FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY //)< 26 THE BOOK BUYER From " John Wyclif." G. P. Putnam's Sons. John Wyclif. (The Denbigh Portrait.) !J m I /' *s THE LIFE OF WIGLIF BY PETER LORIMER, D.D. JOHN WICLIF AM) Ills ENGLISH PRB- I QBSOBS, bj Gebhabd Victob Lechlbb. Translated . rman, with additional Notes. Library Edition. Two vols. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 21*. whatever that they (the pages of this work) nt of one of the most ;ee <.f English history in \ i in taken to I Incidents of Wiclifs if which hangs not a little that i- 'imputable u most copiously and accurately . words, and illustrated by classical quotations if. Lorimer has K-ork in almost every part by a number oi " \ d ■.WAV. JOHN KNoN AND THE CHURCH OF ENG- LAND : Bis Work in her Pulpit, and his Influence upon Articles, and Parties. A Monograph - vi ral important Papers of Knox never re published. Demy 8vo. cloth, price li'.--. Hided some very Important facts now for nown to us ought to have an Interest for man] I MY. bnrch history oril rRENCH, .v i'm. i Paternoster Square. v -a: FEB 8 1932^' JOHN WICLIF AND HIS ENGLISH PRECURSORS PROFESSOR LECHLER, D.D OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPSIC TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES PETER LOEIMER, D.D. AUTHOR OF "JOHN KNOX AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND" NEW EDITION IN ONE VOLUME LONDON KEG AN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1881 / n '. ction are rt AUTHOR'S PREFACE. Science is an international good. It is not confined by territorial boundaries, nor restricted by the ties of nationality. Nowhere does it stand written that only an Englishman can suitably write the history of Eng- land or a portion of it. It may easily happen that a German may have access to sources of English history from which the Englishman may have less opportunity to draw. It is from such sources that I believe myself able to offer not a little which may serve to supple- ment and enrich, and even to correct, the knowledge which has hitherto been current respecting the history and the characteristic genius of Wiclif. All the men whose Wiclif-researches have hitherto acquired importance and authority, have in every in- stance been able to bring to light, and make use of for the first time, fresh documentary materials. It was so with John Lewis in the last century, who wrote the first independent biography of Wiclif. The chief value of that book — a value still fully recognised at the pre- sent day — lies not in its style of execution, but purely in the mass of materials which it brought together and published. In the present century, Dr. Eobert Vaughan, by his works upon the same subject, increased our his- torical knowledge of Wiclif to such a degree, that these works have been everywhere recognised as authorities, and used as a storehouse of information. The chief VI AUTHORS PREFACE. distinction of these writings was the extensive use made in them, by quotation and otherwise, of Wiclif 's manuscript Tracts and Sermons. More recently, at the suggestion of the late Professor Shirley, these Eng- lish writings of the Reformer have been published by the Clarendon Press, which had already, in 1850, given to the world a model edition of the Wiclif Translation of the Bible. The Select English Works of John Wiclif, edited in excellent style by Thomas Arnold, M.A., of University College, Oxford, contains a complete collec- tion of the Reformer's English sermons, and a selection of his English tracts, popular pieces, and fly-leaves — a service to literature and religious history which calls for the warmest acknowledgments. It was as an integral part of the same projected collection of Select Works of Wiclif that the author of the present work brought out in 1869 a critical edition of the Trialogus, upon the authority of a collation of four Vienna MSS. of the work, accompanied by the SiqiplemcRtum Trialogi, which had never been in print. It was the treasures of the Imperial Library of Vienna which put him in a position to execute that critical task. When at the beoinninor of the 15th century the Wiclif spirit took so strong a hold of Bohemia and Moravia, Bohemian hands were busily employed through several decades of years in multi- plying copies of the books, sermons, and tracts of the Evangelical Doctor. Hence there are still to be found at the present day, not only in Prague itself, but also in Vienna and Paris, and even in Stockholm, MSS. of Wiclif's works, of which little use has hitherto been made. In particular, the Imperial Library of Vienna, owing to the secularisation of the Bohemian monas- teries under Joseph II., is in possession of nearly forty volumes, which consist either entirely or chiefly of author's preface. vii imprinted Latin works of Wiclif, of which, in some instances, not a single copy is to be found in England. By the kind mediation of the Saxon Government with the Imperial Government of Austria, I obtained from the latter the leisurely and unrestricted use of all those volumes of the collection which I required, and which were sent to me from Vienna as I needed them with the utmost liberality — a gracious further- ance of literary labours, for which, I trust, I may be allowed in this place to express my most respectful and most sincere thanks. When I compare the two groups of Sources which serve to elucidate the personality and the entire his- torical position of Wiclif, I come in sight of the fact that the English sermons and tracts most recently printed belong, almost without exception, to the four last years of his life (1381-1384). They serve, there- fore, to throw upon his latest convictions and efforts — however comparatively well-known these were before — a still clearer and fuller documentary light. The Latin works, on the other hand, so far as they only exist in MS., were for the most part written at earlier dates, some of them indeed going back as far as the year 1370. These latter, therefore, have a specially high value, because we learn from them the thoughts and doings of Wiclif during an earlier stadium of his life ; and, what is most important of all, they open up to us a view of his gradual development — of the progress of his mind in insight and enlightenment. I cannot allow the present opportunity to pass of expressing my conviction how much it is to be wished that several of these earlier Latin writings of Wiclif were printed and published. Not only would they be made thereby more accessible to learned investigators ; they would also be secured against the possibility of viii AUTHORS PREFACE. (lest ruction, in view of the fact that some of them continue to exisl only in a single copy. It is alarm- ing to think what an irreparable loss might be caused by fire in a library rich in manuscripts. Should the Clarendon Press determine to include in the series of the Select Works an additional number of Wiclif's Latin writings, I would, with all submission, advise lh;it works of an earlier date than 1381 should be the first to be selected. Most of all, the publication of the De Veritate Sanctae Scripturae is to be recommended ; and next to this a collection of forty Latin sermons, pre- served in the Vienna MS. 3928, and which reflect an earlier stage of Wiclif's opinions. The book De Ecclesia — the best MS. of which is the Vienna MS. 1294, — and the De Dominio Civili, would also be worthy of being sent to press. In the summer of 1840, I studied in the University Library of Cambridge the MS. of Repressor — the interesting polemical treatise of the rationalising Bishop Pecock, directed against the Wiclifite " Biblemen " about the middle of the 15th century. Twenty years after I had made acquaintance with it, it was published by Babington. By that perusal I was conducted into the hi story of the Lollards; and from them I saw myself thrown back upon Wiclif himself. It was thus by a retrogressive movement that the present work gradu- ally took shape, the main impulse to undertake it having come from my good fortune in obtaining access to the Vienna MSS. As I continued to be thus occu- pied with Wiclif's life and writings, my respect and love for the venerable man— " the evangelical doctor," as Ins contemporaries were wont to call him — went on ever growing. He is truly, in more than one respect, a character of the genuine Protestant type, whose por- traiture it may not be without use to freshen up again AUTHOR S PREFACE. IX in true and vivid colours in the eyes of the present generation. In the present English edition, several portions of the original work have been omitted which did not appear likely to interest English readers so much as what re- lates directly to England and Wiclif himself. The Author can only congratulate himself that he has found in Professor Lorimer a translator who, along with a perfect acquaintance with German, combines so rich a knowledge of the subject, and, what is not the smallest requisite for the task, so enthusiastic a love for the personality of Wiclif. He has given a special proof of his love to the subject of this book, and of his learned knowledge of it, in a number of " Additional Notes." In these, with the help of medieval records and chronicles which have appeared since the publication of the German original (1873), he has been able sometimes to confirm, and sometimes to correct, the investigations of the Author. And as, in my esteem, the truth is above all else, I am able, without jealousy, to rejoice in every rectification which the views I set forth may receive from later researches among documents which were not acces- sible to me at the time of my own investigations. May the Father of Lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift, be pleased to make His blessing rest upon this English edition of my work, to His own glory, to the furtherance of evangelical truth, and to the wellbeing of the Church of Jesus Christ. GOTTHAKD LECHLER. Leipzig, 11th February 1878, TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Pkofessor Lechler's work is not only a Biography of Wiclif, but also a preliminary history of the Reform- ation; beginning far back in the medieval centuries, and carried down along the parallel lines of the Lollards and the Hussites, to the first decades of the sixteenth century. The two volumes extend to 1400 closely printed pages ; and it was found impracticable to cany out the original idea of publishing a translation of the whole work. My design was then reduced to the reproduction of the Biography, and of so much of the preliminary history as concerned Wiclif 's English Precursors. From the English point of view, it seemed perfectly fitting that the life and teaching of Wiclif should be presented as a subject complete in itself, without implication with the general history of the Church, either earlier or later ; and it was found that a single preliminary chapter would suffice to communicate all that the Author had written respecting Grossetete, Occam, and tli»' rest of Wiclif s forerunners upon English soil. Professor Lechler at once acceded to this re- duced programme of the translation, and not only pre- pared for my use a new arrangement of the original text, so far as this was called for, but also made a careful revision both of text and notes, for the present edition. The whole original work is of much value and well TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. XI worth translation, but its chief importance lies in the Biography of Wiclif himself. In the execution of this kernel portion of his work, the Author had the immense advantage of free and leisurely access to the Wiclif MSS. of the Imperial Library of Vienna ; and he has used this advantage to the utmost, and with the best effect. Never before has the whole teaching of the reformer, — philosophical, theological, ethical, and ecclesiastical, been so copiously and accurately set forth ; and never before has so large a mass of classified quotations from all his chief scientific writings been placed under the eyes of scholars. It is a singular fact that 500 years should have passed away before it became possible to do this service of justice to the memory of so great a man — the very " Morning Star of the Reformation ; " and it is much to be wished that the University of Oxford, Wiclif 's Alma Mater, should complete the service, by carrying out to the full her own noble design, already considerably advanced, of a collection of the " Select Works " of Wiclif — in the direction of the suggestions offered by Professor Lechler in the foregoing Preface. The Author has referred in his Preface in the kindest spirit to the " Additional Notes " which I have been able to append to several chapters of the first volume. It had occurred to me that it might be possible to find some fresh coJ lateral lights upon a medieval subject, in several volumes of the " Chronicles and Memorials " brought out under the superintendence of the Master of the Rolls, which had appeared since the publication of Professor Lechler 's work. The surmise was verified much beyond my hope. In par- ticular, it is a great satisfaction to me that these sources supplied me with the materials of an argu- xii AUTHORS PREFACE. ment to prove, with a high degree of probability, an unbroken connection of Wiclif with Balliol College, from the date of his entrance at the University, down to his resignation of the Balliol Mastership. This satisfaction has been much enhanced by Professor Lechler's concurrence in the same view, upon the ground of this fresh evidence ; and it would be complete if I might hope to obtain also the con- currence of the eminent scholars who now preside over that illustrious seat of learning — one of whose chief historic distinctions must always be that it was Wiclifs College. THE TRANSLATOR English Presbyterian College, London, March 1878. CONTENTS. Introduction, Notes to Introduction, PAGE 1 11 CHAPTER I. English Precursors op Wiclif. Section I. — Mixture and Consolidation of Paces in the English People, Section II. — Robert Grosset§te, Bishop of Lincoln, Section III. — Henry Bracton and William Occam and the Tone o Church Life and Politics in the Fourteenth Century, Section IV. — Richard of Armagh and the Mendicant Orders, Section V. — Thomas of Bradwardine, his Teaching and Spirit, Section VI. — The Vision of Piers Plowman, Notes to Chapter I.,. Additional Notes by Translator : — Note I. — Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, Note II The Vision of Piers Plowman, 14 21 40 54 03 69 71 84 85 CHAPTER II. Wiclif's Youth and Student Life. Section I. — Birthplace and Family, . . . . .87 Section II. — Wiclif's Course of Study, . . . . .92 Notes to Chapter II., . . . . . .104 Additional Notes by Translator :— Note I. — Illustrations of the Educational Discipline of Balliol College in Wiclif's Time, . . . . .100 Note II. — Provisions of the Statutes of Sir Philip de Somerville for the Study of Theology by the Fellows of Balliol College in Wiclif's Time, .'.... 107 Note III. — State of Philosophical Parties in Oxford in Wiclif's Student Years, . . . . . .107 Note IV— Learned Fellows of Balliol in Wiclif's Time, . . 108 Note V. — Extract from Mr Riley's Report on the Archives of Balliol, .,,..,, 108 XIV CONTEXTS. CHAP T KR IT I. Wiclif's Quiet Work i\ Oxford, a.d. 1345-1366. V \c.v. Section I. — Wiolif as a Member of Balliol and Merton Colleges, . . 110 < I . — Wiclif as Warden of Canterbury Hall and Doctor of Theology, ........ 115 Nom i to < !h lpteb [II., . . . . . . 120 Additional Notes hy Tbanslatob: — Note I. — Wiclif's Connection with Balliol, .... 132 Note [I.- [dentity of John Wiclif, the Reformer, with John Wiclif, Warden of Canterbury Hall, ..... 137 Note [II.— Wiclif -Researches of the late Prebendary Wilkinson, . 13S CHAPTE E IV. Wiclif's First Public Appearance in the Eoclesiastico-Political Affairs of England. Section I.— Wiclif as a Patriot, ...... 139 SECTION II. — WicliPs Concern in the Rejection of the Papal Claim to Feudatory Tribute, . . . . . . .142 Section III.— Wiclif's Action in Public Affairs from 13G6 to 1376, . 155 S» HON IV. — A Royal Commissary at Bruges — Probably a Member of the " Good Parliament," ..... 162 Notes to Chapter IV., . . . . . . .177 Additional Note by TRANSLATOR on the Late Pate at which Wiclif began his Attacks on the Mendicant Orders, . . . 180 CHAPTER V. Proceedings of the Hierarchy against Wiclif in 1377 and 13 Section I. -Wiclif summoned before the Convocation, Section IL — Papal Bulls against Wiclif, • \ 111.— First ICffects of the Five Bulls in England, Bectiom [V.— The Process against Wiclif, . Notes to Chapter v., 1S1 187 192 196 200 CHAP T E It V I. Wiclif as a Preacher; his Efforts for Reform in Preaching and for i in' Elevation of the Pastoral Office. Section I.— Wiclif as a Preacher; his Homiletical Principles, . . 203 ■ II. Wiclifs [tineranl Preachers, ..... 213 Notes ro Cham br VI., . . . . . . 226 Additional Note m Translator on the Popularity of Wiclif and hi Earliesl Disciples as Preachers in London, . . . 230 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER VII. Wicliit as Bible Translator ; and His Service done to the English Language. PAGE Section I. — The Novelty of the Idea of an English Translation of the whole Bible, ........ 232 Section II. — How Wiclif came to engage in this Undertaking, . . 237 Section III.— The Wiclif Translation, ..... 243 Notes to Chapter VII., ...... 2f>0 CHAPTER VIII. Wiclif as a Thinker and Writer ; His Philosophical and Theological Systeii. Section I. — Wiclif's gradual development as a Thinker and Reformer, Section II. — Wiclif as a Philosophical Thinker and Writer, Notes to Sections I. and II., . Section III. — Wiclif's Theological System. The Sources of Christian Truth, ....... Notes to Section III., ..... Section IV. — Doctrine of God and the Divine Trinity, Notes to Section IV., ..... Section V. — Doctrine of the World ; of the Creation ; of the Divine Dominion, ....... Notes to Section V., . Section VI. — Doctrine of Man and of Sin, Notes to Section VI., ..... Section VII. — Doctrine of the Person of Christ, and the Work of Re demption, ....... Section VIII. — Doctrine of the Order of Personal Salvation, Notes to Sections VII. and VIII. , .... Section IX. — Doctrine of the Church as the Communion of the Sa\ed, Notes to Section IX., Section X. — The Worship of the Church, .... Notes to Section X., . Section XL — Constitution of the Church, .... Notes to Section XL, ..... Section XII. — Doctrine of the Sacraments. Notes to Section XII., 253 255 2G1 202 277 2S1 285 293 294 298 300 306 316 321 329 330 338 340 361 369 391 XVI I I INTENTS. OH A PTBB T X. 'I'n: | r tin: Last Years ofWiold/s Lire, 1378-1384 • \ I. -'I'h- Papal Schism and its Effect upon Wiclif, . Notes to Section I., . • s II. — Wiclif'u Attack upon the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, .\..i i - ro Sbi i com II., . « III. The Peasants' Elevoll in 1381, Notes to Section III., Section I V. —Preparations for Persecution on the part both of the Church and the Si ...... Notks ro Section IV., s V. The Wlclif Party intimidated by the Measures of the Arch bishop, — Hereford, Repington, Aston, Bedeman, Notes ro Sei pion v., ...... Sr rioN \'I. -The Cautious Proceedings of the Hierarchy against Wieli Himself, ....... Not bs i" Sa tion VI., ...... Section VIT. — The last Two Years of Wiclif's Life, and his Death, Notes to Section "VTL, ..... SECTION V III. —Character of Wiclif and his important Place in History, Notes to Section VIII. , ..... Additional Note by Translator, , p.vr.K 400 404 I 16 408 410 416 417 420 42S 440 442 44*3 447 461 465 479 4S0 APPENDIX. I. — " The Last Age of the Church," . II.— Wici.ik's WRITINGS, .... Note on the Vienna MSS. of Works of Wicld?, [II.— WlOLIF, DE EOOLESIA, C. 16, .... I V. Forma Jxtbambnti Abnaldi Pape Thezaurarii, . V.— Sermon on Luke vm. 4-15, .... VI.- -Eptbto] \ Missa ad Sihpliobs Sacerdotes, VII.- De Sex Juqis, ...... VIII. A SkctidN (»k Wiclik's D < "l>i: VebtTATE SACBAE SCBE TUBAB," (.11,. [X. Metbioa Compilatto de Replicattonibus Contra Magktbum JOHANNEU, ••-... .\ Ltteba Misba Papae Ubbano Sexto, 485 486 503 506 507 511 521 522 535 549 550 INTRODUCTION. PT^HERE now lies between the commencement of the -*- Reformation and our own day an interval of 360 years, a period of time considerable enough to allow of our taking a tolerably free and comprehensive survey. We are thus placed in a position to embrace in one view the wliole effects of the Reformation, in so far as these have as yet developed themselves ; and it has also become possible for us to attain a right understanding of the conditions under which the movement took its rise, and of the manner in which its way was prepared in the preceding centuries. Our power of insight, indeed, in this matter as in others, must have its limits. Beyond all doubt, a later time will here also command a wider horizon and gain deeper reaches of insight. For what the poet says of the past is not true of it in every respect — " Still stands the past for evermore." On the contrary, the image of the past is for ever shifting and changing with the conditions of the present in which it is reflected. " The living man, too, has his right : " he has a right to the inheritance of the generations which have gone before him ; he has also the right to put the history of the past in relations to the present — to study it in connection with the events and the needs and the questions of his own time — and thereby to arrive at the true vision and under- standing of it for himself. Only our own experience can give us the interpretation of history. As a general truth, the actual knowledge which we are able to acquire is com- mensurate with our experience, and the more thorough and comprehensive the experience which any man has acquired, so much the deeper and more correct is the understanding of the past which he is in a condition to attain. On this ground the period of more than three centuries and a half which has elapsed since the commencement of the Reformation, both enables and calls us, in a much higher degree than the generations which have preceded us, to A % INTRODUCTION. attain to a thorough understanding of its preliminary history, or the long series of events and transactions by which its advent was prepared. A beginning of such studies, indeed, made as early as the sixteenth century; and even while the Reformation itself was still in progress, there were historical inquirers who casl back their eyes to men and religious brotherhoods of the past who appeared to bear some resemblance to the Reformers and Reformed < Ihurches of their own generation. These excursions into comparative pre-Reformation history were of course of very different kin. Is, and issued in the mosl opposite results, according as they were undertaken by friends or foes of the Reformation itself. When Luther received from the Utraquists of Bohemia one of Huss's writings, and studied it, he was lost in astonishment, for all at once the light dawned upon him that he and Btau- pitz and all the rest had been Hussites all this while, without being aware of the fact.1 A few years later, he became acquainted with the writings of John Wessel, which filled him with sincere admiration of the man. and with a wonder- ing joy; so much so that lie felt himself strengthened as Elijah was when it was revealed to him that he was not left alone, for there were 7,000 men still living who had not bowed their knees to Baal. "If I had read Wessel before now my enemies might have thought that Luther had taken all his ideas from Wessel, so much are we of one mind."2 At a latci- date the Reformer gave his judgment on the sub- ject in a quieter tone, but not more correctly, when he remarked that " Wiclif and lluss had attacked the life of the Church under the Papacy, whereas he fought not so much against the life as the doctrine."3 Still he sees in these men his fellow-combatants of an earlier time, ami men of kindred spirit and principles to his own. When Luther, in 1522, wrote an Anthology from John Wessel. and in 1523 prefixed an appreciative preface to Savonarola's commentaries mi the 31st ami 37th Psalms; and when again, in 1525, the Trialogus of Wiclif was published in Basel, the meaning of all these incidents was to justify the Reformers of the sixteenth century by the testimony of men of earlier ages who had fought the same bat tie. The ease is altered, of course, when writers opposed to the Reformation direct their inquiries to the same class of facts, the results at which they arrive being always unfavourable to the Reformers. In comparing the latter with their precursors of earlier times, their uniform aim is fco ihi-i'U tlieui and their doctrines into shadow, either by INTRODUCTION. 3 identifying Luther's principles with those of earlier heretics, so as to place them under alike condemnation, or by attempt- ing to prove that Luther was even worse than his precursors of like spirit. The former was what was aimed at, when the Theological Faculty of Paris, in 1523, decided that the great work against Wiclif, of the English Carmelite, Thomas of Walden (f 1431), The Antiquities of the Catholic Faith, was worthy to be printed and published, " because the same is of great use for the refutation of the destructive Lutheran errors ; " for herein the Parisian doctors declared the doctrines of the Reformers to be essentially the same as those of AViclif and the Lollards. John Faber, on the other hand, the South German polemic, who died Bishop of Vienna in 1541, drew a comparison in a controversial work of 1528, between Luther on the one hand, and John Huss and the Bohemian Brethren and John Wessel on the other, in which he reached the conclusion that the latter are all more Christian and less offensive than Luther. He even goes so far at the close of his treatise as to say that if it were pos- sible for all the heretics who lived in the Apostles' days and afterwards, to rise from the dead and to come together face to face with Luther in a general council or otherwise, they would no doubt damn him as a godless arch-heretic, and refuse to have any fellowship with him; so unheard-of, dread- ful, and abominable is the false doctrine which Luther has put forward.4 These first attempts to bring into view the historical parallels of earlier times, whether proceeding from the Reformers or their adversaries, were all of a partial and incomplete kind, and possessed no value beyond that of occasional pieces. A more comprehensive treatment of the Reformers before the Reformation, their doctrines and their fortunes — a treatment under which the different individu- alities were exhibited in the light of their unity of principle and spirit — became possible only after the work of the Refor- mation had, in some measure at least, been brought to a close, and admitted of being taken into one view as a completed work. And this point was not reached till the middle of the sixteenth century. From that date important works of such a character began to appear on the evangelical side. On the side of Rome only one work has a claim to be mentioned in this connec- tion, viz., the Collection of Documents, Controversial Tracts, and the like, relating to Pre-Reformation Persons and Parties, published by Ortuin Gratius of Cologne in 1535, in prospect of the general council which had then been announced. . He I INTRODUCTION'. was himself one of the Cologne " Obscuri Viri" but was favourable to Church Reform in the Catholic sense ; and it was with this view that he Belected and published these pieces in the well known Fasciculus.1 Tin' corresponding works on the evangelical side divide themselves into two groups, according tothe point of view nnder which tiny range the particular facts which they embrace. Tin- first group — and this is by tar the most numerous — views its subject as a history ot persecution, or of evangelical martyrs. The second group handles the per- sonalities whom it introduces as witnesses of the truth, who in earlier times opposed themselves to the Papacy and its "superstition." The first group may be correctly described as more or less belonging to the sphere of the history of the Church, and the second as belonging to the history of doctrine. The most important, and indeed almost the only repre- sentative of the latter group, is Matthias Flacius of Illyricum, properly called Matthias Vlatzich Frankowitsch. This greatest of the historians belonging to the Lutheran Church of the sixteenth century, the founder of The Magdeburg Centuries, published in 155G his Catalogue of Witnesses to the Truth who opposed themselves to the Pope before our age, as a work preliminary to the Centuries, which appeared in repeated editions, and continued to receive considerable enrichments even in the seventeenth century.6 The lead of the first group is taken by an Englishman, the venerable John Foxe. The experiences of his own life and of the church of his native country were what suggested to him the plan of a church history, arranged under the lead- in-' idea of persecution directed against the friends of evan- gelical truth. During the bloody persecutions which took place under Queen Mary, many faithful men tied to the Continent and found an asylum in the Khine-lands and Switzerland. — e.g., in Frankfort and Strasburg, in Basel, Zurich, Geneva, ami elsewhere. Among others John Foxe repaired to Strasburg, and here appeared in 1554 the first edition of the first book of his History of the Church audits ('hie/' Persecutions in nil Europe from the times of Wiclif down to the Present Age, a work which he had proceeded with thus far before he left England, and which he dedicated to Duke Christopher of Wurtemberg.7 He commenced the history with Wiclif. partly, no doubt, from patriotic feeling, but partly also because he regarded the measures adopted againsl Wiclif as the beginningof the storm of persecution which had continued to rage in England, Bohemia, and Scot- laud down to his own day. Nor must we omit to mention INTRODUCTION. 5 here that at the end of the sixteenth century and in the first half of the seventeenth, Foxes Book of Martyrs was a favourite family book in many godly English households. Ladies were wont to read it aloud to their children, and to their maidens while at work ; and boys as soon as they could read took to the much-loved book.8 It helped in no small degree to steel the Protestant character of the English people in the seven- teenth century. Foxe's work gave the key-note, and became a model for many similar works in the German, French, and Bohemian tongues ; and in most cases these writings, under the title of Martyrologies. did not confine themselves, any more than Foxe had done, to the domestic persecutions of the countries of their several authors, but included Germany, France, and England, and went back also to the centuries which preceded the Reformation. When a new edition of Foxe was in pre- paration in 16o2, the Bohemian exiles then living in the Netherlands were requested to draw up an account of the persecutions which had fallen upon their native church, with the view of its being incorporated with the English Book of Martyrs. But the new edition was finished at press before the narrative could be got ready, and the Bohemian work remained in manuscript till it appeared in 1648 in Amsterdam or Leyden, under the title, Historia Persecutionum Ecclesice Bohemicce, which was subsequently translated into German and Bohemian. During the polemical period which reached from the last quarter of the sixteenth down towards the close of the seventeenth century, all that was done in the field of pre- Reformation history and research was deeply tinged with a controversial character — a remark which applies equally to Germany, France, and England. The first Bodley librarian at Oxford, Thomas James, was an instance in point. This indefatigable scholar, one of the most learned and acute con- troversialists against Rome, published in 1(>08 An Apology for John Wyclif.9 It was written with a polemical view — but at that date it needed a learned and historical interest to be uppermost in the mind even of a polemical writer to induce him to take up the subject of a precursor of the Reforma- tion. Most men were so completely engrossed by the con- troversies of their own time, that they had neither inclination nor leisure to make excursions into the history of the past. It was not till the storm-waves of controversial excite- ment subsided that the early Reformers began to awaken a purer and more unprejudiced historical interest. From that time, about the beginning of the last century, two facts r, [NTRODUOTION. meet tbe eye of the observer. Od the one hand, writers upied themselvee with the lives and labours of single men of pre-Reforraation times, and generally in the way of coll. •cting and publishing materials which might serve the purpose of making our knowledge of them more assured and complete; while, on the other hand, other writers put forth reflections upon the different ways and means in and by whicb the pre-Reformation movement had been carried on as a whole. The first of these functions was undertaken hymen such as the industrious collector, John Lewis, a clergyman of the ( Ihurcb of England, who published in 1720 the earliest regular biography >'\' Wiclif,10 a work full of material, which he had broughl together from public archives and manuscript sources. His subsequent monograph on Bishop Pecock was designed to be a sequel to the biography of Wiclif, and had the same general character.11 Both works leave much to be desired in point of literary execution; but for their wealth of original documents they are still of no little value. Anion-- German scholars, the man wdio rendered the most meritorious services in the collection and publication of pre- Ie format ion documents was Professor Hermann von der Bardl of Helmstadt. His vast and masterly collection of monuments, in illustration of the history of the Council of Constance,12 had for its chief object to establish by docu- mentary proof the necessity of Reformation which existed at the time of that reforming council.13 The excellent example pet by Von der Hardt served as a spur to others, and stimu- lated, in particular, the younger Walch, to publish his Monuments of the Middle Age, which began to appear in Gottingen in L757." The work consists entirely of docu- ments relating to church reform, and all belonging to the fifteenth century, being in part speeches which were delivered in the Council of Constance, and partly treatises and trac- tates of John of (inch. John of Wesel, and others. On the other hand, we find that since the commencement of the eighteenth century, works began to appear conceived in a purely historical and unprejudiced spirit, containing studies or reflections on the Reformation movements viewed together afl a whole; on the various means and ways which were made choice of to promote them : and on the different groups of the Reformers. Walch calls attention in one place to the fact that there are two classes of witnesses to the truth, th se who complained of the vices of the clergy of all degrees, and those who complained of the errors of the teachers. It is "\ell known that the number of writers belonging to the INTRODUCTION. 