1381 John Ball
Good people, by what right are they whom we call lords greater folk than we? . . . Why do they hold us in serfage? . . . They are clothed in velvet and warm in their furs and their ermines, while we are covered in rags. They have wine and spices and fair bread; and we oatcake and straw, and water to drink. They have leisure and fine houses; and we have pain and labor, the rain and the wind of the fields. And yet it is of us and of our toil that these men hold their state.
