Farmer Adam is up in arms

QUESTION

A saying I remember from my schooldays in the Thirties was: ‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman.’ Where did it originate?

This rhyme comes from the time of the Peasants’ revolt of 1381. The revolt was the result of growing political tensions generated by the Black Death at the end of the 1340s, which had killed about a third of the population, and high taxes resulting from the Hundred Years’ War.

The peasantry were loyal to the teenage King richard ii but detested his uncle, John of Gaunt, who ruled the country in the King’s minority.

Led by Wat Tyler and Jack straw, and encouraged by preacher John Ball, they marched on London, where the court fled to the Tower for safety.

The rhyme, a subversive political slogan, is often attributed to Ball.

it’s archaic terms — ‘when adam “delved”’ described the first man delving into the soil which he tilled for farming: a male-specific metaphor for general work.

When eve ‘span’ refers to the first woman tailoring and mending the couple’s clothing, a female-specific metaphor for work.

a ‘gentleman’ in 1381 would have been a man of independent means, and of good family and distinction, referring to the class divide.

The point of this slogan was that there was no feudal hierarchy, no nobility, no distinction among the inhabitants of eden, and that such divisions were, therefore, not ordained by God. everyone should work — as peasants did, but gentlemen did not.

The revolt ended badly for the peasants. Tyler and straw were beheaded and Ball hanged, drawn and quartered.

Mrs G. Walsh, Ludlow, Shropshire.

QUESTION

What were the achievements of Regimental Sergeant Major Lord that saw him become a subject of This Is Your Life in 1959?

FURTHER to the earlier answer, my late husband was at sandhurst in the Fifties and would tell the story that when recruits met rsm Lord for the first time, he’d say: ‘There is a Lord above and a Lord below, and i am the one you answer to!’ Mary Jane Watts, Canterbury, Kent.