John Ball's Sermon before the English Peasant Revolt (1381)

[struggle4progress]

Good people, things cannot go right in England and never will, until goods are held in common and there are no more villeins and gentlefolk, but we all are one and the same. In what way are those whom we call lords greater masters than ourselves? How have they deserved it? Why do they hold us in bondage? If we all spring from a single father and mother, Adam and Eve, how can they claim or prove that they are lords more than us, except by making us produce and grow wealth which they spend?

http://legalhistorysources.com/ChurchHistory220/LectureTen/JohnBall.html