If God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bonded, and who free. – John Ball
We read and hear about social injustices, racial discrimination and economic disparity in our own times. But sad to say, these have been part of civilized societies since time immemorial. It was part of the grand scheme of things in much of the ancient world, as it continues to be in much of the modern world. An upper, more privileged class owned land and labor for which a working class toiled: building houses, cleaning homes, and serving lords and ladies with subservience. They tilled the soil, planted seeds, and reaped the harvests for the rich. They rarely complained because they had been brainwashed into believing this was how the great God had intended humans to live.
Whether in Greece, whose thinkers propounded the notion of democracy; in Rome, which proclaimed Pax Romana; in India, which proclaimed that all humans are but fragments of Cosmic Consciousness; in China, where the notion of peaceful flowing with the stream (Tao) was articulated; or in Japan, where Buddha’s precept of compassion was preached: all these great civilizations have witnessed and practiced marginalization of fellow humans.
Over the ages, if there have been countless individuals in all societies who have been victims of injustice, there have also arisen voices and movements against it. Rebellious spirits always find courage and power of expression to challenge social injustice. Not all of them are recorded in history, but a few of them are remembered, though not universally.
Such a one appeared in England in the 14th century when the aristocracy of Church and State lived in pleasure and plenty from the tithes and taxes of peasants in poverty. The name of this trouble-making priest from York, England was John Ball. He preached in ways worthy of a true religious leader for he deeply cared for the common folk. His language was prescient of Marxist rabble-rousers of later centuries, and of many voices that are rising in our own world of obscene economic imbalance.
“My good friends,” he is said to have once exclaimed, “things cannot go on well in England, nor ever will until everything shall be in common; when there shall be neither vassal nor lord, and all distinctions leveled; when the lords shall be no more masters than ourselves. How well have they used us! And for what reason do they hold us in bondage?” Bold and revolutionary words for the fourteenth century.
John Ball went on to ask, and not just rhetorically, how there could be lords and serfs, masters and servants if all human beings had descended from Adam and Eve, as it says in the Holy Book. He reminded the peasants of the ermine and fur that the privileged class enjoyed while the poor wore simple and tattered clothes. “They have wines, spices, and fine bread,” he went on to complain, “when we have only rye and the refuse of the straw; and if we drink, it must be water.”
He was excommunicated and his right to preach was revoked. John Ball continued to preach to peasants in the market place after they came out of church on Sundays. With his words and reasoning, he made the peasants aware of social injustice, causing legitimate worry to the establishment. The archbishop of Canterbury had John Ball thrown in prison at least three times, but each time he was released he resumed with even greater vigor, sometimes putting his thoughts into rhyming couplets like:
When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the gentleman?
Instigated by John Ball and others, the peasants of Kent went to King Richard II to redress their grievances. The king wasn’t helpful. The mob marched to the Tower of London, just as Parisians were to go to Versailles 1400 years later. The crowd became unruly, and created much disturbance. They killed a lord or two, but the king and his forces managed to quell the rebellion. John Ball was brought to the angry King Richard and hanged right in the royal presence. Later, his head was severed, stuck on a pike and displayed on London Bridge.
Christ too preached fairness and compassion for the poor, and for this, his followers were venerating him. But when John Ball said pretty much the same thing, people who claimed to revere Christ declared John to be a mad preacher, put him in prison, and finally finished him off. One of the great puzzles in human history is the incompatibility between preaching and practice in the framework of any religion.
It is surprising that so many centuries after John Ball and others like him all over the world, a great many people still seem to be unmoved by the continuing injustice and marginalization of fellow humans. But we should not forget that though in some matters, things seem to linger on in their ancient unpleasant modes, in many ways there have been significant positive changes too, thanks to the John Balls of every generation.
Perhaps preachers of traditional religions as well as charismatic political leaders need to inspire the masses even more to enlightened values and wholesome behavior. After all, they are the ones who shape people’s minds.
Spurts of Thought 