tberoes of tbe TRattons
EDITED BY
Evclvm Hbbott, flO.H.
FKLLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
GLORIA RERUM. OV10, IN LIVIAM, 195
THE HERO S DEEDS AND HARD-WON
JOHN WYCLIF
JOHN WYCLIF.
FROM HOUSTON S MEZZOTINT IN ROLT S LIVES OF THE REFORMERS " :
A TABULA IN COLL. REG. CANTAB."
JOHN WYCLIF
LAST OF THE SCHOOLMEN AND FIRST
OF THE ENGLISH REFORMERS
LEWIS SERGEANT
AUTHOR OF " NEW GREECE " ETC.
G. P. PUTNAM S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
27 WEST TWHNTY-THIRD STRKET 24 BEDFORD STKF.ET, STKANE
&be linithtrboclur |)rrss
1893
!
COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY
G. P. PUTNAM S SONS
Entered at Stationers Hall, London
BY G. P. PUTNAM S SONS
Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by
*mcfeetbocfeer press, flew
G. P. PUTNAM S SONS
HE plan on which this volume has
been written, and (I trust) the
excuse for adding one more
to the considerable number of
recent works on Wyclif, are per
haps sufficiently indicated in the first
few chapters, and particularly in the
fourth. It might not have been worth
while to rewrite the story of this English
worthy of the fourteenth century, even
with the encouragement of a few fresh facts and side
lights to develop and illustrate his character, if it
had not been for the opportunity thus afforded of
doing something to popularise the picture of John
Wyclif as an Oxford Schoolman, and the picture of
the Schoolmen in general as pioneers of the Refor
mation of Religion and the Revival of Learning.
In a volume not specially intended for laborious
students, it would scarcely have been appropriate to
enter on a detailed examination of Wyclif s scholastic
and controversial writings. Such a work remains to
be accomplished, but it cannot well be undertaken
until the Wyclif Society has completed its task.
For a similar reason I have not introduced a full
iv Preface.
bibliography of books and other documents relating
to Wyclif. Most of my authorities will be found
cited in the text and notes ; but I would here express
my special obligation to the editors of various
volumes in the Rolls Series, to the writers of sundry
articles in the Dictionary of National Biography
which has become indispensable to every historical
student, to Mr. R. L. Poole, and Mr. F. D. Matthew.
Of the reputed portraits of Wyclif mentioned in
the first chapter,* six are reproduced in the present
volume. Three of the most characteristic of these
the Bale, Hondius, and Houston engravings do not
seem to have been printed since the centuries in
which they were respectively produced. At any rate
the six are now brought together for the first time,
and the reader must be left to determine for himself
which of the series is most likely to represent John
Wyclif as he lived.
L. S.
NOVEMBER, 1892.
* See also A the nceum, September 17, 1892.
CONTENTS.
IAPTER PACK
I. THE CHARACTER OF WYCLIF i
II. THE SEETHING OF EUROPE . . .22
III. MONKS AND FRIARS .... 40
IV. WYCLIF AND THE SCHOOLMEN . . -59
V. WYCLIF S EARLY DAYS .... 76
VI. WYCLIF AS POLITICIAN .... 100
VII. THE CONFERENCE AT BRUGES . .123
VIII. WYCLIF AND THE NATIONAL CHURCH . 141
IX. PERSECUTION 157
X. POPE GREGORY S BULLS . . . . 175
XI. WYCLIF THE EVANGELIST . . .193
XII. THE DECISIVE STEP .... 219
XIII. CONDEMNED AT OXFORD . . 243
XIV. WYCLIF S POOR PRIESTS . . . 258
XV. THE HEADLESS REBELLION 281
VI
Contents.
CHAPTER PAGE
XVI. COURTENAY S TRIUMPH .... 299
XVII. THE LAST STAGE 324
XVIII. THE WORK THAT LIVED .... 337
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS CONNECTED WITH
WYCLIF 360
INDEX . ... . 373
V
ILLUSTRATIONS.
JOHN WYCLIF. FROM HOUSTON S MEZZOTINT IN
ROLT S " LIVES OF THE REFORMERS " ; "A
TABULA IN COLL. REG. CONTAB." Frontispiece
JOHN WYCLIF. THE DENBIGH PORTRAIT . . 12
JOHN WYCLIF. FROM BALL S " SUMMARIUM ". . 22
DOMINICAN (BLACK) FRIAR. I3TH CENTURY. FROM
MIGNE S " ENCYCLOPE DIE " .... 40
FRANCISCAN (GREY) FRIAR. FROM MIGNE S " ENCY
CLOPE DIE " . 52
JOHN DUNS SCOTUS " DOCTOR SUBTILIS." BY J.
FABER, FROM THE OXFORD PORTRAIT . . 68
JOHN WYCLIF. Hondius fecit. 76
WYCLIFFE, NEAR ROKEBY. SKETCH FROM THE
PAINTING BY J. M. W. TURNER ... 86
WYCLIFFE CHURCH. PARTLY CONTEMPORANEOUS
WITH WYCLIF (?) . . . . -94
WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.
FROM A PORTRAIT BY J. FABER IN THE HALL
OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD . . . . Il6
A BENEDICTINE MONK Il8
viii Illustrations.
PAGE
POPE GREGORY XI. 1370-8 124
QUEEN PHILIPPA, CONSORT OF EDWARD III. FROM
A PORTRAIT IN THE HALL OF QUEEN S
COLLEGE, OXFORD 128
OLD ST. PAUL S EXTERIOR. FROM DUGDALE S
"HISTORY OF ST. PAUL S CATHEDRAL " . . 160
INTERIOR OF OLD ST. PAUL S, LOOKING EAST. FROM
DUGDALE S " HISTORY OF ST. PAUL S CATHE
DRAL "... 162
OLD ST. PAUL S CHAPTER HOUSE. FROM DUGDALE S
"HISTORY OF ST. PAUL S CATHEDRAL " . . 164
MONUMENT OF JOHN, DUKE OF LANCASTER, AND OF
HIS WIFE CONSTANCE, IN OLD ST. PAUL S. FROM
DUGDALE S " HISTORY OF ST. PAUL S CATHE
DRAL " 166
NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD. PART OF THE CITY
WALL, CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH WYCLIF . 176
POPE URBAN VI. 1378-89 192
A PAGE FROM THE FLESHY BIBLE [wYCLIF s].
OWNED BY THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK, DUKE OF
GLOUCESTER, SON OF EDWARD III. EGERTON
MSS., BRITISH MUSEUM, REDUCED TO ABOUT
ONE-THIRD LINEAR . . , . . .212
ST. MARY S, OXFORD. TOWER PARTLY CONTEMPO
RANEOUS WITH WYCLIF . . . . .2l8
ARCHBISHOP ARUNDEL. FROM AN OLD PORTRAIT
IN LAMBETH PALACE .... 222
JOHN WYCLIF. ENGRAVED BY E. FINDEN, FROM A
PORTRAIT ATTRIBUTED TO ANTONIO MORO J
NOW AN HEIRLOOM IN THE RECTORY OF
WYCLIF-ON-TEES ...... 258
LUTTERWORTH CHURCH. PARTLY CONTEMPORANE
OUS WITH WYCLIF . . 268
Illustrations.
IX
THE PRIESTS DOORWAY, LUTTERWORTH CHURCH,
THROUGH WHICH WYCLIF s BODY WAS TAKEN, 270
ST. FRIDESWIDE S SHRINE. IN THE LATIN CHAPEL,
CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL, OXFORD . . 320
WESTMACOTT S MONUMENT OF WYCLIF AT LUTTER
WORTH ...... . 322
JOHN WYCLIF. THE DORSET PORTRAIT . . 324
RICHARD FLEMMYNG, BISHOP OF LINCOLN, FOUNDER
OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD . . . 334
LUTTERWORTH CHURCH INTERIOR. PARTLY CON
TEMPORANEOUS WITH WYCLIF ; SHOWING AN
ANCIENT FRESCO OF THE DAY OF JUDGMENT, 336
ARCHBISHOP CHICHELEY, 1414-43, FOUNDER OF ALL
SOULS. BY J. FABER 354
JOHN WYCLIF.
CHAPTER I.
THE CHARACTER OF WYCLIF.
It^OME sixty years ago one of
the most graphic of our his
torical painters, Sir David
Wilkie, completed for Sir-
Robert Peel a magnificent
panel, which had occupied
his thoughts for more than
ten years. It represents John
Knox, the Scottish Reformer,
preaching before the Lords of Congregation at St.
Andrew s, on the loth of June, 1559. It was a time
of strife and violence, when religious reform could
only be won or defeated by the sword, and when the
preaching of a man like Knox was often followed by
speedy and startling results. Wilkie has introduced
into his picture not merely the calm and com-
John Wyclif.
placent forms of Murray, Morton, and Argyll, but
also, in the stalls above them, the archbishops of
St. Andrew s and Glasgow, with Abbot Kennedy,
the foremost champions of Rome, so soon to be
overtaken by the rising tide of Protestantism. The
preacher, terrible in his unrestrained zeal and fervour,
bends low down over his pulpit, as though his eager
soul and winged words would drag the body after
them. A jackman in attendance on the archbishops,
standing with his arquebus in his hand, glares fiercely
at the bold iconoclast, as though he were on the
point of avenging the insult to his master ; whilst
a young member of the university, standing near
the pulpit, is on the alert to defend the preacher in
case of need. It could not have been the Admirable
Crichton, as Wilkie meant it to be, for James
Crichton was not born until the following year ;
but we may take the figure as representing the
liberal movement in the premier university of Scot
land at one of its most brilliant epochs.
The whole scene is full of life and motion. The
artist has made his picture speak, and we are. re
minded, as we look at it, of all the long struggle for
religious reform in Scotland, which was now on the
eve of completion. Not many days after the preach
ing of that sermon the old order of things was over
thrown, the monasteries were dissolved, pictures and
images were turned out of the churches, and the
revolution to which Knox had devoted himself was
accomplished. It would be strange if from such a
scene and from such a character the mind did not
revert to the events and the men of two hundred
The Character of Wyclif.
years ago, to the earlier reformation period in Eng
land, to the lords and bishops and abbots, to the
men of action and the men of study, and, above all,
to the zealous leader of the first assault on Rome.
Between John Wyclif and John Knox there is
a curious and striking resemblance, in more points
than one such a resemblance as occurs not infre
quently between two historical characters who from
similar beginnings have pursued a somewhat similar
course in life. No one who has made himself famil
iar with the various portraits and engravings which
preserve for us at any rate the traditional features
of Wyclif can fail to be arrested when he sees the
face of Knox, as Wilkie has reproduced it from
earlier pictures. It is not so much that the exact
lineaments correspond in such a way as to catch the
attention of a casual observer, though even in this
sense the parallel is sufficiently remarkable. The
type and character of the two heads are the same ;
you cannot look at one without thinking of the
other. The keen intelligent eyes, the drawn feat
ures with their ascetic cast, the resolute lips which
bespeak an absolutely fearless heart, are present in
all the pictures ; and a grizzled patriarchal beard
serves to deepen the similarity.
But if the physical resemblance between Wyclif
and Knox is noteworthy, still more so is the parallel
presented by the leading events of their lives. Both
were born and bred in the Latin rite, and became
conspicuous as secular priests of the Roman Church.
Knox, at St. Andrew s, and Wyclif, at Oxford, clung
to the courts of their beloved universities, and there,
John Wyclif.
with a passionate zeal for truth, half led and half
followed the men of their day in a moral revolt
against the later doctrine of Rome. Both, between
the age of forty and fifty, came to be recognised as
teachers of religious liberalism ; both became king s
chaplains and received the royal protection ; both
protested against the idolatry of the mass and the
undue exaltation of the priestly office ; both were
repeatedly charged with heresy ; both defended
themselves with the utmost energy, and flung them
selves into the path of danger in spite of threats and
condemnations. Both stirred and inflamed their
hearers in scathing sermons, and both were inhibited
from preaching by their earlier patrons when they
had served the turn of the politicians. Both were
struck down, by apoplexy or paralysis, at the same
age, and both died a couple of years later Wyclif
hot with indignation over the papal crusade, and
Knox with his latest breath denouncing the massacre
of St. Bartholomew s. And the same epitaph might
be written over the grave of each " Here lies one
who never feared the face of man."
If there is nothing in such a parallel but a series
of simple coincidences, still it may suffice to bring
us from the very beginning almost into touch with
the religious Reformer of the fourteenth century, by
showing in how many essentials he was an antetype
and counterpart of the enthusiast of the sixteenth
century. Nor will it fail to suggest how near akin
may be the pioneers of moral development in every
age, even across the interval of five hundred years.
If we were to look to our own day for parallels to
The Character of Wyclif.
the character and career of John Wyclif, we might
find none so close and continuous as that which is
afforded by the biography of Knox, but at any rate
there would be no lack of brief and partial remind
ers to show how the spiritual needs of successive
generations call forth the very qualities which are
required to satisfy them, and how in this way also
the history of Wyclif has tended to repeat itself.
The adventurous pioneer of the college cloister or
university lecture-room, the innovating spirit of the
tractarian or the homilist, the missionary zeal which
organizes and sends forth an army of Christian sol
diers, the hardihood which converts a simple priest
into a politician, a socialist, a champion of the dregs
of humanity we too have known them all within
the limits of a lifetime, and each in many varying
forms.
Wyclif was neither a Wesley nor a Simeon, neither
a Wilberforce nor a Newman nor a Booth, and yet
there is a sense in which he combined the qualities
of all these men, vastly as they differ from each
other. The distinction of his multiple character
arises from the fact that he stands forth so promi
nently in an age which forms a joint and hinge of
religious history. He possessed nothing whatsoever
of that which we now understand by the spirit of
sectarianism. His claim was to be recognised as
abiding in the ancient ways of faith, as upholding or
seeking to restore the faith which Christ had founded,
and which Christ gave no man the power or authority
to change. Standing firm on such a basis, it was
impossible that he should be a heretic, or a schis-
6 John Wyclif.
matic, or a sectarian. Rome might be heretical, and
that is what he called her. The Papacy might be
Antichrist, and he fixed the name upon it. Clearly
he was right or wrong according as the ground
which he took up was evangelical or anti-scriptural
according as he interpreted aright or misinter
preted the message of Christ to the world.
Wyclif and his friends were the earliest protest-
ants, not because they revolted against authority,
and wanted a church unfettered by authority, but
because they went back to the first and strictest
authority of all, and rejected its merely human
accretions. They did not carry their protest back
ward for more than three centuries. They held by
the Fathers, and the earlier councils and canons,
repudiating the new dogmas and definitions which
had been imposed on the Church after the first
millennium of the Christian era. The position occu
pied by this fourteenth-century school of Oxford
criticism was one of great dignity and weight, which
the prelates of that age could not easily attack.
Apart from the royal favour which was accorded
to the Wycliffites for many years, it was impossible
for the archbishops and bishops to prosecute with a
light heart the most distinguished Oxford men of
the day, who for a time seem to have been backed
by a majority of the resident members of the uni
versity. It must be clearly borne in mind that
Wyclif s standing was that of a doctor and professor
of theology, an ex-master of Balliol, a brilliant lec
turer and preacher, a king s chaplain, and a trusted
adviser of Parliament. He was, in short, one of the
The Character of Wyclif.
chief notabilities of his time, and, though the friars
were not slow in detecting and denouncing his unor
thodox views, their own unpopularity must have
made it more difficult for the hierarchy of the Church
to take action than it would have been if the Orders
had held their peace.
If John Wyclif had been a protestant, and a
heresiarch, and nothing more, or if he had been
known to us mainly by his controversies and his
writings, we might have been content to regard him
with a somewhat perfunctory interest as " the morn
ing-star of the Reformation," or as a scholastic theo
logian who wrote voluminous treatises in dry mediae
val Latin and decidedly uncouth English. Truth to
tell, the works of Wyclif are not and cannot be made
very attractive to men and women of the present
day. Their importance in the history of religious
belief is incalculable, and to the systematic student of
that history they will always be indispensable. For
the general reader they are, in their complete form,
not only superfluous but even a little misleading. At
all events they do not show us the true or the most
lovable Wyclif, any more than Milton s controversies
with Salmasius show us the author of Lycidas at
his best. Happily there is enough in the personal
history of Wyclif, as a man rather than as a writer,
and as an evangelist rather than as a controversialist,
to excite interest and affection in no ordinary degree,
and to warrant us in treating him as one of England s
worthies.
An unbroken chain of evidence, stretching across
the five centuries which have passed since his death,
8 John Wyclif.
might easily be traced out to show how the tradition
of Wyclif s character and achievements as distinct
from any concise written history has been preserved
and handed down in the memory of his countrymen.
In the sixteenth century, as one would naturally
expect, the protagonist of reform was constantly
cited, whether for honour or for reproach, though as
yet very little had been rediscovered of his half-
obliterated writings. Dr. James, of New College,
who was Bodley s librarian at the close of that
century, wrote a warm Apologie for John Wick-
liffe, partly in answer to a vicious attack from the
Jesuit Parsons. "The early Reformer," says James,
" was beloved of all good men for his good life, and
greatly admired of his greatest adversaries for his
learning and knowledge, both in divinity and
humanity. He writ so many large volumes in both
as it is almost incredible. ... Of Ocham and
Marsilius he was informed of the pope s intrusions and
usurpations upon kings, their crowns and dignities ;
of Guido de S. Amore and Armachanus he learned
the sundry abuses of monks and friars in upholding
this usurped power ; by Abelard and others he was
grounded in the right faith of the sacrament of the
Lord s Supper ; by Bradwardine in the nature of
a true soul-justifying faith against merit-mongers
and pardoners ; finally, by reading Grosthead s
works, in whom he seemed to be most conversant,
he descried the pope to be open antichrist, by
letting [preventing] the gospel to be preached, and
by placing unable and unfit men in the Church of
God."
The Character of Wyclif. 9
Foxe the martyrologist wrote lives of Wyclif,
Thorpe, and Cobham, with very inadequate mate
rials so far as the first of the three is concerned.
Wyclif, he says, " tooke great paines, protesting (as
they said) openlie in the schooles that it was his
chiefe and principall purpose and intent to revoke
and call back the Church from her idolatrie to some
better amendment." And he adds : " The whole glut
of monks and begging friers were set on a rage or
madnesse which (even as hornets with their sharpe
stings) did assaile this good man on every side."
Even Netter of Walden one of the adversaries
referred to by James admitted that he was " won
derfully astonished at his [Wyclif s] most strong
arguments, with the authorities which he had
assembled, and with the vehemence and force of his
reasons."
These are but casual testimonies to the repute of
Wyclif in the two centuries succeeding his death.
William Thorpe, one of the younger contemporaries
of the Reformer, paid his master a high tribute in
the course of his examination for heresy before
Archbishop Arundel. " Master John Wyclif," he
said (as quoted by Bale), " was considered by many
to be the most holy of all the men in his age. He
was of emaciated frame, spare, and wellnigh desti
tute of strength ; and he was absolutely blameless in
his conduct. Wherefore very many of the chief men
of this kingdom, who frequently held counsel with
him, were devotedly attached to him, kept a record
of what he said, and guided themselves after his
manner of life."
io John Wyclif.
These three sentences, it may be observed, are the
most valuable piece of evidence which we possess
beyond what may be gathered from occasional
references to himself in Wyclif s works as to his
personal characteristics and physical appearance ;
and they are confirmed by all the side-lights which
we are able to obtain of him.
Wyclif s temper in controversial argument was by
no means always equable and to say this is only to
admit that he had the temper and the method of
his day. He takes himself to task in one of his
books, on The Truth of Holy Scripture (written
in 1379), for his shortcomings in this respect. "In
order that there may be no lack of material," he
says, " for the strife which my censors have raised
over me, I will say that I have adopted out of the
Scriptures a threefold rule of life. First, that \
should cleanse myself by taking more diligent heed
concerning the charge which is brought against me,
that I too readily impart a sinister, vindictive zeal
into my legitimate line of argument if I may be
said to have any. As for the imputation of hypo
crisy, hatred, and rancour under a pretence of holi
ness, I fear, and I admit it with sorrow, this has
happened to me too frequently, by reason whereof
I deserve to surfer much greater blame than has
yet been cast upon me. Whilst I importune my God
with prayer in respect of my spiritual faults, which
it is for God alone to know, I will strive more dili
gently to be on my guard henceforth about the
other matter. Secondly, whilst the devil goes about
as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, he
The Character of Wyclif. 1 1
tries to besmirch the good repute of such as he can
not devour on the ground of open wickedness, that
he may destroy them in this way by the blame of
evil tongues. I, then, being ignorant of any open
crime laid to my charge, will patiently endure re
proach, seeing that the Apostle says, It is a small
thing to be judged of you, or of any man s judg
ment. Thirdly, whilst I defend myself against
their reproaches, I will entreat that the spite and
vengeance of my detractors may not add yet another
torment to the wounds which I had before."
The vein of satire is manifest under the calm dig
nity of this passage. If Wyclif ever sacrificed his
dignity it was by allowing his satire to run to ex
cess, and losing the measure of invective whilst
denouncing that which had excited his indignation.
Yet it is thoroughly true, as observed by Dr.
Shirley who more than any one man has put this
generation on the track of exact knowledge in regard
to the life and character of the Reformer that
Wyclif " possessed as few ever did the qualities
which give men power over their fellows. His
enemies," Dr. Shirley adds, " ascribed this power to
the magic of an ascetic habit ; the fact remains
engraven upon every line of his life."
Yet on this question of asceticism, and on the
charge of his enemies that he employed it for pur
poses of display, Wyclif himself deserves to be heard.
" It is far from being true," he says in the book
already quoted, " that in the company of my follow
ers I obtrude on the eyes of simple men an exces
sively abject .and penitential air, together with a
12 John Wyclif.
parade of virtue. For amongst my other faults
which give me ground for alarm this is one of the
greatest, that, by consuming the property of the
poor in superfluous food and garments, I fail to
afford a pattern to others, whereby the light and
rule of a holy life such as I ought to lead might
shine through my priestly guise in the sight of the
congregation. Nay, I confess with pain that I eat
frequently, greedily, and delicately, leading a social
life ; and if I were to try, like a hypocrite, to make
false pretence in this regard, they who sit with me
at table would bear witness against me."
Nothing was too bad for Wyclif s most spiteful
enemies to say of him. They called him not merely
a glutton when he ate and a hypocrite when he
fasted, but a turncoat, a traitor, an instrument of
the devil, a mirror of hypocrites, a fabricator of lies,
John Wicked-believe, and Judas Scarioth. To level
coarse insults at Wyclif must have seemed to any man
of refinement an odious thing to do ; for in his later
days, and probably also in his youth, he was a man of
feeble constitution. The insistence of his friends at
the St. Paul s inquiry, nearly eight years before his
death, that he should have the unusual indulgence
of a seat during his examination, certainly suggests
a knowledge on their part that he stood in need of
such indulgence ; and there is a similar suggestion
in his anxiety at a much earlier age to find parochial
duties as near as possible to Oxford and London.
Often enough the determining cause which brought
a young man to the university, and to the clerical
profession, in times when there were very few voca-
JOHN WYCLIF.
THE DENBIGH PORTRAIT.
The Character of Wydif. 1 3
tions for an intellectual mind, was his lack of the
robust health and decided taste which were necessary
to one who aimed at becoming either a soldier or a
merchant, or even a manager of the family estate.
Wyclif was the son of a gentleman of good means.
He probably owned or had a claim upon the advow-
son of the rectory of Wycliffe. But if weakness led
him to adopt the life of a clergyman, ambition con
strained him to follow an active and public career.
The known facts of his life chime in with the hypoth
esis that he was always a man of indifferent health ;
and yet the fiery soul sustained him in many a hard
battle with friars and monks, with the English
hierarchy and the papal court. If we were to judge
from his fighting attitude alone, it would be difficult
to consider him as anything else than a vigorous,
hardy, and indefatigable man.
When Wyclif s bones were torn from their grave
in Lutterworth churchyard, by an English bishop at
the command of a Roman pope, when they were
consumed to ashes and thrown into the Swift,
thence to be borne, as Fuller said, from brook to
river, and from river to ocean, until the seeds of his
doctrine had sprung up in every land, Rome was
but giving effect to a logically necessary conclusion.
The position which Wyclif had taken up against the
later teaching of the canons was absolutely uncom
promising. " From the eleventh century," he prac
tically said, " the dogma of the Church has been per
verted. The popes have been wrong, the councils
have been wrong, the decretals are full of heresy.
If Rome will not unsay her false doctrine, the
14 John Wyclif.
national Churches must repudiate her claim to lead
them. She has built up a crazy superstructure on
the true foundation ; we must sweep it away, and get
back to the life and words of Christ." To Rome,
that meant death, and for the Roman Curia it was a
simple act of self-preservation to crush Wyclif be
neath its censures, and to do all that was possible to
bury his record in obscurity. The necessary steps
were interrupted by the Schism ; thirty years had
passed since the death of Wyclif when the Councils
of Rome and Constance took the completion of the
work in hand. It was then too late. The writings
of the famous Doctor had passed into the keeping
of the English and Bohemian universities. The
scholars of that day either concealed them or refused
to give them to the flames. The doctrines of
Wyclif had spread throughout England, Germany,
and Austria, and neither the terrors of the Inquisi
tion nor the agonies of a thousand martyrdoms could
expel them again.
Nevertheless Wyclif and Wycliffism have been
under the ban of Rome from that day to this. No
doubt there must have been a few in every genera
tion, ecclesiastics and scholars for the most part,
who would be acquainted with the manuscripts of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the main
facts of Wyclif s life and work, with the contempo
rary testimony of his friends and enemies, and with,
at any rate, some of his writings. Thomas Netter,
who was born before Wyclif died, made a collection
of papers relating to the controversies and con
demnations of the heretical Doctor, under the title
The Character of Wyclif. 1 5
of Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif
cum Tritico " Bundles of Tares . . . together
with Wheat." Would it were possible to suppose
that Netter, who was confessor to the grandson of
John of Gaunt, Wyclif s patron and protector for
something like fifteen years, had preserved these
materials for the purpose of justifying rather than
gibbeting the last of the English Schoolmen ! Such,
at all events, has been their effect in the long run.
Bishop Bale of Ossory, who followed Netter after an
interval of a century, possessed and made great use
of his manuscript, which he did much to elucidate ;
and many others in more recent times have found
it exceedingly serviceable for Wyclif s defence.
Amongst these was Foxe, a friend of Bale, who
probably owed to the latter nearly all his materials
for the account of Wyclif in the Acts and Monu
ments. Throughout the later reformation period, and
in the seventeenth century, the story of Wyclif must
have been familiar in England through the works of
Foxe, James, Thomas Fuller, and others ; but hardly
any of these writers knew more than they had been
told by Netter, Bale, and the English chroniclers.
A great debt is due from the present generation to
the Rev. John Lewis, who, in 1720, published at
Oxford his History of the Life and Sufferings of
John Wickliffe, and collected as many facts and
documents as were at that time within his reach.
That he should now and then have jumped a little
too confidently to his conclusions, and made use of
one or two works which had not been sufficiently
authenticated, is by no means a matter of surprise.
1 6 John Wyclif.
More than a century later, Dr. Shirley edited the
Fasciculi for the Rolls Series, adding an introduction
and notes which have stood the test of further
research with conspicuous and exceptional success.
From that time forward it has no longer been possi
ble to reproach English historians and biographers
with ignoring or neglecting the importance of
Wyclif in the annals of his country, and espe
cially of the English national Church.
Much has been done within the past few years,
and especially since the five-hundredth anniversary
of Wyclif s death, to re-illumine his darkened record,
and to ensure a wider circulation for his principal
works. The disinterested labours of the Wyclif
Society, and of a considerable number of English
and German scholars, have gone far to atone for a
long neglect. The time has almost come when John
Wyclif may find a worthy and competent biographer,
who will be able to set forth the story of his life
with a reasonable approach to finality. Meanwhile,
it may not be unserviceable to cast that story in
a connected and popular form, and at any rate to
attempt an estimate of Wyclifs true position in
history. Such, indeed, has been the aim of the
present writer, who has sought to collect into a
focus all that has been accurately ascertained or
felicitously surmised concerning one of the most
attractive characters in the later Middle Age.
It is impossible to feel at all confident that the
true features and character of John Wyclif are pre
sented in any of the portraits which have been
The Character of Wyclij. 1 7
handed down to us. It would be strange indeed
if we could trace back the origin of even one of
these portraits from the nineteenth century into the
fourteenth without a lingering doubt on the subject
of its authenticity. Of the existing pictures, whether
they are based on knowledge or on imagination,
some half-dozen appear worthy of attention ; and
it is at any rate conceivable, as we look at them,
that these should refer to the same original. Allow
ing for differences of age and aspect, there is a
certain family likeness running through them all.
So far as the dates can now be ascertained, the
oldest picture is a small half-length woodcut in
Bale s Summary of the Famous Writers of Greater
Britain, published in 1548, more than a hundred and
sixty years after Wyclif s death. Bale was a con
verted monk, who, having been rewarded for his
labours and sufferings with the bishopric of Ossory,
tried in vain to effect a settlement amongst the
" wild Irish " of that see. He was an indefatiga
ble student and collector of manuscripts. It is to
him that we owe the preservation of Netter s Tares
of John Wyclif, with Wheat, and it may well be that
he had discovered in some old copy of the English
Bible, or other manuscript of the fourteenth or fif
teenth century, a sketch of the Reformer s face by a
contemporary hand. When we remember that many
a valuable parchment has disappeared from view
since the antiquaries of the Tudor and Stuart periods
had an opportunity of copying or quoting them, we
cannot deny the possibility that such a sketch may
have been lost to sight whilst the copy survives.
1 8 John Wyclif.
Bale s picture is a sharp profile, turned to the left,
and represents Wyclif preaching or lecturing from a
stone pulpit, with his right hand and index finger
raised in front of him, and his left hand resting on
a closed book. He appears to be about fifty years
old ; and the sketch is very much what a Tudor
draughtsman might have produced from the thumb
nail of one of Wyclif s personal disciples. The
same woodcut is transferred to A True Copye of a
Prolog, possibly the work of Purvey, first printed
in 1550.
The painting lodged in the rectory of Wycliffe-on-
Tees by Dr. Zouch (d. 1815), and intrusted to the
charge of his successors in the benefice, is said to be
the work of the Flemish portrait-painter, Antonio
Moro, who was employed by Philip and JMary in
1554, and who subsequently settled in Madrid. It
is unfortunate that Dr. Zouch did not (apparently)
leave behind him any precise information as to the
history of this picture. It would have been interest
ing to know on what evidence he vouched for it as
" original," seeing that the subject is not quite what
one would have expected from a painter who enjoyed
the patronage of two particularly bigoted Catholic
monarchs. If this picture is Moro s, one would be
disposed to date it before 1554. Whitaker suggests
in his History of Richmondshire that Moro may
have seen Bale s woodcut ; and he observes that the
two portraits are sufficiently alike to warrant the
suggestion. The likeness cannot be called striking,
but it is hard to say whence the painter derived
his inspiration if not from the woodcut. He pre-
The Character of Wyclif. 1 9
sents the Reformer at a more advanced age, though
somewhat less advanced than in what are known as
the Dorset and Denbigh portraits. At any rate
there is less of an impression of feebleness than in
the latter two, both of which show Wyclif leaning
on a staff. There is certainly a family likeness in
these three pictures. The deep-set eyes, prominent
nose, shrunken cheeks, full grey beard, grave yet
tender mouth, and slightly stooped shoulders are
common to all. The Moro portrait was engraved by
Edward Finden for Mr. John Murray, and published
by him in 1827.
The Dorset canvas, now kept at Knole Park, has
been engraved and reproduced more frequently than
any of the rest. In this picture Wyclif holds the
staff in his right hand ; the face is turned slightly to
his left, and the beard divides by a hand s-breadth
on the chest. Like the Denbigh portrait, it is half-
length, whilst Moro s is a bust. The Dorset (en
graved by George White) is set in an oval frame,
with the legend : " Joannes Wiclif S. T. P., Rector
de Lutterworth | A tabula penes Nobilissimum Du-
cem Dorsettiae." The first Duke of Dorset died in
1765, and the portrait does not seem to be earlier
than the eighteenth century. The Dorset family, it
may be mentioned, were in possession of the Groby
(Leicestershire) estates ; and the portrait of course
professes to represent the Reformer as he appeared
in the last year or two of his tenure of the rectory
of Lutterworth. There is another engraving of the
same picture signed by Jan Vanhaecken.
Of the Denbigh portrait we have a fine engraving
2O John Wyclif.
(fronting the title-page of Lewis s Life of Wyclif]
" by James Eittler, from a drawing by W. Skelton,
taken from a picture in the possession of the Earl of
Denbigh." A copy of the portrait hangs in Lutter-
worth Rectory, and another (by Kingsby ?) in the
hall of Balliol College, Oxford. In this, as in the
Dorset picture, the right hand holds a staff ; but the
left hand rests upon a book, the face turns to its
right, and the beard is not divided.
A strangely characteristic portrait is preserved in
Queen s College, Cambridge, a half-length, face
turned slightly to the left, age about fifty or fifty-
five, vigorous and somewhat aggressive in attitude.
It approaches more nearly to the type of Bale s
woodcut than to that of the three portraits last
mentioned. A mezzotint engraving in an oval frame
was prepared by Richard Houston for Rolt s Lives
of the Reformers, 1759, with the following inscrip
tion : " Johannes Wickliffe. Obijt A : 1384. A Tab
ula in Coll. Reg. Cantab." One could almost imagine
the " regius clericus " in his full strength and dignity,
just about the time when John of Gaunt was coming
to close grips with the wealthy English prelates,
coolly shaping his lips to whistle away the first angry
criticisms of the friars.
In the Department of Prints and Drawings at the
British Museum there are a few cognate engravings,
of which the best and the original is that of H.
Hondius, reproduced in the present volume. This
print bears the inscription : " loannes Wiclefus An-
glus," and is entered in Bromley s Catalogue with the
date 1599. It is in fact one of the series included in
The Character of Wyclif. 2 1
Verheiden s Prcestantium . . . Theologorum . . .
Effigies, published in 1602. Evidently the atti
tude, face, hair, and details of dress are the same in
the Cambridge portrait and the engraving of Hon-
dius. One is simply a variation upon the other ;
and if a guess may be hazarded without knowing
the history of the Queen s College portrait, I should
say that the latter is based upon Hondius.
A meretricious French print, by B. Picart, dated
1713, represents a framed picture of Wyclif sus
pended by a rope between two pillars in front of
a tomb, and apparently fanning the flames in which
his books are being consumed. There is also an
engraved plate, bearing the title of The Parallel
Reformers, and drawing a comparison between
Whitfield and Wyclif, with a not very faithful re
production of the Hondius engraving. Bromley
mentions two other prints, " in Boissard," and by
Des Rochers, which I have not seen, and these
probably exhaust the list of Wyclif pictures, or
at any rate of distinct types and noteworthy
variations.
CHAPTER II.
THE SEETHING OF EUROPE.
ERHAPS the fairest test of
the true greatness and import
ance of any man who has
played his part in the shaping
of history may be found in the
disposition of his admirers to
consider, not merely what he
did for his country and his
age, but also what his circum
stances and antecedents had previously done for him.
It is a truism to say that every man, great or small, is
a product of the conditions which surround him ; but
only when we find ourselves face to face with an
original and creative mind do we think it worth
while to ask how this mind was itself created how,
in fact, the moulder of one generation had been
moulded by the generations which preceded him.
Few men better deserve or more justly claim such
treatment than John Wyclif, who was unquestion-
22
JOHN WYCLIF.
(FROM BAtPs " SUMMARIUM. ")
The Seething of Europe. 23
ably a moulder of men and a shaper of history.
Wyclif stood at the parting of the ways which led
from the Middle Ages to the revival of learning and
letters. He was himself the main connecting link
between the intellectual hardihood of the School
men and the definite revolt of the Teutonic world
from Rome. Essentially throughout his life a
secular English clergyman, still his early mental
standpoint was on the continent of Europe rather
than in England. Rome had so long been the
metropolis of religion, as the French universities had
been the capitals of scholastic theology and law,
that many if not most of Wyclif s predecessors in
the long struggle for the emancipation of human
thought had lived and died on the continent. The
time was at hand for the English Church and the
English State to break away from their foreign tram
mels ; but a series of mighty efforts was needed in
both cases, and it was only with the eye of faith
that Wyclif could see the chains of Romanism and
feudalism finally snapped.
It must therefore greatly assist us to arrive at a
fair understanding of the problems in which John
Wyclif was concerned if we ask ourselves in the first
place what was the condition of Europe in the thir
teenth and fourteenth centuries, what were the rela
tions between the Papacy and the different European
governments, and especially what effect our constant
wars with France would naturally have upon our
relations with the popes at Avignon. Narrowing the
inquiry from this point, we may note the internal con
dition of England, having particular, regard to the
24 John Wyclif.
national character of the English Church, the attitude
of the monks and friars towards those whom they
denounced as innovators, and the phases of life and
thought in the university of Oxford, where Wyclif
for the most part lived, and to which he was always
devotedly attached.
After the breaking up of the vast empire of
Charles the Great, the continent of Europe had
come to be parcelled out into a large number of
kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and re
publics, few of them possessing any exceptional
importance, whilst the majority were quite insignifi
cant. The most powerful overlordships, apart from
that of the popes, were the Holy Roman Empire
extending from the North Sea to the Mediterranean,
and dividing the kingdom of Hungary and the
Polish dukedoms from western Europe the Byzan
tine Empire, the kingdom of France, and the States
of the Spanish and Italian peninsulas. Over each
and all of these, the popes had claimed not merely
a spiritual but a political supremacy.
From the middle of the thirteenth to the close of
the fourteenth century to speak without absolute
precision the great central empire of Europe was
gradually shrinking down to proportions roughly
corresponding to those of Germany and Austria
(proper) at the present moment. On the west and
south-west this shrinkage was especially noteworthy.
Burgundy had enlarged her borders ; Switzerland
had already adopted the federal republicanism
which she has maintained ever since ; the Low
Countries, Savoy, and most of northern Italy, had
The Seething of Europe. 25
fallen away. The strength of feudalism had begun
to wane ; for a long time there was the name of
empire without an imperial head or bond. All that
was not German, but only conventionally Roman,
tended to separate from the solid core, whilst the
true Germany and the Teutonic spirit remained, as
they had always been, the chief rival and obstacle of
the Papacy on the continent.
The kingdom of Castile, in which Leon had been
absorbed, was steadily forcing the Moors of Granada
upon the Mediterranean shore. But before the ex
pulsion of Africa from Spain was completed, Asia
had begun to overflow into the other extremity of
southern Europe, and the Byzantine Empire became
the mere shadow of its former greatness. The Cru
saders had but irritated and provoked the vast
nomadic fanaticism by which western Asia and
northern Africa were penetrated and dominated.
The Christians had gained some slight successes on
the Syrian coast, but they could not long maintain
their footing. The king of Jerusalem, the prince of
Antioch, the counts of Jaffa, Nablous, and Edessa,
with other petty local potentates, were brushed
aside by sultans scarcely less petty than themselves,
and the Mahomedan flood swept strongly and
steadily onward until, at the close of the thirteenth
century, Ottoman Turks had mastered almost the
whole of Asia Minor. Half a century later they had
crossed the Bosphorus into Europe.
This was a disturbing element, not to say an abid
ing cause of panic, for the nations of the south and
west ; and the fact must enter into every considera-
26 John Wyclif.
tion of the state of Europe in the fourteenth century.
The Papacy and Chivalry between them were respon
sible for the crusades, and it was on the popes and
barons that the worst immediate results of the irrup
tion were to fall. Apart from the rash aggressions
of the earlier crusades, which clearly (to us in these
days) involved the ultimate rebound of the Turk
into Europe, the light-hearted wickedness of the
fourth crusade was enough in itself to account for
all that followed. The Marquis of Montferrat, the
Count of Flanders, and the host of adventurers in
their train, presumably stirred to religious enthusi
asm against the infidel, devoted themselves to two
years of ravage and plunder in Christian Europe.
They pillaged Constantinople, usurped the Empire
of Byzantium, and destroyed the human barrier
against barbarism, which needed to be strengthened
by every conceivable means. This was in 1202-1204.
The Byzantine Greeks regained their empire in 1261 ;
but by this time the natural guards and sentinels of
Europe were not only demoralised beyond recovery,
but also completely alienated from the Church and
the States of the west.
It had been proved by this expedition, and it was
confirmed on many occasions within the next cen
tury and a half, that the descent was easy from
militant chivalry to wholesale rapine. In the four
teenth century it had become apparent that Chivalry,
the Feudalism on which it was based, and the Papacy
which had played into the hands of both, were in
volved in a common catastrophe. The popes had
lost their hegemony, the barons were losing their
The Seething of Europe. 27
feudal authority, and at the moment of greatest
need there was no chance of a combination of forces
such as would have sufficed to drive back the
Turkish hordes. Edward III. proposed it to the
French king, and Pope John proposed it to more
than one of the monarchs ; but it was too late. The
seething of Europe had begun. The seventy years
exile of the popes at Avignon, the hundred years
war between England and France, the desperate
civil wars in both those countries, were already fore
doomed and inevitable. The establishment of the
new order in western Christendom could not come
to pass as the history of the world was being devel
oped save at the cost of liberty and civilisation in
the Eastern Empire.
Whilst the Turk was forcing the gates of Europe,
Calais was sacked, and the battles of Cre"cy and
Poitiers were fought and won. Whilst the infidels
overran Thrace and closed round the devoted city of
Constantinople, two of the most powerful Christian
nations were exhausting their strength in wars which
had but the slightest shadow of justification. The
delusive treaty of Brtigny (1360), which coincided
in date with the capture of Adrianople, gave to
England the provinces of Gascony, Guienne, Poitou,
Saintonge, Angoumais, and Limousin, with Calais
and Ponthieu in the north-east ; and, though much
of the territory was lost again before the reign of
Edward had closed, France was convulsed by invasion
and civil war for another sixty years.
Such was the condition of Europe during the life
of Wyclif and of the youngest of his disciples. He
28 John Wyclif.
preached to ears which were never free from ghastly
records of slaughter, and to souls perpetually startled
by the portents of an eventful epoch.
The story of the Papacy itself in the fourteenth
century is as important and striking as that of any
of the larger European States. The State of the
Church had been built up by successive papal assump
tions on the basis of religious authority perverted
into secular feudalism, and by means of extravagant
tolls levied upon the religious devotion of Christen
dom. The dramatic surrender of the Emperor
Henry at Canossa in 1077, followed by the bequest
of the Countess of Modena a few years later, set the
coping-stone on a principality which then extended
from the Lombard kingdom of Naples to the banks
of the river Po. The subjection of England by
Innocent III., at the beginning of the thirteenth
century, was as thorough in its way as that of Ger
many by Gregory VII. ; for John not only resigned
his crown and kingdom into the hands of the papal
legate, but received them back in the character of a
tributary vassal. And, though John s cleverness
overreached itself, yet he doubtless saw clearly
enough, as other monarchs saw before and afterwards,
that resistance to the Pope meant a paralysing isola
tion, whilst submission to him brought effective aid
and solid advantages. As a matter of fact, Innocent
actively assisted the English King against his subjects
from the moment when his contumacy came to an end.
The Italian Lothario Conti, known to us as Inno
cent III., raised the assumptions and usurpations of
Rome to the highest pitch. He imposed submission
The Seething of Europe. 29
on Castile, Portugal, and Arragon, dictated to Philip
Augustus of France, and even received the spiritual
homage of the Eastern Empire (from the usurper
Baldwin), and of the kings of Bulgaria and Armenia.
" In each of the three leading objects which Rome
had pursued," says Hallam, " independent sover
eignty, supremacy over the Christian Church, control
over the princes of the earth, it was the fortune of
this pontiff to conquer."
Precisely in the fulness of its power and authority,
the Papacy began to work its own downfall. Its
ever increasing and accumulated assumptions were
extended from the reigning monarch to the humblest
of his subjects, from national and international rela
tions to the bed and board of every individual in
every State of Christendom, until at last the very
nausea of oppression produced inevitable revolt.
Christianity would have been repudiated and rejected
by the nations of Europe if they had not distin
guished between the faith itself and the guardians of
the faith who had violated it. For not only religion,
but even morality and the sanctions of society were
made to depend on the subtleties of fallible men,
who, whilst discrediting the intellect, applied their
own imperfect intellects to the definition of good
and evil for their fellow-creatures.
And this was not by any means the worst of the
spiritual assumption, for the Pope claimed power, /
after laying down the law of good and evil, to dis- /
pense men from the obligation to do good, and to
indulge them in the commission of evil. Pope Inno
cent, and doctors of the Church like St. Thomas
30 John Wyclif.
Aquinas, declared that the Supreme Pontiff, in the
plenitude of his power, might lawfully dispense with
the law a claim which is not set up for the Deity
himself, nor by nature, as interpreted by their works.
Obstructions may divert the spiritual and physical
laws, but only as proceeding from a different source,
and from a cause external to the law. When the
authority which had promulgated the law of right
and wrong was found dispensing with the right and
selling indulgences for the wrong, it was no longer
regarded as a lawgiver. Of necessity, and with an
impassioned conviction of truth, devout men consid
ered it as an obstruction to moral law.
Before the fourteenth century dawned this con
viction had penetrated many a thoughtful mind, and
the wonder is that such a clear and cogent truth,
put forward by Wyclif and his friends with logical
completeness, should not have won the battle of
Reformation at least a century and a half before it
was actually won. But, in point of fact, the reforma
tion of religion, in England as in Germany, passed
through several phases. The awakening of the
popular conscience was one of these phases; but it
could not reach its full development apart from the
political rejection of the papal assumptions, the
arbitrary suppression of the monastic Orders, and the
legislative conversion of the national Church. All
these things were on their way, and Wyclif brought
them as near to realisation as any man could have
done in the fourteenth century. But the hour had J
not struck, and the instruments were not all ready
to hand.
The Seething of Europe. 3 1
It is true that the movement in England, which
Wyclif inspired and led, came nearer to success thaa
has sometimes been supposed. The suppression of
monasteries actually began in the generation after his
death. Parliament had declared boldly against the
Pope ; and if the Commons had been made of
sterner stuff if they had realised their strength, and
had not been driven into panic by the revolt of the
peasants, they might, even in the fourteenth century,
have moulded the national Church on the nation s
will. There was indeed no discontinuity in the pro
test which our ancestors raised against the innova
tions of Rome. Wyclif drew a line at the close of
the first Christian millennium, and declared that
after the thousandth year of Christ Satan was loosed,
and Antichrist was enthroned in the pontifical chair.
At any rate from the eleventh century there was
never a time in England when the spiritual and tem
poral pretensions of the Popes were not categorically
opposed. The Schoolmen headed the protest on
the intellectual side. Lanfranc complained of Ber-
engar that he wished to ignore the sacred sanctions,
and to have recourse to mere logic and argument.
This was the point at which Scholasticism had its
origin ; the protest of the Schoolmen was against
the intolerable claim of Rome that her traditional
sanctions and authorities should impose a limit upon
intellect, morals, and individual conscience.
And if the popular mind, and the minds of a few
scholars and preachers here and there, were outraged
and alienated by the spiritual usurpations of the
Papacy, its temporal and political assumptions were
32 John Wyclif.
resisted in each successive generation, however inter
mittently, by the monarchs and statesmen of the
day. Henry II. and John both measured swords
against the enemy of their country. Each of them,
indeed, found his blade too short, and extricated
himself from his difficulty by a politic compromise.
It may even be argued that the payment of tribute
from 1213 to 1333 rather assisted than hindered the
growth of the national independence, in an age when
the temporal power of Rome was at its zenith. The
tribute did not prevent Henry III. and Edward I.
from continuing the struggle. A like combative spirit
was displayed by the Holy Roman Empire. The
extreme personal humiliation of the -Emperor Henry
IV. and Frederick Barbarossa merely point us to
two conspicuous instances of German resistance.
Up to the close of the thirteenth century, these
contests of the civil against the ecclesiastical author
ity, and of the national spirit against the encroach
ments of Rome, appeared to have little practical or
permanent result. It was reserved for France to give
the Papacy its first effectual check, and to stagger it
by a blow from which it never entirely recovered.
Benedict Cajetano, Pope Boniface VIII., was the
most capable man and the most politically aggressive
pontiff who had sat in the chair of St. Peter since
Innocent III. ; but he carried the policy of his pre
decessor to a wild extreme, and invited the active
hostility by which he was speedily overwhelmed. It
is true that in Edward I. of England and Philip the
Fair of France he had encountered two monarchs of
more than ordinary mettle, and that a conflict with
The Seething of Europe. 33
one or both of them was virtually inevitable. As it
happened, he had to fight them both ; and the man
ner in which he launched his lightnings and hurled
his thunderbolts showed with how light a heart this
ill-fated Pope sought to assert his authority as the
vice-gerent of God on earth.
1 Revolt against Rome was ripe in every sense.
She had not only encroached on the civil govern
ments, but also harassed and offended the hierarchies
of the national Churches. By her interdicts, excom
munications, and depositions, she had exasperated
monarchs and peoples alike. She had asserted the
rights of mandate and investiture, and frequently
overruled the elections of metropolitans and bishops,
ignoring the claims of the clergy as well as of the
Crown. She had exacted large sums of money in
the shape of annata on promotions and translations,
of direct levies from the Churches, and of tribute
from the monarchs. She had set up the papal Curia
as a jurisdiction external to every country, yet
claiming supremacy in all; and she authorised her
legates to override the decisions of the hierarchies,
and even the provincial councils of the national
Churches. When, on the other hand, clergy, monks,
or friars abused their privileges to the manifest
detriment of the State, Rome almost invariably
encouraged her subordinates to defy and resist the
civil power, claiming for them both a moral and a
material immunity against the jurisdictions of the
land in which they lived.
The vast possessions of the clergy and religious
Orders, especially after the new corporations of friars
34 John Wyclif.
had forsworn their original vows of poverty, excited
the alarm, not to say the cupidity of the monarchs,
and whetted the edge of their hostility to Rome.
England, France, the Empire, and Castile had at
different times taken measures to curtail the growing
evil. In England alone, it was found in the reign of
Edward I., something like one half of the knights
fees, which had contributed to the revenues of the
Crown under William the Norman, had passed into
the hands of the clergy and monks. In order to
check further diversions of the national wealth into
the coffers of the Church, the Statute of Mortmain
(1279) forbade the alienation of estates to religious
corporations, under pain of forfeiture. But the
statutes of those days did not grind very small, and
the mischief went on.
Meanwhile the English Church, from motives
amongst which we may fairly include those of na
tional independence and patriotism, had paid sub
sidies from their growing revenues to the crippled
resources of the State. This had been done in the
reign of Henry III., and was continued in the reign of
Edward, the Church virtually admitting its liability
to taxation, but making an occasional stand in regard
to the amount. Towards the end of the thirteenth
century the King was badly in want of money, and
he was not very particular as to the means of raising
it. He made heavier demands upon the clergy, to
the extent of one fifth and even one half of their
income, until in self-defence they denied their lia
bility altogether. Edward threatened to confiscate
their property, and partly carried out his threat ;
The Seething of Europe. 35
whereupon the clergy appealed to the Pope, con
tending that their aids were due to Rome alone.
The same struggle was proceeding at the same
time upon the continent. Boniface had begun his
pontificate by calling on the monarchs of Europe to
settle their differences by referring them to his ar
bitrament. The sincerity of this plausible injunction
may be measured by the fact that he was soon offer
ing, for his own purposes, to dethrone the Emperor
Albert and to give his crown to Charles of Valois.
In this and other matters the Pope laid himself
open to the suspicion that his aim was not so much
to maintain peace in Christendom as to fish in
troubled waters.
The trial of strength between Boniface and Philip
endured throughout the seven years of that fatal
pontificate. The first blow was struck by Boniface,
who in peremptory language required the French
and English kings to abstain from laying any taxa
tions whatever upon the clergy. This was not the
only form of papal interference, but it aggravated
and governed all the rest. The challenge was un
mistakable, and Philip took it up at once. He re
fused to obey the Pope, who then issued his bull
Clericis laicos, declaring in general terms, for the
benefit of Philip, Edward, and anyone else whom it
might concern, that monarchs had no right to exact
taxes or aids from the clergy, even in the shape of
voluntary grants, without the sanction of the Holy
Father. Philip s answer was to prohibit the export
of gold, silver, precious stones, food, and the muni
tions of war a prohibition which of course included
36 John Wyclif.
the aids of the clergy and the contributions of the
faithful. Placed thus between two injunctions, the
clergy ended by paying to the nearest creditor ;
the Kings obtained their subsidies, and the Pope was
left to starve.
