ABSTRACT
A large part of the history of seventeenth-century Europe is made up of violent resistance to authority. Rebellion at every level of society was as much a part of life as were famine, plague, and war. The word can be applied to events ranging from a local riot to a civil war; and efforts to define rigid categories have, as with many such words, led to forceful arguments but not to accepted conclusions. The simplest classification of rebellions depends on the people originally or chiefly involved. There were those among the aristocracy, often headed by rival claimants to a throne. There were those led by men of substance below the aristocratic level, such as French lawyers, English gentry, or the townsmen of Prague. And there were those of the urban and of the rural poor. It is more difficult to divide rebellions according to their purpose – to overthrow a central government, to establish local privileges, to secure the rights of a minority, or to remedy one form or another of oppression and poverty. The proclaimed objectives of a rebellion could change quickly and unpredictably: many participants must often have had only a vague knowledge of what they were. A popular rising could often be absorbed into, or originate from, a larger political movement. Which of those should be called ‘revolutions’ is another topic of massive argument. What is widely accepted is that any explanation of the outbreak of rebellion has to be sought in a multiplicity of circumstances. With each such event two separate questions can be asked – what were the backgrounds and aspirations of those who rebelled, and why at that time and place rather than another did they lead to violent action? When rebellions are looked at collectively far more complex questions arise, leading into the depths of historical and sociological theory. Only the surface of them can be touched here.
