What do you know about great fear ???
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The Great Fear (French: la Grande Peur) was a general panic that occurred between 17 July and 3 August 1789 at the start of the French Revolution.[1] Rural unrest had been present in France since the worsening grain shortage of the spring, and fueled by the rumors of an aristocrat's "famine plot" to starve or burn out the population, peasant and town people mobilized in many regions.[1]
In response to rumors, fearful peasants armed themselves in self-defense and, in some areas, attacked manor houses. The content of the rumors differed from region to region—in some areas it was believed that a foreign force were burning the crops in the fields while in other areas it was believed that robbers were burning buildings. Fear of the peasant revolt was a deciding factor in the decision to abolish feudalism.
French historian Georges Lefebvredemonstrated that revolt in the countryside can be followed in remarkable detail. The revolts had not only economic but also political causes, pre-dating the events in the summer of 1789. As Lefebvre commented, "To get the peasant to rise and revolt, there was no need of the Great Fear, as so many historians have suggested: when the panic came he was already up and away." The rural unrest can be traced back to the spring of 1788, when a drought threatened the prospect of the coming harvest. Harvests had in fact been bad ever since the massive 1783 Lakivolcanic eruption on Iceland. Storms and floods also destroyed much of the harvest during the summer, leading to a fall in seigneurial dues and defaults on leases. Frosts and snow damaged vines and wrecked chestnut and olive orchards in the south. Vagrancy became a serious problem in the countryside and in some areas, such as theFranche-Comté in late 1788, peasants had gathered to take collective actions against the seigneurs.
In early 1789, the king's financial ministerJacques Necker warned that the countryside risked a general uprising, and in April, peasant uprisings were increasingly organised and anti-seigneurial in character. Demands were made for the cancellation of harvest payments and the restoration of rights, such as that of grazing. The drawing up of theCahiers de doléances and subsequent elections contributed to the general expectation of reform. While Lefebvre argued that fear of aristocratic conspiracy was a contributing factor in the peasant revolts, Timothy Tackett has recently demonstrated that the rumours circulating in Paris could not possibly have traveled across the countryside quickly enough to have caused the uprising. Tackett posits a fear of anarchy, rather than of aristocratic conspiracy, as the "mystical multiplier" which Lefebvre originally set out to uncover. Peasants began to arm themselves, ringing church bells to warn of danger, and took to attacking the symbols of the seigneurial regime, reclaiming tithes and grain.
The panic began in the Franche-Comté, spread south along the Rhône valley toProvence, east towards the Alps and west towards the centre of France. Almost simultaneously, a panic began in Ruffec, south of Poitiers, and travelled to thePyrenees, towards Berry and into theAuvergne. The uprising coalesced into a general 'Great Fear' as neighbouring villages mistook armed peasants for brigands. Although the main phase of the Great Fear died out by August, peasant uprisings continued well into 1790, leaving few areas of France untouched (Alsace, Lorraine andBrittany remained largely untouched).
Although the Great Fear is usually associated with the peasantry, all the uprisings tended to involve all sectors of the local community, including some elite participation, such as artisans or well-to-do farmers. Often the bourgeoisie had as much to gain from the destruction of the feudal regime as the poorer peasantry.
As a result of the "Great Fear", on 4 August 1789, in an effort to appease the peasants and to forestall further rural disorders, the National Assembly formally abolished the "feudal regime", including seigneurial rights.[6]This in effect led to the general unrest of the nobility of France.
Historian Mary K. Matossian argued that one of the causes of the Great Fear was consumption of ergot, a hallucinogenicfungus. In years of good harvests, wheat with ergot was thrown away, but when the harvest was poor, the peasants could not afford to be so choosy.
In response to rumors, fearful peasants armed themselves in self-defense and, in some areas, attacked manor houses. The content of the rumors differed from region to region—in some areas it was believed that a foreign force were burning the crops in the fields while in other areas it was believed that robbers were burning buildings. Fear of the peasant revolt was a deciding factor in the decision to abolish feudalism.
French historian Georges Lefebvredemonstrated that revolt in the countryside can be followed in remarkable detail. The revolts had not only economic but also political causes, pre-dating the events in the summer of 1789. As Lefebvre commented, "To get the peasant to rise and revolt, there was no need of the Great Fear, as so many historians have suggested: when the panic came he was already up and away." The rural unrest can be traced back to the spring of 1788, when a drought threatened the prospect of the coming harvest. Harvests had in fact been bad ever since the massive 1783 Lakivolcanic eruption on Iceland. Storms and floods also destroyed much of the harvest during the summer, leading to a fall in seigneurial dues and defaults on leases. Frosts and snow damaged vines and wrecked chestnut and olive orchards in the south. Vagrancy became a serious problem in the countryside and in some areas, such as theFranche-Comté in late 1788, peasants had gathered to take collective actions against the seigneurs.