The quarrel continued with varying fortunes. An
award delivered by Boniface in an arbitration be
tween Philip and his enemies, being regarded in
Paris as manifestly unjust and prejudiced, was torn
up by the Count d Artois in the King s presence.
The " little bull " of 130x3, in which Boniface wrote
" We desire you to know that you are subject to us in
temporal as well as in spiritual affairs," was ordered
to be publicly burned. The Pope stormed and
threatened. Philip threw himself on the support of
the States-General, which was apparently the first
assembly of its kind in France, summoned with
in forty years of the first English Parliament ; and
the three orders of nobles, clergy, and commons
addressed three distinct memorials to the Pope, even
the clergy refusing to admit the temporal supremacy
of Rome. Nevertheless some of the bishops obeyed
the summons of Boniface to a council which was to
consider and determine upon the offences of their
King ; whereupon Philip promptly confiscated their
property, and took occasion at the same time to
throw upon the absentees the growing scandal and
odium of the Inquisition.
By openly claiming the temporal supremacy,
Boniface had gone too far to retreat. Backed by
his most uncompromising supporters, and impelled
by the complaints of the French bishops, he drew up
The Seething of Europe. 3 7
the famous bull, Unam sanctam (June, 1302), which
brought to a point the infatuated and fatal claim of
universal temporal dominion. The Church, he
declared, is one holy and undivided body, having but
a single head. "The spiritual and the temporal
sword are alike under the control of the Church ; the
latter must be employed by those who wear it on be
half of the Church, and the former by the Church it
self the former wielded by a priestly hand, the latter
by the hand of monarchs and soldiers, though
only at the summons and under the sanction of the
priest. Moreover, the one sword ought to be sub
ject to the other, and the temporal to the spiritual
authority. . . . Furthermore " [or perhaps " from
henceforth," porro\ "we declare, state, lay down and
pronounce, that it is an indispensable article of faith
for every human being that he is a subject of the
Roman pontiff."
No words could be more precise or definite than
these. Their chief effect was to seal the doom of
Boniface, and to explode the claim of Rome to any
kind of temporal sovereignty outside the States of
the Church. In the course of a few months Philip
was excommunicated, Boniface was arraigned before
the French Estates, the legitimacy of his election
was solemnly impugned, his heresies were denounced,
appeal was made from him to a new and legitimate
Pope, and this appeal was endorsed by the States-
General, by a majority of the secular clergy, by the
religious Orders, and by the University of Paris.
Philip was determined to lose nothing for want of
audacity. He sent his avocat-royal, with the two
38 John Wyclif.
Cardinals Colonna who had previously taken refuge
in Paris, to seize the person of the Pope at Anagni ;
and, though Boniface was rescued and conveyed to
Rome, he died a few days later from the shock
of his humiliation. And so the saying of the ex-
Pope Celestine, whom Boniface had compelled to
resign, and afterwards imprisoned, was fulfilled :
" This cardinal, who stole like a fox into the chair
of St. Peter, will have the reign of a lion and the
death of a dog."
" Imprisoned, insulted, deprived eventually of life
by the violence of Philip, a prince excommunicated,
and who had gone all lengths in defying and despis
ing the papal jurisdiction, Boniface, * says Hallam,
" had every claim to be avenged by the inheritors of
the same spiritual dominion. When Benedict XL
rescinded the bulls of his predecessor, and admitted
Philip the Fair to communion without insisting on
any concessions, he acted perhaps prudently, but
gave a fatal blow to the temporal authority at
Rome."
Blow after blow was given to that authority. On
the death of Boniface the cardinals had hastily elected
Benedict XL, who died within the year. The next
pope was Philip s nominee, and he transferred the
headquarters of the Papacy to Avignon. There, for
seventy-three years, seven popes,* all Frenchmen,
* 1305, Clement V.; 1316, John XXII.; 1334, Benedict XII.;
1342, Clement VI.; 1352, Innocent VI.; 1362, Urban V.; 1371,
Gregory XI. Gregory returned to Rome in 1378, and died there in
the same year, being succeeded by Urban VI. at Rome and Clement
VII. at Avignon.
The Seething of Europe.
39
with a French majority in the College of Cardinals,
abode under the shelter of the kings of France.
Rome herself, meanwhile, was successively courted
and almost won by Ludwig of Bavaria and the tri
bune Rienzi ; and throughout western Christendom
the minds of the faithful were profoundly disturbed,
not to say unstrung, by what seemed to be the irre
parable ruin of the Vicars of Christ.
Such was the condition of Europe and of the
Papacy when John Wyclif was born ; and Wyclif
himself, in the ripeness of life and the fulness of
activity, was to witness the great Schism of 1378, by
which the diminished authority of Rome was to be
still further impaired and depreciated.
He might have repeated to himself in his old age,
with pardonable exultation, that eloquent sentence of
the historian of ancient and secular Rome: " Habent
imperia suos terminos ; hue cum venerint, sistunt,
retrocedunt, ruunt"
CHAPTER III.
MONKS AND FRIARS.
T would be impossible to plot
out a faithful picture of the
life and character of Wyclif
without adding two other
sketches to the background,
which already reveals the ag
gressions and the subjection of
the Papacy in the fourteenth
century. No one who wishes
to bring that picture clearly before his mind can
afford to leave out of sight the striking figures
of the monks and friars by whom the path of the
earlier and later Reformers was beset. Still less
could the career of Wyclif be appreciated by one
who has not made himself in some degree familiar
with the Schoolmen whose teaching Wyclif imbibed
at Oxford, and whose progressive ideas and ardent
love of truth he interpreted to the humblest of his
fellow-countrymen.
40
DOMINICAN (BLACK) FRIAR. 13TH CENTURY.
(FROM MIGNE S " ENCYCLOPEDIE. ")
Monks and Friars. 4 1
Let us begin by recalling to memory the more
notable monastic Orders of the Christian Church,
and especially their institutions and representatives
in England, as they existed during the Reformation
epoch an epoch, be it always borne in mind, by no
means coincident with the reigns of a few Tudor
monarchs, but inaugurated by the intellectual cour
age of the Schoolmen, prepared by the combative
independence of the Plantagenet kings, and merely
arriving at its crisis in the sixteenth century.
Seven hundred years divided St. Benedict and his
sister Scholastica from the Spaniard Dominic and the
Italian Francis of Assisi, who founded the two Or
ders of Preaching and Begging Friars. The vows of
the Benedictine monks bound the members of this
Order to self-abnegation, chastity, and other virtues,
and the guiding idea of the founder seems to have
been that of refuge from the vices, troubles, and
distractions of the world. The Cistercians, Carthu
sians, and other monastic bodies which had been
established between the years 900 and 1200 were
governed in the main by Benedict s rules, and may
be regarded as Benedictines themselves. Ecclesiasti
cal writers have claimed for the same Order no fewer
than forty popes, two hundred cardinals, and some
thing like five thousand archbishops and bishops.
From the earliest systematic introduction of Chris
tianity into England the Benedictines played an
active part in the conversion of the people. They
accumulated vast wealth, and secured for themselves
a strong vantage-ground by the establishment of
abbeys and monasteries. Comprised within the
42 John Wyclif.
borders of the Church, yet not strictly a part of the
Church organism, this Order occupied a compara
tively independent position in regard to the ecclesi
astical and the secular authorities, in alliance with
Rome but not absolutely subject to her, often op
posing its interests to those of Church, Crown, and
People, powerful as a friend or as an enemy, yet
"dead in law," and crippled by statutory disabilities.
With the accumulation of wealth and privileges,
it was inevitable that abuses and corruptions should
find their way into the monasteries, and that an in
tense jealousy should be aroused against these privi
leged communities, both amongst the secular clergy
and amongst the people at large. The unquestioned
annals of the time show that there was ample
ground for the protests raised on all hands against
the immunities as well as the morals of the monks.
Very possibly, indeed, there has been too much
generalisation from particular instances, and a too
wholesale condemnation of houses which in many
cases were homes of unaffected piety and distin
guished learning. The Carthusians and Bernardines
maintained to the last a special repute for learning
and virtue. The abounding charity of the monastic
bodies has never been denied, and that something
less than justice has been done to their average and
relative morality is at once a natural supposition and
capable of proof.
There is no need of exaggeration in order to
justify the portraits drawn by Langland and Chau
cer, by Wyclif and his Oxford sympathisers, by the
Poor Priests and the song-writers of the Lollard
Monks and Friars. 43
movement. They painted what they saw, and their
pictures were recognised as true. If the satires had
been mere lampoons, the songs and sermons nothing
more than scandalous exaggerations, England would
not have witnessed a dissolution of monasteries
early in the fifteenth century ; for no measure of
that kind would have been ventured upon in ad
vance of popular opinion. One hundred and ten
years before the beginning of the great dissolution
in the reign of Henry VIII., it is recorded that
more than a hundred religious houses were sup
pressed ; so closely is the parallel drawn between
the final reformation and its first rehearsal.
The fact is that the abbots and monks had been
corrupted by their wealth, as the secular clergy had
been corrupted by their participation in politics and
their relaxation of religious observances. The higher
regulars, who were still supposed to shape their lives
by the regula monachorum, had the faults and weak
nesses shared by all close corporations. Their policy
was to add land to land and house to house, to
maintain the dignity and revenues of their abbeys,
and to live, each according to his rank, as pleasant
and companionable men of the world. Chaucer s
monk, whom the poet describes on his April jaunt
to Canterbury, was fond of sport and display, of
horses and hounds :
" An out-rider that loved venerye ;
A manly man, to be an abbot able,
Ful many a dainty horse had he in stable.
. . . The rule of Saint Maure and of Saint Beneyt,
Because that it was old and somdel strayt,
44 John Wyclif.
This ilke monke let forby him pace,
And held after the newe world . . .
Therefore he was a pricasour aright ;
Greyhounds he had as swift as fowl in flight ;
Of priking and of hunting for the hare
Was all his lust, for no cost wolde he spare."
It was a dissolute age ; the country was demoral
ised by war, by the ostentation of the rich and the
desperate impoverishment of the masses, by the
almost complete immunity of the clergy from civil
constraint, and by the license in which many of them
as a natural consequence indulged. Of course the
manners and morals of the time are not to be meas
ured by the standard which is set up in our own
days. A clergyman of the nineteenth century does
not frequent ale-houses, attend cock-fights and box
ing-matches, or rule the roost at boisterous con
vivialities. He does not even hunt with a good
conscience, and if he dices or plays cards he does
not indulge the taste in a mixed company, or in
places of public resort. All these things were done
freely and openly by jovial monks and seculars in
the fourteenth century. The parish parsons were
generally too poor for showy vices, but the poorest
men could be " common ale-goers," and throw the dice
for the cost of a tankard. From lowest to highest
not without exceptions there was an ascending
scale of vicious ostentation. The court, the chase,
the tournament, and the pilgrimage itself were
frequently mere parades of wantonness, and they
were constantly attended by the regular clergy by
abbots and abbesses, priors, monks, and nuns.
Monks and Friars. 45
A century before the birth of Wyclif, the monks
were confronted with dangerous rivals, who, whilst
they began by carrying back the minds of men to the
earlier models of ascetic discipline, with marvellous
promptitude imitated and surpassed the evil exam
ples of their predecessors. In the thirteenth cen
tury alone, as many as seven or eight new Orders of
religious brethren found their way to England. In
London, at Oxford and Cambridge, and at scores
of places throughout the country, they received gifts
of houses and land, forgetting their fervour in pro
portion as they accumulated their wealth. Amongst
them were the Crossed or Crutched Friars, the
Augustinian Friars, the Penitential Friars, and the
Carmelites or White Friars. But the largest and
most famous of the new Orders were the Dominicans
and Franciscans, whose arrival in England and
Oxford was practically simultaneous.
It would be difficult to find a greater contrast
amongst the devoted pioneers of the Catholic Church
than that which is afforded by the two saints Bene
dict and Dominic. Both set the stamp of their
vigorous personality upon many succeeding ages ;
and the brotherhoods which they founded have done
as much as any other single cause to determine
the character of their Church in its relations with
the world. It is in the ideas which underlie their
institutions that the contrast becomes marked and
significant. The Benedictine monasteries, brother
hoods and sisterhoods alike, were in the first place
essentially refuges from the world. In the case of
Benedict himself, and of his immediate followers,
46 John Wyclif.
the refuge was sought not only against a turbulent
and vicious world, but also against the formal and
unsatisfying character of the teaching and worship
of the day. The English monasteries retained to
some extent their specially defensive and social
features ; men and women resorted to them in order
to live a peaceful, regular, and reasonably holy life ;
and, apart from the abuses which crept into the
system, prevailing in some houses but conspicuously
absent from the best, this was their object and the
end which they achieved.
The Castilian Dominic had a very different aim in
founding his Order of Preaching (Black) Friars.
The Church had reached a stage at which the desire
for protection against secular persecutions could no
longer be a pressing cause of retirement from the
world. What Dominic felt himself moved to estab
lish was a mission into the world, not a refuge from
it. His plan was to send forth missionaries with a
distinct and well considered purpose ; aggression
was the moving principle of his life and of his teach
ing. He was the flaming sword of the Church, de
voted to the persecution and destruction of heretics,
for the saving of their souls and the relief of true
religion. He has a threefold title to fame, such as
few amongst the great military conquerors have
surpassed. He it was who devised the terrible
campaigns against the Albigenses, who inspired the
creation of the courts of Inquisition, and who sent
out the Preaching Friars against the sheep which
had wandered from the fold.
The friars had his own example to guide and
Monks and Friars. 47
encourage them. The fiery fanatic himself under
took to wrestle with the ill-fated adherents of Pierre
de Vaud, and the other heretics of Languedoc ; and,
when his preaching had failed to reach their souls,
the Inquisitors were called in to deal with their
bodies. It was a system beautiful in its simplicity ;
but to do it justice required a subtle and keenly
tempered mind.
Innocent III. found it possible in the thirteenth
century to set up in parts of Italy, France, and Spain,
these irregular courts of divine vicarial justice, hav
ing the power of life and death, yet denying the
very semblance of legality to the accused. Not
only could he create them by his own fiat, but he
was also able to call in the aid of the executive arm,
and to throw the expenses of his tribunal on the
State. In 1233, Gregory IX. expressly assigned the
control of the Inquisition to the Dominican Order,
which was declared to be in every country ex
clusively responsible to the Holy See. A genera
tion later, the Franciscans were associated with the
Dominicans in this control ; but the Black Friars
never ceased to be the leading spirits of the cam
paign inaugurated by their founder.
England was not a soil in which the exotic Inqui
sition could flourish. The Interdict had not long
been removed, and the Fair of Lincoln was but four
years passed, when the first Dominicans found their
way to this country in 1221. As a matter of course
they betook themselves at once to the universities.
They had powerful backers, and soon acquired
houses and land. Their influence grew rapidly, and,
48 John Wyclif.
if it had been possible to imitate at Oxford and
London what was done at Toulouse and Paris,
under Louis the Saint and his mother Blanche of
Castile, there were doubtless fanatics enough in
England to be ready participants in the Dominican
crusade. But it was not possible. Apart from the
absolute bar which English independence of character
would have offered to the creation of a new tribunal
at the instance of a foreign potentate, in spite of
the fact that England was for her own purposes a
tributary of Rome, still the long succession of wars
with France, the increasing jealousy of papal inter
ference, and perhaps even the political sympathy
evoked by the religious tyranny in Languedoc (our
next neighbour in Gascony and Guienne) would have
sufficed to prevent it.
We may assume that Dominic saw the impos
sibility as clearly as anyone. If he gave a special
mandate to his English missionaries, as is likely
enough, he would remind them that they were not
to expect any help from the arm of the Inquisition,
and that, for the present at least, no rack or funeral
pyre could aid them in their quest of souls. He
would bid them gain a footing amongst the clerks
and students of the ancient universities, and direct
their subtlety against the perilous inroads on the
faith which had already been made by the School
men. He would tell them to watch for the begin
nings of relapse, to train themselves for the contest
which was certain to be thrust upon them, and to
keep the sword of their dialectic sharp and keen.
They might find at Oxford or at Cambridge a new
Monks and Friars. 49
Abelard, a stiff-necked scholar, puffed up with pride,
teaching the new-fangled learning, distilling the
poison of profane knowledge and unchastened reason,
spreading around him the miasma of heresy and
rebellion. Let them scent such a man, mark him,
track him down, wrestle with him for his own soul
and the souls of his unhappy victims and then ?
Well, the English were an obstinate race. The civil
authorities might give them no aid against the most
pestilent of heretics ; even the bishops might remain
indifferent to their faithful expostulations. It was
for his devoted Preachers to meet such difficulties
with sublimer faith, with subtler intellect, with
blades from the armoury of their enemy ; and the
time might yet come, even in rebellious England,
when the stern but loving discipline of Holy Church
might contribute to the greater glory of God by its
autos-da-ft.
So may we imagine this seer and zealot of the still
undivided Church to have commissioned his English
delegates, as he placed in their hands a letter of
recommendation from Blanche of Castile to Isabel
de Balbec, the pious wife of Robert de Vere, who
was to give them the nest-egg of their future posses
sions both at Oxford and at Cambridge.
At any rate this was the policy which the English
Dominicans more or less consciously pursued. They
bided their time, and whenever a chance presented
itself they were ardent defenders of the Roman tra
dition and the papal authority. It does not appear
that their morals were ever so far relaxed as those of
the Franciscans ; and intellectually they remained
50 John Wyclif.
more in harmony with and loyal to their superiors on
the continent than the generality of the Orders in
England. Whilst it is not unusual to find men of
independent thought amongst the friars in the thir
teenth and fourteenth centuries, like the Franciscan
Roger Bacon (whose brother Robert was a staunch
Dominican) and the Carmelite John Baconthorpe, we
scarcely ever come across a Preaching Friar who was
not imbued with the narrow and aggressive spirit of
St. Dominic against the merest indication of heresy.
Wyclif may have had friends and sympathisers in
every Order. He was certainly at one time on fairly
good terms with many of the Franciscan Friars. But
no tolerance for his bolder views and innovations
could be expected from the Dominican obscurants.
They were amongst the first to detect his heresy, to
denounce him at home and at Rome, to reproach the
bishops for their indifference to his false teaching,
and to produce against him that keen-edged sword
which their founder had entrusted to them. We
may anticipate our story so far as to quote from a
list of the more celebrated members of the Order
(given by Stevens from the papers of Anthony a
Wood, who was indebted to Bishop Bale) the names
of certain Dominicans who particularly signalised
themselves by their zeal in refuting the errors of
Lollardy. Thus we read of William Jordan (1370)
" who with much boldness excelled among the Ox
ford masters, carrying himself with much boasting
ostentation, and like another Ismael (so says Bale)
opposed all men, and was opposed by all. He writ
pieces against Wickliff s positions " ; Roger Dimock
Monks and Friars. 5 1
(1390), "a man of singular judgment, not only in
philosophical matters . . . but also in the mys
teries of divinity which relate to faith. He spent
many years at Oxford with reputation ; amongst
which that was most remarkable in which he was
appointed by the vote of the universities the invin
cible champion to conquer Wickliff s followers " ;
and Robert Humbleton, "who by several writings
declared himself a professed enemy to Wickliff and
his followers."
Humbleton was present as a bachelor of theology
at the proceedings taken against Wyclif in 1382
and the various Orders were of course largely repre
sented at all such proceedings. Kynyngham, a
Carmelite Friar, was specially selected to argue
against Wyclif, long before the Church authorities
had begun to move. Of the twelve theologians who
condemned Wyclif in 1381, at the instigation of
Courtenay, six were friars and two were monks.
This is by the way ; but note how the long arm of
the astute Dominic had reached through the centu
ries and across the northern seas, adapting means to
surroundings, and preparing the very instrument
which would be necessary to crush (if anything
could crush) the English revolt against the Papacy.
Let us recognise how marvellous a service albeit
transitory and incomplete was rendered to the
cause which had enlisted his transcendent abilities
by the Inquisitor-General of France and Spain. In
his native country, in Languedoc and the valleys of
the Alps, by torture, death, and domestic crusade, he
went far towards annihilating the nascent opposition
52 John Wyclif.
to Rome, and helped to weld a France which to this
day, in spite of republican institutions and widespread
rationalism, is not so much the eldest son as the most
jealous guardian of the Roman Church. And in
England, though his Inquisition was powerless, and
he had to wait nearly two hundred years for the
attainment of his ambition, it was still St. Dominic
and his Preaching Friars who turned the blade of
Wyclif s logic, diverted the full flood of Lollardy
until it was lost for a century in the sands, instigated
a persecution almost as bitter as that which had been
directed against the Waldenses, and for a time
baulked and defeated the intellectual movement in
the English Church.
The coming of the Franciscan (Grey) Friars, or
Friars Minor, to Oxford took place in the year 1224.
Their arrival in England was only a few years later
than that of the Dominicans, as the institution of
their Order was a few years subsequent to the estab
lishment of the Preaching Friars. The quaint story
of Ingeworth and Henry of Devon, as recorded in
Stevens s transcript from the papers of Anthony a
Wood, is well worth telling afresh.
These two forerunners of a famous brotherhood,
"being not far from Oxford, and gone out of the
way as not knowing the country," turned off to a
grange or farm-house of the Benedictines of Abing-
don, six miles from Oxford, because night was draw
ing on and the floods were out. Stevens suggests
that the precise locality may have been Baldon, or
Culham, for at both places the Abbey of Abing-
don had property. " The friers came to it just at
FRANCISCAN (QREY) FRIAR.
(FROM MIGNE S ENCYCUOPEDIE. "
Monks and Friars. 53
nightfall ; and, knocking gently at the door, humbly
begged for God s sake to be admitted, otherwise
they should perish through hunger and cold. It
was the porter to whom they made their request,
who, guessing these two friers by their patched
habits, the meanness of their aspect, and their broken
language, to be some mimics, or disguised persons,
carried the message to the prior, who was not dis
pleased with it. He, hastening to the door with the
sacrist, the cellarer, and two younger monks, freely
invited them in, expecting to be entertained with
some sleight of hand or diverting pastime. But the
friers, with a composed and sedate countenance,
affirming that they were mistaken, that they were no
such vile men, but that they had chosen an apostoli
cal course of life to serve God, the Benedictines,
displeased to be so defrauded of their expected
diversion, turned out the friers, after misusing, kick
ing and buffeting them." So they went out into
the cold and rain again ; but one of the young
monks took pity on them, and smuggled them into
the hayloft. And afterwards, in a dream, he beheld
Christ making inquisition into the conduct of the
wicked Benedictines, and condemning them, after
their repudiation by St. Benedict as subverters of
his rule, to be hanged on a convenient elm tree.
It is added that Ingeworth and Henry of Devon
proceeded next morning to Oxford, and went to the
house of the Dominicans in the Jewry, where they
were entertained for eight days. Evidently the
story is of Franciscan origin, and it bears witness
not only to the opinions entertained of Benedictine
54 John Wydif.
laxity by the new devotees, but also to the har
monious relations existing at the time between the
followers of Dominic and those of Francis of Assisi.
It need hardly be said that the harmony and co
operation of the friars in matters of common interest
was no sign of identity in their mandates, vows, or
ultimate aims. Most of the brotherhoods originating
in the thirteenth century seem to have owed their
institution to the revival of religious fervour by the
crusades or otherwise, and to a spirit of moral inno
vation due to the plethoric abuses of many Benedic
tine houses. It is not clear that any other Order
had the subtlety of purpose which undoubtedly be
longed to the Dominicans, though many of the
Franciscans were evidently made of the same stuff,
and were equally intellectual and highly-trained
men. It is told of Francis whose youth was disso
lute and profligate that when he elected to follow
an ascetic life his father required him to make a
formal renunciation of his inheritance, and that he
thereupon stripped himself naked, in order that the
symbol might be beyond dispute. And it is further
stated that in the course of a few years he had as
many as five thousand friars at his disposal, who had
been moved by his example to similar acts of re
nunciation. In any case it is certain that the
Dominicans and Franciscans were, and continued
to be recruited by, picked men, socially and intellec
tually on a level with the men whom they would
meet at Oxford and Cambridge. And of course
they would not be long in England before the main
body of their members were drawn from the uni-
Monks and Friars. 55
versity students, although the general direction of
the Orders came from Rome.
The corruption of the new Orders from their prelim
inary professions of poverty, simplicity of life, and
singleness of purpose was sooner or later inevitable.
The originative influence of St. Dominic in regard to
his own Order has been insisted on above. He is not
likely to have had any influence in establishing the
other Orders which arose in the thirteenth century.
Yet there doubtless was a common origin for them
all ; and it is not far to seek. The Benedictines were
so widely spread, so wealthy, and so powerful in the
social relations which they maintained with the laity,
that if they had continued to bring a balance of
advantage to the Church and its rulers there would
have been no need for the institution of new Orders.
But the balance of advantage had virtually disap
peared. The general contempt into which so many
worldly, idle, and vicious monks had fallen in every
country could not fail to weaken the hold of religion
on the popular mind. Innocent III. and his suc
cessors appear to have been convinced that a crusade
in Christendom was quite as necessary as a crusade
against the avowed infidels, and that the most
effective weapons for the new crusaders would be
those of apostolic poverty and fervour. Nor was it
only, or even mainly, as a corrective against the cor
ruption of the monks that the Mendicant Friars
were sent forth. Their object was also to supply the
defects of the secular clergy, whose lack of energy,
and often of practical piety, was gravely reflected on
by their contemporaries.
56 John Wyclif.
The enthusiasm and success of the early friars have
been compared with those of the English Methodists
in the days of Wesley and Whitfield. They would
be fresh in the memory of the nation when John
Wyclif, a century and a half later, sent out his own
Poor Priests to emulate their spirit and to achieve a
very similar success. The friars of the thirteenth
century found a church in every street and field ;
they carried with them not only the evidences of
their personal poverty, but the fullest sacerdotal
authority, and the very altars and sacraments of
religion. In the course of a generation we find Mat
thew of Paris complaining that the churches were
deserted, and that the people would confess to none
but friars. It is not to be wondered at that the
secular clergy, the hierarchy, and even the universi
ties remonstrated against the privileges and favours
which Rome continued to shower upon her new
missionaries.
The doctrine of poverty was an essential part of
the constitution of St. Francis. When the Fran
ciscans began to hold houses and lands of their own,
to live like Benedictine monks in their convents, and
to relax their apostolical fervour as well as their
evangelical poverty, they ceased to fulfil the pur
poses for which they were founded. Even the
brightest ornaments of the Order, such as Bishop
Grosteste (who left them his library), Adam Marsh,
Roger Bacon, the " Irrefragable " Alexander Hales,
the learned and influential Haymo, Duns Scotus, and
William of Ockham, were anything rather than the
mendicant missioners whom St. Francis had pictured
Monks and Friars. 5 7
in his mind. Many of the friars nevertheless adhered
to the original rule, taking the name of Spirituals or
Observants. The dispute between the two sections
of the Order soon waxed warm, and the popes of the
thirteenth century had much difficulty in holding the
balance between them. It was declared from Rome
that whilst the Order were debarred from actual own
ership, they were entitled to the usufruct of their
acquisitions, the property itself being vested in the
Supreme Pontiff. Pope Nicholas III. formulated a
bull to this effect. The conscience of the Spirituals
was not satisfied by this partial vindication, and the
principle involved appeared to them so important
that it became almost a new basis of religious faith.
Christ and his disciples, they maintained, were vol
untarily poor ; the possession of wealth was incom
patible with apostolic Christianity ; poverty was an
indispensable note of a true Church. As late as
1322 a general assembly of the Franciscans at
Perugia, representing the branches of the Order in
every country, adopted the doctrine of evangelical
poverty in its fullest sense.
This was logical ; but equally logical was the
alarm of the Pope and his supporters. For the
natural and necessary development of one of the
chief factors of pure Christianity was seen to be in
direct conflict with the teaching and practice of the
Papacy. If the Spiritual Franciscans were right, the
Pope, the superior clergy, the monks, the Domini
cans themselves, were all unapostolic, not to say
anti-Christian. Avignon fulminated at once against
these new heretics, and John XXII. did not hesitate
58 John Wyclif.
to cut out of the decretals the bull which Nicholas
III. had promulgated at Rome. The Order as a
whole gave way ; but many an honest friar and clerk
muttered in advance his " e pur si muove"
This was a turning-point of the early Reformation.
If it had been humanly possible to crush the Papacy
in the fourteenth century, or even to liberate the
national Churches from papal control or interference,
the task would have been accomplished. For the
spiritual blow delivered by the Franciscans in 1322
was as staggering in its way as the political blow
administered by Philip of France less than twenty
years before. And in fact, both in the political and
in the spiritual order, the work of those twenty
years was substantially effectual. It was in the
direct line of thought and action from Avignon and
Perugia onwards, through the Schoolmen and the Lol
lards, through Marsiglio of the University of Paris
and Wyclif of the University of Oxford, that the
statesmen and clerics of the sixteenth century de
rived their power to strike and to conquer. With
the Spiritual Franciscans Wyclif never ceased to be
in full sympathy ; but when he came to maturity
they were comparatively few and insignificant.
Such, then, were the monks and the friars with
whom Wyclif was brought into contact and conflict
in the fourteenth century distinct from each other
and from the national Church, by no means always
in harmony, yet all in a large measure subordinate
to a foreign authority, and all virtually combined in
common defence of their positions against the inno
vating spirit of the early Reformers.
CHAPTER IV.
WYCLIF AND THE SCHOOLMEN.
E have already encountered,
amongst the pioneers of reli
gious reform in England, mem
bers of two mutually supporting
bodies, advancing in parallel
directions towards a common
object. On the one hand we
see the men of action, monarchs
and statesmen, with their allies
and instruments, who in the temporal domain suc
cessively resisted and attacked the assumptions of
the Roman Church ; and on the other hand there
were the men of thought, of accurate logic and
awakened conscience, who in the spiritual domain
required that Christian practice should conform to
the root-principles of Christianity, and refused to
accept the papal superstructure as of equal authority
with the foundation which it hid from sight.
59
60 John Wyclif.
One of the most interesting facts in connection
with the life of John Wyclif, which has contributed
as much as anything else to fix him in the popular
imagination, and to place him permanently on the
roll of English heroes, is that he elected to play the
part of a politician as well as of a theologian, and
that, being a priest and a Schoolman, he joined
hands with the statesmen of his age, in order to
secure what could not be obtained without their aid.
No institution was ever reformed in the absence of
co-operation from within ; and reformers within the
Church have always commanded a lively sympathy
in England. Wyclif was the first conspicuous Eng
lish clergyman who combined his aspirations for
reform with a frank admission of the right (and cor
responding duty) of laymen to interpose in matters
of faith and discipline. We shall hereafter be in a
position to judge as to the nature of his relations
with King and Parliament, with princes and with
peasants. It was through these relations that he
became a popular Englishman, and that his name has
stood out for five centuries like a patch of warm colour
from the neutral tints of the later Middle Ages.
Now it is above all things important to remember
that Wyclif took this significant stand as the direct
heir of the Schoolmen as a Schoolman himself, in
terpreting and giving effect to their views, wedding
action to thought, not only by his individual energy
and initiative, but in obedience to national character
and scholastic training. Some injustice has been
done to the Schoolmen by constantly speaking of
them as though they were men of disquisition only,
Wyclif and the Schoolmen. 61
chop-logics in a narrow groove, industrious tillers of
a barren soil. This has at any rate been the popular
notion of their quality, and the vast majority of
readers have been led to dismiss them from their
minds with a shudder at their repelling dryness and
ineffective ingenuity. It is only since yesterday that
something like justice has been done to their intel
lectual and theological position, to their attitude as
men of action and not merely as writers, and espe
cially to their character as leaders in religious reform.
Hallam remarks that the discovery of truth by
means of scholastic discussions " was rendered hope
less by two insurmountable obstacles, the authority
of Aristotle and that of the Church." The great
historian, from whose judgments so few of his suc
cessors are competent to dissent, regarded the
Schoolmen as writers only. He does not mention
MarsigHo, nor deal with Wyclif as a Schoolman.
He expresses disappointment with what he had read
of Ockham ; but he had not directed his attention
to the political association of Marsiglio, Ockham,
and Michael of Cesena with Ludwig of Bavaria, nor
to that of Wyclif with the English court. Indeed
it is only in the present generation that full light has
been cast on the innovating and revolutionary spirit
of the later Schoolmen. We must be content to
sacrifice the representative character of the story of
angels dancing on the point of a needle in return
for the more just appreciation of scholastic aims and
methods which we owe to modern German and Eng
lish research.
Enough, perhaps, has been said of the political
62 John Wyclif.
usurpation of Rome, and of the conflict excited by
it up to the beginning of the fourteenth century ;
but it will be interesting to ascertain the exact posi
tion of Wyclif in the intellectual revolt against the
obscurantism of the mediaeval Church. It would
be useless to ask ourselves when and where this
revolt actually began. The mind and the heart of
man appear to have acted on virtually identical prin
ciples in all ages, and no doubt the first religious
Reformers were contemporaneous with the first
obscurers of truth and usurpers of authority. But
from the eleventh century, to take no earlier date,
the ever extending claims of the Papacy are asso
ciated with the protests of active and inquiring
minds. It is clear that the worst errors of Rome
corresponded in time with the feudal supremacies in
the States, as their refutation corresponded with the
establishment of schools and universities.
The schools of Charles the Great, Alfred, and
Edward the Confessor were largely developed and
frequented under Norman rule. They were, to
begin with, under the patronage of the rnonarchs
rather than of the Church ; they taught not only
theology but also law and medicine, as well as the
trivium and quadrivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric;
music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy) ; and they
constituted at once a nursery and a refuge of minds
which sought intellectual and moral freedom. Al
ready in the twelfth century we find Oxford attract
ing her three thousand students, and Paris divided
into her four nations of France, Picardy, Normandy,
and England ; whilst in the next century contem-
Wyclif and the Schoolmen. 63
porary writers number the scholars of Oxford, Paris,
and Bologna by tens of thousands. Close in their
wake came the foundations of Padua, Naples,
Toulouse, Montpelier, Cambridge, Salamanca, and
Prague.
In this fertile soil were sown the seeds of inde
pendence, inquiry, and moral courage. Here
learning grew, and the revolt against the suppression
of truth was prepared. The path which Wyclif was
to tread had been worn by Abelard of Paris and his
pupil Arnold of Brescia, by John of Salisbury, Pierre
Dubois, and Berengar ; by Bishop Grosteste, Bracton,
Archbishop Bradwardine, and Ockham of Oxford ;
by Marsiglio of Padua and Paris, Fitzralph of Oxford,
Lupold of Bebenburg, and many others who owed
their training and hardihood to the schools.
Each particular age has its available and appro
priate refuges for the thought of man, in its reaction
and revolt against spiritual tyranny ; yet, age for
age, the refuge is substantially the same in each.
The human mind which refuses to dwell with the
moles and bats must grope and struggle for the
light by such avenues as may be open to it. Before
the period of the general Renascence of liberal
studies there were few avenues, and those narrow and
difficult, which led to any sort of illumination save
that which shone from the chair of St. Peter. The
seven sciences supposed to be included in the trivium
and quadrivium a fifth- or sixth-century classifica
tion were little better than titles for the students in
the ecclesiastical schools. Ingulfus, Abbot of Croy-
land in the eleventh century, a Westminster and
64 John Wyclif.
Oxford man by his own account, was able to study
Aristotle and the first two books of Tully s rhetoric,
evidently a giddy height of profane knowledge for
the days in which he lived. The Latin poets as
known to the zealous Alcuin were forbidden to his
pupils, and exceedingly little is heard of them in
the succeeding centuries. Law meant the decretals
of the popes, with a subsequent tinge of Justinian.
Medicine was but a smattering of empirical dogmas
and rules, fallacious when not directly injurious and
homicidal. Of liberal, still less of literary studies, in
the worthier sense of the terms, we have barely a
trace before the fourteenth century ; and even then
they were so rare that we are astonished when a man
of high culture like Chaucer reveals his knowledge
of the contemporary Italian poets, or when a Fran
ciscan friar like Roger Bacon displays what looks
like a genuine spirit of exact scientific inquiry. So
long as for the majority of eager students the science
of astronomy culminated in the arrangement of the
calendar, and the science of music in a cathedral
chant, whilst Virgil smelt of magic and Ovid was
under a jealous ban, the learning of scholars could
but bring them back to the point from which they
had started, often with an eager craving for relief
to the religious dogma of their day.
Hence the men of intellectual energy, who in
other ages might have been effective as philosophical
inquirers, were condemned to feed upon the mere
husks of knowledge, to beat the air and walk the
vicious circle, mumbling inconclusive dialogues on
universal ideas, on nominalism and realism, on grace
Wyclif and the Schoolmen. 65
and predestination and free-will, bound down mean
while to the orthodox theology of Rome, with no
better alternative and outlet than the logic and
metaphysics of Aristotle, the comments of Averroes,
and the subtleties of the Angelic Doctor. Even
these were dangerous guides in the opinion of
many. Aquinas held his ground, but Aristotle and
Averroes were condemned by the same authority
which tabooed the civil law.
Such were the studies of the Schoolmen, both of
those who strongly maintained the supremacy of
Rome in matters of faith and also of those who
denied it. There was not much intellectual breadth
in this scholastic arena, but it was quite broad
enough to admit the bandying to and fro of charges
of heresy. In days when authority demanded abso
lute conformity, the mere spirit of inquiry and
research was sufficient to lay a man open to suspi
cion and condemnation. The substance of the
average scholastic disquisitions was so meagre and
trivial that it must have been exceedingly difficult
even for an Inquisitor to discover the heretical ten
dencies of any particular discourse ; and possibly for
that very reason the accusation was frequently
brought.
It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that
there was no value in the method by which these
subjects were discussed. It was in fact the new dia
lectic itself which attracted, and to some extent
satisfied the frequenters of the schools ; and cer
tainly it was an instrument of mental discipline
which, in the absence of a better, served to train the
66 John Wyclif.
western mind to think, discriminate, and judge. If
it was for the time applied to mere phantoms of
theology and philosophy, and produced vacant chaff
in place of grain, still the training had been given,
and the instrument remained bright and keen for
future use.
The codification of the canon law, which within
certain limits confirmed the authority of the Church
whilst it seemed to open up a new field of intellectual
activity, had a further and unforeseen effect in
strengthening the opposition to papal supremacy.
The sentences of the Fathers, the canons and de
cretals of the Popes, were compiled and re-issued
many times in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The decretals were essentially aggressive against the
civil power, for they included various decrees of
deposition and excommunication of monarchs, and
repeated declarations of the right of the Pope to
dispense subjects from their allegiance to their
rulers. One effect of the publication of the canon
law in this form was to add to the army of the clergy
and the army of the monks (soon to be reinforced by
the army of the friars) yet another army of lawyers,
warmly devoted to the interests of the Church.
It is remarkable that just at this time the study of
the Pandects, Code, and Institutes of Justinian the
system of Roman law compiled and maintained in
Byzantium was revived after long neglect. Was it
a mere coincidence ? Or may it not be that the
magistrates and lawyers, the teachers and students
in the schools, reverted to Justinian out of sheer
necessity for relief from the narrow absolutism of the
Wyclif and the Schoolmen. 67
canon law and that the Church, without venturing
or attempting to confine legal studies to her own
decretals, still looked with suspicion on every other
kind of law ? Indeed this is no mere supposition ;
the study of civil law was long forbidden in the
University of Paris, and even at -Oxford the clerical
authorities resisted it when it was introduced by
Vacarius from Bologna in the reign of Stephen.
However it may have been with the civil law, it is
certain that the common law of England and the
national customs and precedents of other countries
were held up as correctives of the ex cathedra deliv
erances of the Papacy, and that their study was
encouraged by perspicacious men in order to count
eract the teachings of Rome in the interests of the
State. The jurisprudents of Paris, as distinct from
the canonists, were very serviceable to Philip the
Fair in his quarrel with Boniface ; and so it was with
the independent lawyers in other countries. The
very infatuation of the Roman usurpers helped to
prepare their own defeat.
For our present purpose, however, the main thing
is to observe that the most liberal-minded clerics of
the eleventh and three following centuries, regulars
as well as seculars, who were found principally in the
schools and universities, take their place in the ranks
of the Schoolmen, and link hand to hand across the
later Middle Ages. They carry us forward from
Roscelin, the leader of the Nominalists, through
Anselm, Abelard, Peter Lombard, Aquinas, Duns
Scotus, Michael of Cesena and other Franciscans,
Marsiglio, Bradwardine, and William of Ockham, to
68 John Wyclif.
John Wyclif who in his turn joins hands with John
Huss and Jerome of Prague, from whom the torch
was passed onward to the German and English Re
formers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
It has already been said that Wyclif was a School
man by intellectual descent and training. At Oxford
he imbibed the spirit and ideas of Bradwardine and
Ockham, who were both fellows of Merton when he
was studying for his degrees, and by whose writings,
if not by their personal teaching, he must have
largely profited. Bradwardine, who became Arch
bishop of Canterbury, and died of the plague in
1349, on the morrow of his admission to the tempor
alities of that province, was anything but a mere
Schoolman, being not only a popular teacher at the
university, but also a king s chaplain and a travelled
man. He wrote scientific treatises on Proportion, on
The Quadrature of the Circle, on Speculative Arith
metic, and Speculative Geometry, and on The Art of
Memory. He collected his lectures (in Latin) under
the title of The Cause of God against Pelagius, and
concerning Causes in General, and dedicated the
book to his friends at Merton.
Bradwardine has been claimed as one of the
direct forerunners of the Calvinists, and he certainly
frowned on the ideas of free-will, the merit of good
deeds, the winning of grace by congruity, and so
forth. " In the schools of the philosophers," he
writes, "we rarely heard a word said concerning
grace, but we were continually told that we were the
masters of our own free actions, and that it was in
our power to do well or ill." The " Profound Doctor "
JOHN DUNS SCOTUS DOCTOR SUBTILIS."
BY J. FABER, FROM THE OXFORD PORTRAIT.
Wyclif and the Schoolmen. 69
taught that human nature, on the other hand, is
impotent for good, that the best deeds of men are
unmeritorious, that everything worthy comes of the
free grace and with the absolute foreknowledge of
God. His teaching commended itself not a little to
the men of his day, and Wyclif was deeply imbued
with it. Chaucer re-echoes his fame, for he makes
the Nun s Priest confess, on this capital distinction
between predestination and free-will,
" I ne cannot boult it to the bran,
As can the holy doctor, saint Austyn,
Or Boe ce, or the bishop Bradwardyn."
There is clearly a sense in which Bradwardine was
a forerunner of the Calvinists, or rather of the earlier
English predestinarians. A familiar passage in
Paradise Lost describes the occupations of the fallen
angels :
" Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost."
Of course Milton need not have been indebted to
Bradwardine for any of his ideas, and yet it is
possible enough that he had sat at the feet of the
Schoolman. Sir Henry Savile printed the treatise
against Pelagianism early in the seventeenth century,
and the omnivorous student was not at all unlikely
to have seen this book.
William of Ockham died in 1357, the year in
which Wyclif, according to some accounts, was made
70 John Wyclif.
a fellow of Merton, though there is reason to doubt
the last-mentioned statement. Ockham was a Fran
ciscan friar, and some of the ablest men of the Order
in the fourteenth century were his professed follow
ers. He had sat under Duns Scotus, who had also
been a fellow of Merton and a Franciscan ; but in
several respects the views of master and pupil were
in sharp contrast. Duns was a Realist, a " Scotist,"
a believer in the immaculate conception of the
Virgin, a defender of the current orthodoxy of
Rome. Ockham was a Nominalist, a champion of
the Fraticelli, not to say a Fraticello himself, who
wrote a cogent Defence of Poverty. He opposed the
extreme political claims of the Papacy, denied the
final authority of the decretal or canon law, and held
that logic was essentially distinct from and indepen
dent of theology which, according to his enemies,
was the same thing as to declare it of superior
authority. Though he was far less dogmatically
assertive in regard to the spiritual assumptions of
Rome than some of his friends, yet his personal
courage, and the sacrifices which he made for his
belief, were unquestionable ; and he was finally ex
communicated. He went so far as to denounce
John XXII. as a heretic ; and, in the quarrel between
that Pope and Ludwig of Bavaria, he ranged himself
on the side of the Emperor, and of the Antipope
Nicolas.
Ockham, like many English scholars of his day,
took advantage of the privilege accorded to those
who wished to study at the University of Paris.
Whilst there, he formed a close friendship with
Wyclif and the Schoolmen.. 7 1
Marsiglio of Padua (called also Mainardini, and Men-
andrinus), an ardent sympathiser with the Emperor
Ludwig, and a distinct progenitor of Wyclif in his
ideas of political government. Mr. R. L. Poole has
clearly summarised the arguments of Marsiglio in
his Wycliffe and Movements for Reform, a volume
which must be consulted by any reader who wishes
to trace in detail the descent of ideas, and especially
of political ideas, through Marsiglio and Ockham to
Wyclif.* Marsiglio worked out his conception of
the harmony which should exist between the civil
and the spiritual dominion in his Defensor Pads,
produced whilst he was living at Paris in 1324,
which was probably a few years after the date of
Wyclifs birth. This work, with the Dialogus and
De Ecclesiastica et Politica Potestate of Ockham, was
widely read by his contemporaries and successors ;
and the literature to which these works belong did
much to create or reconstruct the model on which
our actual theories of Church and State have been
formed.
No doubt for the original ideas we should have to
go back at least as far as the political philosophers of
Greece and Rome, to whom Marsiglio must have
been more or less directly indebted for them.
Prescience and divination alone could scarcely have
enabled a Schoolman to evolve from surrounding
chaos the main political principles of the eighteenth
century ; but, whether this could have been or not,
the more salient of these principles had been stated
* See also John Wiclif and his English Precursors, by Prof. G.
V. Lechler ; Lorimer s translation.
72 John Wydif.
many centuries before, and only needed to be revived.
The mere revival is infinitely to the credit of the
Italian and English scholastic philosophers. To
re-establish such ideas under such conditions and cir
cumstances was to display all the character and
effective force of originality. There is indeed a con
ceivable suggestion that the Moors of Spain, who
gave to Europe from Arabic sources more than one
work of Greek philosophy and science, had furnished
Marsiglio in the same manner with the elements of
his constitutional treatise.
The central and most striking of Marsiglio s politi
cal ideas from which, indeed, his other political
ideas are seen to radiate is that of the sovereignty
of the people. The people, he maintains, must be
ultimate lawgiver and ultimate judge ; the State
must have a supreme executive, selected and author
ised by itself. " The king s power is limited in every
possible direction. He has the eye of the people or
its representatives on all his actions. He may be
restrained or even deposed if he overpass his pre
scribed bounds ; and, even though his conduct be
not amenable to the letter of the law, he is still sub
ject to the final judgment of the national will. On
no side is there any room for despotism ; in no point
is he absolute." * And Ockham, in the third part of
his Dialogus, goes over the same ground and arrives
at the same conclusions. It is indeed arguable
whether Marsiglio or Ockham was the more original
writer of the two. Pope Clement, in a bull con
demning the writings of Marsiglio, declared them to
* R. L. Poole, as above, p. 31.
Wyclif and the Schoolmen. 73
have been derived from Ockham ; and, so far as
religious and merely anti-papal views are concerned,
this may well have been the case.
The evolution of these ideas in the age of the
Schoolmen, where evolution can be recognised be
fore the time of Marsiglio, was a gradual and tardy
process, limited for the most part to the antagonism
between Rome and the secular governments, or ex
hibiting little more than a variety of paraphrases
from Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, and Aquinas.
Pierre Dubois and John of Paris had begun to
emphasise the distinctions between the authority of
the Church and that of the State. This was before
the time of the Emperor Ludwig ; and it was Lud-
wig s vigorous conflict with Rome, during the
" Babylonian Captiyity " at Avignon, which set the
seal of actuality on what had hitherto been a some
what abstract disquisition. Several of the earlier
Schoolmen had provided arguments against the
encroachments of the Papacy ; it was for Marsiglio
and Ockham to erect an independent system with
out exclusive reference to the papal claims.
Lupold von Bebenburg, who wrote the first theo
retical work on German jurisprudence, went a step
further. Having formulated the rights of the
Emperor, he maintains that even the homage and
submissions of emperors to popes cannot wholly com
mit the subordinate princes and the people. As a
tributary prince is permitted, when his overlord
chooses to submit himself to another overlord, to
refuse the new vassalage for his own part, so, if
a vassal of a church-vassal declines to become a
74 John Wyclif.
church-vassal himself, he cannot be compelled
thereto.
In the ecclesiastical domain we find the same ideas
taken henceforth as the true basis of Church govern
ment. The Church is not the priestly order and
hierarchy alone, but the whole body of Christians.
The priests have their functions, but outside those
functions they are members of the general com
munity subject to the State in their secular relations
and to the Church in their spiritual relations. Mar-
siglio found no warrant for a hierarchy in the New
Testament, nor for a human arbiter of orthodoxy,
nor for any temporal visitation of pains and penalties
on the ground of errors in opinion. In brief the
Christian priesthood ought to be in plain truth a
Christian ministry, serving and not enslaving the
Church.
Evidently Marsiglio was a fourteenth-century
protestant of the most uncompromising order. It
may be supposed that he went too far for his friend
Ockham, and too far for Wyclif at any rate in
Wyclifs earlier and more moderate phases. No
doubt this must always be a matter of opinion ; but
it will scarcely be denied that if the Archbishops
Sudbury and Courtenay had resisted the pressure
brought to bear upon them by the monks and friars,
and treated Wyclif with judicious coolness and
patience, he might have stopped short of some of his
later paradoxes and logical extremes. Wyclif, who
had secured the confidence of his Oxford friends not
only by his saintly life but also as a man of sense
and an able administrator, was in many respects natu-
Wyclif and the ScJioolmen. 75
rally predisposed to compromise. Is it not reason
able to suppose that the Oxford scholar with his
secular sympathies, the man of affairs living and
working amongst his own countrymen, the patriot
and man of letters,* would have been well satisfied
to advance step by step so that the advance was
indisputable, leading and not outrunning the spirit
of his times ?
An English clergyman before everything else,
John Wyclif inherited the ideas of Marsiglio and
Ockham without claiming the whole of his inheri
tance. Deeply sympathetic for his unfortunate
fellow-countrymen, as modest and simple in spirit
as he was intellectually eager and ambitious, he
aimed at being an orderly, a progressive, and yet an
effectual Reformer. It was only after the defiance
and exasperation of his enemies that he was forced
into the attitude of an open .heretic.
* Every Schoolman who made his mark must have studied the
mathematics and science of his day. Wyclif, for instance, is pretty
sure to have read the works of Roger Bacon, and to have cleared his
mind by straining it through the scientific sieve. There is a sentence
in the De Civili Dominio which showed him, as the late Prof. Thorold
Rogers pointed out, to be well acquainted with the principle of the
telescope : " Sicut enim, juxta perspectives, contingit per specula
vel media diversarum dyafanitatum, quantumlibet parvum per quan-
tamcunque magnam distanciam apparere ex elargicione anguli pira-
midis radialis : ita contingit fide videre ea quae sunt in principio
mundi et die judicii ex fideli narracione fidelium sibi succedencium
tarn disparium fidei speculorum."
CHAPTER V.
WYCLIF S EARLY DAYS.*
HE evidence in regard to Wyc-
lif s birthplace is extremely
meagre, and, such as it is, it
must be taken in connection
with the other and better as
certained facts of his biogra
phy. Sundry considerations
tend to show that he was a
member of the family of
.Wycliffes who lived on their own land at the village
from which they took their name ; but it so happens
that John Wyclif, though he wrote a great deal,
made no reference to his earliest home or to his
parentage. Thomas Walsingham, a contemporary
chronicler, says that he came from the North ; but
* The earlier portion of this chapter is identical in substance with
two communications made by the author to iheAthen&um of March
12 and 26, 1892.
76
JOHN WYCLIF.
(Hondius fecit.)
1320] Wyclifs Early Days. 77
no one appears to have made a more definite state
ment until John Leland (who travelled and wrote in
the reign of Henry VIII., upwards of two centuries
after the event of which he speaks) mentions as a
matter of hearsay that Wyclif was born at Spreswell,
a good mile from Richmond in Yorkshire. In
another place he says that the Reformer derived his
origin from the village of Wycliffe, which is on the
river Tees, some ten miles from Richmond.
