The Language of God and the People by Eric Vuillard

After less than a year, Muntzer was forced to leave Zwickau. He then went to Bohemia. The place was in ferment. They were still reeling from the Great Schism. Heresy was rampant. A yearning for purity swept over the land, galvanizing the masses, cut short the tired old chatter. Suddenly, the Spirit entered people’s homes. At night, frogs croaked an unnameable truth: They would name it. The vulture’s beak gnawed on the flesh of corpses. They would make it speak. And so it followed that the Bible should be accessible to human reason. The great leap had first been made in England, two centuries earlier.

It was John Wycliffe who had the idea –just a tiny idea, barely a notion, but one that would make a huge noise –that there exists a direct relationship between man and God. From that initial idea, logically it followed that anyone could guide themselves using the scriptures. And that second idea led to a third: The clergy is no longer  necessary. Ergo: the Bible had to be translated into English. Wycliffe –who evidently was not short on ideas – had two more terrifying thoughts, such as  proposing that popes be chosen by drawing lots. In his fervor, now a hairbreadth from madness, he declared that slavery was a sin.

 Then he averred that the clergy should take a vow of poverty. After that, to really piss people off, he repudiated transubstantiation as a mental aberration. And as the icing on the cake, his most terrifying idea of all, he preached the equality of all human beings.

There followed a rain of papal bulls.. The pope got mad, and when a pope gets mad, it rains papal bulls. Translate the Vulgate into English? How awful! Today, the lowliest user’s guide ins in English; they speak English everywhere; in train stations, business offices, airports; English is the language of merchandise, and these days, merch is God. But back then, Latin was used for public announcements, while English remained the lingo of ragmen and roughnecks. And here was John, translating the Vulgate, the divine Latin of Saint Jerome, into British, the pidgin of lunkheads, not to mention refuting transubstantiation – what is he, crazy?- and sending his disciples, the poor, out to the sticks to spread his doctrine. He’s been reading too much Augustine and Lactantius; his mind is gone. The Lollards propagated his ludicrous ideas about holy poverty, an egalitarian soup lapped up by the little bumpkins of Devon. On their dilapidated farms where their children were dropping like flies, it made sense to them, that direct relationship with God they were being told about, without the mediation of priests or tithes or the grand lifestyles of cardinals. This gospel of poverty was their daily life!

“Leave everything and follow me,” Christ is supposed to have said; the commandment is infinite, it demands a new humanity. Enigmatic and naked. It sweeps away the grandeur of the world. One kind of poverty destroys, another exalts.

There is a great mystery in that:  To love the poor means to love baneful poverty, to stop despising it. It means to love mankind. For man is poor. Irremediably. We are poverty, buffeted between desire and disgust. At that moment in history Wycliffe sets in motion what will become a Reformation. God and the people speak the same language.

Naturally, Rome condemned John Wycliffe, despite  his profound and sincere words, he finished his days alone. More than forty yeas after his death, condemned by the Council of Constance, his body was exhumed and his bones reduced to ashes, Their loathing died hard.

For his words moved the poor and stirred up great disorder. One of Wycliffe’s disciples was a peasant named John Ball. We don’t know when he was born, or anything about his parents, or much of anything about him. His traces are lost in te tide of ordinary fates. Around 1370, he began roving the fields, along verdant valleys, between hills. He went from farm to farm, hamlet to hamlet; he preached against the rich and powerful, talked to the vagabonds, ne’er-do-wells, beggars. He versified and sowed his illicit beliefs along the way: ‘If God would have had any bondman from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free,’ he declared, crisscrossing the countryside. He wandered, and the hinges of old thinking burst off the doors; and heigh ’neath the garlands of holly, and ho in the morning dew, shadow absorbed by shadow, on a rostrum of dung. He preached to jacks-of-all-trades, to poor wetnurses, to urchins, trembling all the while.

His speeches were stitched together from every day proverbs, common morality. But John Ball knew that the equality of souls had always existed in the leafy thickets; he could feel it guiding him, making proclamations. They nicknamed him the ardent prior of the pickets; he was frightening.

