New light on ‘the commotion time’ of 1549: the Oxfordshire rising.

In July 1549 the Oxfordshire commons rose in large number, and without gentry support. Somewhere in the region of several hundred armed participants marched from the south-east to the north-west of the county, pillaging parks as they went, until eventually retreating into the town of Chipping Norton. The principal catalyst for the 1549 rising seems, given the rebels’ targets and timing, to have been the common perception that the goods of the county's churches were about to be seized by the commissioners for church goods. Consequently, Oxfordshire's rebels did not head for London – they were not opposing religious reforms per se, but were contesting the Edwardian reforms as they had been imposed within their parishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]