned" relations, made in the discussions within Comecon before the adoption of the 1971 Comprehensive Program, is still a useful approach to understanding Comecon activities. Comecon remained in fact a mixed system, combining elements of both plan and market economies. Although official rhetoric emphasized regional planning, it must be remembered that intra-Comecon relations continued to be conducted among national entities not governed by any supranational authority. They thus interacted on a decentralized basis according to terms negotiated in bilateral and multilateral agreements on trade and co-operation. Market relations and instruments It is not surprising, given the size of the Soviet economy, that intra-Comecon trade was dominated by exchanges between the Soviet Union and the other members. Exchanges of Soviet fuels and raw materials for capital goods and manufactured items for consumer consumption had characterized trade, particularly among the original members. The liquidity shortage in the early 1980s forced the European Comecon countries to work to strengthen the importance of intraregional trade. In the early 1980s, intraregional trade rose to 60% of foreign trade of Comecon countries as a whole; for individual members it ranged from 45 to 50% in the case of Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet Union, to 83% for Cuba and 96% for Mongolia. Trade among the members was negotiated on an annual basis and in considerable detail at the governmental level and was then followed up by interenterprise contracts. Early Comecon efforts to facilitate trade among members concentrated on development of uniform technical, legal, and statistical standards and on encouragement of long-term trade agreements. The 1971 Comprehensive Program sought to liberalize the system somewhat by recommending broad limits to "fixed-quota" trade among members (trade subject to quantitative or value targets set by bilateral trade agreements). Section VI, Paragraph 19 of the Comprehensive Program affirms that "mutual trade in commodities for which no quotas were established shall be carried on beginning in 1971 with a view to stimulating the development of trade turnover, through expansion of the range and assortment of traded commodities, and to making trade in these commodities more brisk." Later in the same paragraph the Comprehensive Program called on members to "seek opportunities to develop the export and import of quota-free commodities and to create conditions essential for trade in such commodities." There was no evidence, however, that this appeal has had significant effect or that quota-free trade has grown in importance under the program. =Prices= The 1971 Comprehensive Program also called for improvement in the Comecon system of foreign trade prices. Administratively set prices, such as those used in intra-Comecon trade, did not reflect costs or relative scarcities of inputs and outputs. For this reason, intra-comecon trade has been based on world market prices. By 1971 a price system governing exchanges among members had developed, under which prices agreed on through negotiation were fixed for five-year periods (corresponding to those of the synchronized, five-year plans of the members). These contract prices were based on adjusted world market prices averaged over the immediately preceding five years; that is, a world- price base was used as the starting point for negotiation. Under this system, therefore, intra-Comecon prices could and did depart substantially from relative prices on world markets. Although the possibility of breaking this tenuous link with world prices and developing an indigenous system of prices for the Comecon market had been discussed in the 1960s, the evolution of Comecon prices after 1971 went in the opposite direction. Far from a technical or academic matter, the question of prices underlaid vital issues of the terms of, and hence gains from, intra-Comecon trade. In particular, relative to actual world prices, intra-Comecon prices in the early 1970s penalized raw materials exporters and benefited exporters of manufacturers. After the oil price explosion of 1973, Comecon foreign trade prices swung still further away from world prices to the disadvantage of Comecon suppliers of raw materials, in particular the Soviet Union. In view of the extraregional opportunities opened up by the expansion of East-West trade, this yawning gap between Comecon and world prices could no longer be ignored. Hence in 1975, at Soviet instigation, the system of intra-Comecon pricing was reformed. The reform involved a substantial modification of existing procedures (known as the "Bucharest formula," from the location of the 9th Council Session in 1958 at which it was adopted), but not their abandonment. Under the modified Bucharest formula (which remained in effect in late 1980s), prices were fixed every year and were based on a moving average of world prices for the preceding five years. The world-price base of the Bucharest formula was thus retained and still represented an average (although now moving) of adjusted world prices for the preceding five years. For 1975 alone, however, the average was for the preceding three years. Under these arrangements, intra-Comecon prices were more closely linked with world prices than before and throughout the remainder of the 1970s rose with world prices, although with a lag. Until the early 1980s, this new system benefited both the Soviet Union and the other Comecon countries since