These two statements of the antiquary have caused
no slight perplexity amongst later writers. Even if
they are consistent with each other, which is not
quite clear, a double difficulty is created by the
facts that there is no such place as Spreswell, actually
or historically, within a mile or so of Richmond, and
that the people of Wycliffe-on-Tees have for many
generations piously laid claim to a Spreswell or
Speswell of their own.
It was Whitaker who first suggested, in his History
of Richmondshire, some ninety years ago, that Spres
well was only Leland s incorrect rendering of Ips-
well or Hipswell a village of this name still existing
near Richmond. Dr. Shirley preferred to think
that Leland had made no mistake, having written
Ipreswell, which a copyist subsequently converted
into Spreswell. Mr. F. D. Matthew and Mr. Poole,
relying upon Stow s transcript from Leland s work,
maintain that the copyist actually wrote Ipreswell,
and that the 5 first makes its appearance in Hearne s
printed copy of the Itinerary.
All this looks natural enough ; but it does not
make the birth of a Wycliffe of Wycliffe at Ipreswell
78 John Wyclif. n320-
(assuming that Hipswell was once Ipreswell) any the
more natural. If John Wyclif s birth at that place
was remembered more than two centuries later, one
would imagine that it must have been on account of
a continued residence of his parents there, and not
on the strength of a casual visit of his mother at the
time of his birth. There is a difficulty in reconciling
the Hipswell theory with the surmises which I shall
presently venture to make in respect of the parentage
of Wyclif and mainly for the reason just stated.
If Stow s transcript of Leland be regarded as finally
establishing the form " Ipreswell," all that can be
said is that we have one reason the fewer to hesitate
over Leland s statement.
The statement is not very definite in itself, and it
is introduced with a couple of words which almost
imply that Leland did not attach great weight to it
not so much weight, for instance, as he attached
to his independent statement about the village of
Wycliffe. " They say " these are his words " that
John Wiclif Haereticus was borne at Spreswel [Ipres-
wel], a poore village, a good myle from Richemont."
If we accept the Ipreswell and the " good myle,"
there is still room for doubt in the " Haereticus "
and the introductory words. Leland merely repeats
a rumour which he had not verified ; and the fact of
his stating it as a rumour implies that he thought it
needed verification. His doubt may well have been
the same as our own ; it must have appeared strange
to him that a Wycliffe of Wycliffe should have been
born at Ipreswell ; and, again, he would be quite
alive to the possibility that any Wycliffe, or even
13691 Wyclif s Early Days. 79
Whitcliffe, reputed to have lived at Ipreswell two
hundred years ago, would tend to become identified
with the famous " heretic " who gave Englishmen
their open Bible.
The local tradition of a Spreswell close to the
village of Wycliffe, which has been accepted by Dr.
Vaughan, and also by Professor Lechler, presents
various difficulties, and must be treated with particu
lar caution, because one would be decidedly glad to
believe it. According to this tradition, Spreswell
was no mere figment of a name, and still less Ipres
well or Hipswell, but an actual hamlet or thorp,
within the manor of the Wycliffes, and about half
a mile from the present village of Wycliffe-on-Tees.
Certain evidence in support of this contention has
been adduced by the Rev. John Erskine, now Rector
of Wycliffe. The evidence consists of :
1. A letter from William Chapman, 133 Church
Street, Monkwearmouth (January 14, 1884), to the
Rev. J. Erskine :
" I saw an account of the intended Restoration
of Wycliffe Church, which stands close to Wycliffe
Hall, the supposed birthplace of Wycliffe. Leland,
the historian, says Wycliffe was born at Spreswell,
near Richmond. I enclose a copy of a statement
made by my great-grandfather, John Chapman, who
died 1849, a g e d eighty-one years, at Alwent Hall,
Gainford."
2. The statement of John Chapman :
" Spreswell or Speswell stood half a mile west
from Wycliffe, and on the same side and close to the
River Tees. The Plough has passed over its site,
8o John Wyclif. [1320-
and all is quite level. There was a Chapel there, in
which were married William Yarker and Penetent
Johnson, and there [sic] son John Yarker has many
times related the occurance to his Grandson, the
Writer of this. The above coupel were the last mar
ried there, for the Chapel soon after fell down.
Francis Wycliffe of Barnard Castle, the last of the
Wycliffes in the Neighbourhood, said John the
Reformer was born at the above Village. John
Chapman, Headlam, June 2ist, 1839."
3. Mr. Erskine says :
" The tradition of Wycliffe having been born in
this parish [Wycliffe-on-Tees] has existed for over
two hundred years, while there is no trace of him or
tradition at Hipswell . . . Might not Spreswell
be a corruption of Thorpeswell ? There is a manor
house in the township of Thorpe, and there are ruins
of a village close to it. I have also in my possession
part of the mullion of a church window, and a
piscina, which were found in the pulling down of an
old wall on the property. The former might have
been carried away from the east window of our
church, but the latter could not, as it is in perfect
preservation, while two in the church are broken
close off by the wall. The property of Thorpe
belonged to the Wilkinsons of Richmond, who pur
chased it from the Wycliffes . . . The man who
gave me the piscina said that his great-grandfather
spoke of the chapel at Thorpe, and that after the
marriage of the two persons named in Mr. Chap
man s letter the roof fell in ... There was a
village close to Thorpe Hall, as there are traces of
1369] Wyclifs Early Days. 8 1
foundations of houses, and, as some believe, also
of the village stocks."
Now, of course, this theory of a Speswell-on-Tees
imposes on its advocates the necessity of explaining
away Leland s "good myle from Richemont."
Some have evolved an Old Richmond on the river
bank, three or four miles below Wycliffe, and have
interpreted the " good myle " in the sense of a Scot s
" mile and a bit," where the bit is apt to be more
than the mile. There is now on the same spot a
village called Barforth, which, according to Lewis s
Topographical Dictionary, was " formerly called
Old Richmond " ; and a place of this name appears
in Carey s map of the North Riding of Yorkshire.
The evidence is very recent, and as " Richemont "
was in its present position long before Leland s time
we should hardly be any better off if we were to
accept it. Others say that the antiquary was well
informed as to Spreswell, but ill informed as to the
distance from Richmond ; and with respect to this
alternative it is only fair to remember that Leland
or his informers made some curious mistakes in
matters of locality and distance. There are at least
two of these mistakes in the Itinerary within fifty
lines of the passage which has given so much trouble
to the biographers of Wyclif, from which it would
seem that Leland had no very clear and precise
picture of the Richmondshire country in his mind.
Without building anything upon the name of
Spreswell and it is as easy to conclude that the
local tradition refers to Thorpeswell as that Leland s
original was the otherwise undistinguished village of
82 John Wyclif. [1320-
Hipswell there is evidence as to a group of houses
close to the manor house where the Wycliffes lived,
and nearer to it than the village of Wycliffe was.
Nothing is more likely than that there should have
been a little thorp and a chapel near the gates of
the manor house other than the village and the
church of Wycliffe. We know, in fact, that there
was a Thorp as early as the thirteenth century which
formed part of the Wycliffe estate ; and if there was
no chapel at that early date one would almost cer
tainly have been built in the sixteenth century. The
family remained staunchly Romanist to the last, and
intermarried with Rokebys, Coniers, Constables,
and Tunstalls, though on the ground of their reli
gion they could no longer present to the living of
Wycliffe. A private chapel of some kind would be
a necessity for them as soon as the Reformation had
made headway, and this may well have been the
chapel in which Penitent Johnson was married
towards the close of the seventeenth century.
It is but a melancholy picture which is presented
to us of these Richmondshire Wycliffes, poor in purse,
proscribed in religion, proud of heart, gradually
fading away amongst the more substantial Northern
Catholics, sternly repudiating the one strong mem
ber of their race who ranks with the great Worthies
of England, and owing much of their later mis
fortune to the obstinacy with which they cherished
the discarded faith. The last of the Wycliffes was
a poor gardener, who dined every Sunday at Thorpe
Hall, as the guest of Sir MarmadukeTunstall, on the
strength of his reputed descent.
1369] Wyclifs Early Days. 83
It would be impossible to speak with confidence
as to the origin of this family of Wycliffes. There
is nothing to show whether they were Norman or
English. The local surname would be natural
enough in either case, and it is no more difficult to
conceive a man of English origin bearing a Norman
patronymic than it is to think of Anglo-Normans in
the eighth or tenth generation who had lost their
Norman characteristics and their Norman speech.
Wycliffe means "the water cliff." It is not the
same name as that derived from " the white cliff,"
although the latter name also came to be written
Wycliffe. The point is significant. There is a white
cliff near Hipswell, and a hamlet called Whitcliff,
which has been suggested as the place from which
the Reformer took his name. But it is worthy of
note that although we find more than twenty varia
tions in the spelling of this name,* it was never (so
far as I am aware) spelt with a t, though John
Wycliffe of Mayfield is occasionally called Whitcliffe.
As for the baptismal name of John, it was already
more employed than any other ; it was even in
higher favour in the fourteenth century than it is in
the nineteenth. If we can point to only two French
kings and one English king of that name, there had
been twenty-two Pope Johns when Wyclif was born.
There is scarcely a list of proper names in the cen
tury wherein the Johns do not show a remarkable
* Wycliffe, Wycliff, Wyclif, Wyclyffe, Wyclef, Wyccliff, Wyc-
clyff, Wycklef, Wyclyve, Wyckliff, Wykliffe, Wykliff, Wykclyff,
Wykclyffe, Wyklive, Wicliffe, Wicliff, Wiclif, Wicleff, Wiclef, Wic-
clyiT, Wickcliffe, Wicklef, Wigclif,
84 John Wyclif. 0320-
predominance. In Courtenay s Synod of 1382,
for instance, seventy-three theologians and lawyers
took part, and twenty-six of them were named
John. Again, out of the twelve doctors assembled
at Oxford by William Berton, who agreed in
his condemnation of Wyclifs opinions in 1381, no
fewer than nine were Johns. One of the writers of
the Chronicon Anglitf, probably himself a John,
referring in a certain passage to Wyclif, says
quaintly: " This fellow was called John but he did
not deserve to be. For he had cast away the grace
which God gave him, turning from the truth which is.
in God, and giving himself up to fables."
If we are tempted to look with some doubt on the
Hipswell conjecture, and to nurse the idea that John
Wyclif was born in the home of the Wycliffes, we
shall gain additional support for the general belief of
the past five centuries that the father of the English
Reformation was a scion of one of the most devout
Catholic families of the North, the head of which
was lord of the manor of Wycliffe-on-Tees. Let us
see what contemporary records have to tell us about
the Plantagenet Wycliffes.
The genealogy preserved by the Wycliffe family,
which will be found recorded in Whitaker s Rich-
mondshire, includes three generations admitted to
be insufficiently proved.* They are given in the fol-
* Before a historical student could use a document of this kind
with any degree of confidence, he would need to know the pedigree
of the pedigree. Nothing more is claimed for the genealogy here
quoted than that it preserves the traditions of the Wycliffe family at
a comparatively late date, and that its accuracy in a number of
particulars is supported by independent historical evidence.
13691
Wyclif s Early Days.
lowing form except that the dotted line is here
introduced by way of conjecture :
Robert de Wycliff, Lord of Wycliffe, &c., 6 Edward I., by Kirkby s
Inquest, 1287 [1278], held 12 carfucates] of land, &c., in Wycliffe,
Thorp, and Girlington ; married ? ?
Roger Wycliffe, Lord of Wy- : Catherine, his wife, buried at
cliffe, &c., 1319 ; buried at
Wycliffe.
Wycliffe.
John Wyclif "]
" Haereticus."J
William Wycliffe of
Wycliffe, esquire (married).
Now if the date 1319 above given is that of the
marriage of Roger, which is probable (since Cath
erine Wycliffe was still living in 1369), it is a note
worthy coincidence that the year 1320 has generally
been accepted, on independent grounds, as the ap
proximate date of John Wyclif s birth. But there is
more substantial evidence than this for the belief that
Roger and Catherine Wycliffe were the actual father
and mother of the future divinity lecturer at Oxford.
Another link in the chain is supplied by a close cata
logue of rectors of Wycliffe, quoted in Torre s Arch
deaconry of Richmond, from which the following
entries are taken :
Dale. Rectors,
2 Aug. 1362 Dns Robert de Wycliffe, Cl.
7 Aug. 1363 Dns William de Wycliffe
7 Oct. 1369 Dns Henr. Hugate, Cap.
Patrons.
Kath. relicta Rogi.
Wicliffe
John de Wycliffe
iidem.
The significance of the " iidem " will be at once ap
parent. In 1362 Roger Wycliffe was dead, and the
vacancy in the family living was supplied by his
widow Catherine, who nominated Robert Wycliffe.
86 John Wyclif. [1320-
It need not be concluded from the genealogy
already quoted that Roger Wycliffe had no brother,
and only one son. The later Wycliffes had numer
ous families, and that was probably enough the case
with Robert and Roger. At any rate, there was a
Robert de Wycliffe, clerk, ready to take the living in
1362; and when he died, a year later, William de
Wycliffe of Balliol College was appointed by John
de Wycliffe to succeed him. Who was this John de
Wycliffe ? Observe that Dame Catherine had nomi
nated in 1362, possibly after consulting John ; that
John nominated in 1363, possibly consulting Dame
Catherine; and that in 1369 there was admittedly a
consultation between Catherine and John, resulting
in their joint nomination of Henry Hugate. Who
could this John de Wycliffe be except the eldest son
of Roger and Catherine, legally the lord of the
manor, but leaving some of (perhaps nearly all) the
duties and privileges of the lordship to his mother ?
The varying exercise of this patronage, as shown in
the close catalogue, would be adequately explained
on the supposition that John de Wycliffe was the
eldest son of Roger, himself lord of the manor, an
absentee from his small estate, living on his earned
income as a secular priest and an Oxford lecturer,
and leaving the management of the Wycliffe prop
erty to his widowed mother. In brief, the circum
stances would be well explained by assuming that
John Wyclif, the Reformer, was the son and heir of
Roger Wycliffe.
If we are to be satisfied with this explanation, and
to adopt it as a trustworthy detail of biography, our
13691 Wyclifs Early Days. 87
conviction must be the result of a series of inferences,
for it is idle to expect absolute proof after the lapse
of five centuries. It will be said that the fact of a
John Wycliffe acting in 1363 and 1369 as patron of
the living, whilst it proves that there was a lord of
the manor bearing that name in the years just
mentioned, does not prove that he was John " the
Heretic." True ; but let us not miss the significance
of the fact that no John Wycliffe at all is shown in
the genealogy, as preserved in the family records.
The close catalogue, which would not be in the keep
ing of the Wycliffes, retains the name of John as
patron of the living of Wycliffe, with the strong pre
sumption that he was lord of the manor during the
widowhood of Dame Catherine. The genealogy,
which is full and uninterrupted from the middle of
the fifteenth century, makes not the slightest refer
ence to him. What is the reasonable, not to say the
necessary, inference ? Clearly that this John Wycliffe
had been deliberately erased from the record, for
some reason which commended itself to this excep
tionally devout and consistent family of Romanists.
According to the genealogy, it should have been
William Wycliffe who appointed his namesake of
Balliol after the death of his father. If he was alive
in 1 363, John must surely have been his elder brother.
If he was dead, John may have been his next brother,
or conceivably his uncle ; for it is possible (though
clearly improbable) that 1319 is the date of Roger s
birth. As a matter of fact, John " Haereticus " refers
in one of his Determinations to a brother " olim
mortuum" In any case John Wycliffe was an im-
88 John Wyclif. [1320-
portant member of the family, and he ought to be
shown on the family tree. Why is he not ?
To such as feel a special interest in the personality
of John Wyclif the Reformer it will be a matter of
secondary concern whether he was or was not the
son and heir of Roger, lord of Wycliffe, and of Cath
erine his wife. But his identification with the
patron of Wycliffe rectory in 1363 and 1369 would
tend to confirm our belief in his absolutely disinter
ested character, and in the sincerity of his profession
of ecclesiastical poverty. The identification is mani
festly assisted by the circumstances connected with
the two nominations in question. John Wyclif was
Master of Balliol up to 1361, when he took the col
lege living of Fillingham. The rectors appointed to
Wycliffe in 1363 and 1369 were both of them Balliol
men.
If Wyclif was legally lord of the manor, then we
possess, to begin with, a remarkable testimony to the
nobility and thoroughness of his personal character ;
and the whole tenor of his after life is such as to
strengthen and deepen this first impression. The
manor of Wycliffe was 720 acres equivalent to a
knight s fee * ; and the rectory was worth .14 \2s \d.
As living was interpreted in those days, there was a
competence both for the esquire and for the rector.
During the reign of Edward III. money was found,
from one source or another, to restore the fabric of
the church.
* Duodecim carucatae faciunt unum foedum Militis. Fleta,
ii. 72. iv.
13691 WycliJ s Early Days. 89
At some date which cannot be determined, John
Wyclif came up to Oxford ; and here he prepared
himself for the secular priesthood, probably as a
scholar of Balliol College, which had recently been
founded by John Balliol of Barnard Castle. This
Barnard Castle, about ten miles from Richmond,
stands on the northern side of the Durham border,
and looks up the splendid vista of Teesdale. It was
the same Barnard Castle at which, on the morrow of
the fight of Marston Moor, a degenerate WyclifTe
paid the penalty of his treachery, and furnished a
theme for the author of Rokeby.
The foundation and enlargement of the earlier
colleges at Oxford were stimulated at times by other
reasons than the desire of benevolent persons to es
tablish homes for poor students at what was now
recognised as the "second school of the Church."
There were already scores of halls at Oxford, as well
as the houses of the various Orders ; and it was not
even necessary that the boys and young men who
attended the lectures of the professors should reside
in dwellings licensed for their reception, though
doubtless many of them did so. Poverty was no
bar in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
against an education at Oxford. Many a penniless
lad begged his way to the famous home of learning,
and, once there, begged his sustenance from day to
day, content if he could keep body and soul together
which, it may be feared, was by no means always
possible. For the vast majority of Oxford students,
life was hard and precarious at the best, and sur
rounded by conditions of violence which often flared
QO John Wyclif. C1320-
up into bloodthirsty riots. The grammar schools
and licensed halls were a partial protection against
the townspeople, but scarcely any against the fac
tion-fights within the University itself.
In view of these and other dangers amongst
which the proselytism of the monks and friars must
have seemed to many parents the most formidable
of all the colleges of Merton, Balliol, and Univer
sity, followed in the fourteenth century by Queen s,
Oriel, and Exeter, were founded not so much to bring
education at Oxford within the reach of the poor as
to make the conditions of university life more safe,
more tolerable, and more refined. It is not without
significance, if we bear in mind the constant rivalry
of the Northern and Southern " nations " amongst
the students, and the superior number and strength
of the latter, that two out of the first three colleges,
Balliol and University, were founded for students
from the North of England. Merton had led the
way by accepting none but Southerners ; and these
sharp distinctions would naturally have the effect of
intensifying the rivalry of the two nations.
Now for such comforts and immunity as these en
dowed and comparatively well-disciplined colleges
afforded, it would be necessary in one form or
another to pay. To live at one of them would be
more expensive than to put up with the rough lod
ging and fare of a " chamber dekyn," or to enter at
the average hall ; and it is reasonable to suppose that
a student at Balliol or Merton, unless he came to
Oxford at the charges of a wealthy patron, must
have belonged to a fairly prosperous family. Ac-
13691 Wyclif s Early Days. 91
cording to an undisturbed tradition, John Wyclif
was a scholar at Balliol, either as soon as he came up
or after preliminary training at a grammar school.
He afterwards became fellow and master of the col
lege. Under the Balliol statutes no one could be
made master who was not already a fellow ; and,
though the condition might be literally fulfilled by
electing an outsider successively fellow and master,
this supposition seems to be more hazardous than to
accept the statement that Balliol was originally
Wyclif s college. But there is no record, so far as
is known, of the date when he came into residence,
either at Oxford or at Balliol.
As Wyclif was a fellow, and as he would doubt
less specialise in theology as early as possible, it may
be supposed that the fellowship which he accepted
was a clerical one. Now it is on record that, up to
the year 1340, no fellow of Balliol was allowed to
proceed to a degree in theology, whereas in that year
six fellowships were founded on the express condi
tion that their holders should incept in divinity
within thirteen years. Wyclif was a Bachelor of Di
vinity in 1366, but there is nothing to show that he
had not taken that degree several years earlier. If
he was bent on remaining at Oxford, and remaining
as a secular clergyman devoted to the study of the
ology, it seems likely that he would have sought to
gain a footing in some other college after incepting
as a Master of Arts, unless the theological fellow
ships had been endowed at the time when he took
that degree. The approximate age at which the
M.A. degree was taken in those days may be put at
92 John Wyclif. [1320-
twenty. So far, then, as there is any force in these
considerations, it may be inferred that Wyclif was
not more than twenty years old in 1340; and this
would point to 1320 as the earliest probable date of
his birth. Since he died a fairly old and broken man
in 1384, it does not appear to be safe to assign a
later date.
During the third and fourth decades of his life,
Wyclif must have been accumulating the stores of
learning on which his academic repute was primarily
founded. Above all he would be deeply immersed
in the study of the Schoolmen, with whose writings
he afterward showed a familiar acquaintance. It has
been said that he probably had the opportunity of
listening. to Bradwardine and Ockham. Marsiglio s
Def ens or fads would be easily within his reach. The
famous Bishop Grosteste, whom the Schoolmen
called Lincolniensis, was still a name to charm with
in Oxford. The Franciscan Bacon thought him pre
eminent in the sciences, and even John Tyssyngton
a doughty opponent of Wyclif declared that he
paled the modern doctors as the sun paled the moon.
Matthew of Paris wrote of him that " he was a mani
fest confuter of the pope and the king, the blamer
of prelates, the corrector of monks, the director of
priests, the instructor of clerks, the support of schol
ars, a preacher to the people, the persecutor of the
incontinent, the sedulous student of all scripture, the
hammer and the despiser of the Romans. At the
table of bodily refreshment he was hospitable, elo
quent, courteous, pleasant, and affable." Strike out
.the single word " king," and this character would ap*
136$] Wyclifs Early Days. 93
ply with remarkable precision to Wyclif himself, who
took Grosteste as a model for imitation.
There was another man who undoubtedly had a
strong and a personal influence on the character of
Wyclif, one of the latest and broadest of the School
men, Archbishop Fitzralph of Armagh, who was
much at Oxford up to the year 1347. During the
last ten years of his life (1350-60), Fitzralph threw
himself into the controversy on evangelical poverty,
carried to Avignon the grievances of the secular
clergy against the mendicant friars, and wrote
(amongst other works) a book on The Poverty of
Our Saviour in which, however, he dwelt but lightly
on the contrast between the life of Christ and that
of his latter-day disciples, which had been so deeply
resented from the Italian Fraticelli. Some of the
latter had contended that Jesus himself begged for
his living, which the Irish prelate strongly denied,
and which Wyclif even denounced as blasphemous.
Fitzralph was on excellent terms with Popes Clement
and Innocent ; but the friars had made their posi
tion too strong to be seriously affected, even by the
great " Armachanus," or by the " Doctor Evangeli-
cus " (as Wyclif came to be called), who took up the
case against them from the relaxing fingers of his
friend and counsellor.
It was in the very year of Fitzralph s death that
we find Wyclif, now about forty years old, engaged
at Oxford in the earliest stage of an acute struggle be
tween the authorities and the friars,which endured for
something like six years. The friars wanted to have
the privilege of proceeding to the degree of Doctor in
John Wyclif. H320-
Divinity without previously qualifying as " regents
in arts," but their claims were firmly resisted by the
authorities and the seculars. Wyclif would be asso
ciated in this controversy with JohnThoresby, after
wards Archbishop of York, with his life-long friend
Nicholas Hereford, wi^h Uhtred Bolton, Walter Bryt,
Philip Norn s, and others.
Meanwhile Wyclif ;iad become Master of Balliol ;
and here again we a e baffled by the extraordinary
want of accurate del ^il by which his life is dogged.
It is a mere matter of conjecture in what year,
between 1356 and 1361, he was elected to this
honourable position. Amongst the deeds preserved
by Balliol College there .are several notarial docu
ments showing how, as proctor for the college, he
went down to Abbotsley on the 8th of April, 1361,
together with one of his colleagues and an inde
pendent notary public, and formally took possession
of the church and rectory on behalf of his college.
He duly seized the ring on the church door, smote the
bells, touched and handled the " ornaments," received
oblations and young pigeons, and freely disposed of
the same. The documents are very particular. In
one of them Wyclif is described as " Magister
Johannes de Wycliff, Magister, sive Gustos, Collegii
Aulae de Balliolo." In another document the
" college of the said hall " of Balliol is represented
as being made up of " Master John de Wykclyff, Sir
Hugh de Wakfeld " (who was a notary public), " John
de Hugat, John de Prestwold, Roger de Gysburgh,
Willian Alayn, Thomas de Lincoln, William de
WYCLIFFE CHURCH.
PARTLY CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH WYCLlpO).
13691
Wyclif s Early Days.
95
Wykclyffe, Richard de Assewelle, John Bridde, and
Hugh de Feltone."
It is particularly unfortunate that so much ob
scurity rests upon the details of Wyclif s career at
Oxford, since, as Mr. Brodrick observes in his short
history of the University, " the biography of this
remarkable man, if authentic materials for it existed,
would cover almost the whole academic history of,
Oxford during the latter part of the fourteenth
century." There is an entry of one John Wyclif
in the books of Merton College as a fellow in 1356 ;
but it is highly improbable that this was our Wyclif.
There is apparently nothing authentic to support
^, f1 -"^ identification, and flip presumption in favour of
i ner was a fellow of Balliol
Rev. J. Busfleld is the Rector of
Magna within sight of the decidedly strong. So far
y of the Tees and within sound h f th t
e music of the waters. It is an nat we can sa y ls tnat ne
fld village of exceeding charm, in April and in July, 1361.
lowed poem, writes K. E. -
-idled in the river s arm," as he ce for one or more years,
bes it, "is the ancient Church nrpHprpQsnr aft-pr William
tfiffe" which goes back to Saxon P redecessor atter William
Controversy surrounds the Robert of Derby, Master
pts to identify the actual birth-
of Wyclif but he is known to
y as John de Wyclif and that veen the
to signify much. In any event, , , -r, , r T^ u
r. Busfield says, the Church of hat Robert of Derby was
sequestered winsome Vyclif succeeded William
- upon, deserves cherishing with }
jnany treasures including the ceivable that Wyclif may
HI} gla^s of the windows. . e
ie years ago under the guidance of n g a time as four y ears -
mer rector, the Rev. C. Hilton ; n 1361, the college living
Jnson, the loving task of restora- , , c . . ,, b
/as begun but, of course, the war ideaconry ot btow, in the
ened, and the hand of the institnt-pH ac; rertor
2T was stayed. But now the work instltutcd as rector
ewed and Mr. C. U. Peat, many
the M.P. for Darlington, is one of
ncouragers, a Barnabas to Mr.
Id. A gift has been sent from
mily of John Orepps Wickliff e who
while on a visit to England. His
feted remains were interred in
|fe Churchyard. I agree with Mr.
|!d, "The church is like a little
precise dates seemed to
two just men-
on
on
munuiia ui uie
Scheme. If experts can be
on the hop, of what value
opinion of the ordinary vote
*
He can judge the broad re
a policy, but even that can
be done without some unde
ing of the difficulties with wh
Government has had to
And elections will always be
not only upon the perform
the retiring Government, bi
future pledges. Everyth
changing too rapidly for
tory political judgment to be
retrospective. From both coi
tions these economic survey
Government may prove a
innovation. They recogn
need for the Government to
its handling even of complex
cal questions, if an intellif
sponse by the citizen is to t
The assumption underlying
not " trust the leaders " but
stand what the leaders are 1
do."
Dissolving Classes
THERE is another reaso
lieving that the <
made upon the und
1369] Wyclif s Early Days. 95
Wykclyffe, Richard de Assewelle, John Bridde, and
Hugh de Feltone."
It is particularly unfortunate that so much ob
scurity rests upon the details of Wyclif s career at
Oxford, since, as Mr. Brodrick observes in his short
history of the University, " the biography of this
remarkable man, if authentic materials for it existed,
would cover almost the whole academic history of
Oxford during the latter part of the fourteenth
century." There is an entry of one John Wyclif
in the books of Merton College as a fellow in 1356;
but it is highly improbable that this was our Wyclif.
There is apparently nothing authentic to support
the identification, and the presumption in favour of
concluding that the Reformer was a fellow of Balliol
in the year just named is decidedly strong. So far
as precise records go, all that we can say is that he
was Master of that college in April and in July, 1361.
He may have held the office for one or more years,
since there is no record of a predecessor after William
of Kingston, who followed Robert of Derby, Master
at the end of 1356. As no precise dates seemed to
have been preserved between the two just men
tioned, but only the facts that Robert of Derby was
Master in 1356 and that Wyclif succeeded William
of Kingston, it is just conceivable that Wyclif may
have been Master for as long a time as four years.
At any rate he accepted, in 1361, the college living
of Fillingham, in the archdeaconry of Stow, in the
diocese of Lincoln, being instituted as rector on
the 1 6th of May.
96 John Wyclif. [1320-
The next established incidents in his career bring
us face to face with certain facts already referred to,
which possess considerable importance from several
points of view. Not long after he had become Rector
of Fillingham, in the course of the year 1363, John
de Wycliffe presented William de Wycliffe, a clerical
fellow of Balliol, to the rectory of Wycliffe-on-Tees.
And on the next voidance of that living, in the year
1369, John de Wycliffe is again recorded .as having
presented a Balliol man, in the person of Henry
Hugate probably a relative of the John Hugate
who succeeded Wyclif as Master of the college.
It is a coincidence that he came up to Oxford from
Fillingham on each of the two occasions when
Wycliffe-on-Tees fell vacant in 1363, when he took
rooms at Queen s College, and again in 1368, when
his bishop gave him a prolonged leave of absence, in
order that he might " devote himself to the study of
letters at Oxford." He may or may not have heard
in 1368 that the family living was about to be
vacated. In any case he would be in Oxford, and
in close association with his old friends and " com-
mensales " at Balliol, when the presentation again
fell into his hands, and he offered it to Hugate.
It was just at this latter date that Wyclif exchanged
his rectory of Fillingham for that of Ludgarshall, or
Lutgurshall, in the archdeaconry of Buckingham.
If there was any question of private arrangement in
all this, and if his presentation of Hugate to Wycliffe-
on-Tees facilitated his transference to Ludgarshall,
the fact would be entirely and conspicuously to
Wyclif s credit, since Ludgarshall was a poorer liv-
1369] Wyclif s Early Days. 97
ing than Fillingham, and to move from one to the
other involved a loss of income.
Why, it may be asked, should Wyclif, who had
elected and prepared himself for the life of a secular
clergyman, twice decline to undertake the charge
of a parish so near to his own birthplace, if it was not
actually his birthplace, and which must have been in
some respects attractive to him ? A simple answer
suggests itself. Wyclif was by this time, if not a
Southerner in sympathies, at least bound up with the
life and interests of Oxford, and bent on pursuing
his ambitions by cultivating his friends in the
political world. To go to Wycliffe-on-Tees as its
rector, to devote his life and his means to rebuilding
and decorating the old church, and to spend his
days with the rough and not very intellectual men
of the Yorkshire borders, must have appeared to him
in the light of a banishment, not to say a deliberate
desertion of the path of duty which had opened up
to him elsewhere. He wanted to live in the South,
within easy reach of Oxford and London ; and so
bent was he on being close to his work that, as he
had preferred a Lincolnshire living to a residence in
one of the most beautiful of north-country dales, he
subsequently removed to a poorer parish because it
lay between his beloved university and the capital.
There was another reason why he would not be
keen to present himself to Wycliffe-on-Tees. The
thing would smack to his sensitive mind of an abuse
which he particularly hated, and against which he
had already publicly declared. Appropriation to
individuals of the trust-funds of the Church, in any
98 John Wyclif. [1320-
shape or form, was in Wyclif s eyes abominable ;
and, however the presentation to this living had
come into the hands of his family, he could not
regard it in any other light than as a sacred respon
sibility, which would in no wise be discharged by
nominating himself. In the English tract, Of the
Last Age of the Church though no stress is here laid
for the purpose of argument on the authorship or
date of this tract we come upon this fine passage :
" Both vengeance of sword and mischiefs unknown
before, by which men in these days have had to be
punished, were bound to happen for sin of priests.
Men shall fall on them and cast them out of their
fat benefices, and they shall say, One came into his
benefice by his kindred, another by covenant made
before ; one for service and another for money came
into God s church. Then shall every such priest
cry, Alas, alas ! that no good spirit dwelled in me
at my coming into God s church. "
Now if it were accepted as a reasonable supposi
tion that Wyclif was from 1363 the legal head of his
family, and patron of the living of Wycliffe-on-Tees,
there would be no further need to press the point
that he was a man of gentle breeding and (at least
potentially) of some- private means. That he had
-character, tact, and the power of impressing and
influencing his fellow-men, is proved by his high
standing at Oxford, his popularity as a lecturer, and
his selection to be master of a college. It is true
that there were amongst his contemporaries " di
vinely gifted men " of humble origin, who broke
their birth s invidious bar and rose to the highest
13691
Wyclif s Early Days.
99
positions in Church and State. But to enjoy the
friendship of John of Gaunt, and the favour of the
King and the Princess of Wales, to be nominated as
king s chaplain and royal commissioner, to be called
on by Parliament to plead the cause of the nation
against the Pope, to keep men at work for years on
the translation of the Bible, and to send out a band
of missionaries with some equipment, however poor
this argues that Wyclif had money at his com
mand, and that he was a man of affairs and a man
of address.
ORIGINAL SEAL OF
BALLIOL COLLEGE, 1282.
CHAPTER VI.
WYCLIF AS POLITICIAN.
had displayed his best
qualities at Oxford, where he
was devotedly loved. He was
essentially strong in all the rela
tions of life, save in the un
fortunate particular of physical
health. If there be one note in
his character more prominent
than the rest, it is that of spon
taneous and effective championship. He was^ the
champion of seculars against regulars, of the Univer
sity against Pope and hierarchy, of the ignorant
masses against obscurants, of the nation against
the Papacy, of the new truth as he had seen it
against friars, bishops, and papal bulls. Men of all
classes, from peasant to Parliament and King, looked
to him at one time or another for strength, inspira
tion, or protection, and they did not look in vain.
13661
Wyclif as Politician.
101
His energy never failed him, and his confidence was
inexhaustible and inflexible..
Even before he threw himself into politics before
he became chaplain to the King, and made the
acquaintance of John of Gaunt, who was some
twenty years his junior Wyclif seems to have been
as widely known as a man could be in those days,
with no higher title to fame than that he was a.
learned Oxford doctor, a bold and vigorous preacher,
and an upholder of the poor. He was fast winning
his way to the hearts of his countrymen, and creat
ing that deep impression on the men of his day,
friends and enemies alike, which was to make his
mark for all time.
Of Wyclif s characteristic opinions on matters of
Church and State, there will be more to be said
hereafter. Meanwhile his ideas had been moulded
and his conclusions were being shaped by a series of
events as striking as any which have occurred within
the limits of our history as a nation.
Still fresh and vivid in the fourteenth century
must have been the impression stamped upon the
minds of Englishmen by the marvellous developments
of the Church of Rome during the past hundred
years. The encroachments of the Papacy from the
time when Innocent III. had laid England under
tribute would seem almost as recent and familiar to
Wyclif in his teens as the records of the Crimean War
and the Indian Mutiny are to the men of the present
generation. When he began to take an interest in
contemporary events, the successor of Innocent and
Boniface was not at Rome but at Avignon, figuring
102 John Wyclif. H366-
as it were in the triumph of the French king a
vassal to the monarch who still claimed to be over
lord of Norman England. Already the French were
our hereditary foes, and the Vicars of Christ, assum
ing universal dominion, were now virtually instru-
ments in the hand of the enemy. The more haughtily
the Plantagenets asserted their independence, the
more inadmissible and ridiculous the assumption of
the Popes would appear to every patriotic English
man. King John s tribute of a thousand marks had
been paid for the last time to Pope John XXII.
After 1333 at any rate after the Pope s death in
1334 it was never paid again. Benedict claimed.it,
but it was refused, and even the payment of Peter s
pence was discontinued (at any rate partially) for a
time. Benedict was honest, virtuous, and weak.
Clement VI. (1342-1352) was the exact opposite of
his predecessor, the precise negation of Christian
virtues ; and his conduct in holding the jubilee of
1350 for the sake of its golden harvest, whilst all
Europe was writhing under the plague, was surely
the head and front of his offending. No fervent
Christian, no Englishman who loved his country,
could do otherwise at this time than hold the
political and even the spiritual claims of the Popes
at Avignon in contempt and disregard.
If the papal jubilee of 1350 doubled the horrors of
the plague in the eyes of all right-judging persons,
the effect which had already been produced by that
fatal epidemic is almost inconceivable. It over
shadowed the life, and must in some measure have
affected the character, of every one who lived
1375] Wyclif as Politician. 103
through it. At the universities in particular it would
long continue to be a memorable landmark, if only
for its effect in largely diminishing the number of
students. A man of Wyclif s devout and sympathetic
disposition could not fail to be deeply moved by
what he had seen and heard of the pestilence, and of
the ecstasies of repentance, self-torture, and reaction
which followed closely in its train.
From the capture of Calais to the treaty of Bre-
tigny (1347-1360), Wyclif would be penetrated, in
common with his countrymen, by the military
achievements of Edward III. and the Prince of Wales,
by the collapse of the French armies, and by the
annexation of some of the fairest provinces of France.
He probably saw the captive kings in London ; and
he must have heard of the rich spoils carried home
by the soldiers, or sent by settlers to their friends
in England, where, according to enthusiastic con
temporaries, there was scarcely a house which did
contain some ornament or other valuable brought
over from the conquered country. He may have
seen and conversed with the famous son of a
Gloucestershire outlaw, Richard Whittington, who,
after his own death, presided three times over the
merchant princes of the metropolis. He would not
be ignorant of the vast accumulation of land and
wealth in the hands of a comparatively small
section of the nation. And side by side with
this wealth he saw we know from his writings
that he saw the misery of the serfs, the poverty
and starvation of the labourers, the grinding taxa
tion of the industrious classes, and the growing
104 John Wyclif. [1366-
discontent of the common people with their condi
tion and prospects.
Facts like these are wont to temper the metal of
the strongest minds, to urge on the best men to
higher aims, and to touch their spirits to finer issues.
If the fourteenth century was critical and luminous
beyond comparison with those on either side of it,
was it not in some measure because the men of that
day had been thus keenly tempered and finely
touched ?
It is only in a particular and limited sense that
Wyclif can be properly spoken of as a politician.
Certainly he took a deep interest in the politics of
his time, looking to them for results which, in his
opinion, would be highly advantageous to the cause
of true religion. He may or may not have been an
active intriguer with John of Gaunt, and with John s
intended brother-in-law, the Earl of Pembroke. The
probability is that the Duke had a young man s
enthusiasm for the famous Oxford preacher, who
might well have been his tutor (as Burley of Merton
was tutor to the Prince of Wales), and that he asked
his advice on sundry questions touching the rights
and status of the clergy. They must have had many
feelings in common, so far as the relations of State
and Church were concerned, and Wyclif could not
but admire the spirit and pluck of the Duke, so long
as they were honestly directed to humble the pride
of haughty ecclesiastics.
We do not know at what precise date John Wyclif
was appointed one of the king s chaplains. He
speaks of himself in 1366 as " peculiar is regis clericus
1375]
Wyclif as Politician.
105
tails qualis" The last two words might almost
imply that he was an occasional preacher before the
Court by invitation rather than by formal appoint
ment, though they would equally well indicate a
modest self-depreciation, quite in keeping with his
ordinary style. If we did not know that Wyclif
actually discharged some of the functions of a royal
chaplain, in his character as a secular priest, we might
be content to take the regis clericus in what would
perhaps be its most natural signification that of a
cleric learned in the canon and civil law, and con
sulted by the Crown as a lawyer rather than as a
clergyman. Wyclif s reports to Parliament, however,
carefully avoid any claim to speak with authority on
legal points. It seems most natural to conclude that
he had a regular appointment as chaplain, and that
he spent some of his time every year in the train of
the monarch, and in association with members of his
Court. Perhaps it was in this way that he first made
the acquaintance of John of Gaunt ; but on the other
hand his good connections in the North may have
procured for him an introduction to the King s son,
who had married Blanche of Lancaster in 1360. In
any case Wyclif was soon in high favour ; and fre ex
ercised an influence, amongst others, on the unhappy
and doubtless scandalous Alice Ferrers, who seems to
have been an able manager of men, and who was
certainly susceptible to the charms of his fiery and
pungent eloquence.
However this may have been, it cannot be doubted
that, when Wyclif came into touch with the political
forces of the time, he would aim at the promotion of
106 John Wyclif. [1366-
ecclesiastical reforms through the secular authorities,
just as these authorities must have expected to gain
through him the alliance of a revolutionary party
1 within the Church.
The bolder spirits of the fourteenth century who
entered more or less consciously and deliberately
into this combination, directed as it was towards the
attainment of civil and religious reform, were not
altogether without warrant if they began by nursing
sanguine hopes of success. It was not for them to
foresee that the destiny of England required her still
to pick her dreary way through a chaos of mental
darkness and desperate civil war. They could only
realise their own regeneration, and anticipate the
harvest of their own toil. The bright visions excited
in ardent and enthusiastic minds in the age of the
Plantagenets, by the lives of such men as Wyclif
and Chaucer, by the growing vigour of Parliament,
by the championship of Lancaster at his best, by the
rich endowment and achievement of the universities,
were not on the face of them more chimerical, more
foredoomed to disappointment, than those which
flashed before the minds of Englishmen in the days
of the Tudors, as they witnessed the work of Cran-
mer, of Thomas Cromwell, of the Council of Edward
VI., of John Milton, of the schoolmasters in the six
teenth century. If the disappointment of the earlier
hope was predestined and inevitable, as the shapeless
blossom is enfolded in the cankered bud, neither
Wyclif nor John of Gaunt, nor any of the optimists
of their generation, could have foreseen the abortive
failure. How often in the history of our country have
1375] Wydif as Politician. 107
the first hopes of eager and earnest reformers been
doomed to extinction and how often in the long
run has the original failure been the groundwork of
eventual success !
No section of Wyclif s public life stands in greater
need of elucidation than the eight years from 1366
to 1374. One would gladly know the terms of the
intimacy, the nature of the understanding, between
him and the young Duke of Lancaster. Where, in
what circumstances, and how often did they meet ?
In what vein did they discuss the tendencies of the
time and the chances of an effective Reformation ?
How far did their mutual obligations lead them in a
common course of action ? The historical romancer
might paint for us their interviews and report their
conversation. By some happy instinct he might hit
upon their several motives and policies, and show
us the grave, acute, strong-minded, and feeble-bodied
priest, advising and restraining the impatient prince,
who at this time would have been little more
than half his age, and whose headstrong vehemence
must now and again have filled the more prudent
Reformer (himself no mincer of speech) with uneasy
qualms. But imagination will not fill the gap which
is left by facts. In the absence of such personal
details as we could only learn from an autobiogra
phy, or from the narrative of a friendly contem
porary, or from letters written at the time, and no
one can say that we have yet put our hands upon
all the important manuscripts bearing on this
age we must be content to take the measure of
the conditions by which Wyclif was surrounded,
io8 John Wyclif. 11366-
and of the events in which we know that he bore
his part.
At the time when he was brought into contact
with the English Parliament, that body had but re
cently become effective for other purposes than the
granting of supplies, and the presenting of petitions
which might or might not form the basis of ordi
nances. The inferior ranks of the Church digni
taries had ceased to attend, the clergy sitting apart
in a Convocation of their own. The prelates still sat
with the barons twenty-seven abbots and two priors
in addition to the bishops ; whilst the knights of the
shires sat with the burgesses from the towns. The
Lords and Commons thus constituted had begun, to
pass their statutes, and forward them to the monarch
for his assent. Not only had Parliament deposed a
king in 1327, but it had repeatedly checked the arbi
trary levy of taxes by Edward III. The Commons
had expressly claimed freedom of speech, the finality
of elections by constituencies, the immunity of their
Speaker, and the right to audit public accounts. It
was already the established rule that the two
Houses should meet every year ; and the failure to
issue writs for upwards of a year, towards the close
of Edward s reign, was deeply resented.* Parliament
was thus a very powerful and serviceable body, even
* Too much of Parliament may be at least as objectionable as too
little of it. In January, 1379, after the Commons had with difficulty
been .prevailed upon .to grant large supplies, they petitioned the
Crown that^they might not be called together again within the year.
This is quite consistent with their resentment, four years earlier,
when the twelve months were exceeded.
13751 Wyclif as Politician. 109
in presence of a monarch as wilful and haughty as
Edward III. Wyclif might well have expected that
such an instrument a " two-handed engine " which
already in those days involved the power and strength
of the nation would be able to effect the great ob
ject which he had been courageous enough to desire.
There are sundry passages in his writings which show
that he took a strong interest in parliamentary
debates affecting either the National Church or the
Church of Rome. It may be that his chaplaincy
imposed upon him certain clerical duties in connec
tion with the meeting of the Houses, which rendered
his presence necessary. At all events he refers more
than once to discussions which he had heard amongst
the Lords at Westminster. He had opportunities
for preaching, and we know that he made a strong
impression by his sermons in London. Perhaps the
first of these opportunities was when he had to preach
to King and Parliament at the opening of the session
of 1366.
So far as the attitude of the State towards the
papal authority was concerned, there was at this
time very little difference of opinion amongst
Englishmen. Apart from the Italians whom Rome
had thrust into English benefices, and from Italianised
members of the regular and secular clergy, all were
against the papal assumptions. Wyclif s firmest
opponent in the ranks of the hierarchy, William
Courtenay, who rose to be Archbishop of Canterbury,
was in this sense anti-papal. The clergy of England
had had long and grievous struggles with a succes
sion of monarchs in defence of their possessions,
no John Wyclif. [1366-
against what they doubtless considered unjust and
exorbitant taxation : but they showed more than
once that they preferred the exactions of the King
to the exactions of Rome. And, as a matter of
fact, the Church and the various Orders in England
had grown so enormously rich that if they had not
paid heavy ransoms throughout the century, and
borne a very considerable share of the cost of the
wars, they could not have escaped with their title-
deeds. Their possessions were so largely increased
after sundry visitations of the Black Death, which
shook the tree of superstition until their garners
were full of its fruit, that the taxable area outside
the Church was sensibly and even seriously dimin
ished. Henceforth, if not before, it was one of the
political axioms of intelligent English laymen that
the State could never thrive again until the Church
had been made to restore the immense superfluity
of wealth which pious Christians had bestowed
upon her. And the truth is that it never did thrive
until the earlier Tudors had redressed the balance,
at any rate so far as the Orders had disturbed it.
John of Gaunt seems to have entered political
life with the special object of enforcing .this restor
ation of property by the Church, and for a time
it looked as though nothing could save the clergy
from the zeal of the Duke and the barons. "Never,"
says Mr. Green, "had the spiritual or moral hold of
the Church on the nation been less ; never had her
wealth been greater. Out of a population of little
more than two millions the ecclesiastics numbered
between twenty and thirty thousand, owning in
1375] Wyclif as Politician. 1 1 1
landed property alone more than a third of the soil ;
their spiritualities in dues and offerings amounting
to twice the royal revenue." Such a condition of
things must indeed be a peril to any nation ; and no
one could call himself a statesman in those days
without recognising the evil and seeking a remedy
for it. That is a justification for much of the Duke s
subsequent conduct, as well as for Wyclif s partici
pation in politics.
It was in 1366, as already stated, that the Rector of
Fillingham was invited by Parliament to show cause
against the further payment of tribute to Rome. The
matter called for argument rather than authority ; the
tribute was already largely in arrear, for Englishmen
could no longer brook the humiliation bequeathed
to them by one of the most worthless of their kings.
Nothing had been paid since 1333, and the con
querors of Crcy and Poitiers were not minded to
tenew the payment of an annual subsidy which
stamped them as vassals to the vassal of France.
The Pope had pressed for his dues, which Parlia
ment declined to pay. The former had found his
champion in the person of a monk who had appar
ently addressed a remonstrance to Parliament ; and
Wyclif was called upon to reply to this document. *
He did so in a Latin tract or " determination "
on Lordship* which maintained with the same dis
tinction between temporal and spiritual things which
had often been urged in the discussions on ecclesi
astical poverty that the State was always entitled
* Determinatio qucedani de Dominio.
ii2 John Wyclif. U366-
to refuse tribute to the Roman Pontiff, to try
ecclesiastics in its own courts, and to take away, for
fit and proper cause, the possessions of ecclesiastics.
" My Doctor," says Wyclif, " my Doctor with his
brethren demands, with a certain excess of vehement
insistence, with effervescence and swelling of the
spirit, that I should reply to him categorically in the
terms of his argument, and more particularly as
regards the case which he makes for the Pope against
the authority of the King. Every lordship, says he,
given under a condition, exists only so long as that
condition has not been destroyed. Now the Pope
gave the realm of England to our King on condition
that England would pay seven hundred marks each
year [and Ireland three hundred]. But this condi
tion has been abolished by lapse of time and cir
cumstances : wherefore the King of England has lost
the true lordship of England."
It is curious, Wyclif goes on to say, that the case
should be put to me in this pointed way ; and my
friends tell me that it has been done for three
reasons first, that, as soon as I have answered, I
may be denounced to the Roman Curia, censured,
and deprived of my position ; secondly, that the
favour of Rome may be secured for himself and his
friends ; thirdly, that secular lordships may be
heaped upon the abbeys, by the extension of the
papal authority in England, without the wholesome
restraint of brotherly expostulation. " But I, as a
humble and obedient son of the Roman Church,
protest that I do not mean to make any contention
which would so much as sound like an insult, or
1375] Wyclif as Politician. 113
give reasonable cause of offence to pious ears.
Wherefore in the first instance I would invite my
reverend friend the Doctor to deal with the following
argument, which was held, as I have been told, by a
number of secular lords in a certain Council." Then
he proceeds to unfold his case against the tribute,
manifestly devising this pious fraud in order to
deprive his opponent of the opportunity of triumph
ing over him as a rebellious priest. The seven lords
are seven arguments ; and they are substantially of
this kind:
1. England was won with the sword and defended
with the sword. No tribute can go on for ever with
out an appeal to the sword.
2. Tribute should only be paid to those who are
fit to receive it. The Pope ought to be poor, like
Christ, and to leave tribute to Caesars.
3. As the Pope is " servant of the servants of
God," he can only take his dues in return for service
rendered. But he renders no service to England;
and, services being denied, the tribute also may be
properly refused.
4. An overlord cannot be expected to pay tribute,
and the King of England is overlord in England.
If the Pope were overlord of the ecclesiastical prop
erty, he would be paramount over one-third of Eng
land, \vhich .cannot be allowed. But if he holds of
the King, it is he who ought to be paying tribute.
5. Pope Innocent made King John pay for his
absolution and for other spiritual ministration
which was flat simony ; and every one is entitled to
repudiate an immoral contract.
H4 John Wyclif. [1366-
6. If the Pope really gave England to John, as a
lord gives to his vassal, he gave it for a ridiculously
small fee ; and on the same principle he might
squander the rest of Christendom in the same way.
We ought to make a stand at once. And as the
theologians say that a man who is in mortal sin for
feits his dominion, and the Pope is liable to sin, one
mortal overlord is quite enough for us, and we had
better give our goods to the poor instead of to the
Pope, and hold of Christ alone.
7. My colleagues are forgetting the unwisdom of
the King and the supreme right of the nation, with
out whose consent no lasting contract can be made
to its damage.
" Now," says Wyclif, after reciting arguments of
this kind, and so neatly turning the tables on the
monk who had desired to entrap him, " unless the
Doctor can support the rational character of his argu
ment against these contentions of the English lords,
it has no force against the position of our lord the
King."
For those days the rejoinder was quite sufficient,
and was held to have served its turn. The claim for
tribute was dropped again, and Wyclif, by the
cogency of his reasoning, earned both credit amongst
his friends and odium at Rome. Unwelcome as such
reasoning would naturally be to the Papacy, and to
its warmest friends in England, there was so far
no attempt to fix any charge of heresy on Wyclif.
Nevertheless it was about this time that John Kyn-
yngham, a Carmelite Friar, began to wage a perti
nacious fighjt with him, challenging him on the score
1375] Wyclif as Politician. 115
of certain opinions in his academic treatise, De Esse
Intelligibili Creatures* Kynyngham was somewhat
impar congressus ; he seems to have been mild of
mood and speech, gentle and self-depreciatory ; but
that he should have attacked the strongest of his
contemporaries, and stuck to the attack for nearly
twenty years, showed at any rate that he found con
troversy a congenial pursuit.
