Book excerpt: Beginning as a series of scattered rural riots in late 1323, peasant insurrection escalated into a full-scale rebellion that dominated public affairs in Flanders for nearly five years. Following their own leaders, peasants defied the authority of the count of Flanders by driving his officials and their aristocratic allies from the countryside. In A Plague of Insurrection, William H. TeBrake has written the first full-length account of the rebellion.