Soviet oil, priced with the lagged formula, was considerably cheaper than Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil, the price of which increased drastically in the 1970s. By 1983-84 this system turned to the Soviet Union's advantage because world market oil prices began to fall, whereas the lagged Soviet oil prices continued to rise. =Exchange rates and currencies= Basic features of the state trading systems of the Comecon countries were multiple exchange rates and comprehensive exchange controls that severely restricted the convertibility of members' currencies. These features were rooted in the planned character of the members' economies and their systems of administered prices. Currency inconvertibility in turn dictated bilateral balancing of accounts, which has been one of the basic objectives of intergovernmental trade agreements among members. An earlier system of bilateral clearing accounts was replaced on January 1, 1964, by accounts with the International Bank for Economic Cooperation, using the transferable ruble as the unit of account. Although the bank provided a centralized mechanism of trade accounting and swing credits to cover temporary imbalances, it could not establish a system of multilateral clearing because of the centrally planned nature of the members' economies and the inconvertibility of their currencies. In 1987, the transferable ruble remained an artificial currency functioning as an accounting unit and was not a common instrument for multilateral settlement. For this reason, this currency continued to be termed "transferable" and not "convertible." The member countries recognized that the multiplicity and inconsistency of their administered exchange rates, the separation of their domestic prices from foreign prices, and the inconvertibility of their currencies were significant obstacles to multilateral trade and cooperation. As of early 1987, Comecon lacked not only a flexible means of payment but also a meaningful, standard unit of account. Both problems have vastly complicated the already complex multilateral projects and programs envisaged by the Comprehensive Program. The creation in 1971 of the International Investment Bank provided a mechanism for joint investment financing, but, like the International Bank for Economic Cooperation, this institution could not by itself resolve these fundamental monetary problems. Recognizing that money and credit should play a more active role in the Comecon system, the Comprehensive Program established a timetable for the improvement of monetary relations. According to the timetable, measures would be taken "to strengthen and extend" the functions of the "collective currency" (the transferable ruble), and the conditions would be studied and prepared "to make the transferable ruble convertible into national currencies and to make national currencies mutually convertible." To this end, steps would be taken to introduce "economically well-founded and mutually coordinated" rates of exchange between members' currencies and "between 1976 and 1979" to prepare the groundwork for the introduction by 1980 of a "single rate of exchange for the national currency of every country." This timetable was not met. Only in Hungary were the conditions for convertibility gradually being introduced by reforms intended to link domestic prices more directly to world prices. Cooperation in planning If countries are to gain from trade, that trade must be based on rational production structures reflecting resource scarcities. Since the early 1960s, official Comecon documents have stressed the need to promote among members' economies a more cost-effective pattern of specialization in production. This "international socialist division of labor" would, especially in the manufacturing sector, involve specialization within major branches of industry. In the absence of significant, decentralized allocation of resources within these economies, however, production specialization can be brought about only through the mechanism of the national plan and the investment decisions incorporated in it. In the absence at the regional level of supranational planning bodies, a rational pattern of production specialization among members' economies required coordination of national economic plans, a process that was not merely technical but also posed inescapable political problems. The coordination of national five-year economic plans was the most traditional form of cooperation among the members in the area of planning. Although the process of consultation underlying plan coordination remained essentially bilateral, Comecon organs were indirectly involved. The standing commissions drew up proposals for consideration by competent, national planning bodies; the Secretariat assembled information on the results of bilateral consultations; and the Council Committee for Cooperation in Planning (created by Comecon in 1971 at the same session at which the Comprehensive Program was adopted) reviewed the progress of plan coordination by members. In principle, plan coordination covered all economic sectors. Effective and comprehensive plan coordination has, however, been significantly impeded by the continued momentum of earlier parallel development strategies and the desire of members to minimize the risks of mutual dependence (especially given the uncertainties of supply that were characteristic of the members' economies). Plan coordination in practice, therefore, remained for the most part limited to mutual