Authority 11

We are made in the image of God, but we are treated like beasts (…) Nothing will go well in England… as long as there will be gendemen and villeins.

R. B. Dobson (1983: 371) quoted by Silvia Federici (2004: 35)

John Ball (1335-1381) was an English priest who was excommunicated. He fought for social justice and was the intellectual leader of the English Peasants' Revolt. Arrested several times, he was once freed by farmers. Ball was executed (hanged, disembowelled and quartered) by order of King Richard II.

However, there was resistance to feudal rule and the power of the church throughout Europe. The 1324 uprisings took place not only in England, from where the quote comes, but also in Ypres and Bruges (Federici 2004: 34), and their demand was for a social position equal to that of the nobility. In Bremen, too, peasants refused to pay their taxes and were punished by the bishop in 1234 (ibid.: 34). In Florence in 1379, textile workers seized control of the city and set up a workers' government which was defeated in 1382 (ibid.: 43). In most cases, insurgents did not limit themselves to demanding better working or living conditions, but aimed for the creation of a completely new social order (ibid.: 46).

*Silvia Federici (2004): Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Automedia.

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