7 second class is a small one ; but all the more highly must the few works be valued in which Roman doctrines were confuted. Among writings of this category Walch rightly reckons John of Goch's tractate on errors in reference to the Evangelical law.15 This distinction among the Reformers was not new; it rests, at all events, upon the saying of Luther before men- tioned, that AViclif and Huss mainly attacked the life of the Popish Church, while he, on the contrary, attacked chiefly its doctrine. But, though not new, this reflection, taken along with others of a similar kind occurring in other writers of that period, indicates a mode of regarding the subject far removed from the bitterness of polemical feeling, and dis- covering a certain elevation and freedom of historical view. In the second and third decades of the present century, when Protestant writers applied themselves to the production of historical monographs with so much interest, and in such a masterly style both of research and composition, it is at first sight surprising that no one, for a long time, took for a subject of portraiture any of the Reformation figures of the middle age. Chrysostom and Tertullian, Bernard of Clairvaux, and even Gregory VII. and Innocent III., all found at that time enthusiastic biographers ; but no one had an eye for Huss, for John of Wesel, and least of all, for Wiclif. This is explained in some measure by the circumstance, that the historical branch of theology had to take a share in the general aim of those years, and was called upon, before every thing else, to contribute to the regeneration of Christian feeling, and the new upbuilding of the kingdom of God, after a long period of negation and deadness. This situation determined the choice which was made of subjects for fresh historical portraiture. Both writers and readers felt an in- ferior degree of sympathy for men in whom the critical spirit had prevailed, and who had taken up a position of antagonism to the Church-institutions and teaching of their age ; and, perhaps, too, both writers and readers were less capable of understanding them. It was not till the commencement of the second quarter of our century that due attention began again to be directed to " the Reformers before the Reformation ;" and as, once before, in the middle age itself, England was the country where the first important precursor of the Reformation arose, so also, in our century, England led the way in recalling the memory of her own great son by the appliances of historical science, and thereby setting an example which other countries followed. Dr. Robert Vaughan published, in 1820, his Life 8 INTRODUCTION'. of Wiclif a work founded upon a laborious study of the manuscript writings of VViclif, especially of his English ser- mons ;inil tracts.1" The wav was qow opened up, and other explorers soon followed, partly at firsl under the influence of national and provincial interest; for the first writers, so far as ! can find, who followed Vaughah's example, as early as 1829 and 1830, were Net herlanders, who chose for their Bubjed the history of their countrymen, Gerhard Groot and the Brethren of the Common Life.17 But now German historical research appeared upon the field, and without confining itself to its own nationality, devoted to the precursors of the Reformation a series of investigations which were equally conspicuous for thorough- ness and success. First in time, and most distinguished in merit as a labourer in the field was Carl Ullmann, with his monograph on John Wessel, which appeared in 1834, a work which he expanded so much in the second edition by the addition of accounts of John of Goch, John of Wesel, the ( rerman Mystics, and the Brethren of the Common Life, that he could give to the whole the title of Reformers before the Reformation.1* The first edition of Ullmaun's work was speedily followed by two works on Savonarola, by German scholars. Rudelbach and Meier.19 And here I may be allowed to add the remark, that in 1800 a third work on Savonarola was published by an Italian. Pasquale Villari, a Roman Catholic, which discovers able research, earnest feeling, ami deep veneration for his great and noble countryman. And this instance of an improved manner of treating such subjects, on the side of the Roman Catholic Church, does not stand alone. It is a gratifying fact, which we are here very happy to acknowledge, that much has been done in our own time by writers of that church, to put the Reformation efforts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in their due light. As instances, wo may mention the work on the Reforming Councils, by Berr von Wessenberg,20 and the monograph of Dr. Schwab of Wurzburg, on John Gerson, a work of solid merit.*1 It cannot of course astonish any one that there should be other writers oi that church who still handle those men of Reform with undisguised aversion, as has been done, especially in the case of John Hubs.28 Returning to Protestant Church historians, the example of Ullmann has stimulated many to similar researches in the same field. On the subject in particular of the German mystics of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the labour of investigation during the last thirty years has been so widely extended, that in order not to lose ourselves INTRODUCTION. 9 in a useless enumeration of names and writings, we must content ourselves with mentioning one man instead of many, namely, Charles Schmidt, of Strasburg.23 Nor would it be just to pass over here in silence the services of Dr. Palacky of Prague, in elucidating the history, not only of Huss, but his precursors and successors. Not only as a historian, but also as a collector and editor of original documents of history, Palacky has undeniable merits.24 His collection of documents for the history of John Huss, in point of com- pleteness, criticism, and orderly arrangement, is a veritable model.25 It is a fact which applies generally to the third quarter of our century, that the labours of research among the original sources of history, have been such as to issue in the discovery and publication of a multitude of hitherto concealed or scarcely accessible original documents, and in the re-issue of several others which were known before, in a more critical and trustworthy form. To these belong, for example, the writings of Eckart, the speculative mystic, edited by Franz Pfeiffer, the edition of the works of John Staupitz, commenced by Knaake, and the publication of the collected Bohemian sermons and tracts of Huss, by Karl Jaronier Erben.26 In addition, Constantin Hofler, in Prague, has published a series of The Historians of the Hussite Movement in Bohemia.27 Nor has England remained behind. Her most important achievement on this field, and the fruit of the industry and critical labour of many years, is the complete critical edition of the Wycliffite versions of the Bible, edited by the Rev. Josaih Forshall and Sir Frederick Madden.28 Among the numerous chronicles and documents bearing upon themediaeval history of England, which for a series of years back have been published at the cost of the State, some of them never before in print, and others in improved critical editions, there are found many writings in the department of ecclesiastical history, and especially such as have a bearing upon pre-Reformation subjects. To mention only some of these, the Political Poems, edited by Thomas Wright, contain a whole series of polemical and satirical poems, which appeared for and against the Wiclif movement in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.29 Fur- ther, of important interest for our object, is the correspond- ence of Grossetete, the celebrated Bishop of Lincoln, edited by the Rev. H. R. Luard, of Cambridge.30 A highly rich and acceptable new source for the history of Wiclif and his followers, has been opened up in the Fasciculi Zizaniorum 10 INTRODUCTION. Magistri Johannis Wyclif, collected without doubt by the controversialist, Thomas Netter, of Walden, and published for the first time in 1858, by Professor Walter Waddiugton Shirley, of Oxford, with an [ntroduction and Notes full of very valuable matter. At Shirley's suggestion, recommended on the strongesi grounds, the curators of the Clarendon and University Press resolved to publish a selection of Wiclifs works. Of tins collection first appeared the Trialogvs, with a texi critically amended from lour Vienna MSS. of the work: and next followed Wiclifs English sermons, and a large number of his short English tracts, edited by the Rev. Thomas Arnold, of Oxford.32 Thus much has been done since the middle of the present century to elucidate Reformation history, partly by the opening up of new historical sources and the publication of original documents, and partly by the monographic elucidation of single parts of the .subject. We venture to comeforward as a fellow-labourer in the same field, in undertaking* to set forth anew the life and teaching of Wiclif, according to the original sources. John Wiclif appears to us to be the centre of the whole pre-Reformation history. In him meet a multitude of converging lines from the centuries which preceded him; and from him again go forth manifold influences, like wave pulses, which spread themselves widely on every side, and with a force so persistent that we are able to follow the traces of their presence to a later date than the commencement of the German Reformation. Such a man deserves to have a historical portraiture which shall aim to do justice to the greatness of his personality, and to the epochal importance of his work. NOTES TO INTRODUCTION. 11 NOTES TO INTRODUCTION. 1. Compare letter to Spalatin (Feb. 1520), in Luther's Letters, by De Wette. Berlin, 1826. I., No. 208, 425. Comp. No. 162. Letter to Staupitz, 3 Oct. 1519, p. 341. 2. Luther's Opera. Walch. Ed. XIV., 220 f. In the preface to one of the earliest editions of Wessel's Farrago Rerum Thcologicarum, Basel, 1522, Melancthon speaks of Wessel in the same way ; he mentions him at considerable length hi his Postils, in the following terms, among others : — ■" De plerisque capi- tibus religionis evangelical sensit idem quod a nobis nunc traditur, postquam nostra cetate repurgatio ecchsice facta est." 3. Luther's Table Talk. Edited by Foerstemann. 1845. II., 441 f. ; IV., 391. 4. This rare tract has the title : — " Wie sich Johannis Huss, der Pickarder, und Johanuis von Wessalia Leren und Biicher mit Martino Luther vergleichen. Be- schrieben durch Doctor Johann Fabri." Preface dated " Prag in Beham. 1 Sep. 1528." Under the name " Pickhards," the author no doubt refers to the Wal- denses ; but, in fact, he treats in this part of his tract, without knowing it, of the Bohemian brethren, for he founds his remarks upon the Confession pre- sented by the latter to King Wladislaus. 5. Fasciculus rerum expetendarum ac fugiendarum. Colon, 1535, fol. It was not difficult for the English theologian. Edward Brown, to revise, with additions, this collection in the interests of Protestantism. London, 1690, fol. In 2 vols. 6. Catalogus testium veritatis qui ante nostram aetatem reclamarunt Papae. Basel, 1556, 8vo. 1562, fol. Geneva, 1608, fol. Frankf., 1666, 4to., with a supplement, printed in Cassel, in 1667. 7. " Commentarii rerum in Ecclesia gestarum, maximarumque per totam Europam persecutionura a Wiclivi temporibus ad hanc usque aetatem descriptio. Liber I. A utore, Joanne Foxo, Anglo. Argentorati. mdliv." Small 8vo , 221 pp. The second Latin edition, considerably enlarged, appeared at Basel, in folio, in 1559. After his return to England Foxe published his work in !■ nglish in 1563 ; and, after his death, in 1587, a second English edition came out in 1610. But the completest edition was that of 1684, in three large folios, with the title, Acts and Monuments of Martyrs. Several editions have also appeared in our own time, the best being that edited with copious and valuable notes, by Rev. Josiah Pratt, M.A. , and a "Life and Defence of the Martyrologist, " by Rev. George Townsend, D.D. 8. E. g. Nicolaus Ferrar. Vide Mayor's Nicholas Ferrar. Two Lives. Camb. 1858. 9. An Apology for John Wickliffe, showing his conformity with the now Church of England. Collected chiefly out of diverse works of his in written hand, by God's especial providence remaining in the Publike Library at Oxford, of the Honorable Foundation of Sir Thomas Bodley, Knight. Oxford, lli08, 4to. 10. The History of the Life and Sufferings of the Rev. and Learned John Wiclif, D.D. London, 1720. New Ed., Oxford, 1820. 11. The Life of the Learned and Right Rev. Reynold Pecock, faithfully col- lected from records and MSS. London, 1725 and 1742. New Ed., Oxford, 1820. 12. Rerum Concilii Constantiensis. Toini I. -VI. Fol. 1696-1700. 13. Monimenta Medii aevi. Vol. I., fasc. 1-4 (1757-1760). Vol. II., fasc. 1-2(1761-1764). 1 2 NOTES TO INTRODUCTION. 14. Monimenta Medii aevi Vol. I., fasc. 4. Praefatio, p. xxxiv. 15. Life and Opiniona of John de Wycliffe, D.D., illustrated principally from his unpublished .Manuscripts. '2 rolfl. London, 1828-. The second improved edition appeared in 1831, and in l\"i:i, Vaughan published a new work in one volume, entdtuled, "John de Wycliffe: A Monograph." London, 1853. The merits of Vaughan'a laboun on Wiclif consist of two things — (1.) In the copious informa- tion touching Wiclif obtained from manuscript sources. Vaughan was, in particular, thr tirst who communicated a fuller knowledge of Wiclif's English sermons. (2.) In a certain degree of chronological order, which he introduced into the series of Wiclif's writings — a circumstance of much importance, because thereby it became possible to follow, in some degree, the gradual progress of the reformer's opinions, and a comparison of the dates of his numerous writings served to exhibit his char- acter for consistency and firmness in a more honourable light. The chief defects of Vaughan'a work were that he manifested less interest in the speculative and strictly theological element of Wiclif's writings than in their practical and religious ele- ment, and that he left almost entirely out of consideration his Latin works, being of opinion that they were scholastic treatises of comparatively little worth. But, not- withstanding these defects, Vaughan's work must always take a foremost place U the basis of all accurate knowledge of Wiclif, and it has, in fact, been drawn upon by many later writers — me ^ears before this he seems to have experienced ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIP. 23 something of the nature of a religious awakening. In the end of October 1231 or 1232 he had a dangerous illness. On his sick-bed and during his recovery his heart appears to have been deeply moved. He took counsel with his con- science, particularly on the question whether it was right before God for him to hold several livings at the same time.14 It was, without doubt, at this time that, by the medium of a pious man whose name has not come down to us, he sub- mitted to the Pope the question whether he could, with a good conscience, retain the parochial charge which he held, along with his sinecure prebends. The answer which was orally communicated to him was thoroughly Roman, — by no means could he retain such a plurality without a dispensation. But this was a mode of arrangement which his awakened con- science forbade him to make use of, and without more ado he resigned the whole of the benefices which he possessed, with the sole exception of his stall at Lincoln. We learn this from a letter of the year 1232 to his sister Inetta — a nun.15 The sister by no means approved of her brother's self-denying step. She feared that by his act of renunciation of income he had reduced himself to penury. But his only feeling was one of relief from a burden on his conscience, and he endeavours to remove her anxiety on that score, and to reconcile her to the resolution to which he had already given effect. The conscientiousness and the concern for his own soul, of which we have here a glimpse, awakened in Grossetete an earnest concern for the cure of souls at large, of which from that time forward he gave ever stronger proofs. After the death of the Bishop of Lincoln, Hugh of Wells, with whom he was on terms of personal friendship, Grossetete, in the spring of 1235, was advanced to the bishoprick. As Chancellor of the University of Oxford, as Archdeacon of Leicester, and in other positions, he had already been suc- cessful in carrying out many measures of a practical kind; and now he was advanced to a post in which his action as an ecclesiastical ruler shone out conspicuously far and wide. This was in part owing to the importance of this particular see. The dioceee of Lincoln was then, and for some cen- turies afterwards, by far the largest and most populous in the whole of England. More than once in his letters Grossetete refers to its immense extent and numerous inhabitants.10 It included at that day eight archdeaconries, of which only two may here be mentioned, Oxford and Leicester, the former, because the University was subject to the Bishop of Lincoln 24 LIFE OF WICLII". as its ordinary, and the latter, because to the archdeaconry, b century later, Wiclif, as parish priest of Lutterworth, be- longed. The Cathedral,17 built at the commencement of the Norman period, stands, with the older portion of the city, apon a aeight, while the newer portion of the city de- scendfl the" hill to the plain watered by the river Witham. None of the English cathedrals has so splendid a site as that of Lincoln; with its three towers it is seen at a distance of fifty miles to the north and thirty to the south, and is considered one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the kingdom. As soon as he was installed, Grossetcte grasped the helm with a firm hand, and took immediate steps for the removal of abuses which had found their way into the diocese. His first act was to address a circular letter to all his archdeacons, in which he instructed them to admonish the parishes of various evil customs which were on the increase, by which Sundays, festivals, or holy names were desecrated. This missive goes right into matters of practical life, and is inspired by a high moral earnestness, by a conscientious solicitude for the good of souls, and by a burning zeal for the House of God.18 Nor was it only in writing or by inter- mediaries, but also directly and personally, that the new bishop intervened. In the very first year after his admis- sion to office he commenced a personal visitation of the monasteries of the diocese, which resulted in not fewer than seven abbots and three priors being immediately deprived. Nor was it Grossetete's intention only to interfere in cases at a distance, and to shut his eyes to disorders which lay nearer home. He took steps to visit and reform the chapter of his own cathedral. But now his troubles began. The chapter, consisting of not fewer than twenty-one canons, took a protest against his proceedings, alleging that the bishop was allowing himself in unexampled encroachments of authority, and was touching their immemorial rights. The chapter had an autonomy of its own, and was subject only to its own dean ; only if the dean neglected his duty, or himself appealed to the bishop, had the latter a right to say a single word.11' In 1239 the matter grew to a quarrel between bishop and chapter. The dispute became known all over the kingdom, and could not be healed either by the Archbishop of Canterbury or by Otho, the Pope's legate. Bishop Robert made a journey in November 1244 to Lyons, where Innocent IV. was then residing. A commissioner of the chapter was already there before him. The Pope's deci- ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 25 sion on the main point — the right of visitation — was soon obtained, and was entirely in favour of the bishop, and, this gained, Grossetete lost no time in making use of his right now finally set at rest, although he had still to encounter difficulties in carrying it into effect. Along with this business he carried forward with zeal his visitation of parishes and cloisters. As the effect of this, several unworthy parish priests were removed, and many priors who had been guilty of acts of violence resigned their offices. Other bishops also were stimulated to do the like by the persistency and emphasis with which Grossetete pro- secuted this visitorial work. It even appears as though the estimation and influence of the vigorous bishop rose higher and higher in proportion to the amount of conflict which it cost him to carry through his plans for the well- being of the church. In fact, his episcopal career was an almost unbroken succession of collisions and conflicts. Long before the affair with his own chapter had been brought to a settlement, he became involved in differences with powerful spiritual corporations — with the Abbot of Westminster, and with the convent of Christ Church in Canterbury. Nay, the heroic opposition to wrong which he was compelled from time to time to undertake, rose higher still. In repeated instances, sometimes single-handed, sometimes along with other bishops, he stood forward in resistance to King Henry III. himself; and what for a man in his position, and in view of the spirit of his age, will be seen to amount to a vast deal more — he remained true to his own convictions of duty and to his own resolves, even against the Pope himself, and that Pope a man like Innocent IV. But of this more in the sequel. In view of this multitude of spiritual conflicts we can easily understand that his opponents accused him of a want of heart and a love of strife. Even at this distance of time, after the lapse of six centuries, upon a superficial consideration of a life so full of contention, one might easily receive the impression that this energetic man was all too fond of strife, if not even a hierarch of haughty and imperious temper. But on a closer inspection the case stands quite otherwise. A careful examination of his correspondence has forced upon me the conviction that in entering into these numerous con- tentions Grossetete was influenced, not by a violent tempera- ment, but by the dictates of conscience. On one occasion he writes as follows to the Abbot of Leicester : — " You accuse us of iron-heartedness and want of pit}r. Alas ! would that we had an iron heart, steeled against the flatteries of 26 LIFE OF WIOLIF. tempters, a Btrong heart, proof against tlie terrors of the wicked, a Bharp heart, cutting off sins and hewing in pieces the bad when they oppose themselves."20 From this single utterance we may perceive that what lie did could not have been the outflow of mere natural tem- perament, but must have been the result of principle and conviction. It was in this sense he replied to the dean and chapter of Sarum, who admonished him. to live in peace with his own chapter. That peace, he said, was what he aimed at beyond everything else, but the true peace, not the false ; for the latter is only a perversion of the true God-appointed order."1 But that he was not led by a determination to have everything his own way is plain, from the circumstance that what lie laid the whole stress upon in his conflicts Avas not to have success in them, but to preserve in all of them a good conscience. "While he was still Archdeacon of Leicester he had a difference with the Benedictine Convent of Reading — but he was prepared to submit himself unreservedly to the decision of an umpire whom both parties might be able to agree upon.22 And on a later occasion when he had expressed himself at full length against an appointment which Cardinal Otho had desired for a favourite of his, he contented himself with having thus referred the matter to the Cardinal's own conscience, and left it, in qniet, to his own decision.23 It is his abiding sense of responsibility, and his fear of " Him who is able to destroy body and soul in hell," which moves him in all cases when he is compelled to place himself in opposition to personages of high influence and place. But does not, at least, the suspicion of hierarchical pride still remain attached to him? The answer to this is, that however little Grossetete was inclined at any time to abate aught of his episcopal right, whether in dealing with his subordinates or his superiors, with the great men of the realm, or with the supreme Head of the Church himself, in every case the episcopal dignity and power was looked upon by him not as an end but a means. The last end to him was the good of souls. To that end, and to that alone, behoved to be subservient both priestdom and patrondom, bishopdoni and popedom, the Church's liberties and the Church's wealth, each in its own measure and after its own manner. When in Ins official journeys he gathered around him the parochial clergy of a rural deanery, and preached before them, he had in his thoughts the whole of the congregations of these parish priests, and used to say that "it was his duty to preach the Word of God to all 'the souls in his diocese; but ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 27 it was impossible for him to do so personally, considering the multitude of parish churches and the immense population of the diocese ; and he could think of no other way of helping himself than to preach God's Word to the priests and vicars and curates of each deanery, assembled around him in the course of his visitations, in order to do through them, at least to some extent, what he found himself entirely unable to do for the people in person." 24 It is surprising, indeed, to hear a man of such sentiments as these laying down, at an earlier period of his life, to an officer of State, the principle that civil legislation behoves to conform itself to the laws of the Church, because temporal princes receive from the Church all the power and dignity which they possess : that both swords, material and spiritual, belong to St. Peter, with only this difference, that the princes of the Church handle only the spiritual sword, while they wield the material sword through the hands of tem- poral princes, who, however, are bound to draw it and sheathe it under their direction.25 That is quite the lan- guage of an Innocent III. It looks as if Grossetete, in his later life, must have passed over to the other camp. But that is not the true state of the case.26 Even in his earlier life it was not the deepest meaning of his thoughts to surrender up all unconditionally to St. Peter's successor, or to claim plenary powers for the episcopate for its own sake. It is true that he puts the law of the Church on a footing of full equality with the com- mandments of God. It is true also, that he puts the State decidedly under the Church, and denies its autonomy. But he sees these things through the spectacles of his own century, and is unable to set himself loose from its ideas. Still, neither the episcopate nor the papacy exists in his view for itself; both exist for the glory of God and for the good of God's kingdom. The whole conduct and action of the man, not only in later but also in earlier life, justifies us in so interpreting his innermost thoughts. We can see from the rejoinder which he made to the statesman's reply, which would appear to have been couched in a tone of cutting irony, that our bishop had had no intention in his first letter, to mount upon the high horse of hierarchical pride.27 If we look for the innermost kernel of all the thought and effort of this man who had an incredible amount of business to get through, we can find it in nothing else than in his earnest solicitude for souls. To this end he laboured with special zeal for the moral and religious elevation of 28 LIFE OF W7CLIF. the pastoral office. A doctor of theology, William of Cerda, when he had himself been appointed to a pastoral charge, found much more pleasure in carrying on his lectures in the University of Paris than in taking personal charge of bis parishioners in England. But Grossete'te reminds him with equal tenderness and warmth that he should choose rather to be himself a pastor, and to feed the sheep of Christ in his own parish, than to read lectures to other pastors from the chair.98 We see here how high a place he assigned to the pastoral office, and that though he stood at the top of the science of his time, he did not look upon science as the highest thing, bul upon life, and especially the devoted cure of souls. What else but the reform of the pastoral office was the drift of all the visitation work which Grossetete undertook and carried through with such peculiar zeal? And the sermons which he was accustomed to preach in his visitation tours — at ordinations and consecrations of churches before the assembled pastors of one or other of his seventy- two rural deaneries, were nothing else but appeals of the chief pastor of the flock to the under shepherds, designed to quicken their consciences and to press the duties of their office close upon their hearts. Some of these addresses which have come down to us, form in fact a pastoral theology in /nice.-'* When, in the course of his visitations, he made use of his disciplinary powers to depose unworthy priests upon the spot, and when he used his patronage to fill vacant benefices with active, well-educated men, accustomed to preach, lie did his utmost to raise the character of the pastorate. Add to this the watchful eye which he kept upon the appointments made to parishes in his diocese by private patrons and corporations, and even by the crown and the papal court. In how many instances did he put off the canonical admission of a presentee! and what a multitude ot unpleasant conflicts were brought upon him by his con- scientious vigilance in this respect! A considerable portion of his correspondence is taken up exclusively with this subject. Grossetete had scarcely taken possession of his see when an officer of State. William of Raleyer (Raleigh), presented to a paiish a youth called William of Grana. The bishop refused to confirm the appointment, partly on account of his being under age. and partly on account of his inadequate attainments; and the refusal was highly resented by the patron. We have still the letter in which the bishop stated his reasons for the act, and he does so in away which fills us with high appreciation of his conscientiousness and piety.30 ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 29 And there were numerous other instances of a similar kind, in which he withheld his consent to appointments on account either of deficient age or inadequate scholarship, or both together; or on the ground of conduct and deportment wholly unbecoming the priestly office. With no less vigilance did this faithful and watchful chief pastor take heed to the manner in which parish priests after their appointment fulfilled the duties of their office. As may be easily conceived, he looked with no friendly eye upon the accumulation of livings in the same hands — a practice in which personal revenue was the only thing con- sidered, and the interests of parishioners were treated as quite a secondary affair. More than once he opposed himself to this pluralitas beneficiorum.31 At the time of his awakening, about 1232, he had been strict with himself in this respect, and now he was also strict with others. In repeated instances he insisted that every one who was intrusted with the care of souls should be resident in his parish. One of these was the case of a Magister Richard of Cornwall, to whom he had given a living on the recommendation of the Cardinal Egidius, and who had manifested a preference for Rome as a residence, to the neglect of his cure. The bishop sent to him, through the Cardinal, a very peremptory injunction to reside in his parish, begging him sarcastically not to refuse " to let him- self down from the height of Rome to the level of England, in order to feed the sheep, as the Son of God had descended from the throne of His majesty to the ignominy of the Cross in order to redeem them."32 Another matter which from time to time gave the bishop much trouble, had a like bearing upon the elevation of the spiritual offices of the church, viz., the resistance which he opposed to the appointment of abbots and clerics to judicial functions, and his efforts to bring back all offices ordained for the good of souls to their purely ecclesiastical and religious destination and use. In the year 1236 the King appointed the Benedictine Abbot of Ramsey to be a Judge in Council, an appointment which gave great distress to the conscientious chief pastor. That an abbot should undertake such a function appeared to him to be irrecon- cilable with the vows of his order, and with the clerical office in general ; and this all the more that a judge might easily find himself in the position of having to pronounce sentences of death. He therefore addressed himself to the Archbishop of Canterbury to request him to use his influence with the King to obtain, if possible, a recall of the a|3point- 80 LIFE OF WIi'LIF. ment. The Archbishop was of opinion that the question of principle involved in the case ought to be referred for decision to the next general council. But for the bishop it became more and more urgently a question of conscience, whether it was not sin in a monk to undertake the office of judge. It seemed to him clear that the question could only be answered in the affirmative. But, if so, then it was also certain that the bishop, who allowed this to be done, was likewise in sin. In a second letter, therefore, he begs and confutes the Archbishop to give a plain and clear answer to the question — whether, yea or nay, it is sin in a monk or cleric to accept a judge's commission, and whether, yea or nay, it is sin in a bishop to allow this to be done.33 What the issue of the matter was cannot be learnt from the correspondence, and is of less interest to us than the fact that Grossetete laboured in this direction as well as in others for the restoration of good order in all the spiritual offices of the church. But that both church and church-office did not appear to him to be their own end and object, that in his eyes the cure and the salvation of souls held a higher place than the pastoral office taken by itself, is manifest beyond all doubt, from the circumstance that Grossetete brought forward the new Mendicant orders to the work of preach- ing and cure of souls. Already, in his earlier days while he still worked in Oxford, he had. entered into close relations with the Franciscans, and had done his best to bring them forward in the University.34 When he became bishop he associated with himself both Franciscans and Dominicans as his coadjutors in his episcopal office.35 And not only so — he gladly welcomed, protected, and promoted their activity throughout his diocese at large, and did not shrink from openly expressing his opinion, that by preaching and the confessional, by their example and their prayers, they were doing an inestimable amount of good in England, and compensating for the shortcomings and mischievous in- fluence of the secular clergy.315 In this matter Gros- setete differed widely in judgment from many of his clergy, who looked upon it as an encroachment upon the pastoral ollice when a Dominican or Franciscan preached or heard confession in their parishes,37 and did their utmost to keep back their ilocks from listening to such sermons, or confessing to a begging friar. Bishop Grossetete, on the contrary, wrote on one occasion to Pope Gregory IX. as follows: — " 0, if your Holiness could only sec with ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 31 what devotion and humility the people flock together to hear from them (the Mendicant monks) the word of life, and to make confession of their sins, and how much advantage the clergy and religion have derived from the imitation of their example, your Holiness would certainly say the people who wandered in darkness have seen a great light."38 Accordingly he sought to induce the parochial clergy of his diocese to stir up their parishion- ers to frequent the sermons and the confessionals of the friars, — a proceeding which shows clearly enough that however highly he valued the pastoral office, and how- ever zealously he laboured to further and to elevate it, he was still far from exalting it only for its own sake. In his view, the fear of God and the salvation of souls, as the ultimate- ends which the spiritual office was designed to subserve, were of immeasurably higher account. Grossetete's whole views, religious and ecclesiastical, are to be seen in their purest and truest expression in a Memorial, in which he set down all his complaints concerning the disorders of the church of his time, and which he submitted in a personal audience to the Pope. The occasion of the memorial was this. The practice of what was called " appropriation " was becoming increas- ingly common, i.e., the practice of transferring church tenures, tithe-rights, and glebe-lands, into the posses- sion of monasteries, knightly orders, &c. This was a loss to local church property — an impoverishment of the parochial churches concerned. The parish lands were no longer in a condition to secure a living to the parish priest. The consequence was that a priest could no longer reside on the spot. The charge was only supplied from without, either from a cloister or at the cost of a knight commander, sometimes by one, sometimes by another priest or monk. In short, the office was neglected — the parish was spiritually orphanised. In his later years, Bishop Grossetete observed in his visitations that this evil was always on the increase. He saw in it an injury, not only to the pastoral office, but to the souls entrusted to it, which called for the most serious atten- tion. The first step he took to remedy the mischief was to obtain a Papal authorisation, enabling him to declare all transferences and compacts of this kind to be null and void. As soon as these full powers reached his hands, he called before him all the monks of his diocese who had been pro- vided with these livings, and produced and read to them the 32 LIFE OF WICLIF. Papal rescript. He was resolved, he said, to take oyer immediately into his own administration all those parish church-lands, the acquisition of which, with the consent of the Cathedra] I lhapter, the monasteries might not be able to establish by written documents. But experience proved that the Papal authorisation was of little avail. It was only too easy to obtain exemptions by means of corruption at the Papal Court, and the well-meant intentions of the bishop were frustrated. But Grossetete was not the man to give way before such an obstacle. Regardless of his advanced age, he determined to make a second journey to Lyons, where Pope [nnocent IV. was still residing, as he had been six years before. In the year 1250 he crossed the Channel with a numerous spiritual train. Arriving in Lyons, he experienced from the Curia a much cooler reception than he had done on the previous occasion, and in the main business which brought him he acc< >mplished as good as nothing. He remained, how- ever, the whole summer in Lyons, occupied with various affairs. In an audience obtained by him, 13th May, he handed to the Pope himself, and to three of the Cardinals in attendance, copies of the Memorial referred to in which he gave utterance to all that was in his heart. It was immediately read in the Pope's presence by Cardinal Otho, who had lived in England for some time as legate, and had come much into contact with Grossetete. This Memorial has come down to us under the incorrect title of a sermon.40 It is full of earnest moral zeal, and of fearless frankness of speech. Grossetete begins with the observation that zeal for the salvation of souls — the sacrifice most well-pleasing to God — had brought down to earth and humiliation the eternal Son of God, the Lord of glory. By the ministry of his Apostles and the pastors appointed by them among whom, above all others, the Pope bears the image of Christ, and acts as his representative, the kingdom of God came, and the house of God was made full. But at 1 1 1 e present day, alas ! the Church of Christ is sorely diminished and naiTOwed; unbelief prevails in the greatest part of the world; in Christendom itself a considerable portion of it has been separated from Christ by division,41 and in the small remainder heresy goes on increasing in some quarters, and the seven deadly sins prevail in others; so that Christ has had lor ages to complain, "Woe is me, for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape-gleanings of the vintage. There is no cluster to eat, my soul desired the firsl ripe fruit. The good man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men." ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 33 " But what is the cause of this hopeless fall of the church ? Unquestionably the diminution in the number of good shep- herds of souls, the increase of wicked shepherds, and the circumscription of the pastoral authority and power. Bad pastors are everywhere the cause of unbelief, division, heresy, and vice. It is they who scatter the flock of Christ, who lay waste the vineyard of the Lord, and desecrate the earth. No wonder, for they preach not the Gospel of Christ with that living word which comes forth from living zeal for the salvation of souls, and is confirmed by an example worthy of Jesus Christ: and to this they add every possible form of transgression, — their pride is ever on the increase, and so are their avarice, luxury, and extravagance;42 and because the life of the shepherds is a lesson to the laity, they became thus the teachers of all error and all evil. Instead of being a light of the world, they spread around, by their godless example, the thickest darkness and the icy coldness of death. " But what, again, is the cause of this evil ? I tremble to speak of it, and yet I dare not k&pp silence. The cause and source of it is the Curia itself! Not only because it fails to put a stop to these evils as it can and should, but still more, because, by its dispensations, provisions, and colla- tions it appoints evil shepherds, thinking therein only of the living which it is able to provide for a man, and for the sake of that, handing over many thousauds of souls to eternal death. He who commits the care of a flock to a man in order that the latter may get the milk and the wool, while he is unable or unwilling to guide, to feed, and protect the flock, such an one gives over the flock itself to death as a prey. That be far from him who is the representative of Christ ! He who so sacrifices the pastoral office is a perse- cutor of Christ in his members. And since the doings of the Curia are a lesson to the world, such a manner of appointment to the cure of souls on its part, teaches and encourages all who have patronate rights to make pastoral appointments of a like kind, as a return for services rendered to themselves, or to please men in power, and in this way to destroy the sheep of Christ. And let no one say that such pastors can still save the flock by the ministry of middlemen. For among these middlemen many are themselves hirelings who flee when the wolf cometh. " Besides, the cure of souls consists not only in the dispensa- tion of the sacraments, in singing of "hours," and reading of masses, but in the true teaching of the word of life, in rebuking and correcting vice; and besides all this, in feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, C 34 LIFE OF WICLIF. lodging the strangers, visiting the sick and the prisoners — especially among the parish priest's own parishioners — in order, by such deeds of charity, to instruct the people in the holy exercises of active life ; and to do such deeds is not at all in the power of these middlemen, for they get so small a portion of the church's goods that they have scarcely enough to live upon.4:i In the midst of such evils men might still have the consolation of hoping that possibly successors might follow who would better fulfil the pastor's calling. But when parish churches are made over to monasteries these evils are made perpetual. All such things end not in the upbuilding, but the destruction of the church. God defend that even the Holy See and its possessor should act against Christ, and thereby incur the guilt of apostacy and division ! Further, the pastoral office, especially of the bishops, is at the present time circumscribed and restrained, particularly in England, and this in three ways. First, by the exemptions and privileges of monasteries, for when the inmates of these addict themselves outside their walls to the worst vices, the bishops can take no action against them — their hands are tied by the privileges of the convents. Secondly, the secular power puts obstacles in the way, in cases Avhere investigations are made into the sins of laymen, in order to prevent other laymen from being sworn as wit- nesses. To which are to be added, thirdly, appeals to the Pope or Archbishop ; for if the bishop takes steps according to his duty to punish vice and depose unworthy pastors, protest is taken, the " liberty " of the church is appealed to, and so the matter is delayed, and the action of the bishop lamed." In conclusion, Grossetete invokes the Holy See to put a stop to all disorders of this character, and especially to put a check upon the excesses of its own courtiers, of which there were loud enough complaints, to leave off the unevangelical practice of using the interposition of the sword, and to root out the notorious corruption of the Papal Court. It was to be feared that the Holy See, unless it reformed itself without delay, would draw upon itself the heaviest judgments — yea, destruction itself. The Holy Father would not interpret as presumption what the author of this Memorial had ventured to lay before him in ah devotion and humility, under many misgivings and tears, and purely at the bidding of dread of the prophet's " Woe," and of a longing desire to see a better state of things. This utterance can only call forth the deepest respect for the godly-mindedness of the author and for Ins burning zeal for God's house, for the salvation of souls, and the reforma- ENGLISH PRECURSORS OP WICLIP. 35 tion of the church. But ou the other hand, it can easily be understood that such unheard-of freedom of speech was not likely to obtain for the strong man who uttered it any favour or influence at the Papal Court. When Grossetete left Lyons in September, and arrived again at home at Michaelmas 1250, he was for some time so much out of spirits that he had some thoughts of resigning his episcopal office. However, matters did not go that length. He gathered up his strength again, and from that day forward acted only with all the more emphasis, and with all the less reference to the Pope and the Crown. His visitation of convents and parish churches was taken up again with, if possible, still greater strictness than before. Unworthy pastors were set aside, and in all places where there was need for it he appointed vicars in their room, who were sup- ported out of the revenues, in virtue of an authorisation to that effect, which he at last obtained from the Pope. In Parliament his voice carried with it decisive weight. In a letter of 1252 which he addressed to the nobles of the realm, to the citizens of London, and to the " Com- munity" of England, he expressed himself strongly enough on the subject of the illegal encroachments of the Apostolic See, by which the country was drained. But in the year of his death there occurred an incident which raised the name of the Bishop of Lincoln to the highest celebrity. Innocent IV. had conferred upon one of his grandsons, Frederick of Lavagna (the Pope was himself a Count of Lavagna), a canonry in the Cathedral of Lincoln, and taken steps to have him immediately invested with it by a cardinal. From Perugia, on the 2Gth January 1253, an apostolic brief was addressed, not to the bishop, but to an Archdeacon of Canterbury, and to Magister Innocent, a Papal agent in England, with the distinct injunction to put the young man before named, in the person of his proxy, into actual possession of that dignity and living. And that there might be no delay, much less any obstacle put in the way, the Papal brief expressly set aside, in this instance, all and sundry opposing rights and statutes, even such as had received apostolic confirmation, nay, even all direct apostolic concessions to whomsoever given, and howsoever worded. Nor was this enough. In case any one should oppose him- self to the carrying out of this injunction, either by word or deed, the Pope authorised his agents to call any such person immediately before them, so as within two months he should appear in person before the Pope and answer for himself to the challenge of Frederick of Lavagna. This, it was thought. 36 LIFE OF WICLIF. had made failure impossible; every imaginable means <>f escape was cut off, every bolt was made sure, and yet the measure issued in failure after all.47 The Bishop of Lincoln, though now eighty years old, was not accustomed to allow himself to be frightened. "With all the energy which a sense of right springing from the holy feeling of duty inspires, lie stood forward to object to the proceeding, and to withstand it ; and the document in which he couched his opposition had not only an electric effect upon the English nation at the time, but its influence continued to be felt for centuries afterwards, and more than all his learning — more than all the services of his long, active, and fruitful life — it made the name of the God-fearing, upright, and inflexible man popular and illustrious. Grossetete had no thoughts of writing direct to the Pope himself; 4S and this was not prudent merely, it was also due to his own dignity. Innocent had intentionally passed by the bishop, though the question related to a canonry in his own cathedral, and it was therefore in every way suitable and well considered, that the bishop on his side should leave the Pope entirely out of the game. He addressed himself exclusively to the Archdeacon of Canterbury, and to Magister Innocent.49 In this celebrated paper he takes up the position, that in opposing himself to the demand in question, he is giving proof of his veneration and obedience to apostolic maudates, and of his zeal for the honour of the Roman Mother Church. For this demand is not an apostolical one, inasmuch as it is in contradiction to the teaching of the apostles and of Christ Himself. It is also totally irreconcileable with apos- tolic holiness, and this upon a double ground — first, because the "notwithstanding" (non obstante) of the brief, carries along with it a whole flood of inconsistency, recklessness, and deception, undermines truth and faith, and shakes to the centre all Christian piety, as well as all intercourse of confidence between man and man. In the second place, it is a thing entirely unapostolic and unevangelical, abhorred by Christ himself, and in the eyes of men nothing less than a sin of murder, when men's souls, which should be brought unto life and salvation by means of the pastoral office, are destroyed by being deceived and defrauded in the matter of that very office. And this is what is done, when those who are appointed to a pastoral charge only use the milk and the wool of the sheep to satisfy their own bodily necessities, but have no wish or purpose to fulfil the ministry of their office for the eternal salvation of the sheep of Christ. The most holy ENGLISH PRECURSORS OP WICLIF. 37 Apostolic See, to which Christ has given all power, " for edification, not for destruction" (1 Cor. x. 8), can command nothing which has such a sin for its issue. And a truly devoted subject of the Holy See can in no wise give heed to such a command, but must rather resist it with all his might. Such thoughts as this contemplated appointment, are in fact inspired by "flesh and blood, and not by the Father which is in heaven." Such was the substance of this celebrated writiug. The installation of the Pope's grandson into the canonry and prebend of Lincoln came to nothing, and the resolute bishop remained uumolested. So much we know for certain ; and it may well be supposed that the men who were entrusted with the execution of the Pope's mandate, in the mortal difficulty which they were thrown into by the redoubtable protest of Grossetete, knew of nothing better to do than to forward it to Italy for the hand of the Pope, Avithout a moment's delay. Matthew Paris, the Benedictine abbot of St. Alban's, who cannot, it is true, be accepted as an un- prejudiced authority, says in his chronicle that Innocent IV. was almost beside himself with rage when he saw the letter. Who, he exclaimed, is that crazy, foolish, and silly old man who has the effrontery to sit in judgment thus upon my doings'? Is not the King of England our vassal, yea, slave, who at a wink from us can shut him up in prison and send him to ruin? But the cardinals, and especially the cardinal deacon, Aegidius, a personal friend of the Bishop, are said to have quieted the Pope by representing to him " that it was of no avail to take severe measures against Grossetete, for to speak candidly, he was in the right, and no man could condemn him. The bishop was orthodox, and a very holy man ; he was a more conscientious and holy man than they, the cardinals, were themselves. Among all the prelates he had not his match.50 Whatever may be the truth of this account, it is certain that the bold answer of the bishop was ignored, and he was left in peace. Perhaps it was also remembered that he was now an old man, and that he could not much longer give any trouble. And so, in fact, it befell. In October of the same year, 1253, Grossetete had a serious seizure at Buckden, and on the 9th of the same month he died. On the 13th he was buried in the Cathedral of Lincoln. Soon after his decease, it began to be reported that on the night of his death, sounds of bells, indescribably beauti- ful, had been heard high in the air, and ere long men heard of miracles taking place at his tomb. Fifty years later it 38 LIFE OF WIOLIF. was proposed that he should be canonised, and the proposal came al one and the same time from the- King, from the Qnivereity of Oxford, and from the Chapter of St. Paul's. It was Edward [., in the last year of his reign, 1307, who made the suggestion;83 and in so doing, gave utterance to what was in the heart of the whole kingdom. But as may easily be supposed, the proposal did not meet with the most favourable acceptance at the Papal Court. The nation's wish was never complied with by the Curia, but none the less did the venerable bishop remain unforgotten in England, and his memory continue to be blessed through long centuries. His image was universally revered by the nation as an ideal — as the most perfect model of an honest Churchman. ''Never for the fear of any man had he for- borne to do any good action which belonged to his office and duty. If the sword had been unsheathed against him, he stood prepared to die the death of a martyr." Such was the solemn testimony borne to him by his own University of Oxford, when it pleaded for his canonisation. In the public estimation of England, Grossetete was, in point of fact, a saint. In the following century he appears to have been so regarded by AViclif, who in numberless passages refers to him under the name of Lincohrieusis.63 And there is reason to think that this estimate was one not at all persona] to Wiclif himself, but in harmony with the feeling of his countrymen at large. We have the testimony of Thomas Gascoigne, who died in 1457, that Grossetete wras commonly spoken of by the people as !St. Robert.54 It was natural, too, that when, at a later period, the whole of western Christendom came to be strongly convinced of the necessity of a " Reformation in Head and Members," the memory of the bold and outspoken Bishop of Lincoln should have flamed up again brightly among the English friends of Church Reform. At that period an Anglican member of the Council of Constance, the Oxford divine, Henry Abendon, in a speech which he delivered before the Council, 27th October 1415, repeatedly referred as an authority to Dominus Lincolnioi- sis ; and on one occasion made express mention of the Memorial to the Pope which is mentioned above. As late as the year 1503, an English monk. Richard of Bardney, sung of Grossetetc's life in a copy of Latin distiches, which conclude with an invocation of him in form as a canonised saint.68 A fact like this, that Grossetete, in spite of the Papal refusal of his canonisation, continued to live for centuries in the mouth and the heart of the ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 39 English people as " St. Robert," is a speaking proof of the change which had already come over the spirit of the age; that the absolute authority of Papal decrees was already shaken ; that the nimbus which surrounded the Holy See itself was paling. During the period when the Papal power was at its zenith, we can as little imagine the case of a man being venerated as a saint in a con- siderable portion of western Christendom, where canonisa- tion had been positively refused by the Curia, as the converse case of a design on the part of Rome to canonise a churchman being upset by the opposition of a portion of the Catholic Church — an event which actually occurred when, in 1729, Benedict XIII. proposed to canonise Gre- gory VII., but was compelled to give up the idea out of regard to the decided declarations of France and Austria. As Protestants, we have both a right and a duty to hold in honour the memory of a man like Grossetete. His creed, indeed, was not the pure confession of the Evangelical Churches ; but his fear of God was so earnest and upright ; his zeal for the glory of God was so glowing ; his care for the salvation of his own soul and of the souls committed to him by virtue of his office was so conscientious ; his faithfulness so approved ; his will so energetic ; his mind so free from man-fearing and man- pleasing; his bearing so inflexible and beyond the power of corruption, — that his whole character constrains as to the sincerest and deepest veneration. When, in addition, we take into view how high a place he assigned to the Holy Scriptures, to the study of which, in the University of Oxford, he assigned the first place as the most funda- mental of all studies,58 and which he recognises as the only infallible guiding star of the Church ; 59 when we remember with what power and persistency, and with- out any respect of persons, he stood forward against so many abuses in the Church, and against every defection from the true ideal of church-life ; when we reflect that he finds the highest wisdom to stand in this — " To know Jesus Christ and him crucified " (1 Cor. 2-1) 60 — it is certainly not saying too much when we signalise him as a venerable witness to the Truth, as a Churchman who fulfilled the duty which he owed to his own age, and in so doing lived for all ages ; and who, through his whole career, gave proofs of his zeal for a sound reformation of the Church's life. 40 LIFE OF WICLIF. Section' III. — Henry Bracton and William Occam, and the lone of Church Life and Politics in the 14th Century. A MAN of kindred spirit to Grossetete, though differing from him in important points, was Henry of Bracton, a younger contemporary of the celebrated Bishop of Lincoln. Bracton, the greatesl lawyer of England in the Middle Ages, was a practical jurist, but also a learned writer upon English Common Law.1'1 Both as a municipal judge and scientific jurist, he maintained the rights of the State in opposition to the Church, and sought to define as accurately as possible the limits of the secular and the spiritual jurisdictions. In particular, he treated as en- croachments of the spiritual jurisdiction its claims of right in questions of patronage. On this point, it is true Bracton and Grossetete would hardly have been of one mind ; but none the less they both stood upon common ground, in being decidedly national in their spirit and views, and in offering strenuous opposition to the aggres- sions of the Court of Borne. Only a few years after Grossetete's death, contests arose on constitutional questions, in which the opposition of the barons was for some time in the ascendant. At the head of this party stood Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who had been a friend of Grossetete. In the year 1258, the Parliament of Oxford appointed an administration, which, while Henry III. continued nominally to reign, was to wield all the real power of the State ; and it was by no means only the great barons of the kingdom who had a voice in this government. Earl Simon was the champion and hero of the lower clergy and the Commons, who stood behind him and his allied barons. The object in view was to put an end to arbitrary and absolute government, and to put in its place the rule of the Constitution, of Law, and of Right. The movement found its most powerful support in the Saxon population of the country. It was directed, not least, against the undue influence of foreigners upon public affairs. Under the powerful Edward I. (1272-1307) the kingdom again recovered its strength; and after the feeble, un- fortunate reign of Edward II., national feeling was again roused by the French war of succession in the reign of Edward III. (1327-1377), when the nation gathered up its strength for the long wars with France, a struggle which had a powerful effect in developing both the national character and language. ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 41 What the kingdom had chiefly stood in need of was a higher authority and a more concentrated strength than had obtained under Henry III., and Edward I. was exactly the man to remedy that defect. He had made many concessions, it is true, to the estates of his kingdom in the matter of Parliamentary rights, under the repeated pressure of his undertakings against Wales, Scotland, and the Continent ; but he had done this without any loss to the Crown. On the contrary, the Crown had only been a gainer by the freedom and rights which had been guaranteed to the nation. It was now, for the first time, that the Crown entered into a compact unity with the nation, acquired a full national character, and became itself all the stronger thereby. This immediately showed itself when Boniface VIII. attempted to interfere with the measures of the King against Scotland, as he had done a few years before in the transac- tions between England and France. Id a bull, dated 27th June 1299, Boniface not only asserted his direct supremacy over the Scottish Church as a church independent of Eng- land, but also put himself forward, without ceremony, as arbiter of the claims which Edward I. was then advancing to the Scottish Crown. " If Edward asserted any right what- ever to the kingdom of Scotland, or any part thereof, let him send his plenipotentiaries with the necessary documents to the Apostolic See ; the matter will be decided there" in a manner agreeable to right." 62 In resisting such assumptions the King found the most determined assistance in the spirit of the country itself. He laid the matter, with the necessary papers, before his Parlia- ment, which met in Lincoln on 20th January 1301 ; and the representatives of the kingdom took the side of their King without reserve. The nobles of the realm sent, 12th February 1301, a reply to that demand of Boniface VIII., in which they repelled, in the most emphatic manner, the attempted encroachment. No fewer than 104 earls and barons, who all gave their names at the beginning of the document, and sealed it with their seals at the end, declared in it, not only in their own name, but also for the whole community of England, " that they could feel nothing but astonishment at the unheard-of pretensions contained in the Papal brief. The kingdom of Scotland had never been a fief of the Pope, but from time immemorial of the English Crown ; they had therefore, after mature consideration, with one voice resolved that the King should in no way acknow- ledge the Papal jurisdiction in this affair, yea, they would not even allow the King to acknowledge it if he were himself 42 ' LIFE OF WICLIF. disposed to do so. In conclusion, they implored Lis Holiness, in the most respectful manner, to leave untouched the rights of their King, a monarch who was entirely devoted to the interest of the Church."68 It was not till later that Edward himself addressed a letter of great Length to Boniface, in which he confined himself to a historical proof of his alleged rights to the Scottish Crown, ami referred to the Pope's claim of jurisdiction in the matter only in the briefest way, and only to decline and protest against it; and, in point of fact, the King went forward in his measures affecting Scotland without troubling himself further in any way about the claims of the Papal Court. It was thus that the English Crown, by an appeal to the nation, successfully repelled the unrighteous aggression of the Roman Curia ; and I know not if the fact has hitherto been sufficiently recognised by historians that England set an example in this business, which Philip le Beau of France only imitated a year later in his dispute with Boniface VIII., when, in April lo()2, he assembled a national Parliament. It was also in imitation of the example of the English barons that the French nobles and the Third Estate protested, in a letter to the cardinals, against the Papal pretensions. If in this case the leaning of the King upon the nation issued in benefit to the Crown, no less, on the other side, did the national attitude of the Government lend strength and emphasis to the patriotic spirit of the people. When Edward I., in the last year of his reign, proposed the canonisation of the universally venerated Bishop of Lincoln, he was only giving utterance to what was in the heart of the whole country, and the effect of the movement could only be to heighten and strengthen the interest of the nation in eccle- siastical affairs. The ablest and most strongly-marked representative of this state of feeling in the first half of the fourteenth century was a man who was born in England, and trained under the influence of the English spirit, but who spent the later portion of his life on the Continent, partly in the University of Paris, and partly at the Court of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria. We refer to William of Occam, a man who, as a scholar, as a copious writer, as a dignitary of the Franciscan Order, and finally, as a strenuous leader of the opposition against the absolutism of the Papacy, took a position of great prominence in his day. His philosophical nominalism had a prophetic and national significance, inasmuch as it prepared the way for that inductive method of philosophising which was put forward several centuries later by able ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 43 countrymen of his own, such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. But what chiefly concerns us here in Occam was his character as a keen and independent tbinker on matters of the Church. It is not a little remarkable that along with several other men, his personal friends of Italian birth, he was brought into a position of bold opposition to the Papacy, and came in sight of many great and free ideas, entirely through his standing as a member and provincial of the Franciscan order. It was a trifling question of the order, out of which was developed a grand world of thoughts. In the year 1321 it came to the knowledge of a Domini- can Inquisitor in Narbonne, in the south of France, that it was an opinion held by some that neither Christ nor his apostles had ever, either as individuals or as a society, been in possession of property. This proposition appeared to the Dominican to be heretical; but a learned Francis- can in that city, Berengar Taloni, maintained it to be perfectly orthodox, and, ere long, the whole Franciscan order, at a general chapter held in Perugia in June and July 1322, declared for the same view. Thus the point became a question of controversy between the two great Mendicant orders. On an appeal being carried to the Papal See in Avignon, a decision was given on the side of the Dominicans. John XXII. (1316-1334) in truth was as far removed from apostolic poverty as the east is from the west. He kept his eye so steadily upon the interest of the Papal treasury, that twenty-five millions of gold crowns in coin and jewels were found in it after his death. Of course, such a chief of the Church could not be suspected to look upon absolute poverty as a requirement of Christian perfection. He would have preferred, indeed, to avoid giving a decision on the question which was at issue between the two Orders. But that was impossible. The controversy would admit neither of silence nor delay. A decision clear and round — yea or nay — was unavoidable. In the year 1322-1324, the Pope pronounced against the Franciscans in a series of bulls. The two first (Quia non- nunquam, and Ad Conditorem Canonum), published in 1322, were only of a preparatory character. The third constitu- tion of 1323 (Cum inter nonnullos) contained the decision upon the principle involved, declaring the proposition that Christ and his apostles were never either singly or collectively holders of property to be contrary to Scrip- 44 LIFE OF WICLIF. lure and erroneous. And, last of all, in 1324 followed two more bulls ; in the Constitution, Quia quorundam, the Pope pronounced sentence of excommunication upon the opposers of his determination ; and in the bull, Quia vir reprobus, he rejected the appeal of Michael of Cesena, the general of the Order. The majority of the Franciscan order now bowed to the decision, and after some years elected another general. I '.nt those who had stood forth as the firmest defenders of the doctrine of apostolic poverty withheld their sub- mission. They left Avignon; and William of Occam, Michael of Cesena, and Bonagratia of Bergamo attached themselves, in 1328, to the service of Emperor Louis the Bavarian. Out of this conflict between the Papal Court and the Minorites ideas developed themselves which were of the greatest importance, and which made their influence felt in succeeding centuries ; and of all the polemical writings produced by the repulsed and banished Franciscans, those of Occam were by far the richest in substance. While Michael of Cesena confined himself chiefly to personal polemics of defence and attack, Occam's writings, pub- lished several years later, though not altogether silent on topics of this nature, are in the main occupied with the substance of the great objective questions in dispute ; and his investigations possess, in this way, a value and width of bearing which far outgo what was of mere ephemeral interest. This discussion, indeed, makes a highly mixed impression upon an evangelical reader who follows it after the lapse of more than 500 years. Who can miss seeing that the Franciscan, in his deep contemplation of the life of Jesus and the apostolic age, unconsciously looks at the Redeemer and his apostles from the stand-point of the begging friar, and conceives of them in a thoroughly monkish and ascetic manner. In opposing such a view, John XXII. was not without good ground to stand upon. But unquestionably the Pope fell into an error very much greater himself. Not so unconsciously, perhaps, as his opponent, he carried over to primitive Christianity the conditions of his own age, and influenced by his own interests, he allowed himself to justify, by the example of the Redeemer and the pre- cedent of the apostles, the whole hierarchical system of his own time, richly endowed and secularised in spirit as it was, including even the territorial possessions of the Holy See, and its well-filled treasury. And therein, no doubt, the ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WIOLIF. 