ust use of what belongs to his neighbour." What else
is this really but the teaching of Aristotle that there should be
"private property and common use"? It is, in fact, the very antithesis
of communism.

Some have thought that he was fettered in his language by his academic
position; but no Oxford don has ever said such hard things about his
Alma Mater as did this master of Balliol. "Universities," says he,
"houses of study, colleges, as well as degrees and masterships in them,
are vanities introduced by the heathen, and profit the Church as little
and as much as does Satan himself." Surely it were impossible to accuse
such a man of economy of language, and of being cowed by any University
fetish.

His words, we have noted above, certainly can bear the interpretation of
a very levelling philosophy. Even in his own generation he was accused
through his followers of having had a hand in instigating the revolt.
His reply was an angry expostulation (Trevelyan's _England in the Age of
Wycliff_, 1909, London, p. 201). Indeed, considering that John of Gaunt
was his best friend and protector, it would be foolish to connect
Wycliff with the Peasant Rising. The insurgents, in their hatred of
Gaunt, whom they looked upon as the cause of their oppression, made all
whom they met swear to have no king named John (_Chronicon Angliae_, p.
286). And John Ball, whom the author of the _Fasciculi Zizaniorum_ (p.
273, Roll Series, 1856, London) calls the "darling follower" of Wycliff,
can only be considered as such in his doctrinal teaching on the dogma of
the Real Presence. It must be remembered that to contemporary England
Wycliff's fame came from two of his opinions, viz. his denial of a real
objective Presence in the Mass (for Christ was there only by "ghostly
wit"), and his advice to King and Parliament to confiscate Church lands.
But whenever Ball or anyone else is accused of being a follower of
Wycliff, nothing else is probably referred to than the professor's
well-known opinion on the sacrament of the Eucharist. Hence it is that
the _Chronicon Angliae_ speaks of John Ball as having been imprisoned
earlier in life for his Wycliffite errors, which it calls simply
_perversa dogmata_. The "Morning Star of the Reformation" being
therefore declared innocent of complicity with the Peasant Revolt, it
is interesting to note to whom it is that he ascribes the whole force of
the rebellion. For him the head and front of all offending was the