Admirers of William Morris--among whom I count all his readers--will
recognize the personal description of John Ball as taken from his "A
Dream of John Ball." They will also note that some parts of his sermon
as well are from the same book. It seemed to me that certain bits of
Morris's imaginative work were too fine and true to be spared in any
attempt to set the blunt old poor priest before the modern reader. I
have no fear of bearing off undeserved palms; for just as a few of the
sayings of John Ball bear the marks of authenticity too clearly upon
them to be mistaken for mine, so such as are taken from Morris are as
clearly distinguished by the marks of supreme beauty and genius.
In the course of many years of close reading, it is inevitable that
there should have been woven into this book some of the ideas and
prepossessions of certain Church historians. Although many other
writers have been exceedingly helpful and suggestive, I want especially
to acknowledge my indebtedness to Renan, Kingsley, Fisher, Baldwin
Brown, Gosselin, Braun, Montalembert, Vincent, and Sheppard.
I
The great Minster of the Fens never looked lovelier than at the close
of a November day, 1379. The coloring of Fenland is not attuned to
the brightness of Spring or Summer, but there is in the late Autumn
a subtle quality that brings out its true charm. The dull browns
and yellows of the marshes, the warm red-browns of the rushes, the
pale greens of the swamp grasses with the glint of the sun low down
at their feet,--all on this day found just the right complement in
the great, heavy, gray clouds that broke here and there only to show
irregular bars of saffron sky. Just before night fell there was one
supreme moment when a patch of gold lingered in the north just over the
wonderful octagon, the glorious crown of St. Audrey, and the great west
front with its noble tower and its wealth of windows flung the orange
gleam of the setting sun over the landscape as a gauntlet proudly
thrown in the face of Night. The lordly outlines of the vast edifice
looked lordlier than ever as the slowly gathering darkness descended
and drew it up into itself.
The east wind blowing from over the sea, pungent with the odor of marsh
plants, was keen, and caused a man who was surveying the scene to
gather his thin gown more closely about him. Until he stirred, this man
might almost have been taken for a part of the landscape, so admirably
did his garb of coarse russet sacking harmonize with his surroundings.
Although he shivered slightly, he did not move from his position, but
remained with arms tightly folded on his breast, and his deep-set eyes
fixed earnestly upon the solemn pile before him. A solitary figure
he stood in the vast stretch of sky and land, and he felt himself
peculiarly alone. Yet as he faced the Cathedral there was no sign of
faltering or dread in his face, but rather a distinct note of defiance.
Not long before, the stately procession of priests had departed from
the Vesper service. A choir boy of angelic countenance, but impish
spirit, had for an instant trailed his violet robe in the dust and
flung the stone he picked up straight at the russet form. Not a priest
in line but envied the boy. Outwardly, the russet priest showed no
sign. He thought of St. Francis who had been stoned by the very ones
who later placed those stones under his direction. Also he thought of
the stoning of One greater than St. Francis.
One year before, at Oxford, Robert Annys had bidden farewell to his
beloved master, John Wyclif, and had become one of his noble band of
poor priests,--or russet priests, as they were familiarly dubbed,--who
went about the country, preaching the Gospel and teaching the people
how to read, that they might bring Holy Writ more closely into their
lives. As a student, he had passed many happy years by the side of
his great master at Balliol, translating the Bible into the language
of the people so that they might come to know God and love God by
themselves without the shadow of the priestly office ever between.
Nevertheless, although he had been well content to pass all his life in
that beautiful manner, when the time came that his master ordered him
out into the world, he went without a murmur and bravely, empty handed,
with no more thought of the morrow than had the twelve whom Christ had
bidden:--
"Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor wallet, nor bread,
nor money; neither have two coats."
Since then he had lived close to the people, he had been of the people.
He had come to them, not with the crumbs from the Communion table but
with the strong bread of life. He had preached the Gospel in the fields
while the heat rose in palpitating waves, and on the downs while the
hail beat on his bare head; he had prayed over them while the shears
dripped white from the sheep of their overlord; he had hungered with
them and thirsted with them and shared such coarse food as they had; he
had watched with them as some worn soul departed from its worn body.
His way had led to no sumptuous oratories of towered castles, to no
cushioned _prie-dieux_ in scented chambers. He had shrived, not grand
seigneurs and haughty dames whose momentary comfort had been disturbed
by the pricking of a superficial regret, but strong, simple souls who
trembled from the sway of tremendous feeling--men who thirsted for
the blood of their child's betrayer, victims who raged at infamous
injustice and brooded over desperate means to escape their thraldom.
No lightly felt peccadilloes were confessed to him, but the agony and
shame of those whose tortured souls hung betwixt heaven and hell.
