The bridge over the River Ravensbourne at Deptford bridge has seen three major rebellions pass over it: The first of which was the Poll tax revolt in 1381, when Wat Tyler, the radical priest John Ball and Jack Straw led 60,000 of people down from Blackheath Hill across the bridge at Deptford Broadway and up the Old Kent Road into London in 1381.13 Ball is described by Christopher Hampton in A Radical Reader as a "poor priest", who was preaching "his revolutionary creed of equality" for at least 25 years before the rebellion in 1381. In 1366, for example, he was brought before Archbishop Langham of Canterbury and forbidden to preach; that in 1376, an order was made for his arrest as an excommunicated priest, and that he was imprisoned several times. At the time of the uprising in 1381, he was in prison in Maidstone, Kent. He was one of the earliest liberation theologians, advocating justice for the poor. At this time, the people of England were nothing more than serfs bonded to the land. The Poor Laws at the time were noted for their harshness as they divided the people into "study beggars" and the "undeserving poor". This was the time of Norman feudalism when England was little than a theocracy ruled by Kings who believed they ruled by divine right of God. One of John Ball's sermons was recorded in Froissart, Chronicles 1, pp640-641, which is reproduced in A Radical Reader:
'TILL EVERYTHING BE MADE COMMON'
There was a custom in England, still kept in divers countries, that the noblemen hath great licence over the commons, and keepeth them in bondage: that. is to say, their tenants were forced to labour the lord's lands, to gather and bring home their corn, some to thresh and to fan and . . . to make their hay, and to hew their wood and bring it home; all these things they owe as services. And there are more of these people in England than in any other realm: thus the noblemen and prelates are served by them, and especially in the county of Brendpest [Kent and Essex], Sussetter [Sussex], and Bedford. These unhappy people from the above countries began to stir against their masters, because they said they were kept in great bondage. And at the beginning of the world, they said, there were no bondmen. Therefore they maintained that no one ought to be bound unless he had committed treason, as Lucifer did against God. But they said they had done no such thing, for they were neither angels nor spirits, but men formed in the likeness of their lords, and asked why they should be so kept under like beasts, which they said they would no longer suffer, but would all be equal; and if they laboured or did anything for their lords, they would have wages for it. And of this opinion was a foolish priest in the county of Kent, called John Ball, who for his rash words had been three times in the Bishop of Canterbury's prison. For this priest used often on Sundays after mass, when the people were coming out of the church, to go into the cloister and preach, and assembling the people about him, would say this:
'My good people, things cannot go well in England, nor ever shall, till everything be made common, and there are neither villeins nor gentlemen, but we shall all be united together, and the lords shall be no greater masters than ourselves. What have we deserved that we should be kept thus enslaved? We are all descended from one father and mother, Adam and Eve. What reasons can they give to show that they are greater lords than we, save by making us toil and labour, so that they can spend? They are clothed in velvet and soft leather furred with ermine, while we wear coarse cloth; they have their wines, spices and good bread, while we have the drawings of the chaff, and drink water. They have handsome houses and manors, and we the pain and travail, the rain and wind, in the fields. And it is from our labour that they get the means to maintain their estates. We are called their slaves, and if we do not serve them readily, we are beaten. And we have no sovereign to whom we may complain, or who will hear us, or do us justice. Let us go to the King, he is young, and tell him of our slavery; and tell him we shall have it otherwise, or else we will provide a remedy ourselves. And if we go together, all manner of people that are now in bondage will follow us, with the intent to be made free. And when the King sees us, we shall have some remedy, either by justice or otherwise.'
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