In early 1789, the king's financial ministerJacques Necker warned that the countryside risked a general uprising, and in April, peasant uprisings were increasingly organised and anti-seigneurial in character. Demands were made for the cancellation of harvest payments and the restoration of rights, such as that of grazing. The drawing up of theCahiers de doléances and subsequent elections contributed to the general expectation of reform. While Lefebvre argued that fear of aristocratic conspiracy was a contributing factor in the peasant revolts, Timothy Tackett has recently demonstrated that the rumours circulating in Paris could not possibly have traveled across the countryside quickly enough to have caused the uprising. Tackett posits a fear of anarchy, rather than of aristocratic conspiracy, as the "mystical multiplier" which Lefebvre originally set out to uncover. Peasants began to arm themselves, ringing church bells to warn of danger, and took to attacking the symbols of the seigneurial regime, reclaiming tithes and grain.
The panic began in the Franche-Comté, spread south along the Rhône valley toProvence, east towards the Alps and west towards the centre of France. Almost simultaneously, a panic began in Ruffec, south of Poitiers, and travelled to thePyrenees, towards Berry and into theAuvergne. The uprising coalesced into a general 'Great Fear' as neighbouring villages mistook armed peasants for brigands. Although the main phase of the Great Fear died out by August, peasant uprisings continued well into 1790, leaving few areas of France untouched (Alsace, Lorraine andBrittany remained largely untouched).
Although the Great Fear is usually associated with the peasantry, all the uprisings tended to involve all sectors of the local community, including some elite participation, such as artisans or well-to-do farmers. Often the bourgeoisie had as much to gain from the destruction of the feudal regime as the poorer peasantry.
As a result of the "Great Fear", on 4 August 1789, in an effort to appease the peasants and to forestall further rural disorders, the National Assembly formally abolished the "feudal regime", including seigneurial rights.[6]This in effect led to the general unrest of the nobility of France.
Historian Mary K. Matossian argued that one of the causes of the Great Fear was consumption of ergot, a hallucinogenicfungus. In years of good harvests, wheat with ergot was thrown away, but when the harvest was poor, the peasants could not afford to be so choosy.
Alfanjo:
Peasant revolt was clearly not a new phenomenon in late eighteenth-century France: the fourteenth century saw theJacquerie in the Oise Valley, and the seventeenth century saw the Croquant rebellions.
Yves-Marie Bercé, in History of the Peasant Revolts, concludes "peasant revolts of the years 1789–92 had much in common with their seventeenth-century counterparts: unanimity of the rural community, rejection of new taxation to which they were unaccustomed, defiance of enemy townsmen and a belief that there would be a general remission in taxes, particularly when the king decided to convene the estates general.
In spite of all that is suggested by the political history of the period, the peasant disturbances at the beginning of the French Revolution did not depart from the typical community revolt of the preceding century."
The usual cause of communal violence was “an assault launched from outside upon the community as a whole” whether that outsider be those profiting from unfairly high bread prices, maurading bandits, witches or magistrates abusing power.
This statement about sixteenth- and seventeenth-century uprisings appears, at first, to apply equally to the Great Fear of 1789. However, a distinctive aspect of the latter was an ambiguous outsider at the outset of disturbance. Whether the brigands were English, Piedmontese or merely vagabonds was not easily determined and, when the Great Fear had spread to its largest expanse, it was a system, feudalism, rather than a specific person or group, at which its animosity was directed.
Earlier revolts had not been subversive, but rather looked to a golden age that they wished to be reinstated; the socio-political system was implicitly validated by a critique of recent changes in favour of tradition and custom.
The Cahiers des doléances had opened the door to the people’s opinion directly affecting social circumstances and policy and the Great Fear evidences this change.
The most glaring difference between the Great Fear of 1789 and previous peasant revolts is its scope. Spreading from a half-dozen or so separate nuclei across the countryside, almost all of France found itself in rural uproar. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, revolt was almost always contained within the borders of a single province.
This change in magnitude reflects to what extent social discontent was with the entire governmental system (and its ineffectiveness) rather than with anything particular to a locality.
While the specific manifestation of the fear of brigands (who they were, what they were most likely to attack) may have been contingent upon local contexts, as Tackett argues, nevertheless, that the brigands were perceived as a genuine threat to the peasants across the country in a wide-variety of local contexts speaks to a more systemic disorder.
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