It was a great crisis in the life of Wyclif. A high
compliment had been paid him, not merely in mak
ing him a king s chaplain, but also in looking to him
to plead the cause of the nation against the Pope.
Already it was clear he had attracted the notice of
all who were tired of the dominion of Rome, and
was recognised as peculiarly well equipped for this
act of championship. His friend, the King s son,
was at the head of a strong party of complaisant
earls and barons. The King was weak and pliable
in the hands of the young Duke, and, though the
Prince of Wales was by no means of one mind with
his intriguing brother, he would scarcely be a fatal
obstacle in the way of an equitable reform of the
Church. The popular hostility to Rome, coupled
as it. was with an intense dislike of the foreign work
men in London and the manufacturing centres, was
sufficiently strong to encourage the hope that the
fourteenth century might see the last of the Rome-
scot, and of papal intervention in England. But it
may be questioned whether the Reformers did not
unwittingly exaggerate the strength or the extent of
* On the Conceptional Existence of God s Creation,
n6 John Wyclif. H366-
the feeling against the excessive endowments of the
Church.
Lancaster and his friends came to open issue with
the Church party almost as soon as the Duke began
to take an interest in public affairs. William of
Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, and a prince of
pluralists, was President .of the King s Council in
1370, and he was regarded with not a little jealousy
in various quarters. He was very naturally obnox
ious to the anti-clericals in the two Houses, who did
not see why the clergy, having their own Convoca
tion, and a potent voice amongst the Lords, should
also hold the presidency of the Council and the
principal posts under the Crown. The discontent on
this ground came to a head in the year just named,
when Parliament sent a petition to the King request
ing " that it will please our said lord the King that
the laymen of the said kingdom who are sufficient
and able of estate may be chosen for this (the task
of government), and that no other person be here
after made Chancellor, Treasurer, Clerk of the Privy
Seal, Baron of the Exchequer, Chamberlain of the
Exchequer, Controller, and all other great officers
and governors of the said kingdom."
This demand was followed at once by the removal
of the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter from the
Council, and by the appointment in their place of
Robert Thorpe as Chancellor and Richard le Scrope
as Treasurer. The Duke for a few years to come had
the reins of power in his hands, and it seemed as if
the opportunity had arrived for striking his decisive
blow.
WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.
FROM A PORTRAIT BY J. FABER IN THE HALL OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.
1375] Wydif as Politician. 1 1 ^
At the outset, Parliament was strongly and unmis
takably on his side. Until misfortunes abroad and
corruption at home brought discredit upon Lancaster
and his colleagues, we hear little of opposition in the
Commons. It was not likely that the knights and
burgesses would protest against the heavy burdens
laid upon the Church, though they were very stiff
when it came to a question of taxing wool and mov
ables. Doubtless there would be vigorous remon
strances in the representative chamber when the
King claimed increasing dues on the raw material of
Norwich fustians, Sudbury baize, Kentish broad
cloths, Colchester sayes and serges, Kendal cloth,
Devonshire kerseys, Welsh friezes, Taunton serges,
and the various cloths produced in Gloucestershire
and Worcestershire, in Sussex, Berkshire, and Hamp
shire. But, when the demand was addressed to the
rulers of the Church, every other interest in the
kingdom endorsed it without hesitation.
In the House of Lords the clergy had no lack of
spokesmen, who protested bitterly against the King s
demands. The levy of 1371 must have appeared to the
majority of Englishmen as evidence of a new depart
ure against the national Church, if not as a first step
towards wholesale confiscation. A special tax was
laid upon all lands which had come into mortmain
since 1292 ; in addition to which the tenth already
paid by the Church, from which the less wealthy
benefices had hitherto been exempt, was no_w_jnade
of universal application.
These taxes would produce a large revenue ; and
though the wars sucked up money like a quicksand,
n8 John Wyclif. 11366-
and the corrupt Court was a sponge that never
ceased to absorb public funds over and above the
loans which Edward continued to contract with the
Florentine money-lenders yet the Commons were
doubtless relieved by such solid contributions from
the Church. It was vain for the clergy to resist, so
long as they had the nation united against them.
A Benedictine monk preached a sermon before the
University of Oxford, protestingagainst the harshness
of these demands, and repeating arguments for
exemption which few would have gainsaid if the
acquisitiveness of the Church had never passed the
bounds of moderation. Wyclif took occasion to
reply to this sermon ; and in doing so he gives us
what is probably (as Dr. Shirley says) the first pub
lished report of a speech delivered in the House
of Lords.
"I heard," he says,* "certain religious posses-
sioners in a Parliament in London make the same
demand (of exemption), and one of the lords an
swered by means of a fable. Once on a time, said
he, the birds were gathered together, and amongst
them was the owl, bare of plumage. Making him
self out to be half dead and frozen, he shiveringly
begged feathers from the other birds. And they,
moved to pity, gave him feathers all round, until he
had been decked in some ugly guise with the plumes
of his fellow bipeds. " Then a hawk suddenly
appeared in the distance, and threw this assembly of
fowls into a panic, and they all demanded their
feathers again. " And when he refused them, every
* De Dominio Civili, ii., ch. I.
A BENEDICTINE MONK.
1375] Wyclif as Politician. ng
bird took back his own feather by force ; and so they
escaped the danger, whilst the owl was more wretch
edly callow than before. So/ said he, if war breaks
out against us, we ought to take the temporalities
from the possessioners, as being the common
property of the realm, and prudently to defend our
country with what is our own wealth, though in a
measure superfluous.
But if the clergy had to listen occasionally to pun
gent apologues of this kind, they managed to return
rubber for rubber. With part of the spoils of the
Church a great fleet was fitted out and placed under
the command of the Earl of Pembroke. " Plenty of
money " was sent with it, to engage an army of mer
cenaries in Poitou ; but the Spaniards fell upon this
expedition off Rochelle, and annihilated it. Evi
dently, said the clergy, there was a curse on the
plundered money ; and when the King with four of
his sons attempted to take out another fleet, to
restore their broken fortunes, and, could not get a
favourable wind until it was too late, the superstitious
friends of the Church agreed that " God was on the
side of the French."
The fact is that the country entered on a series
of disasters at the moment when Wyclif and his
friends must have been nursing their highest hopes.
The illness of the Prince of Wales had forced him
to return to England after the cruel massacre at
Limoges. The tide of war was already turning, and
under the Duke of Lancaster the English arms
suffered various humiliating defeats. Portsmouth had
been burned by the French in 1369, and three years
126 John Wyclif. H366-
later came the terrible disgrace at Rochelle. The
conquests made at Crecy and Poitiers were lost
piecemeal, and a splendid English army led by
Lancaster, whilst attempting to cross France from
Calais to Bordeaux, was half destroyed by cold and
famine. The Commons presented a petition to the
monarch complaining that though, twenty years
before, he had been called " the king of the sea,"
the English navy was now ruined by incapacity and
mismanagement. Grievous taxation, direct and
indirect, had been levied for the prosecution of the
war, and it was shrewdly suspected that considerable
sums had remained in the hands of officials. Corn
was at famine prices. The whole country was dis
contented and enraged ; the King s advisers became
thoroughly unpopular, and the Government was
brought into contempt.
John of Gaunt, it must be admitted, had been
tried and found wanting; for though some of the
mischances which fell upon him were independent
of his control, he was certainly not without respon
sibility for the worst of them. Beginning with a
strong policy, full of ambition and fire and intrigue,
he was apparently one of those men who are born to
make a noise in the world disproportionate to their
effective power. Whether through fault or through
misfortune, he failed as a general, as an administrator,
and as a manager of men. Having assumed the
title of King of Castile, he brought on his country
the most humiliating revenges from the Spanish fleet.
Having taken over the command in France from
his more warlike brother, he lost thousands of men
1375]
Wyclif as Politician.
121
and millions of money, and ended by pressing the
French King for a truce. After defying and chal
lenging the Papacy for many years, he found himself
compelled, as the head of the English Government,
to acquiesce in the virtual abandonment of his
claims. Naturally a violent and overbearing man,
who when he wanted to argue could only browbeat,
and who is described by a contemporary as one
" whose doings were ever contrary," he descended
so far as to truckle and pay court to his father s
mistress. Rightly or wrongly, he was accused of
profiting by the embezzlement of shameless rogues
in the royal household, and, when the Commons
showed a disposition to inquire into the financial
abuses, he withheld the parliamentary writs during
the years 1374 and 1375. Never at any time
very acceptable with the people or their repre
sentatives, he had now earned a full measure of
odium from all classes ; and he made the crowning
mistake of letting himself drift into a position of
rivalry with the popular Prince of Wales.
To understand and appreciate the facts connected
with the Conferences at Bruges, and especially with
that in which Wyclif was engaged, one must bear
in mind the clear distinction between the attack on
the property of the English Church and the broader
and more significant assault on the papal as
sumptions. The first movement was a question
of domestic discipline, calculated in the eyes of
Wyclif and his friends to purify and re-invigorate
the national Church, whilst even laymen like the
Duke of Lancaster could persuade themselves that
122 John Wyclif. F1375
they were doing God service by reducing the plethora
from which religion so manifestly suffered in England.
The other movement was one of national defence
against a foreign invader, a contest having for its
object the extrusion of an audacious tyranny which
had been set up by aliens in the civil as well as in
the spiritual domain, and one in which the strongest
champions of the national Church might and did
take an active part. There could be no doubt that
the fight with Rome was more widely popular, or at
any rate stirred up less of domestic discord, than
that which converted nearly every regular and
secular clergyman in the country into a centre of
loquacious disaffection.
Things would probably have gone better with
John of Gaunt and his friends if they had pressed
the cause against Rome some years earlier. It was
natural that the disasters and discredit which fell
upon the country during the last few years of the
reign of Edward III. should practically destroy our
chance of prevailing in conference over the papal
representatives. Our virtual defeat at Bruges was in
a measure the outcome of our defeat in Aq,uitaine,
at Rochelle, and at Portsmouth. Beaten on land
and at sea, by Frenchmen and Spaniards, dishonoured
at home by the King s inglorious old age, and so
divided in counsels that no man, prince or duke or
councillor, could act with sufficient authority and
promptitude in the true interests of the country, we
were evidently not in a position to speak at Avignon
as we could have spoken five or ten years before.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CONFERENCE AT BRUGES.
LMOST everyone in England,
except the alien priests and the
independent monks and friars,
was keenly opposed to the
papal provisions, to the claim
for first-fruits and annata one
year s revenue from the bene
fice conferred and to other
pretexts for the transference
of English money to Avignon. The evil had been
growing for many years, and it is easy to understand
the satisfaction with which John Wyclif would
receive his commission to go and argue the matter
out with the delegates from Avignon, and to tell
the representatives of the Pope that England
was no longer to be his milch cow, or to pay him
for the privilege of electing her own bishops and
priests.
123
i?4 John Wyclif. [1373-
It was hardly Wyclif s fault that he could not
deliver an effective message of this kind, or that,
having delivered his message, he found it explained
away by his colleagues, or allowed to fall to the
ground for want of enforcement by the Government
at home. Somewhere perhaps in the archives of
the Vatican there is a record of the Conference at
Bruges, in the shape of a report from the nuncios.
If it could be published it would doubtless provide
us with an interesting account of the arguments
used on both sides, and the efforts made to arrive at
an understanding. No such account has hitherto
made its appearance, and we can only conclude from
other indications that Wyclif spoke out freely, that
Rome was more and more embittered against him
from that time forward, that he greatly regretted the
lame and impotent conclusion of the Conference,
and that after he returned from Bruges his attitude
towards Rome was more distinctly hostile.
The question of provisions was of course the most
natural line of attack for anyone who wished to
make an assault upon the papal assumptions. In
the reign of Edward III. the English Church had in
fact become a sort of Roman preserve. Not content
with occasionally overriding local elections or royal
nominations to bishoprics, abbacies, and benefices of
every kind, the popes claimed and exercised a power
to provide for vacancies before they occurred. Chap
ters, conventual bodies, or others in whom the right
of presentation was generally vested, found them
selves not unfrequently confronted with a new supe
rior or beneficiary very possibly an alien, who by
GREGORIVS
de >el
Decemh i
iQ.Ob. 2 7. Jfa rft/ fin.
XI Pctnis Rofjeru
. * 9-.V
icni.creat.dic 30.
an.-7.mfns.-i.dies
JJ78 y<.
POPE GREGORY XI.
1370-8.
1377]
The Conference at Bruges.
125
influence or money had secured his nomination from
the Pope, and now presented himself for election by
virtue of a document signed months or years before
hand. The Pope s provisions, amounting as they
often did to sheer confiscation, and liable to the very
grossest abuse, were more than once denounced by
Parliament as an intolerable scandal and usurpation.
In the year 1343, and again in 1350, statutes were
passed to restrain or debar this claim, and in 1353
the statute of Praemunire made it a serious crime,
punishable by severe pains and penalties, to allow
the Pope s writ to run in England, or to appeal
from England to Avignon. But these statutes were
constantly evaded, and the anti-clerical Council of
1371-1375 determined to make an effort to get rid
of the abuse.
In 1373 the King sent a special mission to Avign
on to discuss the matter with Pope Gregory XL,
who had succeeded Urban V. in 1371. There
were four members of this delegation John Gil
bert, Bishop of Bangor ; William de Berton, a distin
guished graduate of Oxford, resident at Merton, and
subsequently Chancellor of the University ; Uhtred
Bolton, a monk of Dunholme, and John de Shepeye.
They represented the difficulty which had been
created in England by the existing irregularities of
reservation, collation, and provision, especially when
English clergymen were displaced by aliens. Greg
ory seems to have listened without replying; but it
was arranged, now or subsequently, that a confer
ence should be held in the following year at Bruges,
between representatives of the Pope and of the
126 John Wyclif. [1373-
English King, when the whole question was to be
thoroughly discussed.
Probably in order to provide trustworthy materi
als for this Conference, a Commission was issued by
the Crown early in 1374, charged to inquire into and
secure an exact return of all benefices and dignities
throughout the kingdom in the hands of Italians,
Frenchmen, or other aliens, with their names, incum
bents, and yearly value. The return was willingly
furnished by the bishops, and it was sent in to the
Chancellor s court. The figures are said to have
caused a good deal of surprise to those who had not
realised how far the alienation of English benefices
had already proceeded.
Two Conferences at Bruges had been arranged for
about the same time. England had asked the Pope,
or at any rate had concurred in inviting him, to
settle the terms of an armistice in Europe ; and
for this purpose Gregory sent his legate to preside
over a meeting between John of Gaunt and the Earl
of Salisbury, representing England, and the Dukes
of Anjou and Burgundy. A year s cessation of arms
was agreed upon in June, 1375 ; and the Duke of
Lancaster was instantly twitted at home with having
begged for peace after being beaten in the field.
The ecclesiastics had been waiting for the poli
ticians to finish. They were originally appointed to
meet on St. John Baptist s Day, 1374, and it was not
until the beginning of August, 1375, that the Com
missioners were able to set to work. The Commis
sion included Gilbert of Bangor, who had been to
Avignon in 1873 ; Dr. John Wyclif, professor of
1377] The Conference at Bruges. 127
theology ; John Guter, Dean of Sechow ; Simon de
Multon, doctor of laws ; William de Berton, Robert
Bealknap, and John de Henyngton. The Pope was
represented by three nuncios Bernard, Bishop of
Pampeluna ; Ladulph, Bishop of Senigaglia, and
Sancho, Provincial of Valenza.
The position of Wyclif in connection with this
special embassy may be defined with greater clear
ness than would otherwise be possible by means of
an extract from the Exchequer accounts of the year
1375. The entry supplies " details of the settlement
of Master John Wyclyff, professor of theology, in
respect of his travelling and other expenses on a
royal embassy in the parts of Flanders, for the transac
tion of the King s business therein, during the forty-
eighth year of the reign." Wyclif " accounts for 60 1.
received personally from the exchequer on 3 1 July "
possibly at the port of embarkation. " From 27
July, in the year 48, on which day he set out from
London for Flanders, to 4 September, when he
returned, namely 50 days at 2Os. a day 50 1.; and
for crossing and re-crossing the sea, 425. 3d. Ex
pended, 52 1. 2s. 3d. Credit, 7 1. 175. qd."
Other entries in the same accounts show that John
of Gaunt, on an embassy to Flanders in 1364, received
one hundred shillings a day ; Sir Henry le Scrope, on
another mission, had an allowance of forty shillings ;
and Reginald Newport, despatched on the King s
business in the jubilee year, was .paid at the rate of
thirteen shillings and fourpence a day. Wyclif s
treatment, therefore, seems to have been fairly liberal,
but it can hardly be regarded as exceptionally hand-
128 John Wyclif. H373
some for a Royal Commissioner. In the first year of
Edward s reign the Bishop of Worcester, who was
sent to Avignon in order to secure a dispensation for
the marriage of the young King to Philippa, received
an allowance of five marks a day for 299 days.
The value of money was higher in 1327 than in
1375, and the treatment of this bishop must have
been at least three times and a half as good as that
of Wyclif.
The negotiations ended in an unfortunate com
promise. It was agreed that the Pope should desist
from making reservations of benefices in England,
but only on condition that the English King should
no longer confer benefices by his writ of quare
impedit. Evidently the whole question was left un
settled. Even if both parties had acted upon this
agreement, which they did not, more harm than good
would have been done. Englishmen had hoped to
see the authority of the monarch in his own kingdom
vindicated, and admitted by the Pope s delegates ;
but instead of this there was a formal limitation of
his authority, and nothing had been effected to estab
lish the rights of chapters and other ecclesiastical
patrons. It is true that claims were made, then or
subsequently, that the Pope had given way on other
points, and that the nuncios had pledged him by
word of mouth to abstain from certain acts to which
the English Commissioners had taken exception. It
is also possible that minor points were reserved at
Bruges, and settled at leisure in the course of 1376;
for in the Parliament of the following year (when the
" King s friends " were in power again) mention was
QUEEN PHILIPPA, CONSORT OF EDWARD III.
FROM A PORTRAIT IN THE HALL OF QUEEN S COLLEGE, OXFORD.
13771 The Conference at Bruges. 129
made of other concessions on Gregory s part, though
there was no formal document to show for them, and
nothing which could be held to bind future popes.
These alleged concessions were to the effect that the
Pope would not take action with regard to vacant
sees until a free election r^ad been made ; that he
would abate his demands in the matter of first-fruits ;
and that he would use moderation in respect of pro
visions and the nomination of aliens. Granting the
genuineness of these concessions, it is clear that
matters were not much mended by them.
It may well occur to a man of plain ideas and
common sense at the present time that the despatch
of the mission to Bruges was something of a mistake.
What was expected of it ? Surely not the voluntary
consent of Rome to forgo the advantages which
she had usurped and enjoyed for many years. The
journey to Bruges was a sign of weakness, or at any
rate a mark of concession in a matter which, logically
considered, left no room for concession.
There was one course which the English Govern
ment might have adopted which, in fact, it had
begun to adopt, and which only called for steady
resolution and persistence. If the King, the Prince
of Wales, the Duke of Lancaster, with the Chancel
lor and Treasurer, supported by the barons, knights,
and burgesses if, that is to say, the Royal Council
and the Parliament had been determined to put an
end to papal provisions in England, they might have
done so by enforcing the laws already on the statute
book, leaving the " French popes " to say what they
liked, and never going back upon their word. That
130 John Wyclif. ti373-
is what the enemies of Rome and Avignon thought
they were doing all along.
For what had already happened in respect of the
papal assumptions ? After Edward came of age, no
further tribute was paid to the Pope. In 1340 the
chancellorship had for the first time been given to a
layman, as though to make the subsequent steps
more easy of accomplishment. In 1343 a petition
was presented by Parliament to the King, condemn
ing the provisions and reservations of the popes.
In 1351, effect was given to this petition by a
statute declaring that the Pope had no authority to
provide a benefice with an incumbent before the
vacancy had occurred. Then followed the statute
of Praemunire in 1353, forbidding appeals from the
1 King s courts in courts beyond the seas, on pain of
outlawry, forfeiture, and imprisonment. Ten years
later it was forbidden under the same penalties
to introduce bulls or other instruments of the Pope
into England ; and the statute of Provisors was
more strictly interpreted, so as to forbid the patron
age of the Pope altogether. In 1366, John s tribute
having been formally demanded by Urban V., was
formally and precisely refused. In 1370 ecclesiastics
were removed from the principal offices of State.
Thus for nearly .forty years the effort had been
continuous, and the aim was to all appearance con
sistent. Strange that the sudden arrest of the move
ment, the partial and temporary reversal of progress
already achieved, should follow directly upon the
attainment of power by those who had only craved
an opportunity of carrying the matter to a definite
13771 The Conference at Bruges. 131
issue. For there was no question that a backward
instead of a forward step had now been taken, and
that Rome had rather gained a victory than suffered
a defeat. The clerical Commissioners had gone to
Bruges in order to clip the claws of papal usurpation
in England. They came back after arranging a
simple quid pro quo between the Pope and the King,
and abandoning the principle of national indepen
dence, on which the whole strength of their case
rested.
Of one thing we may be fairly certain ; no one
would be more disappointed with this result than
Wyclif. The only ground on which the Commis
sioners could have persuaded themselves that they
were making a good bargain would be that they had
brought the Pope to renounce his claim to reserve
benefices, whereas the English King had merely
undertaken not to supply vacancies by an arbitrary
exercise of his power, and without regard for the
spiritual authority of Rome. No doubt the worst
abuse of all was the papal traffic in English benefices,
and the disposal of next presentations without refer
ence to local rights and needs. The Commissioners
may have flattered themselves that they had got rid
of this abuse without paying too dear for it. But
that was not what people thought at home ; and it
is difficult to believe that the shrewd mind of Wyclif
could have been led away by such a contention, or
that he acquiesced in any finding or conclusion of the
Conference which would have the effect of strength
ening instead of putting an end to the authority of
the Pope in England.
132 John Wyclif. 11373-
The commissionership was an honourable appoint
ment. The Pope had asked King Edward to send
to Bruges " claros scientia ac laudandae virtutis, et
cunctaprudentiapraeditos, cultoresjustitiae, sedulosque
pads et concordiae zelatores" It was no small thing
to have been designated in response to such an
invitation ; but, so far as temporal advantage was
concerned, Wyclif was not much the richer by his
journey to Flanders. He had been presented by the
Crown to the laving of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire
of the annual value of 26 some months before
the Commission was nominated. Of course he would
have to make provision for the superintendence of
the parish during his absence, and, as his expenses
at Bruges must have been considerable, this would
swallow up nearly as much as he could have saved
out of his allowance. There was indeed no grudging
of rewards amongst the Commissioners on their
return. The Bishop of Bangor was promoted to the
see of Hereford, vacated in 1375 by Courtenay s
translation to London. Berton was placed on
another Commission, and afterwards became Chan
cellor of Oxford. Wyclif was nominated on Novem
ber 6th to the prebend of Aust, in the cathedral
church of Westbury, in the diocese of Worcester.
It would have been in keeping with the ordinary
clerical morality of the day if he had enjoyed the
fruits of this appointment, and of as many more
sinecures as his patron Lancaster might have obtained
for him. But his past utterances had made it im
possible for him to become a pluralist, and so the
prebend was refused. Less than a fortnight after
1377] The Conference at Bruges. 133
his nomination we find that it was granted to
another.
The discontent of Englishmen had meanwhile
come to a head ; and at last the group which had
held office up to 1370, and which had been dismissed
by royal ordinance following on a parliamentary
petition, secured another chance of directing the
affairs of the nation. John of Gaunt had neglected
to have Parliament summoned since November,
1373 ; but his elder brother, always the most authori
tative of his father s subjects, though never a politi
cian, and now fast approaching his end, caused the
writs to be issued at the beginning of 1376. There
could be no question as to the temper of the men
who would be returned to these writs. The new
House of Commons represented by a great majority
not merely the grievances due to over-taxation and
the widespread misery of the country, but also the
indignation caused by Lancaster s attempt to limit
the privileges of Parliament, the disgust of English
men at the two inglorious compacts at Bruges, and
a determination to put an end to the open scandals
of the Court.
The old official group, with Bishop Wykeham at
their head, and recruited by a still stronger man in
Bishop Courtenay, now returned to power; and
before the session came to an end a Committee of
barons and bishops was appointed to share the
responsibility of the leaders in the Commons an
arrangement manifestly contributing (so far as it
goes) to the development of the Cabinet as distin
guished from the holders of particular offices of
134 John Wyclif. [1373-
State. The Committee of Lords in 1376 appears to
have been intended in part to meet the difficulty
which had been raised by the anti-clerical petition of
1370. It enabled the responsible leaders to associate
with themselves any capable bishop to whom objec
tion might be taken as a holder of office.
So long as the Prince of Wales continued to live,
and for a month beyond that is to say, for the ten
weeks between April 28th and July Qth the Good
Parliament used its opportunities with courage and
judgment. By the vigour of its action, by the inde
pendent spirit of its leading members and its digni
fied Speaker, and by the character of its discussions
and resolutions, it will hardly fail to suggest to the
reader a curious, though not a very close, parallel
with the earlier Stuart Parliaments. Indeed the
varying constitution of the Royal Council during
the years 1370 to 1399, the dismissal and recall of
ministers, the alternations of policy between the
" King s friends " and the clerical party, seem almost
out of place before the Wars of the Roses. The
fact is that the organism of Parliament developed
with marvellous rapidity in the latter part of the
fourteenth century. The reigns of Edward III. and
his two grandsons were favourable to the growth
of parliamentary authority and privilege, and at
the beginning of the fifteenth century the great
Council of the realm had attained a position of con
siderable strength, which, however, it soon lost, and
did not regain for something like two hundred years.
The first task of the Good Parliament was to apply
a remedy to the accumulated abuses of the Court.
13771 The Conference at Bruges. 135
The dishonest were brought to book ; some were
dismissed, others were made to disgorge, and others
again sought to insure half the fruits of their em
bezzlements by returning the other half. Amongst
the dismissed servants of the Crown was William
Lyons, who had known how to provide large sums
of money both for the King and for himself. When
the new ministers attacked him, he had the insolence
to send to the palace a bag of gold by way of a
bribe. " Keep it," Edward advised those who were
present, " he owes us this and much more ; he only
offers us our own ! " Another and a larger bribe
was sent in a barrel from the city ; but the men into
whose hands it came would not have the course of
justice interfered with, and they sent the barrel back.
The doting King, seeing that his ministers and Par
liament were in earnest, and knowing that Alice
Ferrers had incurred the hatred of his people, sent
them a humbly worded petition on her behalf a
petition recalling the abject submissiveness of his
unfortunate father, Edward II., when the toils were
closing around him, and reminding one of the
phenomenal humility of his elder grandson, Richard
II. The bishops humoured their monarch so far as
to let his mistress depart unharmed, after swearing
that she would never come back to Court.
John of Gaunt began by showing fight. The nom
inated knights, whose uppermost thought may have
been one of resentment for Lancaster s failure in the
field, and for the tame treaty which he had negoti
ated at Bruges, united with the popularly elected
burgesses in requiring an account of expenditure
136 John Wyclif. fi373-
during the previous five or six years. They went to
the House of Lords to prefer their demand, headed
by Peter de la Mare, Speaker of the Commons.
Lancaster greeted them in a rather uproarious
mood. " What do these base and low-born knights
attempt ? " he cried. " Do they take themselves for
kings and princes of the land ? " But though he
stormed and raged, threatening all who opposed
him with the vengeance of the Crown, the protection
of the Prince of Wales was sufficient to maintain the
authority of the Commons. Lancaster was discreet
enough to keep away from the meetings of the
Council, and for a time the representatives of the
people had their own way.
De la Mare seems to have had the courage of a
Lenthall. When the customary request for a sub
sidy came before the Commons in the name of the
monarch, the Speaker replied that " the King needed
not the substance of his poor subjects, if he were
well and faithfully governed ; which he offered to
prove effectually, and promised that if it were found
that the King had need, his subjects should be ready
most gladly to help him according to their power."
This Peter de la Mare was a man of considerable
personal influence. He was steward to the Earl of
March, who had married the daughter of Lionel of
Clarence. Probably also he was a near relative to
Thomas de la Mare, the powerful Abbot of St.
Alban s. Nothing could be more natural than his
nomination as Speaker to a Parliament in which the
Prince of Wales and the clericals had the upper
hand.
1377] The Conference at Bruges. \ 3 7
Unhappily for our sympathy with Wyclif cannot
constrain us to sympathy with his arrogant patron, at
any rate against the Parliament of 1376 the Prince
of Wales died on the 8th of June, leaving a boy of
eleven as heir-apparent to the Crown. The House
of Commons did not allow itself to be demoralised
by the sudden removal of its main supporter near
the throne, nor did the " King s friends " venture to
undo the work of the popular Prince whilst he was
yet fresh in his grave. The session ran its average
course, and Parliament was not dismissed for thirty-
one days. The Commons requested -that the young
Prince should be brought in evidence before them
a constitutional act, yet doubtless intended as a hint
for the Duke of Lancaster. They held on their way,
and completed the petitions on which they had been
engaged, to the number of one hundred and forty;
and then, probably with much misgiving, the knights
and burgesses went home.
Parliament had not long been dispersed when John
of Gaunt resumed his old place in the Council, and
dismissed under a royal warrant the Committee of
Lords above mentioned. The banished courtiers
were recalled, including Lord Latimer and Alice
Ferrers ; Sir Peter de la Mare was thrown into prison ;
the Bishop of Winchester was deprived of his tem
poralities, and the acts of the Good Parliament were
declared null and void. In due time a new Parliament
was summoned, and Lancaster so worked upon the
sheriffs, who had the nomination of the knights, as
well as great influence over the freeholders, that
scarcely a single member of the packed House
138 John Wyclif. L1373
of 1377 had a word to say against his arbitrary
conduct.
During the session of this Parliament Edward III.,
who had celebrated the jubilee of his birth by formally
recognising English as the national language, cele
brated the jubilee of his accession to the throne by
a general pardon ; but John of Gaunt contrived
that the Bishop of Winchester should be excluded
by name from the benefits of the proclamation. A
story which was current at the time, or not long
afterwards, professed to give a personal (and perhaps
it would have been an adequate) reason for the
relentless animosity with which the Duke of Lan
caster pursued the disgraced Bishop. William of
Wykeham is said to have declared that Queen
Philippa had told him on her death-bed how, when
she was confined at Ghent in 1340, she had given
birth to a daughter, and had overlain it in the night.
Fearful of her husband s anger, he being absent
at the time, she had substituted a boy for the dead
child. This boy, according to the Bishop, or to
the inventor of the fable, was the wrong-headed and
obstreperous John of Gaunt, who had manifestly
been born for a Flemish burgher, and not for an
English prince.
Unquestionably if such a story reached the Duke
of Lancaster s ears, it might account for his hatred of
Wykeham. Of course it cannot be accepted, for vari
ous and sufficient reasons. Chaucer has been quoted
as an authority for the light in which the overlying of
children was regarded in those days ; for he says in
The Parson s Tale that " if a woman by negligence
1377] The Conference at Bmges. 139
overlyeth her child in her sleeping, it is homicide and
deadly sin." And a bishop who had confessed his
queen, and shrived her of such a sin especially a
high-minded bishop like William of Wykeham
would be most unlikely to repeat the story in order
to serve his private ends.
Though the Good Parliament had had so short an
existence, and its work was overruled as soon as it
had been dissolved, there can be no question of its
importance as a landmark of constitutional history..
It is important also from our immediate point of
view ; for one cannot but be startled to find a man
like Wyclif, irreproachable in his moral character,
whose every act reveals a roused and wakeful con
science, engaged in public affairs on the side of a
man so incongruous, unsympathetic, and unpopular,
as John of Gaunt. Nothing, indeed, could testify
more eloquently to the high character and spotless
reputation of Wyclif than the fact that his political
association with Lancaster, and indirectly with Alice
Ferrers and the peculators of the royal household,
did not cover his name with a cloud of suspicion and
obloquy. The very worst that has been said of him,
apart from his heretical opinions, is the accusation
that he became a heretic from selfish and vindictive
motives ; and we shall see that there is no reasonable
ground whatever on which a charge of this kind could
be based.
It is true that he suffered severely by meddling
with political affairs, as many a man of spiritual
fervour and lofty enthusiasm, committing his bark
to that treacherous sea, has suffered since his time.
140 John Wyclif. ti377
So long as Lancaster was really powerful, whilst the
King was yet capable of personal intervention in
public life, and the Prince of Wales held the enemies
of his brother in check, Wyclif also was safe under
the protection of the Court. But when the Prince
was dead, when the King was dying amidst con
tempt and neglect, and when Lancaster s accumulated
failures and overbearing conduct had made the
populace actively and openly hostile to him, the
animosity of the clerics against Wyclif could no
longer be restrained. His persecution by the Church
authorities began in 1377; but the machinery of
persecution was set in motion early in 1376, at the
very time when John of Gaunt had retired from the
royal Council, and before it seemed probable that
the Duke would speedily regain his power.
A new and striking figure now appears upon the
stage. Courtenay was the prominent champion of
the orthodoxy of his day ; and, in order that we may
have a clear perception of the events in which
Wyclif and Courtenay enacted the leading parts,
it may be well to glance backwards at the internal
history of the English Church, and at the character
of its principal rulers, since Wyclif began to attract
the notice of his contemporaries.
CHAPTER VIII.
WYCLIF AND THE NATIONAL CHURCH.
ROM the death of Bradwardine
onwards, the line of English
primates - - Islip, Langham,
Whittlesey, Sudbury, Courte-
nay became more and more
closely associated with the
political movements of the
day, as indeed could not well
have been avoided in that critical epoch of the
Christian Church.
Bradwardine was a Schoolman and a student, as
well as a man of affairs. His friends must have had
fairly good hope, on his nomination by the King in
1349, that his term of office would be marked by
more than ordinary independence and vigour. He
had distinguished himself at Oxford by the part
which he took in opposing the extravagant claims
of an Italian archdeacon, Cardinal de Mora, who,
141
142 John Wyclif. ri349-
not content with sending a deputy to make as much
money as possible out of the post, coolly assumed
authority over the university. Something has
already been said of Bradwardine s liberal opinions,
and it is not surprising that he should have been
out of favour at Avignon. At Edward s request,
Clement VI. had backed his nomination by a bull
of provision, and he pettishly declared that, if the
English King asked him to make a bishop out of a
jackass, he could not refuse. This was soon after
the battle of Crcy and the taking of Calais, when
Edward was practically supreme in France as well
as in England. The new Archbishop was enter
tained by Clement at a banquet, on the day of his
consecration, and one of the cardinals thought it a
good jest to send a donkey into the banqueting
hall, with a man on his back who prayed that the
quadruped might be made Archbishop of Canter
bury. The insult was resented even by the Pope,
and it was certainly not calculated to improve the
relations between the English Primate and the
Papal Court. But the plague cut short a most
promising career, before Bradwardine had had an
opportunity of showing his mettle as a ruler of men.
Simon Islip, who had been one of the King s sec
retaries a fairly safe channel of ecclesiastical promo
tion in those days, was a " doctor of decretals, "that
is to say, of the canon law, and a man of inexhaust
ible energy. He was appointed by Clement in the
same manner as his two predecessors, by a bull
couched in terms which probably did something to
hasten the passing of the statute of Provisors "per
1377] Wyclif and the National Church. 143
provisionem apostolicam, sprcta elect tone fac ta de eo."
The Pope snapped his fingers at the election by
the chapter, but he took care to nominate the same
man whom they had elected, and whom the King
had recommended, in the case of Islip as well as in
that of Bradwardine.
If Clement s bull was arrogantly worded, Edward
had himself to thank, for he had actually begged the
Pope to override the first election of Bradwardine
by a bull of provision. And it may be pointed out
by way of parenthesis that if papal provisions had
not been profitable to the Crown in more ways than
one, and if the Crown had not varied its protests
against them by occasionally turning them to account,
they might have been abolished out of hand. It
suited the King, moreover, to keep in reserve this
check upon the power of the English clergy, and we
may somewhat question the anxiety of Edward and
his friends to dispense altogether with the advantage
of a timely resort to Rome. The statute of Provisors
was passed by Parliament in the second year of
Islip s primacy, and it was followed two years later by
the statute of Praemunire. It has already been men
tioned that neither statute was immediately effective ;
provisions and reservations went on, to the scandal
of all good churchmen, for generations to come.
Islip came to Canterbury at a critical moment.
The ever memorable visitation of the plague in 1349
and the following years a visitation by which (we
are asked to believe) as many as one quarter of the
human race was cut off within four years : one half
of the population of England in little over a year :
144 John Wyclif. [1349
one hundred thousand in London alone produced
new outbursts of religious enthusiasm, and contrib
uted largely to the moral and intellectual develop
ment of the fourteenth century. The Black Death
was the benefactor of society which it dissolved, and
of humanity which it decimated. The plague of
boils on man, the deadly murrain amongst cattle, the
bloody spectacles of the Flagellants all were on the
side of free thought and the free expression of
thought, for all encouraged counsels of perfection.
There was enough already to set in motion the slowly
grinding mills of God, from which even the fourteenth
century began to witness the production of a new
learning and a reformed religion. None of the older
Schoolmen whose minds had restlessly stirred them
selves in sleep no timid student of Marsiglio and
Ockham, plunged into a musing fit by reading those
daring tomes, about the time when John Wyclif was
conning his grammar at Oxford could have dreamed
that the mighty Church of Pius and Boniface would
so accumulate its blunders and crimes at Avignon
as to play the whole game into the hands of the
heretics, and to render the disruption of Christen
dom finally inevitable. And surely one of the worst
crimes of the Papacy throughout this blundering
century was to exact, as Clement did, the jubilee
pilgrimage to Rome in the midst of the most horrible
pestilence on record, in order that he might win his
expected sacks of gold at the cost of something like a
million human lives. The Franciscans alone reckoned
as many as thirty thousand deaths in consequence
of this enforced pilgrimage.
1377] Wyclif and the National Church. 145
Making every deduction for exaggeration and
miscounting, it is plain that a very large number of
the priests, as well as of their congregations, died of
the successive plagues which visited England in the
fourteenth century. Amongst other evils which
resulted from the wholesale mortality, hundreds of
parishes were robbed of spiritual guidance, or de
serted by their pastors when they were in special
need of help. Hence the passage in Langland s
Vision, written perhaps after the second plague
(1361):
" Parsons and parish priests
Plaineth to their bishops
That their parish hath been poor
Since the pestilence,
And asketh leave and license
At London to dwell,
And sing for simony
For silver is sweet."
The Archbishop did his best to cope with this evil,
and to convince the priests that it was part of their
duty to suffer with their people. He also took the
sensible course of ordaining many poor survivors of
the plague who had lost their family and friends,
their heart and hope, sending them into the deserted
parishes. And that they might have a rule of life
beforehand, and know what their new vocation
meant, he " did ordain that more should not be
given to priests for their yearly stipend than three
pounds six shillings and eightpence, which " Stow
laconically adds " caused many of them to steal."
Three pounds six-and-eightpence ! Multiply the
sum by ten, to get a rough comparison with what
146 yokn Wyclif. t!34d-
that would mean in our own days, and it would seem
that Islip s poor priests were not even passing rich
on forty pounds a year.
It is a question how far these humble missioners
put into Wyclif s head the idea of his russet priests.
At any rate it was in the same field that he was
subsequently moved to labour.
Islip gave many signs of his ability as an adminis
trator ; and the manner in which he dealt with the
Flagellants is worth mentioning on this ground alone.
For a time these curious products of physical suffer
ing and spiritual elation convulsed the minds of
many devoted men, in England as well as on the
continent. The history of these fanatics is very
much the same as that of irregular religious demon
strations in all ages. There were the same ecstasies,
the same ability to endure pain, the same conviction
that endurance would be accounted to them for right
eousness, the same aggressive bearing, which excited
indignation and persecution. Persecution, too, had
its usual effect in fostering what it tried to exter
minate. Only phlegmatic England, of all the western
nations of Europe, escaped lightly from this epidemic
of purely human origin. It was condemned in a
bull from the Pope, who called on the different
monarchs to take measures for its repression. To
this message Edward paid no attention, and the
Archbishop as little as possible. So far as England
was concerned, the Flagellants may be said to have
been tolerated out of existence.
Some of the last acts of Islip s life the founda
tion of Canterbury Hall at Oxford, the exclusion of
1377] Wyclif and the National Church. 147
the monks at the end of 1 365, and the appointment of
one John Wyclif, a secular priest, as Warden have
generally been connected with the biography of the
Reformer, with which they have probably nothing
to do. It seems to have been the Vicar of Mayfield,
not the Rector of Fillingham, who was Warden of
Canterbury Hall in 1365, was removed by Archbishop
Langham, appealed unsuccessfully to the Pope, and
lost his case in the King s Court in 1372. The con
siderations which identify the warden with Wyclif
of Mayfield are in themselves almost strong enough
to be conclusive ; but, when we remember what
Wyclif the Reformer was doing between 1365 and
1372, it is difficult to imagine that the old Master of
Balliol was occupied during seven years in fighting
for this additional honour and emolument.*
Simon Langham, who succeeded Islip in 1366, was
a Benedictine monk, who had been successively
prior, abbot, treasurer, Bishop of Ely, and chancellor
in what we may call for convenience the ministries of
1363-1366, when Wykeham was Keeper of the Seal.
He was naturally a wealthy man, and had had time
* One of the biographers of Wyclif, maintaining that the Canter
bury Hall story must refer to him, is convinced that it could not
refer to John Wycliffe of Mayfield because the latter held his living
continuously from before 1365 until after 1372. He apparently
forgot that the Reformer also was beneficed during the whole of that
time. The notion of Wyclif as a pugnacious and baffled pluralist is
too absurd to be accepted. It is impossible to think of him resigning
the mastership of Balliol for a poor country living, then fighting for
Canterbury Hall, and then again refusing the prebend of Aust, all
within thirteen or fourteen years. Dr. Shirley has a note on " The
Two John Wyclifs," in the Appendix to his edition of the Fasciculi.
148 John Wyclif. [1349-
to forget any strong prejudices which he may have
formed in favour of the Pope or the Orders in his
younger days. If it had been possible for the Pope
to override his election, he would probably have
done so, for Langham had been a Minister of the
Crown when the statutes of Provisorsand Praemunire
were passed, and Chancellor when Wyclif was called
upon to argue against the payment of tribute to
Rome.
It is not surprising that the old monk should have
shown scant favour to the friars ; but his action in
regard to Canterbury Hall shows that at any rate he
had not ceased to believe in the virtues and merits
of the Benedictines. He has been described as a
pugnacious prelate. A well-known reference to him
by Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Lord Chan
cellors, is worth quoting again, if only as an illustra
tion of the perplexities which have beset everyone
who ventured too lightly amongst the details of
Wyclif s career. Campbell tells us that " among
those with whom (Langham) quarrelled at Canter
bury was the famous John Wyclif, then a student at
the college there erected by Islip, his predecessor.
The ardent youth being unjustly expelled, and finding
no redress for the wrong he suffered, turned his mind
to Church usurpations, and prepared the way for the
Reformation which blessed an after age."
Langham made his peace with Rome, and received
the cardinal s hat in 1368. He ought to have known
that his acceptance of this honour would at once
make him a suspect with the English Court, if not
with the English Church. At any rate it lost him
1377] Wyclif and the National Church. 149
the Primacy. The King seized his temporalities,
and sent a conge d ttire to Canterbury, with a recom
mendation to elect William Whittlesey, a nephew of
Simon Islip, who held the position for the next six
years without making much of a mark on his gen
eration. Of Simon Sudbury, who succeeded hhn
(1375-1381) it would not be altogether correct to
say the same thing ; but, so far as he came directly
into touch with Wyclif, he is overshadowed by the
stronger personality of Courtenay. It will suffice to
speak of his primacy hereafter, in connection with
the proceedings which were taken against Wyclif on
the charge of heresy.
William Courtenay was the fourth son of Hugh
Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who had married Mar
garet Bohun, granddaughter of Edward I. He was
thus allied in blood both to the Prince and to the
Princess of Wales ; and, when his parents destined
their boy to the secular priesthood, no doubt they
anticipated, or knew that they could guarantee, his
rapid rise to the highest ecclesiastical dignities.
According to Dean Hook, in his Lives of the Arch-
bisliops, Courtenay was actuated more by partisan
ship than by principle. At all events he was before
everything the political prelate, ambitious and
haughty, a natural leader of men, stepping at
once to the front rank of English churchmen, and
claiming to be recognised as a champion of the
national Church. At the age of twenty-five (in
1367) he was made Chancellor of the University of
Oxford, and did good service in resisting the claim
of the Bishop of Lincoln to appoint to that office.
150 John Wychf. [1349-
From the family records it appears that he was one
of the earlier Knights of the Garter.
The future malleus htzreticorum was already at
Oxford the hammer of recalcitrant friars. Before
his election to the chancellorship the friars had
given the university a great deal of trouble,
claiming to be outside its authority, not only for
themselves but even for the students whom they
sheltered in their houses. The same difficulty
arose at Cambridge ; and both the friars and the
universities carried their quarrel to the Archbishop
and to the King to the formef, apparently, before
he had resigned his chancellorship of the kingdom
into the hands of Wykeham. As a result it was
ordered in the King s name that henceforth no
scholar should be received into the houses of any of
the four mendicant Orders Dominicans, Francis
cans, Carmelites, or Augustinians under the age of
eighteen ; that the friars should not produce any
new bull from the Pope, or take advantage of any
old one, in their controversies with the universities ;
and that any future difference between the parties
should be decided in the King s Court, without
further appeal to Rome which, indeed, would be
an offence against the statute of Praemunire.
Wyclif and Courtenay were associated in this
dispute against the Orders, which left rankling
memories in the minds of all concerned. It was
natural that Courtenay s election should have been
stoutly resisted by the friars, who were by no means
prepared to obey the monition which had been
addressed to them. They even went so far as to
1377J Wyclif and the National Church. 1 5 1
cite the head of the University to appear before the
Pope ; but Wykeham and Langham took prompt
action, and secured the quashing of the citation.
At twenty-seven Courtenay became Bishop of
Hereford, a bull being obtained from Rome to cover
the irregularity in point of age. He soon made his
name known in Convocation, where in 1373 he
protested vigorously against the heavy taxation of
the Church both by the State and by the Pope.
The latter had made a levy of a hundred thousand
florins on the English clergy, and it must be
admitted that the double burden was too heavy
to be borne. Courtenay stiffened the resolution
of his colleagues by " rising in anger and loudly
declaring that neither he nor any of the clergy in his
diocese would give anything until the King found a
remedy for the evils from which the Church suffered."
John of Gaunt wanted nothing better at the moment
than such a declaration ; and it was soon after this
incident that the mission to Avignon was despatched.
Convocation agreed to pay one-tenth to the King
on condition that " the intolerable yoke of the Pope "
should be lifted from their necks ; and it was then
that Bishop Gilbert and his colleagues were nomi
nated. The easement of the Church in respect of
papal exactions must in fairness be set off against
the unsatisfactory results of the mission and subse
quent Conference in the matter of reservations and
provisions.
Courtenay s consecration as bishop had coincided
with the exclusion of ecclesiastics from the higher po
litical offices. When Sudbury was made Archbishop
152 John Wyclif. H349-
of Canterbury in 1375, the young Bishop of Here
ford was promoted to London, and in the following
year he was appointed a member of the committee
of Lords who were associated with the leaders of the
Commons during the term of the Good Parliament.
From this time forward he was in sharp antagonism
with the Duke of Lancaster, and through him
(apart from any question of orthodoxy) with John
Wyclif.
It was impossible that two strongly aggressive na
tures like those of Lancaster and Courtenay should
be thrown together in public life without coming
sooner or later into conflict ; and their quarrel was
doubtless none the less bitter because both of them
had Plantagenet blood in their veins. In his political
action and sympathies Courtenay was probably, to
the best of his judgment, patriotic and loyal to the
core. At Oxford, as we have seen, he fought splen
didly for his university, and with special gusto against
the friars who owned allegiance to Rome. As an
ecclesiastic he fought still more splendidly for the
English Church against the two tyrannies (as he could
not but think them) which threatened to crush out her
life. No cause could have a stronger, a more deter
mined and undaunted champion ; and it is evident
that in dignity and courtesy he can well bear compari
son with John of Gaunt in his excitable youth. Two
examples of his force of character recorded by his
biographers one telling as much against him as the
other tells to his credit may be repeated here be
cause they show how his disagreement with the Duke
was aggravated at a critical moment, and because
1377] Wyclif and the National Church. 153
they are not without a bearing on the subsequent
events of Wyclif s life.
Towards the close of the year 1376, Gregory XL,
who had a quarrel with the people of Florence, con
ceived the idea of bringing them to their senses by
excommunicating all Florentines without distinction
wherever they might be found. He issued a bull to
this effect, and declaring those against whom he had
launched the thunders of heaven incapable of pos
sessing any property. Now the introduction of this
bull into England was a violation of recent statutes,
and equally illegal was the conduct of Courtenay in
taking it to Paul s Cross and commending it to the
turbulent citizens. The citizens of London were
already inflamed against all the foreigners in Eng
land, whether Italian priests, German Esterlings,
Dutch weavers, or Florentine merchants and money
lenders. They wanted no stronger inducement than
that which their Bishop had given them ; they
sacked the houses of the Florentines, and in the riot
which ensued they were not very careful to establish
beforehand the nationality of their victims. The
city authorities it may well have been that Richard
Whittington was amongst them had to suppress
the riot ; and they would probably be in sympathy
with the Florentine merchants, as the Court and the
royal Council undoubtedly were.
It was just at this juncture that Lancaster had
recovered his influence in the Council. He was
supreme for the moment, and he let the Bishop know
it. Courtenay had subjected himself to the penal
ties of Praemunire by acting on the Pope s bull ; but
154 John Wyclif. [1349-
he was too highly placed to be proceeded against
according to the strict letter of the law. He was,
however, compelled to eat his words, and he. sent a
deputy to Paul s Cross to announce that his action
in the matter had been misunderstood.
The other incident, which occurred soon after
wards, at the meeting of Convocation in Febru
ary, 1377, presents the fiery prelate in a more
amiable light. The Crown had omitted to send a
writ to the Bishop of Winchester. Courtenay pro
tested indignantly against the treatment of Wykeham
who had served the King long and faithfully in
many capacities and induced Convocation to refuse
to consider the demand for a subsidy until the Bishop
should receive his summons and take his seat. It
was a Roland for Lancaster s Oliver. The Duke was
obliged to give way, and Wykeham was re-instated.
The monk of St. Alban s already quoted says that the
Bishop secured his pardon by appealing to and brib
ing Alice Ferrers. But the monks were often preju
diced against ecclesiastics, and this story is evidently
superfluous, if not incredible.
Clearly, then, there was no love lost between the
Duke and his cousin.
It is worthy of mention that Wyclif himself was
in some measure hostile to William of Wykeham, if
not actually in accord with Lancaster on this point.
Speaking in one of his sermons against the meddling
of ecclesiastics in matters of State, he complained
that " benefices, instead of being bestowed on poor
clerks, are heaped on a kitchen clerk, or one wise in
building castles, or in worldly business." Now
13771 Wyclif and the National Church. 155
Wykeham, before he received his mitre, had been
surveyor of works and architect at Windsor, and
secretary to the King, in addition to holding sundry
pieces of preferment in the Church. Wyclif, as a
declared enemy to pluralists, and to ecclesiastics who
grew wealthy by dividing the trust-funds of the
Church, would have been inconsistent if he had not
blamed Wykeham amongst the rest or amongst the
very first. But there is no other evidence of serious
or personal animosity between these two men, whom
their countrymen for ample reasons have so long
agreed to honour.
Nevertheless, there is one kind of honour for
churchmen who refuse their share in the trust-funds,
preferring a life of apostolic poverty in order that
they may preach the gospel by example as well as
by precept, and another kind of honour for such as
take what comes to them, perhaps restoring the bulk
of it in their own time and manner. Wykeham was
a magnificent founder and benefactor, to whom
students of all succeeding ages have been largely
indebted. Yet Stow, on the authority of Walsingham,
says that in 1365, when he was made Archdeacon
of Lincoln and Keeper of the Seal, Wykeham was
already Provost of Wells, incumbent of a benefice in
Devonshire, and the holder of no fewer than twelve
prebends. In the same year, on the death of Bishop
Edington of Winchester, he was made " general
administrator of spiritual and temporal things per
taining to the bishopric." The Duke of Bourbon
was at that time a prisoner in English hands ; and,
as the Pope was more easily approachable from
156 John Wyclif. [1377
France than from England, King Edward was
induced to agree to an arrangement whereby the
Duke went to Avignon, secured the nomination of
Wykeham for Winchester, and so " earned his
deliverance." By this transaction the King netted
twenty thousand francs, and the pluralist became a
bishop.