And he had grown to love this life. He had thought to have a peculiar
aptitude for letters, and his master had never altered translation
wrought by him. Yet he knew now that his gift lay rather in swaying
men, and one short year had done much to make his name known from
Sussex to Lincolnshire. No wonder, then, that he had joy in his work,
for it is not given to man to know greater happiness than this: to
watch the face of a fellow-man kindle with a new and great hope, which
he knows he has planted within the other's breast. Yet deep down within
there had been slowly growing in his heart a secret questioning. He
had been warned by his master to hold himself strictly to the work
of spreading the knowledge of the Gospel, and he had been clearly
enjoined against undoing the peace of the realm and setting serfs
against their masters, as a certain mad priest named John Ball was even
at that moment doing, both by the reckless violence of his language
and the revolutionary quality of his theories. It was easy for Wyclif
in the shelter of the University to warn against over-haste and to
protest that education must come before a lasting reform could be
accomplished, and that one must build on solid foundations for the
future. It was not so easy for the wandering poor priest, with the
sufferings of the people ever before him, to refrain from pressing the
Gospel into immediate action. Annys began very soon to suspect that
it was impossible to feed the people with the knowledge of Holy Writ
and expect no indigestion to come from the strange diet. If Life truly
began to be tested by Holy Writ, some idols must fall--if the Church
Hierarchical, alas for it! If Christian society were to be modelled on
the plain teachings of its Founder, some strange sights would be seen.
Annys had not needed to be stoned to feel rise up within him a fierce
hatred toward that stately church that reared its head so haughtily
to heaven. Ah, truly he held with St. Boniface of old that "in the
catacombs the candlesticks were of wood, but the priests were golden.
_Now the candlesticks are of gold._"
That morning, when he preached to the men in the fields and told them
in homely language of the life of their Lord and His death to save
them, a summons had come from the Bishop of Ely bidding Robert Annys
appear before him. And, wondering what the Bishop could want of him
(unless to order him peremptorily from his diocese, in which case it
was scarcely necessary to do so in person), he had had himself rowed
over the wide-spreading meres that separated the isle of Ely from the
mainland. As he slowly approached the glorious pile, there came over
him with a curious stir the memory of that King Canute who had also
been thus rowed across and who had bade the oarsmen pause midway that
he might listen to the beautiful chanting of the monks.
Truth to tell, for all his passionate disdain for what lay outside of
the true heart of Christianity, he was more profoundly moved by the
beauty of Ely Minster than he would have dreamed it possible. For he
was an ardent student of history, and here before him was wrought as
true and noble an epic as ever was writ on parchment. Into these noble
arches and soaring towers, these delicate pinnacles, these exquisite
traceries, surely the adoring heart of Mediævalism had lavishly poured
itself. This russet priest was an artist and worshipped beauty,
hence he could not look on Ely unmoved. He was an Englishman to the
fingertips, hence he could not stand on ground so alive with heroic
traditions and not thrill to the memory of them. As he stood there
in the gathering darkness before the church, he saw a long struggle
before him. He saw the Bishop of Ely and the whole powerful Church of
Rome leagued against him. And why? Because he followed Christ's clear
mandates. Yet he was certain that nothing that the Hierarchy could do
would conquer him. He would stand to the end, alone if need be, but
fearlessly true to his convictions, true to the master who had sent him
out into the world to do His work. Something of the grim determination
of those Saxons of old entered into him, those hardy warriors who had
fought so many hundred years before on that very spot and made their
last dogged stand against the conquering Normans; something, too, of
the undaunted will of that old monk-architect, who, even amid the roar
of the falling walls of the old tower of Ely, had conceived the great
new tower, the wonderful octagon which was unique in all England.
No! no threat of imprisonment or other punishment on the morrow could
make him swerve from the course he had chosen. He would continue to go
among his people with only a book and a bag. His people who awaited
him among the hayricks, who let plough rest idle in the furrow or
tossed aside the spade that they might hearken to him. _His people!_
His eyes dimmed with tears as he thought of the pathetic figure of
Piers Ploughman standing in the fields, the light of a great wonder
in his face,--Piers in the condition of a man who has had his eyes
bandaged for a long time, and now for the first time has had the
bandage removed. In the strange light that now bursts upon him the
most familiar objects take on a new and strange appearance. In the
transformation that is going on about him, all that his honest heart
has held stable, omnipotent, eternal, now sways unsteadily before him:
Feudal Lords, Sheriffs, King's men and Kings; Fees in Tithe, Manorial
Holdings, Rights of Labor, Acts of Parliament, and even Holy Church
herself. No, no, come what may, he could never desert Piers now:--
"One side is ...
Popes, cardinals, and prelates,
Priours, abbots of great estates.
The other side ben poor and pale;
And seeme caitives sore a-cale."
The night closed slowly down upon the Cathedral. At last its great mass
was felt rather than seen.
"Thy strength against mine," the poor priest murmured, as he lingered
yet an instant.
"Thy strength against mine."