This episode examines a brutal leadership failure from medieval France: the Jacquerie Revolt, a revolt born from neglect, fear, and a ruling class that mistook exhaustion for obedience.

In 1358, France was collapsing under the weight of the Hundred Years’ War, the devastation of the Black Death, and a fractured government left leaderless after John II of France was captured by the English. With authority divided and protection absent, nobles raised taxes, demanded unpaid labor, and failed to defend the countryside from mercenary violence.

The result was explosive. Peasants rose up across northern France, attacking manor houses and killing nobles in acts of raw, personal vengeance. Leadership on every side failed. Urban reformers like Étienne Marcel treated rural anger as leverage rather than responsibility. Peasant leader Guillaume Cale trusted alliances that collapsed the moment power reasserted itself.

We break down how bad leadership decisions, management failure, and political cynicism turned social crisis into massacre. When nobles finally united, they crushed the revolt with overwhelming brutality—restoring order without addressing a single underlying problem.

This episode explores how organizational failure occurs when leaders ignore pressure until it explodes, then respond with force instead of reform. The Jacquerie shows what happens when authority listens only to itself—and learns the wrong lesson from violence.

If you’re interested in leadership mistakes, leadership under pressure, power and legitimacy, and how neglect breeds catastrophe, this story offers a timeless warning: repression may restore silence, but it never restores trust.

Learn why leaders fail—not because they miscalculate tactics, but because they refuse to understand desperation before it turns deadly.