45 Pope was in the wrong, and Occam, his adversary, in the right. The deepest ground, however, of the unsparing antag- onism of the Roman Court to the stringent principles of the Franciscans was, in truth, no other than this, — that the Popes felt that the spirit of world-abnegation which animated these men, was a tacit censure of their own spirit and habit of life ; from which again sprang " the hatred of the evil conscience." But it was the very- persecutions which this hatred prompted which served, in the course of time, to bring to full light and ripeness all the principles touching the spirituality of Christ's king- dom, which at first still lay in a deep slumber, and had only dimly revealed themselves to the presaging feeling of a few men of a better spirit than their contemporaries. Occam's whole exposition on the subject of the kingdom of Christ being not an earthly but a heavenly and eternal kingdom — that Christ is indeed as to his Godhead,, King, and Lord over all, but, as God-man, only King of his believ- ing people, and in no respect the administrator of a worldly government — is a Scriptural critique in effect of the mediaeval hierarchy — an unconscious evangelical protest against the Papacy in that form which it had assumed since the days of Gregory VII. But, on the other hand, Occam's protest against Papal absolutism — against the assertion of an unlimited plenitudo potestatis of the Pope — is the result of clear, self-conscious, profound reflexion. He declares it to be totally erroneous, heretical, and dangerous to souls, to maintain that the Pope, by the ordinance of Christ, possesses unlimited power, both spiritual and temporal. For if this were so, he might depose princes at his pleasure — might, at his pleasure, dispose of the possessions and goods of all men. We should all be the Pope's slaves ; and in spiritual things the position would be the same. In that case the law of Christ would bring with it an intolerable slavery, much worse than the Old Testa- ment ever knew; whereas the Gospel of Christ, in comparison with the old covenant, is a law of liberty, In this connec- tion Occam opposes, in the most emphatic manner, the assertion of some flatterers of the Roman Court, that the Pope has power to make new articles of faith ; that he is infallible; that into no error, no sin of simony can he possibly fall. He starts from the general principle, that the whole hierarchy, including the Papal Primacy, is not an immediately Divine, but only a human order. In one place he even gives expression to the bold thought, that it would, to the general 4(3 LIFE OF WICLIF. body of believers, be of more advantage to have several primates or chief priests (sum mi pontijices), than to have one only; the unity of the Church docs not depend upon there being only one summits pontifex ; the danger of moral corruption of the whole body is much greater with only one head than with several. In the event of a Pope becoming heretical, every man must have the competency to be his judge, but his ordinary judge is the Emperor. But the Church at large also has jurisdiction over the Pope in such au event, and hence also a General Council, as the representative of the whole Church; the bishops, in case of need, may even depose him. Here Ave have a practical question anticipated, which some sixty years later became a burning question in Christendom, and not only raised, but determined, precisely as it was one day to be solved in actual fact. Further, in solving the doubt, whether a Council, in case of necessity, could assemble without Papal sanction, Occam came upon thoughts entirely his own. Every society (communitas) and corporation can enact laws for itself, and elect individuals to act for the whole body {vice gerant). Now, all believers are one body and one society (Rom. xii. 5) ; it is competent for them, therefore, to choose representa- tives of the whole body. When those thus elected meet together, they form a General Council of the whole of Christendom. He conceives of the carrying out of such a Council in this manner — that from every parish one or more should be sent to the synod of the diocese, or to the Parliament of the prince. This assembly proceeds to another election, and the meeting of all those chosen by the Diocesan Synods, or the Parliaments, constitutes the General Council. That is not a Papal Curial Synod, neither is it a church assembly constituted upon hierarchical principles ; it is a Synod framed upon the parochial principle. And yet it is not Occam's meaning to advise a leap from the ground of the absolute and sole domination of the Papacy to that of an unconditioned parochial principle, as if this latter contained in it all the safe-guards of truth and weal. No; only to the Church itself as a whole, but not to any part of it (and every council is only a part of it), is the promise given that it can never fall into any error contradictory to the faith. Although all the members of a General Council should fall into error, the hope would not need, on that account, to be surrendered, that God would reveal His truth unto babes (Matt. xi. 25), or would inspire men who already knew the truth to stand forth in its defence. And such an ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 41 occurrence must issue in glory. to God, for thereby He would show that our faith does not rest upon the wisdom of men, such as are called to a General Council, but upon the Power who has sometimes chosen " the foolish things of the world to confound the wise" (1 Cor. i. 27). In another place Occam expresses the thought that it is even possible that on some occasion the whole male sex, clergy as well as laity, might err from the faith, and that the true faith might maintain itself only among pious women. We see where all this is tending to. High above the Pope, and high above the Church itself, in Occam's view, stands Christ the Lord. " The Head of the Church and its foundation is one — Christ alone." Occam is conscious that his contention is for Christ and for the defence of the Christian faith. It makes a touching and deeply mournful impression, to look into Occam's heart, as he opens it in the following confession : — " The prophecy of the Apostle, 2 Tim. iv. 3, is now being fulfilled. Chief Priests and Elders, Scribes and Pharisees, are acting now-a-days exactly as they did then when they put Jesus on the cross. They have banished me and other honourers of Christ to Patmos. Yet we are not without hope. The hand of the Lord is not shortened yet. We live in trust in the Most High that we shall yet one day return with honour to Ephesus. But should the will of God be otherwise, still I am sure that neither death nor life, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, or draw us away from the defence of the Christian faith." By the side of this testimony of pious, joyful trust in God, we place a passage where Occam speaks of the value of his own writings and their importance for the future. This occurs in his Dialogue, at the point where he passes on to a discussion which we may describe as a piece of political philosophy. Here he puts iutq the mouth of the scholar in the Dialogue the following words addressed to his master : — " Although we are unable at present to produce a complete work on the subject, as no treatise upon it, to my knowledge, has ever hitherto been attempted by any other writer, still it was useful not to be altogether silent upon a subject of so much importance, that we may stir up others who have the command of books, to produce complete works upon it. My meaning is this, that by means of our essay men of future times who are zealous for truth, righteousness, and the common weal, may have their attention drawn to many truths upon these matters which, at the present day, remain 48 LIFE OF WICLIF. concealed from rulers, councillors, and teachers, to the loss of the common weal." Nor, in point of fact, was this saying too much. For Occam, along with the small group of like-minded inde- pendent thinkers with whom he was associated, represents a high flight of human thought which did not pass uselessly overhead like a transient meteor, but worked upon the minds of men with a kindling power. Out of a mere question affecting a religious order, developed itself an unimagined life-force, an antagonism to the Papacy as a centralising world-power, still blended, it is true, with ascetic con- victions, and even deriving its moral strength from these, and still only half conscious of the extent of its own bear- ings, but none the less an antagonism to the Papacy, which in its positive kernel was a contention for Christ as the alone Head of the Church. In this conflict of minds by thrust and counter-thrust there were kindled sparks of evangelical thought and feeling, and there were struck out new lights of political truth, which proved of use and advantage to succeeding generations, and rendered essential service to progress in the direction of an evangelical renovation of the Church. In the meanwhile, however, it will be easily understood, that ideas and sentiments like these, so far outrunning the current century, could not pass at once into the blood of the existing generation. In the first instance, only what con- cerned the autonomy of the State, in opposition to the Curia, was grasped and realised by the English nation during the fifty years' reign of Edward III. (1327-1377). Even the foreign wars, which fill up so large a portion of this period, were constrained to help to this end. Not, indeed, the expe- ditions against Scotland, which followed one after another during the first seven years, but none the less the French wars of succession which Edward III. commenced in 1339. These foreign relations had a reaction upon the domestic : the wars rendered necessary increased subsidies, and these wore voted by the estates of the realm represented in Parlia- ment, only at the price of assured political rights and franchises, as, e.g., in the Parliament of 1341. But the more closely Crown and Parliament held together, the more resolutely they opposed themselves to all foreign attempts. Tins the Papal Court was compelled to feel acutely, and all the more that the Court at Avignon was seen to be dependent upon the same France with which England was at war. When Clement VI., immediately after his accession to ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF, 49 the Holy See, endeavoured to make peace between Edward III. of England and Philip VI. of France, he succeeded, indeed, so far as to bring about a truce for a time ; but as early as Easter 1343, with the full assent of his Parliament, Edward roundly declined all official intervention of the Pope as head of the church ; only as a private individual and personal friend should Clement attempt a mediation. But still more deeply felt than this declinature was the determination with which King and Parliament repudiated the Pope's nominations to English livings in favour of foreign prelates and priests. It is well known that the Popes of Avignon went far beyond the earlier Popes in draining the finances of the national churches. But, on the other side, there had also been no small growth of courage and resolution in opposing such abuses. In Eng- land, at least, the provisions granted by the Pope to foreign clergy were barred in the most effectual manner. When Clement VI. had granted to two newly-made cardinals — one of them his own grandson — provisions to English dignities and incomes worth in all 2,000 marks yearly, the barons, knights, and burgesses of the realm, in Parlia- ment assembled at Westminster, 18th May 1343, joined in an open letter to the Pope, in which they respectfully, but in a firm tone, begged for the removal of the scandal which was given by reservations, provisions, and nomi- nations to English dignities and livings, and which had become greater under Clement than ever before. They urged that the numerous rich endowments of their country had been designed for the upholding of God's service, for the furthering of the Christian faith, and for the benefit of the poor parishioners, and were intended only for such men as had been thoroughly instructed for their office, and who were able, in particular, to hear confessions in the mother tongue. On the other hand, by the appoint- ment of strangers and foreigners, in some cases even of enemies of the kingdom, ignorant of the language of the country, and of the conditions of those among whom it was their duty to exercise the pastoral care, the souls of the parishioners are put in jeopardy; the spiritual cure is neglected ; the religious feelings of the people impaired ; the worship of God abridged ; the work of charity diminished ; the means of bringing forward young men of merit crippled ; the wealth of the kingdom carried off to foreign parts ; and all this in opposition to the design of the founders. fi4 Nor did men stop at mere representations of the case. D 50 LIFE OF WIC1JF. When the cardinals referred to sent their agents to England to exercise their new rights and collect the revenues, these men fared badly enough. The population laid violent hands upon them ; the king's officers put hindrances in the way of their proceedings; they were thrown into prison; and in the end were driven out of the country with insult and shame. The Pope with his own hand wrote to King Edward from Villeneuve, near Avignon, 28th August 1343, complaining of these proceedings, and requiring the King to interfere to put a stop to what was so " un- reasonable."65 But Clement had ill success in this step. The King sent a reply which was by no means conciliatory, but called upon the Pope with great emphasis to do away with the practice of " Provisions." He referred to an urgent petition which he had received from the last Parliament, praying that a speedy stop might be put to " impositions " of that kind, which were intolerable to the country ; it was no more than the fact, he remarked, that these measures were fitted to inflict injury upon the kingdom in more ways than one, which he pointed out in terms partly borrowed from the Parliament's petition. In addition, he brings into view the violation of right which was involved in these provisions and reservations of the Curia : the right of patronage and collation belonging to the Crown and its vassals is thereby infringed ; the jurisdiction of the Crown in questions of patronate right is ignored ; by the ex- port of money, as well as by the deterioration of the priesthood, the kingdom is weakened ; — on all which accounts he turns himself to the successor of the Prince of the Apostles, who received from Christ the command to feed the Lord's sheep, and not to fleece- them, to strengthen his brethren, and not to oppress them, with the urgent entreaty that this burden of " Provisions " may be taken away ; that the patrons may have the use of their patronate rights ; that the chapters may exercise, without hindrance, the right of election ; that the rights of the Crown may remain without injury; and that the former long-descended devotion of England to the holy Roman Church may again revive.06 But in Avignon men did not readily give ear to represent- ations of this sort, let them be ever so well grounded. The abuse went on as before, as far as was practicable, and the nation was at last convinced that the Papal Court was not in the least disposed to abandon a practice which was so profitable to itself. A resolution was come to to take the matter info their own hand, and to put a stop to these usurpations by the legislature of the kingdom. In 1350, the ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 51 King, with consent of his Parliament, enacted a severe penal law against all who in any way should take part in the filling up of church-offices, injuriously to the rights of the King, or of the chapters or private patrons concerned. Every act of this kind was declared null and void ; all offenders in this sort were threatened with fines and imprisonment ; and all appeals against the same to foreign tribunals prohibited. This Avas the " Statute of Provisors ; " 07 which was followed three years later by another penal act, which is commonly called simply the " Praemunire ; " 68 which among other tilings was directed against the abuse of carrying appeals to the Pope from the English courts on questions of* personal property. The law threatened offenders in this kind for the future with fine and imprisonment. In connection with this legislation against "Provisions," we naturally recall again to mind the form of the venerable Bishop of Lincoln, who, exactly one century earlier, had manfully resisted the like encroachments, and whose spirit seemed now to inspire the whole nation. It was the same spirit, in fact, which animated Wiclif from the commence- ment of his public career — who attained to manhood just at this time — the spirit of national independence boldly op- posing a course of proceeding which made use of church affairs as a handle for other ends. It was no unchurchly spirit which lay at the bottom of this opposition. The very contrary was the truth. It was no mere phrase-making, still less any hypocritical dissimulation, when Edward III., at the close of the document quoted above, said of himself and his subjects, " We all desire to render to your most holy person and to the holy Roman Church the honour which is due from us."66 Only this honour rendered to the Church was not blind and unconditioned : it was manly and dignified, and was prepared, in case of need, to oppose the head of the Church himself, not only in word but in deed, in matters affecting the Church's temporalities. In reference to this church-spirit of England, it is a significant and important circumstance, that up to a period later than the middle of the thirteenth century no sects and divisions had ever arisen in the National Church, nor any departures of any sort from the characteristic form of the Charch of the West. We find no certain trace to show that during all the mediaeval centuries, down to that time, any form of native heresy had ever sprung up upon the English soil.70 Nor even were foreign heretical sects ever able to find a footing in England, however much, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries especially, these sects spread 52 LIFE OF WICLIF. and propagated themselves on the Continent. Only two instances are mentioned b}r the chroniclers of such heretics appearing in England, and in both cases they were immedi- ately put down and extinguished. In the first instance, under the reign of Henry II., in the year 1 159, there arrived in the country a party of 30 persons of both sexes, apparently Low ( Icrmans, under the leadership of a certain Gerhard; but having soon fallen under suspicion of heresy, they were imprisoned and tried before a Synod in Oxford, by which they were found guilty, and delivered over to the secular arm. Their punishment was to be branded upon the forehead, to be flogged through the streets, and then, in their wounds and half-naked, to be driven out in winter into the open fields, where, without food and shelter, outcasts from all society, and by all men unpitied, they were left miserably to perish. But they met their fate with joy notwithstanding ; they sang aloud, " Blessed are ye that are persecuted for righteousness sake, for yours is the kingdom of heaven." But the monkish chronicler, heart- lessly enough, makes the following comment upon the inci- dent : — " This pious severity not only purified the kingdom of the plague which had already crept into it, but, by striking terror into the heretics, guarded against any future irruption of the evil." n Between forty and fifty years later, however, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, under the reign ot J dim, as a later writer briefly informs us, several Albigenses came into England and were burnt alive. That such merciless procedure should in the end act as a deterrent may be easily understood ; and, in particular, to the Waldenses, who never seem to have made their way into England. At least, Peter of Pilichdorf, who wrote in 1444 against the Waldenses, attests that, with some other countries, England had always remained entirely pure and free from the Waldensian sect.73 And I find an indirect confirmation oi this in the circumstance, that in all the writings of Wiclif which I have searched through in manuscript, I have never come upon a single trace to indicate that either in his own time, or in earlier centuries, heretics of any kind had made their appearance in England. Even the Waldenses are not once historically referred to by him, or so much as named. It is without all support, therefore, from original sources, when some writers put forth the conjecture that there were secret disciples of the Waldensian doctrines in England in Wiclif'B time, who only came publicly into view when emboldened by his movement and the number of his followers. ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF WICLIF. 53 If there had been any foundation for this conjecture the opponents of Wiclif and his party would certainly not have omitted to make use of such a fact, which they could so easily have turned to their own advantage. They would in that case have pilloried the Lollards as the adherents of a sect already long ago condemned by the Church. But of this, too, there is not a single trace. On the con- trary, one of the earliest opponents of the Lollards, in a polemical poem written soon after Wiclif's death, freely admits that England, which now favours the Lollards, had hitherto been free of all stain of heresy, and of every form of error and deception.75 In a word, it is irreconcilable with the known facts of history to attempt to bring the inner development of Wiclif or his followers into connection with any earlier manifestation of heresy on the European continent. And, in England itself, the history of the centuries before Wiclif has not a single manifestation of the heretical kind to show which was of any continuance or of any importance. It is no doubt true that in the intellectual, moral, ecclesiastical, and political character of the period in which Wiclif's youth and early manhood fell, there were elements which exercised influence upon him, and received from him in turn a further development. These, however, were all elements which were compatible with true zeal for the existing Church, and with a sincere devotion to the Papal See; being, on the one hand, a certain national self-includedness, favoured by insular position, but fostered still more by the spirit of Saxon nationality, which was evoked so powerfully during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, till it stood out conspicuously in the compact, united consciousness of the whole nation ; on the other hand, a spirit of independence Avhich did not shrink from defending the rights and interests of the nation and the National Church, even against all the power of the Papal See, and to wage open war against the abuses of the Church. In a word, there awoke in the Angli- can Church of the thirteenth, and still more of the fourteenth centuries, " the true Reformation spirit which can never die out in the Church, but must rather from time to time break forth afresh with rejuvenescent strength, in order to remove the ever recurring rust of abuses and mischiefs." °7 54 LIFE <>F WICLIF. SECTION IV. — Richard of Armagh and the Mendicant Orders. We must ;it this point recall the name of an important man in whom this Reformation spirit had a vigorous vitality — an older contemporary of Wiclif, to whom, as to Grossetete, he often refers, and with whom he has sometimes been placed in a closer connection than can, in our judgment, be histori- cally justified. We refer to Archbishop Richard, of Armagh, Primate of Ireland, who had a high celebrity in his day. Richard Fitzralph studied in Oxford, under Dr. John Bakonthorpe, who was an opponent of the Mendicant Orders, and in whose steps his disciple is alleged to have walked.* Fitzralph was recommended to Edward III. as a man of high ability, and was promoted to be Archdeacon of Lichfield ; in 1333 he became Chancellor of the University of Oxford; and finally, in July 1347, Archbishop of Armagh. The only side on which he is still known at the present day is as the practical Churchman, especially in connection with his opposition to the encroachments of the Mendicant Orders. But in his own age and in following times he was also held in high honour as a master of theological science. The reason why nothing is now known of him in this character is, that none of his dogmatic and polemical writings have ever been sent to the press. But in addition to theological lectures delivered in Oxford, he left important writings behind him. Among these we are told not only of a commentary on the sentences of Peter Lombard, originating in his Oxford lectures, but also of several apologetico-polemical works, directed partly against Judaism — De intentionibus Juda'orimi — partly against the Armenian Church. The latter work, his nineteen books against the errors of the Armenians, called also his Summa, was the principal dogmatic work of " Hichard of Armagh," as he was commonly called, or simply " Armachanus ; " and Wiclif himself cites the books against the Armenians with extraordinary frequency. Richard composed this work under Pope Clement VI., about 1350, at the request of several Armenian Bishops. For since 1145, the Armenian Kings had entered into transactions and connections with Rome, which had for their aim a union of the National Church of Armenia with the Roman Church of the west. At the beginning of the fourteenth century several synods of the Armenians were held in Sis, the ancient Issus,* in 1307, and in Atan (Adana) in 1310, with a view to this union. In this * See Additional Note at the end of the Introduction. RICHARD FITZRALPH. 55 connection the learned Englishman wrote the extensive work referred to,77 at the instance of the Armenian John, bishop- elect of Khelat, and his brother Nerses, Archbishop of Manaz-Kjerd. Richard accordingly threw his book into the form of a dialogue. John, the bishop - elect, pro- poses questions, and brings forward objections. Richard himself answers and solves them. In the first six books are handled the Christological and Trinitarian doctrines ; the seventh defends the Primacy of Rome ; four books — 8 to 11 — are devoted to the Doctrine of the Sacra- ments; the 12th and following to the Doctrine of the Last Things ; the five remaining books closing with philosophico- theological investigations of a general kind, which form the basis of the whole work.78 We are told that Richard left behind him a translation of the Bible in the Irish tongue, which would have been an important fact if it had been well attested, but the allega- tion rests upon insufficient evidence.79 But we have trustworthy information on the position taken up by the Irish Primate against the Mendicant orders. The following circumstances gave rise to this incident as related by himself: — Having occasion to come to London on the business of his Archbishoprick, he found that learned men there "were engaged in animated discussions upon the question of the poverty of the life of Jesus, and whether He had even begged. This was no doubt an after effect of the debate formerly maintained between Pope John XXII. and a party of the Franciscans.so The Archbishop was repeatedly asked to preach in London upon the subject, and in the church of St. Paul he delivered seven or eight sermons in English, in which he set forth and maintained the proposi- tions following : — 1. Jesus Christ, during His sojourn upon earth, was indeed always a poor man ; but 2. He never practised begging as His own spontaneous choice. 3. He never taught any one to beg. 4. On the contrary, Jesus taught that no man should practice voluntary begging. 5. No man can either prudently or holily determine to follow a life of mendicancy. 6. Mendicancy forms no part of the rule of the Franciscans. 7. The Bull of Alexander IV. (of the year 1255) against a certain book (the Introductorius in Evangelium eternwn) is not directed against any of the above propositions. 8. For the purposes of confession, the parish church is 56 LIKE OP WICLIF. always more suitable for the parishioner than any church or chapel of the begging monks. 9. For hearing confessions the parish priest is always preferable to the begging monk. These nine propositions evidently fall into two groups. The first group — 1 to 7 — treats entirely of the moral question, in what "Apostolical Poverty" consists; in particular, whether begging, in its proper sense, is permitted to Chris- tian men, and is in itself a virtue — yea or nay. The second group, consisting of the two last propositions, relates to the ecclesiastical question, whether it is advisable and right that parishioners should confess in a conventual church to a mendicant monk, instead of going to their parish church and parish priest. In both respects the high-placed dignitary expressed himself in opposition to the Mendicants, to their principles and to their privileges. No wonder that he was attacked in consequence. The Mendicant Orders raised accusations against him at the Papal Court, and he found himself obliged to undertake a journey to Avignon in 1357, and to prosecute his defence in person before Innocent VI. It is not improbable that the Irish Primate acted not only for himself, but in name and by commission of several English bishops ; at least Wiclif mentions the rumour that the bishops in general had contributed to defray his travelling charges, etc.81 The address which he delivered at a solemn sitting of the Council, 8th November 1375, in presence of the Pope and Cardinals, affords us some insight into his ecclesiastical views.82 His contention is simply one for the rights of the pastoral office as against the privileges of the Begging Orders, by which those rights were infringed — a contest which was renewed in France about fifty years later, in 1409 and following years.83 The first and by far the larger half of the discourse must be regarded as containing the main gist of the whole. It is this part which has procured for it the title, " A Defence of the Parish Priests ;" for the second part, only a fourth of the whole, is taken up with the proof and justification of the first seven propositions quoted above. The preacher lays the main stress of his argument against mendicancy upon tlic fact, which he proves in a very convincing manner, that the Redeemer, during His life on earth, was neither a men- dicant Himself nor ever (aught His disciples to be such. His most weighty objection against the principles which he opposes lies, if we are not mistaken, in the assertion that the notion of voluntary mendicancy rests only upon ignor- ance of the Scriptures, or upon the covetous pretext that RICHARD FITZRALPH. 57 the practice is conformable to the life of Christ.84 But he takes up first the two last of those nine propositions, i.e., the question of Confession and of the privileges of the Begging Orders, and he gives his reason for doing so at the beginning of his discourse. He does so, because a matter which is of common interest to the whole priesthood, yea, to all Christendom, takes precedence of a matter of private interest, whereas the principle of mendicancy is only a private affair of the Begging Orders. To guard himself, however, against misapprehension, as if he meant to assail the Begging Orders on principle, he not only enters a caveat at the very commencement of his discourse against any possible suspicions of his orthodoxy, but also against the surmise that his aim was to attack the whole position of the Orders which had received the sanction of the Church. What he aimed at was no more than this, that these orders should be restored to the purity of their original foundation.85 In other words, it was their reformation he sought, not their suppression.86 With regard to confession, the archbishop shows most convincingly that it is much more suitable, and, on moral grounds, much more advisable that confession should be made to one's own parish priest (sacerdos ordinarius) than to a begging monk ; for the former stands much nearer than the latter to any member of his own parish coming to con- fess, and has personal knowledge both of the man and his previous sins ; and naturally such a man has more feeling of shame before one whom he sees every day, than before a stranger whom perhaps he sees face to face only once a- year. It may also so easily happen, for want of personal knowledge of people, that a monk receiving confessions may absolve persons who are under the ban of excommuni- cation. The speaker attests that in his own diocese, where perhaps there are not fewer than two hundred persons under excommunication for murders, fire-raisings, thefts, and such like crimes, there are only forty at most of these who come for confession to him, or the confessors under him. People of this description prefer to confess to the begging friars, and are at once absolved and admitted to communion em 85 by th On the other hand, the archbishop urges that the parish priest is a more righteous judge, and less subject also to suspicion of avaricious motives, for he has his parish living, which the begging monk has not. Let it only be remem- bered that the Mendicant orders since the time when they obtained the privilege of hearing confessions, have built 58 LIFE OF WICLIF. everywhere the most beautiful monasteries and truly princely palaces, which, before that time, they were in no condition to do. It is never heard that they impose alms upon those who confess to them, for the repairs of a parish church or a bridge, or for the upholding of a country road; they prefer to impose them entirely for their own benefit and that of their order. But he goes still farther. It is not only the abuse of their privileges which is the cause of manifold moral mis- chiefs, but the very existence and normal effect of these rights viewed by themselves, and apart from all their misuse. These rights are injurious to those who go to confession, because such persons are less ashamed of their sins before strangers, and pay no regard to contrition, which is the chief part of the sacrament of penance, and are led besides to undervalue their parish priests. They are injurious to the parish priests, by estranging from them their own parishioners to such a degree that the latter soon cease to have any personal knowledge of them. The mischief even extends to the spiritual order at large. For the begging monks know how to draw to themselves young men at the universities and elsewhere by means of the confessional ; they entice them into their orders, and never allow them to leave again ; even during the years of novi- ciate they permit them to have interviews with parents at most only in presence of a brother of the monastery. One day not long ago, on going out from his inn to the street, the archbishop met with a respectable English gentleman who had made a journey to Avignon for no other purpose but to obtain from the Curia the surrender of his son, whom the begging friars of Oxford had inveigled last Easter, though yet only a boy thirteen years old. When the father hurried to Oxford to rescue him, he was only permitted to speak with his son under the eyes of several monks. "What is this but man-stealing, a crime worse than cattle-stealing, which is a penal offence .; " And this with mere children, before they have come to years of discretion ! And let it not be said such youngsters will serve God afterwards with all the more devotion, and therefore it is allowable to gain them by promises and lies. People "must not do evil that good may come" (Rom. iii. 8). No lie, in particular, is allowable for a good end, and no man, for any reason of his own invention, is at liberty to set aside any of the commandments. The theft, and the teaching which helps to it, are both mortal sins. It has come to such a pass in England that laymen no longer send their RICHARD FITZRALPH. 