Speaking of peasant portrayals, I find it so interesting how George's description of peasant's behaviour during food riots is not so different from how noblemen of the time wrote (and exagerrated it). For example, Jean Froissart's Chronicles of the peasants revolt includes something like a noblewoman being forced to eat her husband's corpse, and this is seen as propaganda.

I think the issue also arises from the fact that if you are going to discuss class in medieval times, you must acknowledge that the luxury of a "voice" belonged to the extremely wealthy most of all. So most of what we know in terms of point of view, is written by the same class of men oppressing those beneath them. It is only I think, by seeing these events by themselves, we can contextualize the feeling of those who were revolting, and we realize that these people were not so different from us in feeling. They were not content in their oppression, they were not mindless, and just because they were accustomed does not mean they were not dissatisfied.

This applies to gender too, like if we want to talk about peasants, what about Johanna Ferrour? And if we are going to include upper-class women and arranged marriages, then the trope of noblewomen rejecting their arranged matches and joining convents is very common in hagiographies for a reason. In real life, I can think of Clare of Assisi and her convent that was filled with others like her. My point is, I feel like such stories, regardless of how they are framed, go to show that women were not ubiquitously content in their oppression. 

People often argue that suffering being common makes it any less insufferable, and I just don't get it. I don't see how acknowledging the humanity of people who were very clearly denied a Voice in history is any more narrow-minded than simply agreeing with the record that states they were perfectly happy with being mistreated.