 Interpretations of the revolt have changed over the years . 17th @-@ century historians , such John Smyth , established the idea that the revolt had marked the end of unfree labour and serfdom in England . 19th @-@ century historians such as William Stubbs and Thorold Rogers reinforced this conclusion , Stubbs describing it as " one of the most portentous events in the whole of our history " . In the 20th century , this interpretation was increasingly challenged by historians such as May McKisack , Michael Postan and Richard Dobson , who revised the impact of the revolt on further political and economic events in England . Mid @-@ 20th century Marxist historians were both interested in , and generally sympathetic to , the rebel cause , a trend culminating in Hilton 's 1973 account of the uprising , set against the context of wider peasant revolts across Europe during the period . The Peasants ' Revolt has received more academic attention than any other medieval revolt , and this research has been interdisciplinary , involving historians , literary scholars and international collaboration . 
