Fighting against the peasants.

[s_taillebois]

M. Chandler, quite true, apparently New Orlean's has it's fair share of chaos, as does the reservation. But it is directed within the same groups, or it tends to be so. The paradise in which I reside, for example has the highest murder rate in the entire US. But once the border's crossed, it's like a different country (which to a point it is).
Excepting for the c. 1840's NYC and the NYC draft riots, Haymarket, the 1877 RR stike and the more recent goings on in LA and Watts, Detroit etc, the US has not seen that much mass violence by the underclasses. But the US did have a release as it were, namely the manifest destiny period (which obviously did the Indians no good). And certainly more stable than the chaos in the late middle ages. But a like situation existed there also, after the development of the wheeled moldshare plow, they did have an equivalent land expansion. And the Crusades sent a fair amount of frustrated people elsewhere-even by following idiots like Peter the Hermit. (Bohemond's behavior during the crusades, being a good example of this condition amongst the upper classes, Guiscard had excluded him from primogeniture) I'd wonder how much the underclass revolts of the 1300's and 1400's on..had their roots in the earlier period. But then, plague, gunpowder, and the printing press played a obvious role.
And probably your quite right, insofar as these events quell out when the lower orders lose their martial traditions or rights. Probably amongst the reasons England had fairly few of these events, as compared to France, in the late Gothic. But then again, sending your yeomanry over to loot a few French towns probably defused some of the aggression...or sent it elsewhere anyway.
Ironically, we don't quite have a modern equivalent interest to the period interestin the fechtbuchs. ( many of the gun rags are more fantasy than useable tactics) When the fechtbuchs were printed, amongst the primary users were guilds, trader caravans and others not traditionally amongst the armour plated entitled. We seem to be going the reverse direction, as any learning which incorporates potential violence (or the discipline to use it, or not) is viewed as a virtual social disease.

[s_taillebois]

Should have clarified somewhat better-in the case of the English, their tradition of armed yeomanry, did make the aristocracy somewhat more accomodating to the lower orders. Although they did have their revolts, perhaps weirdly enough the greater martial capacity of their lower orders, kept the social peace. At least as compared to France,or what later became Germany.

[JeanryChandler]

They had some nasty ones! Read of Wat Tyler rebellion, and of course, Cromwell!

Some historians suggest that the democratic tendancies which did exist in England came from the Vikings...

Jr

[s_taillebois]

True they did, but for some strange reason, they managed to avoid the mess the German's got into in the reformation (when even Martin Luther advocated killing the unruly lower orders) or France. As you note, it may have been a cultural influence from the Vikings (or their successors the Norman's).
Even up to the 18th century, the English somehow evaded the entire chaos (such as the French Revolution fell into). The American revolution was almost genteel by comparison.
Mayhaps it derived from the Tudor (and York, Lancastrian etc from earlier) tradition of giving the yeomanry a share in loot from overseas expansions.
Cromwell, true, very violent. But in some terms, the Cromwellian period, was a revolution of the privilaged, albiet not titled. Sort of a revolt by the gentry.