True or false

[Swampster]

I think we have another spectrum.
We have bandits who live more or less out of the rest of society other than preying upon it. These may be those who the prevailing society has never really integrated in the way the Persian Empire was said to be like a mist, occupying the lower lands but not the higher lands. Or they may be those who for whatever reason have left the rest of society - runaway slaves, the dispossessed, the dislocated, ex-soldiers, misfits, outlaws... As their group grows, a society develops but as a modus vivendi rather than with a particular aim. The bacaudae may fit in this category though with so many groups over a fairly wide area and period one can over-generalise.

Generally these would have no ideology other than survival and possibly personal enrichment though often the gained riches were either squandered or hoarded though individuals may have gained and maintained influence through their distribution. Land is gained as a safe haven from which to operate rather than as something to be ruled as such. Port Royal in the pirate days has some of this aspect though a degree of co-operation with the supposed colonial power was often in evidence. If the safe haven becomes sufficiently established, it may become the nucleus of a new state, but not in itself through a process of rebellion. It may later become the core of a rebellion, but through some additional motivation if only because successful resistance to an outside authority gives the bandits ideas. At this point, the bandits become rebels.

We then have those who operate in a similar way but within an existing hierarchy. Robber barons if you will. They possess a position which they (mis)use. The degree of tolerance depends on the society - in many that is simply the way of the world and if displaced by others it is merely to indulge in the same abuse of power, not to improve society.

I think either of these may be termed as bandits rather than rebels. Rebels may act against them, especially the latter. Their stated aim is usually that they wish to improve their own lot which may be by becoming the next robber barons or by a genuine attempt to improve society. Rebels may also gain their support, with bandits realising that they may have the power to change society. "Do not despise the snake for having no horns, for who is to say it will not become a dragon?"

We also have those rebels who do not wish to change society or their place in it but to remove individuals or to change policies. We often have instances where rebels emphasise their support for the king but wish to remove hated advisors. These may be peasants, the bourgeoisie or the nobility. Such a rebellion may lead to pillage murder etc. but usually with only a short term gain in mind. The destruction of the Savoy Palace was a statement against John of Gaunt rather than some attempt to make strategic or even monetary gains (supposedly looting by one rioter led to his death at the hands of the others).
Then there are the rebels who seek to overthrow the whole order of society, replacing it with another of their own choosing (in theory) through all or part of the territory.  IS's policy of death and destruction is a deliberate choice as a way of achieving aims. It is more than an insurgency where you keep hitting the enemy until they get fed up of resisting - this is a policy of conquest. The training of the Iraqi army has had to change with tactics reverting to those used against an enemy army rather than an insurgency.

As for legitimacy, there are so many different ways in which this can be expressed. It may be justified as being the loss of the mandate of heaven by the rulers, the abuse of ancestral rights, the dastardliness of the king's advisors. Bandits can become rebels and the line between the two can depend where one is sitting. Take a certain group who lived in Chinese swamps.

One of the weakest judicial claims is to base legitimacy on right of conquest, yet that was Henry VII's stated claim since his claim by inheritance was rather dubious. Even if the exclusion from inheritance of his branch is ignored, then even his own mother had the right to the crown before he did. His marriage to the York line essentially increased his legitimacy as well as reducing dynastic tensions.

[Jim Webster]

The Bacudae are an interesting case.
They may have been different things in different centuries.

The earlier ones may not have been a 'government' as such, more an 'informal anarchist collective' and they were more aiming at preventing government rather than creating one.
The later ones may actually have been people who would normally have governed as part of the Roman State but just refused to deal with the Roman state. Effectively they drew their legitimacy from the 'real' Empire, not the degraded current one.
But yes, they are the best contenders I can think of

Even with various peasants' revolts we get the slogan "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman." Which I suppose is an attempt to give biblical legitimacy to the revolt.

[Nick Harbud]

Returning to earth for a moment, the definition of war as politics by other means (a precis, rather than a quote) we do end up in the Middle Ages with the problem of what politics was.  A lot seems to have been around the interests of different classes (the nobility used armed might against what they thought was the undermining of their priviledges by "tyrants" like John or Richard II, the peasants revolted against over taxation and other grievances, the Middle classes tended toward political leverage gained from financing warfare).  There was the faint stirrings of pursuit of religion by other means in Oldcastle's revolt, a theme more common in Europe.  We also had the pursuit of legal redress by other means, such as the dispute over the Fastolf legacy which led to the siege of Caister Castle in 1469.

Clauswitzian analysis of the Peasant's Revolt can easily dismiss it as a warlike act.  It meets two criteria in that it was violent (people were killed) and political (it had coherently expressed messages to the government including abolition of serfdom and tax reduction.)  However, it fails on the grounds of intrumentality (the deployment of violent means to achieve political ends.)  Setting fire to books in the Temple and attacking gaols are hardly likely to advance one's cause and therefore constitute mindless violence rather than an act of war.

[Erpingham]

Clauswitzian analysis of the Peasant's Revolt can easily dismiss it as a warlike act.  It meets two criteria in that it was violent (people were killed) and political (it had coherently expressed messages to the government including abolition of serfdom and tax reduction.)  However, it fails on the grounds of intrumentality (the deployment of violent means to achieve political ends.)  Setting fire to books in the Temple and attacking gaols are hardly likely to advance one's cause and therefore constitute mindless violence rather than an act of war.

I disagree.  There are two tiers of politics which the Peasant's Revolt demonstrates.  There is the higher, idealistic, element of egalitarianism of John Ball, though the degree to which it influenced the rank and file of the revolt is moot.  However, there was certainly a current of anti-authoritarianism (burning palaces and books, opening gaols etc).  What isn't in dispute is that the revolt had a real intention of creating political change by replacing the "evil counsellors" around the king, especially his treasury officials who were considered responsible for an inequitable tax regime, and extracting "confirmations" of "traditional" rights.  Richard dispersed most of the rebels around London by issuing pardons, remissions and confirmations of rights, not by military force, which points quite clearly to what the rebels thought their achievable political aims were.