5i3 sons to the universities, but prefer to make farmers of them, rather than run the risk of losing them in that fashion; and hence it is that whereas in the preacher's time there were 30,000 students in Oxford, there are now no more than 6,000. And this is a great mischief for the clergy in par- ticular, though in every faculty alike the secular students (i.e., non-monks) are constantly on the decrease, while the begging orders have been making no end of gains, both in the number of their converts and their members. Add to this that it is now almost impossible to purchase good books at the universities, for they are all bought up by the mendicants ; in all their convents are to be found large and valuable libraries. The Archbishop himself had sent three or four of his parish priests at a time to the university, but in every instance one at least of these had left and come back again, because they found it impossible to get a Bible to buy, or any other theological book. And thus, in the end, he thinks, there will cease to be any clergy, and faith will entirely die out in the Church. In the creation everything was ordered by measure, number, and weight (Wisdom of Solomon, xi. 22), but it is astounding how the Mendicant orders go on increasing beyond all measure, in the teeth of nature's law. How injurious the rights of the begging order were to the Christian people, the preacher depicts from the life. Already, says he, neither great nor small can any more take a meal without the friars being of the party ; and not standing at the door, as might be supposed, to beg for alms, but pushing into the houses without ceremony. Yes ! and they not only eat with the guests, but carry off bread, and meat, and cheese along with them : and quite in the face of Christ's express com- mand, they go from hall to hall, from house to house. But lastly, these privileges work mischief even to the mendicant friars themselves. For they lead them into disobedience of their own Rules, and cause them to fall into greed and avarice and ambitious aspiration after vain honours and dignities. As to the first, the preacher instances several violations of the original Franciscan Rule, which had all arisen from their later-obtained privileges and exemptions. But the friars are also guilty of avarice, for they have acquired only such rights as enable them to accumulate wealth. If it were not their aim to make money, they would at least hand over the burial dues, when funerals occur among them, to the parish churches and the parish priests ; but this is what they never do, and their covetousness must be to blame for it. The right of hearing confessions, too, they 60 LIFE OF WICL1F. exercise with the same view. They receive the secret con- fessions of women, even of princesses; and there are even instances of their finding their way into the boudoirs of the most beautiful women of noble rank — scandals, these, enough which conic of the abuse of the Confessional. Although those privileges have been conferred upon them by Papal authority, they cannot continue to make use of them without mortal sin. Neither can they sincerely repent of these sins without making restitution, as far as they can, of the rights which they have taken away from the parish priests. In this connection, as in support of all his other representations, Richard of Armagh repeats the Bible-text which he has prefixed to his whole discourse, " Judge not according to the outward appearance, but judge righteous judgment." The good man spoke out with frankness and courage, lie displays in his sermons much dialectical skill and culture, and a solid and ripe theological erudition. But more than all, he is penetrated by a spirit of intense moral earnestness and of true manhood. Richard of Armagh has the spirit of a Reformer, in the noblest sense; he is a man who fights against modern degeneracy and ecclesiastical abuses with combined wisdom and zeal ; with eye uplifted to Christ, and with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.86 From this point let us cast a look backwards to Grossetete, and another forward to Wiclif. Richard of Armagh, and Robert of Lincoln, were in many respects men of kindred spirit, and yet in reference to the Mendicant orders all but antipodes; for the former attacked them and the latter patronised and promoted them. But let the times in which they lived be distinguished, and the two men come nearer in character to each other. At the time when Grossetete became a bishop — in the second quarter of the thirteenth century, the Franciscans (with whom he came into the nearest connection) were in their first period, and were animated by their first love; they numbered among them many men who were zealous and active for the good of souls. The Bishop of Lincoln rejoiced to find in them instruments and fellow-workers, full of insight and power. That was why he honoured them with his confidence, availed himself of their services, and extended to them his support. A century passed away, and Richard of Armagh had experiences of the Order of quite another kind. The Mendi- cants were caressed by the Bishops and Popes; it fared with them as with children who are the pets of their families — RICHARD FITZRALPH. 61 they were spoiled. Distinguished by privileges, they be- came more and more pretentious and encroaching; the Order and its honour, its interests, and its revenues, became now the chief objects of their aims, instead of the honour of God, the good of the Church, and the salvation of souls. Degeneracy, the moral corruption of both the Mendicant orders, was an accomplished fact. In such circumstances, a man who was an honest lover of goodness, and had a clear eye for the real state of matters, must of course take up quite a different position toward these Orders from a man of the same gifts and of like spirit who had lived a hundred years earlier, when they were in their moral bloom and glory. The difference of spirit, therefore, between the two men is more apparent than real. But we also cast a look forward from Richard of Armagh to John of Wiclif. It has been conjectured that the latter, in the matter of the Mendicant orders, followed immediately in the footsteps of the former. This conjecture was favour- ably received, and for a long time has passed as a histori- cal fact. What led to this was the circumstance that "Wiclif, in several of his writings, made repeated and very severe attacks upon these orders. But the writings referred to belong not to the earliest, but precisely to the latest which he produced. In his earlier and earliest pieces I find none of this severe antagonism to the Mendi- cant monks, but, on the contrary, in many places a senti- ment of recognition and high esteem. This will be pointed out more fully hereafter. We have no warrant, therefore, to suppose that Wiclif took up immediately the threads which had dropped from the hands of Richard of Armagh, when, after several years' residence in Avignon, he died there in December lo59. One thing only is certain that Wiclif, in his earnest and persistent warfare against church e\ils and corruptions — a warfare which he too carried on from love to Christ the Church's Lord, and with the weapons of God's Word — had Richard Fitzralph, in parti- cular, as one of his nearest precursors. The discourse of the Archbishop of Armagh called forth a reply from a Franciscan doctor of theology in Oxford, Roger Conway,s7 which appeared at latest in 1362, but probably some years earlier, in the Archbishop's lifetime. This production is a very different one from the Arch- bishop's, both in form and in spirit, for it is not a spoken discourse, but a treatise of twice the bulk, and the whole gist of the monkish doctor is the exact opposite of the Prelate's. The Franciscan's standpoint is entirely 62 LIFE OF WICLIF. that of the scholastic divine and the Church lawyer. In his mode of treating his subject, the pulsation of personal feeling is scarcely ever perceptible, which makes so pleas- ing an impression in the Archbishop. He asserts over nnd over again that the discourse of the Archbishop, whom he treats, however, with great respect, is nothing but a bill of accusation against the begging orders. What he puts in the forefront himself is the view-point of LaAv and Right. It is more the " Decretalist," the master of Church law, whom we listen to than the theologian; where- as in Richard Fitzralph the feeling of the devout Christian, of the true pastor, of the zealous Church prince pulsates throughout. But this purely legal posture of the defender of the Mendicants makes the inevitable impression that, however unconsciously, yet in substance and effect it is only the selfish interests of the orders that he undertakes to defend. Here, too, we think we ought to mention another writing which dates from this century, more precisely from 135(5, and which, so far at least, deserves to be put side by side with Richard Fitzralph's discourse, as both pieces are directed against the evils and abuses of the Church. We refer to the much-discussed, but as it seems to us, more discussed than known tract. Of the Last Age of the Church, which was long ascribed to Wiclif himself, and given out for a juvenile piece of his, but upon inadequate grounds, and in disregard of weighty reasons which make against the attribution.* The short essay is in substance nothing more than an indictment against the sins of the priests, and par- ticularly against their traffic in offices (simony). This abuse the author considers to be the Third Trouble which conies upon the Church. The first consisted in the Persecutions, the second in the Heresies, the third in Simony. There is now only one more trouble to follow, viz., the Devil at broad noonday — i.e., the Antichrist. This view, and a great deal more in the tract, the author borrows from the writings of Abbot Joachim of Flore, but he bases it as Bernhard of Clairvaux also does in his sermons on the Song of Songs, (33), upon Ps. 95, vv. 5 and 6. It is not difficult to discover that the author views the Church disorders of the lime in a very narrow manner. He has an eye only for abuses and sins attaching to those of the clergy who are in possession of tithes and landed endow- ments. This shows that his position in the Church is one * Vide Article T. in the Appsndix. THOMAS BRADWARDINE. 63 different from theirs — a position from which this particular side of the Church's evils falls directly upon his eye ; that is to say, he seems to belong to one or other of the Mendicant orders, like the last-named Roger Conway. The author, besides, in his whole style of mind, is a man of narrow views ; his mode of thinking is apocalyptic in the meaner not grander sense, and he hangs entirely upon authorities such as Abbot Joachim, or rather the pseudo-Joachim writings. This last circumstance helps us to trace with certainty his connection with the Franciscans, particularly with that portion of the Order which was attached to Joachimism, and specially to the apocalyptic views of the so-called " Eternal Gospel." At all events, this produc- tion was entirely destitute of any strong, living germs of principle from which any future development could spring. SECTION V. — Thomas of Bradwardine — His Teaching and Spirit. Very different is the case with the teaching of an important contemporary of the foregoing writer, who, like him, belongs to the period immediately preceding Wiclif's public career. We refer to Thomas of Bradwardine, a Christian thinker, who knew nothing higher and holier than to do battle for " the cause of God," and especially to bring into recognition the free and unmerited grace of God as the one only source of salvation, in the face of an age whose strong leaning, on the contrary, was to build its salvation upon human merit.S8 Nor did he entirely fail in gaining the age's con- currence in his teaching. His contemporaries held him in high esteem ; they gave him the honourable title of the "Profound Doctor" {Doctor profundus) ,89 The lectures de- livered in Oxford, in which he expounded his doctrine, found such high acceptance that many of his auditors, including men of high position, made repeated requests to him to embody his views in a work for publication. And Wiclif in particular, who could scarcely have known him personally, was full of esteem for him, which he manifests upon every mention of his name, although he strongly opposes some of his dogmatic views. We believe that we are not mistaken in maintaining that the prin- ciples which lay at the basis of Bradwardine's teaching- were not without important influence upon Wiclif. In the fifteenth century, also, his credit still stood very high. A man like John Gerson (J1429) often quoted (54 LIFE OF WICLIP. him as an authority in his work on The Spiritual Life of the Sou/. At the period of the Reformation he seems to have been little known, but at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury (1610-1633), revived the memory of his celebrated predecessor, and had the merit of suggesting and promoting the publication of his principal work, which was prepared for the press by Henry Savile, Warden of Merton College, upon the basis of a collection of six manuscripts.90 But this service to his earlier fame came too late, for Bradwardine and his work have never obtained, in later times, the high consideration to which they are entitled.91 Thomas of Bradwardine92 was born near the end of the thirteenth century, but where and in what year cannot be determined with certainty.93 He takes notice himself, on one occasion, that his father lived in Chichester.94 As, how- ever, it appears, from Oxford documents of the year 1325, that he then held the office of a Proctor of the University, it is concluded, on good grounds, that he must have been born in 1290 at the latest. Further, we have certain know- ledge that he went to Oxford as a student, and was there admitted into Merton College, which had been founded in 1274. Here he studied not only scholastic philosophy and theology, but also mathematics and astronomy, with such success as to obtain the highest reputation in all these branches of learning. It was at this period, also, that an incident occurred to him which gave a decisive turn to his inner life, and which we fortunately learn from his own pen. His narrative is as follows : — "I was at one time, while still a student of philosophy, a vain fool, far from the true knowledge of God, and held captive in opposing error. From time to time I heard theologians treating of the questions of Grace and Free Will, and the party of Pelagius appeared to me to have the best of the argument. For I rarely heard anything said of grace in the lectures of the philosophers, except in an ambiguous sense ; but every day 1 heard them teach that we are the masters of our own free acts, and that it stands in our own power to do either good or evil, to be either virtuous or vicious, and such like. And when I heard now and then in church a passage read from the Apostle which exalted grace and humbled free-will, — such, e.g., as that word in Romans ix., 'So then it is not in him that willeth, nor in him that runneth, but in God that showeth mercy,' and other like places, — I had no THOMAS BRADWARDINE. 65 liking for such teaching, for towards grace I was still unthank- ful. I believed also with the Manicheans, that the Apostle, being a man, might possibly err from the path of truth in any point of doctrine. But afterwards, and before I had become a student of theology, the truth before mentioned struck upon me like a beam of grace, and it seemed to me as if I beheld in the distance, under a transparent image ot truth, the grace of God as it is prevenient both in time and nature to all good deeds — that is to say, the gracious will of God which precedently wills, that he who merits salva- tion shall be saved, and precedently works this merit of it in him, God in truth being in all movements the primary Mover. Wherefore, also, I give thanks to him who has freely given me this grace (' Qui mihi hanc gratiam gratis dMit,):,d5 From this interesting testimony from his own lips, it appears that Bradwardine, while still a student, and even before he had begun the regular study of theology, had experienced a spiritual awakening which brought him off from the Pelagian way of thinking, and led him to the conviction that the grace of God is prevenient to all God- pleasing action, instead of being acquired by such action preceding. This awakening had evidently occurred in con- nection with such utterances of St. Paul as that in Romans ix. 16, which had suddenly struck upon the young man's soul with a clear light and arresting force, insomuch that from that day forward the all-determining power of grace became the central truth of his Christian thinking. It has been already mentioned that Bradwardine held a University office in 1325. We next hear of him deliver- ing lectures for some time as a Doctor of Theology in the University, by which he laid the foundations of his theological reputation, . and at a later date he became Chancellor of St. Paul's in London. When the war with France broke out, and Edward III. made the campaign in person, John Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury (1333 — 1348) proposed him to the King for war chaplain and confessor. In this capacity he accompanied the king in his campaigns in 1339 and subsequent years, and so great was his religious and moral influence upon Edward and his army, upon whom he knew how to press the claims of humanity, that many historians of those wars were convinced that the English victories were more due to the holiness of this priest than to the warlike virtues of the King and the valour of his troops. In 1348 Archbishop Stratford died, and the Chapter of E f)6 LIFE OF WICLTF. Canterbury chose Bradwardine to be his successor ; but the King's attachment to him was such that he could not make up his mind to release him from attendance on his person. But upon the death of John Ufford, who was nominated in his stead in May 1349, before receiving consecration, and the chapter having a second time made choice of Bradwardine, the King at length gave his consent to the arrangement. Thomas of Brad- wardine was nominated Archbishop by King and Pope, was consecrated in Avignon in the beginning of July, and returned immediately to England to assume his office. But only a few weeks after, 26th August 1349, he died in the Palace of Lambeth. Bradwardine's theological views are exhibited in a systematic form in the work already named. It bears the title Of the Cause of God, for the author has the consciousness of appearing like an advocate in defence of God's honour, in standing forward to oppose Pelagianism, and to exalt the agency of God's free and unmerited grace in the conversion and salvation of man. He by no means conceals from himself that in so doing he is swimming against the current of prevailing opinion, for it is his own remark that " the doctrine is held by many either that the free will of man is of itself sufficient for the obtaining of salvation ; or if they confess the need of grace, that still grace may be merited by the power of the free will, so that grace no longer appears to be something undeserved by men, but something meri- toriously acquired. Almost the whole world," he says " has run after Pelagius and fallen into error." But, Bradwardine does not allow himself to be disheartened by this state of things. He knows for certain that one man, if the Lord is with him, will be able to chase a thousand foes, yea to put twelve • thousand to flight. (1 Sam. xviii. 7). This joyful courage in conflict, this devout confidence of victory in pleading the cause of God's grace as the alone source of salvation, cannot fail to remind us of the Reformers, who were essentially heralds of the same grace, and opposers of the delusion that salvation can be earned by human merit. The method, it is true, which the scholastic divine followed was different from theirs, owing to the peculiar character of mediaeval culture. The Reformers went to work theologically, Brad- wardine philosophically. He gives as his reason for adopting this method, that the later Pelagians had THOMAS BRADWARDINE. 07 asserted that Pelagius had been overcome purely by church authority and by theological proofs, but in a philosophical and rational way it had never been possible to confute him. Bradwardine's design, therefore, is to make use mainly of philosophical arguments and authorities. In regard to authorities he adheres, in fact, so closely to his declared design, that he gives more space to the sayings of philosophers, old and new, and attaches more stress to them, than he does to his own independent reasonings. However, he also elucidates the question theologically, namely by arguments of Scripture and appeals to the Fathers and Scholastics, with the view, as he says himself, of showing the right sense of many passages of Holy Scripture and the Fathers, which had often been misunderstood and perverted by the Pelagians of ancient and later times. Waiving, for want of space, any analysis of the doc- trinal contents and reasonings of a work so bulky and profound, it may be observed, in general terms, that the scientific success of the performance is less satisfactory than the religious and moral spirit with which it is imbued. For the absolute determinism which Bradwar- dine sets forth, labours under an inappropriate mixing up of metaphysical and physical ideas with an ethical question, and thus rests the doctrine that salvation is grounded exclusively upon grace upon an insecure foundation. But the spirit which animates him is worthy of all recognition. He is filled with a moral pathos — a lofty earnestness of Christian piety, which cannot fail to make the deepest impression.113 His drift is to exhibit grace as a free and unmerited gift of God, and to strike down every imagination of human merit in the work of con- version. It is for this reason that he controverts in particular the favourite dogma of the Scholastics that man can qualify himself to receive grace, in other words, that he can deserve grace, if not to the strict extent of full worthiness (de condigno), still in the sense of nieet- ness and suitableness (de congruo). To acquire merit before God, Bradwardine holds to be impossible for man in any sense whatsoever.114 He who affirms the contrary turns God, in effect, into a poor trafficker ; for he who receives grace on the footing of any kind of merit, has purchased the grace and not received it as a free gift. Bradwardine sets out, in fact, as pointed out above, from his own experience — from actual life — and he keeps actual experience ever in his eye. And in regard to 68 LIFE OF WICL1F. the authorities for the doctrine of unmerited grace to whom he cares most to appeal, he is thoroughly alive to the fact that it was by their own. living experience that they too were brought to the knowledge of that grace. The apostle Paul, for example, was " a chosen vessel of grace," inasmuch as, at a time when he was not thinking of good works at all, nor was even standing aloof from deeds of wickedness ; at a time when he was thirsting for Christian blood, and was even persecuting the Lord himself, suddenly a light from heaven shone round about him, and the grace of Jesus Christ at the same instant preveniently laid hold upon him. He speaks of the Apostle as emphatically a child of grace, who, in gratitude for the same, makes devout and honour- able mention of this grace — his mother — in almost all his epistles, vindicating her claims, particularly in his Epistle to the Romans, where he makes grace the subject of a large and acute investigation115 which fills the epistle almost from beginning to end. And quite in a similar spirit he remarks upon Augustine that, "like the Apostle, he was at first an unbeliever, a blasphemer, and an enemy of the grace of Jesus Christ, but after the same grace had converted him with like suddenness, he became, after the apostle's example, an extoller, a magni- ficent and mighty champion of grace."116 And like the Apostle Paul, like Augustine the great church-father of the west, Thomas Bradwardine too became, by the light from heaven which shone upon him in his youth, an extoller and champion of the grace of God, in opposition to the Pelagian and self-righteous spirit which prevailed in his time. It was by no means his intention, indeed, in so doing, to place himself in antagonism to the Church of Rome. On the contrary, he declares expressly his steadfast belief in the doctrinal authority of the Church. He submits his writings to her judgment ; it is for her to determine what is orthodox in the questions which he has investi- gated ; he wishes with all his heart to have her support where he does battle with the enemies of God ; where he errs, to have her correction ; where he is in the right, to have her confirmation.117 But still, in the last resort, he consoles himself with the help of God, who forsakes no one who is a defender of His cause.118 PIERS PLOWMAN. 69 SECTION VI. — The Vision of Piers Plowman. While the learned Doctor was defending God's cause with the weapons of science, and seeking to bring back his age from the paths of Pelagian error into the one only way of salvation, the same cry for grace was also heard from the conscience of the common people, in their feeling of the urgent need of a better state of things. About twelve years after Bradwardine's death, this feeling of society found expression in a great popular poem, which yet remains to be noticed by us as a speaking sign of the times. We refer to The Vision of Piers Plowman, which reveals to us, not so much by the social position of its author, as by the circle of readers for whom he wrote and the spirit of which the work is full, the deep ferment which at that time was spreading through the lowest and broadest stratum of the English people. The author himself un- doubtedly belonged to the educated class, or rather to the learned class, which was then almost identical with it. He is familiar with the whole learning of his time ; he knows the Classics and the Fathers, the Scholastics and the Chroniclers, and also the Canon Law ; he quotes the Bible according to the Vulgate and the " Glossa ; " quotes like- wise Latin Church hymns in the original ; in short, he was a scholar, and probably a monk. In the sixteenth century the tradition existed that his name was Robert Longland or Langland, born at Cleobury Mortimer, in Shropshire, educated in Oxford, and then admitted a monk in the Benedictine Priory of Great Malvern, Wor- cestershire. Several allusions to localities, such as the Malvern Hills and the like, point to the fact that he must have lived in the west of England, on the borders of Wales. Perhaps he sprang from the agricultural population ; at all events, he shared their feelings, and wrote for them and from their point of view ; and this he did to such good purpose, that his poetry went straight to the people's hearts, and con- tinued to be loved by them and committed to memory, and frequently imitated, for several generations, down to the middle of the fifteenth century. From the first appearance of this poem, the figure of Piers Plowman became, and long continued to be, a favourite one with the friends of moral and religious reform. The great popularity of the work is attested by the very con- siderable number of manuscripts of it which still exist, most 70 LIFE OF WICLIF. of them written towards the end of the fifteenth century.119 Add to this the circumstance that these manuscripts are seldom written in a beautiful hand, and are scarcely ever adorned with illuminated initials, which is a pretty plain proof that they were not intended for the higher ranks of society, but for the middle class. A highly remarkable document of the time of the Peasants' War, under Richard II., viz., the " Call " of the ringleader, John Ball, to the people of Essex, contains several manifest reminiscences of Piers Plowman.120 The poet himself, however, was as little a sower of sedition as he was a heretic, tie preaches con- stantly the duty of obedience to the higher powers. But the pleasure he takes in lowering the great in the estimation of the people, and in raising the credit of the lower classes, could not fail to make him a great favourite with the multi- tude. And although he did not attack a single doctrine of the Church, yet his unsparing exposure of the sins of the clergy must have aided the growing public sentiment in favour of reform. In view of the oppression which prevailed among the nobility, the corruption among the clergy, and the dishonesty among the tradesmen, the simple heart of the peasant appears to the poet to be the only remaining seat of in- tegrity and virtue. It is the husbandman in his mean position, not the Pope and his proud hierarchy, who exhibits upon earth an image of the humble Redeemer. In its language and poetical form, too, the work has quite a popular cast. With the exception of the Latin citations, and some Norman- French phrases which occasionally occur, the language is pure Middle-English ; while in form it is the most beautiful example extant of old Anglo-Saxon verse. For it is not rhyme, properly so called, which is here used, but what is called alliterative rhyme. Instead of the Anglo-Saxon alliteration, the Normans, since the twelfth century, had introduced the romaunce rhyme, which continued in prevailing use till the middle of the thirteenth century. Later, we rind in use a combination of rhyme and alliterative in one and the same line. Still, it is not improbable that during the whole of that time the pure Saxon alliterative continued to maintain itself along with the Anglo-Saxon tongue among the lower strata of the population. Its coming up again to the sur- face, about the middle of the fourteenth century, appears to be only one aspect of the great social and national movement before referred to which took place at that period. Seen from this point of view, in the literary history of the country, Langland's poem has a special claim upon our attention. PIERS PLOWMAN. 71 The old Saxon alliterative verse was now so much again in favour that it was used in long romances like William and the Werewolf, a position which it continued to hold as late as the fifteenth century, at which date it found imitators even in Scotland. The author of Piers Ploivman is well acquainted indeed, it is true, with common rhyme, and he introduces it occasionally, but only in Latin of the ecclesiastical type. But in his own English composition he employs exclusively alliterative rhyme; his constant usage being the following, that in every connected couplet of lines (each line having two rising and two falling accents), the two most important words of the first line begin with the same letter, while in the second line the first accented word also begins with it.122 The poem belongs to the allegorical class, and consists of a long series of visions, in which the poet has revelations made to him in the way of dreams, of the condition of human society, and of various truths relating to it. The date of the composition admits of being fixed pretty exactly. That dreadful plague, which, under the name of the Black Death, laid waste the half of Europe in 1348 and following years, was already several years past. Mention is made more than once of the " Pestilence ; " it forms, so to speak, the dark back-ground from which the figures stand out. But a second " sickness " is also referred to which raged in England in 1360-62, and with this agrees the circum- stance that the lines, beginning with number 1735, contain an undoubted allusion to the peace of Bretigny, which was concluded in the year 1360, and formed an important incident in the history of the English and French war. Further, the poet touches in vv. 2499 f. upon a great storm from the south-west, which occurred on a " Saturday evening," to which he alludes also in vv. 4453 f. We know from chronicles that this tempest, which threw down towers and high houses, and almost all the great trees, took place on 15th January 1362, 123 and the exactness with which the date of that event is fixed by the poet warrants us in assuming that the poem must have been written no long time thereafter, perhaps at the end of 1362. 12i The poet goes forth, in the warm summer time, to wander into the wide world. On a May morning, already fatigued by his walk, he lays himself down on the Malvern Hills beside a well, and falls asleep. There, in a dream, he sees wonderful things — upon a hill in the east a tower, built with great art, the tower of truth ; in the west the fortress of care, where dwells the wicked fiend. Upon a charming 72 LIFE OF WICLIF. plain between the two he sees a multitude of men of all ranks and conditions, rich and poor, going about their different works and ways. Clergy, too, are not wanting, begging friars, preachers of indulgences, priests in the service of the King or the nobles, and so forth. With this begins the first of the poet's visions, of which the work, closely examined, is found to contain ten, although tins number does not at once meet the eye ; for the usual division of the text into twenty passus taken from the manuscript copies is rather a superficial one. The visions have a tolerable amount of connection with each other, though by no means a very close one. A variety of allegorical figures step upon the scene; some talking, some acting, and occasionally a sort of drama developes itself. First appears an honourable lady — the Church — and instructs the poet in the significance of the spectacle before him, and especially on the point that truth is the truest of all treasures, and that the chief subject ot truth is nothing else but love and beneficence. Then enters in dazzlingly rich array the lady " Reward," i.e., earthly reward. To her all ranks and conditions of men do homage. She is on the point of being betrothed to " False- hood," instead of to " Truth." Then " Theology " puts forward his claim to her hand, and all parties repair to Westminster to bring the matter to a judicial decision ; but " Truth " hurries on before to the king's palace, and speaks in the ear of the Knight " Conscience." The knight speaks with the king, and the king gives command to put " Reward " in prison as soon as she arrives. But in prison she fares by no means amiss. The judges in Westminster gain the palace for her cause, a begging friar visits her, hears her confession, and gives her absolution. At last the King sends for her to his presence, gives her a reprimand, and sets her at liberty upon her promises of amendment ; he even proposes to wed her to his knight " Conscience," but the knight, while thanking him in the most courtly terms, draws a picture of her character in the blackest colours. She defends herself in a way to win for her the king's grace, whereupon "Conscience" appeals to "Reason," and in the end the king takes " Conscience " and " Reason " to be his councillors. The poet awakes, but soon falls asleep again, and now begins the second vision. He sees again the same plain lull of people, to whom "Reason" is preaching a sermon, in which he tells every rank and condition of people his mind. The sinners before him are seized with remorse PIERS PLOWMAN. 