The story may have reached us in a distorted
shape, and it must be accepted for what it may be
worth. But Wyclif knew what he was talking about
when he spoke of the heaping of benefices on rich
men, whilst the poor clerks starved or stole. And
it may be mentioned, by the way, that Courtenay
himself was a confirmed pluralist.
CHAPTER IX.
PERSECUTION.
ROM Courtenay, it is evident,
Wyclif would have little to
expect save a stern and un
compromising opposition. The
young aristocrat from the West
of England, ever conscious of
the royal blood in his veins,
the haughty prelate whose
proud bearing and intellectual
vigour overawed bishops old enough to be his
father, found little in common with the simple
gentleman s son from the North. Courtenay has
been described as a patriotic and anti-papal English
man, and so no doubt in a sense he was. But his
qualified hostility to the papal assumptions is not
to be compared with the vehement antagonism of
Wyclif in his later years. Courtenay, as we have seen,
was ready enough to accept the mandate of Rome
i57
158 John Wyclif. (1376-
where it did not imply the humiliation or impoverish
ment of the English Church. Wyclif would make
no terms with the Papacy, which for him was (at its
worst) antichrist and anathema. Both were staunch
to a lofty ideal of the national Church of England ;
but they differed enormously in the model which
they set up differed by a space as wide as that
which separates the barefooted apostle from the
purple-clad prince of a dominant church.
Express complaints against Wyclif s teaching had
reached the bishops, as well as the Papal Court at
Avignon, soon after the Conference of Bruges. Of
course it is not meant to imply that the bold doctrines
of the Oxford Schoolman and lecturer in divinity
were generally held to be sound up to 1376, and
were recognised as heretical afterwards. H is accusers
were ready enough at the last-named date with a
score of faulty instances, gleaned from his writings,
sermons, and university lectures during the preceding
years. No one becomes suddenly or accidentally a
heretic ; and the Oxford friars, who certainly hated
Wyclif since 1366, if not earlier, had been taking
notes of his teaching in anticipation of a day when
they might find an orthodox corrector of his heresies.
And they found such a corrector in the Chancellor
whom they had attempted to hale to Rome, and
whose authority they had defied.
Wyclif s heterodoxy, we cannot doubt, was an old
affair perhaps as old as his first association with
John of Gaunt. But the actual persecution of " the
Evangelical Doctor " began after the papal nuncios at
Bruges had had an opportunity of hearing his incisive
1377] Persecution. 1 59
arguments, after the friars had found a willing listener
in Courtenay, and after the Duke of Lancaster had
begun to stumble in his ambitious course. When
the Reformer may be said in fighting phrase to have
thrown away his scabbard, or at what particular
moment the Pope and the Sacred College determined
to crush their formidable enemy, it would be difficult
to say.
The bulls which arrived in England in November,
1377, demanding that proceedings should be taken
against Wyclif, were dated May 22d of the same year.
The charges on which they were ostensibly based
had reached Avignon from England before the close
of 1376. It is in every way probable that this first
open breach between Wyclif and the authorities of
the Church was brought about by the initiative of
the friars before June, 1376, whilst John of Gaunt
was not a member of the King s Council. The tem
porary eclipse of the powerful Duke would naturally
seem to afford a good opportunity for moving against
the heretic whom he had protected. The death of
the Prince of Wales, and the renewal of his brother s
influence, would be quite enough to make the astute
Pope withhold his bulls for a time. It was clearly
hopeless to move against a friend of the Duke s and
to hazard a new decretal amongst these wrong-
headed and contemptuous English, at a crisis when
holy bishops like Wykeham and Courtenay were
stripped of their honours and goods, or made to eat
their words in public for the very offence of pub
lishing a papal bull.
Before long the Pope would hear of the famous
160 John Wyclif. M376-
Convocation in 1377. He would learn how that
splendid champion of the Church, William Courte-
nay, rising in dignity amongst his peers, and even
rebuking the weaker Primate to his face, had made
a scathing speech against the formidable Duke, and
had refused in the name of the Church to grant a
single penny for the King s necessities until the
wrongs of the disgraced Wykeham should be re
dressed. Here evidently was a man who dared to
withstand the outrageous John of Gaunt ; and the
same month of February was not to pass away with
out giving Gregory another proof that the tide was
beginning to turn in England, and that the star of
Courtenay was in the ascendant. The Pope had
himself been Archdeacon of Canterbury, and may
have known something of English feeling though
the facts do not go far to warrant such a conclusion.
It is necessary to keep the order of events precisely
fixed in our minds, for confusion has arisen amongst
some of the earlier biographers of Wyclif in respect
of the proceedings taken against him by Courtenay.
Wyclif was cited by Courtenay to appear before him
at St. Paul s or perhaps before Convocation in
February, 1377, at the time when the annual parlia
ment of the clergy was assembled in London.
Clearly this had nothing to do with Gregory s bulls,
which were not signed until the following May. The
citation need not have been issued many days before
it was returnable, on the iQth of February, but it
may well have been conceived and prepared weeks
or months before. It was Courtenay s act, and ap
parently Courtenay s alone ; for the citation was to
c 5
H377 Persecution. \ 6 1
the Lady Chapel of old St. Paul s, and he presided
in person over the inquiry. Is it possible to disso
ciate it from the bold act which procured Wykeham s
restoration ? Must we not take the two acts together
as Courtenay s retort for his treatment after the
Florentine riot or at any rate as a challenge to John
of Gaunt on behalf of the rulers of the Church ?
It is probable enough that Wyclif s militant spirit
led him to anticipate with a certain keen satisfaction
the opportunity of fighting out so noble a cause
with an antagonist so worthy of his steel. He could
not foresee that his own friends would make any
thing like a connected argument impossible, even if
his enemies had been willing to hear him.
But the Duke of Lancaster seems to have made
up his mind beforehand that Courtenay was acting
in excess of his jurisdiction and it is certainly not
quite clear what the jurisdiction was. Courtenay
was not Wyclif s diocesan ; but the latter had
preached for many years in the diocese of London,
and the Bishop s authority was doubtless sufficient
to prevent him from doing so again, if on inquiry he
found that the King s chaplain was in the habit of
preaching rank heresy. For anything beyond this
it would seem that Courtenay would need authori
sation from the Pope or the Archbishop. There is
no evidence of a bull up to this point, and it is
extremely improbable that the proceedings were
taken on the authority of Sudbury, who was not
heroic enough in his mood to break with and defy
the Duke of Lancaster. We can only suppose that
Courtenay s position in the matter was a weak one,
1 62 John Wyclif. [1376-
and that the Duke felt himself safe in overbearing
him with a manifestation of physical force. He
would naturally have no confidence in the fairness
of the tribunal which Courtenay had set up, appar
ently for the sole purpose of silencing his clerical
ally. And what would the people say, his friends
as well as his enemies, if he suffered this priest to
get the better of him after such a palpable defiance ?
Thus, when the Reformer put in an appear
ance at St. Paul s on the iQth of February, he
was accompanied by John of Gaunt and by a
posse of armed men under Lord Percy of Aln-
wick, afterwards first Earl of Northumberland,
who had recently been appointed Marshal of
England. Lancaster also brought with him, accord
ing to one account, four mendicant friars, perhaps by
way of a moral counterpoise to the friars who had
notoriously been egging on the Bishop and the Pope
to take action against the English Doctor. The
arrival of this party in the crowded cathedral created
a great disturbance, and Courtenay came forward
and reproved them, saying grimly that if he had
known they would behave in that fashion he would
have taken care that the Marshal and his men should
not have entered. The Duke was quite ready for
his cousin, and declared that he would exercise his
authority there whether the Bishop liked it or no.
Then they entered the Lady Chapel, and found,
according to the account in the Chronicon Anglitz,
not only bishops but also a number of barons. It is
possible that all except Courtenay were assembled
as mere spectators of what promised to be an inter-
INTERIOR OF OLD ST. PAUL S, LOOKING EAST.
DUGDALE.
13771 Persecution. 163
esting and exciting case. The barons are mentioned
in association with the Duke, and they may have
come in Lancaster s train from Westminster.
Before the inquiry could be opened Lord Percy
did what he may have considered humane and
natural under the circumstances. Wyclif was very
properly standing, out of respect for his ecclesias
tical superiors, and Percy bade him take a seat. " As
he will have many things to answer," said the
Marshal, " he should have a more comfortable seat."
But the Bishop flatly said that he should not sit
there at all. " It is against reason and against the
practice of courts," he said, " that he should
sit, for he has come on a summons, to answer
for himself before his ordinary, and in respect of
charges which have been brought against him. For
the time of his answer, and so long as his case is
being tried, it is right that he should stand where
he is."
Thus at the outset a dispute arose between Percy
and the Bishop, with many hard words on both sides,
and the whole assembly was thrown into confusion.
The Duke then began to argue with the Bishop, and
Courtenay did his best to let John of Gaunt have tit
for tat. Lancaster, says the chronicler, was ashamed
of himself because he could not talk the Bishop
down ; so he began to threaten, and swore that he
would humble not his pride only but that of all the
bishops in England.
" You trust too much in your father and mother,"
he said, " but they will not be able to help you.
They will have enough to do to look after themselves."
1 64 John Wyclif. [1376-
" I do not rely on my parents," said Courtenay,
" any more than on yourself, or on any mortal
man, but I rely on my God, who deserts none that
put their trust in him."
" I would rather take him by the hair," the Duke
said in an audible aside, " and drag him out of the
church, than put up with such talk from him."
The bystanders were enraged to hear the Bishop
insulted in his own cathedral. They not only broke
into the wordy contest, but apparently made it plain
that they were ready to pass from words to deeds.
We are not told whether the city guard were present,
inside or outside the cathedral ; but it is quite possi
ble that they were, and that both the King s son and
the Marshal were a little overawed by the strength
arrayed against them. At any rate the wrangle was
so fierce that Courtenay found it necessary to dis
miss the assembly; and thus the "lying glutton,"
as the St. Alban s monk piously calls Wyclif
" Doctor Wicked-believe " was another and a more
ingenious name for him escaped censure for the
time.
That day and the day which succeeded it were
momentous in the records of the city of London, as
well as in the lives of Wyclif, Lancaster, and Courte
nay. Parliament had met at Westminster in the
afternoon, an hour or two before the assembly at
St. Paul s, with the Duke of Lancaster presiding.
Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards Duke of Glouces
ter, the King s fifth son, was present, with Lord
Percy and the friends of the princes. Apparently
there had been a rally of King s friends, by way
M
> 2
1377] Persecution. 165
of outflanking the Bishop and the Corporation of
London. A string of requests or " petitions " was
made in the King s name, amongst which the most im
portant were that the city guard should in future be in
command of a captain instead of a mayor (" major "),
and that the Marshal of England should have power
to arrest within the walls as he had outside the
object being to deprive the Londoners of some of
their privileges, and to clip their growing wings.
But it happened that one of the most honourable
citizens, John Philipot, recently appointed a parlia
mentary treasurer and auditor-general, in association
with Walworth, was in the House, and he entered a
vigorous protest against the action of the Court
party. He spoke with so much force that the meet
ing is said to have broken up in confusion probably
not before the majority had agreed to all the propo
sitions. V/oodstock and Percy maintained that this
had been done, and the Marshal seems to have lost
no time in exercising his new authority.
Next day there was a hastily summoned meeting
of the City Council, with the aldermen and possibly
the mayor in attendance, which discussed the attack
made upon their privileges, and considered how it
might be repelled. Whilst they were debating,
two citizens of superior rank, Lords Fitzwalter and
Guy de Brian, made their way into the meeting.
They were allowed to remain on condition that they
took an oath of loyalty to the Corporation, which
they willingly did ; and then Fitzwalter made an
inflammatory speech, informing the Council that the
Marshal had already arrested and imprisoned one of
1 66 John Wyclif. [1376-
their fellow-citizens. The Londoners had been at
white heat since the previous afternoon, and now
they could be restrained no longer. They rushed
out, armed or unarmed, and, gathering volume as
they went, made straight for Lord Percy s. The
Marshal had fled, but the crowd released the prisoner
and sacked the house. From thence they marched
upon the Savoy; and Lancaster s palace, rich with
the spoils of France and Castile, had a very narrow
escape.
Percy had fled to the Duke, and the two together
were said to have crossed the river and appealed to
the Princess of Wales at her palace in Kennington.
There are two or three versions of the manner in
which Lancaster escaped the vengeance of the mob ;
but it is clear that the Princess befriended him at
this crisis, and made terms between him and the
enraged citizens. The latter are reported to have de
manded a fair trial for the Bishop of Winchester and
Peter de la Mare. Probably it was only the leaders
of the mob who made these stipulations, and not the
city authorities.
We know more than enough of the Duke of Lan
caster to account for the bitterness displayed against
him at this period of his life. The disasters with
which the decade had begun, the not very honour
able peace concluded with France and Castile at
Bruges, his repeated attacks on the bishops and on
the city, his close relations with the most corrupt
persons about the Court, his apparent rivalry with
the popular Prince of Wales, his opposition to the
Good Parliament, his unscrupulous packing of the
MONUMENT OF JOHN, DUKE OF LANCASTER, AND OF HIS WIFE CONSTANCE,
IN OLD ST. PAUL S.
DUGDALE.
1377] Persecution. 167
Parliament of 1377, have been mentioned already.
He had made so many enemies by this time that the
more ignorant as well as the more unscrupulous
amongst them either believed or pretended to believe
that he had profited by the embezzlements of men
like Lyons, and that, instead of being a legitimate
prince, he had been palmed upon Edward III. by
Queen Philippa. It is not surprising that, when his
eldest brother died, he should have been thought
capable of harbouring a design to get rid of his
nephew Richard, and to secure the throne for him
self. The insult to Courtenay would scarcely have
moved the citizens so deeply if their prejudice had
not already been raised by such facts and suspicions
as these.
Walter Savage Landor, with the insight of genius,
has imagined a conversation, occurring on the day of
the riot, between John of Gaunt and Joanna of Kent,
his cousin in blood, and the widowed mother of
Richard. He represents the Princess of Wales as
coming to rescue him in the Savoy palace, and
standing with him at a window, looking down on the
surging mob beneath. " How is this, my cousin,"
she says, " that you are besieged in your own house,
by the citizens of London ? I thought you were
their idol." To which he answers : " If their idol,
madam, I am one which they may tread on as they
list when down ; but which, by my soul and knight
hood ! the ten best battle-axes among them shall
find it hard work to unshrine." He suspects that
she has come with her guard to arrest him ; but they
are reconciled by a reference to the dead Prince,
1 68 John Wyclif. [1376-
and Joanna says to him : " Cousin, you loved your
brother. Love, then, what was dearer to him than
his life: protect what he, valiant as you have seen
him, cannot ! The father, who foiled so many, hath
left no enemies ; the innocent child, who can injure
no one, finds them ! " She speaks to the angry citi
zens and deftly turns their anger. " Let none ever
tell me again he is the enemy of my son . . . your
darling child, Richard. Are your fears more lively
than a poor weak female s ? than a mother s ? yours,
whom he hath so often led to victory, and praised to
his father, naming each he, John of Gaunt, the de
fender of the helpless, the comforter of the desolate,
the rallying signal of the desperately brave ! " She
stands surety for his loyalty and allegiance, and the
fickle mob cheer the Duke as well as herself.
The scene is imaginary ; but it is an imagination
which will scarcely lead us far astray. John of
Gaunt had very possibly brought more odium upon
himself than his acts deserved. He was faithful to
his sister-in-law and loyal to his nephew, whom, if he
had lived but a few months longer, he would have
succeeded on the throne.
Reasons have been assigned for thinking that the
abortive failure of the St. Paul s inquiry, and the
evidence which it gave of Courtenay s ability to hold
his own, were amongst the motives which led the
Pope to take action against Wyclif in the spring of
1377. But, between the signing of the bulls and
their formal delivery in England, Edward III. had
brought his glorious reign to its shameful end ;
and the appeal which Gregory had framed for the
1377] Persecution. 1 69
veteran King had to be re-directed to his grandson.
Gregory himself did not live long enough to see the
issue of his attack on the strongest living enemy of
Rome ; but he must have died in full confidence
that the thunders of the Church would eventually
strike down this impious English heretic.
Richard II. came to the throne on June 2ist.
His first Council included Courtenay, with the
Bishops of Carlisle and Salisbury, the Earl of March,
Lord Stafford, Sir John Stafford, Sir Henry Scrope,
Sir John Devereux, and Sir Hugh Segrave. It was
a " clerical " ministry, independent of, if not opposed
to, John of Gaunt though Walsingham says that
it was selected with his " connivance." Courtenay
does not appear to have taken any active part in the
government of the country. Indeed we find him
flatly declining to obey the Council, having fallen
into another desperate quarrel with Lancaster, and
publicly excommunicated his friends and instru
ments for a gross violation of sanctuary to which
Wyclif himself refers as " a horrible crime." His
refusal to abstain from the repeated publication of
the sentence, when called upon to do so by the
Council, was the best thing which he could possibly
have -done for the Duke. From that time forward
Lancaster seems to have steadily regained his influ
ence ; and he gradually assumed the lead of the new
Court party.
The first Parliament of this reign met at Glouces
ter on October I3th, and one of its earliest duties
was to consider whether payment of Peter s pence
should continue to be made to the Pope. The
170 John Wyclif. [1376-
question was referred to Wyclif, as a similar question
had been referred to him eleven years before ; and
the answer which he gave was perhaps more signifi
cant than some of his biographers have led us to
suppose. As a matter of fact, the King s chaplain
gave two answers in the same treatise first, the
answer of a logical and independent mind, and then
the answer of prudence and expediency. He was
asked " whether the realm of England may legiti
mately, under urgent necessity of self-defence, pre
vent the resources of the kingdom from being
carried away to foreigners, even though the Pope
demand it under pain of censure, and by a strict
appeal to our obedience."
Wyclif begins by declaring that he must leave it
to trained lawyers to say what should be done ac
cording to the canon law, the law of England, and
the civil law, and undertakes to argue the matter
out according to the law of Christ. The realm, he
says, is quite entitled to keep its property, first as a
mode of self-preservation, and next because the pay
ments to Rome originated as alms and charity, and
they are no longer required as such, whereas the
Bible and the Fathers teach us that charity begins at
home. Again we are bound by the law of conscience
and especially the rulers of the country are so bound
to think of our own country first, and not to im
poverish it. In regard to Peter s pence especially,
pious founders left their benefactions for the Church
of England alone, that the clergy might live thereby,
and give the rest in alms. Before allowing any of this
wealth to leave the country, our rulers should take
t377i Persecution. 171
immediate steps to check the abuse, moved thereto
by thinking of the souls of the departed, of their own
responsibility, and of the safety of the realm. All
the world would laugh at our " asinine folly " if we
who dared to invade other countries for secular causes
were afraid of holding back trust-funds in the name
of God from unworthy claimants. The laws of nature,
of Scripture, of conscience, bid us boldly say No to
the Pope.
What then (Wyclif goes on to consider) would the
Pope do if we refused this money ? Assume that he
would excommunicate the whole realm, put us under
an interdict, declare our goods forfeit, as he did to
the Florentines, raise a crusade against us, stamp us
with the mark of schismatics, as Rome has done for
the Greeks. But only an unworthy affection could be
disturbed by the withdrawal of such charity as this.
The Holy Father, seeing on one side how the Turk
grows stronger and stronger in Europe (for reasons
best known to God), and seeing on the other that the
realm of England is conspicuous for its piety, would
not create so grave a scandal through mere greed
of temporalities. And even if some disciple of Anti
christ should break out into such madness, it is a
consolation to think that censures of this kind are
not binding in the sight of God. The limit of what
Christians should give to the Pope is what his office
demands ; but people have been taught to confound
the office with the pomp surrounding it.
On the other hand, it has been argued that if we
kept this money in England, it would be a cause of
wantonness, lubricity, and avarice. If so, then let
172 John Wyclif. 1376-
us reduce the gifts of our benefactors to their former
modest level, and devote the overplus to restore the
true peace of the Church. Another danger would
exist in the lack of perseverance which distinguishes
Englishmen. (Impossible not to see in this phrase
a touch of the disillusion which politics had already
produced in Wyclif s mind !) " So far as this danger
is concerned, there is nothing for it but to strengthen
the whole nation in unanimous firmness, before the
thing can be attempted. . . . I do not see how
we could attempt to do this, unless the common con
sent of the whole people were obtained for it. ...
It would be rash for a private individual to give
this advice, since a matter of such a kind ought to
proceed from the agreement of the realm as a whole.
. . . It would behove us therefore to use great
forethought, and to have a unanimous Parliament,
before the nation begins to carry such a work into
effect, lest personal influence or private advantage
should cause an injury hereafter to the commonweal
of the country."
The drift of this treatise is sufficiently evident.
Wyclif answered the question as to the legitimacy
of refusing Peter s pence with an unqualified affirm
ative. It is not only our right and our interest to
do it, but it is our duty. Yet he who has a duty to
perform may be at liberty to select the time for per
forming it. " I advise you to wait until you are
stronger and more unanimous. By suddenly refus
ing all pecuniary aids to the Pope, you would risk
not only disaster abroad, but even civil war at home.
I dare not take upon myself the responsibility of
1377] Persecution. \ 73
counselling you to stop the payment of Peter s
pence."
Two things will probably occur to a sympa
thetic reader in connection with this interesting
State document, written, as we know that it
was, when the substance of the Pope s bulls
had already come to Wyclif s ears, or at least
the knowledge that such bulls had been framed
and despatched against him. One thing is that the
writer could not have been a fanatic, and was far
from losing his head through hatred of Rome, since,
when he had the power of egging on the Commons
and the barons to strike a telling blow at the Papacy,
he forbore to do so from motives of wise calculation
and prudence. And another thing which strikes us
is that this calculation and this prudence were by no
means based on selfish considerations, suggested, by
the aforementioned bulls, for never had Wyclif
spoken or written in a more uncompromising spirit
of the claims of Rome, the independence of England,
and the freedom of the individual conscience. The
paper was addressed to the King and the great
Council. It would very probably be read aloud to
both Houses, and certainly the bishops would be
made acquainted with its contents, so that if the
Reformer s object had been to strike a bargain, and
to palter with his convictions, he could not have
done it in a more unfortunate manner.
The Parliament which received and acted upon
this remarkable compound of anti-papal stricture
and patriotic prudence was of course not the same
as that which had met early in the year, in which
174 John Wyclif. [1377
the Commons had been packed by John of Gaunt,
and which had discharged its functions by the first
week of March. The demise of the Crown had been
followed by the issue of new writs, and the new
members would doubtless be thoroughly loyal, well-
disposed to the Princess of Wales, and in perfect
accord with the King s Council. It is probable that
the elections had been free from interference ; the
loyalty of the country would be taken for granted,
and certainly the Duke of Lancaster was not just
then strong enough to influence them, even if he had
been minded to play the Princess false, which there
is no reason to suppose. It is not without signifi
cance that this first Parliament of Richard II., chosen
without any bias on the part of Wyclif s patrons,
should have treated him with so much distinction,
consulting him on a State question of capital im
portance, and receiving (and virtually approving) his
rejoinder to the papal bulls.
CHAPTER X.
POPE GREGORY S BULLS.
May 22, 1377, as already
mentioned, Pope Gregory XI.
signed his bulls against Wyclif.
They had not been received
in England before the death
of Edward III. on June 2ist.
It would be necessary to recall
them if they had been de
spatched, or at any rate to send
a covering letter for the personal appeal which was
addressed to the King. . In view of the consequent
changes and pre-occupations of the English Govern
ment, Gregory would naturally allow two or three
months to pass before he opened the matter. It
does not appear that the documents were actually
delivered in England until the Gloucester Parliament
had been sitting for over a fortnight.
There were in all five bulls, one of which was
addressed to the King, one to the University of
176 John Wyclif.
Oxford, and the other three to the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Bishop of London conjointly.
Gregory called upon the Archbishop and Bishop to
examine into the truth of the nineteen charges which
had been brought against Wyclif, and which were
set forth in the bulls. The ecclesiastics were to warn
the Government of the country that they were har
bouring a dangerous heretic, and were to demand
his arrest ; but if this demand were not complied
with, they were to cite him to appear at Rome. As
an alternative course, which may or may not have
been suggested beforehand by Courtenay it was
certainly in keeping with his personal courage and
independence the last bull invited the prelates to
arrest the accused (assuming that he was found to be
guilty of heresy and that the civil arm would not
touch him), and to await the sentence of the Pope.
The bull addressed to the King was an appeal for
the royal favour and protection on behalf of the
two prelates in their action against Wyclif whom
Gregory described as holding and teaching the
" unlearned doctrine " of Marsilius of Padua, damnattz
memories, who stands condemned by Pope John
XXII., of happy memory.
Writing to Oxford, the Pope declared that he
could not but wonder and lament that, by their sloth
and laziness, the authorities of the University per
mitted tares to spring up amongst the genuine wheat
of their famous soil, and not only to spring up but,
still more pernicious, to come to maturity, without
taking any trouble to root them out. The Holy
Father had been all the more distressed because the
X
O 2"
1379] Pope Gregory s Bulls. 177
flourishing of these tares had been recognised at
Rome before any notice had been taken of it in Eng
land, where it was necessary that the remedy should
be applied. After more expostulation he strictly en
joined the University, in virtue of their obedience to
the Holy See, and under penalty of being deprived
of all graces, indulgences, and privileges bestowed
upon them by the said See, that for the future they
should suffer no man to teach the condemned opin
ions within the University.
The nineteen charges which had been made against
Wyclif, and which were endorsed by the Pope s bulls,
attributed to him the following opinions:
1. Not even the universal consent of mankind
since the time of Christ has power to ordain that
Peter and his successors should hold political
dominion over the world.
2. God himself could not give to any man and
his heirs a civil dominion for ever.
3. Charters of human origin, concerning a per
petual inheritance for the future, are futile.
3. Everyone that is finally justified not only has
a right to, but actually enjoys, all the good things
of God.
5. Man can only ministerially give to his natural
child, or to a child of imitation in the school of
Christ, temporal or eternal dominion.
6. If God is [omnipotent], temporal lords may
lawfully and meritoriously take away the property
which has accrued to a delinquent Church.
7. Whether the Church be in such a state or not
it is not my business to examine, but the business
178 John Wyclif. H377
of temporal lords, who, if they find it in such a state,
are to act boldly, and on pain of damnation to take
away its temporalities.
8. We know that it is impossible that the Vicar
of Christ should, purely by his bulls, or by them
with the will and consent of himself and his College
of Cardinals, qualify or disqualify anyone.
9. It is not possible for any man to be excom
municated, unless he be first and principally ex
communicated by himself.
10. Nobody is excommunicated, suspended, or
tormented with other censures so as to be the worse
for it, unless it be in the cause of God.
11. Cursing or excommunication does not bind
simply of itself, but only so far as it is denounced
against an adversary of the law of Christ.
12. Christ has given to his disciples no example
of a power to excommunicate subjects principally
for their denying temporal things, but has rather
given them an example to the contrary.
13. The disciples of Christ have no power forci
bly to exact temporal things by censures.
14. It is not possible even for the absolute power
of God to effect that, if the Pope or any other
pretend that he binds or looses absolutely, he does
actually so bind or loose.
15. We ought to believe that then only does the
Pope bind or loose when he conforms himself to
the law of Christ.
16. This ought to be universally believed, that
every priest rightly ordained has a power of adminis
tering every one of the sacraments, and, by conse-
1379: Pope Gregory s Bulls. i 79
quence, of absolving every contrite person from any
sin.
17. It is lawful for kings to take away tem
poralities from ecclesiastics who habitually abuse
them.
1 8. Whether temporal lords, or holy Popes, or
saints, or the head of the Church, which is Christ,
have endowed the Church with goods of fortune or
of grace, and have excommunicated those who take
away its temporalities, it is notwithstanding lawful,
by the condition implied in the endowment, to strip
her of temporalities for an adequate offence.
19. An ecclesiastic, yea, even the Pope of Rome,
may lawfully be corrected by subjects, and even by
the laity, and may also be accused or impeached by
them.
We have only to carry ourselves back in spirit to
the intellectual and religious atmosphere of the four
teenth century in order to realise how overwhelming
such a charge as that now brought against Wyclif must
have appeared to every pious person who accepted
the allegations as correct. Even those who thought
with him, who were able to keep pace with his logic,
and knew how reverently his beliefs were entertained,
must have stood aghast in many instances at the
temerity with which he assailed the position of the
Popes and the current orthodoxy of his day. And
Wyclif himself could scarcely hope to escape the
censures of Rome, or even of the English bishops
if they were compelled to pronounce a formal judg
ment on his conclusions. He knew that it was im
possible to obtain a perfectly impartial tribunal within
i8o John Wyclif. H377-
the Church, and probably foresaw that only the lapse
of time could discredit a system which had required
so many generations to build it up.
The reception of the bulls was very different in
different quarters. Courtenay alone rejoiced in his
opportunity, and prepared to silence effectually this
discordant and disturbing note within the national
Church. Sudbury invited the Chancellor of Oxford
to send him assessors and doctors of divinity, stating
that he meant to hold an inquiry as requested by the
Pope, but implying that he did not intend to go be
yond the inquiry. At Oxford there was a decided
feeling of annoyance over Gregory s message ; and
the King s Council could not fail to look with
jealousy and dislike on the introduction of the bulls,
which, strictly regarded, were a defiance of English
law and an encroachment on the authority of the
Crown.
It was necessary for Wyclif, in view of his official
relations with Parliament, to send in a statement
dealing with the bull which had been addressed to
the King. Perhaps he was called upon to do so ; or
he may have thought it only respectful on his part
to make his position clear to a body of men who had
placed their confidence in him, and some of whom
would certainly take the side of his accusers. There
can be no doubt that the open censure of the Pope
marked another important turning-point in his life,
and that from this time forward he would have a
largely increased number of his countrymen ranged
against him. The paper presented to Parliament
was in almost the same terms as that read before the
1379] Pope Gregory s Bulls. 181
Pope s Commissioners at Lambeth, to which we shall
presently come ; but it differs in its conclusion.
" This" he says, " is in some respect an answer to
the bull. I want to be considered as delivering these
conclusions like a grain of faith, separated from the
chaff in which the unwelcome tares are burned, which
tares, after their red blossom of malodorous revenge,
provide materials for Antichrist against the genuine
writings of faith. An unmistakable sign whereof is
that a poison born of the Evil One reigns in the
hearts of the clergy, a pride which consists in the
lust of mastery, whose mate, the lust of earthly goods,
begets children of the devil, whilst the children of
evangelical poverty are extinct. You may judge of
the fruitfulness of this procreation by the fact that
many even of the children of poverty give coun
tenance to the degenerate brood, either by speech or
by silence, whether because they are not strong
enough or because they do not dare, on account of
the seed of the man of sin which has been sown in
their hearts, or from a slavish fear of losing such
temporalities as they have, to make a stand for evan
gelical poverty."
The tenour of the statement made by Wyclif to
the University was very similar to this, and it is
evident from the bitterness of the few sentences just
quoted that the keen and natural indignation of
the man could not be altogether suppressed. His
moral and intellectual appreciation of theunchristlike
attitude of the Christian Churches of his day, sensi
tive and palpitating as it was, had been stung to the
quick. He would have been something very different
1 82 John Wyclif. ri377
from what we know him to have been if he could
have seen anything less than Antichrist in the viru
lence with which an advocate of ecclesiastical poverty
was attacked by the Vicar of Christ and by the
English prelates.
How does Oxford bear the scrutiny of the nine
teenth century in this connection, across an interval
of five hundred years? Half a millennium has
passed since the premier University drew to the
close of her first golden age. For Wyclif Oxford
was still the head-quarters of thought, and work,
and love. It was to Black Hall in Oxford that he
hurried, as soon as the session was concluded at
Gloucester, in order to hold communion with his
life-long friends as another famous son of the Eng
lish Church, in circumstances curiously contrasted,
yet in a certain sense parallel with those of Wyclif
at this crisis in his faith, went up from Littlemore
in the memory of some who are still living, to see, as
he puts it, " those familiar affectionate companions
and counsellors, who in Oxford were given to me,
one after another, to be my daily solace and relief ;
and all those others, of great name and high exam
ple, who were my thorough friends, and showed me
true attachment in times long past ; and also those
many young men, whether I knew them or not, who
have never been disloyal to me byword or by deed."
Wyclif was approaching a mental and moral crisis
quite as searching for him as that through which
Newman had passed in 1843. His doubts on the
subject of transubstantiation had already begun to
take form and substance, and he must have felt that
1379] Pope Gregory s Bulls. 18;
the action of Rome and Canterbury would impel him
to a decision from which even his warmest friends
would be likely to start back in alarm.
But up to this point the question was not of tran-
substantiation. The Archbishop and the Bishop,
seeing that Wyclif had betaken himself to Oxford,
and allowing the claim which he had thus tacitly
made on his University, wrote on December i8th to
demand that the Chancellor and the theological au
thorities should hold an inquiry and make a report
in answer to the papal bull, and that they should
then remit the accused to London, to appear to
their own citation. Oxford stood the test. The
Chancellor directed Wycliff to remain within the
hall where he was lodging, and the " conclusions "
which Gregory had condemned were duly examined,
together with Wyclif s rejoinder. The decision
arrived at was of a most important character.
Oxford declared the conclusions to be true, and not
heretical, though they were so expressed as to be
open to misconception.
With this testimonial from his University Wyclif
was able to make his appearance before the prelates
with a stout heart, but probably not without a con
viction that his struggle against the papal Court was
rapidly coming to an issue.
Meanwhile his most implacable enemies must
have regarded all these things as mere by-play, and
they must have been impatient for the discipline of
the Holy See to produce its natural effect. The
lightning had been hurled, and they wanted to hear
the unmistakable thunders of Rome. It was all
1 84 John Wyclif. fi377-
very well for the nobles and the young King s mother
to lull the heretic into fancied security, and for his
University to stand by him in a spirit of simple
partisanship ; but Rome had spoken, and the efforts
of the orthodox, continued over a series of years,
were about to meet their due reward. Devout
sons of the Church, and good friars in particular,
had been scandalised and tricked often enough, but
at last the fox was run to earth, and the whole hunt
were longing to see him taken.
Archbishop Sudbury had originally cited Wyclif
to appear on the i8th of December at St. Paul s,
where, ten short months before, he had slipped
through Courtenay s hands, owing to the disturbed
condition of the city, and the deadly feud between
the citizens and the Duke of Lancaster. It would
not be strange if this appointment was counter
manded because the citizens, with the easy versa
tility of mankind in the mass, were now more likely
to be on Lancaster s side than against him. Possibly
London had not changed its mind and its sympa
thies in regard to Wyclif, except that Gregory s
bulls must have made it more Wycliffite than ever;
but John of Gaunt had almost ceased to vex the
citizens. They were enthusiastic for the Princess
Joan, who had not concealed her liking for the
Court preacher ; and they had men to lead them,
like brave John of Northampton, who had boasted
that no bull from the Pope of Rome should harm
John Wyclif within the liberties of the city.
The citizens had been stirred, no doubt, as Oxford
had been stirred, and liberal-minded Christians
1379] Pope Gregorys Bulls. 185
throughout England, by a moving appeal just circu
lated far and wide over London and the provinces.
It was an anonymous tract, vigorous and eloquent,
calling upon all good clerks and Christians to stand
together at that important crisis, and rally in defence
of the conclusions of Wyclif, and the independence
of the English Church. " If these conclusions are
heretical," said the pamphleteer, " Holy Scripture
itself falls to pieces." The tract has been generally
ascribed to Wyclif. Whoever wrote it, it seems to
have been very effective, and the Londoners were
enthusiastic for the man who was making such a bold
stand against the Pope.
At any rate the prelates lost their nerve, and they
were compelled to change the venue. Sudbury
postponed the hearing until after Christmas, and
summoned the accused to his town-house near the
Lamb Hithe. The Archbishop was just now on as
good terms as ever with the Duke, and perhaps, if
the truth were known, he was not sorry to shift his
ground almost within earshot of the royal palace at
Kennington. The whole thing was more Courtenay s
affair than his, and, if Courtenay could not answer
for the rabble round his own cathedral, the nearer
they drew to the protection of the Court, the better
Sudbury would be pleased.
So, on the appointed day, John Wyclif came
before his judges at Lambeth, and with his cool
collected look he scanned the group of assessors
doctors of decretals, professors of theology and of the
"sacred page," whether secular clergymen, monks,
or friars, who had come up for the occasion from
1 86 John Wyclif. H377-
Oxford and Cambridge. It was perhaps not he who
would be most disconcerted by that mutual recog
nition.
He had brought with him a written paper of
declarations, by way of defence against the charges.
After the preliminaries were over, and Sudbury had
reminded him what it was that he was called upon
to answer, he would be allowed to read his defence ;
and the paper in which his apology was comprised
has been handed down to us carefully preserved
by his stern censor, Thomas of Walden. This
document, practically re-stating and justifying all
the conclusions which had been attributed to him,
opened in a strain of dignified humility.
"To begin with," he said, " I make my public
profession, as I have often done elsewhere, professing
and claiming with my whole heart to be, by the grace
of God, a sound Christian, and that so far as I am
able, whilst there is breath in my body, I speak forth
and defend the law of Christ. Furthermore, if, by
ignorance or any other cause, I fall short in this, I
beseech my God for pardon, and I do here and now
revoke and withdraw it, submitting myself to the
correction of holy Mother Church. ... I desire
to state in writing my conviction in regard to that
whereof I have been accused, which I will defend
even to the death, as I hold that all Christians ought
to do and in particular the Roman Pontiff, and the
other priests of the Church."
Then the indomitable man set himself to expound
and expand his conclusions, and stated them all
over again with increased clearness and pungency,
13791 Pope Gregory s Bulls. 187
neither shirking nor fining down, but treating every
charge as a text for new exposition. Had it been
arranged (by others, of course, than Courtenay) that
he should have his say, completely and deliberately,
and that then this abortive farce of the Pope s juris
diction in England should be brought to an end ?
The Council, or at all events the Princess of Wales,
had resolved that there should be no definite action
upon Gregory s bulls ; and on the previous evening,
according to some accounts, but at any rate before
the conclusion of the hearing, one Lewis Clifford
brought them word from the King s mother that
they were not to pass judgment on Wyclif. The
reference of the St. Alban s chronicle to these pro
ceedings is so quaint, and the indignation of the
writer is so natural in an orthodox monk of his day,
that a few sentences may be quoted here.
" It would be better to say nothing than to speak
of the indifferent and slothful manner in which the
two Bishops performed the task entrusted to them.
. . . On the arrival of the day (instante die)
appointed for the examination of that apostate,
through fear of a reed shaken by the wind, they
made their words softer than oil, to the public loss
of their own dignity and to the damage of the uni
versal Church. The men who had sworn that they
would not obey the very barons and princes of the
kingdom until they had punished the excesses of the
heresiarch himself, according to the commands of
the Pope, were paralysed with terror at the sight of
some fellow from the court of the Princess Joan,
who was neither a knight of good standing nor a
1 38 John Wyclif. fi377-
man of any influence, one Lewis Clifford to wit, who
pompously ordered them that they should not pre
sume to come to any formal decision concerning the
aforesaid John. "
It is uncertain how far the inquiry before Sudbury
and Courtenay was allowed to proceed. The Prin
cess and the Duke were not the only bars to its
progress. Possibly Wyclif had read his defence, and
Courtenay, it may be, relieving the Gallio-like Arch
bishop of his function, had exchanged a few vigor
ous words with the accused. His judges were awk
wardly placed, and were anything but masters of the
situation. The few contemporary references to this
dramatic scene unfortunately do not condescend to
many details, and the details which they give are
not consistent. According to the continuation of
Murimuth s history, " the Archbishop imposed
silence on him and all other persons, in regard to the
matter in question, in the presence of the Duke of
Lancaster," this being evidently mentioned as a
proof of Sudbury s courage " forbidding him
thenceforth to meddle with or dwell upon the points
at issue, or to suffer others," his Poor Priests, for
instance, " to spread them abroad. And for a time
both he and they kept silence " which is not very
likely, " but at length, relying on the temporal
authorities, they again took up the same opinions,
and others which were far worse, and persevered in
their mischievous errors."
Then the inevitable citizens, who had tramped
across London Bridge,- and through the Borough to
the Archbishop s chapel, put themselves in evidence
1379] Pope Gregory s Bulls. 189
again ; and it must have been clear to Courtenay
that, even if the King s mother and uncle had not
protected this obstinate sower of tares, still the head
strong merchants, tradesmen, and apprentices from
his own diocese would have made it extremely diffi
cult for him to give full effect to the papal bulls. As
it was, the irruption of the citizens broke up the
proceedings, and Wyclif, as just said, escaped with a
mild warning. The St. Alban s chronicler, who was
living at the time, declares that the crafty heretic
(versipellis) tricked his examiners through the
favour and zeal of the men of London, scoffed at
the Bishops, and slipped away.
It is possible enough, considering the force and
boldness of Courtenay s character, that he may have
had it in his mind and openly expressed his inten
tion to condemn Wyclif in spite of the request of the
Princess of Wales, even at the risk of personal dis
aster to himself. That would explain the holding
of the sitting after Clifford s message, the presence
and watchfulness of the Duke, and the turbulence of
the crowd of citizens. It must be remembered that
Sudbury and Courtenay were acting not merely as
prelates but also as the Commissioners of the Pope ;
and the Bishop at all events may have felt and
declared that his duty to the Holy Father was higher
than his duty to the Princess. He is not likely to
have changed his opinion on this point, though he
may well have despaired for the moment of reaching
the heretic behind the protection of the royal family
and the public favour.
The death of Gregory, which would in any case
190 John Wyclif. [1377-
have put an end to the Commission, took place on
the 27th of March. The news would not reach Eng
land for some days later, and could not have been
anticipated at the hearing in Lambeth Chapel. On
the contrary, the authority of the Pope and the de
termination of Courtenay must have been consider
ably strengthened by the recent return of the papal
Court to Rome.
The fact is manifest that the bulls of 1377, ob
tained by the religious Orders and acted upon by the
Archbishop and Bishop, were not only a venture
some experiment against the laws of England and
the notorious feelings of Englishmen, but also a
grave tactical mistake on the part of the Holy See.
The mere introduction of bulls into the country was
an exasperating challenge to the English Parliament
and Church, and could only weaken the cause
which they were intended to promote. Courtenay,
with some of the bishops and the friars, may have
rejoiced over their promulgation, but it is doubtful
if anyone else shared their feelings. The Arch
bishop certainly fought shy of them. The young
King s advisers resolved at once to set them aside;
and Oxford, as we have seen, was morally and in
tellectually strong enough to decide that the con
clusions which the Pope had declared heretical were
substantially true.
By the mistake of his enemies Wyclif came out of
the ordeal stronger and more influential than he had
been at any previous period of his life. From the
time of his first prosecution in the spring of 1377 to
the dark days in which he was accused of having
1379] Pope Gregory s Bulls. 191
incited the peasants to revolt, if not indeed to the
end of his earthly career, he was the most important
religious factor in England. Nevertheless it is clear
that his enemies did not give him much rest between
their successive attacks.
The English ecclesiastics had made up their minds
to push the assault on Wyclif s position to an issue,
and even the death of Gregory, with the subsequent
schism, only served to interpose a brief delay. The
outcome of the Lambeth hearing was naturally
unsatisfactory to them, and they doubtless took
counsel with the Roman Curia on the earliest pos
sible opportunity, with a view to further and more
effectual proceedings. It does not plainly appear
whether Pope Urban took any immediate step to
bring Wyclif to account, but there are passages in
one of the Reformer s most important and well-con
sidered works which read as though he had had
something to answer in 1379. He wrote in the De
Veritate Sanctae Scripturae in the spring of this year :
" I protested in writing, and it was sent to the
papal Curia by the hands of two of the bishops, that
I wish to insist upon my declaration, which I have
made in the language of Holy Scripture and the
sacred doctors ; for my salvation in two senses de
pends upon that language, and my double death
would follow upon its contradiction. . . . Surely
it is clear from what I have done that I have no
fear in consequence of those conclusions, since I cir
culated them through a great part of England and
of Christendom, and even to the Roman Curia, in
order that they might be inquired into, at any rate
192 John Wyclif. L1379
indirectly. ... I have no misgiving as to the
truth of the said conclusions, for I am willing that
they should be examined not only by the Curia but
by the whole Church militant and triumphant, that
is to say our holy Mother Church, to which I have
humbly submitted myself and far be it from me to
exclude the Roman Church, which I hold to be the
head of all the militant Churches. Wherefore, since
I wished the matter at stake to be communicated
to the clergy and laity, I collected and forwarded
thirty-three conclusions, written in both languages."
There is something which needs to be cleared up
in connection with this bold challenge, and with the
facts which preceded and followed it. Urban s own
troubles, and the illness of Wyclif in 1379, may
partly account for the delay of formal and public
prosecution ; but it would be interesting to learn the
exact circumstances under which the two bishops
sent the above-mentioned protest to Rome, and the
answer (if any) which was made to the challenge.
VRRANVS , VI B\PA . NEAPOIXTANVS
POPE URBAN VI.
1378-89.
CHAPTER XT.
WYCLIF THE EVANGELIST.
HE title of Doctor Evangeli-
cus, bestowed on John Wyclif
by certain of his contempora
ries and successors, was un
questionably earned by the
importance which he attached
to the words of Holy Writ, by
his heroic resolve to translate
the Bible into English, and by
his commission of the " Poor Priests," who were sent
out for the express purpose of reading and preach
ing upon the English Scriptures.
His action in appointing and commissioning these
enthusiastic preachers of the Gospel has been com
pared with that of Dominic and Francis a hundred
and fifty years earlier. The parallel is not very
close, but we can hardly doubt that the Reformer
was inspired by those two conspicuous examples to
13 IQ3
194 John Wyclif. U360
adopt a similar method, in the hope of re-awakening
the conscience of Christian men and women. He
could think of no better way of rousing the spirits
of his ignorant countrymen than to put the Bible in
the hands of devoted missionaries, and to bid them
take it as their text whenever and wherever they
could get an audience together. If he gave them
any definite rules for their guidance beyond this, the
rules have not been handed down to us.* The
mendicant Orders have preserved their constitutions,
which strike one as being almost too elaborate to
have proceeded from the original founders of those
Orders. The constitution of the Russet Priests may
have been from first to last an unwritten law, as
simple as the earliest Christian commission on
record " Go into the world and preach the gospel."
At any rate that is practically the limit of our
knowledge concerning them with one exception
hereafter to be mentioned. We do not know when
the first Poor Priest was despatched, nor how many
were commissioned, nor where they went, nor what
was the measure of their success. We know their
work, but not their names. We recognise the tree
by its fruits, and the best evidence of their probably
life-long labours is to be found in the conspicuous
and astonishing vitality of so-called Lollardism
throughout the next few generations. The teach
ings of Wyclif and his missionaries, based upon a
simple and familiar treatment of the Bible, which
had hitherto been jealously and mysteriously with-
* See, however, Chapter XIV.
1379] Wyclij the Evangelist. 195
held, sank during these generations so deeply into
the popular mind that the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries found all England saturated with biblical
knowledge. It is marvellous that such widespread
results should have left behind them so little visible
testimony of the process by which they were brought
about.
But indeed the very silence of history as to the
personality of Wyclif s Poor Priests, and as to the
details of their appointment and mission, is eloquent
of the simplicity, the enthusiasm, the single-minded
devotion with which they set about their work.
Knowledge of and reverence for Holy Writ, an un
bleached sheepskin, a broad hat, and a pair of san
dals made up their moral and material equipment.
Some of them were certainly university men, whilst
some had graduated by the side of the master whom
they revered, in no other learning than that of " the
sacred page." It may be that the more scholarly
amongst them carried copies of the Bible, or of the
Gospels only, made industriously by their own hands,
at Oxford, at London, or at Lutterworth. In the
same way they may have taken with them a few of
Wyclif s sermons, or notes from the sermons which
they had heard him preach. But the humblest of
them all, it is very easy to believe, had nothing more
than a well-furnished memory, together with a tested
power to move the hearts of their fellow-men.
Naturally the first translations made by Wyclif
from the Latin Bible were taken in hand some time
before the Poor Priests went forth on their mission.
It is impossible to fix a date for the beginning of the
196 John Wyclif. H360-
work by Wyclif himself, or for its continuation by
Nicholas Hereford at Oxford, John Purvey at Lut-
terworth, and their assistants. Nor would it be easy
to say when Wyclif began to write for his contempo
raries in English, or what is the date of his earliest
English works which AVC now possess. But as to the
motives which led him to translate the Bible for
popular use, we are left in no doubt whatever. In
a work, Of the Truth of Holy Scripture, written
soon after his second escape from the hands of
Courtenay, and before his English Bible was com
pleted, he puts his case both clearly and fully.
God s will, he says, is plainly expressed in the two
Testaments taken together. Christ s law suffices for
Christ s Church, without requiring the addition or
substitution of another priest-made law, and the
Christian who understands it has enough for his
needs in this world. The direct message and voice
of God to man in the words of Holy Writ, without
any necessity for an intermediary this was his
" passionate conviction of truth " ; and we can un
derstand how such a declaration would shock the
conventional orthodoxy of the fourteenth century.
In another place he lays it down that " Christen
men and women, olde and young, shulden study fast
in the New Testament, and no simple man of wit
shulde be aferde unmesurably to study in the text of
holy Writ. Pride and covetise of clerks is cause of
their blyndnesse and heresie, and priveth them fro
verie understonding of holy Writ. The New Testa
ment is of ful autoritie, and open to understonding
of simple men, as to the poynts that ben most need-
1379] Wyclif the Evangelist. 197
ful to salvation. The texte of holy Writ ben wordes
of everlasting life, and he that kepeth mekenes and
charitie hath the-trewe understondynge and perfec
tion of all holy Writ. It seemeth open heresy to say
that the Gospel with his truth and freedom suffiseth
not to salvation of Christen men without kepynge
of ceremonies and statutes of sinful men and un-
kunninge, that ben made in the tyme of Sathanas
and Antichriste."
Wyclif, of course, exercised a notable influence on
the history of English letters. He had been born
into the early renaissance of literature, as well as
into the early reformation of religion ; and since he
was himself, in each of these two domains, a not in
considerable part of the epoch through which he
lived, a brief glance at the literary aspects of his
century may help us to appreciate his position as a
pioneer of progress in the creation of the language
which we speak and write to-day.
In and about the fourteenth century, English, in
common with the other languages of modern
Europe, made an important advance towards a defi
nite written form. The central and western tongues
had gradually developed themselves out of the in
terfused vocabularies and grammatical types of the
Classical, Celtic, Scandinavian, and German stocks.
Men of learning and imagination in Italy, France,
Spain, Germany, and England were only just begin
ning to find free literary expression in the familial-
languages which they had been accustomed to use in
their domestic and social intercourse. Latin was for
the clergy, for philosophers and students; it could
198 John Wyclif. [1360
never be "a fit medium for modern thought and
fancy. And yet, where except in Latin could lit
erary expression be found ? "The delicacy," says
Hallam, " that distinguishes in words the shades of
sentiment, the grace that brings them to the soul
of the reader with the charm of novelty united to
clearness, could not be attainable in a colloquial
jargon." Nor could such a jargon possibly attain to
distinction and style where (as in our own country)
the speech of the people was not the speech of the
Court, the talk of the peasant was not the talk of
those who owned the soil, the tongue of men who
sought for justice was not the tongue of such as had
to administer it. Where was genius to find her
niche, until the language of everyday life, the
language of the nation and not of the governing
race, began to show its predilections, to set up its
standard, to attract the notice and favour of men
whose imaginations were already on fire and craving
for utterance ?
Whilst the Schoolmen were struggling bravely but
lamely for freedom of religious life and thought, the
French writers of fabliaux, pastourelles, and love
songs, followed by the German minnesingers and
meistersingers, broke the silence to which poetic
souls had long been condemned, and lightly pre
luded the nobler strains of Dante and Petrarch.