In 1380, Parliament passed a new poll tax, and suddenly the peasants revolted. The uprising began in Brentwood: roads were blocked, castles burned. Then it spread to Kent, Norfolk, and Sussex. And John Ball ranted, preached human equality. The inns were full of pilgrims and crackpots. In Colchester, among the bundlers of wool and strings of onions, people were talking; in East Anglia, they were talking; everywhere, the poll; tax was questioned and hierarchies challenged. Noblemen fled. Soldiers deserted. The villager streets were littered with wreckage, overturned carts, sacks of earth. The powers that be were alarmed. The Duke of Lancaster issued his orders: John Ball must be placed under arrest. In May, they managed to lay hands on the ardent prior and imprisoned him in Maidstone.

It was then that another man awoke. Not very far away in Kent, an ex-soldier who had served in France went back to being a peasant. One morning, the tax collector came for the tax. Wat Tyler was out, having gone to the forest to chop wood. His daughter answered the door, and the man came into their home. He demanded their contribution, but the girl couldn’t pay him as they had barely enough to live on. The tax collector tore off her dress, threw her onto the straw mat, and took his payment. She was fifteen. She was pretty. She was virtue itself. But no one made a virtue of poverty and its children. Her lips turned blue; she was cold. She staggered down the little path bordered by blackberry bushes. Her father saw her from a distance. Huge masses of clouds skimmed the tree tops. The deer’s hide quivered. Wat Tyler carried his daughter back home, holding her in his arms like a corpse. He entrusted her to neighbors and ran off, ran cross the hill, hoping to catch up with the tax collector’s carriage by cutting through the wood. He reached the highway and crouched low, out of breath. He wondered if the man had already passed by, but moments later came the pounding of hooves. He heard the call of the lark and felt himself  shed a cold tear. The horseman appeared. Wat burst upon the road, raised his arm, and struck. His mallet  split the man’s skull. The rider fell, the horse whinnied and swerved. Another blow, to the back, in the arid light of the day, fracturing his shoulder. All that remained of him was a dead lump of flesh.

Then the peasants of Kent rose up. Wat Tyler took the lead and the band headed toward Maidstone. There, what happened is not certain. The tory goes that upon the insurgents’ arrival, the Archbishop of Canterbury freed John Ball to  pacify the crowd. But once greed, John Ball led his partisans to the archbishop’s palace, which they sacked. Then they went to Lambeth. On the way they took the archbishop captive, then proceeded to attack the tower of London. Rain drenched their faces. The peasants marched in no particular order, and they were many, more than a hundred thousand. They came from everywhere, the impoverished masses banded together. A dog ran off under the sun, a woman went mad and started kissing everyone, a brute killed his master, holy water burned a child’s face. In London, there was panic. The king didn’t know what to do. Burghers and nobles wandered like shadows through the corridors. Whispers, cries. The paupers knocked down prison doors as they went, freed the captives, and men emerged from dungeons, eyes squeezed shut, unable to see. Old men and wraiths. The embraced them, gave them food and drink. They died. At least that’s how the fable goes.

Furious, the peasants yanked judges from their beds, dragged them into the public square, and cut off their heads. The weather was lovely. A throng had gathered, panting and sweating; never had anybody seem so many people. The Thames was shining, the water sparkling, screams filled the city and passed through the walls. Gulls flew overhead, but no one heard them. And Wat Tyler sent men to talk to the crowd and forbid looting under pain of death; he organized bivouacs. By day’s end, a delegation was in place; the insurgents demanded to speak to the king. To the king? At that moment, he still seemed to be above any equality, a great amorphous countenance, the supreme authority. They appealed to him. He was the last guarantor of justice on earth, or so they believed. Wasn’t it parliament that had voted for the diabolical poll tax? The king didn’t want it, he would listen to the people, he would come to meet them on the shores of truth. But the king didn’t come. And so the insurgents went deeper into London, fraternized with the population, harangued in the public squares, ran through the streets. Now they were demanding the abolition of serfdom. Might as well call for the downfall of society.

Nights abounded in celebration, alcohol, and music; the past seemed to melt away, and authority to crumble. They attacked the Savoy Palace, the most prestigious house in England, home of thee Duke of Lancaster, the king’s uncle, whom they accused of supporting the tax. The duke eluded the mob, but the palace was burned. Furnishings and tapestry were torn down and thrown into the Thames in a state of jubilation. Everything was reduced to ash. The king was fourteen years old; he took refuge in the Tower of London. They didn’t know what to do.