adjustment, through bilateral consultation, of the foreign trade sectors of national five-year plans. Under the Comprehensive Program, there were efforts to extend plan coordination beyond foreign trade to the spheres of production, investment, science, and technology. =Plan coordination= According to the 1971 Comprehensive Program, joint planning, multilateral or bilateral, was to be limited to "interested countries and was "not to interfere with the autonomy of internal planning." Participating countries would, moreover, retain national ownership of the productive capacities and resources jointly planned. But "joint plans worked out by the member countries would be taken into account by them when drafting their long-term or five-year plans." The Comprehensive Program did not clearly assign responsibility for joint planning to any single agency. On the one hand, "coordination of work concerned with joint planning shall be carried out by the central planning bodies of Comecon member countries or their authorized representatives." On the other hand, "decisions on joint, multilateral planning of chosen branches and lines of production by interested countries shall be based on proposals by countries or Comecon agencies and shall be made by the Comecon Executive Committee, which also determines the Comecon agencies responsible for the organization of such work." Finally, mutual commitments resulting from joint planning and other aspects of cooperation were to be incorporated in agreements signed by the interested parties. It was extremely difficult to gauge the implementation of plan coordination or joint planning under the Comprehensive Program or to assess the activities of the diverse international economic organizations. There was no single, adequate measure of such cooperation. The only data on activities among the Comecon countries published by the annual Comecon yearbooks referred to merchandise trade, and these trade figures could not be readily associated with cooperative measures taken under the Comprehensive Program. Occasional official figures were published, however, on the aggregate number of industrial specialization and co-production agreements signed by members. =Joint projects= The clearest area of achievement under the Comprehensive Program has been the joint exploitation and development of natural resources for the economies of the member countries. Joint projects eased the investment burden on a single country when expansion of its production capacity was required to satisfy the needs of other members. Particular attention has been given to energy and fuels, forest industries, iron and steel, and various other metals and minerals. Most of this activity was carried out in the former Soviet Union, the great storehouse of natural resources within Comecon. Joint development projects were usually organized on a "compensation" basis, a form of investment "in kind." Participating members advance materials, equipment and, more recently, manpower and were repaid through scheduled deliveries of the output resulting from, or distributed through, the new facility. Repayment included a modest "fraternal" rate of interest, but the real financial return to the participating countries depended on the value of the output at the time of delivery. Deliveries at contract prices below world prices would provide an important extra return. No doubt the most important advantage from participation in joint projects, however, was the guarantee of long-term access to basic fuels and raw materials in a world of increasing uncertainty of supply of such products. =Concerted Plan= The multilateral development projects concluded under the Comprehensive Program formed the backbone of Comecon's Concerted Plan for the 1976-80 period. The program allotted 9 billion rubles (nearly US$12 billion at the official 1975 exchange rate of US$1.30 per ruble) for joint investments. The Orenburg project was the largest project under the Comprehensive Program. It was undertaken by all East European Comecon countries and the Soviet Union at an estimated cost ranging from the equivalent of US$5 billion to US$6 billion, or about half of the cost of all Comecon projects under the Concerted Plan. It consisted of a natural gas complex at Orenburg in western Siberia and the 2,677-kilometer Union (Soiuz) natural-gas pipeline, completed in 1978, which links the complex to the western border of the Soviet Union. Construction of a pulp mill in Ust' Ilim (in central Siberia) was the other major project under this program. These two projects differed from other joint Comecon investments projects in that they were jointly planned and jointly built in the host country (the Soviet Union in both cases). Although the other projects were jointly planned, each country was responsible only for construction within its own borders. Western technology, equipment, and financing played a considerable role. The Soviet Union owned the Orenburg complex and the Ust' Ilim installation and was repaying its East European co- investors at a 2% interest rate with an agreed-upon amount of natural gas and wood pulp. The early 1980s were characterized by more bilateral investment specialization but on a much smaller scale than required for the Orenburg and Ust' Ilim projects. In these latter projects, Eastern Europe provided machinery and equipment for Soviet multilateral resource development. Work also progressed on the previously mentioned Long-Term Target Programs for Cooperation. =Cooperation