Higher elevation of thought and language it was
impossible for poet to attain in those days than the
height attained by the two devout Florentines,
whose poems, religious and even devotional in their
tone, largely secularized the mood and phraseology
13791 Wyclif ike Evangelist. 199
of religion for the interpretation of human interests
and passions. Italy was naturally ahead of other
countries in the dignity and suppleness of her new
literature, for Italian and the Italians had been hel-
lenised many centuries ago, and the younger race
was inheriting the intellectual property of its ances
tors. The literature of the -northern nations was of
slower growth, and their hellenisation was yet to
come.
Before the middle of the fourteenth century there
was little or nothing in England which could be
called literature no Greek at all, Latin with a mere
savour of latinity, and of English no more than a
few rude songs, mainly provincial and political, a few
still ruder miracle plays, and a handful of hazardous
translations from the Latin or French. It is true
that as early as 1327 William of Shoreham had made
his English version of the Psalms ; and not long
afterwards the hermit Rolle of Hampole made an
other version, followed by a didactic poem, Tlie
Pricke of Conscience. But Wyclif was a middle-
aged man before Chaucer indebted, like himself, to
the protection and good-will of the Duke of Lan
caster translated The Romaunt of the Rose, and pro
duced, in Anglo-Norman amalgam. The Court of
Love.
John \Vyclif may or may not have had all these
English manuscripts, and others which succeeded
them, under his notice, at one time or another in his
active intellectual life. That he read some of them,
the Psalms, the Pricke of Conscience, the Again-
bite, the translation of the Manuel des Pe che s,
200 John Wyclif. 11360-
and the Vision of Piers Plowman is most prob
able ; for copies would surely be at Oxford, and such
as were not there he would hardly fail to see in Lon
don. It would be rash, however, to assume that the
ardent devotee of scholastic theology, the earnest-
minded student whose ambition was to earn distinc
tion amongst the secular clergy, the prominent
ecclesiastic whose soul was immersed in the stern
realities of the day, was attracted to any sort of
profane writing outside the limits of religious expo
sition and devotion. There is little evidence in his
own writings of a taste for dealing with lighter
topics, or for greater freedom of imagination and
treatment. On the other hand, this is not what we
should expect to find in connection with the serious
controversies in which he was engaged. We know
that Wyclif was a bright and pleasant companion in
everyday life and at the table, for his enemies
twisted it into a charge against him. There is no
reason why he should not have read the diverting
fables of Sir John Mandeville, or even some of the
sugared lays and translations of the courtly Chaucer.
It is not out of the bounds of possibility that he
should have seen before he died one or more of the"
stories which Chaucer subsequently collected in the
Canterbury Tales.
Be this as it may, there is no room for doubting
that Wyclif had pored over the manuscripts at
Balliol and Merton, and the costly treasures of
Bishop Aungervile, better known as Richard de
Bury, lately removed for safe keeping to Durham
College, hard by Balliol, where two centuries nearer
1379] Wyclif the Evangelist. 201
to our own time the foundations of Trinity were to
be laid. In one or other of these calm retreats he
would find sundry versions and paraphrases of sacred
history, more or less fragmentary, more or less freely
rendered by monks or clerks of the northern or
western shires, of the midlands or the south-east.
One such manuscript, the Cursor Mundi, produced
about the time of Wyclif s birth, and soon widely
popular as a metrical version of Bible history, would
certainly be found at Oxford, together with sermons
in English, and Scripture stories in verse which were
occasionally read in the churches.
Wyclif, it must be confessed, would have fair
reason to think that the partial translations of the
Bible which had been made up to his own day could
be improved upon without much difficulty. When
they were not intended as mere service-books, which
was the case with the different versions of the
Psalms, these Scriptural paraphrases had the charac
ter of story-books for diversion. No serious attempt
had been made to turn the whole of Scripture, or
even the New Testament, into an accurate English
equivalent. The prejudice against such a proceed
ing was too strong to be lightly faced ; it was com
mon to all Christendom, and has never been over
come in countries which have adhered to the Latin
rite. Wyclif was prepared to face it, but he felt it
necessary, as we have seen, to justify and explain his
action with considerable deliberation. He cannot
have entertained any delusions as to the reception
which his English Bible would meet with from the
ecclesiastical authorities, and from the seculars and
202 John Wyclif. [1360-
regulars who prided themselves most upon their
orthodoxy. If, as is likely enough, he had nursed
the idea of his translation from a comparatively
early age, it may well have been that his denuncia
tion as a heretic by the Pope, and Courtenay, and
the friars, finally nerved him to carry out his half-
formed intentions.
It was a bold venture in every way. Wyclif was
more the cleric than the man of letters, and, great
as were his services in promoting the formal and
academic use of his mother tongue, in clearing and
widening the sources of what was soon to become a
broad and limpid stream, and in cutting as it were
the matrix of the type in which the English Bible
was to be printed and perpetuated for all time, there
is assuredly no necessity to claim for him the laurels
of literary excellence.
That which especially connects Wyclif with the
course of English literature and the development of
the English language is the fact that the moment of
his arrival at maturity maturity as a man, as a re
ligious thinker, as a political seer, and as a social in
novator coincided with the definitive triumph of
the English tongue. Long despised by the Norman
Court and aristocracy, from the French queens and
their favourites down to the humblest hanger-on of
the ruling classes, and equally despised by the clergy,
monks, friars, and lawyers, whose debased Latin
was their only current coin of speech, the language
of our English forefathers suddenly, almost dra
matically, stood forth as the dominant tongue in
every department of the national life. The formal
13791 Wyclif the Evangelist. 203
re-instatement of English was a jubilee gift which
Edward gave to his country in 1362, when Parliament
ordered legal pleadings to be conducted in the popu
lar speech, on the ground that French was " much
unknown." The date of this statute may be taken
as the first turning-point of the English language
and literature, as it was within a little of being the
turning-point of religion in England. The change
itself, to be sure, had not been so sudden as its
formal sanction was striking and authoritative. The
mass of the people, it need not be said, had always
spoken English a varying and undigested English,
without standard or model for three hundred years,
in one part favouring a German type, in another
French, and in some cases even tending to a sort
of spurious latinisation, but still essentially the Eng
lish of Alfred and Edward and Harold.
It is impossible without a vigorous effort of the
imagination to realise the condition of our ancestors
between the middle of the eleventh century and the
middle of the fourteenth, divided as they were in
heart and sympathy from the ruling race by this
most effectual of all barriers, and thrown back upon
themselves not only in matters connected with law
and government, but also, as it must have been to a
very large extent, in religion and social life. Every
one remembers the patriotic complaint, that " chil
dren in school, against the use and manner of all
other nations, be compelled for to leave their own
language and for to construe their lessons and their
things in French ; and so they have since Normans
first came to England." There must have been the
204 John Wyclif. tl360
same jealous feeling in regard to the preference given
to the Norman-French at Court, in public offices of
all kinds, and in trials at law, as well as to the use of
Latin in religious services. It is easy to conceive
the wonderful reaction which would follow the
adoption of English where French had formerly been
used, and the definite recognition of the national
tongue for almost every public purpose. And no
where would the reaction and relief be greater than
in the religious domain, when Wyclif s Poor Priests
brought the gospel home to the poor, and " monk
ish Latin " gave place to the English Bible.
Wyclif s prose was a little more scholastic than
Mandeville s, and takes more of an academic charac
ter from the original text out of which it was
translated. It is true that Mandeville s work is a
translation, as he expressly states, for he seems to
have made his first observations in Latin. " Ye
shall understand," he says, " that I have put this
book out of Latin into French, and translated it
again out of French into English, that every man
of my nation may understand it." But a version
from the Latin Vulgate was not likely to be so
free or supple as a traveller s version from his
own Latin text.
Before taking a few samples of Wyclif s English,
it may be interesting to quote a short passage from
The Voiage and Travaile of Mandeville, in order
that the style of these two pioneers of written prose
may be compared. Evidently the language which
they wrote was the familiar language spoken by
educated Englishmen of their day, with this distinc-
13791 Wyclif the Evangelist. 205
tion, that the writers were three-tongued men, who
more or less pedantically used new-fangled words
from the Latin and French, whereas the English
speakers who knew no Latin would allow a marked
predominance to French or to English types, accord
ing to their descent and early associations.
" For als moche," Mandeville writes, " as it is longe
tyme passed that there was no generalle passage ne
vyage over the see, and many men desiren for to
here speke of the holy lond, and han therof gret
solace and comfort ; I John Maundevylle, Knyght,
alle be it I be not worthi, that was born in Englond,
in the town of Seynt Albones, passede the see in the
year of our Lord Jhesu Christ MCCCXXII, in the
day of Seynt Michelle ; and hidreto have ben longe
tyme over the see, and have seyn and gon thorghe
manye dyverse londes, and many provynces and
kingdomes and iles . . . where dwellen many
dyverse folkes, and of dyverse maneres and lawes,
and of dyverse schappes of men."
It is almost entirely a matter of spelling whether
this language is plain and simple to us or not. In
most essentials the three-tongued men of the four
teenth century spoke and wrote the colloquial
speech of to-day.
Wyclif s Bible, though it occupied several hands,
is fairly homogeneous throughout. Probably the
whole of it passed under his review ; and moreover
the complete text was subsequently revised by
Purvey, who had been his fellow-worker from the
beginning. But we are most certain to find Wyclif s
English in the Gospels, which were his special and
206 John Wyclif. [1360
original charge. In them alone we shall find suffi
cient evidence, apart from external knowledge, that
the Wyclif Bible was translated from the Latin Vul
gate, that the translator had at least some little
acquaintance, if only at second hand, with Greek,
that his constant aim was to make his version clear
and simple for the simplest English folk, that with
this aim he added glosses where it occurred to him
that the text required them, that his vocabulary was
plentifully recruited from the French, though to
nothing like the same degree as the language of his
contemporary Chaucer, and that so far as Wyclifs
English was provincial it had certain characteristic
elements of the Northern dialect. There is also a
distinct impression of pedantry in Wyclif, beyond
what we find in the prose works of Chaucer and
Mandeville though the Tale of Melibeus and the
introduction to the Voiage and Travaile are quite
pedantic enough to have been written by theo
logians. Wyclif is extremely literal, and nurses the
Latin constructions of the Vulgate, at the cost of oc
casional vagueness. All these points are illustrated
in the following passages in which the only moderni
sation of spelling is the use of the later characters
g, gh, th, v, and y.
" And Marye seyde, My soule worschipe the
Lord, and my spirit joiede in God myn heelpe.
" For he lokide the mekenes of his hondmayden ;
lo forwhi of that, blisful me schulyen seyn alle gen-
eraciouns.
" For he hath do to me grete thingis that might!
is, and his name holy.
1379] Wyclif the Evangelist. 207
" And the mercy of him fro kinredis into kynredis,
to tho that dreeden him.
" He dyde myght in his arm ; he scateride the
proude fro the thought of his herte.
" He putte doun the myghti of seete, and he
highede the meke.
" The hungrynge he fillide with goodis, and the
riche he lefte empty.
" He resseyvede Israel his child ; he thoughte of
his mercy.
"As he spak to oure fadris, to Abraham and to
his seed into worldis."
"And he, gon out, biganneto preche, and diffame,
or publish*, the word."
" He blasfemeth ; who may forgeve synnes, no-but
God alone ? The whiche thing anoon knowen by
the Holy Ghost, for thei thoughten so withinne hem-
self, Jhesus seith to hem, what thenken yee these
thingis in youre hertis? "
" And whenne he passide, he saw Levi Alfey
sittynge at the tolbothe, and he seith to hym, Sue
thou me. And he rysynge suede hym."
" No man seweth a pacche of rude or newe clothe
to an old clothe, ellis he takith awey the newe sup
plement, or pacche, and a more brekynge is maad.
And no man sendith newe wyn in to oolde botelis,
or wyn vesselis, ellis the wyn shal berste the wyn
vesselis, and the wyn shal be held out."
" And thei hav nat roote in hemsilf, but thei ben
temporal, that is, fasten a lityl tyme ; afterward tribu-
lacioun sprongen up, and persecucioun for the word,
anoon thei ben sclaundrid."
208 John Wyclif. [1360
" As a corn of seneveye, the which whann it is
sowun in the erthe is lesse than alle seedis that ben
in erthe ; and whanne it is bredd, or quykencd, it
stygheth up in to a tree, and is maad more than alle
wortis, or erbis ; and it shal make grete braunchis, so
that briddis of hevene mowe dwelle undir the
shadewe therof."
" Sothly Jhesus resceyved hym nat, but seith to
hym, Go thou in to thin hous to thine, and telle to
hem how many thingis the Lord hath don to thee,
and hadde mercy of thee. And he wente forth, and
bigan for to preche in Decapoly, that is, a cuntree of
ten citees"
" Yit him spekynge, messageris camen to the prince
of synagoge, seyinge, For thi doughtir is deed ;
what traveilist thou the maistir ferthere ? Forsothe
the word herd that was seide, Jhesus seith to the
prince of the synagoge, Nyle thou drede, oonly
byleve thou." .
"And anon he spek with hem, and seide to hem,
Triste ye, I am ; nyle ye drede."
" And aftir sixe dayes Jhesus took Petre, and
James, and John, and ledith hem by hem selve aloone
in to an high hil ; and he is transfigurid byfore hem.
And his clothis ben maad schynynge and white ful
moche as snow, and which maner clothis a fullere,
or walkere of cloth, may not make white on erthe.
And Helye with Moyses apperide to hem, and thei
weren spekynge with Jhesu."
" Forsothe of the fyge tree lerne ye the parable.
Whanne nowhisbraunche schal be tendre, and leevys
ben sprongen out, ye witen for somer is in the nexte.
13791 Wyclif the Evangelist. 209
So and whanne ye schulen se alle these thingis been
maad, wite ye that it is in the nexte, in the doris.
Treuly I seye to you, for this generacioun schal not
passe awey, til alle these thingis be don. Hevene
and erthe schal passe, forsothe my wordis schulen
not passe. Treuly of that day or our no man woot,
neithir aungelis in hevene, neithir the sone, nobut
the fadir."
At some date which it is not possible to determine,
Wyclif composed a number of sermons on the sub
ject of the Sunday Gospels. The title which he gave
to the book was The Sonedai Gospelis, Expowncd in
Partie, and these discourses (collected and published
with others in 1382) are not so much sermons as
skeletons, which a preacher might readily clothe
with additional words and thoughts of his own. It
is highly probable that Wyclif prepared some homi
lies of this kind for the use of his Poor Priests, to
the less eloquent of whom they would manifestly be
a great assistance. They include occasional direc
tions for preachers, which could not be verbally-
repeated to a congregation. Here, for instance, is
the concluding paragraph of the sermon for the first
Sunday after Trinity the Gospel for the day relating
to Lazarus and Dives.
" In this Gospel may preestis telle of fals pride of
riche men, and of lustful lyf of myghty men of this
worlde, and of longe pcynes of helle, and joyful blis
in hevene, and thus lengthe their sermoun as the
tyme axith. And marke we how this gospel tellith
that this riche man was not dampned for extorsioun
or wrong that he dide to his neighbore, but for he
210 John Wyclif. M360-
failide in werkes of mercy ; and thus shulde we warne
both o man and other how sum men shall be
dampnyd more felly for raveyne, and sum shal be
dampnyd more softly, for misusinge of Goddis
goodis."
The frank courage of the writer is stamped on all
his sermons, and it is easy to understand how the
outcry would arise, even amongst the secular clergy,
against himself and the men whom he sent forth to
preach. For in the mildest of these discourses there
is no respect of persons, and neither Pope nor prelate,
priest nor monk, is spared when he neglects his office
for his own gain or convenience. On the fourth
Sunday after Trinity, the Gospel dealing with the
mote and the beam, we have the following suggestion :
" Here may men see that sugettis shulden blame
prelatis when they seen opynly greet defaultes in
hem, as defaulte of Goddis lawe in keeping and
teeching; for this is a beeme bi which the fende
bindeth his hous, and thei shulden knowe thes as
thei shulden fele the lore (loss) thereof."
Wyclif began to preach sermons in English in
1361, if not earlier, and it is possible that Some of
the discourses in " The Sunday Gospels " were pre
pared at Fillingham, or at Ludgarshall. Others
smack more of controversy, and deal so roundly with
the religious Orders in particular that a considerably
later date must be assigned to them. Thus in the
sermon for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity there
is a sharp touch for the Pope and the Orders.
" We shulden bewar of peril of ypocrisie, for many
feynen hem in statis, and done reverse in her lyf,
13791 Wyclif the Evangelist. 211
and yit thei seien thei ben perfiter than waren the
first clerkis of Crist. And thus enemyes of Cristis
religioun chalengen to be of his Ordre, algif they
done even the contrarie to name that thei beren ; as
the Pope shulde be moost meke man, moost servys-
able and moost pore, as we ben taught in Seint Petir,
that was Pope next after Crist. And now men seyen
that the Pope mote nedis reverse this ordenaunce,
and have more power for to do thingis that touchen
excellence ; and thus bishopis that shulden be clerkis
and pore men, as apostlis weren, ben moost lordis of
this world, and reversen apostlis lyf. Sum tyme
weren mounkes lewede men, as seintis in Jerusalem ;
and thanne thei kept him silf fro synne, as seynt
Bernard berith witnesse, but now monkes ben turned
into lordis of this worlde most ydel in Goddis
travaile, and seyen that thei ben betre monkes than
weren the first seintis. And so freris, that weren
bretheren in Crist, and not chargeous to the Chirche,
neither in noumbre ne in clothing, ne in mete ne in
housynge, ben even turned agen fro the first lyf of
hem, and yet bi ther ypocrisie thei blynden the
Chirche many gatis, and thus names of offices and
names of virtues also ben changed bi ypocrisie, and
cursed men reulen the world."
It will be convenient here to add a few words on the
other English works of Wyclif, known or alleged to
be his. It may be said at once that there are many
manuscripts of the fourteenth century which we
are unable with any degree of confidence to assign
to their true authors ; and this general statement
212 John Wyclif.
applies to the works of Wyclif amongst others.
More than seventy distinct English works, over and
above the Latin documents and treatises which are
historically connected with him, have at different
times been ascribed to him. Indeed Bishop Bale
brought up the number of his Latin and English
works to something like three hundred ; but he
did not claim to have seen them all, and still less
did he insist on their authenticity.
The fact of the matter seems to have been that the
attempts which were made to suppress the writings
of Wyclif and the Lollards, and which in some in
stances succeeded, led to the concealment of many
manuscripts by their possessors, whether in England
or across the seas, without preserving any detailed
account of their origin or authorship. When the
age of sense or freedom returned, and it became
possible to bring these treasures to the light, there
would naturally be a disposition to claim them all as
Wyclif s, whereas a considerable number may have
been the works of Nicholas Hereford, of Purvey,
John Aston, and other Wycliffites. There are, in
deed, comparatively few cases in which the original
manuscript bears an inscription of such a kind as to
settle its authorship beyond dispute.
If we were to proceed strictly and sceptically in
regard to these works, and especially if we were to
refuse Wyclif the credit of any which are not his by
unquestionable evidence, he would in fact be left
with a somewhat meagre array. But on that phn
we should certainly lose some of his genuine produc
tions; and of the two-score English works which
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A PAGE FROM THE PLESHY BIBLE (WYCLIF S).
OWNED BY THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, SON OF EDWARD III.
Egerton MSS., British Museum t reduced to about one-third linear.
13791 Wyclif the Evangelist. 213
recent students, after repeated siftings, have still
associated with his name, we may be well content to
cling for the present to every one, so long as no con
clusive proof is brought forward on behalf of another
author.
It was in 1865 that Dr. Shirley, then Professor of
Ecclesiastical History at Oxford, printed his Cata
logue of the Original Works of John Wyclif of
which he enumerated ninety-six in Latin and sixty-
five in English. In the following year he proposed
to the Delegates of the University Press " to prepare
for publication selected English works of Wyclif in
three volumes," and with the sanction of the Dele
gates he engaged Mr. Thomas Arnold to edit the
selection. Dr. Shirley died soon after this arrange
ment had been made, and he was therefore unable
to mature his views with regard to the authenticity
and chronology of the writings which had been as
signed to Wyclif. The Catalogue of 1865, whilst it
very largely reduced the lists of Bale and Lewis, and
showed an advance upon the knowledge of Vaughan,
Todd, and others, was confessedly tentative, and
there are several numbers in respect of which the
compiler was more than doubtful. Acting on Dr.
Shirley s hints Mr. Arnold, in the introduction to
his Select English Works of John Wyclif (1869-
1871) reduced the list of authentic works to forty-
one, whereof he printed the greater number.
The tendency of this selection and restriction was
evidently on the right lines. Many manuscripts had
been dealt with by earlier writers on hearsay only,
or with a knowledge of no more than the first few
214 John Wyclif. U360-
words. Shirley and Arnold examined them more
carefully, and weeded out a considerable number, of
which it is possible to say definitely that, whoever may
have written them, John Wyclif did not. Mr. F. D.
Matthew, in 1880, edited for the Early English Text
Society The English Works of Wyclif Hitherto Un-
printedy including (for reasons which appeared
sufficient to him) sundry tracts already rejected, or
relegated to a " doubtful " class. The three books
just mentioned may be said to have prepared the
way for a thoroughly critical edition of the English
writings of Wyclif. But it is questionable if in any
case a canon of authenticity could be set up which
would be universally accepted by those who are
competent to form an opinion.
Mr. Arnold s reduced list of forty-one " probably
genuine " English works includes a large collection
of sermons on the Sunday Gospels and Epistles, and
on the Gospels for saints days, together with exegeti-
cal works on the Canticles and other items of the
service-books ; tracts on the heresies and errors of
the Friars, on the Eucharist, on the Apostasy of the
clergy, on the Schism of the Roman Pontiffs, on
Church Temporalities and the condition of the clergy,
with sundry letters, statements, and petitions such as
will be found quoted or referred to in the present
volume.
The manuscripts on which we have to rely in the
last resort for the authenticity of Wyclifs works are
fairly numerous, at any rate for the sermons. Eigh
teen or twenty, in the libraries of Oxford and Cam
bridge, or in public or private libraries elsewhere,
1379] Wyclif the Evangelist. 215
were collated for Mr. Arnold s edition. They are
dated (by internal evidence rather than by continu
ous description from their origin onwards) as belong
ing to the later years of the fourteenth century, and
various periods of the fifteenth. The same descrip
tion applies to the sixteen or more manuscripts from
which the tracts and miscellaneous works are taken
manuscripts preserved in the Bodleian and other uni
versity libraries, and in the Harleian and Cottonian
collections at the British Museum. The difficulties
of deducing positive belief from the evidence afforded
by these manuscripts are various. Experts in
palaeography can go a long way towards fixing the
date of any particular manuscript, so as to make us
fairly confident that we know the time of its produc
tion within a few decades. But even when we are
assured that such and such a volume of manuscript
was the work of a copyist who lived about the close
of the fourteenth century, we may not have made any
great advance towards a definite conclusion. The
volume itself, and the separate tracts of which it is
composed, may be without title or preface, and
without collateral evidence of any sort ; and there
are certainly cases where collections of distinct
works were attributed to Wyclif in the fifteenth
century though it is manifest on closer inquiry that
more authors than one were responsible for them.
It is conceivable that either the copyist or the col
lector may have too lightly brought together the
writings of different people ; and in this way Wyclif
has received credit or discredit for many a produc
tion of his contemporaries or immediate successors.
216 John Wyclif. naeo-
The writings of Wyclif have undergone a fate
which somewhat curiously recalls the history of Aris
totle s works after his death. Circumstances con
spired to bury the Metaphysics and Politics, and per
haps other writings of Aristotle, in oblivion. After
more than two centuries they were re-discovered,
brought by Apellicon from the Troad to Athens, and
carried thence by Sulla to Rome. Then they dis
appeared again, and for many centuries the philoso
phy of the Stagyrite was preserved for Europe by
the scholars of Syria, Arabia, and other Mahomedan
lands. Moreover the earlier disciples of Aristotle
wrote Aristotelian discourses on a variety of sub
jects, some of which have been or may yet be
accepted as genuine works of the master, though
it would be idle to expect unanimity of opinion
amongst scholars in every particular case.
Most of what has been said of Wyclifs English
writings will apply equally well to his Latin works.
The canon is undetermined, and perhaps, so far as
the minor tracts are concerned, it could never be
definitely established. As for the philosophical
treatise De Esse, the De Compositione Hominis, the
De Dominio Divino, De Civili Dominic, and De Eccle-
sta, the Trialogus, the De Veritate Sanctae Scripturae,
and a few moi e, in which we find autobiographical
details, or on which controversies arose in his life
time, there is no room for question ; but in other
cases it is clear that Latin writings have been attribu
ted to Wyclif about the authenticity of which it is
impossible not to entertain a doubt.
Amongst the English works which have been gen-
13791
Wyclif the Evangelist.
217
erally attributed to Wyclif is one which was first
printe din the reign of Edward VI., in the year 1550.
It is thus described on the title-page : " The true
Copye of a Prolog, written about two hundred years
past by John Wycliffe . . . the Original whereof
is found written in an old English Bible, betwixt the
Old Testament and the New" We do not seem to
possess any better evidence of the authenticity of
this Prologue than is supplied in the title just
quoted ; and it must be confessed that the worthy
Reformer who reproduced it was somewhat easily
satisfied on the point of authorship. Unquestion
ably, if we could accept this as a genuine production
of Wyclif it would possess great interest and value,
as being descriptive of his work and method as a
translator of the Bible. But neither the style nor
the language of the Prologue, of which an extract
is here added (with the spelling modified), will war
rant us in agreeing that it is his work.
" Though covetous clerks are mad through simony,
heresy, and many other sins, and despise and impede
Holy Writ as much as they can, yet the unlearned
people cry after Holy Writ to know it, with great
cost and peril of their lives. For those reasons and
other, with common charity to save all men in our
realm which God will have saved, a simple creature
hath translated the Bible out of Latin into English.
First this simple creature had much labour with
divers companions and helpers to collect many old
Bibles and other doctors, and common glosses, and
to make a single Latin Bible fairly correct, and then
to study it anew, the text with the commentary and
2i8 John Wyclif. C1379
other doctors, as he could obtain them, and es
pecially Lire (Nicolas de Lyra) on the Old Testament,
who gave him great help in his work. Again he had
to take counsel with old grammarians and divines,
concerning hard words and hard sentences, how they
might best be understood and translated ; and again,
to translate as clearly as he could according to the
sentence (meaning), and to have many good and
skilful companions at the correcting of the transla
tion."
The difficulty of assigning this Prologue to John
Purvey, as some have done, is almost as great as that
of assigning it to Wyclif. It certainly affords a
good instance of the facility with which early manu
scripts have at different times been attributed to the
Evangelical Doctor.
ST. MARY S, OXFORD.
TOWER PARTLY CONTEMPORANfOUS WITH WYCLIF.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DECISIVE STEP.
H E great Schism in the Roman
Church, followed by a double
line of Popes between the
years 1378 and 1415, and the
division of Christendom into
two camps, with two hostile
Supreme Pontiffs and Vicars
of Christ, was evidently a
more injurious fact for Rome
and for Christianity than the long sojourn of the
Papacy in its " Babylonian Captivity." The latter
lact had in itself been sufficiently discrediting, for,
though force took the Popes to Avignon, it was
demoralisation rather than force which kept them
there. But the Schism was infinitely worse than the
Captivity.
It only needed a strong and startling situation such
as that which was produced by this Schism to strength-
219
220 John Wyclif. [1378-
en the convictions and courage of the Oxford Reform
ers, and to guarantee the continuance of the revolt
against Rome. For twenty-seven years the rulers of
the Western Church fought their daily battle against
catholicity and authority. The Schism began, con
tinued, and ended in fatal hostility to the unity of
Christendom. Gregory, whose bad choice of time
and means for the return to Rome was the immediate
cause of the disaster,* had inaugurated a persecution
which ultimately led up to the secession of the Teu
tonic Churches. The Council of Constance, sum
moned in order to bring the Schism to an end,
cemented a new union with the blood of Huss and
Jerome, and signalised it by the desecration of
Wyclif s grave.
Gregory died, as we have seen, within a few months
of his ill-timed return to the Holy City. There were
sixteen cardinals at Rome, most of them Frenchmen ;
but under pressure from the turbulent citizens they
elected an Italian to the vacant see. Part of the
papal Court had remained at Avignon, and in a fatal
moment they resolved to choose a French Pontiff,
and to ignore the Roman selection. National jeal
ousies, to which the Popes had so often appealed,
declared themselves once more. Urban VI. was
recognised by England, most of the Empire, Hun
gary, Bohemia, and Italy ; whilst Clement VII. se
cured the allegiance of France, the Spanish kingdoms,
Savoy, and a few of the German states. The ap-
* The Schism might have been averted if Gregory had refused
to migrate without the entire body of the College of Cardinals.
He allowed himself to be hurried to Rome by Catherine of Siena.
1380]
The Decisive Step.
221
pointment of a French rival drew away from Rome
all the cardinals who were of French origin, and
Urban immediately created twenty-six more. He
is said to have offered the hat to Bishop Courtenay
amongst others ; but Courtenay probably remem
bered the fate of Archbishop Langham twenty years
ago, and preferred the reversion of the English
primacy to a forced residence at Rome.
The long and lamentable story of the papal Schism,
of the bloodshed and abominations of various kinds
to which it gave birth, and of the effect which it
produced on the Western Churches, has often been
written. It is necessary to a good understanding of
any epoch of ecclesiastical history, at any rate within
fifty years of the fatal dissension, that the reader
should see each particular event in the strong relief
created by this pontifical rivalry, as against the lurid
and glaring background of a coarsely painted picture.
The battles of the Popes and the recriminations of
their supporters were daily present in the minds and
ears of all men, dominating everything which they
thought and said and did. Foxe cites in his Own
language a passage from one of the many histories
which had even then been written on the subject :
" As touching the pestilent and most miserable
Schisme, it would require heere another Iliade to
comprehend in order all the circumstances and tragi-
call parts thereof, what trouble in the whole Church,
what parts taken in every countrey, what apprehend
ing and imprisoning of priests and prelates, taken by
land and sea, what shedding of blood did follow
thereof. . what cardinals were racked and miser-
222 John Wyclif. L1378-
ablie without all mercy tormented on gibbets to
death, what slaughter of men, what battles were
fought between the two Popes, whereof five thou
sand on the one side were slaine."
Whilst the whole Church was scandalised by these
disorders, Wyclif was living a comparatively quiet
life at Oxford and Lutterworth, and devoting himself
to congenial but arduous labours. So far as can be
accurately ascertained, he produced a large majority
of his works, and nearly all his English works, in the
last six years of his life. It was indeed the four
years from 1378 to 1382 which in all probability saw
the publication of the English Bible, the sermons,
one or two of the more interesting Latin works, and
a series of English tracts, in which he maintained his
unorthodox opinions with greater vigour than ever ;
and it was now for the first time that he began to
express doubts of the accepted theory of transub-
stantiation. This particular error, more grievous to
the orthodox people of his day than any other which
is attributed to him, was not one of the conclusions
enumerated in the papal bulls, as it certainly would
have been if he had given his enemies the slightest
pretext for laying it to his charge. But in 1382 it
was placed in the front of his fresh condemnation by
Courtenay, and he had probably given utterance to
it several years before that certainly, as we shall
see, in 1381.
It was one of the regular diversions of the orthodox
in those days, and indeed for two or three genera
tions afterwards, to count up the heresies of John
Wyclif; and, as Thomas Fuller drily says, they were
THOMAS T*JT^A u.s w vs Fr L i v
A A ?< c
H t i visco ?V3 CANT v/\r< iswata
ARCHBISHOP ARUNDEL.
FROM AN OLD PORTRAIT IN LAMBETH PALACE.
1380] The Decisive Step. 223
like the stones on Salisbury Plain, concerning which
there is a proverb that no two men can count them
alike. Thus Pope Gregory in his bulls made them
come to nineteen. Courtenay advanced upon that
number in 1382; and Archbishop Arundel strikes one
as remarkably moderate in stopping short at twenty-
three errors, of which he reckons only ten as actually
heretical. Nevertheless an Oxford Committee under
his auspices, a quarter of a century after Wyclif s
death, discovered as many as two hundred and sixty-
seven. The Council of Constance enumerated forty-
five ; and not long after this Netter of Walden arrives
at a round fourscore. The orthodox of Bohemia
had a still keener scent, for John Liicke jumped up
to two hundred and sixty-six, whilst Cocleus (who
wrote a history of the Hussites) detected no fewer
than three hundred and three.
No one helped so much to build up Wyclif s
reputation as the enemies who tried to write him
down ; and these lists of his heresies are really very
convenient records for such as wish to see the more
characteristic opinions of the Reformer concisely
stated. If we take Netter s list as it stands, and
bear in mind that it is in the nature of a series of
allegations made by a writer in the reign of Henry V.,
who distinctly regarded Wyclif as a mischievous
heretic, we shall at any rate know the worst that was
brought against him.
According to this authority, Wyclif held and
taught that it is blasphemy to call any man Head of
the Church save Christ alone ; or that Peter had
greater power than the other apostles ; or that Rome
224 John Wyclif. H378-
was the appointed seat of Christ s Vicar ; or that
the Pope is to be considered as the successor of Peter,
except in so far as he imitates Peter and Christ. The
infallibility of the Church of Rome in matters of faith
is the greatest blasphemy of Antichrist. Wyclif called
the Pope Antichrist, and " the abomination of desola
tion standing in the holy place " ; but with respect
to this common charge levelled against him by his
enemies it may be observed that, though he was
wont now and then to apply a hard term to the doer
of a wrong action, hypothetically and indirectly, he
nowhere says " Gregory is Antichrist," or " Urban
is Antichrist." What he said, and said strongly because
his convictions were strong, every one of his critics
must have said if they could have been taken logically
over the intermediate steps. But let us continue
the record of heresy according to Netter.
The benedictions, confirmations, consecrations of
churches and chalices, and other such acts of the
bishops, [when done at a price, and treated as con
tributing to the incomes of rich men], are mere
" tricks to get money." Plain deacons or priests may
lawfully preach without having the licence of Pope
or bishop. A bishop is not apostolically different
from a priest. Absolution [depends entirely on re
pentance, and] may be pronounced by a layman as well
as by a priest. The clergy ought not to be pre
vented from marrying [but celibacy is the highest
kind of life]. Priests of evil life cease to be effective
priests [but Wyclif said : " A cursed man doth fully
the sacraments, though it be to his own damning;
for they be not authors of these sacraments, but God
1380]
The Decisive Step.
225
keepeth that divinity to himself"]. The Church
consists only of such as are predestinated. The
Church had no immovable goods before the time of
Constantine ; and it is no sacrilege for the State to
take for its own needs the temporal goods of the
Church. There is a savour of hypocrisy in the
beautiful buildings and decorations of the Church.
Tithes are to be considered as pure alms, and ought
not to be extorted by censures ; parishioners would
do well not to pay tithe at all to dissolute priests.
Whatever is not plainly expressed and enjoined in
the Scriptures is irrelevant and impertinent. Many
of the ecclesiastical teachers since the completion
of the first millennium of Christianity were heretical.
It is vain for laymen to bargain for the prayers of
priests. There is no superiority in set prayers
repeated by a priest ; men should trust rather in
personal holiness. The alms of the Church should
be refused to persons living in open sin.
With regard to the sacraments, it was alleged
against Wyclif that he spoke slightingly of the act
of chrism, and denied the absolute necessity of bap
tism, which, he said, does not confer grace, but only
symbolises a grace given before. It is idolatry to
worship the host ; the bread and wine remain just
what they were before consecration. God could not
make his natural body exist in two places at once.
Confirmation is not necessary to salvation. Confession
of sins to a priest is superfluous for a contrite man.
Extreme unction is unnecessary, and not a sacrament.
All kinds of religious Orders confound the unity
of the Church of Christ, who instituted but one
226 John Wyclif. tl378-
Order, the Order of service. Vows of virginity are a
doctrine of devils ; and the worship of saints borders
on idolatry. It is needless to visit the shrines of
saints ; the miracles alleged to be performed there
may be only delusions of the devil. It is lawful to
appeal in ecclesiastical matters and matters of faith
to the secular prince. All dominion is founded on
grace, and God divests of all right the rulers who
abuse their power. Christ was a man, and his man
hood should receive the kind of worship which is
known as " latreia" that is, the worship of service
and observance. God loved David and Peter as
deeply when they grievously sinned as he does now,
when they are possessed of glory. God gives no
good things to his enemies ; and he is not more
willing to reward the good than he is to punish the
wicked. All things come to pass by a fatal neces
sity. God could not have made the world other
than it is made; and he cannot make that which
is something return to nothing a fatalism which
leads up to the paradox that God must " obey" the
devil.
It is evident in how many points Wyclif set up a
standard for the Reformers who came after him, and
especially for the Calvinists, Presbyterians, and Puri
tans. The reader will not need to be reminded that
some of the opinions ascribed to him by those who
considered him a dangerous heretic may be no more
than their own interpretation of his casual expres
sion of opinion, whilst all of them, as quoted above,
are torn from their context, and not one of them
could be accepted as accurate without verification
1380] The Decisive Step. 227
from Wyclif s own writings. Even without such a
deduction in his favour from the allegations of
Netter, there is very little in the record which was
not frankly adopted and endorsed by the Reformed
Church in the sixteenth century ; but, if the common
belief of Romanists in the fourteenth century is
taken as the standard of orthodoxy, then no doubt
Wyclif s opinions must be admitted to have been
steeped in the rankest heresy. And, even if we
agree with every one of the conclusions attributed to
him, our judgment to-day might be fairly expressed
in the terms employed by the University of Oxford
in response to Pope Gregory s bull that the conclu
sions are true, and essentially orthodox, but framed
in such a way as to leave room for misconceptions.
The denial of transubstantiation was the special
cause of proceedings taken against the Reformer in
1381 and 1382, of which we shall have to speak fur
ther on. It is, however, pertinent to the present
phase of his development in the years 1378 to 1380
to quote what was said of him by Wodeford,
whose words are cited by Dr. Shirley from a Latin
manuscript in the Bodleian Library. " So long as
Wyclif was sententiarius] and even baccalaurius
responsalis}* he openly and in the schools main
tained that, although the sacramental accidents
rested upon some substance, yet in the act of con
secration the material bread had ceased to exist.
* " Sententiarius," one who lectured on the " Sentences," so as to
qualify for the degree of B.D. "Baccalaurius responsalis" a B.D.
of two years standing. So far as is known, Wyclif was a B.D. as
early as 1363.
228 John Wyclif. [1378-
Pressed by many questions as to what was the sub
ject of those accidents, he began by replying, for
some considerable time, that it was a mathematical
body. Later on, in consequence of many arguments
urged against this, he would reply that he did not
know what was the substance of the accidents; but
he was firm as to their resting upon some substance.
Now (that is, in 1381) in his conclusions and in his
confession he expressly declares that the bread
remains after the consecration, and that it is the
substance of the accidents."
Nothing, surely, could be more eloquent of the
moral struggle through which Wyclif had been pass
ing, and was yet to pass, on a subject which has in
all ages been the most searching and serious that
can possibly engage the mind of a devout Christian
transcendentalist. He had begun his life, so soon as
his reasoning faculties had asserted themselves, with
the familiar " late Roman" separation of the acci
dents from the substance or subject. For him, how
ever, the essence of the sacrament was in the words
of Christ, and in the act of faith which enabled him
to see the body and blood of Christ ; but, if he saw,
it was with the eye of faith, and not with the physi
cal sight. That was his first step and already he
was a heretic in comparison with those who declared
that they saw a physical Christ with physical sight.
The man of comfortable faith looked upon the
bread and reverently declared : " I see no bread it
has gone though it has not disappeared. I see the
physical body of Christ, wearing the shape of
bread ; but it is only because of my infirmity that it
1380] The Decisive Step. 229
seems to be what it is not seems to be wheaten
bread when it is actually and really my Lord and
God."
To Wyclif, even as a young man, this savoured of
idolatry. In vain his friends would assure him that
it was no idolatry, but the very sublimity of faith.
" I grant," he began by saying, " that the substance
is altered. The hoc est corpus enables me to see
the body of Christ a spiritual body, seen with
spiritual eyes. But what, then, do I see with my
physical sight ? I am a realist ; I see a body, with
attributes and mathematical dimensions but what
body ? No longer a mathematical body, you say, if
the consecration has annihilated all the mathemati
cal and physical qualities of wheaten bread ? Then
I cannot tell you what the body is, but sure I am
that a body is there. To say that it ,is physically
God is idolatry. To say, as some of us do, that
what I see and handle are accidents without a sub
ject is only another way of saying that the hoc est
corpus? which made Christ visible to the eye of faith,
also made that wheaten bread into something infi
nitely inferior in the scale of nature lower than the
peasant s bean-bread, lower than the soil in which the
grain of wheat germinated ; for they have substance
as well as accidents, but this unhappy phenomenon
retains its accidents after losing its substance."
Such, in part, was to be his reasoning in 1381, when
he had pronounced his "eureka," and committed
himself to what was deemed the most pestilent of
his heresies. In 1378, when he came back to Oxford
to ruminate on the meaning and the riddle of his
230 John Wyclif. [1378-
life condemned by the Pope, condemned by the
Primate and the Bishop of London, a byword
amongst the monks and friars, distrusted henceforth
by all who looked to Pope and bishops as authorita
tive exponents of the faith he had not yet brought
himself to utter the answer which must have trem
bled on his lips. But there, in the home of his youth
and manhood, he nursed the secret of his soul. He
taught in the schools with increasing zeal, preached
and wrote in English, at Oxford and at Lutterworth,
with feverish activity, and passed, perhaps, some of
the happiest and yet the saddest moments of his
life with the friends who loved him so well with
Nicholas Hereford and Laurence Bedenham, with
Rygge and Repyngdon, with John Aston and Flem-
myng, with John Purvey, William Jamys, and many
others. They used to call him Johannes Augustini,
as well as the Evangelical Doctor, and they were
brave enough to bear with him the suspicion and
obloquy which were his lot. But the worst days of
his persecution were yet to come.
It is told of Jamys that in a sermon before Chan
cellor Berton somewhat later than the time we are
now considering he made use of the expression,
" There is no idolatry if not in the sacrament of the
altar." Whereon the Chancellor broke in with a sar
castic comment. " Jam loqueris ut p kilo sop hus ! "
" Now you are talking like the philosopher! " And
if Wyclif was present, doubtless the eyes of all were
turned upon him, for they knew whose feather had
impelled that shaft. The story is sometimes told
as referring to Rygge instead of Berton, in which
1380] The Decisive Step. 231
case the Chancellor s remark would bear another
meaning. But it is unlikely that a Chancellor would
have broken into a public discourse with emphatic
approval of a statement which must have given
offence to many of the congregation.
It was in every way a stirring and creative time.
The papal Schism had thrown all Christendom into
extraordinary ferment, and men had scarcely ranged
themselves on their respective sides. It was not
until near the end of 1379, eighteen months after
the Neapolitan Archbishop and the French Cardinal
had placed their rival claims before the Western
Churches,that England definitely declared for Urban ;
but to support the pretensions of one Pope in prefer
ence to those of another was not sufficient to set
the mind at rest concerning the very disturbing
fact of the Schism itself. Wyclif, in common with
many a devout Christian at that crisis, was very
deeply affected by the events which were occurring
day by day.
In connection with the sympathy felt for Wyclif
by his own University, it would of course be a mistake
to suppose that he was primarily or principally re
sponsible for Oxford s departures from orthodoxy in
the fourteenth century. To think that would be to
make nothing of the influence of other inquiring
minds amongst the Schoolmen, the lay graduates,
and even the friars. We have seen already that
there were some very liberal-minded men amongst
the Franciscans in particular ; and as a matter of
fact we find traces of " grievous errors " at Oxford
before Wyclif came to maturity, and even before he
232 John Wyclif. [1378-
was born. If some of these errors were identical
with errors that Wyclif subsequently held, the fair
conclusion is that he imbibed them at Oxford as
part of the mental sustenance which had proved to be
best adapted to his intellectual growth and needs.
Archbishop Langham( 1366-1 368), who had been a
monk, and was notoriously hostile to the mendicant
Orders, wrote in the course of his primacy a disciplin
ary letter to Oxford in which he drew attention to
the unsound views at that time current in the Uni
versity. He mentioned a number of these as that
the baptism of infants is not a necessity for salva
tion ; that no one could justly suffer damnation for
original sin alone, without the re-inforcement of
wilful sin after birth ; that there is a sufficient
" remedy in nature " for the sins of true believers;
that no one could be justly deprived of his heavenly
inheritance for sins committed without a clear vision
of God ; that every human being has at least one
clear vision of God before his death ; that mere pro
hibition of an act is not sufficient to constitute the
commission of that act a sin ; that the Father in him
self is finite, the Son finite, and the Holy Ghost alone
infinite ; that God cannot annihilate his creatures, or
make something into nothing; that God cannot be a
tormentor ; that even Mary and the saints are still
liable to sin and damnation ; that, conversely, the
damned are capable of salvation ; that future punish
ments will not be everlasting; and that God could
not create an absolutely impeccable being.
It is manifest that some of these tenets, sound or
unsound, are at least as old as Christianity, whilst
1380] The Decisive Step. 233
one or two belong to the class of what may be called
logical hyperbole. Certainly Wyclif held many or
most of them, but it is equally certain that he would
have condemned others. There is indeed a strain of
greater optimism in these earlier Oxford heresies than
Wyclif s mood and experience permitted him to en
tertain. He was a predestinarian, a believer in that
" foreknowledge " of damnation which so easily be
comes foredooming to damnation. He believed so
strongly in the potency of evil that he thought God
himself was constrained by it, and accordingly he
could scarcely hold that punishment was other than
everlasting. These important points of divergence
should be borne in mind by and by, when we come
to the melancholy stage at which many of the Re
former s disciples fell away from him.
Wyclif s return to Oxford in 1378 coincided, by a
curious chance, with a discovery made by certain
devout Christians at Dundalk, that the bones of his
old friend and master Fitzralph were endowed with
the power of working miracles. He had expressed
a general opinion that miracles of this kind, wrought
at the tombs of the saints, were not unlikely to be
delusions of the devil ; but we may be sure that if
he thought them possible in any case he would be
disposed to accept the testimony of the pious in re
gard to the doughty old Archbishop of Armagh
the Armachanus who was already a great authority
at Oxford when Wyclif went up, and who certainly
left his mark on Wyclif s character and opinions.
Wyclif speaks of him with affection and reverence,
and evidently accepted from him as a bequest not
234 yohn Wyclif. [1378-
merely his ideas of divine lordship but also his con
troversial antagonism to the friars.
The report of the Dundalk miracles, then, would
come just in time to stimulate old enmity, to add
fuel to the fire which had been kindled afresh by the
papal bulls. The friars are said to have been much
troubled by the . report in question, for everyone
knew how bitterly Fitzralph had opposed them,
even at the Court of Avignon ; and clearly, if he
were accepted as a saint and a miracle-worker, there
would be an ugly inference against themselves in
the minds of the faithful. Of course they did not
believe in the miracles, and it may be that they
expressed themselves a little too plainly on the sub
ject of their old enemy. Still nothing of this sort
was needed to widen the breach between the four
Orders and the man whom they had twice so nearly
succeeded in crushing. An opportunity came which
they might have turned to good account by effecting
at least a partial reconciliation with their antagonist ;
but they attempted to get too much out of it, and
the only consequence was that they made matters
worse than ever.
Early in 1379 Wyclif had a severe and even danger
ous illness. It may have been the result of the great
mental and physical strain which had been put upon
him in the previous year ; and perhaps it was attended
by certain premonitory symptoms of the collapse
which was soon to overtake him. However that may
be, he was thought to be at the end of his tether ;
and when the friars knew how hard it was going 1 with
him they resolved upon a curious course of proceeding.
1360] The Decisive Step. 235
Each of the four prominent Orders, Dominicans,
Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, nomi
nated a friar, being also a regent or doctor in di
vinity, to take part in a deputation to the dying
heretic ; and they took with them, not the viaticum,
or any other of the consolations of religion, or even
a skilled leech, but simply four aldermen of the city
of Oxford. It is certainly not easy to understand
the presence of those aldermen, unless they came
with a genuine message of condolence, and the co
incidence of their visit with that of the friars was
merely accidental.
They began by wishing the sick man good health
and a speedy recovery and then told him that he
was on the point of death, and asked him for a
retractation of the hard things which he had said
against them in his lifetime. It is impossible to fill
in the details of what must have been a highly
dramatic interview. If we even knew the names of
the friars, it might assist us to a better understand
ing of the real object of their visit. It is doubtful
if Wyclif was in a condition to answer them in the
first instance, for he was too weak to raise himself in
his bed. His visitors were thus able, without let or
hindrance, to remind him of the heavy blows which
he had dealt them, by word and writing ; and they
entreated him in his last moments, in presence of
these worthy aldermen who might attest what he
said, to display his penitence by formally withdraw
ing his charges against the Orders.
It was a bold thing to ask, even of a dying man ;
but it seemed to be just the stimulus which Wyclif
236 John Wyclif. [1378-
wanted to enable him to throw off his lethargy.
The emaciated frame and the lustreless eyes must
have taken sudden fire from the soul within, for we
are told that he called his servants to his side,
ordered them to raise him on his pillows, and then
cried out with unexpected vigour, " I will not die
but live, and I will show up the evil deeds of the
friars ! "
He did live, for more than five years thereafter,
and both he and the Orders gave and received many
hard knocks. His first and main quarrel was with
the false teaching and usurped authority of Rome ;
but he could never come to terms with the religious
professors who had forsaken the rule of poverty in
order to live delicately, to exercise dominion, to
amass wealth, and to keep for themselves what had
been given to them in trust for the poor. This is the
note which prevails throughout his writings in rela
tion to the mendicant Orders, and which he enforces
in a hundred different ways.
Much of what Wyclif wrote, especially in his
longer and more argumentative works, is almost un
readable for men and women of the present day,
and serviceable perhaps for nothing so much as the
elucidation of his character and work. After the
lapse of five complete centuries, in every year of
which the effect of his stainless and courageous life
has been continuously operative in the cause of re
ligious freedom, what the world wants to see and
feel is not so much the quality of his controversial
logic, or the exact conclusiveness of his somewhat
ponderous and involved arguments for which at
1380] The Decisive Step. 237
best we are dependent on manifestly corrupt texts,
as the moral lineaments and effective force of the
man himself. We want to know and be familiar
with the John Wyclif who, in the days of our child
hood was little more to any of us than the shadow
of a great name: the John Wyclif who was Chau
cer s contemporary under the Plantagenet kings ;
who in the Middle Ages of history moved as a star
across the dark firmament of western Europe; a
Schoolman, and yet a teacher of the most accepted
Christianity of to-day. We want to feel sure, and
we are only just beginning to feel it, that the man
to whom every lover of truth is so largely indebted
stands before us as a recognised presence and iden
tity, in his form and substance as he lived ; the bril
liant Oxford man who paced the pavements of the
schools, or haunted the streets and meadows be
tween his college and the silver streams, passing the
very spot where, two centuries^ later, bishops such as
his soul would have loved were to light a candle for
the faith as he believed it ; the eager, busy optimist
who threw himself into the eddies of English poli
tics, hoping against hope that the secular arm would
strike effectively where he saw such urgent need ; the
pale, weak priest, with firm-set lips and undaunted
eyes, to whom the re-discovered truth was a master
ing reality, far above the authority of Rome or the
claims of tradition.
To read the controversial works of Wyclif without
some such intimate and sympathetic realisation of
his character is to make no near approach to a
knowledge of the man, and very little towards the
238 John Wyclif. H378-
comprehension of his life-work. To the merely
critical mind, for instance, which is governed by our
actual canons of literary taste and amenity, and for
gets to transpose the language of the fourteenth
century into the same key with that of the nine
teenth, the tone occasionally adopted by Wyclif in
his later years against the Papacy and the religious
Orders may well seem to pass the bounds of
moderation.
One or two quotations have already been given
from the sermons of Wyclif in which the unworthi-
ness of Christian professors was severely castigated.
Other discourses will be found in the same collection
which were written after the Schism, in some of
which the writer declares his belief that the friars
are mainly actuated by greed, and that they would
easily change from Urban to Clement if such a
course were likely to be more profitable. In another
sermon he charges them with obstructing the Poor
Priests, who interfered with their gains. In the
Vae Octuplex, which is found in all the best manu
scripts of Wyclif s sermons, and has always been
attributed to him, the eight woes pronounced against
the Scribes and Pharisees arc brought home to the
Church of the second millennium, and especially to
the friars. This indeed is Wyclif s prevailing note
in all his denunciations that the errors of the
Church have invaded her only " since the fiend was
loosed."
