world, they said, there were no bondmen, wherefore they maintained
that none ought to be bond, without he did treason to his lord, as
Lucifer did to God; but they said they could have no such battle,[1]
for they were neither angels nor spirits, but men formed to the
similitude of their lords, saying why should they then be kept so
under like beasts; the which they said they would no longer suffer,
for they would be all one, and if they laboured or did anything for
their lords, they would have wages therefor as well as other. And of
this imagination was a foolish priest in the country of Kent called
John Ball, for the which foolish words he had been three times in the
bishop of Canterbury's prison: for this priest used oftentimes on the
Sundays after mass, when the people were going out of the minster, to
go into the cloister and preach, and made the people to assemble about
him, and would say thus: 'Ah, ye good people, the matters goeth not
well to pass in England, nor shall not do till everything be common,
and that there be no villains nor gentlemen, but that we may be all
united together, and that the lords be no greater masters than we be.
What have we deserved, or why should we be kept thus in servage? We be
all come from one father and one mother, Adam and Eve: whereby can
they say or shew that they be greater lords than we be, saving by that
they cause us to win and labour for that they dispend? They are
clothed in velvet and camlet furred with grise, and we be vestured
with poor cloth: they have their wines, spices and good bread, and we
have the drawing out of the chaff[2] and drink water; they dwell in
fair houses, and we have the pain and travail, rain and wind in the
fields; and by that that cometh of our labours they keep and maintain
their estates: we be called their bondmen, and without we do readily
them service, we be beaten; and we have no sovereign to whom we may
complain, nor that will hear us nor do us right. Let us go to the
king, he is young, and shew him what servage we be in, and shew him