John Ball (d. 15 July 1381) was an English Lollard priest who took a prominent part in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. July 15 is the 196th day (197th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 169 days remaining. ... Events June 12 - Peasants Revolt: In England rebels arrive at Blackheath. ... The English are an ethnic group originating in the lowlands of Great Britain and are descendent primarily from the Anglo-Saxons, the Celts with minor influences from the Scandanavians and other groups. ... Lollardy or Lollardry was the political and religious movement of the Lollards in late 14th century and early 15th century England. ... The end of the revolt: Wat Tyler killed by Walworth while Richard II watches, and a second image of Richard addressing the crowd The Peasants Revolt, Tyler’s Rebellion, or the Great Rising of 1381 was one of a number of popular revolts in late medieval Europe and is a...

Biography

Little is known of his early years, but he lived probably at York and afterwards at Colchester. What is recorded about his adult life comes from hostile sources liable to emphasize and exaggerate the extent of his political and religious radicalism. He is said to have gained considerable fame as a roving preacher, a "hedge priest" without a parish or any cure that would link him to the established order, by expounding the doctrines of John Wycliffe, but especially by his insistence on the principle of social equality. These utterances brought him into collision with the archbishop of Canterbury, and on three occasions he was committed to prison. He appears also to have been excommunicated, and in 1366 all persons were forbidden to hear him preach. York is a city in northern England, at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Wycliffe may also refer to Wycliffe Bible Translators John Wyclif (also Wycliffe or Wycliff) (c. ... Arms of the see of Canterbury The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior clergyman of the established Church of England and symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. ... Events Births Anne of Bohemia, Queen consort of Richard II of England. ...

His opinions, however, were not moderated, nor his popularity diminished by these measures, and his words had a considerable effect in stirring up the rising which broke out in June 1381. The chroniclers of the shaken establishment were convinced of widespread conspiracy implanted before the spontaneous uprising occurred, with a watchword "John the Miller grinds small, small, small" and a response "The King's son of heaven shall pay for all." Ball was in the archbishop's prison at Maidstone, Kent when the uprising began in Dartford as protests; he was quickly released by the Kentish rebels, to whom he preached at Blackheath—the insurgents' gathering place near Greenwich— an open-air sermon that incuded the following: Events June 12 - Peasants Revolt: In England rebels arrive at Blackheath. ... Maidstone is the county town of Kent, in southeast England, about 30 miles from London. ... Dartford is the principal town in the borough of Dartford. ... Blackheath is a suburb of London, divided between the London Borough of Lewisham and the London Borough of Greenwich. ...

When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?^[1] From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may ( if ye will ) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty.^[2]

Some unsympathetic sources assert that he urged his hearers to kill the principal lords of the kingdom and the lawyers; and that he was afterwards among those who rushed into the Tower of London to seize Simon of Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury. But Ball does not appear in most accounts after his speech at Blackheath; he may have sensed that events were spinning into uncontrolled violence. When the rebels had dispersed, Ball was taken prisoner at Coventry, given a trial in which, unlike most, he was permitted to speak, and hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of Richard II on July 15, 1381. Ball, who was called by Froissart "the mad priest of Kent," seems to have possessed the gift of rhyme. He voiced the feelings of a section of the discontented lower orders of society at that time, who chafed at villeinage and the lords' rights of unpaid labour, or corvée. Michelangelos Creation of Adam, from the Sistine Chapel. ... The term gentleman (from Latin gentilis, belonging to a race or gens, and man, cognate with the French word gentilhomme, the Spanish gentilhombre, and the Italian gentil uomo or gentiluomo), in its original and strict signification, denoted a man of good family, the Latin generosus (its invariable translation in English... The Tower of London, seen from the River Thames, with a view of the water gate called Traitors Gate. ... Simon Theobald a. ... The Precinct in Coventry city centre. ... To be hanged, drawn, and quartered was the penalty once ordained in England for treason. ... Richard II (January 6, 1367 – February 14, 1400) was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan The Fair Maid of Kent. He was born in Bordeaux and became his fathers successor when his elder brother died in infancy. ... July 15 is the 196th day (197th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 169 days remaining. ... Events June 12 - Peasants Revolt: In England rebels arrive at Blackheath. ... Jean Froissart (~1337 - ~1405) was one of the most important of the chroniclers of medieval France. ... A villein, otherwise known as cottar, torpare, crofter, is a serf tied to the land in the feudal system. ... Corvée, or corvée labor, is a term used in feudal societies. ...

Ball and perhaps many of the rebels who followed him found some resonance between their ideas and goals and those of Piers Plowman, a key figure in a contemporary poem putatively by one William Langland. Ball put Piers and other characters from Langland's poem into his cryptically allegorical writings which may be prophecies, motivating messages, and/or coded instructions to his cohorts. This may have enhanced Langland's real or perceived radical and Lollard affinities as well as Ball's. Page from a 14th century Psalter, showing drolleries on the right margin and a plowman at the bottom. ... Langlands Dreamer: from an illuminated initial in a Piers Plowman manuscript held at Corpus Christi College, Oxford William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman. ... Lollardy or Lollardry was the political and religious movement of the Lollards in late 14th century and early 15th century England. ...