73 They fall upon their knees, and " Penitence " gives them absolution. And now thousands rise to their feet and set out on a pilgrimage to " Truth." But nobody knows the way. At last a ploughman calls out that he knows the way. It is here that Piers Plowman comes upon the scene. He offers to show the pilgrims the road in person if they will only wait till he has ploughed and sown a bit of ground, and in the meantime several help him at his work. When it comes, however, to the ears ot " Truth " that Piers pur- poses to make a pilgrimage to her, she sends him a letter of indulgence, desiring him to stay at home and work, and informing him that the indulgence is applicable to all who assist him in his work, a message which awakens among all the greatest joy. But, in the end, nothing more is found in the brief of indulgence than these two lines, "And those who have done good shall go into everlasting life, but those who have done evil, into everlasting fire" (Matt. xxv. 46). Then the poet awakes again ; he reflects ■ upon his dream, and he is convinced that " Do Good " will be better in the last judgment than a whole pocketful of indulgences, or letters of fraternity. From the third to the tenth vision the representation principally turns upon the three allegorical persons, "Do Good," "Do Better," and " Do Best." The allegorical action passes over more and more into didactic poetry, "the Plowman " coming repeatedly upon the scene, but in such a way that under the transparent veil of that figure the Redeemer Himself is here and there to be recognised. The whole drift of the poem is to recommend practical Christianity. The kernel of its moral teaching is the pure Christian love of our neighbour — love especially to the poor and lowly; a love of our neighbour reaching its highest point in patient forbearance, and love towards enemies — a love inspired by the voluntary passion of Christ for us. As the " Luxenburgers " (a false coin then circulating widely in England) resemble a "sterling" in the stamp, but are of base metal, so many nowadays bear the stamp of the heavenly King and His crown, but the metal— the soul — is alloyed with sin. The poet accordingly lays bare, on the one hand, the evil works and ways of all ranks and conditions of men, dealing castigation round among all classes with the lash of his satire ; while, on the other hand, he commends the good wherever he finds it. That he is by no means a heretic has already been remarked. He assumes without question the whole body of Church doctrine: the doctrine of transubstantiation, e.g., he takes for granted as something 74 LIFE OF WICLIF. self-evident ; and however much value he attaches to the conscience and the natural understanding of man, he is by- no means a despiser of learning, and especially of theology. But what he demands is, that the seven liberal arts and every science should be cultivated in no selfish spirit, in order to acquire wealth ; nor from a motive of vanity, in order to be styled " Magister ; " otherwise men only lose their time in them ; but from love to our Lord and to the people. In other words, learning has value in his eyes only when benefit accrues from it to mankind ; and therefore he thinks it a practice to be censured, when mendicant-friars and masters of arts preach to the people about matters above human comprehension, instead of speaking to them of the Ten Commandments and the seven sins. Such men only wish to show off their high learning, and to make a boast of it ; they do not act from sincere love to their neighbour. On the other hand, he commends all princes and nobles, bishops and lawyers, who in their dignified places are useful to others, and render real service to the world. But "Truth" gives her " brief and seal," not only to men of learning and rank, but also to men of trade and traffic, to assure them that they shall not come short of salvation, if with all their diligence in trade and money-making, they give out of their gains for the building of bridges, the feeding of the poor, to help in sending children to school, or teaching them a trade, or in setting out poor young women in marriage, and in promoting the cause of religion. Industrious and honest married people are also highly commended ; it is they who hold the world together, for from marriage spring both kings and knights, emperors and servants, father-confessors, holy virgins and martyrs. Evidently Piers the Plowman is made the chief figure of the poem, not merely on account of his humble condition in life, but also to do honour in his person to labour, joined with the fear of God. Both points of view are inseparably connected in the poem. Undoubtedly there is something of a democratic spirit in the teaching of the author, but it is a Christian democracy, like that word of the Redeemer, " To the poor the Gospel is preached." More than once it is remarked by the poet, how much better off in that respect people in low condition are than the high-placed and the educated. The seven sins are far more dangerous for the rich than for the poor. Augustin him- self (the most enlightened doctor and the greatest of the four, Ambrose, Augustin, Jerom, and Gregory the Great), is appealed to as a witness for this, for the poet has read in PIERS PLOWMAN. 75 one of his sermons the passage, " Behold the ignorant them- selves take the kingdom of heaven by violence." That none come into the kingdom of God sooner than the poor and lowly is a thought which he dwells upon in several parts of the poem. For the Church the poet cherishes deep veneration, but this by no means prevents him from speaking openly of her faults. In one place, he makes the general remark, that while uprightness and holiness spring from the Church by the instrumentality of men of pure character and life, who are the teachers of God's law, all sorts of evil, on the other hand, spring from her, when priests and pastors are not what they ought to be. What he has chiefly to censure in the priesthood of his time is their worldliness, their sins of selfishness and of simony. Other shortcomings and failings, indeed, are also mentioned, as when the ignor- ance of many priests is satirized by the introduction of a curate who knows nothing of the cardinal virtues, and never heard of any cardinals but those of the Pope's making, or when indolence owns frankly that he has been priest and parson for more than thirty winters, but can neither sing by notes nor read the lives of the saints. He can hunt horses better than tell his parishioners the meaning of a clause in Beatus Vir, or Beati Omnes in the Psalter. But it is the worldliness of the clergy that the satirist chiefly lashes. His complaint of the abuse that foreign priests should have so much office and power in England, reminds us vividly of Grossetete's demands, as well as of the measures which King and Parliament, twenty years before, had adopted against Papal provisions and reservations. Hardest and bitterest of all are his complaints of the self-seeking and avarice which prevail in the Church. "Conscience" complains before the king's tribunal of the Lady Reward, on this as well as other grounds, that she has infected the Pope with her poison, and made evil the holy Church. She is in the confidence of the Pontiff, for she and Master Simony seal his bulls ; she consecrates bishops, be they ever so ignorant ; and she takes care for the priests to let them have liberty to keep their mistresses as long as they live. Time was when men lived in self-denial and privation, but nowadays men value the yellow gold piece more than the cross of Christ, which conquered death and sin. When Constantine endowed the Church with lands and lordships, an angel was heard to cry aloud in Rome, This day the Church of God has drunk venom, and the heirs of St. Peter's power " are a-poysoned all." 7f) LIFE OF WICLIF. " If possessions be poison, And imperfect them make, Good were to discharge them For holy Church sake, And purge them of poison E'er more peril befall." The suggestions of this passage take the form in another place of a prophecy — the prophecy of a coming king, who will punish with heavy blows all monks and nuns and canons who have broken their rules, and, in league with his nobles, will reform them by force. "And yet shall come a king And cod f ess you all And beat you, as the Bible telleth, For breaking of your rule, And amend you monks and monials, And put you to your penance, Ad pristinum statum ire. And barons and their bairns, Blame you and reprove." If it is the " monks possessionem," or landed orders, who are here meant, neither are the Mendicant orders spared in other places, as, e.g., in the passage where a begging friar visits the all-fascinating Lady "Reward" in person, and gives her absolution in return for a horse-load of wheat, when she begs him to be equally obliging to noble lords and ladies of her acquaintance who love to wanton in their pleasures. " And then," says she, " will I restore your church for you, and build you a cloister-walk, and whiten your walls, and put you in painted windows, and pay for all the work out of my own purse ; so that all men shall say I am a sister of your house." It is thus that the Visions of Piers the Plowman attack, not indeed the doctrine of the Church of that age, but in the most outspoken manner, all the prevailing sins of the clergy from the highest to the lowest, and in so doing, render distinguished service in helping forward the work of reform. NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 77 NOTES TO CHAPTER I. NOTES TO SECTION I. 1. Thomas Wright, Biographia Britannica literaria. Anglo-Saxon Period. London, 1842, p. 384 f. 2. Compare C. Friedrich Koch, Historische Grammatik der Englischen Sprache. Vol. 1, p. 8. Max MUller's Lectures on the Science of Language, p. 349. 3. Ranke, Englische Geschichte vornehmlich in xvi. and xvii. Jahrhundert. Vol. L, p. 16. 4. Compare the carefully accurate representation given in Reuter, Geschichte Alexander's III., and der Kirche Seiner Zeit III., p. 188 ; also pp. 713-724, " Zur Kirchengeschichte England's in den Jahren, 1171-4. 5. Constantine Hoefler has the merit of having been the first to call attention to what he has called the Papal State System in his " Anna von Luxemburg," p. 6 ; and in " The Avignon Popes." Vienna, 1871, p. 7 f. 6. The complaint against King John, made by the barons, "quod suo tempore ancillavit regnum quod invenit liberum," is given by Abbot William in his Chronicle of the Monastery of St. Andrew in d'Achery's Spicilegium, Vol. II., p. 853. 7. Rymer, Foedera. Vol. I., Part 1, p. 138. 8. So the Church was called even thus early — e.g., in Magna Charta itself — Rymer, 1, 132. Comp. Pauli Geschichte von England, vol. III., pp. 898, 909. 9. Matthew of Paris, Historia Major — in truth, Roger of Wendover's Flores Historiarum in Matthew of Paris. London, 1686, p. 313 f. Comp. Roberti Grosseteste Epistoke. Luard. Lond. 1861, p. 22. NOTES TO SECTION II. 10. What follows is a revision of my "Programm," Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. Leipzig, 1807, 4to. 11. Opus tertium. Ed., Brewer, 1869, pp. 31, 91. 12. Of Grossetete's numerous works nothing more than a few pieces have as yet been published. At the beginning of the sixteenth century his Commentaries on the works of Aristotle, and on the Mystical Theology of the Pseudo Dionysius were printed, the latter in Strasburg in 1502 ; but these subjects have very little interest for the present age. In the seventeenth century one of his successors in the See of Lincoln, John Williams (1612-1641), who died Archbishop of York in 1649, conceived the design of publishing his collected works in 3 folios, and he had already made collections and preparations with that view ; but the outbreak of the civil war prevented the execution of the design. Towards the end of the same century, Edward Brown published in his appendix to the Fasciculus Rerum Fxpetendarum, etc., several pieces of GrossetGte, especially several of his sermons, theological thoughts, and a portion of his correspondence. This correspondence has recently been edited more critically and in a complete form by Luard of Cambridge, in the collection of "Rerum Britannicarum Medii aevi Scriptores," published at the cost of the English Government, under the title "Roberti Grossteste, episcopi quondam Lincolniensis Epistolce. London, 1862." This valuable correspondence is the most trustworthy source for learning the development of the man and his character. Repeated attempts have been made to furnish a Biography of Grossteste, but several of these never got beyond the stage of the collection of 78 LIFE OF WICLIF. materials. So it befell Bishop Barlow of Lincoln,. Samuel Knight, Anthony "Wood, and Edward Brown. It was not till the end of last century that a biography of the venerable man was prepared and sent to the press — Samuel Pegge's " Life of Grossteste." Lond., 17913. But the book was an ill-starred one ; most of the copies are said to have perished in a fire which broke out in the printing office. The fact is certain, that the book is a very rare one even in England, and that there is hardly a single copy of it to be found in all the libraries of Germany. Luard, in his preface, has thrown some fresh light upon the life of Grossteste. 13. In Luard 's Roberti Grossteste's Epistohe. Preface, p. xxxii. 14. Grossetete alludes to this question having been put by him in a letter to the Cardinal-Legate Otho, written in 1239,— Ep. 74 of Luard's Coll., p. 242 ; and I know of no incident in his life with which I can more suitably connect it than with that given in the text. 15. Epistolse, p. 43 f. 16. Epistolse 40, p. 132 ; 41, p. 134 ; 50, p. 146 ; 88, p. 275. 17. Dugdale, Monasticum Anglicanum. New ed. by Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel, 1830 fob, v. 6, p. 1266, with plan and 4 views of the Cathedral. 18. Epistohe 22, p. 72 f. 19. Epistolse 73, p. 235 f. 20. Epistohe 55, p. 170. 21. Epistolse 93, p. 290 f. 22. Epistolse 4, p. 32. 23. Epistolse 74, p. 241 f. 24. Epistolse 50, p. 146. "The Sermones ad Clerum," published by Edward Brown in 1690, were no doubt made use of by the Bishop in his visitations in addressing the clergy of the different rural deaneries. 25. Epistolse 23, p. 90. Comp. his Letter to King Henry III. No. 124, p. 348. 26. Comp. Brown's Appendix ad Fasclculum, p. 322. 27. Epistolse 24, p. 95 f. 28. Epistolse 13, p. 57 f. Comp. 51, p. 147 f. 29. E.g. Sermo ad Clerum, in Brown. Monitio et persuaslo pastorum, on the text, " I am the Good Shepherd," p. 260 f. 30. Epistolse 17, p. 63 f. Comp. 11, p. 50 f., where his feeling of responsibility for the salvation of the souls committed to his episcopal charge is strikingly expressed. 31. Epistolse 26, p. 102. Ep. 19 and 71, pp. 68 and 204. 32. Epistolse 74, p. 241 f. With special earnestness he appeals in this matter to the conscience of a certain Hugo of Pateshull (Ep. 25, p. 97 f.), who died in 1241, Bishop of Lichfield. 33. Epistolse 46, p. 1 30 f. 34. Epistolse 27 and 28, pp. 105 f. and 108 f., and still more fully in Ep. 72, p. 205, 13. 35. Comp. Pauli's Programm on Grossteste and Adam of Marsh. Tubingen, 1864. 36. Epp. 40 and 41, pp. 131 f. ? 133 f. — the former addressed to the General of the Dominicaus, the latter to the Franciscan General, both pretty much in the same terms. 37. Epistolse 34, p. 121. 38. Epistolse 107, p. 317. 39. Epistolse 58, p. 180. 40. In the " Circulars " to the Archdeacons above referred to. Ep. 107, p. 317. 41. Sermo Roberti, etc., in Brown. Appendix, pp. 250, 257. The state of the text of which, however, leaves much to be desired. NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 7i> 42. An allusion to the Greek Church. 43. We confine ourselves to the simplest outlines of the course of thought. The way in which he gives expression to his thoughts, while making use of the most powerful rebukes of the inspired prophets, is sometimes such as must have made the hearers tremble. 44. Here he comes to speak of the evil state of matters which was the occasion of his undertaking the journey to Lyons. 45. Non obstantibus "privilegiis, etc. — the clause so often made use of when the Pope of the day evaded, or rather set aside, ad hoc, the ordinances of his prede- cessors or even his own, still in legal force, in favour of a special case, or in behalf of some favoured individual. 46. The Papal Brief has been printed in full by Brown in his Appendix, p. 399, and in Luard, p. 432 f., note. 47. This is indeed the view commonly taken. Even Luard in his Preface, p. lxxix. f., and Pauli in his Programm on Grosset&te, and Adam von Marsh, p. 24, assume that the letter was addressed to the Pope. The superscription, also, which Luard has given to the letter, no doubt on MS. authority, indicates that the letter was addressed to the Pope himself. Nevertheless, this superscription is in my judgment erroneous and ungenuine. For in the first place the style, discretio vestra, is quite unsuitable to the Pope. Grossetete himself makes use of sanctitas vestra in the two Epp. 110 and 117, pp. 328 and 338, which were cer- tainly addressed to the Pope — a circumstance which was not unnoticed by Brown. But next, the fact is a decisive one that toward the end of the letter, the address, reverendi domin i occurs, which undeniably presupposes a plurality of persons addressed. Besides, the tone of the letter, on the supposition that it was addressed to the Pope, would have been quite unaccountable. The fact is not ignored by Luard, that tiie style of this letter differs greatly from that of the two which were, without doubt, intended for the Pope, Preface lxxix. f. But what he brings forward to account for this difference is not quite satisfactory, if we suppose that this letter, too, was addressed to the Pope. Still, however, Brown is right in maintaining that the letter was intended for the eye of the Pope, whether it came to his hands directly or indirectly. Undoubtedly so, and for this reason, it required no little courage and good conscience to write to both the Pope's commissaries in such a strain ; whereas we should be compelled to think far otherwise of the tact and good taste of the writer if it were certain that he had meant his words directly for the eye of the Pope himself. The mistake, however, is explained in some measure by the circumstance, that the Pope's agent, Innocent, bore the same name as the Pope himself. 49. This celebrated letter is to be found in Brown, p. 400 f. ; in Ouclin's Com- mentaria de Scriptoribus Eccles. Antiquae, vol. III., p. 142 f. ; and in Luard, Ep. 128, pp. 432 f. Luard tells us that it occurs times without number in the MSS. Among those who have referred to it, I have to name Wiclif himself. He was not only well acquainted with its contents, but he has also in one place reproduced it almost entire— I mean in his still unprinted work, De Chili Dominio, lib. I., c. 43, MS. 1341, of the Imperial Library of Vienna, side by side with the Pope's two letters. And Wiclif not only incorporated the letter with his own work, but also added to it a kind of commentary in the way of justifying its contents, in which he states precisely its principal thoughts, and adopts them as his own, Huss also knew the Bishop's Epistle, and cited it in part in his work, De Ecclesia, c. 18, Opera, 1558, v. I., p. 235 f. As to the state of its text, it is by no means free from errors in the Wiclif MS. just named, but still in some places this MS. supplies readings materially superior to those of Brown and Luard. May I add in this place one more remark in conclusion. Luard has observed, p. xli., that it is not known when or by whom the collection of Grosset^te's letters was made. Now, as the MSS. used by Luard, which comprise the whole collection or the greater part of it, are of no higher age than the fifteenth century, and as only single letters were found in copies dating from the fourteenth century, I do not think it superfluous to mention that I find in Wiclif, who more than once gives accurate citations from other letters of Grossetete besides the one mentioned above, exactly the same ordering or numbering of the letters which Brown gives, and which is retained also SO LIFE OF WIOLIF. by Luard. As now those writings of Wiclif, which contain accurate quotations from the letters of Grossetfite, belong to the year 1370-78, the fact becomes certain that even as early as that date the collection existed the same in extent and order as we now know it. And as Wiclif quotes the letters by their numbers, and assumes this order to be already known, we may very well infer that the collection is at least fifty years older, and may even be carried back in date to the thirteenth century. 50. Matth. Paris, Hist. Maj. Augliae. Edit., W. Wats, p. 872. 51. The letter of Edward I. to Clement V.. of 6th May 1307, is to be found in .Rymer, Foedera II., p. 1016, and in Wood, Hist Univ. Oxon., Vol. I., p. 105. 52. Wood, Hist, et Antiquit. Univ. Oxon., Vol. I., p. 105, from a MS. of Gascoigne. The Oxford Declaration does not belong to the year 1354, as Luard seems to suppose, p. lxxxiv., but was first made in 1307, in connection with the proposal for the canonisation of the Bishop. Wood introduced this subject under the year 1254, merely because Grosset6te's death had occurred immediately before. 53. Especially in the passage quoted above from De Civili Dominio, Wiclif calls the Bishop of Lincoln a Saint, ex istis .... istius sancti. . . . primo scquitur. 54. In the same passage in Wood, Vol. I., p. 106, which has already been used immediately above. 55. Printed in Walch, Monimenta medii aevi, Vol. I., Fasc. 2, p. 181 f. Comp. especially pp. 190, 192. 56. Precor, O pater alme, Roberte, etc. The whole is printed, with few omis- sions, in Henry Wharton's Anglia Sacra. Lond., 1691. Vol. II., pp. 325-341. 57. Comp. Hase, Handbuch der Protestantischen Polemik. First Edit., p. 315. 58 Epistolse, 123, p. 346 f. 59. Hac sola ad portum salutis dirigitur Petri navicula. Ep. 115, p. 336. The hac sola answers completely to the Reformation principle — verbo solo — which consti- tutes the formal principle of Protestantism. 60. Epistolse p. 85, 269. NOTES TO SECTION III. 61. His work in five books, De Leyibus et Consvetuclinibus Angliev, written in the years 1256-59, ranks among jurists, not only as the earliest, but also as the foremost scientific treatment of English law in the middle age. Comp. Karl Juterbock's Henricus de Bracton und sein Vei-haltniss zum Homischen Recht. Berlin, 1862, p. 40 f. 61a. Pauli, Geschichte von England, vol. III., pp. 713-724. 62. Rymer, Foedera, vol. I., p. 907 f. Dated Anagni, 27th June 1299. 63. Rymer, Foedera, I., p. 928 f. 64. John Foxe, Acts and Monuments. Lond., 1S70. Vol. II., 689 f. 65. The Brief is piinted in Walsingham's Historia Anglicana. Ed., Riley, 1S63, I., 259 f. 66. The King's reply also in Walsingham, I., 255. 67. A Statute of Provisors of Benefices in Ruffhead, the Statutes, 17S6, 4to, pp. 260-64. 68. The word praemunire (instead of praemonere) does not stand in the text of the law itself, but used to lie employed in the writ of the sheriffs appointed by the law to issue ; vide Barrington's Observations on the more Ancient Statutes. Lon- don, 1796, 4to, p. 279. 69. In Walsingham, as cited above, p. 258. 70. A letter, numbered 113, in Vol. xxiv., p. 1208, of the Biblioth. Maxima, P.P., from Peter de Blois, Archdeacon of Bath, to the Archbishop of York, calling upon him to arrest the progress of the enemies of the Church by Councils and severe NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 81 penalties, might seem to prove a different state of matters, if the description of the heretics referred to were a little more exact. These are manifestly described as Cathari, but as to their doings and proceedings nothing definite whatever is stated. It is possible that the reference may be to imported Catharism, of which mention is to be made immediately. 71. Chronicle of the Aiigustinian Canon, William of Newbury, in Yorkshire, tl208. Historia Rerum Anglicarum Willelmi Parvi, ad fidem codd. MSS., rec. Lond. 1856. 8vo., Vol. I., 120 f. 72. Henry of Knighton, Canon of Leicester, in the second half of the fourteenth century, Chronica de eventibus Angliae, in Twysden's Historiae Anglicae Scriptores. Lond., 1652. T. III. Col. 2418. 73. Petri de Pilichdorf contra sectam Waldensium tractatus in Biblioth. Maxima Patrum, Lyon 1677, xxv., especially c, 15, p. 281. Here the author's drift is to show to the Waldenses a number of " peoples and races and tongues," where, by God's grace, all are orthodox in the faith, and have remained utterly untouched by this sect, ubi omncs homines sunt hit manes a tua secta penitus conservati ; and among these he mentions England first of all, then Flanders, etc. 74. Flathe, Geschichte der Vorlaufer der Reformation. II. p. 159 f., 184, 196. 75. The poem is printed in the collection, " Political poems and songs relating to English History," ed. Thomas Wright, Vol. I., pp. 231-2 19, under the title added by the editor, Against the Lollards. The date assigned to it, 13S1, I cannot for weighty reasons regard as correct. In the seventh strophe, says the author, 0 terra jam pestifera, du.Unii eras jmerpera onini3 sanas scientise, haeresis labe libera, v oiiin i errore extera, exsors omnis fallaciae. 76. I make use here intentionally of the words of Dbllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, Papsthum und Kirchenstaat. Miinchen, 1861, xxx. f. NOTES TO SECTION IV. 77. When King Leo IV. of Lesser Armenia applied to Pope Benedict XII. for assistance against the Saracens, the latter replied, in 1341, that before he could do anything for this object, the Armenians must renounce then- many errors. A schedule of these errors was appended to the Brief, extending to the number of 117. From that time attention was directed in the west of Europe to the differences in doctrine and usage of the Armenian Church. Hence the subject and title of Richard's work, De Erroribus Armenorum. 78. Vid. Dr. Karl Werner's Geschichte der Apologet und, Polemisch. Literatur der Christl. Theologie. Schaffhausen, 1864. III., 409 f. Comp. Hefele's Con- ciliengeschichte, IV., p. 569 f., p. 425 f. 79. Joh. Bale, Scriptorum Britannicorum Centurije, p. 246. 80. Trialogus, IV., c. 36. Ed. Lechler, p. 575. 81. Defensorium curatorum contra eos qui privilegiatos se dicunt, printed in Goldast's Monarchia, II., pp. 1392-1410, with a better text in Brown's Appendix ad Fasciculum rerum expetend, etc., V. II., pp. 466-486. This speech, however, is said to have been printed in Lyons as early as 1496, and in Paris in 1511, along with a tract in reply to it, to be mentioned further on ; vid. d'Argentre Collectio judkiorwm de novis erroribus, 1-379. 82. Schwab, Joh. Gerson, p. 459 f. 83. Unde non video, qualiter ista opinio de observantia mendicitatis spontimeae fuerit introducta, nisi ignorando scripturam, aid fingendo earn esse Christi ritce con- formem, ut per ipsam qucestus amplior haberetur ; vid. Brown, p. 486. 85. Brown's Fasciculus, etc., p. 466. 85a. Ibid., p. 468. F 82 LIFE OF WICLIF. 86. Of course, the Mendicant orders themselves, as a deeply interested party, could not be expected to give an impartial judgment on the proceedings of the archbishop. We learn from the History of the Franciscans, by Lucas Wadding, how they Bought to explain such an opposition on his part. The archbishop, it was alleged, had set his heart upon getting for his own palace an ornament belonging to a neighbouring convent of the Order, and when this was refused him, and the magistrates of Armagh had taken the monks and their rights under their protec- tion, the Archbishop conceived a malicious feeling against them, and now did all he could to increase the opposition which had already begun to be stirred up against the Order in England. — Annates Mmorvm, IV., p. 62. 87. His name is written Connovius or Chonoe. The piece is entitled Defensio Beligionis Mendicantium, and is printed in Goldast's Monorchia, pp. 1410-1444. NOTES TO SECTION V. 88. In what follows, I present a revision of my Essay, De Tohmas Bradwar- dino Commentatio. Lipsiae, 1S62-4. 89. It seems to me very probable that this epithet may have been suggested to his admirers by his frequent use of the word profound, e. g., prof umlissima haec abyssus. De Causa Dei, p. 808. 90. Thomas Bradwardini Archiepiscopi olim Cantuariensis De Causa Dei, et de Virtute Causarum Libri tres. Loud., 1618, fol. Edited by Henry Savile, Head of the same College in Oxford (Merton) where Bradwardine had once been a student and fellow. 91. In Germany, Schroeckh, it is true, in his " Kirchengeschichte," gave a pretty long extract from the " Causa Dei," v. 34, pp. 226-240. But from his time down to the present day, if I am not quite mistaken, all our most learned Church historians have bestowed little attention upon the work, or as good as none at all. Neander, at least, in his General History of the Christian Religion and Church, has passed over Bradwardine in profound silence ; while Gieseler, though he gives several important passages from him (Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte, 3 Edit., II., p. 239), has entirely misconceived the fundamental principle of his teaching ; as Baur also does, in his " Christliche Dogmengeschichte," p. 265, 2 Edit. 92. The most reliable account of his life is contained in Savile's Preface to the " Causa Dei." 93. The small village in the county of Hereford, not far from the borders of Wales, from which Thomas took his second name, is still called Bradwardine. 94. De Causa Dei, III., c. 22. '95. I ngrata mihi gratia displicclat. The word-play here cannot be imitated in English. 96. De Causa Dei, Lib. I., c. 35, p. 308. — Postca vera adhuc nondum Theologioe factus auditor; pradicto argumento rclut quodam gratia radio cisitatus, sub qua dam ten ui veritatis imagine videbar mih i \ma\ re a huge (i. e., e longinquso) gratiam Dei omnia bona inertia prcecedentem tempore et natura, scilicet grutam Dei volunta- tem, qui print utroque modo cult merentem salvari et prius naturaliter opcratur meritum (jus in eo, quam ipse, sicut est in omnibus motibus primus Motor; unde et ei gratias refero qui mihi hanc gratiam gratis dedit. 97. In proof of this, I point to the fervent prayer with which Bradwardine towards the close of the whole work, begins Cap. 50 of Book III., p. 808. He invokes the Redeemer thus : — " Good Master, — Thou my only Master, — my Master and Lord, Thou who from my youth up, when I gave myself to this work by Thy impulse, hast taught me up to this day all that I have ever learned of the truth, and all that, as Thy pen, I have ever written of it, — send down upon me. also now, of Thy great goodness, Thy light, so that Thou who hast led me into the profoundest of depths, mayst also lead up to the mountain-height of this inacces- sible truth. Thou who hast brought me into this great and wide sea, bring me also into the haven. Thou who hast conducted me into this wide and pathless desert, Thou my Guide, and Way, and End, lead me also unto the end. NOTES TO CHAPTER I. 83 Show me, I pray Thee, Thou most learned of all teachers, show to Thy little child, who knows no outlet from the difficulty, how to solve the knot of Thy Word so hardly knit. . . . But now I thank Thee, serenest Lord, that to him who asketh, Thou hast given ; to him that seeketh, Thou hast shown the way ; and to him that knocketh, Thou hast opened the door of piety, the door of clearness, the door of truth. For now when Thou liftest the light of Thy countenance upon Thy servant, I believe I see the right understanding of Thy word," etc. In one place, after he had been warmly defending Augustin against a misinterpretation of Peter Lombard, and had subjected the scholastic to a somewhat sharp critique, maintaining that the latter interpretation is in direct opposition to the meaning of that Father (Lib. II., c. 10, p. 502), he is almost alarmed at his own boldness, and pleads in excuse for himself " the zeal for the house of God and catholic truth, which fills him with a vehement ardour against the error of the Pelagians ; for it is not against Lombard himself that he has said a word, but against his error, because it is so nearly akin to the false teaching of Pelagius. 98. De Causa Dei, L, c. 38, p. 319. Compare c. 39, p. 347. 99. Ibid. I., c. 43, p. 392, f. 100. Ibid. I., c. 35, p. 311. — Factus est gratice laudator, (/ratio: magnificus ac strenuus propugnator. 101. Ibid. Bradwardine's Preface, p. 7 f. Also the end of the work, III., c. 53, p. 872 f. 102. Ibid. p. 8. NOTES TO SECTION VI. 103. In the British Museum there are eight of these MSS., from ten to twelve in the different libraries of Cambridge, and as many in those of Oxford, etc. 104. In Walsingham's Historia Anglicana, under the year 1381. Ed., Riley, II., p. 33 f. 105. Comp. Introduction of Pickering to his edition of Pierce Plowman. London, 1856, I., xxviii. f , 122. E.g. Vs. 1901 f. The command of God to Saul in his war with the Amalekites, to put every man, woman, and child to death, as well as the cattle, is expressed thus : — " Bmnes and bestes, bren hem to dethe, widwes and wyves, women and children." 123. Walsingham, Historia Anglicana. Ed., Riley, I., 296. 124. Our citations are from the newest edition of the poem, 1856, by Thomas Wright, 2 vols. Svo., London. This is properly a second edition, following upon that which was prepared by Pickering. The Introduction, from which we have derived several of the facts mentioned above, was drawn up by Pickering, after whose death Thomas Wright, the well-known historian of literature, took charge of the new edition. As early as the sixteenth century two different editions of the Vision appeared — the first, published in 1550, was edited by Crowley, and went through three editions in a single year. Crowley belonged to that estimable class of publishers who in the sixteenth century united in themselves the character of the scholar and author with that of printer and bookseller, and who deserved so well of literature. The other edition, which appeared in 1561, was also published in London by a famous printer, Owen Roger. In 1813 Whitaker published an edition of the book, upon the aiithority of a MS. which exhibits a peculiar recension of the text. 125. Passus xv., v. 10, 607 ; 10, 659. The poet proceeds upon the mediaeval tradition of the Donation of Constantine. Comp. Dollinger, the Pope-Fables of the Middle Age. Munich, 1863, p. 61. Like the poet of our "Visions," Dante, in the "Inferno," canto xix., v. 115, curses that Donation as the source of all the avarice and simony in the Church — 8 1 LIFE OF WICLIF. " Alii Costantin,