Under the lash of such a tongue, no wonder if the
friars, the monks and the wealthier clergy had be
come at first restive, then indignant, then bitterly
13801 The Decisive Step. 239
and vindictively hostile to the most uncompromising
of their cen ors. His invective was certainly not of
the mildest kind, and even his friends have occasion
ally lamented the stern and sweeping character of
the charges which he brought against the regular
and higher secular clergy. Wyclif himself would
have admitted that there were priests, regulars, and
perhaps even bishops who did not deserve to be
branded as corrupt. A man of milder (perhaps less
effective) temperament might have dwelt upon these
exceptions, and have been more on his guard against
the misconceptions which arose out of his too com
prehensive reproaches. Possibly it never occurred
to him to say anything so fatuous as that the censure
of greed and hypocrisy must not be held to apply
to such as are neither greedy nor hypocritical. The
fourteenth century, it must be remembered, was not
a time of mincing words, halting controversies, and
compromises which sacrifice nine points of a just
demand in order to secure the tenth. Wyclif was
thoroughly a man of his century a leader and a
pioneer, it is true, but still a man of limited knowl
edge, only half liberated from the scholastic yoke,
conventional in his dialectical methods, and one who
was too much attached to logical precision and per
haps to logical hyperbole to think much of the
weaker and illogical minds which would be disturbed
by his confident conclusions.
It is natural that a secular clergyman holding such
views as Wyclif held, and expressing them with in
creasing freedom during the last few years of his
life, should have been charged with the very offences
240 John Wyclif. [1378-
against which he most indignantly protested. His
enemies did not fail to say that his rage against the
monks and friars was not very pronounced until
Archbishop Langham in 1366 had deprived him of
the wardenship of Canterbury Hall, and put back
the regulars in place of the seculars events which,
in all probability, had no reference at all to our John
Wyclif. In any case the question would seem to be
not so much when Wyclifs rage was hottest as
whether he was hot with good reason.
Another accusation brought against him by the
friars and their friends, after he was dead, repre
sented him as having tried in vain to secure a nomi
nation to the see of Worcester the inference being
that his attacks upon the wealthy clergy who mis
used their wealth, and upon the rapidly increasing
endowments of the Church, grew out of this check
to his worldly ambitions. No candid reader of the
life and writings of Wyclif will give a second thought
to these charges of hypocrisy and greed, stamped as
they are by their patent absurdity.
To admit that the Reformer s hostility to the
abuses of the monastic system, and his condemna
tion of a wealthy priesthood, were not openly dis
played until he had felt the smart of personal
disappointment would be to ignore the note of
continuity which is manifest throughout his intel
lectual history. If there is any force at all in what
has been said of Wyclifs mental and moral descent
from the liberal Schoolmen, and especially from his
immediate predecessor William of Ockham, it fol
lows as a matter of course that he began his career
1380] The Decisive Step. 241
as a clergyman with a profound belief in the doctrine
of evangelical poverty, and did not wait until he was
more than forty years old before he gave it public
utterance. At any rate his tongue was specially
unloosed against the friars after the death of Fitz-
ralph in 1360; and though, like the Archbishop of
Armagh, he had never held the extreme doctrine of
evangelical poverty as it stood condemned in the
decretals based on the assertion that Christ himself
had begged instead of working for his living still
his advance on Fitzralph s position was enough to
prove that Wyclif was not fishing for preferment.
To say, as his greatest enemies said, that he inherited
the damnable doctrines of Marsiglio was to say that
he was in sympathy with the Fraticelli and the
Brotherhood of Munich, that he accepted from his
boyhood the whole theory of a spiritual Church,
free from worldly titles or claims, and that the
logical indefensibility of Church endowments was
one of the grounding principles of his belief.
If other reasons were needed to show how unten
able is the notion that Wyclif began to condemn en
dowments in 1363 or 1368 the see of Worcester
fell vacant at both these dates, because he had
angled for a bishopric without success, it might be
enough to point out that his actions and utterances,
so far as we are acquainted with them, were consis
tently of such a character as to militate against the
chance of his receiving any sort of preferment in the
Church ; that his association with John of Gaunt,
who had been credited with a desire to spoliate the
Church, would have been the last thing to suggest
242 John Wyclif. [1380
itself to an orthodox clergyman in search of a mitre;
that, on the other hand, his attendance upon the
King, the repute of his preaching in London, his deal
ings with the Duke of Lancaster and the Prince of
Wales, the frequent recourse of Parliament to his
opinion and advice, say between 1366 and 1380,
would have sufficed to obtain him a bishopric if he
had been laying himself out to secure one if he had
economised his liberalism instead of speaking his
mind and eventually disregarding the wishes of the
Duke on a question of principle ; and that, in point
of fact, when the sinecure prebend of Aust was con
ferred upon him in 1375, on his return from Bruges,
he conscientiously declined it.
The friars, as we shall see, had by no means shot
their last bolt ; but up to the year 1380, at any rate,
Wyclif had the best of the argument in every sense.
The comparative success of his attack upon the
Roman system in England, as well as upon the
alien Orders and the national hierarchy, is sufficiently
accounted for by the organic weakness of Rome in
the fourteenth century, by the patriotic resistance
of Englishmen to encroachments from a vassal of
France, and by the revulsion of public feeling against
ecclesiastical and monastic scandals. Historians
who were prejudiced in favour of the papal cause
and it is to be remembered that men like Netter,
Harpsfield, and even the Dominicans who confuted
Wyclif after his death, had the making of his history in
their own hands admit that the provisions and other
exactions of Rome went a long way towards ensuring
him the measure of success which he actually gained.
CHAPTER XIII.
CONDEMNED AT OXFORD.
HE time had come when
Wyclif had reached his last
stage of heresy, and he made
up his mind to declare boldly
against the miraculous and
non-natural element in the
sacrament of the altar. After
many meanders, as we have
seen above, the Reformer
found himself at the centre of the labyrinth, with his
doubts resolved and his resolution taken.
According to Netter of Walden, he began to lec
ture at Oxford against the docrine of transubstantia-
tion ( " incepit dcterminare materiam ") in the summer
of 1381 ; but the actual date of the inquiry which
was held in this year by Chancellor Berton, at the
instance of the archbishop and bishops, is somewhat
in doubt. Easter, as Dr. Shirley points out in deal-
243
244 John Wyclif. [1381
ing with this subject, fell in 1381 on April I4th ; and
the Confession which was written by Wyclif after
the inquiry had been held bears the date of May loth.
Perhaps the four weeks between these dates leaves
time for all that is recorded as having happened.
The inquiry itself was very much in the nature of a
foregone conclusion. The issue of the condemna
tion under the Chancellor s seal, its promulgation in
Wyclif s presence, the appeal to John of Gaunt and
his response, with the writing of Wyclif s rejoinder,
may certainly have happened within a month, and
are scarcely likely to have been dragged out over
thirteen months.
The articles attributed to Wyclif, for which the
Chancellor called him to account, were these :
1. The consecrated host which we see upon the
altar is not Christ, nor any part of him, but an
efficacious prefigurement of him.
2. No partaker can see Christ in the consecrated
host with his physical eyesight, though he may do so
with the eye of faith.
3. The faith of the Roman Church was expressed
of old in the declaration of Berengarius, that the
bread and wine which remain after the benediction
are the consecrated host.
4. By virtue of the sacramental words, the
eucharist contains the body and blood of Christ
in a true and real sense, down to the minutest
particular.
5. Transubstantiation, identification, and impana-
tion terms which have been given to the eucharistic
symbols have no foundation in Scripture.
1381] Condemned at Oxford. 245
6. It is contrary to the opinion of the holy fathers
to maintain that there may be an accident without a
substance in the host.
7. The sacrament of the eucharist is in its nature
bread or wine, containing, by virtue of the sacra
mental words, the true body and blood of Christ,
down to the minutest particular.
8. The sacrament of the eucharist is in figure the
body and blood of Christ, existing by conversion of
the bread or wine, whereof something definite re
mains after consecration, although, so far as concerns
the faithful, it has been exhausted ( " sopitum "}.
9. There is no foundation for saying that an acci
dent exists without a substance, for in that case God
is reduced to nothing, and a distinct article of the
Christian faith disappears.
10. Every person or sect is infected with heresy
who obstinately maintains that the sacrament of the
altar is mere bread (per se existens), decidedly lower
in nature and less perfect than " panis equinus"
11. Everyone who obstinately maintains that the
said sacrament is an accident, a quality, quantity, or
the aggregate of these, falls into the like heresy.
12. Wheaten bread, with which alone it is lawful
to celebrate, is decidedly more perfect in nature than
bread made of beans or rats flesh, either of which is
more perfect in the scale of nature than a simple
accident.
In addition to these contentions, Wyclif was
charged before the Chancellor with maintaining that
the body of Christ could not be multiplied in re
gard to its dimensions or its limits, though he ad-
246 John Wyclif. 11381
mitted that it might be multiplied in a virtual sense,
as He can be said to be present in every part of his
kingdom. It was quite possible, he said, that the
bread might be converted and yet remain the same
bread just as the paschal lamb remains a lamb
when it is made a sacrament and figure of Christ.
The bread becomes Christ figuratively, virtually, and
tropically, but not corporeally, or even with the body
which Christ now wears in heaven.* It is more accu
rate to say that Wyclif defined transubstantiation
than to say that he denied it.
That some of these ideas, or the manner in which
they are stated and illustrated, should have shocked
both such as had not thought the question out and
such as, having thought it out, would have preferred
that Wyclif should have shown himself a little more
squeamish in dealing with it, is not to be wondered
at. Amongst the latter may have been Dr. Rygge
if this member of Berton s Council is to be
identified with the future Chancellor ; which seems,
indeed, a little improbable. But, if it were so, he
would not by any means be the only prominent man
of his day whom Wyclif contrived to win over from
the ranks of his enemies.
The inquiry into Wyclifs new teaching was held
by the Chancellor and twelve doctors in the Augus-
* Wyclif, said S. T.Coleridge, "was much sounder and more
truly Catholic in his view of the Eucharist than Luther. And I find,
not without much pleasure, that my own view of it, which I was
afraid was original, was maintained in the tenth century that is to
say, that the body broken had no reference to the human body of
Christ, but to the kara noumenon, or symbolical body, the Rock that
followed the Israelites." (Table Talk.}
1381] Condemned at Oxford. 247
tinian schools, where Wyclif himself attended, and
maintained his opinions with his usual vigour. The
doctors in question were Lawndreyn and Rygge,
professors of the " sacred page," Mowbray, a doctor
of canon and civil law, Gascoyne, a doctor of decre
tals, Crump, of the Benedictines, with John Wells
from the abbey at Ramsey, three Preaching Friars,
Chessam, Bruscombe, and Wolverton, the Francis
can Tyssyngton, Shipton of the Augustinians, and
Lovey of the Carmelites.
The Chancellor s decision was given with the
unanimous consent of his twelve advisers. It does
not contain Wyclif s name, but selects for special
condemnation these two contentions that the sub
stance of material bread and wine remains after con
secration, and that the body and blood of Christ are
not essentially, substantially, and corporeally present
in the sacrament, but only figuratively or tropically.
These " pestiferous " errors the judgment emphati
cally condemns, and a solemn monition primo,
secundo, tertio, et district ius is launched in the
usual canonical terms, to the effect that no man
thereafter should openly teach or defend those con
clusions, or either of them, in the schools or outside,
within the University of Oxford, under pain of im
prisonment, suspension from all his offices, and the
major excommunication.
Wyclif is said to have been disconcerted by this
condemnation and threat ; but no actual sign of
confusion is mentioned. On the contrary, he sat in
his chair and listened to the decision, and after it
had been read out he contended that neither the
248 John Wyclif. L1381
Chancellor nor any of his colleagues had been able to
break down his argument. Truly a pertinacious
heretic, as Netter says of him in this connection !
Nevertheless it must have been a very unwelcome
fact for the Reformer and his friends that he should
have been condemned, even in this indirect fashion,
by the Chancellor of the university with which he
was so closely associated, and where he was held in
such high honour by a majority of masters and
students. The effect of the condemnation must
have been greatly weakened by the evident unfair
ness of putting six friars and two monks on a com
mittee of twelve, selected by a secular clergyman,
to inquire into the orthodoxy of a man who on
independent grounds had had so many passages
of arms with the regular clergy. The University at
large appears to have taken this view somewhat
decidedly ; and thereafter, for at least another twelve
month, the authority of Wyclif amongst his Oxford
adherents was greater than ever. Some of them,
no doubt, fell away from their allegiance when they
found that the authorities were going against him,
but he clearly had a strong party up to the middle
of 1382. The successor of Berton in the chancellor
ship was a friend of Wyclifs, Robert Rygge, and no
doubt the state of public feeling influenced the
selection of a Wycliffite. It should be mentioned
that Berton was subsequently credited with having
approximated in some measure to the position of
the man whom he had condemned.
Wyclif himself had no idea of sitting down calmly
under a condemnation pronounced by his personal
1381] Condemned at Oxford. 249
enemies, and by a Chancellor who had plainly gone
beyond the sentiment of the University. He did
not affect to treat the decision as impersonal, and
therefore one that might be safely ignored. He took
it home to himself, and went to the length of address
ing a direct appeal to the Crown.
It was the natural and proper appeal under the
circumstances. Berton had conducted the inquiry
and pronounced his decision as Chancellor, and in
the exercise of his authority on a question of univer
sity teaching and discipline. His judgment, indeed,
was scarcely equitable, and at any rate it strangely
jumbled together the academic and the ecclesiastical
functions. Berton, like Wyclif, was a secular priest
and a regent of divinity, but in both respects the
Reformer was senior to the other by several years.
The talk of excommunication, however, was only a
threat ; the effectiveness of the judgment was in its
prohibition of certain teaching ; and it was against this
prohibition that Wyclif rightly appealed from the
Chancellor to the Crown. He was, in fact, simply
acting in conformity with the royal decree of 1366,
and with the consistent claim of the University to be
independent in its own sphere of bishops as well as
of popes.
At any rate the appeal reached the King s Council ;
and it is stated by one authority that John of Gaunt
himself brought the answer down to Oxford. What
was the answer? Was Wyclif still so far potent with
the Court as to obtain a technical victory over Berton
and the twelve doctors ? That would make it easier
to understand the temporary removal or withdrawal
250 John Wyclif. [1381
of the Chancellor, and the elaborate treatises in which
Berton himself, Tyssyngton, and others proceeded
to combat the views of Wyclif when the Committee
of Doctors had failed to silence him. Either the suc
cess or the rejection of the appeal would be consistent
with the action of the Duke of Lancaster, who is said
to have enjoined his friend not to speak further of
the new question which he had raised.
It is impossible to help smiling at the magniloquent
phrase which Netter, the confessor of Henry V.,
applies to the grandfather of his monarch in this
connection. Hitherto he has had no good word for
John of Gaunt, but rather the contrary. Now that
the Duke has begun to grow cool towards the
heresiarch, he is styled nobilis dominus dux egregius,
et miles strenuus, sapiensque consiliarius Dux Lancas-
trice, sacra ecclesice filius fidelis. The corrector of
William Courtenay and William of Wykeham would
scarcely have recognised himself under such a legend.
There is no doubt that by this time John of Gaunt
was exhibiting far less zeal in the cause which he
formerly had so much at heart. He may have found
the Church .directly and indirectly a good deal
stronger than he expected. He may have foreseen
that he would need the help of the hierarchy in other
and more attractive schemes which were forming
themselves in his mind. And observe, by the way,
that it was the influence of the Church which set the
crown on the head of his son in 1399, and would
have set it on his own head if he had lived to the
age of sixty. At all events he must have found that
to govern through the mother and the Council of the
1381] Condemned at Oxford. 251
young King was by no means so easy as it had been
to govern in the name of his doting father. Be the
reason what it may, he had begun to conciliate and
flatter the prelates, without in any way regaining
thereby the popularity which he had lost amongst
the masses of Englishmen. So far had he gone
back upon his old policy that, nine years after the
exclusion of the clergy from the higher offices, less
than three years after he had undone the work of
the Good Parliament, and stripped Wykeham of his
temporalities, we find him contriving the nomination
of Archbishop Sudbury as Chancellor apparently
in order to make him and the Church in part re
sponsible for the obnoxious poll-tax.
However little sympathy Wyclif might have had
with the oppressed labourers and serfs and we know
that his sympathies for them were keen he would
certainly be revolted by this double retrogression.
He could not but recognise that he was passing out
of touch with the King s uncle ; and it may well
have happened that this knowledge strengthened
and confirmed his independence.
So, when the Duke came down to Oxford (if indeed
he came in person) and bade him suppress his con
science, and leave what he considered the idolatry of
the mass unchallenged, he positively declined to fall
in with the suggestion. Not only so, but he thought
it necessary to make his position in the matter still
more plain. This he did by means of a Confession,
addressed apparently ad suos Oxonienses, and dated
on the feast of Saints Gordian and Epimachus (May
loth), in the year 1381.
252 John Wyclif.
In the course of this dignified and moderate docu
ment, one of the last of his Latin treatises (for he
still shrank from disturbing the belief of unlettered
persons on so critical a point of faith), Wyclif fully
admitted that there was a sense in which Christ s
body was really present in the host. But he " could
not venture to say that the consecrated bread was
essentially, substantially, corporeally, and identically
the body of Christ." There were, he said, three
modes of presence in the host virtual, spiritual, and
sacramental. The second mode implies (prceexigit)
the first, and the third implies the other two. Christ s
body was more really present in this than in the other
sacraments ; but it was still more really present in
heaven. And this declaration he makes in agree
ment with the true meaning (logicam) of Scripture,
of the holy doctors, and of the canon of the Roman
Church. It was only such as could not believe on
all this evidence who started the idea that an accident
might be the body of Christ. We may well hold
that " by virtue of the words of Christ, the bread
becomes and is, in miraculous fashion, the body of
Christ," in the sense that the parts of that body
are spiritually and severally in the consecrated bread
and, if the parts of the body, yet more certainly
those of the soul. Yet foolish persons continue to
raise the old question (idiotcz remurmurant), asking
how this could possibly be, unless Christ were
present in very substance, and in the natural
sense. To which Wyclif replies that he explains
it precisely as the Roman doctors explained the
incarnation.
1381] Condemned at Oxford. 253
Wyclif s conclusion is clearly stated. The conse
crated host is naturally bread and wine ; but sacra-
mentally it is the body and blood of Christ. The
sacrament which we worship is not the substance of
bread and wine, but the body and blood of Christ.
But the "worshippers of accidents " adore it not even
as the simple accident, without the substance ; they
worship the actual sacramental sign the bread and
wine as being the actual body and blood of Christ.
We hold to Christ s very words : " This is my body."
And so we worship the body, no longer the visible
bread and wine.
Then he quotes in his support the old doctors of
the first millennium, Ignatius, Cyprian, Ambrose,
Augustine, Jerome, Nicholas II., and the custom of
the Church. With these Wyclif contrasts the
moderns, who dishonour Christ s body. And he
ends with stern words against those who receive the
testimony of Innocent and Raymundi rather than
the sense of Scripture, and the later rather than the
earlier doctrine.
"Above all and once again, woe to the obstinate
tongue of the apostate who buries the Roman Church
beneath a pile of false utterances, whereby he pre
tends that the later Church, when opposed to the
earlier, has rectified the faith, declaring that this sac
rament is an accident without a subject, and not
actual bread and wine, as both the Gospel and the
canon of the Church affirm. For Augustine is our
witness that no priest of Christ can make an accident
without a subject. Yet these priests of Baal, falsely
after the pattern of their father, so highly extol the
254 John Wyclif. H381
sacredness of this accident that they hold every other
form of mass unworthy of being listened to, and
pretend that all who dissent from their falsehoods
are ignoramuses, I suppose, from some university in
the realms of darkness. But I believe that the truth
will finally bring them into subjection."
There seem to have been many rejoinders to this
Confession. John Tyssyngton, a friar of the Order
of Franciscans, wrote a terribly long-winded treatise
in order to confute Wyclif s views on the sacrament,
which Netter has preserved amongst the " wheat " of
his promiscuous gleaning (in the Fasciculi Zizanio-
rum cum Tritico) ; and an Augustinian friar, Thomas
Wynterton, wrote still more at length in his tract
Absolutio. Berton and Sutbraye, too the latter
a monk of St. Alban s, and both of them members
of the Synod which met at the Blackfriars priory in
the following year took up their pens against the
irrepressible heretic ; and a certain " Dunelmensis"
followed suit. It is clear that the persistent courage
of Wyclif, which inspired him to stronger utterance
after each successive attempt to crush him, gave
abundant provocation and stimulus to the zealous
orthodoxy of his contemporaries amongst the regu
lar and secular clergy.
According to Henry of Knyghton, canon of
Leicester, who wrote and died in the reign of
Richard II., and was therefore a contemporary of
Wyclif, as well as a near neighbour, the Rector of
Lutterworth made his peace with the Church on this
occasion, in order to avoid death, and " abandoned
his defence not of divine wisdom but of his hollow
13811 Condemned at Oxford. 255
professions." Here is the Confession as given by
Knyghton and apparently by him alone.
" I knowleche that the Sacrament of the autar is
verry Goddus body in fourme of brede : but it is in
another maner Goddus body then it is in hevene.
For in heven it is sene fote (seven feet high) in
fourme and figure, of fleshe and blode. But in the
Sacrament Goddus body is be (by) myracle of God
in fourme of brede, and is he nouther of sene fote,
ne in mannes figure. But as a man leeves for to
thenk the kynde of an ymage, whether it be of oke
or of asshe, and settys his thought in him of whom
is the ymage, so myche more schuld a man leve to
thenk on the kynde of brede, but thenk upon Christ,
for his body is the same brede that is the Sacrament
of the Autere, and with alle clennes, alle divocion,
and alle charite that God wolde gif him, worshippe
he Christ ; and then he receyves God gostly, more
medefully than the Prist that syngus the Masse in
lesse charite. For the bodely etyng ne profytes
nouth to soule, but in als mykul as the soule is fedde
with charite. This sentence is provyde be Crist
that may nought lye. For as the Gospel says,
Crist, that night that he was betraiede of Judas
Scarioth, he tok brede in hise hondes, and blesside
it, brak it, and gaf it to hise disciplus to etc. For he
says, and may not lye, This is my body. "
Clearly, however, this is no retractation at all, but
only a statement of belief in general terms, such as
might be used by men almost as opposite in their
ultimate conclusions as Wyclif and Courtenay. It
is not so much on the symbols of faith that devotees
256 John Wyclif. H381
have been wont to quarrel with and burn each other
as on their interpretations of the symbols, or rather
on the words in which they have attempted to
express their interpretations. Mr. T. Arnold has
hazarded a suggestion that Knyghton and his friends,
in their zeal for orthodoxy, may have put this short
English statement into circulation as though it were
the substance of the Confession, or the actual Con
fession, made by Wyclif at Oxford. One would
imagine that if his enemies could have brought
themselves to such a point of dishonesty they would
have taken care to make a better bargain with their
consciences.
There are other possible explanations. If the
" I knowleche " paper is a genuine production of
Wyclif s, and if it was at any time written or ac
cepted as a confession, in order to protect the writer
from an unpleasant alternative, the immunity was
certainly purchased cheap. But it might have been
so. There would have been nothing dishonourable
in Wyclif s saying, " If this paper will satisfy you,
without elaboration and comment, I am willing to
sign it, for it expresses my honest belief." And
there would be nothing very extraordinary in Cour-
tenay s accepting it on those terms, for it may have
saved him at some particular moment an infinity of
trouble, and still have given him the appearance of a
triumph, which he could trust the friars to make the
most of throughout the country.
This hypothesis, indeed, is scarcely more satis
factory than the other. The last thing which Wyclif
would be likely to do of his own free will would be
1381;
Condemned at Oxford.
257
to give his astute foes the opportunity of proclaim
ing that he had retracted his mature and deliberate
opinions. It is possible enough that he may have
written such a paper in order to hand it in at the
beginning of Berton s inquiry in 1381, or of one of
the inquiries held by Courtenay in the following
year, as an abstract or text for elucidation. In that
case it is easy to understand how the document
might come to be called, as it is by Knyghton,
a " refugium mortis"
That Wyclif, however, was not merely the obsti
nate old man who clings to his opinions with senile
perversity, and because he has lost the spirit of con
ciliation, is proved by an admission which he makes
in the Trialogus, written after his withdrawal to
Lutterworth. " I have undertaken," he says, with
out indicating when or to whom the promise was
made it may have been either to John of Gaunt or
to Courtenay " not to use out of the schools the
term substance of material bread and wine. It
must have cost him dear to make even this condi
tional promise, which of course is a very different
thing from a retractation.
CHAPTER XIV.
WYCLIF S POOR PRIESTS.
HOUGH much that is interest
ing and comparatively new
remains to be said about the
Peasants Revolt in the four
teenth century, we have no
more to do with it in the
present volume than may be
necessary to show how much
or how little John Wyclif
contributed to bring it about, and in what manner
it affected his own life and the development of his
ideas. In this sense it is at least as important as
any other chapter of events in the history of tlu
early reformation ; for there can be no doubt
that the panic produced amongst the governing
classes by the uprising of the serfs was for the
religious reformers a final check to the hope of
speedy victory.
258
JOHN WYCLIF.
ENGRAVED BY E. F1NDEN, FROM A PORTRAIT ATTRIBUTED TO ANTONIO MORO ] NOW
AN HEIRLOOM IN THE RECTORY OF WYCLIF-ON-TEE8.
138U Wyclif s Poor Priests. 259
That Wyclif was in some degree, however indi
rectly, responsible for the popular discontent is
probably quite as true as the charge of direct com
plicity and encouragement is ludicrously false. It
was alleged against him by his enemies that he de
liberately prepared the way for an outbreak, and
that certain of his utterances on lordship, and on the
rights of subjects as against their rulers, were dis
tinctly subversive in their character. If these utter
ances had been written and spoken in English,
instead of Latin, there would have been a great deal
more force in the accusation. But, even as it was,
the doctrine was there ; it had been written and
preached ; every disciple of Wyclif, and every Poor
Priest to whom he gave his commission, had learned
it, was proud of it, and would naturally teach it on
the village greens and on the roadside. The germs
would spread and grow in fertile soil ; the crop
would inevitably spring up, grow rank, and whiten to
the harvest. Is anything gained by denying that
principles which would justify revolution in one
order of government must be held to justify it in
another, and that Wyclif himself did not simply
argue from divine to civil government, but drew his
inferences from the general to the particular, and
claimed that the Church might correct the Pope
because the nation might justly correct its own
leaders ?
It was afterwards stated that John Ball, on the eve
of his execution, declared that he and his friends
had been misled by the teaching of Wyclif and his
followers. Even if it were so and we may see
260 John Wyclif. [1381
reason by and by to regard this statement with par
ticular caution so far as Ball is concerned it maybe
fully admitted that the teaching of the Wycliffites
must have helped to breathe spirit and resolution
into the rural classes. It is well that this accusation
should be taken out of the mouths of Wyclif s ene
mies, who not only gave him the treatment of a
malefactor in his lifetime but burned his bones and
corroded his memory when he was dead ; but it is
better still that the admission should come frankly
from the mouths of his friends, who can have no
object in denying that he was both a reproach and
a danger to the authorities of his day.
Wyclif taught, as we have seen, that the ultimate
power and authority resided in the people at large.
" The right to govern depends upon good govern
ment ; there is no moral constraint to pay tax or
tithe to bad rulers, either in the Church or in the
State ; it is permitted to put an end to tyranny, to
punish or depose unjust rulers, and to resume the
wealth which the clergy have diverted from the
poor." No further argument would be needed to
justify starving peasants in refusing to pay an op
pressive poll-tax, when their only means of paying
it was to take the food out of the mouths of their
wives and children. Wyclif may not have expected
that the seed which he sowed would bear fruit in this
particular fashion, and with such raw haste. On the
other hand, he was not a man of delays and misgiv
ings, wherever he was clear and convinced in matters
of principle. It is true that he recognised the
necessity of caution, and more than once exposed the
1381] Wyclif s Poor Priests. 261
folly of precipitate action as on the noteworthy
occasion when he declined to advise the abolition of
Peter s pence. But there are times when the day
of caution seems to have passed, and nothing but
immediate action is likely to serve the turn. It is
hardly possible to doubt that in ecclesiastical affairs,
at any rate, Wyclif believed that such a time had
arrived. He might have been a Cranmer, a Knox,
not to say a Cromwell, if the opportunity had arisen
for him to strip the corrupted Church of her mere
tricious robes and jewels. He would have done it.
He would have helped John of Gaunt to do it, with
the supreme confidence of an honest man that only
in this way could the Church once more deserve her
majestic title as the bride of Christ.
Where the State was concerned apart from the
Church, Wyclif evidently recognised that he had not
the same warrant to lay down a law of conduct for
his fellow-creatures. In any case he did not press
his arguments with the same force and directness.
They went just as much to the root of the matter
for one form of government as for another ; but
Wyclif displayed a reserve and a reticence when
speaking of the existing civil organisation which
were not apparent when he spoke of the Christian
community.
In a volume like the present it would be out of
place to examine in detail the scheme. of the two
Latin works which Wyclif wrote in middle life on
The Lordship of God and on Civil Lordship. The
reader who will be satisfied with an abstract of these
treatises which are based in large measure, as has
262 John Wyclif. [1381
already been indicated, on the works of Marsiglio,
Ockham, and Fitzralph may be referred to the
account which has been given of them by Mr. R.
L. Poole ( Wycliffe and Movements for Reform).
It is in the Civil Lordship that we should look
for Wyclif s more deliberate views on the relations
of government and the governed ; and it is there, in
fact, that we find the most direct statement of what
has been called his " subversive doctrine." He con
siders two distinct phases of lordship, the natural
and the civil, the latter being essentially based upon
the former. Like other writers of his age on kin
dred subjects, he takes his illustrations and his paral
lels from the feudal system, and especially from the
mutual relation of lordship and service, upon which
the whole edifice of that system rests. In natural
or religious lordship he finds the grand peculiarity
that the lord paramount is the only absolute lord,
of whom each individual holds directly, and to
whom alone every individual owes his service. But
civil lordship, as Mr. Poole interprets his argument,
is " transitory and liable to modification according
to the changes of human society. It becomes there
fore to Wycliffe a matter of slight importance what
particular form of government be adopted in any
given country, since its only claim to excellence
depends upon its relation with natural lordship,
in other words with the precepts of religion."
Yet the Reformer s ideal is certainly not what we
should understand under the name of theocracy.
Logically followed out, his argument would land us
in a sort of communism, practical enough, perhaps,
1381] Wyclif s Poor Priests. 263
if all mankind had first attained to counsels of per
fection.
Kings, then, are responsible to the lord paramount
from whom they derive their lordship ; but they are
lords only in as much as they are stewards for God,
and by virtue of their service. And their service
is due not only to God but to their fellow-men. As
all things are God s, they cannot belong to the stew
ard more than to anyone else, and, so far as there is
any property in them, they must belong in common
to all. Wyclif, says Mr. Poole, " had not yet learned
the effect of his doctrine in practical life, as dis
played in the rebellion of 1381 ; but he seems con
scious of the danger of excusing by implication des
ultory attempts of this nature, when he warns his
hearers against resort to force except it be likely to
put an end to tyranny."
The reasoning of these Latin treatises, however,
was too subtle and too academic to reach the minds
of the serfs, except as interpreted to them in their
own language ; and the interpretation probably
went in some cases beyond the intention of the
original text. The arguments just cited are clearly
not the conclusions of a visionary, but rather the
opportunism of a reasonable man, who -desired the
gradual development of the State, and not asocial
cataclysm. Wyclif did not fear a revolution in the
Church itself. He doubtless thought that it would
be highly beneficial ; but there is nothing to show
that he desired or even anticipated a national revolu
tion in the political order of things. If, notwith
standing this, the tendency of his teaching was
264 John Wyclif. [1381
towards such a revolution, who will say that he was
personally and morally responsible for the evils
which attended the Peasants Revolt ?
The question is of so much importance, both in
the history of the period and in the biography of
Wyclif, that it would be misleading to go on to the
details of this Revolt without making some further
effort to appreciate the relations of the Reformer
himself, and of his disciples and interpreters, towards
the men who actually rebelled and revolted against
the intolerable conditions of their existence.
Of the exact manner and degree in which Wyclif
impressed his own personality, socially and reli
giously, on the poorest of his fellow-countrymen
throughout his laborious life, whether as parish priest
in his three successive livings or as a man of wide
sympathies and self-sacrificing benevolence, we have
unfortunately very little direct evidence. It is true
that we cannot require much evidence of this kind
for the mere purpose of proof, when those who
think least favourably of his actions are most dis
posed to magnify their influence with the common
people. All that we know of this single-minded de
votee of truth and " Goddis law " (the term became
a symbol and watchword of the Wycliffites*) points
one way as to his absolute superiority to personal
aims and self-seeking. It was one of the central
points of his teaching that not a penny should be
taken from the trust-funds of the Church, which are
the patrimony of the poor, either for " covetise of
* Henry of Knyghton says : " They used such an expression in all
their speech, always asserting the law of God, Goddislawe. "
13811 Wyclif s Poor Priests. 265
priests " or to support the pomp of Rome. He
steadfastly refused to be a pluralist ; and even if he
supplied his necessities from the proceeds of his
benefices at Fillingham, Ludgarshall, and Lutter-
worth which is doubtful we may be sure that he
spent all the remainder upon his parishioners. He
could not have preached the doctrine of poverty as
he did whilst lavishing on himself what he did not
need for his sustenance. If he had been inconsistent
on that one point, above all others, his enemies
would have made England ring with it, and the
books of the friars, which denounce him so fiercely
on the score of his heresy, would have abounded in
gibes and sneers at his hypocrisy.
The fact that Wyclif was King s chaplain, and
occupied a position as lecturer or professor of di
vinity at Oxford, at the same time that he held a
living in the Church, is nothing to the contrary of
what has been stated above. The ordinary pluralist
took his two or more benefices, his two or more pre
bends simultaneously, as favours or rewards, though
he was rarely capable of performing all the corre
sponding duties, and was generally content to hold
sinecure offices. Wyclifs chaplaincy and lecture
ship, however they may have been paid, could not
be enjoyed without the full performance of stipu
lated work. Clearly the absence of a country rector
for part of the year in London, and another part of
the year at Oxford, especially in those days of slow
travelling, must have interfered to some extent with
his parish duties; but we know that Wyclif main
tained assistants on whom he could rely, men whom
266 John Wyclif. H381
he trained to preach and to translate the Bible, as
well as to explain and illustrate it by precept and
example.
Chaucer s picture of the secular priest may well
have been thought of and mentioned in connection
with Wyclif ; and as we are trying to realise what
he must have been to his poorest neighbours, and
what his Poor Priests must have been to the serfs
through his influence, it cannot be idle to recall the
picture here. Might it not be reasonable to suppose
that the old Rector of Lutterworth, but recently
dead when the Canterbury Tales were completed,
had unwittingly sat for the portrait of the " good
man of religion " ? We may recognise here the
moral lineaments of Wyclif s character apart from
his controversies and logomachies at least as con
fidently as we can see the actual features of his face
in the Denbigh portrait.
" A good man was ther of religioun,
And was a pore Persoun of a toun ;
But riche he was of holy thought and werk
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Christes gospel truly wolde preche ;
His parischens devoutly wolde he teche . . .
But rather wolde he geven out of dowte
Unto his pore parischens aboute,
Of his offrynge, and eek of his substance.
He cowde in litel thing han suffisance . . .
This noble ensample unto his scheep he gaf,
That ferst he wrought, and after that he taught.
Out of the gospel he the wordes caught,
And this figure he added yet therto
That if gold rust, what shulde yron do ?
For if a Prest be foul, on whom we trust,
No wonder is a lewed man to rust
t38ll Wyclif s Poor Priests. 267
To drawe folk to heven by fairnesse,
By good ensample, was his busynesse.
But it were eny person obstinat,
What so he were of high or low estat,
Him wolde he snybbe sharply for the nones . . .
. . . Christes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, and ferst he folwed it himselve."
As to Wyclif s political sympathies with his poor
est fellow-countrymen there is no question. He
protests strongly in his later writings against abuses
and oppressions to which Englishmen were exposed,
such as the inequality of the law, the venality of the
lawyers, the falsification of legal documents, the
subornation of perjury, the perversion of justice, the
manifold extortions and fraudulent enforcement
of serfdom and labour. It has been urged that he
was secured as a popular champion in 1381, and that
his greater popularity from this time forward was
due to a political (as well as a religious) new depart
ure in the year just named. At any rate the actual
revolt of the peasants may well have stimulated his
political sympathies.
It is no more possible to fix a precise date for the
first commissioning of Wyclif s Priests than it is to
say when the earliest of his extant English sermons
was preached, or when he began to translate the
New Testament. It has already been said that the
plan of some of his Sunday Gospel sermons is such
as to suggest that they were mere skeletons prepared
for the use of the disciples whom he sent forth to
the byways of England, to win the souls of the
poorest hinds, and to tear away the veil of ignorance
or prejudice which had hitherto hidden the Scrip-
268 John Wyclif. ?1381
tures from them. His complete version, as we know,
occupied the last few years of his life, but we cannot
say when the first manuscript of his first translation
began to be copied out and distributed. It seems to
be a reasonable belief that the earlier copies were
made for his first missionary priests, and that these
missionaries volunteers, it may be, who asked
nothing better than to put his precepts into prac
tice set out from Oxford, or Lutterworth, before
anything like a systematic mission could be said to
exist.
There is no ground to suppose that Wyclif in
tended or desired to create an Order, in any sense of
the term. He had seen too much of the perversion
of good intentions of that sort to allow him to enter
tain such a design. But unless the mission of the
Priests had been in some measure systematic, it is
unlikely that his contemporaries, friends and enemies
alike, would have mentioned it as one of the salient
facts of his career.
It is easy to believe that Oxford supplied Wyclif
with many an enthusiast willing to don the sheep
skin and sandals, and to abandon all ease and cul
ture and genial companionship for his regimen of
apostolic poverty. It is indeed impossible not to
believe that such a cause, at such a moment, at
tracted scores of men in that home and nursery of
fervent enthusiasms, which for seven hundred years
has never failed to furnish either pioneers for a haz
ardous enterprise or leaders for a forlorn hope. But
undoubtedly a certain number of the Poor Priests
were humble and unlettered men, who had been
LUTTERWORTH CHURCH.
PARTLY CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH WYCLIF.
1381] Wyclif s Poor Priests. 269
touched by the fire of their master s zeal in his rural
home at Lutterworth. Their plain speech and lack
of refinements would be amongst their most hopeful
qualifications for the task entrusted to them. They
went forth to speak and associate with their kind,
clad in a distinctive robe of undressed wool, brown
and rough as the russet apples in their homely gar
den plots, relying for food and shelter on the good
will of their hearers, forbidden to thrive by their
calling like the mendicants of an Order that was no
longer poor, and rich only in their knowledge of the
word of God, or haply in the possession of a roll of
Scripture in their mother-tongue, and a few of their
master s sermons.
The monks and friars and secular clergymen who
came at times to listen to these uncouth wayfarers,
and to deride their appearance and their ignorance
before the simple folk whom they had gathered to
gether, applied to them a term of contempt which
had long been in use on the continent for religious
fanatics of the humbler sort. The English "loller"
of Langland s day was, indeed, a mere loafer and
idler, not necessarily religious, or a babbler of any
kind. Thus, in the Vision of Piers Plowman
" All that have their health
And their eyen-sight,
And limbs to labour with.
And use the loller s life,
Live against God s law,
And love of holy church."
" Lollard " and " loller" in fact, did not mean quite
the same thing, though the words descended from
270 John Wyclif. ri38t
a common ancestor. The English loller was a sturdy
beggar who lived on his fellow-men, and in this sense
the term would have suited many of the mendicant
friars " great lubbers and long, that loth were to
swynke," as Langland calls them. But the foreign
congener of the loller was a religious enthusiast who
seems to have obtained his nickname from the friars
themselves a fourteenth-century ante-type of the
modern revivalist, or Salvation Army preacher, who
would have nothing to say to the regular Orders.
An authority quoted by Ducange, referring to the
year 1309, speaks of " quidam hypocrita gyrovagi,
qui Lollardi sive Deum-laudantes vocabantur" The
Praise-Gods of Wyclif s time accepted and kept the
name for themselves, and have been known to history
as Lollards ever since.
Sundry references are found in Wyclif s later
works as in the Trialogus and the De Ecclesia to
the institution of the Poor Priests.
" It seems to be a meritorious thing," he says in
one place, " to associate good priests together, since
Christ, the pattern of every good work, did likewise.
But when they ask for alms let these priests be par
ticularly cautious in these three respects. First, let
them move from place to place, and not become
established (haredati), for they are not confirmed
without regard to their good behaviour. But if they
live worthily and uprightly, let them enjoy temporal
gifts in moderation. Secondly, let their number,
their locality, and the time of their appointment be
well considered, for both excess and deficiency in
these points introduce an occasion of error, according
THE PRIESTS DOORWAY, LUTTERWORTH CHURCH, THROUGH WHICH
WYCLIF S BODY WAS TAKEN.
13811 Wyclif s Poor Priests. 2 7 1
to the opinion of discreet men. Thirdly, let them
be given to the duties which befit the priesthood, for
want of habitude as well as indolence unfits men for
this work ; and it is not every occupation, as the
keeping of a booth, or hunting, or devotion to games
or to chess, which is becoming to a priest, but studious
acquaintance with God s law, plain preaching of the
word of God, and devout prayerfulness." Especially
they should be good preachers, for in this way Christ
conquered his kingdom ; " but let him who does not
preach publicly exhort in private. . . . And if
anyone is specially skilled in training priests on this
model, he has a power which comes of God, and
possesses merit through grace when he accomplishes
such a work."
However obnoxious the Poor Priests, and the
independent Lollards, of whom John Ball was a
type, may have been to the secular and religious
clergy, they were far from being universally unpopu
lar amongst the higher classes. Walsingham says,
and there is no reason to doubt him, that " lords and
the highest men in the land, as well as many of the
people, supported them in their preaching, and
favoured those who taught erroneous conclusions
and very naturally, since they assigned such great
authority to laymen, even the authority to deprive
ecclesiastics and religious corporations of their tempo
ralities."
Courtenay refers to them in a letter to the Carmelite
friar Peter Stokys of Oxford, in 1382, as " wolves in
sheep s clothing," sons of perdition, preaching their
false conclusions under a cloak of great sanctity.
272 John Wyclif. H38f
No name was too bad for them in the mouths of
regulars and seculars alike, especially after the Revolt.
So long as the bishops and monks had no charge to
bring against them except one of unsound doctrine,
the men of that comparatively liberal age paid little
attention to the ecclesiastical censure ; but so soon
as suspicion and prejudice attached to them in con
nection with the outbreak of the peasants, the Arch
bishop was able to deal them some shrewd and effect
ive blows. Nevertheless we shall see that the later
English Lollards that is, Wyclif s Poor Priests and
their converts were stronger than their persecutors,
more enduring than the Wycliffite school at Oxford,
and sufficiently pertinacious to bridge the darkness
of the fifteenth century with an unbroken line of light.
We have been at such pains to establish the con
nection between the early Reformation and the
Peasants Revolt that we may have lost sight for
a moment of the main and prevailing causes of
this half-abortive revolution. But if anyone could
be found in those days capable of maintaining that
Wyclif and his disciples were primarily responsible
for the Revolt, it would be enough to ask in reply
what would have been likely, and indeed certain,
to happen at the close of the fourteenth century
even if the last of the Schoolmen, the first of the
English Reformers, had never written, preached, or
lived. Assuredly we might account for and justify
the rising as every historian worthy of atten
tion has held it to have been justified without
bringing Wyclif into the reckoning at all. Let us
consider for a brief space what were the principal
1381] Wyclifs Poor Priests. 273
causes of the outbreak which alarmed all England
at this important and most interesting crisis an
outbreak which, if organisation had been possible,
and if competent leaders had been forthcoming,
might have still more deeply modified the whole
future history of the country, even if it had not then
and there set up a durable commonwealth on a broad
basis of enfranchisement.
First and foremost amongst these causes must be
reckoned the obsolescence and gradual decay of the
feudal system, owing not so much to the Anglo-
French dynastic wars which were but one chapter
of a long story as to certain natural and logical
developments of feudalism, sure to take place sooner
or later, and already in operation when the four
teenth century began. Feudalism could not endure
more than a century or two, at any rate in its origi
nal form, in any country not perfectly secure against
the risk of foreign wars. It arose out of anarchy
and general insecurity, and was the best attainable
device for supplying the two great needs of human
ity under such conditions, protection for the weak
and military aid for the ruler. But its deterioration
as a system began at the very moment of its estab
lishment, and sprang from the same causes which
had called it into existence. Moreover this deteri
oration proceeded most rapidly in a country where
feudalism had been imposed on a subject race by their
conquerors. The combination of the weak gradu-
eilly made them strong, and the dependence of the
rulers on the lower grades, both for men-at-arms and
for. supplies of money* gradually made them weak.
274 John Wyclif. 11381
When this inevitable process had set in, the decay
of feudalism was a mere question of time. The
lord paramount had to sell his authority fragment by
fragment for the service which he required ; the
mesne lords passed from the attitude of guaranteeing
protection to that of relying on those who fought,
worked, and paid for them. The ultimate essentials
of human society the valour, the sinews, the taxes
of the multitude assured for them the final mas
tery. That seems to be the central law of historical
development, under every species of government
from the highest to the lowest ; and to struggle
against it save for purposes of delay is as futile
as it is puerile. Before the end of the thirteenth
century, Englishmen had seen this process in active
operation. De Montfort and his friends may not
have been philosophers, and may not have felt the
full significance of their acts ; but at the moment
when they created a new instrument of government
out of the English Commons they were giving effect
to the fundamental law, under which the power of
feudalism was now rapidly dwindling away.
It has been pointed out that the growth of the
farming and merchant classes, the expansion of the
towns, the increasing powers of chartered govern
ments and guilds successively effects and causes of
feudal decay brought into existence a middle class
of new-rich men, whether rising from below or
descending from the classes of barons and knights.
City men like the Fitzwarrens, Fitzwalters, Whitting-
tons, Philipots, and Walworths, and their parallels
in the sea-ports and manufacturing towns, gradu-
I38r Wyclif s Poor Priests. 275
ally amassed wealth, and, when opportunity offered,
bought up the interests of such of the older barons
and knights as were compelled to part with their
estates and manors. They bought, of course, the vil
leins and serfs together with the land, or at any rate
they bought the power to exact service from these
weakest units of the population. The amount and
kind of service due from each, or the rent paid in lieu
of service, was set forth in the transferred title-deeds,
which were proof and evidence of hereditary servi
tude. The villeins, free labourers, and smaller farm
ers who had gradually risen above the class of serfs,
whether by redemption or by free grant of immunity,
often continued for a long time to render some ac
knowledgment to the lord of the manor, in the
shape of work or its equivalent ; and a sentiment of
personal loyalty would maintain the custom of this
acknowledgment even in cases where it had ceased
to be legally due. But when the baron or manorial
lord had brought himself into difficulties, by luxury,
travel, war, or chivalry, and his estate had been sold
to a new-comer, sentiment had no more to say in the
matter, and the subordinate folk stood towards the
stranger on their legal or moral rights. The feudal
link was in these instances finally severed, and only
the serfs and the more subservient labourers remained
thus closely addicted to the soil.
Towards the middle of Edward s reign the serf,
the villein, the large manor-farmer himself, eager
to establish complete independence, or occasionally
fired by mere ambition or greed, was ready for the
first opportunity of cancelling every record of ser-
276 John Wyclif. 11381
vice; and the chance of doing this simply, safely,
and effectively was one of the more immediate in
ducements of the great mobilisation of 1381.
Beyond the causes already mentioned which had
tended to weaken the barons and knights, and to
strengthen the labouring classes, there was one which
did not come into operation much before the middle
of the fourteenth century, when its effect was sud
den, remarkable, and decisive. This was the nota
ble decrease of the population, brought about by
two entirely distinct occurrences war and plague.
In estimating the effect of these occurrences, statis
tics are not wholly to be relied on. There were no
means in those days of taking them exactly, or there
is no evidence that the available means were scrupu
lously employed. The whole tendency of the time
would be towards wild exaggeration. The word
" million " in the mouth of a fourteenth- or fifteenth-
century chronicler must be taken as an easy approxi
mation, not as a verified figure. It has been said that
more than half the population of England perished
by the plague in 1348-1350 a statement which is
certainly not proved by the partial computations
made for London, Bristol, and Norwich. The ques
tion, however, need not be argued here. It is
enough for the purpose to allow that the repeated
visitations of the Black Death, the worst of which
occurred in the years just mentioned, in 1361-1362,
1368, and 1374, supplemented by the French and
Scottish wars, made great havoc throughout the
country, and in the more unfortunate districts very
seriously diminished the population.
1381] Wyclif s Poor Priests. 277
It has been urged, and it is doubtless partially
true, that this depletion of men improved the condi
tion of the free labourers who were left, and who
were now able to command a higher price for their
labour. Of course it must have been so in many
instances. The figures adduced by Mr. Thorold
Rogers in his History of Prices irrefragable as
statistics, but perhaps safer within particular areas
than for general application sufficiently attest the
fact. It is hardly necessary to say that nothing like
a universal or even a general amelioration of the con
dition of the poorest classes can have taken place in
England in consequence of the shrinking population.
Still less could any such amelioration have lasted up
to 1 380. The evils of plague and war far outweighed
their advantages to the survivors. If wages in
creased, so also did the price of various commodities
and necessities of existence ; and the attempt of the
free labourers to sell their work for anything more
than the indispensable requirements of life was
promptly met by royal ordinances (on the advice of
Parliament) in 1349, 1350, and succeeding years,
strictly limiting the remuneration of labour.
Moreover the scarcity of labour was counteracted
by the dereliction of farms and we need not travel
from our own generation to appreciate the fact that
a large efflux of labourers from the country is not
enough of itself to raise the wages of those who
remain. The various causes which were at work
acted and reacted on each other. Landlords and even
clergymen quitted their posts and crowded into the
capital. Serfs ri^ke d the penalties of o-utlawry and
278 John Wyclif.
roamed about in quest of high pay or more abun
dant food, thus rapidly bringing down the rate of
wages even below the price which had been fixed
by law. And then the stewards of the manors, in
order to check the migration of free labourers as
well as of the serfs, committed in many cases the
crowning injustice of falsifying their service-rolls,
destroying some records and perhaps inventing
others, so that the sons of men who had bought
their freedom with a price found themselves claimed
and held to labour after a life of comparative lib
erty. It is more than probable that the rural classes
were in a worse condition in 1380 than they had
been in 1340.
It is only when we keep in mind these various
predisposing causes, and consider how long and
systematically the English peasant had been pre
pared for his revolt,.that we can appreciate the effect
of the taxation laid upon him in the reign of Richard
II. In an evil hour, in the first year of Richard s
reign, the King s Council determined to raise money
by means of a capitation tax taxa hactenus inau-
dita, as Walsingham describes it which was gradu
ated according to the position and age of the
contributor, down to a minimum of a groat for
every child above the age of sixteen. This first
poll-tax was proposed in 1377 or 1378, and levied in
1379.* It was intensely unpopular, and the amount
* The record of dates is a little confusing ; but it is useful to re
member that a poll-tax in the fourteenth century took longer to col
lect than an income-tax in the nineteenth, so that the whole field of
production might not be covered by the King s officers for a year or
1381] Wyclif s Poor Priests. 279
which it produced was not sufficient to cover the
estimate of the King s advisers. In 1380 they re
peated the levy, making it still more stringent by
lowering the minimum age to fifteen. It was in the
midst of this fatal political blundering that John of
Gaunt, who seems to have been largely responsible
for it, thought it wise, as no doubt it was from his
own point of view, to associate the head of the
English Church with his financial policy. On the
4th of July, 1379, Archbishop Sudbury was nomi
nated to the Chancellorship ; and in accepting this
post the unlucky prelate, who had so faithfully ad
hered to the fortunes of the Duke of Lancaster,
signed his own death-warrant. He held office in
the Parliament which granted the second poll-tax,
and at a subsequent meeting of the King s Coun
cil he had the courage to oppose the suggested
withdrawal of the tax in face of the resistance of the
people. It is clear that he shared with the Duke,
and with Sir Robert Hales, the Treasurer, a burden
of fierce hatred from the exasperated tax-payers.