in science and technology= To supplement national efforts to upgrade indigenous technology, the 1971 Comprehensive Program emphasized cooperation in science and technology. The development of new technology was envisaged as a major object of cooperation; collaboration in resource development and specialization in production were to be facilitated by transfers of technology between members. The 1971 Comecon session, which adopted the Comprehensive Program, decided to establish the Special Council Committee for Scientific and Technical Cooperation to ensure the organization and fulfillment of the provisions of the program in this area. Jointly planned and coordinated research programs have extended to the creation of joint research institutes and centers. In terms of number of patents, documents, and other scientific and technical information exchanges, the available data indicate that the Soviet Union has been the dominant source of technology within Comecon. It has, on the whole, provided more technology to its East European partners than it has received from them, although the balance varies considerably from country to country depending upon relative levels of industrial development. Soviet science also formed the base for several high-technology programs for regional specialization and cooperation, such as nuclear power and computers (see ES EVM). The Comprehensive Program for Scientific and Technical Progress up to the Year 2000, adopted in December 1985, has boosted cooperation in science and technology in the late 1980s. The program set forth 93 projects and 800 subprojects within 5 broad areas of development. A Soviet ministry supervised each of the areas and was responsible for the technical level and quality of output, compliance with research and production schedules, costs, and sales. Each project was headed by a Soviet organization, which awarded contracts to other Comecon-member organizations. The Soviet project heads, who were not be responsible to domestic planners, had extensive executive powers of their own and will closely supervise all activities. The program represented a fundamentally new approach to multilateral collaboration and a first step toward investing Comecon with some supranational authority. =Labor resources= Just as the 1971 Comprehensive Program stimulated investment flows and technology transfers among members, it also increased intra-Comecon flows of another important factor of production: labor. Most of the transfers occurred in connection with joint resource development projects, e.g., Bulgarian workers aiding in the exploitation of Siberian forest resources, Polish workers assisting in the construction of the Union pipeline, or Vietnamese workers helping on the Friendship pipeline in the Soviet Union. Labor was also transferred in response to labor imbalances in member countries. Hungarian workers, for example, were sent to work in East Germany under a bilateral agreement between the two countries. Such transfers, however, are restricted by the universal scarcity of labor that has emerged with the industrialization of the less developed Comecon countries. Moreover, the presence of foreign workers has raised practical and ideological issues in socialist planned economies. Cooperation in the area of labor has been by no means limited to planned exchanges of manpower. Comecon countries have exchanged information on experience in manpower planning and employment and wage policies through Comecon organs and activities. Changes in the mid-1980s By 1987, Comecon's Comprehensive Program, adopted in 1971, had undergone considerable change. Multilateral planning faded into traditional bilateral cooperation, and the Bucharest formula for prices assumed a revised form. The 1985 Comprehensive Program for the Development of Science and Technology or, as some Western analysts call it, the "Gorbachev Charter," was Comecon's new blueprint for taking a firm grip on its future. Experience in the early 1980s showed that turning to the West and Japan for technological advancement put Comecon in a very dangerous position because it pulled the East European members further away from the Soviet Union and threatened to leave the entire organization at the mercy of the West. The purpose of the 1985 program was to offset centrifugal forces and reduce Comecon's vulnerability to "technological blackmail" through broadened mutual cooperation, increased efficiency of cooperation, and improved quality of output. The success of the 1985 program would be closely tied to the success of Gorbachev's changes in the Soviet economy. Major projects for the 1986-90 period included a 5,600 km natural-gas pipeline from the Yamburg Peninsula (in northern Siberia) to Eastern Europe; the Krivoy Rog (in the Ukraine), a mining and enrichment combine that would produce 13 million tons of iron ore annually; the production and exchange of 500 million rubles' worth (approximately US$650 million) of equipment for nuclear power plants; and joint projects for extracting coal in Poland, magnesite in Czechoslovakia, nickel in Cuba, and nonferrous metals in Mongolia. References * Category:Comecon Category:1971 documents "
