Research Notes · Peasants’ Revolt 1381
John Bampton at Brentwood: What the Patent Roll Actually Says
The familiar story says a newly appointed poll-tax commissioner arrived at Brentwood and triggered revolt. The Crown’s own enrolled record makes the picture less tidy.
The name problem
The near-contemporary Anonimalle Chronicle names the official at Brentwood as Thomas de Bampton. Charles Oman later noted in his own apparatus that independent record evidence pointed instead to John Bampton, but then reverted to Thomas in his narrative. That contradiction helped both names continue circulating.
The Calendar of Patent Rolls removes much of the uncertainty about the man recorded by the Crown. Across the relevant entries the name appears as John Bampton.
The commission problem
The more interesting issue is not the first name but the authority under which Bampton acted at Brentwood. The Patent Roll records a commission of the peace for Essex dated 12 November 1380 naming John Bampton alongside Robert Belknap and others. The commission concerns public order. It does not describe him as a poll-tax commissioner and does not mention tax arrears or collection.
That does not prove that Bampton had no other authority. An unenrolled or separately recorded instrument may have existed. What it does mean is that the enrolled appointment closest to the Brentwood confrontation does not itself establish the familiar tax-commissioner description.
What can be said safely
The Brentwood confrontation, the refusal by representatives of Essex communities and the rapid escalation into wider revolt remain part of the established sequence. The documentary caution concerns attribution: the Patent Roll supports John Bampton’s presence in the Crown’s Essex administrative network, but the specific claim that this surviving appointment made him a poll-tax commissioner is not established by that roll.
The spokesman commonly called Thomas Baker presents a similar problem. The Anonimalle Chronicle does not name the spokesman. Later identification draws on a different chronicle tradition and an inference that has often been repeated without its original qualification.
The larger lesson
This is a good example of why source hierarchy matters. The earliest narrative source can preserve details that an administrative roll does not. The administrative roll can correct or complicate a name supplied by the narrative. Neither source automatically cancels the other. The task is to keep each claim attached to the document that actually supports it.
Key record: Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Richard II, 1377–1381, p.571, membrane 32d, Essex Commission of the Peace, 12 November 1380; General Index, s.v. Bampton, John de, of co. Essex.