Hitherto the taxes had been levied on land, on
knight s fees, movables, wool and leather, which
affected the serfs not at all, and the free labourers
very little. Talliage, indeed, had fallen on the
demesne lands as well as on the towns, and this was
virtually a poll-tax ; but it had scarcely touched the
labouring classes. Nevertheless its unpopularity
was so great that it had been finally abolished in the
more after a particular tax had been authorised. We are expressly
told that the tax imposed by Parliament in 1380 was still being col
lected in June, 1381.
280
John Wyclif.
1381
reign of Edward. A poll-tax of universal incidence
had been proposed before 1377, but never actually
levied. The impost in the year 1379 was the first
which had fallen directly upon the poorest classes
in the realm ; and it sufficed to light up the smoulder
ing fire which was only waiting for a wind to puff it
into flame.
CHAPTER XV.
THE HEADLESS REBELLION.
HE true fascination of history,
whether it be the history of
a race or of an individual, of
a national government or of a
moral revolution, is never real
ised until we have made a pro
longed and laborious effort to
reconstruct what time has bur
ied in the dust. When at last,
with patient toil and keen imagination, the student
has succeeded in reaching a point from which it is
possible to see, not the sheer realities, but the
types and tendencies and probabilities of a half-
forgotten age, he begins for the first time to un
derstand the satisfaction of the traveller who has
struck into an unknown land, or of the explorer
who has laid bare the tombs and temples of an
ancient civilisation".
281
282 John Wyclif. H381
If we could penetrate more deeply into the his
torical sources of human action, and trace each
visible effect back through its proper channel to the
centre of its causation, how dazzling would be the
light which would thus be shed on the course of
every national and personal development. How
interesting, for example, it would be if we could
recognise the exact measure of the survival of race
antagonism between the English serf and the feudal
and manorial lords, who had inherited three cen
turies of mutual enmity. How more than interest
ing to mark the descent from the political philosophy
of Greece or it may be only the separate and tran
sitory re-creation of that idea of universal equality
which was the very motive and mainspring of the
Peasants Revolt ! But to pursue such inquiries as
these would be a task out of proportion with the
scope of the present work, much as it might help us
to comprehend the last few years of Wyclif s life.
It would be difficult to say for how long a period
in the reign of Edward III. the serfs had been in a
state of masked revolt. Oppression and over-taxa
tion, callous injustice and blind revenge, grinding
servitude and malignant hate, disorders of a hundred
kinds, robbery and violence on the highways by
men whose demoralisation arose out of resistance
to intolerable wrongs, seditious talk and seditious
plots, clamourings for leaders and abortive attempts
to lead, attacks on the houses of the barons and on
the King s officers, no security for innocence and no
encouragement for loyalty, all the essentials of revolt
short of the massing of the people for concerted
1381] The Headless Rebellion. 283
action these signs and, warnings of revolution had
preceded the death of Edward. But it was the
poll-tax which finally exasperated the common
people, and stung them into open rebellion. No
doubt, as Hollinshed tells us, it was paid "with
great grudging and many a bitter curse."
Early in 1381 the massing began; but even now
it would be idle to speak of concerted action. The
distinguishing marks of this great uprising of the serfs
were its spontaneity throughout the south-eastern
counties, its lack of organisation, and, so far as one
can see, the complete absence of recognised leaders
to whom men could look for guidance and direction.
The seething irresolute mob, so recently inarticulate,
if not absolutely unvocal, had raised its huge limbs
without a brain to control them, and had found a
voice which proclaimed that forced labour and servi
tude of any kind should come to an end in England.
What might not a capable leader have done in that
critical year, with such a host behind him, ready to
carry out his behests? But indeed the thing was
impossible. There was no discipline there had
been no chance of organisation. Possibly a strenu
ous man some English Spartacus with a genius for
command might have pitched his camp on a
Kentish plain, in the neighbourhood of Maidstone
or Canterbury, or even on Blackheath, and there in
the course of a few weeks he might have made an
army out of a mob. But the mere suggestion of
the idea is enough to show its futility : the lapse of
time would have enabled the authorities in London
to make far more effectual preparations.
284 John Wyclif. 1381
The serf, in fact, was better off without a leader,
without genius, without arms or provision of any-
kind. His cause was enough for his need ; the mute
and stolid protest of these swarming thousands of
self-emancipated slaves was all that was necessary
and it was necessary to break their chains. The
slaughter of the lawyers and manor stewards, the
burning of the court-rolls and service-lists, the be
heading of the Archbishop and Treasurer, the
destruction of buildings in London these incidents
of the brief servile war were not sufficient in them
selves to stamp it with the bloody mark of many a
better organised revolution. The true character of
the movement is seen in the perfect, almost childish,
loyalty of the serfs to their King, in the admirable
behaviour of the crowds which quietly dispersed
when he had personally promised them redress, and
in the equally admirable behaviour of the young
monarch so long as he was under the influence of his
mother. The plain significance of these facts was
that the demands of the serfs were natural and
right ; and Richard and his best advisers saw them
to be right.
If only all could have ended there if Wai worth
had never cut down the defenceless spokesman of
the rebels during his colloquy with the King, if
the hangings and quarterings which followed had
been confined to men who were proved guilty of
murder, and if Parliament had held itself pledged to
grant the redress which Richard had promised,
things might have gone better with England for the
next hundred years. As Fuller says in his familiar
1381] The Headless Rebellion. 285
way, " Jack Straw would have been John of Gold
had this treason taken effect." John Ball, Jack
Straw, Wat Tyler, William Grindecobbe, would have
been heroes every one, and the consolidation of
English society would undoubtedly have been
hastened by many years. The treason of the serfs
was practically summed up in their demand for the
abolition of serfdom. The boon was guaranteed
at Mile End, Smithfield, and the Tower, only to
be cancelled (so far as that was possible) when
authority got the upper hand again.
Historians have almost ceased to talk about "the
rebellion of Wat Tyler." The term is quite inade
quate as a descriptive title, and it was only the
accidental meeting of this man with the King and
his retinue in Smithfield which gave his name such
undue prominence. There were, in fact, two or
more Tylers amongst the leaders of the peasants,
and the Tyler of Dartford who avenged his daughter
on the collector of poll-tax was not the same man as
Wat Tyler, or Walter Helyer (either name would be
an easy corruption from the other) whom Walworth
slew. The last mentioned seems to have been an
Essex man, who came to Blackheath by way of Kent,
who acknowledged Ball for his leader, and whose
best known companions were John Straw, John
Kyrkeby, Alan Threder, Thomas Scot, and Ralph
Rugge.
It would be nearer to the truth if we were to speak
of " the rebellion of John Ball." Harpsfield saw fit
to call Wyclif the whetstone of revolt (cos hujus sedi-
tionis). That is a title to which Wyclif can lay but
286 John Wyciif. C1381
little claim, whilst it is very appropriate to Ball.
This Yorkshire priest, who came to live at Colches
ter soon after the year 1360, had been excommuni
cated by Archbishop Islip, and was apparently four
times condemned and imprisoned by Islip and his
successors. Langham wrote to the Dean of Bocking
to denounce " one John Ball, pretending that he is a
priest," who persisted in " preaching manifold errors
and scandals." He called upon the Dean to admon
ish the said Ball, with " other and singular rectors,
vicars, and parochial chaplains who adhered to him."
Ten years after he was once more proceeded against,
this time by Sudbury, and imprisoned in Maid-
stone jail. He was there again in the spring of
1 38 1, when the men of Essex began the universal
strike.
On the occasion of his last committal he is said to
have told the Archbishop, on receiving sentence of
imprisonment, that he would be set free again by
twenty thousand of his friends ; and it would seem
to have been anything but a coincidence that the
men of Kent, when they presently rose at the insti
gation of their brethren in Essex, marched straight
to Maidstone, broke into the Archbishop s prison,
and carried John Ball in triumph to Canterbury.
Sudbury in the meantime had gone to London, where
Ball may have seen him beheaded a few weeks later.
There is no necessity to infer that Sudbury s death
was in anyway due to the personal vengeance of the
man whom he had subjected to ecclesiastical disci
pline ; but all the circumstances constrain one to be
lieve that the Colchester priest had been planning
1381] The Headless Rebellion. 287
the revolt against serfdom for some time past, that
he had determined to take advantage of the exasper
ation produced by the poll-tax, that he had been
arrested and condemned in the midst of his prepara
tions, and that he believed the strike would be begun
by his friends in Essex at the time agreed upon,
notwithstanding his incarceration. This would
account for the course of events during the earlier
days of the rising, and for the special prominence of
Ball at Blackheath, whither he had marched with
the men of Kent, instead of trying to cross the
Thames in order to be with his more intimate asso
ciates who would probably have started for London
before he arrived at Rochester.
The English History of Walsingham fully vouches
for the fact that the first massing, and the signal
to move upon London, were due to personal initia
tion within the county of Essex. The chronicler
says that " the authors and prime movers of this
calamity " were Essex men ; and they may doubtless
be identified with John Ball and his friends. It is
recorded that they sent round to every little home
stead, and commanded all the men, veterans and raw
lads included, to leave their occupations and their
women-folk, to arm themselves in any way they
could, and to assemble without fail at the appointed
places, on pain of death. Accordingly some five
thousand were gathered together, about the time of
the spring ploughing and sowing, " of the lowest
common people and the rustics," armed with sticks,
rusty swords, and scythes ; a few of them (probably
old soldiers who had fought in France) carrying
288 John Wyclif. F1381
worn-out bows many a bowman having but a single
arrow, and many an arrow winged with a single
feather ; and " thus they went forth to conquer a
kingdom." There is a poetical touch in this descrip
tion which warrants us in treating it with some de
gree of qualification. Poor as the organisation must
have been, the forces of " the Commons," as they
delighted to call themselves, were probably better
than the mere riff-raff of the country-side.
The men of Kent, " hearing of this thing which
they had so often prayed for," immediately roused
the whole county, blocked the roads, and, stopping
every traveller, made him swear " That he would
be loyal to King Richard and to the Commons;
that he would have no King of the name of John ;
that he would be ready when sent for to come and
join them ; that he would persuade all his neigh
bours and acquaintance to hold with them ; and that
he would not agree or consent to the raising of any
taxes in the kingdom thenceforth except only the
fifteenths which their fathers and ancestors had
known and agreed to." Then they liberated John
Ball at Maidstone, as already stated, and proceeded
by way of Canterbury and Rochester along the
northern road to London.
The news spread to Sussex, Hertfordshire, Cam
bridgeshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk, and all men s minds
were divided between hope and dread. " Men com
monly said to each other that there would be a
division of the kingdom owing to these occurrences,
and that England would be devastated and de
stroyed." And when the number of the rebels daily
1381] The Headless Rebellion. 289
increased, until they were past counting, and they
no longer feared resistance, they began to show
what they had in their minds. " Every single man
who knew anything about the law of land-holding,
whether clerks or venerable justices, and all the
jurators of the land whom they had any reason to
fear, they slew without compunction, declaring that
the land could never enjoy freedom until these had
been put to death. That kind of talk pleased the
rustics immensely ; and, passing from small things
to greater, they determined to set fire to all the rolls
and ancient records in the court-houses ; so that,
when they had wiped out the memory of the olden
time, their lords would not in future be able to
establish a claim over them." They also took special
care to burn the tax-rolls, on which their assessment
for poll-tax was recorded.
So, for some time, the leaderless mobs hung about
in their several counties, whilst the lords and men
of substance concealed themselves in their dwellings,
or fled to a distance, or paid ransom in one form or
another. Meanwhile " the Kentishmen and the
Essexmen drew together and formed an army, of
about a hundred thousand common people and rus
tics." That is all that Walsingham can tell us of
the creation of the first army which marched on
London by way of Blackheath. It is probable, how
ever, that Blackheath was simply the common ren
dezvous for the south-eastern counties, whilst the
men of the eastern counties met at Mile End. The
Essex men would naturally make direct for the
eastern gate of the city, though some of them may
290 John Wyclif.
have been drawn to Blackheath in order to meet John
Ball. One of Ball s lieutenants, Jack Straw, seems to
have crossed the Thames at an earlier date, with a few
companions, for the purpose of rousing the southern
shire and opening the gates of Maidstone jail.
On Blackheath there was a more or less orderly
muster. Wat Tyler, who had served in France, was
at the head of this contingent, and seems to have
kept it well in hand whilst the fiery priest from
Essex harangued and inflamed it. Commissioners
from the King came to hear the demands of the
peasants, and they were sent back with fair treat
ment and a moderate request from the leaders that
they might have speech with their monarch. In the
Council to which this message was reported Sudbury
made the fatal mistake, in which he was supported
by the Treasurer Sir Robert Hales, prior of the
Hospital of St. John, of urging that the King should
not receive the representatives of the rebels.
The story of the next few days need not be re
peated here in detail ; but so far as the spirit of the
movement can be gathered from the words and acts
of John Ball who must certainly be classed as a
Lollard, whether he was a professed disciple of
Wyclif or not it is worth while to take note of the
general course of events.
The famous speech of Ball on Blackheath has
been cited by the chroniclers and others as a dis
tinct encouragement to violence and bloodshed. The
simple question is whether we are to accept the
testimony of his enemies, written down at the time
when passion ran high, and by men who considered
1381] Tke Headless Rebellion. 291
him one of the worst and most dangerous culprits.
At Blackheath, the chronicler tells us, there were
two hundred thousand of the people gathered to
gether, and the excommunicated priest improvised
a pulpit and preached to as many as could hear him
on the standing text of communism in all ages
" When Adam dalf, and Eve span,
Who was then a gentleman ? "
For all, said he, were made equal by nature from the
beginning. Servitude was brought in by the unjust
oppression of wicked men, against the will of God.
If God had pleased to create slaves, he could have
settled from the very beginning of the world who
was to be a slave and who a master. Now let them
remember that at last an opportunity had been given
them by God to throw off the yoke of daily servi
tude. The time had come for them to enjoy, if they
would make up their minds, the liberty for which
they had craved so long. " Be stout of heart," he
said, " and, with the zeal of a good husbandman who
tills his farm, rooting up and cutting down the
noxious weeds which choke the crops, set to work
now and do the same thing yourselves. First of all,
you must kill off the great lords of England ; then
the lawyers,* the justiciaries, and jurators must be
put an end to ; and last of all, cast out of your land
all whom you think likely to hurt the Commons here
after. In this way you will be able to obtain peace
* So in Shakspeare s Henry VI., Part 2, Dick the Butcher says
to Cade : " The first thing we do, let s kill all the lawyers."
292 John Wyclif. [1381
for yourselves and safety for the future. When all
the great men are carried off, there will be equal lib
erty for all. Everyone shall be a noble, no one shall
have greater dignity than another, and the power of
all shall be the same."
If John Ball had been an agitator in the present
century, and this account of his speech had been
put into circulation by his enemies, he would have
been able to write to the newspapers and challenge
its accuracy or its veracity. As it was, he had no
opportunity of checking the reports which were
given of his sermons and speeches. If such oppor
tunity had been allowed him in the Archbishop s
court, he had learnt too surely that his levelling
theories were opposed to the political and religious
orthodoxies of his day, and that the more logically
and even moderately they were put, the more in
sidious and dangerous they would appear. In that
sense the " mad priest " was hopelessly out of court,
born before his time, and (according to the ideas of
his day) rightfully condemned. But it is only fair
to him to say that there is no trustworthy evidence
that he incited any man to slaughter, or that he in
tended the march on London to be anything more
than an overwhelming demonstration of the popular
grievances, which (he fondly thought) was to secure
the triumph of right without striking a blow. That
the mobs in many instances broke from the control
of their leaders is perfectly true ; and it is equally
true that the leaders did what they could to restrain
the violent. Thus when Lancaster s palace at the
Savoy, which had narrowly escaped four years before,
13811 The Headless Rebellion. 293
was set on fire, the peasants seized a pillager who was
making off with his booty and flung him into the
blazing pile. " We have no mind to be thieves,"
they are reported to have said. Hate was far stronger
in their breasts than greed. It is recorded that
they pounded the Duke s jewels in mortars, trampled
on his cloth of gold and embroidered silks, smashed
the gold and silver plate, the spoils of many a hard
fight, and hurled them into the Thames.
The Duke himself at this time was at the head of
his troops in Scotland, and it is therefore inexact to
say that he had fled before the storm. The facts
connected with the death of Archbishop Sudbury
and the Treasurer Hales are by no means clear ;
but the beheading on Tower Hill may be supposed
to have been intended as an assertion by the
" sovereign people" of its right to execute summary
justice.
In the wallet of one of the Essex men, who
suffered for his part in the great disturbance, a letter
was found which was manifestly the composition of
John Ball.
" John Schep, som tyme Seynt Marie prest of
Yorke, and nowe of Colchestre, greteth welle Johan
Nameles, and Johan the Mullere, and Johan Cartere,
and biddeth hem that thei ware of gyle in borugh.
And stondeth togiddir in Goddis name, and biddeth
Peres Ploughman go to his werke, and chastise
Hobbe the robber, and taketh with you Johan Trew-
man, and alle his felaws, and no mo, and loke scharpe
you to on heved and no mo [obey one head and no
more].
294 John Wyclif.
" Johan the Muller hath ygrownde smal, smal, smal ;
The Kyngis sone of hevene shall pay for alle.
Be ware or ye be wo,
Knoweth your frende fro youre foo,
Haveth ynowe, and scythe Hoo :
And do welle and bettre, and fleth synne,
And seketh pees, and holde therynne.
And so biddeth Johan Trewman, and alle his felawes."
It may be said that in bidding Piers Ploughman
to chastise Hobbe the robber, Ball was inciting to
violence and even to bloodshed. But clearly the
prevailing note of the significant document above
quoted is one of peace and moderation of course
pre-supposing the intention to march on London and
demand redress. The comparative elevation and
morality of this and other appeals from the dema
gogue priest, which must have circulated in great
numbers for some time before the outbreak, have
been recognised in every generation. Ball did not
always disguise his name. Here is one of his missives.
"John Ball greeteth you all,
And doth for to understand he hath rung your bell.
Now right and might,
Will and skill,
God speed every dele."
And another :
" Help truth, and truth shall help you.
Now reigneth pride in price,
And covetise is counted wise,
And lechery withouten shame,
And gluttony withouten blame.
Envy reigneth with treason,
And sloth is take in great season.
God do bote, for now is tyme."
1381] The Headless Rebellion. 295
Jack Miller, Jack Carter, Piers Ploughman, John
Trewman, appear again and again in these moving
appeals ; and perhaps some of them, if not all, stood
for the names of men who were familiar in the coun
try-side. The parable of the mill was manifestly a
favourite one amongst the rebels.
"Jack Miller asketh help to turn his mill aright.
He hath grounden small, small ;
The king s son of heaven he shall pay for all.
Look thy mill go aright with the four sails, and the post
stand with steadfastness.
With right and with might,
With skill and with will ;
Let might help right,
And skill go before will,
And right before might,
So goeth our mill aright."
Unfortunately for the peasants, or at any rate for
the victims on whom the worst of the vengeance
was to fall, they could not or did not follow the ad
vice of John Schep on all points. They did not
stand together ; guile overtook them in the borough,
and they could not tell their friends from their foes.
The vast majority of them unquestionably " sought
peace and held therein," but the few who became
violent and the turbulent citizens were perhaps
more responsible for the violence than the rustics
themselves gave some sort of warrant for the re
pudiation of the terms which had been granted by
Richard, and on the faith of which so many thou
sands of the serfs had gone quietly home.
There are but slight traces of generosity in the
treatment of the peasants when all danger was at
296 John Wyclif. [1381
an end, and authority had renewed its sway. The
strong course would have been to confirm the am
nesty and the emancipation, to compensate those
who had suffered from mob violence, to keep the
word of the King, and to maintain the supremacy
and impartiality of the law. Richard s Council
acted fairly enough in suggesting to Parliament that
the serfs should have their liberty. The land-owners
would not listen to it, wrongly supposing that things
could be put back on their old footing, and urging
that the King had no right to take away their chat
tels without their consent which, said they, " we
have never given, and never will give, if we were all
to die on the same day." That was at the beginning
of the autumn session of 1381 ; and though many
members came up prepared to think more of redress
than of vengeance, the majority were bent on a
policy of stern repression. It was determined that
the promises extorted from the King by force were
not binding, and ought not to be kept. Amongst
these promises were a large number of individual
manumissions, and some half-dozen charters of
emancipation and pardon to the serfs of different
counties, drawn up in the following terms :
" Richard by the grace of God King of England
and France, and Lord of Ireland, to all his stewards
and trusty servants to whom this present letter may
come, greeting. Know ye that by our special grace
we have manumitted all our lieges and bondmen of
the county of , and we have freed them from all
bondage, themselves and each of them, and do sat
isfy them by these presents ; and moreover we
13811 The Headless Rebellion. 297
pardon the same our lieges and bondmen all their
felonies, betrayals, transgressions and extortions of
whatsoever kind, committed or perpetrated by them
selves or others, as well as any outlawry, if any such
shall have been pronounced against them, or any of
them, in consequence of these events ; and further
more we grant them, and each of them, absolute
peace. In testimony whereof we have caused these
our letters patent to be drawn up. As witness our
hand, at London, on the fifteenth day of June, in
the fourth year of our reign."
It was on the faith of these charters that the men
of Essex, Hertford, and other counties left London
without striking a blow. Some at least of the
King s promises were made of his own accord, when
he bravely faced the seething crowds, before there
had been any violence in the streets. At no time
was he himself in duress or danger; and to contend
that he ought not to keep terms with his subjects,
when it would have been a point of honour to do so
with a foreign enemy, was no more reasonable than
it was to urge that a Plantagenet King in the later
feudal age was not entitled to insist on the emanci
pation of the serfs.
The King s attendants and the City authorities*
who had lost their nerve in presence of the immense
crowds of rustics, seem to have taken heart again as
soon as they had seen the dead body of Tyler, and
the last contingent of the rebels had disappeared
from the capital. The worst was over; henceforth
the marshal could answer at any rate for the streets
of London ; and, if there were to be further troubles
298 John Wyclif. 38l
in the counties, they could be dealt with in detail
by the royal forces. It must have been patent to
everybody that the strength of the rebellion was
broken ; and no man would see this more plainly
than John Ball, who knew his countrymen so thor
oughly. Even if he had faith to believe that the
serfs had not struck their blow for freedom utterly
in vain, he must have felt that he and his immediate
friends had nothing to expect from the clemency of
their enemies. He fled without delay to his native
town of Coventry, and after a few days, probably
recognised and betrayed by some one who knew
him, the " mad priest " was captured in an old ruin
so Froissart tells us and taken before the King at
St. Albans. The unfortunate man had a short shrift ;
he was condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quar
tered, and the sentence was carried out in Richard s
presence on the i$th of July.
CHAPTER XVI.
COURTENAY S TRIUMPH.
PON Wyclif and his friends the
effects of the Peasants Re
volt could not fail to be
very disastrous. The King s
Council was not satisfied with
the vengeance which it had
executed throughout the dis
turbed districts, with violat
ing the young King s pledges,
annulling the manumissions and indemnities granted
to the serfs, and attempting to rivet their chains
more securely than ever. It determined to curb
the spirit of Wyclif and his Poor Priests, believ
ing or feigning to believe that they were in part
responsible for the outbreak. In most of these
measures it required the assistance of Parliament, and
it might have been thought that reaction in the
country, added to the influence of the King s uncles
and principal officers, would have ensured the elec-
299
300 John Wyclif.
tion of a series of Parliaments more than ready to
acquiesce in legislation of a reactionary character.
But it was not so. The Lords were amenable, and
in some particulars they took the lead in a policy of
vengeance or panic ; but when in 1382 the bishops
and barons voted that Wyclif s Priests should be
silenced and suppressed, the Commons disagreed
with the ordinance, which never became a statute.
Three years later another House of Commons rose
to the heroic level of voting the appropriation of the
Church endowments to secular uses. The Lords
promptly refused their co-operation ; but the action
of the more representative House showed that some
at least of the new doctrines were firmly rooted in
English soil.
Courtenay became Primate of England after the
death of Sudbury, and a few days later he was cre
ated Chancellor. He preached to the two Houses
in English ; and if by any chance he thought it timely
to enlarge upon the virtues of fidelity and good
faith, it may easily be imagined that the Lords and
Commons would listen to him at that moment with
very little patience, for the mood of forgiveness was
not upon them. Parliament met, and Courtenay
preached his sermon, on the 9th of November, 1381 ;
nine days later he resigned the great seal. It is at
any rate not improbable that he did this through
lack of stomach for the work of undoing all the
King s pledges voluntary and spontaneous, as well
as forced and of sanctioning the continued severities
of Tressilian and the other justiciaries. According
to one account, an actual petition of Parliament
13821 Courtenay s Triumph. 301
for a new Chancellor compelled Courtenay s retire
ment. It was not until the following January, on
the marriage of the King to Anne of Bohemia,
that the beheadings and burnings and disembowel-
lings ceased, and the seven thousand victims were
held to have paid the debt of revolt.
But it was necessary that Wyclif also should suffer
for the suspicions which had fallen upon him. He
was accused of having contributed to bring about
the disorders, and there would naturally be a preju
dice against him in the minds of some who had
hitherto favoured his cause. In the spring of 1382
Courtenay was directed by Parliament to inquire
into the doctrines of the Rector of Lutterworth, on
the express ground that he and his preachers had
disturbed the peace of the realm. It is doubtful
how far this mandate proceeded from a majority in
both Houses ; and, considering that the Commons
soon afterwards refused to agree to the suppression of
the Poor Priests when this had been proposed by the
bishops and barons, it seems unlikely that the popular
representatives should have ordered the proceedings
against Wyclif in a message which so entirely pre
judged his case. We can easily imagine what argu
ments the primate would employ to convince the
Lords of the wisdom and necessity of a prosecution.
When John Ball had been condemned to death
Courtenay had obtained for him a respite of two
days, during which he had wrestled with the " mad
priest " for his soul ; and he may have been able to
assure his colleagues in perfect good faith that he
had traced out all the ramifications of the doctrine
302 John Wyclif. N381-
which began in the schools and the Latin treatise,
and ended in revolt against the government and the
assassination of the chief ministers of the Crown.
However this may have been, Courtenay lost no
time in proceeding once more against the redoubtable
Oxford professor, and with a better assurance of suc
cess than on either of the former occasions when he
had set the machinery of the Church in motion.
He had no longer much to fear, if anything, from
John of Gaunt, who had cooled very considerably
towards Wyclif and his friends, even before the
terrible scare which the peasants had given him a
year ago. Poor Sudbury, too, the mild and irresolute,
had gone to his account, and there was no power in
the land which was able, or disposed, to interfere
with the exercise of his authority.
As soon as the session was over he summoned a
Synod of the English Church to meet him, on the
2 ist of May, in the priory of the Dominicans in
Holborn (" apud Pradicatores "}. There were
present in this assembly ten bishops, including
Courtenay himself, Robert of London, William of
Winchester, John of Lincoln, Thomas of Exeter,
John of Durham, John of Hereford, Ralph of Salis
bury, Thomas of Rochester, and William Botelle-
sham of Nantes the latter being an old friar. The
doctors of theology in addition to these were four
Carmelites Glamvile and Dysse of Cambridge,
Lovey and Kynyngham of Oxford ; three Domini
cans Sywarde and Langeley of Oxford, and Parys
of Cambridge ; four Augustinians Ascheburn and
Bankin of Oxford, Hormenton of Cambridge, and
[13821 Courtenays Triumph. 303
Waldeby of Toulouse ; four Franciscans Karlelle and
Bernewell of Oxford, Folvyle and Frysby of Cam
bridge ; and the Benedictine monk John Wells of
Ramsey. There were also eleven doctors of law, two
bachelors of law, and seven bachelors of theology,
including Bloxham, custos of Merton, Humbleton
and two other Dominicans, two Carmelites, and a
Franciscan.
This was not the full number summoned by
Courtenay. Rygge, the Chancellor of Oxford, was
not present, nor did Wyclif himself put in an ap
pearance, being very possibly out of health. Dr.
James asserts in his Apology that Wyclif " volun
tarily absented himself, because he knew that the
bishops had plotted his death by the way, devising
the means and encouraging men thereunto." This
is not at all likely, though the suspicion may have
been entertained. It is more than probable that
the Reformer s friends dissuaded him from going to
London, through fear that his death might follow
on his condemnation. It would be impossible, in
the light of subsequent events, to admit that such
fears were groundless. Or it may have been that
Wyclif had good cause to know that he would at
least be arrested if he left Oxford in 1382. Parlia
ment as well as the bishops was now against him, and
for the moment Oxford was perhaps the only place
in the country where he could be free from the dan
ger of arrest. In his absence the Synod discussed
the conclusions which had been attributed to him,
and condemned ten of them as distinct heresies and
fourteen more as erroneous.
304 John Wyclif. [1381
Whilst the discussion was proceeding, the hall in
which the Council sat was shaken by an earthquake.
It may well be supposed that Wyclif s friends
if there were any present, which seems doubtful
would claim this portent as a sign from Heaven in
his favour ; and even the most orthodox of the clergy
must have been startled and perturbed. One can
not but admire the splendid courage of Courtenay,
who instantly turned the shock to good account ;
for, he said, as the earth expelled its ill humours
with so much vehemence and convulsion, they ought
to take it as a happy omen for the expulsion of ill
humours from the Church of Christ.
The Synod was then adjourned until the I2th of
June, at the same time and place ; and in the mean
time the Primate took measures to make an impres
sion on the obstinate spirits at Oxford, who under
Chancellor Rygge still remained loyal to their friend.
On the 28th of May Courtenay sent his missive to
Peter Stokys, a friar of the Carmelite Order, and a
" professor of the sacred page." The prelates of the
Church, he said, owed it to the lambs to warn them
against wolves in sheep s clothing. There were cer
tain "sons of eternal damnation" who, under a
cloak of great sanctity," claimed authority to preach
in spite of prohibition a number of heretical, erro
neous, and false conclusions, already condemned by
the Church, and contrary to decisions of the ecclesi
astical authorities, " which threaten to overturn the
Church and the peace of the nation." These men
are not afraid to assert and publicly teach the errors
in question, " not only in the churches but also in
11382] Courtenays Triumph. 305
the open squares and other unconsecrated places
within our province of Canterbury." Therefore the
Archbishop had called together a number of doctors
of theology and professors of the canon and civil
law, with other clerics of repute, that they might
give an opinion thereon. By them it was found and
declared that of the said conclusions some were
heretical, whilst others were erroneous and contrary
to decisions of the Church.
The Archbishop therefore commands Friar Peter
to warn and inhibit any who preach or defend such
doctrine, of whatever state or condition they may be,
in the University of Oxford, in the schools or out
side, in public or in private, and any who shall listen
to those who preach it, or shall favour or consort with
them in public or in private. They are to be fled
from and avoided like a snake emitting deadly poison,
under penalty of the greater excommunication.
To this missive the Primate added a list of the
heresies and errors which had been condemned by
the Synod of Blackfriars namely, ten heresies and
fourteen erroneous conclusions. The heresies are as
follows :
" i. That the material substances of bread and
wine continue after consecration in the sacrament
of the altar.
" 2. The bread and wine do not remain in the
same sacrament sine subjecto (as accidents without
substance).
" 3. Christ is not in the sacrament of the altar
identically, truly, and really in his proper corporeal
personality.
306 John Wyclif. [1381
"4. If a bishop or a priest is in mortal sin, he does
not ordain, consecrate, or baptize.
" 5. If a man is in a fit condition of soul, external
confession is superfluous and even invalid for him.
" 6. There is no authority in the Gospel for de
claring that Christ ordained the mass.
" 7. God is constrained to give place to the devil.
" 8. If the Pope is a reprobate and wicked man,
and consequently a member of the devil, he has no
power over Christ s faithful people assigned to him
by anyone, unless it be by Caesar (that is, temporal).
" 9. After Urban VI. no one else ought to be
elected as Pope, but we ought to live in the manner
of the Greeks, under our own laws.
" 10. It is contrary to Holy Scripture for ecclesias
tics to hold temporal possessions."
At the same time that he wrote to Peter Stokys,
the Archbishop sent a letter to Chancellor Rygge,
expressing his surprise at the favour which had
been shown by him to Master Nicholas Hereford
who had just been appointed to preach before
the University exhorting him thenceforth to amend
his ways, lest he should himself appear to be one of
the heretical sect, and it should be " our duty
thereon to exercise our authority against you." And
the Chancellor is enjoined to assist Stokys in giving
publicity to the Archbishop s denunciation.
Courtenay was grimly in earnest : but he had
some trouble yet before he could make his will pre
vail. After receiving his letter, Dr. Rygge appointed
Repyngdon, another Wycliffite, to preach before the
University. It is evident that he was only in-
13821 Courtenay s Triumph. 307
terpreting the spirit of Oxford, so far as the aca
demic element was concerned. The Lollards, as
they now began to be generally called, were in fa
vour ; the University men would not hear them ill
spoken of, and applauded those who did them honour.
Rygge gave Stokys no active assistance, and the
Carmelite wrote to Courtenay saying that he dare
not carry out his behests for fear of death. The
defiance was open and aggressive. Not only did
Repyngdon call the men who had been condemned
by Courtenay holy priests, and contrast their mor
ality with the abuses which were rife amongst the
wealthier clergy, but when Stokys came into the
schools and prepared to inhibit him in the name of
the Archbishop, the scholars drew their arms and
threatened his life. Then he hurried back to Lon
don, leaving the Wycliffites masters of the field.
Courtenay, naturally enraged at this resistance to
his authority, sent such an urgent summons to the
Chancellor, calling upon him to attend the ad
journed meeting of the Synod on June I2th, that
Rygge did not venture to disobey.
By way of celebrating the long-desired condemna
tion of the teaching of Wyclif which was completed
at the first sitting of the Synod and possibly at the
same time commemorating the irruption of the
peasants and the murder of Sudbury, the bishops
and clergy determined upon a grand open-air pro
cession on Whitsunday. The people of London
were already keen for a pageant of any kind, and
they gathered together in crowds to see the priests
and devout laymen marching barefoot through the
308 John Wyclif. [1381-
city and suburbs, chaunting the litany and peniten
tial psalms. After the procession John Kynyngham,
the Carmelite Friar (who is said to have been John
of Gaunt s confessor, though he certainly had no
sympathy with the Duke s admiration for Wyclif
against whose Latin treatise De Esse he had argued
long and drily twenty years ago), preached a sermon
before his brethren of the Synod, and publicly re
peated their condemnation of the Oxford heresies.
He pointed the moral of the great act of expiation
which had just been performed for the violated
sanctity of the mass ; and, if the reports of his friends
are to be believed, he effected at least one note
worthy conversion. A certain Cornelius Clonne, an
old soldier and a Lollard, was turned from the error
of his ways ; and so strongly was he affected by the
exposure of Wyclif s blasphemies that on the follow
ing day, whilst attending mass in the church of the
Black Friars, he saw with his own eyes .
Perhaps there is no need to repeat exactly what he
saw ; but it was a conclusive argument against both
Wyclif and the orthodox clergy ; for, if it was not
material bread and wine, it was just as little the acci
dents of the consecrated host without a subject.
On the 1 2th of June the Synod met again in Hoi-
born ; and there were present, in addition to many
of those who had met in May, Robert Rygge,
Laundreyn and Brygtwell, Peter Stokys and Henry
Crompe, Radeclyff, Sutbraye, the monk of St.
Alban s, Bromyerde, a Black friar from Cambridge,
with two other doctors of law and two bachelors of
theology. Stokys would now be able to repeat the
1382] Courtenay s Triumph. 309
story of his treatment at Oxford ; but it was not
until the next meeting that Crompe was in a posi
tion to relate how he had been suspended by the
masters for speaking of Wyclif and his followers as
heretics. The most striking feature of this second
sitting was the humble submission of the Chancellor,
who is said to have gone on his knees to the Arch
bishop, and accepted the discipline of Holy Church.
His forgiveness was made conditional on his assist
ing, to extirpate the condemned doctrine from the
University ; but when the Primate gave him the pro
clamation, which denounced Hereford, Repyngdon,
John Aston, and Laurence Bedenham, suspending
them from their functions, he protested that it
would cost him his life to enforce it.
"Then," said Courtenay, "your University is an
open fautor of heretics, if it suffers not the truth to
be proclaimed within its limits."
Rygge went back to Oxford, and doubtless made
his friends acquainted with the decision of the Arch
bishop; but he certainly took no action against
them. He had, it seems most probable, been elected
this year as the champion of the Wycliffite party,
and could not have retained the chancellorship if he
had turned round on his supporters.
Courtenay meanwhile had brought other influences
to bear upon the Lollards. Parliament (at any rate
the Lords and the King s Council) gave him the
assistance which they had promised. The Duke of
Lancaster made the Wycliffites understand that they
would receive no further help from him ; and in all
probability Wyclif himself was ill at this moment.
3io John Wyclif.
Bedenham is not mentioned as having appeared
before the Synod, but the other three who had
been suspended now thought it prudent, or were
constrained, to answer the citation of the Primate.
The third sitting had been fixed for June I4th.
Hereford, Aston, and Repyngdon put in an appear
ance, but refused to make the recantation which
Courtenay demanded. He gave them a short
respite, and appointed a fourth meeting for June
2Oth. In the interval Aston himself one of the Poor
Priests against whom the tide had turned so strongly
drew up a manifesto for his friends outside, in
which he boldly re-stated his conclusions. The
result was that when the Synod met again he was
formally condemned as a heretic. But once more
the haughty prelate four years after the memor
able trial at Lambeth was interrupted by an incur
sion of Londoners, who had been moved byAston s
appeal, and could not restrain themselves when they
heard that he had been condemned. They might
indeed have been headed by the same worthy draper,
John of Northampton, who came to the help of
Wyclif in the Archbishop s chapel, for he was still
a warm sympathiser with the Lollards, and had
not yet risen to the dignity of the mayoralty.
Courtenay gave Hereford and Repyngdon another
eight days in which to make submission, afterwards
postponing the date to the 1st of July; and, as
he had no mind to be interfered with in the dis
charge of his duty by the obstreperous citizens, he
changed the place of meeting on this occasion to
Canterbury. There were six new doctors at the
1382] Courtenays Triumph. 3 1 1
fifth and final sitting of the Synod, including Wil
liam Berton, who had already pronounced against
Wyclif at Oxford.
Neither Hereford nor Repyngdon put in an ap
pearance at Canterbury, and they were both con
demned in their absence. From the final record of
the Synod it appeared that Courtenay had collected
seventy-three signatures to the formal condemnation
of Wyclif s conclusions.
One of the most entertaining of the songs, Latin
or English, bearing upon the events of this period,
which have been preserved in the Cotton manu
scripts, and printed by Mr. Wright in the Rolls
Series, deals with the Council of 1382. It refers
to the plague, the Peasants Revolt, and the earth
quake, as well as to sundry characters in the drama
of Wyclif s life with whom the reader is already
acquainted. It may perhaps be a pardonable licence
to quote three or four of the more pertinent stanzas
of this Wycliffite poem.
" Armacam quern caslo Dominus coronavit,
Discordes tantomodo fratres adunavit ;
Sed magno miraculo Wyclif coruscavit,
Cum fratres et monachos simul collocavit.
With an O and an I, consortes effecti,
Quovis adversario dicunt, sunt protecti.
" Tune primus determinans est Johannes Wellis,
Istos viros reprobans cum vcrbis tencllis,
Multum conversatus est ventis et procellis ;
Hinc in ejus facie patet color fellis.
With an O and an I, in scholis non prodest,
Imago faciei monstrat qualis hie est.
312 John Wyclif. [1381-
" Hie promisit in scholis quod vellet probare
Wyclif et Herford simul dictis repugnare ;
Sed cum hie nescierat plus argumentare,
Nichol solvens omnia jussit Bayard stare.
With an O and an I, Wellis replicabat ;
Sed postquam Nichol solverat, tune Johannes stabat.
" Tune accessit alius, Stokis nominatus,
Rufus naturaliter, et veste dealbatus,
Omnibus impatiens, et nimis elatus,
Et contra veridicos dirigens conatus.
With an O and an I, sub tarn rubra pelle
Animus non habitat nisi unctus felle."
The entry made in the Archbishop s register by
Courtenay s direction, relating to the condemnation
of Wyclif in 1382, is printed by Wilkins in his
Councils of Great Britain. It is of course set forth
in Latin, and is to the following effect.
" Whereas it was matter of common repute
amongst the nobles and the people of England that
certain heretical conclusions, and some which were
erroneous, and contrary to decisions of the Church,
which aim at overthrowing the entire Church, and
our province of Canterbury, and the peace of the
realm, had been generally, commonly, and publicly
professed in various places within our said province ;
we, William, by Divine permission Archbishop of
Canterbury, Primate of all England, and legate of
the Apostolic See, having taken cognisance of these
matters, and being minded to exercise the functions
of our office, called together certain venerable
brethren, our suffragans and others, and many
doctors of the sacred page, of the canon and civil
1382] Courtenays Triumph. 313
law, and bachelors, all of whom we believed to be
the most reputed and able of the realm, and most
devout in maintaining the Catholic faith, whose
names are included below. And on the /th day of
May, A. D. 1382, in a chamber within the confines
of the priory of the Preaching Friars of London,
under our presidency, when our aforesaid brethren
had been called together and were in personal at
tendance, the conclusions already mentioned, the
tenor of which is given below, were openly stated
and read in a clear and distinct voice ; and we charged
our aforesaid brethren, and the doctors and bache
lors, by the faith whereby they were bound to our
Lord Jesus Christ, and as they expected to answer
at the day of judgment before the Supreme Judge,
that they all and each should declare to us their
opinion concerning the said conclusions.
" And finally, when a discussion had been held
thereon, on the 2ist day of the same month, our
said brethren with the doctors and bachelors appear
ing before us in the same chamber, and the said
conclusions having been read out a second time and
plainly expounded, when we and all who were pres
ent had expressed our opinion, it was declared
that of the said conclusions some were heretical, and
others erroneous, and contrary to the decisions of
the Church, as more clearly appears below. And
whereas we have discovered, on sufficient informa
tion, that the said conclusions have been taught in
many places within our province as aforementioned,
and that particular persons have held and taught
some of them, and that they have been strongly
John Wyclif. [1381-
and notoriously suspected of heresy, we have
taken the following proceedings both general and
particular."
Long entries follow in the same register, detailing
the inquiries held by Courtenay at the other sittings,
as already recorded. But as they give us little or
nothing in the shape of question and answer, and
baldly recite the opinions and acts of the Archbishop
himself, they are hardly worth the space which their
transcription would occupy.
Courtenay had struck a shrewd blow at what he
naturally considered a pestilent and fatal heresy ;
and perhaps there was not another bishop on the
bench who would have done it half so thoroughly.
But if he flattered himself that his end was gained
when Wyclif had been declared a heretic, and his
principal supporters had been excommunicated, he
would soon be undeceived on that point. The
probability is that he knew the strength of Lollardy
too well to suppose that it had been absolutely
crushed by his Synod, or that either pope or bishop
or monk would be strong enough to stem and to
turn the advancing tide of rationalism in matters of
doctrine. None the less did he fight a strong and
resolute battle for the faith as he conceived it. He
fought, moreover, so far as one can see, fairly and
aboveboard, taking no mean advantage, giving
plenty of notice and warning, as ready to remove
his censures as to impose them, whenever a rebel
against the authority of the Church submitted him
self to her maternal discipline. No one could be
more unyielding, more stern and arbitrary in the
1382] Courtenays Triumph. 315
face of defiant opposition. No one, if his acts have
been read aright, could be more magnanimous
in victory.
In Wyclif, if in Wyclif only, he found a will and a
resolution to match his own. Wyclif never yielded
to him nor to Parliament, nor to King, nor to Pope.
There is one thing stronger than the strongest au
thority that was ever set up, and that is the spirit of
revolt against wrong based upon an overwhelming
conviction of truth. Wyclif had such a conviction,
and nothing on earth could shake him.
" Justum ac tenacem propositi virum
Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinae."
And assuredly Wyclif had suffered and was yet to
suffer more than enough to convulse a stronger man.
His life had been a perpetual struggle, and within
the last seven or eight years he was never free from
keen antagonism. The friars and monks had poured
the vials of their wrath upon him. One Pope had
launched five bulls against him, and another was
already being urged to summon him to Rome. The
Primate and nine bishops had solemnly denounced
him as a heretic. The Chancellor of his beloved Uni
versity had condemned him in the open schools, and
forbidden him to teach what he believed to be true.
He had passed through dark clouds of suspicion ;
the mother and the uncle of the King had ceased to
defend him ; Parliament, which used to ask for and
follow his advice, had arraigned him as a disturber of
the public peace. His most formidable enemy, at
316 John Wyclif. H381-
the head of the English Church, had smitten his
friends, hip and thigh, until they were either dis
persed or beginning to fail in the hour of persecu
tion ; and now the hand of God was upon him, and
he must have felt in 1382 that his days on earth were
numbered. "All thy storms have gone over me," he
might have said ; " I am feeble and sore smitten ; mine
enemies close me in on every side." Who could have
wondered if he had faltered in the end of his life, if
he had shown one moment s weakness, or compro
mised himself by one impatient word ? But he did
nothing of this kind. He stands out to the last, amid
the storm and stress of persecution, as firm as the
cliff in Teesdale from which he took his name.
Wyclif addressed an independent petition to Par
liament, on May 6, 1382, urging the authorities of the
realm to support the simple faith of Christ, indepen
dently of the errors by which it has been overlaid. As
to the form of this petition there is not a little un
certainty, for whilst some manuscripts have preserved
a long " Complainte to King and Parliament " in
English, consisting of four main clauses amply ex
pounded, Walsingham briefly recapitulates seven
points, which do not correspond with the English
document. Walsingham s " seven interpretations "
are as follows :
i. Neither the King nor the nation ought to yield
to any external see or prelate. 2. The money of the
realm ought not to be sent out of the country, to
Rome, to Avignon, or elsewhere. 3. Neither cardi
nal nor any other man ought to take the revenue of a
church or prebend in England unless he duly resides
13621 Courtenays Triumph. 317
there. 4. The King and his realm are bound to over
throw those who betray the realm. 5. The Com
mons of the realm ought not to be burdened by un
accustomed taxes, until the patrimony which has been
given to the clergy has been exhausted. 6. If any
bishop or beneficed curate has notoriously fallen into
contempt of God, the King not only may but is
bound to take away his temporal goods [entrusted
to him by the Church]. 7. The King ought not to
set a bishop or a curate in any secular office.
There is evidently not much in these propositions,
unless it be in the fifth, which would make them par
ticularly appropriate as coming from Wyclif at that
crisis ; and they had all been maintained, and in great
measure admitted, by King, Parliament, and people,
several years before. But the " Complainte " is a
dignified and carefully considered paper, and might
well have been presented to "our most noble and
most worthi King Richard, kyng both of Englond
and of Fraunce, and to the noble Duk of Lancastre,
and to othere grete men of the rewme, bothe to sec-
ulers and men of holi Churche, that ben gaderid in
the Parlement." The first point in this petition is
that the rule of Christ is perfect and sufficient, with
out any other ; that the clean religion of Christ was
followed by the apostles, but it has been overlaid by
monks and friars. If their rules agree with that of
Christ, they should be known by Christ s name, not
by that of Francis or Dominic. Therefore it is peti
tioned "that alle persones of what kynne privat
sectis, or singular religioun, maad of sinful men, may
freely, withouten eny lettinge or bodily peyne, leve
318 John Wyclif. [1381-
that privat reule or neue religion founded of sinful
men, and stably holde the reule of Jesus Crist."
The second demand is that all who have denied the
power of the King to deal with the temporalities of
the Church should be condemned. The third is that
tithes and offerings should be taken away or withheld
from clergy of immoral life.
"Ah, Lord God," Wyclif writes on this point,
" is it reason to constrain the poor people to provide
a worldly priest, however unworthy of life and of
knowledge, in pomp and pride, covetise and envy,
gluttony and drunkenness and lechery, in simony
and heresy, with fat horse and jolly and gay sad
dles, and bridles ringing by the roadside, and him
self with costly clothes and pelure, and to suffer
their wives and children, and their poor neighbours,
to perish for hunger, thirst, cold, and other mis
chiefs of the world ? Ah, Lord Jesus Christ ! since
within few years men paid their tithes and offerings
at their own will free, to good men and able, for the
worship of God and the profit of Holy Church
fighting on earth, must a worldly priest destroy this
holy and approved custom, constraining men to
abandon this freedom, and turning tithes and offer
ings into wicked uses ! "
The fourth point in the petition and it was prob
ably for this in chief that Wyclif wrote and pre
sented it raises the special question of the sacrament,
on which the Reformer had but recently declared
himself, and which his enemies had magnified into
the rankest and most unforgiveable of all his
heresies. Let us return once more to Wyclif s
1382] Courtenays Triumph. 319
simple, rough, and nervous English. He prays
"that Christis techinge and bileve of the sacrament
of his owne body, that is pleynly taught by Crist
and his apostelis in gospellis and pistillis, may be
taught opinly in chirchis to Cristen puple, and the
contrarie teching and fals bileve, brought up by
cursed ypocritis and heretikis and worldly prestis,
unkunnynge in Goddis lawe, distried. . . Dampne
we this cursed heresie of Anticrist and his ypocritis
and worldly prestis, seiynge that this sacrament is
neither bred ne Cristis body, but accidentis without-
en suget, and therunder is Cristis body. For this is
not taught in holy writt."
Once again after his condemnation by the Synod
of Blackfriars he came face to face with Courtenay
if we are to accept on this point the evidence of
one or two contemporaries who are not invariably
correct in dealing with the successive stages of his
career. The resistance of Oxford to Courtenay s
authority was not at an end when the decision of
the seventy-three doctors had been made public ;
but Parliament or the King s Council armed the
Primate with new powers, including that of im
prisonment, and he went up to his old University
in the middle of November in order to drive the
nail home. On the i8th he held a Conference at
St. Frideswide s, being attended by the Bishops of
Lincoln, Norwich, London, Salisbury, Hereford, and
Winchester.* Knyghton tells us that Wyclif
answered in person before this Conference ; and he
* Wykeham had just established his college for boys, and the
walls of New College were steadily rising.
326 John Wydif. [1361-
adds a document which he seems to regard as a
withdrawal or submission on the part of the delin
quent. It is clearly nothing of the kind. Wyclif
merely repeats the general admission which he had
made several times already concerning the spiritual
identity of the consecrated host with the body of
Christ ; and he ends substantially as follows :
" You must admit how great a difference there is
between us who believe that this sacrament is actual
and natural bread, and the heretics who tell us that
it is an accident without a subject. For before the
enemy and father of lies was loosed (in the first
thousand years of Christendom), this gabbing
was never devised. And how great a difference
there is between us who believe that this sacrament
is true bread in its kind, but sacramentally God s
body, and the heretics who believe and tell us that
this sacrament can in no way be God s body. For
I am bold to say that, if this were truth, Christ
and his saints were heretics, and the greater part
of holy church at this moment believes in heresy.
And herefor devout men suppose that this Coun
cil of Friars at London was with earth-din. For
they put a heresy on Christ and the saints in heaven :
wherefore the earth trembled, failing man s voice to
answer for God, as it did in time of his passion,
when he was condemned to bodily death.
" Christ and his mother (who destroyed all heresies
in the ground) keep his Church in the true faith of
this sacrament, and lead the King and his Govern
ment to require of her clerks and all her posses-
sioners, under penalty of losing their temporalities,
ST. FRIDESWIDE S SHRINE.
IN THE LATIN CHAPEL, CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL, OXFORD.
1382] Courtenays Triumph. 321
that they teach truly the nature of the sacrament,
and of all the Orders of Friars, under penalty of
losing their privileges, that they do the same. For
I am sure of the third part of the clergy, who main
tain these positions here defined, that they will
defend them at the cost of their lives."
If this confident reassertion and retort was in
reality uttered by Wyclif in person before Courte-
nay, Wykeham, Gilbert, and the rest, we can easily
imagine how it would trouble them, and perhaps
exasperate them. Whether he did or did not see
the bishops at this time depends very much upon
the date of his first stroke of paralysis. One account,
which comes to us at second or third hand, and
which shall be quoted by and by, says that he had a
minor stroke about two years before the major
stroke which carried him off at the end of 1384. By
the minor stroke it seems that he was partly dis
abled, and it may well be that movement was difficult
for him in the year of the Synod, and that, in point
of fact, those who wanted to see him had to come to
the side of his couch or his study chair. Already
in 1379, as we have seen, he had been seriously ill,
and is described as calling on his attendants to raise
him up in bed, and put him face forward before the
aggr 