":This article is part of the article Comecon The "Council for Mutual Economic Assistance" (Comecon) was an economic organization of communist states, created in 1949, and dissolved in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. International relations within Comecon is best discussed under three separate categories, as the nature of the relationships between the Soviet Union and its constituent members were not homogeneous. The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe Since Comecon's creation in 1949, the relationship between the Soviet Union and the six East European countries had generally remained the same. The six countries were: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. The Soviet Union had provided fuel, non-food raw materials, airplane and helicopter designs and semi-manufactures ("hard goods") to Eastern Europe, which in turn, had supplied the Soviet Union with finished machinery, and industrial consumer goods ("soft goods"). This kind of economic relationship stemmed from a genuine economic problem within the Eastern communist states in the 1950s. Eastern Europe had poor energy and mineral resources, a problem exacerbated by the low energy efficiency of East European industry. As of mid-1985, factories in Eastern Europe still used 40% more fuel than those in the West. Eastern European countries have always relied heavily on the Soviet Union for oil. During the 1950s, Eastern Europe supplied the Soviet Union with those goods, otherwise unavailable, because of Western embargoes. Thus, from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, the Soviet Union inexpensively supplied its East European clients with hard goods in exchange for finished machinery and equipment. Soviet economic policies also brought with them, political and military support. During these years, the Soviet Union could be assured of relative political tranquillity within the bloc, obedience in international strategy, as laid down by the Soviet Union, and military support of Soviet aims. By the 1980s, both parties were accustomed to this arrangement, which was still particularly advantageous to The Soviet Union, as it could expand its energy and raw materials complex quickly, and relatively cheaply. In the 1970s, the terms of trade for the Soviet Union had improved. The OPEC price for oil had soared, placing the oil-rich Soviet Union in an advantageous position. The soaring price increased the cost of providing Eastern Europe with oil at prices lower than those established by OPEC. In addition, extraction and transportation costs for oil, much of which originated in Siberia, was also rising. In response to the market, the Soviet Union decreased its exports to its East European partners and increased its purchases of soft goods from these countries. This policy forced the East European countries to turn to the West for hard goods, despite the fact that they had fewer goods to export in return for hard currency. Any hard goods supplied to Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union were sold essentially at a discount price, as Comecon prices lagged behind, and were lower than those of the world market. Developments in the 1980s made this situation even more complex. The 1983–84 decline in international oil prices left the Soviets with large holdings of oil that, because of the lag in Comecon prices, were still rising in price. The "non-market gains from preferential trade" became quite expensive for the Soviets. East European profits from the implicit subsidization were almost US$102 billion between 1971 and 1981. Mongolia, Cuba, and Vietnam Soviet-initiated Comecon support for the Council's three least-developed members, Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam, benefited them, but the burden on the six East European Comecon members had been most unwelcome. Comecon was structured in such a way that the more economically developed members provided support to the less developed members in their major economic sectors. When Mongolia initially joined the Comecon in 1962, there was no great added burden. The population of Mongolia was relatively small, and the country's subsidies came primarily from the Soviet Union. But the addition of Cuba in 1972, and Vietnam in 1978, quickly escalated this burden. As of early 1987, three-fourths of Comecon's overseas economic aid went to Cuba, Mongolia, and Vietnam: almost US$4 billion went to Cuba, US$2 billion to Vietnam (half in military aid), and US$1 billion to Mongolia. Although the Soviets carried most of the burden since 1976, the East Europeans had been persuaded to take part in projects to boost the developing countries' economies. East European countries imported Cuban nickel, and Mongolian molybdenum and copper. They were also pressed to buy staples, such as Cuban sugar (80% of Cuba's exports), at inflated prices. Eastern Europe also contributed to the International Investment Bank, from which the underdeveloped three could acquire loans at lower interest rates than the East Europeans themselves. The Soviets also sold their fuel and raw materials to Cuba, Vietnam, and Mongolia for less than it was sold to the six East European members. Hence, the former had become competitors for the slowly diminishing Soviet resources. In the late 1980s, the only benefit accruing to the East Europeans was the services provided by Vietnamese guest workers. However, the majority of the Vietnamese had worked primarily on the Friendship pipeline in the Soviet Union. Comecon was investing heavily in Mongolia, Cuba, and Vietnam, and the three countries had benefited substantially from its resources. In 1984, increases in capital investments within Comecon were the highest for Vietnam and Cuba -- coming to 26.9% for Vietnam, and 14% for Cuba, compared with 3.3% and less, for the others, except Poland