From that point one everything happened quickly. On June 13, the king tried to flee. He crossed the Thames in a boat, but in Greenwich the masses prevented him from landing. The next day he road off on horseback, but the caught up with him at Mile End. There, he finally negotiated, granting them everything: freedom for the serfs, abolition of the tax, general amnesty for the rebels. But it was no longer enough. The Archbishop of Canterbury tried to escape. They immediately dragged him to the hill north of the tower and beheaded him. The houses bordering the square were silent, the windows were open, but no one made a sound. What had been immutable was now broken,.  Robert de Hales, the lord treasurer, was beheaded in turn, along with other high-placed personages. Each head was displayed on London Bridge, above the southern gatehouse, impaled on a pike.

The king resumes negotiations with Wat Tyler, in Smithfield, where he repeats his promises. The rebels aren’t buying it. They doubt the monarch’s sincerity. Hasn’t he twice tried to escape? But the king assures them that all their demands will be met. He is wearing a small blue cap, a gold tunic, and sporting handsome, flowing locks. The is little more than a child. Wat Tyler hesitates. His comrades want guarantees. The barons flanking the king are hostile, the atmosphere is tense, the horses skittish. Suddenly, some troublemakers insult Tyler and try to knock him down. His horse swerves, a soldier pulls a dagger, and all hell breaks loose. A man is wounded, his leg spurts blood. Horses turnaround, foaming, people jostle one another. Rocks fly. Faces are bathed in sunlight. A cloud passes, And suddenly William Walworth, the lord mayor, jabs his sword and injures Wat Tyler. Tyler’s chest is soaked in red, a terrible red. His eyes roll back; time creeps forward in a tortoise shell. He falls from his horse, breaks his hip, his armor clanks. Everything explodes in a great commotion, shouts, bodies trampled, a horseman falls, then another. Then a rider comes up to Tyler, who is prostrate on the ground; they look at each other – all the kings on earth whisper their simian breath into the rider’s ear; eternity tries to close the locks, but the gate is open – and the rider finishes him off,. Wat Tyler lies on the ground, disemboweled. Then everything speeds up some more. The king pushes the rebels back and speaks out: He embraces their cause and assures them of his support. They have nothing to fear – he swears it!- but they must disperse immediately. Fear and disorder do the rest. This huge crowd, come to London to fight, is suddenly overcome by a great, overpowering sadness. They no longer know who to listen to, and they disband. They head away from London in small groups, dreading

One of the king’s captains, Robert Knolles, is lying in wait outside the city. With his men, he swoops down on the rebels and slaughters them. And the reprisals are only the beginning. The king himself leaves for Kent at the head of his regiment. Armed bands crisscross the countryside, tracking  the now dispersed insurgents, hunting them down like  animals; many thousands of peasants are executed on the spot. The king revokes all his concessions. The  repression is cold, intractable and lasts nearly two months. John Bull I finally arrested and immediately hanged and quartered. There is no more talk of repealing the poll tax, and serfdom will not be abolished for another two hundred years.

And yet, it began anew. John Ball and Wat Tyler were reincarnated in Jack Cade. In 1450, he issued a manifesto, ‘The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent,’ and was given a nickname John Amend-all. That July, at the head of a band of five thousand men, peasants, artisans, decommissioned soldiers, and shopkeepers, Jack Cade took the Tower of London. They beheaded the Lord High Treasurer, the beheaded the former sheriff of Kent and several other individuals. The revolutionaries again entered London, and this time they pillaged the city. One evening, Jack Cade took shelter in a garden, a shadow came forward, a knife flashed in the dark, and the rebel was but a corpse. But it wasn’t over yet. It started right up again in Sussex. John and William Merford called for the murder of nobles and priests. That autumn, their men gathered, armed with bludgeons. At Robertsbridge, they prevented the clergy from collecting dues; in Eastbourne, they rebelled against inflated land rents. They challenged the social order. By dint of raids, militias, and hangings, their rebellion was put down.