Influenced

• Possibly William Langland and the C-text version of his poem, Piers Plowman, which certainly influenced Ball.
• Gerrard Winstanley (1609 - 1676) a religious reformer and political activist during the 1650s who was aligned with the True Levellers (the Diggers).
• William Morris (1834-1896) who wrote " A Dream of John Ball",^[3] a poetical socialist fantasy that puts nineteenth-century enlightened ideals of social equality into John Ball's mouth:

"What else shall ye lack when ye lack masters? Ye shall not lack for the fields ye have tilled, nor the houses ye have built, nor the cloth ye have woven; all these shall be yours, and whatso ye will of all that the earth beareth; then shall no man mow the deep grass for another... and he that soweth shall reap, and the reaper shall eat in fellowship the harvest that in fellowship he hath won."

• Avi "Crispin: The Cross of Lead"; Pub: Hyperion; Reprint edition (2004), ISBN 0-7868-1658-9. A children's historical novel (ages 9-12), which includes a character called John Ball based on the historical person.

Langlands Dreamer: from an illuminated initial in a Piers Plowman manuscript held at Corpus Christi College, Oxford William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman. ... Page from a 14th century Psalter, showing drolleries on the right margin and a plowman at the bottom. ... Gerrard Winstanley (1609 - September 10, 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer and political activist during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. ... Significant Events and Trends World Leaders King Frederick III of Denmark (1648 - 1670). ... For other meanings see Diggers (disambiguation) and Levellers (disambiguation) The Diggers were a group begun by Gerrard Winstanley in 1649 which called for a total destruction of the existing social order and replacement with a communistic and agrarian lifestyle based around the precepts of Christian Nationalism, wishing to rid England... William Morris, socialist and innovator in the Arts and Crafts movement William Morris, publisher Davids Charge to Solomon (1882), a stained-glass window by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris in Trinity Church, Boston, Massachusetts. ...

References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

Furter reading

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

John Ball (priest)

These sources are taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica Eleventh Edition: Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ... The original Wikisource logo. ...

• Thomas Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, edited by H. T. Riley (London, 1863-1864);
• Henry Knighton, the Chronicon, edited by Joseph Rawson Lumby (London, 1889-1895);
• Jean Froissart, Chroniques, edited by S. Luce and G. Raynaud (Paris, 1869-1897);
  • More modern version published by Penguin Classics, 1978 ISBN 0-14-044200-6
• Charles Edmund Maurice, Lives of English Popular Leaders in the Middle Ages (London, 1875);
• Charles Oman, The Great Revolt of 1381 (Oxford, 1906).
  • Republished Oxford University Press, 1969.

Thomas Walsingham (d. ... Henry Knighton or Knyghton (died England circa 1396) was a Augustinian canon at the abbey of St. ... Jean Froissart (~1337 - ~1405) was one of the most important of the chroniclers of medieval France. ... Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman (January 12, 1860 - June 23, 1946) was a notable British military historian of the early 20th century. ...

Footnotes

1. ^ "When Adam delved and Eve span,/Who was then the gentleman" Sources
   • 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
   • Webster's online Dictioary
   • The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001
   • The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996
   • BBC: VOICES OF THE POWERLESS - READINGS FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES
   • English Literature by William Joseph Long
   • Other versions
     • "When Adam dalfe and Eve spane, / Where was than the pride of man?" Richard Rolle de Hampole. Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations online claims that this is the original source for Ball's version.
     • "When Adam dalf, and Eve span, / Who was thanne a gentilman?" from Thomas Walsingham's Historia Anglicana R B Dobson 'The Peasants revolt of 1381' Pitman, Bath, 1970, pp373-375
     • "When Adam dolve, and Eve span, / Who was then the gentleman?" John Bartlett, comp. (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919. Page 871 from Hume: History of England, vol. i. chap. xvii. note 8.
     • "When Adam dug and Eve span, / Who was then a noble man?" Literature of Richard II's Reign and the Peasants' Revolt. Edited by James M. Dean
2. ^ BBC: Voices of the powerless - readings from original sources
   • R B Dobson 'The Peasants revolt of 1381' Pitman, Bath, 1970, pp373-375 quotes from Thomas Walsingham's Historia Anglicana: "When Adam dalf, and Eve span, who was thanne a gentilman? From the beginning all men were created equal by nature, and that servitude had been introduced by the unjust and evil oppression of men, against the will of God, who, if it had pleased Him to create serfs, surely in the beginning of the world would have appointed who should be a serf and who a lord" and Ball ended by recommending "uprooting the tares that are accustomed to destroy the grain; first killing the great lords of the realm, then slaying the lawyers, justices and jurors, and finally rooting out everyone whom they knew to be harmful to the community in future."
3. ^ Project Gutenberg: Dream of John Ball, A: a king's lesson