and Romania. Increased investments in Mongolia lagged behind Poland and Romania, but were nevertheless substantial, at 5.8%. In 1984, the economies of the three developing countries registered the fastest industrial growth of all the Comecon members. Given their locations, Comecon membership for Mongolia, Cuba, and Vietnam principally served Soviet foreign policy interests. The Soviet Union contributed the most to the development of the three poorer Comecon members, and it also reaped most of the benefits. It imported most of Cuba's sugar and nickel, and all of Mongolia's copper and molybdenum (widely used in the construction of aircraft, automobiles, machine tools, gas turbines, and in the field of electronics). Cuba had provided bases for the Soviet Navy, and military support to Soviet allies in Africa. Vietnam made its naval and air bases, as well as some 100,000 guest workers, available to the Soviets. At the June 1984 Comecon economic summit, and at subsequent Council sessions, the policy of equalizing the levels of economic development between Comecon member countries was repeatedly stressed. At the November 1986 Comecon session in Bucharest, the East European members "outlined measures to further improve cooperation with Vietnam, Cuba, and Mongolia with a view to developing the main sectors of these countries' national economies". Moreover, the Soviets have repeatedly stressed their earnestness in "normalizing the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, and in including that region in the overall process of creating a universal system of international security". Support for developing countries Comecon provided economic and technical support to 34 developing countries in 1960, 62 countries in 1970, and over 100 countries in 1985. As of 1987, Comecon had assisted in the construction or preparation of over 4,000 mostly industrial projects in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. A monetary figure for this assistance was difficult to estimate, although a June 1986 Czechoslovak source valued the exchange between Comecon and developing countries at 34 billion rubles per year, the equivalent of US$44.2 billion. The precise nature of this aid was unclear, and Western observers believe the data to be inflated. From the 1960s to the mid-1980s, Comecon had sought to encourage the development of industry, energy, transportation, mineral resources, and agriculture of Third World countries. Comecon countries had also provided technical and economic training for personnel in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. When Comecon initially lent support to developing countries, it generally concentrated on developing those products that would support the domestic economies of the Third World, including replacements for imports. In the 1970s and 1980s, assistance from Comecon had been directed toward export-oriented industries. Third World countries had paid for this support with products, produced by the project for which Comecon rendered help. This policy had provided Comecon with a stable source of necessary deliveries, in addition to political influence in these strategically important areas. References * Category:Comecon "
"Prisoners in an illuminated manuscript by Jean Froissart The Jacquerie () was a popular revolt by peasants that took place in northern France in the early summer of 1358 during the Hundred Years' War.Froissart's date of November 1357, is erroneous; the first incidents occurred on 28 May 1358 at Saint- Leu-d'Esserent and neighbouring villages (J. Flammermont, 'La Jacquerie en Beauvaisis', Revue historique, 9 (1879): 123–43.) The revolt was centred in the valley of the Oise north of Paris and was suppressed after a few weeks of violence. This rebellion became known as "the Jacquerie" because the nobles derided peasants as "Jacques" or "Jacques Bonhomme" for their padded surplice, called a "jacque". The aristocratic chronicler Jean Froissart and his source, the chronicle of Jean le Bel, referred to the leader of the revolt as Jacque Bonhomme ("Jack Goodfellow"), though in fact the Jacquerie 'great captain' was named Guillaume Cale. The word jacquerie became a synonym of peasant uprisings in general in both English and French.While there is some dispute over whether the term "Jacquerie" in respect of popular uprisings preceded the outbreak of 1357, the first surviving record of its use is in the "Chronicles and Annals of France" published in 1492. Background After the capture of the French king (John II, Froissart's bon roi Jean "good king John") by the English during the Battle of Poitiers in September 1356, power in France devolved fruitlessly among the Estates-General, King Charles II of Navarre and John's son, the Dauphin, later Charles V. The Estates-General was too divided to provide effective government and the disputes between the two rulers provoked disunity amongst the nobles. Consequently, the prestige of the French nobility sank to a new low. The century had begun poorly for the nobles at Courtrai (the "Battle of the Golden Spurs"), where they fled the field and left their infantry to be hacked to pieces; they had also given up their king at the Battle of Poitiers. To secure their rights, the French privileged classes – the nobility, the merchant elite, and the clergy – forced the peasantry to pay ever-increasing taxes (for example, the taille) and to repair their war- damaged properties under corvée – without compensation. The passage of a law that required the peasants