Illustration to William Morris' A Dream of John Ball
Wood engraving, 1892
'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 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.'
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