A Dream of John Ball; and, A King's Lesson

I do not ask thee if thou thinkest we are right to play the pla

hast read books; and withal, in some way that I cannot name, thou knowest more than we; as though with thee the world had lived longer than with us.

the years to come to tell thee some little of their tale; and

eaven, to tell me what shall be? If that be so tell me straight out, since I had some deeming hereof before; whereas thy speech is like ours and yet unlike, and thy face hath something in it which is not after the fashion

I say not that I am come by my own will; for I know not; yet also I know not the will that hath sent me hither. And this

since thou art alive on the earth and a man like myself, tell me how deemest

wship in Essex shall not fail you; nor shall the Londoners who hate the king's uncles withstand you; nor h

said he; "but afterwar

l die who is now alive and happy, and if the soldiers be slain, and of them most not on th

wheeled and turned over the hedges and the weasel ran across the path, and the sound of the sheep-bells came to us from the downs as we sat happy on the grass; and she is dead and gone from the earth, for she pined from famine after the years of the great sickness; and my brother was slain in the French wars, and none thanked him for dying save he that stripped him of his gear; and my unwedded wife with wh

as much as I had done, and the voice that c

of their lack of knowledge shall they be cozened and betrayed when their captains are slain, and all shall come to nought by seeming; and the king's uncles shall prevail, that both they and the king may come to the shame that is appointed for them. And yet when the lords have vanquished, and all England lieth unde

t a sending from other times? Good is thy mes

rsen, the Gilds of Craft shall wax and become mightier; more recourse shall there be of foreign merchants.

bout that all men shall work and none make to work, and so shall none be robbed, and at last shall al

d come to pass, but not yet for

aking, and the church grew dar

d they shall suffer poor people to thrive just so long as their thriving shall profit the mastership and no longer; and so shall it be in those days I tell of; for there shall be king and lords and knights

sayest villeinage shall be gone? Belike their men shall pay them quit-rents and do them service, as free men may, but all this according to law and not bey

and man, and country and country; and the lords shall note that if there were less corn and less men on their lands there would be more sheep, that is to say more wool for chaffer, and that thereof they should have abundantly more than aforetime; since all the land they own, and it pays them quit-rent or service, save here and there a croft or a close of a yeoman; and all this might grow wool for them to sell to the Easterlings. Then shall England see a new thing, for whereas hitherto men h

ohn Ball: "shall all m

ere shall be no vi

se, and all men save a few shall be thra

as ye would have it; yet, as I say, few indeed shall have so much lan

he is his own and whiles his lord's; and I know a free man, and he is his own always; but how shall he be his own if he have nought whereby to make his

d I, "and by such free me

les," said he; "for how shall a woodwright

labour of them that own all things

buy it?" said John Ball. "W

s body and the power of labour that lieth therein; wit

else but his daily bread? He must win by his labour meat and dri

uffers him to work, and that master shall give to him from out of the wares he maketh enough to keep him alive, and to beget c

ot yet out of the land of riddles. The man may well do what t

est sooth