to defend the châteaux that were emblems of their oppression was the immediate cause of the spontaneous uprising. The law was particularly resented as many commoners already blamed the nobility for the defeat at Poitiers. The chronicle of Jean de Venette articulates the perceived problems between the nobility and the peasants, yet some historians, such as Samuel K. Cohn, see the Jacquerie revolts as a reaction to a combination of short- and long-term effects dating from as early as the grain crisis and famine of 1315. In addition, bands of English, Gascon, German, and Spanish routiers – unemployed mercenaries and bandits employed by the English during outbreaks of the Hundred Years' War – were left uncontrolled to loot, rape, and plunder the lands of northern France almost at will, with the Estates- General powerless to stop them. Many peasants questioned why they should work for an upper class that would not meet its feudal obligation to protect them. Uprising This combination of problems set the stage for a brief series of bloody rebellions in northern France in 1358. The uprisings began in a village of St. Leu near the Oise river, where a group of peasants met in a cemetery after vespers to discuss their perception that the nobles had abandoned the King at Poitiers. "They shamed and despoiled the realm, and it would be a good thing to destroy them all." The account of the rising by the contemporary chronicler Jean le Bel includes a description of horrifying violence. According to him, Examples of violence on this scale by the French peasants are offered throughout the medieval sources, including accounts by Jean de Venette and Jean Froissart, an aristocrat who was particularly unsympathetic to the peasants. Among the chroniclers, the one sympathetic to their plight is Jean de Venette, sometimes known as the continuator of the chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis.Remarked on by de Vericour, Louis Raymond (1872). "The Jacquerie". Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 1: 302. The peasants involved in the rebellion seem to have lacked any real organization, instead rising up locally as an unstructured mass. Jean le Bel speculated that governors and tax collectors spread the word of rebellion from village to village to inspire the peasants to rebel against the nobility. When asked as to the cause of their discontent they apparently replied that they were just doing what they had witnessed others doing. Additionally it seems that the rebellion contained some idea that it was possible to rid the world of nobles. Froissart's account portrays the rebels as mindless savages bent on destruction, which they wrought on over 150 noble houses and castles, murdering the families in horrific ways. Outbreaks occurred in Rouen and Rheims, while Senlis and Montdidier were sacked by the peasant army. The bourgeoisie of Beauvais, Senlis, Paris, Amiens, and Meaux, sorely pressed by the court party, accepted the Jacquerie, and the urban underclass were sympathetic.Vericour 1872:304. A small number of knights and squires provided leadership for some of the peasant bands, although in letters of pardon issued after the suppression of the rising, such individuals claimed that they were forced to do so. The Jacquerie must be seen in the context of this period of internal instability. At a time of personal government, the absence of a charismatic king was detrimental to the still-feudal state. The Dauphin had to contend with roaming free companies of out-of-work mercenaries, the plotting of Charles the Bad, and the possibility of another English invasion. The Dauphin gained effective control of the realm only after the supposed surrender of the city of Paris under the high bourgeois Étienne Marcel, prevôt des marchands in July 1358. Marcel had joined Cale's rebellion somewhat inadvisedly, and when his wealthy supporters deserted his cause, it cost him the city and his life, in September. It is notable that churches were not generally the targets of peasant fury, except in certain regions. Suppression Defeat of the Jacquerie 9 June 1358 The revolt was suppressed by French nobles and gentry led by Charles the Bad of Navarre, cousin, brother-in-law, and mortal enemy of the Regent, whose throne he was attempting to usurp. His army and the peasant force opposed each other near Mello on 10 June 1358, when Guillaume Cale, the leader of the rebellion, was invited to truce talks by Charles. Foolishly, he went to the enemy camp, where he was seized by the French nobles, who considered that the conventions and standards of chivalry did not apply to him; he was tortured and decapitated. His now leaderless army, claimed to be 20,000 strong in only Froissart's account, which was heavily influenced by the conventions of Romance, was ridden down by divisions of mounted knights. In the ensuing Battle of Mello and in a campaign of terror throughout the Beauvais region, knights, squires, men-at-arms and mercenaries roamed the countryside lynching uncounted peasants. Maurice Dommaget notes that the few hundred aristocratic victims of the Jacquerie were known as individuals to the chroniclers, who detailed the outrages practiced upon them.Dommaget 1971. An estimated 20,000 anonymous peasants were killed in the reprisals that followed. The final events transpired at Meaux, where the impregnable citadel was crowded with knights and their ladies. On 9 June a band of some 800 armed commoners (not the 10,000 Jacques of Froissart's account) came out