Jaycee Woods

New story idea…A fictional story based on the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. It is set in modern times but people are identified by feudal roles. The concept is to draw parallels between modern life and the feudal great chain of being. Are we just peasants laboring for our politician lords to feed their retainers in our modern bureaucracy?

I found humor in the idea of a modern story where the owner of the TV station is called the bishop, the unions are called guilds, the police chief is a sheriff, the police officer is a bailiff, businessmen are merchants, and payroll clerks are tax collectors. I didn’t want it to be another person doing a modernized Robin Hood so I opted for the historical Peasants’ Revolt as a model.

This idea came from a conversation comparing the relative scale of profits vs. taxes in consumer product prices. The scale of the tax burden plus the regulatory control over property by government led to an unfavorable comparison of us contemporaries to sharecroppers with us being the overburdened sharecroppers of politicians. From there, I extended the comparison to feudalism.