  • > ist, for in one place, e.g., the mis-written word apocrisw (instead of apocryphns) is immediately followed by an etymological remark which presupposes s to have been written instead of f; the word, it is remarked, comes from apo — de, and r. isis - secretum, because the subject is the secrets of the Church, or, according to others from opos=large, and crisis = judicium. De Veritate Script urae, c. II. Another etymological attempt is no better — elemosnia is alleged to be compounded of elemonia — misericordia, and sina, or of elia, which comes from Eli—Qod, and si/ia = mandatum ; it signifies, therefore, God's command. Dc L'icili Dominio, 111., c. 14, .MS. 24. E.g., Wiclif, Tractatus de statu innocentise, c. 4, quoad artes mathematicas quadruviales. Vienna MS., 1339 f, 244, col. 2-2451. Roger Bacon is also wont to include the sciences of the Quadrivium under the general term Mathematics. 25. Comp. Reuter Johannes von Salisbury. Berlin, 1S42, p. 9 f. Schaarschmidt Johannes Saresberiensis. Leipzig, 1842, p. (31. 26. So in the 26th of his sermons on Saints' Days (Evangelia de Sanctis). Vienna MS., 39L8 ; also in the 51st sermon of the same collection, and in the 24th sermon of another collection, included in the same MS. vol. Explanations of this kind are not uncommon in his learned treatises, <.;/., in the De Dominio Divino II., c 3 ; De Ecclesia, c. 5, etc. 27. John Lewis, History of the Life of Wiclif, following Leland's De Scrip- tori bus Britannicis. 28. Comp. Thurot, De l'Organisation de l'Enseignement dans l'Universite de Paris an Moyen-age, 1850, p. 137 f. 29. John Lewis, History of the life of John Wiclif, p. 2. 30. Matter in Article, Sorbonne, in Herzog's Theol. Eealencylopadie. ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II., BY THE TRANSLATOR. 1. Illustrations op the Educational Discipline of Balliol College in Wiclip's TIME. By the fundamental statutes of Devorguilla, which were still in full force in Wiclif 's student days, it was provided as follows : — " That the scholars speak Latin in common, and whoever acts anything against it, shall he rebuked by the principal. If they mend not after twice or thrice admonition, they are to be removed from common table, and eat by themselves, and be served last. If incorrigible after a week's space, to be ejected by the procurators. " Every week a sophism to be disputed and determined in the house among the scholars by turns, so that they both oppose and answer; and if any Bophister profiteth so much that he may deserve in a short time to determine in the schools, then shall the principal tell him that he shall first determine at fiomt among his fellows. At the end of every disputation the principal shall appoint the next day of disputing ; and shall moderate and correct the loquacious ; and shall appoint the sophism that is next to be handled, and also the opponent, respondent, and determiner, that so they may the better provide themselves for a disputation." Vide Wood's History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the University of Oxford, p. 71. ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 107 2. Provisions of the Statutes op Sir Philip de Somerville for the Study of Theology by the Fellows of Balliol College in Wulif's tij:e. These Statutes came into operation in 1341, and assuming, as a high pro- bability (the grounds of which will be found slated in an additional note at the end of Chap. III.), that Wiclif became a student of Arts and Theology at Balliol on his first coining to Oxford, these Provisions throw an interesting light upon the probable course of his theological studies. The Statutes empowered the Fellows, now increased from 16 to 22, to elect six of their number to hold Theological Fellowships, which they should continue to enjoy till, in due course, they obtained the usual degrees in Theology ; and the curriculum of study laid out for them was a singularly liberal one. The men elected ad intendendum sacrae tkeologiae were to become opponents in the theological dispxvtations in the sixth year of their studies, and were to continue to oppose for one year, or if it seemed expedient to the society, during two years. In the ninth or tenth year they were to read the Book of Sentences ; and in the twelfth or thirteenth year they should be held bound to commence, incipere, in the same faculty, unless hindered by legitimate and honest cause. If, as is highly probable, Wiclif became one of these Theological Fellows of Balliol, his whole course of study in Arts and Theology must have extended, allowing four years for his Arts course, to sixteen or seventeen years, viz., from 1335 to 1351 or 1352. The utmost care was to be taken in the election of men to these Theological Fellowships ; under the sanction of a solemn oath, none were to be chosen, " praeter honestos, castos, pacificos et humiles, ad scientiam habdes ac proficere volentes, " and none who were not already " Regents in Arts." 3. The following extract from Anthony Wood's " History of the Colleges and Halls in the University of Oxford," Vol. I., sub-anno 1343, gives us a curious glimpse of the condition of philosophical parties in the University at the time when Wiclif was engaged in the profound study of the philosophy and theology of his age : - a.d. 1343. — "Clashing controversies in disputations and writings among the learneder sort, especially the followers and disciples of the authors of the Nominals and Reals (Occam and Scotus); both which sects were now so fixed in every house of learning that the divisions between the northern and southern clerks were now as great, if not more, as those before. Those of the north held, as 'tis said, with Scotus, and those of the south with Occam, and in all their disputations were so violent, that the peace of the University was not thereby a little disturbed. . . . Now, forasmuch as these controversies were frequent in Oxford, causing thereby great emulation, which commonly ended in blows, the statutes for the election of the Chancellor were, without doubt, made ; for whereas about these times great variance feli out in the election of that officer, some aiming to have him a northern, others a southern man, divers statutes and injunctions, chiefly reflecting upon such disorders, were, I say, this year enacted, of which was that concerning two scrutators in the elections, — that is, that one should be a northern, the other a southern man, lest underhand dealing should be used, and consequently parties injured." For further information concerning these two parties or factions in the Univer- sity, see additional note at the end of Chap. III. Wiclif took side with the Scotists or Realists in these subtle disputations and " clashing controversies," and it is curious to reflect how much this philosophical preference may have been owing to the accident of his having been born a Borcalis instead of an A ustralis. John Scotus Erigcna himself was, of course, a north-countryman, and all north- countrymen in Oxford appear to have belonged to his following. The Balliol scholars in particular were the natural allies of the great Realist, for they claimed him to have been a Balliol man before he connected himself with Merton. For, as Savage dryly observes in his Ballio-fergus, " There is as much contending for the breeding-place of this rare man as hath been for the birth of Homer. We conjecture him to have been of this College of Balliol, inasmuch as he was by county of Northumberland, and of Duns there, as might be seen not ouly in Pitsaeus, but before every volume of his works in MSS. in our library, of the gift of Bishop Gray, but torn off in the time of the late war; and for that in Northumberland was the iirst endowment of our College. He lived anno 1300, which was after Devor- 108 LIFE OF WICLIF. guilla's Statutes, but before those of Sir Philip Somerville, yet not after the time when it was granted by the Pope that the scholars might live in the house after they became Masters of Art ; and therefore he might, for that reason, depart from this to Merton L ollege." 4. The following names of learned Fellows of Balliol College in Wiclif 's time are given by Savage in his Pallio-fergus, and we probably discern in them two of the partners of the Reformer's studies in philosophy and divinity : — " William Wilton, professor in his faculty, which could be no other than divinity, by the statutes of this house made by Sir Philip de Somervyll, after which he lived here and wrote many things : — Super Priora Aristotelis. Quaestiones de Anima. Super Ethica. He was Chancellor of the University in 1373. " Roger Whelpdale, fellow of this house, afterwards Provost of Queen's, lastly Bishop of Carlisle, a great mathematician. He wrote many books, whereof in our College library are there — Summularum logicalium. De Universalibus. De Aggregatis. De Quanto et Continuo. De Compositione Continui. De Rogando Deo. He lived in the time of Edward III., and was the first who enriched the library with MSS., besides those of uncertain donation." 5. The recent " Report " of Mr. Riley upon the Archives of Balliol, published by the "Royal Commission on Historical MSS.," 1874, has put us in possession for the first time of the following document : "a small parchment deed, in good preservation, with four seals appended in a mutilated state," which " throws light," as he remarks, " upon the studies of the house some forty years after its foundation, and is otherwise a very interesting document." It is quite in place here, as it describes a state of things which still prevailed in the College when Wiclif, in all probability, became a student of it in 1335, or even later, in 1340. It reveals also a state of dissatisfaction with existing arrangements and restrictions which had a great deal, no doubt, to do with the drawing up of the new statutes of 1341, which, as we gather from themselves, were not dictated by the College benefactor, Sir Philip de Somervyll, but had been agreed upon by mutual deliberation between him and the Master and Fellows, and had, no doubt, been suggested to him by them for the increased usefulness of the house. The substance of the documeut has been already given from Wood in Note I. of Additional Notes to Chap. I. " Tenore praesentium pateat universis quod anno domini mcccxxv. in Festo Sanctae Margaritae Virginis, dubitatione suborta et quaestione mota inter scholares doinus de Balliolo in Oxonia, an liceret sociis ibidem commorantibus aliam scientiam audire quam artes liberales, prout artes liberales intelliguntur, quae in Scholis Artistarum ab Artistis legi possunt ; auditis et pensatis motivis hinc inde, ac sufficiente deliberatione praehabita, demum declaration extitit, et diffinitum hujusmodi auditionem nullo modo licere, prout apparuit, secundum intentionem fundantis domum praedictum, immo totaliter fore contra nientem ejusdem, necnon et contra consuetudines laudabiles per socios doinus ejusdem hactenus approbatas et diutius usitatas. Et ideo inhibition fuit et inter- dictum per Magistros Robertum de Leycestria de ordine Fratrum ininorum Sacrae Paginae Professorem, et Nicolaum de Tyngewick Doctorem in Medieina et Bacca- larium Sacrae Theologi;e, tunc Magistros extraneos doinus antedictae, ni aliquis socius domus ejusdem, Magister vel Scolaris aliquam facultatem audiat, sen eidem intendat in pleno termino seu vacatione, praeter artes liberales quae ab Artistis in Scolia artium de jure legi possunt, prout superius est expressum. Acta sunt ista in aula de Balliolo, coram tota communitate ipsa non reclamante, die Sanctae Mar- garetae Virginis anno supradicto, praesentibus Magistris, Sacrae Theologiae pro- fessoribus, Magistro Ricardo de Camsale, et Magistro Waltero de Horkeslaw, una ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 109 cum Magistris Ricardo filio Radulphi et Ricardo de Retford qui omnes quondam dictae domus socii extiterunt ; quibus omnibus et singulis dicta diffinitio et inhibitio justa simpliciter videbatur. Et si aliquis contra istam inhibitionem aut injunctionem verterit, ac legitime monitus per Principalem dictae domus desistere noluerit tanquam rebellis Statutis et Constitutionibus domus praedictae, arbitrio magistrorum qui pro tempore fuerint, merito puniatur. Et ne istud factum postea in dubium revocetur, Sigilla praedictorum Magistrorum Roberti et Nicolai, una cum Sigillis Domini Cancellarii Universitatis Oxoniae et Decani ejusdem villae sunt apposita. Et nos Cancellarius Universitatis Oxoniae et Decanus ejusdem villae Sigilla nostra ad rogatum dictorum magistrorum apposuimus in perpetuam me- moriam praemissorum. Scriptum Oxoniae in festo Sancti Jacobi Apostoli anno superius praedicto. " " The above-named Richard Fitzralph was afterwards the celebrated Arch- bishop of Armagh, also known as St. Richard of Dundalk, the antagonist of the Mendicant orders." CHAPTER III. wiclif's quiet work in oxford — 1345-1360. SECTION I. — Wiclif as a Member of Balliol and Merton. IN commencing this period of Wiclif's life with the year 1345, we have before us two full decades of years during which he in no way appeared, as yet, upon the stage of public life, either in Church or State. That is the reason Avhy, in those chronicles which record the history of England in the fourteenth century, there does not occur the slightest mention of his person during these years. In fact it is not till ten years later still, that the chroniclers mention him for the first time (1377). It is for this reason that we designate this stage of his life, the period of his quiet work. And Oxford was the exclusive field of his work during all these twenty years. We have to think of Wiclif at this time as a member in full standing of a college (socius, felloio), as one of the Regent Masters (magistri regentes), i.e., as a man taking an active part in the independent, and in some sense republican government of his own college and of the whole academic body — a position to which he had been in due order ad- mitted, after passing through certain stages of academic study, and after he had acquitted himself of certain learned tasks (disputations and the like). The college, indeed, of which Wiclif became a Fellow, is a question which lies under as much uncertainty as that other which has been discussed in the last chapter, viz. : what college it was with which he had been previously connected as a scholar. Since the appearance of Lewis's life in 1720, the common understanding has been that he was first a Fellow of Merton College, and afterwards, about the year 1360, was promoted to the presidency of Balliol College.1 In support of the first point, there exists a single documentary proof, but this a proof not absolutely free from question. It consists of an entry in the Acts of Merton College, according to which, in January 1356, "John Wiclif" held the office of seneschal or FELLOW OF MERTON. Ill rent-master of the college.2 This has hitherto been under- stood of our Wiclif, without hesitation; but Shirley maintains, on the contrary, that that notice probably refers to his namesake and contemporary, John Wiclif or Wyclyve, who, according to trustworthy documents, was parish priest of Mayfield. The grounds upon which this scholar relies are the following : — The fact is certain beyond challenge, that the Reformer Wiclif and no other was Master of Balliol in 1361. Now, the relations which existed between this college and the Wiclif family, make it natural to pre- sume that he belonged to Balliol from the first ; while, on the other hand, it is in the highest degree improbable that the members of the college would have chosen for their Master a man who was a member of another college (Merton).3 The difficulty presented by this last remark will find its solution in an inquiry which we shall enter upon immedi- ately ; and as to Shirley's first ground of doubt, it is obvious to reply that John Wiclif of Mayfield is still also a Wiclif, and therefore stands as nearly related to Balliol College as our Wiclif, and to Merton College no nearer than he. Thus the most important element of the question still con- tinues to be the established fact, that our Wiclif was Master of Balliol in 1362. We are unable, for our part, to recognise any decisive weight in the critical observations of Shirley, in opposition to the view which has hitherto prevailed, that Wiclif for some time was a member of Merton. On the other hand, we believe that we are able to throw some new light upon a subject which has hitherto been somewhat obscure, and this, not by means of mere conjectures, but of documentary facts. The difficulty lies chiefly here, that it has been found hard to explain the frequent change of colleges through which Wiclif is alleged to have passed, inasmuch as according to the older tradition, he was first admitted into Queen's, then transferred to Merton, and was soon thereafter made Master of Balliol; or, in case we set aside Queen's College (as the mention of it in connection with Wiclif's student-life is unhistorical), and prefer to assume that he belonged from the first, as a scholar, to Balliol. then it becomes almost stranger still to suppose that Wiclif should have afterwards left this college and become a member of Merton, and then should have returned again to Balliol, and that too in the capacity of Master. But precisely here is the point upon which we think we are able to throw light, from a document which, till now, has hardly been considered in relation to the subject. We refer to the Papal Bull of 1361, first pub- 112 LIFE OP WICLIF. lislied by Lewis, not indeed in the original, but in extensive extract, in which the incorporation of the parish church of Abbotesley with Balliol Hall (so the college was then called) is approved and sanctioned.4 This apostolic writ makes reference, at the same time, to the representation which the members of Balliol had submitted to the Papal See in support of their petition for the confirmation of the incorporation. From this representation we see pretty clearly what had been the financial condition of the college up to that time. For it states that by means of the pious beneficence of the founder of the college, there are indeed numerous students and clerics in the hall, but aforetime each of them had only received* — farthings weekly ; and as soon as they became Masters of Arts, they had immediately to leave the Hall, so that, on account of poverty, they were no longer able to continue their studies, and found themselves, in some instances, obliged to have recourse to trade for the sake of a living. Now, however, Sir William Felton, the present benefactor of the foundation, formerly patron of Abbotesley, but who had already, in 1341, transferred his right of collation to Balliol College,5 has formed the design, out of sympathy with its members, to increase the number of scholars, and to make provision for their having the common use of books in all the different faculties ; and also, that every one of them should have a sufficient supply of clothing and twelve farthings a-week ; and further, that they should be at liberty to remain quietly in the Hall, whether they were masters and doctors or not, until they obtained a sufficient church-living, and not till then should they be obliged to leave. From this it appears as clearly as we could possibly desire, that up to the year 1360 the extremely limited resources of Balliol had made it necessary that every one belonging to the foundation should leave as soon as he obtained his Arts degree, and that the incorporation of the Church of Abbotesley, accord- ing to the intention of the benefactor, was designed, among other things, to provide that in future the members of Balliol, even when they became masters or doctors, might continue to live in the college as they had done before. If, therefore, "Wiclif, as we have reason to presume, was received into Balliol as a scholar, the circumstances of the college at that time must have obliged him to leave it as soon as he graduated. As now the above-mentioned notice in the papers of Merton mentions John Wiclif, in 1356, as seneschal of the college, there is not only nothing any longer standing * The blank here should be filled up jyith the nuniber 8 ; vide Additional Note I. at the end of the chapter. MASTER OF BALLIOL. 113 in the way of identifying this " AVyelif " with our Wielif, but we have even the satisfaction of learning from this source what had become of him since the time when, as we may now presume, he was obliged to leave Balliol as a promoted magister. And as it was customary in the colleges that every one behoved to be for some considerable length of time a Fellow before he could undertake such a function as that of seneschal, the inference may be allowed that Wielif had been for several years a member of Merton before be entered upon the office, and in all probability since the date of his graduation as a master. The circumstances just men- tioned serve to show, in addition, how easily it might come to pass that Wielif, although he had left Balliol, where he had originally studied, might yet at a later period be called back again to that college, and even be placed at its head; for as his leaving was by no means a spontaneous act of his own, but was entirely due to the financial situation of the college, every surmise that it may have given rise to some feeling to his disadvantage is entirely out ol the ques- tion, whereas, under other circumstances, such a feeling might have stood in his way to his subsequent promotion to the headship of the house. We have thus been able, we believe, to clear up a point which has hitherto been obscure. But however this may be, the fact at least stands perfectly firm that Wielif Avas Master of Balliol in the year 1361. This appears from four different documents which are preserved in the archives of this college, and which have all a bearing upon the fact that Wielif, as "Magister seu Cnstos Aulas de Balliolo,''5 takes possession, in name of the college, of the already men- tioned incumbency of Abbotesley in the county of Hunting- don, which had been incorporated with the foundation.' From these documents it appears that Wielif must already before this date have been Master or Warden of Balliol ; and yet it cannot have been long previously that he acquired the dignity, for in November 135(5 the name of Robert of Derby occurs as master. Nor was even he Wiclif's immediate pre- decessor, but another whose name was William of Kingston. Three of these documents, dated 7th, 8th, and 9th April 13(51, have immediate relation to the Act of Incorporation itself, while the fourth document, dated July in the same year, is that along with which Wielif, as master, sent to the Bishop of Lincoln, John Gynwell, the Papal bull wherein the incorporation was sanctioned. But before this last date Wielif had been nominated by his college, 16th May 13(51, to be Rector of Fillingham. This is a small parish in the H 114 LIFE OF WICLIF. county of Lincoln, lying ten miles north north-west from the city of Lincoln. This appointment did not imply that Wiclif immediately thereafter left the University and lived entirely in the country, in order to devote himself to pastoral duties. This does not appear to have been contemplated in the nomination. Agreeably to law and usage prevalent at the period, he remained after as before, a member of the Uni- versity, with all the powers and privileges belonging to him as such; and without doubt he continued, for all important purposes, to reside in Oxford. What provision he made for the work of the parish, perhaps by the appointment of a curate, and whether, perhaps, during the recesses of the University he resided regularly in Fillingham, in order to discharge his pastoral duties in person — these are points which we are obliged to leave undecided. But it is matter of fact that an entry exists in the Acts of the See of Lincoln, to which diocese Fillingham belonged, from which it appears that Wiclif applied for and obtained in 13(58 the consent of his bishop to an absence of two years from his parish church of Fillingham, in order to devote himself to the studies of Oxford.7 It may be conjectured that he had obtained similar leave of non-residence on previous occa- sions, in each instance for a like period of two years. On the other hand, his nomination to the rectorship of a landward parish made it a necessity that he should relinquish the mastership of Balliol. That this took place in point ot fact may be inferred from a circumstance of which docu- mentary proof still exists in the account-books of Queen's College, that Wiclif, in October 1363, and for several years afterwards, paid rent for an apartment in the buildings of that college. We know, besides, from other sources, that in 13<>6 a certain John Hugate was Master of Balliol. During the twenty years which we have in view in the present chapter, Wiclif s work in Oxford was twofold, partly scientific, as a man of scholastic learning, and partly practi- cal, as a member, and for some time president of a college, and also as M agister regens in the general body of the University. That he did not apply himself continuously to pastoral labours in Fillingham (from 1361) may be assumed with certainty. With resj)ect to his scientific la- bours, he commenced while yet only a master in the faculty of Arts by giving disputations and lectures on philosophical subjects, particularly in Logic. From many passages of his extant manuscript works it appears that he gave courses of such lectures with zeal and success. But from the time when he became Bachelor of Theology, he was at liberty to CANTERBURY HALL. 115 deliver theological lectures in addition — i.e., only, in the first instance, on the Biblical books, not on the Sentences of the Lombard, which latter privilege was reserved exclusively for the higher grades of Bachelorship and the Doctors of Theology. But the Biblical lectures which he delivered, it may be conjectured, proved of the greatest use to him- self, for, in teaching the Scriptures to others, he first learned the true meaning of them himself (docendo discimus) ; so that these lectures unconsciously served as a preparation for his later labours as a Reformer. But Wiclif had also the opportunity of acquiring practical ability, and of making himself useful, by taking part as a Fellow of Merton College in the administration of that society. Doubtless, the fruitfulness and utility of his activity in this position contributed essentially to bring about his appointment to the headship of Balliol. What was chiefly valued in him in this relation appears in the clearest manner from the document by which the Archbishop of Can- terbury, Simon Islip, an earlier fellow-student of his, ap- pointed Wiclif to the Presidency of "Canterbury Hall." The archbishop gives as his reason for this nomination, apart from Wiclif's learning and estimable life, his practical qualifications of fidelity, circumspection, and diligence*9 SECTION II. — Wiclif as Head of Canterbury Hall and Doctor of Theology. In the meantime, as has just been mentioned by anticipa- tion, Wiclif had been appointed to the headship of a small newly-founded college. But this position also, without any blame on his part, proved to be one of only short duration. We mean the position of Warden of Canterbury Hall — a point in his biography, however, which is attended with more than one historical difficulty. Up till 1840 it was the universally received understanding that Wiclif was for some time head of this new hall. Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, founded a Hall in Oxford which should bear the name of the Archi- episcopal See. Its first warden was a monk of violent character named Woodhall, under whom there was no end of contention among the members; to remedy which the Archbishop removed Woodhall from the headship, and re- placed three other members, who were monks, by secular priests. In 1365 he appointed " John of Wiclif " to be second warden, and entrusted to him the oversight of the eleven 11G LIFE OF WICLIF. Scholars, who were now all seculars. But in the following spring (26th April 13GG), the active Archbishop Islip deceased, and was succeeded, as Primate of England, in 13G7, by Simon Langham, a man who had previously been a monk, and continued to cherish a thoroughly monastic spirit. By him Wiclif was deposed from his wardenship, and the three members who had been introduced along with him wrere removed from the college. Langham restored Woodhall to the headship, and the three monks who had been deprived along with him were once more made members. Wiclif and the three Fellows appealed from the Archbishop to the Pope, but the process proved an uncommonly protracted one, and ended in 1370 with the rejection of Wiclif and his fellow-appellants, and with the confirmation of their opponents in their several places. The termination of this affair exceeds by several years the limit of the present period of Wiclif 's life; but for the sake of connection we shall dispose of the whole subject in the present place. From the fourteenth century down to our own time, this chapter of Wiclif 's history has been turned to polemical use against him by his literary adversaries. They knew how to attribute his antagonistic tendencies, and especially his attacks upon the Pope and the monastic system, to motives of petty personal revenge for the losses which he had incurred on this occasion, and thus to damage his character and fair fame. We shall, therefore, have to inquire whether this imputation is well-grounded or not, keeping before us, however, here as always, the truth as our highest aim. We might, indeed, have entirely dispensed with the elucidation, if it could be shown that this whole account had been smuggled into the biography of the precursor of the Reformation only by confounding him with another individual of the same name. This view of the subject has, in fact, been recently entertained and defended with no inconsiderable amount of learning and acutenesss. It is due to truth, however, at once to state that it was by no means the design of the scholars whom we have now in our eye in this investigation, to offer any defence against these imputations, but simply and solely to bring to the light the historical facts of the case as they really occurred. The historico-critical difficulties which have here to be solved, may be comprised in two questions : — 1. Is John Wiclif, the Warden of Canterbury Hall, identical with Wiclif the precursor of the Reformation, or is he not ? JOHN WYCLYVE OF MAYFIELD. 117 2. Was the appointment ofWiclifto the headship of the Hall, and of those three secular priests or members of the same, contrary to the terms of the foundation, or not1? We shall be obliged to distinguish these two questions, but we cannot keep them mechanically separate in our inquiry. In August 1841, there appeared an article in the Gentle- mans Magazine, whose anonymous author was professedly a member of the Court of Heraldry — Courthope. This article first made the attempt to show that " John Wyclyve " the Warden of Canterbury Hall, was a person to be carefully dis- tinguished from the celebrated Wiclif.18 The writer had been led to this conclusion in the course of drawing up a local history of the Archbishop's Palace of Mayfield, in Sussex. He discovered, that is to say, in the Archives of Canterbury, that on the 20th July 156 L, a '-John Wyclyve" was ap- pointed parish priest of Mayfield by Archbishop Islip — the same prelate who, four years later, was to nominate John Wyclyve to the presidency of Canterbury Hall ; and, what is remarkable, the deed of this later nomination is dated at Mayfield, 9th December 13G5, where Islip seems to have had his ordinary residence since the time when he appointed "John of Wyclyve" to the parish. Further, the tone in which the Archbishop speaks in the deed, of the learning; and excellent qualities of the man whom he l& nominates to the wardenship, presupposes intimate personal acquaintance, and does not leave the impression that this eommendation was mere language of form.11 In addition to all this, it seemed to the critic to be a circumstance worth consideration, that the name itself in both documents, viz., in the deed of appointment to the parish, and in that of appointment to the wardenship, is written with cli/ve in the second syllable, whereas the name of our Wiclif and the Warden of Balliol is found in all documents written with lif or life. Last of all, the critic lays stress upon the fact that the Archbishop shortly before his death, in April 1366, was taking steps to allocate the income of the parish church of Mayfield to the support of the Warden of the Hall, which, however, was prevented by his death. But all this appears decidedly to imply that it was the parish priest of Mayfield who was promoted to the Wardenship of the Hall; he was, however, in 1380 transferred to the neigh- bouring parish of Horstedkaynes, and received a prebend in the cathedral church of Chichester. He died in 1383, only one year before our Wiclif. This learned and acute investigation attracted much attention. On the one hand it commended itself to many, 118 LIFE OF WICLIF. and there were not wanting men of learning who went even farther, and undertook to prove that three or even four men of the name of John Wiclif, and all belonging to the clerical order, lived at the same time. This last assertion we leave on one side as resting upon a mis- understanding. But all the less ought we to accept, untested, the view that it was John Wiclif, parish priest of May field, and afterwards of Ilorstedkaynes, and not the celebrated Wiclif, who was promoted by Islip to the Warden- ship of the New Hall in Oxford, deposed by the Archbishop's successor, and thereby occasioned to carry on a process before the Roman Curia. For this view has been accepted and supported with additional arguments by other investi- gators, and especially by the late Professor of Ecclesias- tical History in Oxford, Walter Waddington Shirley.12 The latter is also of opinion that that John Wyclif, who is mentioned as member and seneschal of Merton College in 1356, must likewise have been the Wyclyve of Mayfield, and not our Wiclif. To this last point, which we believe we have already disposed of by what was said upon it above, we shall, however, have occasion once again to return. But the question whether John Wiclif, the head of Canter- bury Hall, is, or is not, one and the same person with our Wiclif, is one which (if we mistake not) still remains to-day undecided, inasmuch as Shirley and others answer it in the negative, while Vaughan and the learned editors of the Wiclif Bible, Rev. Josia Forshall and Sir Frederick Madden, affirm it in the most decided manner. Let us first examine the grounds which are alleged against the identity of our Wiclif. and in support of the identity of the less celebrated Wiclif of Mayfield, with the Warden of Canterbury Hall. 1. The argument founded upon the form of the name is converted, upon closer examination, into an argument in favour of the identification of our Wiclif with the Warden of Canterbury Hall. By careful investiga- tion among documents of the period, the late Prebendary "Wilkinson established the fact that the name of the parish priest of Mayfield is always written Whitcliff, or Whytclyfe, etc., i.e., is uniformly written with t in the first syllable, while the name of our Wiclif and of the Warden of that Hall never appears with t in the first syllable. 2. The argument founded upon the circumstance that the Archbishop's deed of appointment is dated at Mayfield is a precarious one, for this fact, taken by itself, by no means necessarily leads to the inference which has been drawn from it. 3. Hence this second ground is combined with a third, viz., that the terms WICLIF OF MAY FIELD NOT WARDEN. Ill) of the deed imply a personal acquaintance of the Archbishop with his nominee. This is undoubtedly the case. But it does not follow from this that the Archbishop's nominee was the parish priest of Mayfield, with whom, of course, from his frequent residence there for several years, he was perfectly well acquainted. For it is certainly quite possible that the Archbishop was also personally acquainted with our Wiclif ; and if it is true, as from what has been said above there is no reason to doubt, that the Wiclif known to fame was for several years after his student course a member of Merton College, it is extremely probable that he and the said Archbishop, who was also of the same college, were from that time on a footing of mutual acquaintance and regard. The other points alleged in support of the same view, we leave aside as of less importance ; but the observations already made warrant us, we believe, to maintain that the grounds which have been alleged against the identity of our Wiclif with that personage of the same name who was for a short time at the head of Canterbury Hall, prove absolutely nothing. On the other hand, if we are not quite mistaken, the positive testimonies in favour of the identity are entirely decisive. 