of Paris under the leadership of Etienne Marcel to support the rising. Like many of the peasants, they seem to have seen themselves as acting in the name of the imprisoned king. When the band from Paris appeared before Meaux they were taken in hospitably by the disaffected townspeople and fed. The fortress, somewhat apart from the town, remained unassailable. Two captain adventurers, returning from crusade against the pagans of Prussia, were at Châlons, Gaston Phebus, comte de Foix and his noble Gascon cousin the Captal de Buch. The approach of their well-armed lancers encouraged the besieged nobles in the fortress, and a general rout of the Parisian force ensued. The nobles then set fire to the suburb nearest the fortress, entrapping the burghers in the flames. The mayor of Meaux and other prominent men of the city were hanged. There was a pause, then the force led by the nobles and gentry plundered the city and churches and set fire to Meaux, which burned for two weeks. They then overran the countryside, burning cottages and barns and slaughtering all the peasants they could find. The reprisals continued through July and August. There was a massacre at Reims, though it had remained steadfast in the Royal cause. Senlis defended itself. Knights of Hainault, Flanders, and Brabant joined in the carnage. Following the declaration of amnesty issued by the Regent on 10 August 1358, such heavy fines were assessed upon the regions that had supported the Jacquerie that a general flight of peasantry ensued.Vericourt 1872:309. Historian Barbara Tuchman says: "Like every insurrection of the century, it was smashed, as soon as the rulers recovered their nerve, by weight of steel, and the advantages of the man on horseback, and the psychological inferiority of the insurgents". The slanted but vivid account of Froissart can be balanced by the Regent's letters of amnesty, a document that comments more severely on the nobles' reaction than on the peasants' rising and omits the atrocities detailed by Froissart: "it represents the men of the open country assembling spontaneously in various localities, in order to deliberate on the means of resisting the English, and suddenly, as with a mutual agreement, turning fiercely on the nobles". The Jacquerie traumatized the aristocracy. In 1872 Louis Raymond de Vericour remarked to the Royal Historical Society, "To this very day the word 'Jacquerie' does not generally give rise to any other idea than that of a bloodthirsty, iniquitous, groundless revolt of a mass of savages. Whenever, on the Continent, any agitation takes place, however slight and legitimate it may be, among the humbler classes, innumerable voices, in higher, privileged, wealthy classes, proclaim that society is threatened with a Jacquerie".Vericour 1872:296; see, for example Philippe Gabriel Eidelberg, The Great Rumanian Peasant Revolt of 1907. Origins of a Modern Jacquerie (Leiden, 1974); John T. Alexander, Emperor of the Cossacks: Pugachev and the Frontier Jacquerie of 1773–1775 (Lawrence, Kansas, 1973); Serge Aberdam and Marcel Dorigny,eds. Paysans en Révolution: Terre, Pouvoir, et Jacquerie, 1789–1794 (Paris, 1996) etc. In the arts *The contemporary literary chronicles were influenced by other medieval genres: romance, satire, and complaint.These "non-historical" literary aspects of the chronicles were examined by Marie- Thérèse de Medeiros, Jacques et Chroniqueurs: Une Étude comparée de récits contemporains relaxant la Jacquerie de 1358 (Paris, 1979). *The subject of the Jacquerie engaged the Romantic historical imagination, resulting in numerous nineteenth-century historical novels with somewhat operatic plots set against the backdrop of the Jacquerie—The Jacquerie, or, The Lady and the Page: An Historical Romance by G. P. R James (1842) and the like— and even an opera, by Édouard Lalo. *In Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, the revolutionaries call themselves "Jacques". *Eugène Sue's novel The Iron Trevet (part of Sue's "Mysteries of the People" sequence) gives a sympathetic account of the Jacquerie rebels."The Iron Trevet: Deals with the Jacquerie revolts and the peasants alliance with the revolutionary bourgeois of Paris..." Advertisement for "Mysteries of the People" by Eugène Sue. The New Review magazine, April 1915 (p. 245). *In Thomas Love Peacock's Crotchet Castle, Dr Folliott compares a local riot with the Jacquerie and expresses nostalgia for "that blessed middle period, after the Jacquerie was down and before the March of Mind was up". *Arthur Conan Doyle's historical novel "The White Company" includes a chapter where the English free company of the title rescue French nobility from peasants of the Jacquerie - portrayed as savage and brutish. *The 1961 novel A Walk with Love and Death by Hans Koningsberger takes place in northern France during the Jacquerie. *A fictionalized version of the Jacquerie appears in the 1962 Blake and Mortimer comic volume "Le Piège Diabolique". Notes References *J. B. Bury, The Cambridge Medieval History: Decline of Empire and Papacy, Vol. VII. New York: Macmillan Company, 1932. *Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., Popular Protest in Late Medieval Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press. *Jean Froissart. Chronicles. London: Penguin Books, 1978. Category:Conflicts of the Hundred Years' War Category:Popular revolt in late- medieval Europe Category:1358 in England Category:1350s in France Category:Protests in France Category:Peasant revolts "