The Rent is Too Damn High, 1381

TV Doc recommendation: Medieval Lives, with the estimable Terry Jones. 

A central case: for women and peasants, in many respects, things got better after the Black Death, but went downhill in the Renaissance and kept going downhill right on through the Industrial Revolution.

" The main reason I wanted to make Medieval Lives was to get my own back on the Renaissance. It's not that the Renaissance has ever done me any harm personally, you understand. It's just that I'm sick of the way people's eyes light up when they start talking about the Renaissance. I'm sick of the way art critics tend to say: 'Aaaah! The Renaissance!' with that deeply self-satisfied air of someone who is at last getting down to the Real Thing. And I'm sick to death of that ridiculous assumption that that before the Renaissance human beings had no sense of individuality." 

The Peasant's Revolt I'm guessing got started when someone said: The Rent! It Be too damn-ed High!