The peasant: hero or villain?

They have had a seminal role in modern history - the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Uprising in Russia - both of which countries abolished its monarch -and the Peasants' Revolt in England that saw the end of feudalism.

So why does the word 'peasant' have such a bad connotation? Once regarded as heroes, the sans culotte is now a term of insult.

Quote:

A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or farmer, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord.[1][2] In Europe, peasants were divided into three classes according to their personal status: slave, serf, and free tenant. Peasants either hold title to land in fee simple, or hold land by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.[3] The word "peasant" is—and long has been—often used pejoratively to refer to poor or landless farmers and agricultural workers, especially in the poorer countries of the world in which the agricultural labor force makes up a large percentage of the population. The implication of the term is that the "peasant" is uneducated, ignorant, and unfamiliar with the more sophisticated mannerisms of the urban population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant

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