Essex Record Office Presents Special: New Discoveries in the Life of John Ball
Join speakers Helen Lacey, Andrew Prescott and Herbert Eiden who reveal recent research into the Radical Preacher and Rebel Leader of the 1381 Peasants' Revolt.
As part of the People of 1381 Project, the team have investigated the background of various people involved. This research highlights the role of the clergy in resisting royal taxation in the decades before the revolt.
It has also brought to light new information about the early life of John Ball, which contradicts the traditional narrative of his life and presents a picture of a home-grown heretic, preaching radical Christian egalitarianism to a dedicated circle of followers.
Helen Lacey, Andrew Prescott and Herbert Eiden will discuss the problems with the traditional narrative of John Ball’s life and then reveal their new findings about Ball’s life, his heresy, the attitudes of contemporary Bishops to his preaching.
They will also show how this fits with a longer-term pattern of clerical resistance to taxation in the decades before the revolt of 1381.
Registration, tea and coffee from 10:30am with our talk starting at 11:00am.
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