1. The oldest testimony in support of it is that of a younger contemporary of Wiclif. The learned Francis- can and Doctor of Theology, William Woodford, who wrote against Wiclif while he was still living, and of whom Wiclif, so far as I can find, speaks with genuine respect, in a controversial treatise, entitled Seventy-Two Queries concerning the Sacrament of the Altar, of the year 1381, mentions, as a well-known fact, the circumstance, that Wiclif was driven by prelates and endowed monks from his position in Canter- bury Hall. Still further, Woodford brought Wiclifs subse- quent antagonism to the endowed orders into a connection of his own suggestion with that incident of his life.14 This testimony seems scarcely to leave room for any remaining doubt, because its date reaches up to Wiclifs own life- time. It has been attempted, notwithstanding, to diminish the weight of Woodford's testimony by the observation that he could not have had any personal recollection of that incident, for as his latest writing occurs in the year 1433, he must have been still a boy at the time of the event in question ; besides which, these Seventy-Two Queries were written, it is alleged, in great haste, and in a time of strong excitement and zealous controversy, when every damaging story about Wiclif might be expected to find will- ing ears; last of all, Woodford never repeated this allega- 120 LIFE OF WICLIF. Hon in his later writings, and hi.s scholar, Thomas of Walden, never once touches upon this story in his great polemical work — from which it may be concluded that Thomas of Walden had no belief in its truth.10 To all which we reply that though Woodford was a younger man than Wiclif, he must yet have lived in Oxford with him for some consider- able time, as is manifest from the language of Wiclif in ihe passage quoted in note 15, last referred to. He could very well then have an exact and certain knowledge of the whole affair ; and his manner of referring to the subject corresponds well with this, for it is no more than a short incidental allusion to a wTell-known fact, introduced chiefly fur the sake ot the alleged connection between the fact and Wiclif 's polemics against the endowed orders. Nor can the circumstances that Woodford does not recur to the subject in his later writings, and that Thomas of Walden, wTho wrote alter him. never once mentions it, be of any avail as proof against the truth of a fact vouched for by such testimony. It is well known how precarious arguments a silentio are wont in general to be. We are, therefore, still prepared to assign to the testimony of Woodford a decisive weight in support of the fact that our Wiclif was nominated to the headship of Canterbury Hall, but before two years had passed away was again driven from his position.* 2. It is remarkable that in Wiclifs own writings a pas- sage is found where he treats of that affair ; and it is not in the nature of a passing allusion, as in Wroodford, but a pretty full investigation of the subject. But Wiclif handles the matter so much upon the merits, and so little as a per- sonal affair, that at first sight it might admit of a doubt whether he had himself really taken any part in the business. In fact his manner of speaking has even been thought to admit of being used as a testimony against the identity of his person with that of the head of the Hall so often men- tioned. With all the more exactness must wTe look into the language which he employs, having regard to the whole connection of the passage.11'1 In the section of his book, De Ecclesia, containing the passage, he is treating of the property of the Church, and the question in chap. Hi, is whether the provision of landed property lor the Church is really a necessity and a benefit for her. and not rather a mischief. In particular, the author investigates the question, assuming, as he does, the pretended Donation of Constantine to be a historical fact, whether Silvester did right in accepting that Donation. This question Wiclif answers in the negative. * Vide additional note "2, at the end of the chapter. TESTIMONY OF WOODFORD. 121 But he also brings under review all the arguments adduced by opponents against this negative. Among others, he brings into view the fifth objection laid against his opinion, viz.. that if Bishop Sylvester in Rome committed a sin in accepting the permanent endowment of the Church with lands, then in like manner the colleges in Oxford have sinned in accepting gifts of temporal estates for the support of poor clerics, and it must consequently be the duty of the members of these colleges spontaneously to forego the continued possession of such lands ; yea, they ought in strict propriety to solicit their promoters and patrons to take back again these dangerous rights and properties. But by such a course essential injury would be done to the religions liberality ot the people, and not only to the income of the clergy derived from such foundations, but also to the provision made for the poor. The indirect mode of proof used by his opponents takes the form of reasoning per deducens ad familiare inconveniens, i.e., they are fain to deduce from Wiclif's contention a conse- quence which touches very nearly the interest both of him- self and the corporation to which he belongs {familiare), and the intolerableness of which or its practical mischievousness (inconveniens) must at once be obvious. In his reply Wiclif denies the pretended logical exigency of this reasoning, as if it followed from his premises that all endowments for the benefit of the University were sinful which is by no means the case ; but he urges that it is still possible for a sin of inadvertence to creep in, not only in a thing which is good in itself, but also in a transaction which is morally good in respect to the personal motive from which it proceeds. And this he will make plain in familiariore exemplo, in an example lying still nearer to himself, or touching him- self still more closely.17 But this example is none other than the incident of the foundation of a college in Oxford by Archbishop Islip. He does not mention Canterbury Hall by name, but that this college and no other is meant cannot admit of the slightest doubt. Wiclif mentions two chief particulars in relation to this Hall : first, its original founda- tion by Simon Islip, and its endowment with landed property; and next, the upsetting of that foundation by Archbishop Simon Langham, to whom he gives the name of Anti-Simon, because, with the same baptismal name as Islip, his way of proceeding was antagonistic. To the founder he ascribes a pious motive in his provision for the college, even a more pious intention than had found place in the provision of any of the monasteries of England ; but Wiclif was of opinion, notwithstanding, that Islip had acted in the matter 122 LIFE OF WIOLIF. not without sin, for the incorporation of a parish church, or the alienation of an estate in mortmain, has never taken place without sin, both in the giver and the receiver.18 But as to Islip's successor in the primacy, who had completely upset his arrangements in reference to the college, Wiclif maintains, in the most distinct manner, that he sinned in so doing, much more than Islip himself. Now, the circum- stance that Wiclif in this passage does not bring his own person into view in a perfectly unmistakeable manner, as one who was concerned in the college and the change which it underwent, is insufficient to shake our conviction that he had this personal concern in it notwithstanding. The objective mode of speaking in the third person we are familiar with in other instances ; and that the incident had a special relation to his own person, he gives us clearly to understand in his use of the words familiarim exemplum. Fully ten years had passed away, when he wrote thus, since his removal from the position of Warden of Canterbury Hall, for the book Be Ecclesia, which contains the statements before us, was written, as we undertake to show with precision, in the year 1378. The affair had long ceased to give pain ; and although at the time he had felt it keenly, the author was now able to speak of it wTith perfect coolness, and simply as a matter of fact. Like his opponent Woodford, however, Wiclif speaks of the incident in a manner which implies that it was one well known to all ; for, with the exception of the founder himself, he does not meution a single name — neither that of the College nor that of Langham, nor even a single name of any of the members of the College earlier or later. And it is only a few features of the business which he brings into prominence, and these only such as were of substantive importance. On the one hand, that the design of the endow- ment of the foundation was a truly pious one ; that the statutes and arrangements of the house were worthy of praise, and fitted to be of advantage to the Church ; and that only secular clerics — i.e., learned men not belonging to any of the monastic orders — were meant to devote themselves therein to science. On the other hand, Wiclif mentions no more than that, after Islip's death, his instructions were frustrated, the members who were in the enjoyment of the foundation dispossessed, and several people introduced who were by no means in need of it, but on the contrary in very comfortable circumstances. But it is not mentioned that the latter were monks exactly, and members of the Benedictine foundation of Canterbury, although this comes out indirectly from the connexion ; while it is plainly told that the whole wiclif's own testimony. 123 change in the membership of the College had been carried through by means of false representations (cornmenta mendacii, fucus), and not without simony besides (spnoniace). This occurrence, Wiclif thinks, must be a warning to the Bishop of Winchester, to use foresight that a similar fate may not befall his own foundation. William of Wykeham, one of the most leading prelates and statesmen of Eng- land in the fourteenth century (f 1404), had occupied him- self since 1373 with the foundation of a great college in Oxford ; he had already formed a society in that year, for whose maintenance he provided; in 1379 he concluded his last purchases of ground for the building of the house ; and on the 13th of April 1386, several years after Wiclif's death, took place the solemn consecration of " St. Mary's College of Winchester in Oxford," which soon afterwards received the name of New College, under which it still flourishes at the present day. The way in which Wiclif speaks of this foundation of Wykeham shows clearly that the fact was not yet a completed one, but was still only in the stage of preparation. Otherwise, the advice which he modestly gives the bishop (consulendum, videtur domino Wyntoniensi, etc.) would have come too late.19 Let us now proceed to examine the second question, Was the appointment of Wiclif as Warden of Canterbury Hall, and of the three secular priests, William Selby, William Middleworth, and Richard Benger to be members of the same, contrary or not to the provisions of the foundation? The opponents concerned answered this question, of course, in the affirmative. They represented the matter in this light : that the statutes of the College prescribed, as a fixed principle, that a Benedictine of the chapter of Canterbury must be warden, and that three monks in addition from the same chapter must be members ; imply- ing that Wiclif and those associated with him had put forward unwarranted claims in demanding that the govern- ment of the College should lie in the hands of secular priests, and that Wiclif should be made head. It was Wiclif and his friends, they alleged, who had carried through the proceeding of excluding from the College Henry Woodhall, the then warden, and those members who, like him, were Benedictines of Canterbury.20 According to Wiclif's showing, the exact opposite of all this was the truth, viz., that Archbishop Islip had ordained that secular priests alone should study in the College ; it was only after the death of the founder that members of the archiepiscopal chapter, in contrariety to his will, had 124 LIFE OF WICLIF. placed themselves in possession. These two statements are so directly contradictory as to nullify each other. It is necessary to look about for information from other sources in order to arrive at clearness on the subject. And fortu- nately such information is available in the eight documents relating to this business, which Lewis obtained from the archiepiscopal archives, and has published in the Appendix to his life of Wiclif. Two royal edicts in particular are here of importance. In the first, dated 20th October 1361, Edward III. grants his consent to the proposal of Arch- bishop Simon Islip to found a Canterbury Hall in Oxford, and to attach to and incorporate with this hall, as soon as it is erected, the Church, i.e., the Church revenues ot Pagham in Sussex. The second royal ordinance, of 8th April 1372, contains the confirmation of the Papal judgment of 1370, by which Wiclif and his associates of Canterbury Hall were finally excluded. In both these decrees mention is made of two classes of members of the college, who, according to the intention of the founder, were to live together in it — monks and non-monks;21 and in the second decree, con- sistently with this, a charge of departure from the terms of the original royal confirmation is laid equally against the determination of the founder himself, by which he subse- quently set aside the monkish members, so that only non- monks should remain in the College, and against the Papal decision, in virtue of which, in all time coming, monks alone from the Benedictine Convent of Canterbury should be members.22 But notwithstanding this charge, Edward III. in the latter edict grants remission for these viola- tions of the fundamental statute of Islip, but not without requiring the Prior and Convent of Canterbury to pay into the Kings treasurer beforehand 200 marks,-'3 a naive condition, which confirms in the fullest manner the accusation which, as we saw, Wiclif himself makes, that simony had had a part in the game. Thus, it appears that the royal confirmation of the foundation originally proceeded on the assumption that two classes of members should be united in the College, monks and non-monks. This confirmation, however, was set forth before the new hall was actually founded, when the archbishop had first determined upon its plan, and was desirous of paving the way for carrying it out by obtaining the necessary consent, on the part of the State. The document, therefore, allows conclusions to be drawn from it only in regard to the origiual intentions of the founder, but gives no assurance that when Islip, a year later (1362), actually completed the foundation wiclif's own testimony. 125 and carried it into effect, that two-fold description of mem- bership was ordained in the statutes of the foundation. In this connection it is in the highest degree worthy of atten- tion that the archbishop himself, in his deed of 13th April 13(53, wherein he gifts to the hall his estate of Woodford, refers, indeed, to the number of the members as twelve, who should form the College, but does not, in a single word, give it to be understood that part of the places therein must be filled with monks.24 The deed of nomination, it is true, has a different sound, wherein, on 13th March 1362, the Prior and Chapter of Christ Church in Canterbury propose to Archbishop Islip for the headship of the new-founded Canterbury Hall in Oxford three of their brethren of the Benedictine Abbey (Henry Woodhall, Doctor of Theology, Dr. John Redingate, and William Richmond), from among whom he may himself appoint a warden. In this document, in fact, they refer themselves to an order made by the archbishop himself, in virtue of which this nomination should be made by them.'25 There is no room, therefore, to doubt that the archbishop, in the first instance, desired that at least the head of his College should be taken from the Benedictine order, and more specifically from the chapter of Christ Church in Canterbury, and that he secured this by his statutes. But it does not appear that any provision was made by the deeds of foundation that, in addition to the dignity of the headship, three places of the membership must also be filled with monks ; 2t3 but, as a matter of fact, there were found in the hall, during the first stage of its existence, in addition to Heniy Woodhall, who was its first warden, three additional monks from the Benedictine monastery of Canterbury. How it came to pass that a change in this respect was introduced does not clearly appear. The monk party repre- sent the course which things took in this manner : that Wiclif and his associates (Selby, Middleworth, and Benger), in an overbearing spirit, and without warrant, put forth the claim that the government of the College behoved to be in the hands of the secular priests, and in particular that John Wiclif ought to be warden ; and so they had expelled the said warden, Henry Woodhall, and the other Benedictines, from the College, and taken the property of the foundation into their own possession.27 But that this representation is in contradiction to the actual course of the affair is evident, beyond any doubt, from the royal edict of 8th April 1372, before produced, in which it is said, in plain terms, that it was the archbishop himself who displaced the existing warden and those members who were monks, and allowed only those 126 LIFE OF WK'LIF. scholars who were not monks to remain, and who had ap- pointed one man of the same category to the wardenship.28 The testimony of this royal warrant is all the more trust- worthy from its apparent impartiality, for with these words is immediately joined the inculpatory remark, that this measure of the archbishop was in contradiction to the original approval on the part of the State ; and the words of the document sound indeed as if Islip had not merely intervened in a passing act, but had put his hand to an essential alteration of the statutes. And it is at this point that the remark of Wiclif (De Ecclesia, c. 16) comes in, that Islip had appointed that secular clerics alone should study in the College, which also took effect. Taken by themselves, his words might, indeed, lead one to think that Wiclif is speaking of the original statute. But this is not the true sense : he is speaking rather of the last ordinance of the archbishop, making an alteration on the first statute ; and the term ordinance can undoubtedly have this meaning. If we so take the words, the contradiction disappears which at first sight exists between Wiclif s repre- sentation of the • proceeding and that contained in the royal edict. But the representation of the opposite party exhibited to the Papal curia, as gathered from the mandate of Urban V., is irreconcilable with both these representa- tions, and must be characterised as a manifest misrepresenta- tion of the facts and a malicious calumny. The result of our investigation, therefore, is the following: — That the appoint- ment of Wiclif to the headship of Canterbury Hall was con- trary to the original foundation-statutes as approved on the side of the State, but it proceeded upon an alteration of the first statutes subsequently made by the founder himself. On 9th December 1365, Wiclif was nominated Warden of Canterbury Hall by Archbishop Islip, Five months from that date were not yet full when the worthy archbishop died (26th April 1366). His successor, Stephen Langham, was enthroned 25th March 1367, and on the sixth day thereafter (31 st March) he nominated John Redingate to be Warden of the Hall. Wiclif, of course, must have been previously deposed. The new Warden was a Benedictine of Canter- bury, and one of the original members of the hall. Three weeks later, however (22nd April 1367), the archbishop re- called this nomination, and re-appointed the earlier head of the hall, Henry Woodhall, to the wardenship, to whose authority Wiclif should now, along with the other members, be subject.29 But even so much as this reduced position in the college was not allowed to him. On the contrary, the CANTERBURY HALL. 127 restoration now destined by the monkish archbishop for Canterbury Hah, led to the exclusion of all the secular mem- bers. Wiclif and his fellows appealed from the archbishop to the Pope ; but as Langham, in the next year after his being made archbishop, was promoted to the cardinalate, and went to Avignon, the issue of the appeal was a judgment by which Wiclif and his fellows were definitively expelled, and the college was thenceforward exclusively filled with monks of Christ Church in Canterbury. This decision was at all events still more opposed to the original meaning and intention of the foundation, than that the hall should have been for a time exclusively in the enjoyment of men who were not monks. For from the first the secular element had at least outweighed the other, even if we assume, what is by no means proved, that, according to the original statutes, four members of the twelve behoved to be monks ; still more if the only point fixed by the statutes was that the Head of the house should be a Benedictine of Canterbury, while the introduc- tion of three other Canterbury monks was possibly not pre- scribed in the statutes, but had only proceeded from the tree determination of the founder. Wiclif himself, as we have seen, uses very strong language respecting the contrast in which the measures of the new archbishop stood to the ordering (more accurately the last ordering) of his predeces- sor (eversum est tarn pii patroni proposition. Anti-Simon, etc.). And the government decree itself appears to look upon the last re-constitution of the college as a much more serious con- tradiction to the original foundation approved by the State than the alteration which was made by Islip himself; for of this latter it is only said that it was done prceter licentiam nostram supradictam — beyond or in excess of our foresaid licence — whereas the exclusion of all secular members is declared to be contra forniam licentice nostras supradicttv — in the teeth of our licence, and not merely beyond or in excess of it. This difference of language is plainly intentional, and it will certainly be allowed that the latter expres- sion is the stronger and more decisive of the two. Here the original statute is the only standard of judgment, for in this decree, issued by the Government, it is only the legality of the different acts in question which is dealt with. But Wiclif does not apply to the question this low formal standard only, but forms his judgment of the last organic change which had been made, upon its substantive merits in point of congruity with the ends contem- plated by the foundation. And here his judgment is one of entire disapproval, because the newly-appointed 128 LIFE OF WICLIF. members being already over-richly provided for, were by no means in need of the bounty of such a foundation, lie has liere in Lis eye the extensive landed possessions belonging to the Benedictine monastery of Canterbury, which was organically connected with the Archiepiscopal Cathedral, while the colleges in Oxford, as in Paris and other univer- sities, were originally and principally intended for the sup- port of the poorer class of students, and of masters without independent means. This language of Wiclif, however, as before remarked, is used in a purely objective sense, and by no means in such a tone as would warrant us to assume that the painful experiences which he had had to endure in his relations to the oft-mentioned college, may have had a determining influence upon his ecclesiastical views andwork* It is only, however, a thorough exhibition of his public conduct that can throw light upon the question, whether there is any truth in the hostile allegation that the position of antagonism taken up by Wiclif against the Church, and especially against prelates and monastic orders, took its rise in injury done to his own private interests, and was thus inspired by low motives and personal revenge. Canterbury Hall no longer exists in Oxford as an inde- pendent foundation, for after the Reformation the buildings of the hall passed over to the stately college of Christ Church, founded by Cardinal Wolsey. Returning now to the year 1366 — the limit of the period assigned to the present chapter, and which Ave have been led to exceed by four or six years in order to finish the topic now discussed — this year was possibly the date at which Wiclif reached the highest degree of academic dignity, that of doctor in the Theological Faculty. Since the six- teenth century it has been assumed, on the authority of a statement of Bishop Bale, that Wiclif became doctor of theology in lo72.:;u In assigning this dale. Bale, it may be conjectured, proceeded upon the fact that in the royal ordinance of 26th duly 1374, which nominated commis- sioners for negotiations with the Papal Court, Wiclif is introduced as sacra; theologice professor, at which date, there- fore, he must have been already doctor.81 And here let me remark by the way, that the title of professor of theology given to Wiclif, has generally been misunderstood, as though it meant that he had been appointed to a professorial chair. But this rests upon an anachronism. The mediaeval universities, down at least to the fifteenth century, knew nothing of professors in the sense of modern universities. The title sacroB pagince, or theologice professor, denotes in the fourteenth century, not an university office, to be thought of wiclif's doctorate in theology. 129 in connection with particular duties and rights, and especially with a fixed stipend, but only an academic degree ; for it is equivalent to the title of doctor of theology. Such an one had the full right to deliver theological lectures, but was under no special obligation to do so. nor, apart from some trifling dues as a member of the Theological Faculty, had he any salary proper, except in cases where, along with the degree, some church-living might be conferred upon him.32 So much as this we know from the royal document just mentioned, that Wiclif was a doctor of theology in the year 1374. But it is only the latest possible date which is thus fixed; and Bale conjectured with good reason, that Wiclif must have become a doctor some considerable time before, and suggested the year 1372.33 Shirley, on the other hand, believes that he is able to make out, with some probability, that Wiclif was promoted to this degree as early as 1363. He supports this view upon several polemical pieces of the Carmelite John Cunningham, directed against Wiclif, which he has himself published. And it is indeed worth remarking that that monkish theologian in his first essay, as well as in the introduction to it, speaks of Wiclif exclusively under the title of magister, whereas in the second and third, he uses the titles ynagister and doctor interchangeably.34 But now the first of these essays where the latter title never once occurs, has reference to a tract of Wiclif, in which he men- tions that it is not his intention to go, for the present, into the question of the right of property (de domhiio) ; 36 while a fragment upon this question, which Lewis gives in his appendix to the life of Wiclif,36 was probably written in 136(3, and the larger work of Wiclif, De Dominio Divino, from which that fragment, it is likely, was taken, was written at latest in 1368. Hence Shirley believes that he may perhaps indicate the year 1363, as that in which Wiclif received his degree. We are unable, however, to concur in this conjecture, because we have positive testimony to show that in the end of the year 1365, Wiclif was only master of arts, and not yet doctor of theology. For Archbishop Islip describes him in the document of 9th December 1365, in which he nominates him to the headship of Canterbury Hall, as magister in artibus, whereas37 the whole connection shows that he would certainly have laid stress upon the higher academic degree, if Wiclif had already possessed it. The fact then stands thus, that Wiclif, in 1374, was a doctor of theology, but not yet in 1365. In the intervening period between these two dates he must have taken that degree ; but to fix the time with precision is impossible, for lack of documentary authority. I NOTES TO CHAPTER ITT. 1. John Lewis, History, etc., I. 4. Vaughan, Life and Opinions, I. 241. Mono- graph, p. 39 f. 2. Computus Ric. Billingham, bursarii 30 Edward III., Rot. in thesaurario Coll. Merton, as referred to by the Editors of the Wielif Bible, p. 7. 3. Shirley, Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 511. 4. Lewis, History, etc., p. 4. 5. Comp. Sam. Lewis, Topographiccd Dictionary, 5 ed., Lond. 1842; 4to. Abbotsley. 6. Shirley gives an exact account of these documents in notes 4 and 5 on p. XIV. of the " Introduction." [Several of them are transcribed in " Riley's Report to the Royal Commission on Historical MSS. on the Archives of Balliol College." — Translate /•.] 7. The entry in the Episcopal Register of Lincoln, Bishop Bokyngham's, 1363- 1307, is as follows : — "Idibus Aprilis, anno doniini millesimo (JVC mo. LXY1II. apiul parkum Stowe concessa fuit liccntia magistro Johanni de Wycleve, rectori ecclesioe de Fylinyliam, quod posset se abscntare ab ecclesia sua insistendo literarum studio in Unicersitate Oxon. per biennium." S. The remarks made by Buddeusieg in opposition to this view (Zeitschrift fiir Historische Theologie, 1874, p. 316) rest upon what I consider to be an erroneous interpretation of the entries in the account-books of Queen's College, communi- cated by Shirley in the " Fasciculi," p. 514 ; for these entries manifestly refer, not to short stays in the college rooms, but to rents of rooms paid by the year, with which sense alone agrees the recurring mention of YViclif s camera. In a passage of his paper further on, Budden^ieg himself understands all the entries in ques- tion of a two years' rental. 9. Lewis History, Appendix No. 3, p. 290. 10. The substance of the article is given in the appendix to Townsend's edition of Foxe's Acts and Monuments, III. 812, and in the appendix to Vaughan's Monograph, p. 547 f. In the latter, however, the year 1844 is printed by mistake for 1841. 11. "Ad vitae tuae et conversations laudabilis honestatem, literarumque Bcientiam, quibus personam tuam in artibus ma istratam Altissimus insignivit, mentis nostra oculos dirigentes, ac de tuis fidelitate, circumspectione et industria plurimum confidentes in custodem Aul;e nostra? Cautuar — te Brafccimus," etc. — Wood's History and Antiquities, Oxon., I. p. 184 ; Lewis History, etc., p. 290. 12. In a long Excursus to his edition of the Fasciculi Zizaniorum,, p. 513-523. 13. Wielif calls him Doctor metis Reverendus Mr. Willetmus Wodford in his work Do Civili Dominio, iii. c. 18, Vienna MSS., 134<>, fol. 141, col. 2. He says of him — " Arguit contra hoc compendiost et subtiliter more^suo. Etreceraobligacioret amplius huic doctori raeo, quo in dim rsis gradibus et actibus scolasticis didici ex ejus exercitatione modesta multas mihi notabiles irritates." 14. Of this writing, which has never been printed — Septuaginta duo Quaefl- tiones de Sacramento altaris — there is preserved a MS. in the Bodleian, No. 703. Harl. 31, fol. 31. Under Quiestio 50 the author sp :akfl of the polemic of Wielif against the monks in the following style:— "Et hsec contra religiosos insania gouerata est ex corruptione. Nam priustjuam per religiosos possessionatos et NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 131 prcelatos expulsus fuerat de aula Monachorum Cantuariae, nihil contra possession- atos attemptavit quod esset alicujus ponderis. Et prius quain per religiosos Mendicantes reprobatus fuit publice de heresibus in sacramento altaris, nihil contra eos attemptavit, sed posterius multipliciter eos diffainavit ; ita quod doc- trines suae malae et infests contra religiosos et possessionatos et Mendicantes generate fuerunt ex putrefactionibus et melancoliis. " — Shirley, p. 517 f. 14. Shirley, as above. 15. Shirley was the first to call attention to this passage, and he has given it, though not at full length, in the " Note on the two John VViclifs," at the end of the Fasciculi, p. 526. I had found the passage before I observed that he had already given an extract from it. But I found it necessary to reproduce the context with somewhat greater fulness. Vide Appendix III. 16. The words hi familiariori exemplo cannot lie understood in any other sense. The comparative here points back to the preceding positive, familiare inconveniens. Opponents had pointed to the endowments of the University and its colleges as matters nearly affecting Wiclif's interest, but Wiclif replies by pointing to something which touched his personal interest more nearly and more directly still ; and it is this comparative familiariori exemplo — not Shirley's reading of the MS. familiwri — which is of decisive importance for our inquiry. 1 7. Wiclif here no doubt alludes, in addition to the estate of Woodford, to the church of " Pageham " (Pagham in Sussex, on the coast of the Channel) which the archbishop had incorporated with the foundation of his hall, as appears from several documents which have come down to us. ( Vide Lewis, pp. 285, 293. Shirley is right in referring the alleged sin of Archbishop Islip to this act of incorporation, whereas Dr. Vaughan, in an article in the British Quarterly Review, October 185S, erroneously refers Wiclif's censure to the circumstance that the Primate had, in the first instance, introduced into his foundation both monks and seculars. 18. Robert Lowth, Life of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, 1758, pp. 93, 176 f. 19. The identity of our Wiclif with the warden of Canterbury Hall is in- directly confirmed by the circumstance that Benger, Middle worth, and Selby, who were members of the hall under John Wiclif, 1365-66, had previously been mem- bers of Merton College, like Wiclif himself, and were afterwards, with the exception of Benger, members of Queen's College, with which Wiclif also, as is well known, stood in a certain connection. — Vide Buddensieg ; Zeitschrift, etc., as above p. 336. 20. We learn that this was the representation of the case made in the com- plaint addressed by Wiclif's opponents to the Papal See, from the mandate of Urban V. of 11th May 1370, by which the process was decided. — Vide Lewis, p. 292 f, for the documents. 21. Aula (Cantuariensis) in qua ccrtus erit numerus scholarium tarn religiosorum quam secularium, etc. — No 1 in Lewis, p. 285 ; No. 8, p. 297, 301. 22. Pneter licentiam nostram supradictam. Contra formam licentice nostra; supradictos. — Lewis, pp. 298, 299. 23. De gratia nostra speciali, et pro ducentis marcis quas dicti prior et conventus nobis solverunt in hanaperio nostro, perdonavimus omnes transgressiones facias, etc. — Lewis, p. 229. 24. Quam (aulam) pro duodenario studentium numero duximus ordinandam. 25. Juxta formam et effeclum ordinationis restrce factae in hac parte. — Lewis, 287, No. 2. 26. Lewis, No. 4, p. 290. 27. The latter was maintained by Wiclif's opponents in their representation to the Curia ; but that the matter was not placed beyond doubt is plain from the language of the deed, which intentionally left it indeterminate. 28. Fidsa asserentes, dictum colleg ium per clericus seculares regi debere, dictum 132 LIFE OF WIOLIF. J' >lia mum fore custo lem collegii suprodicti. Monachos de ipso collegia excluserunt. — Lewis, No. 7, p. 292. 29. Amotis oinnino per prajdictum archiepiscopum — Custode et ceteris Mor.achis Bcolaribus — ab aula praedicta, idem archiepiscopus quendam Bcolarem (secularem ?) custodem dicta? Auhe, ac caeteros onines seolares in eadem seculares (so to be read instead of seolares) duntaxat constituent, etc. — Lewis, No. 8, p. 298. 30. Lewis, No. 6, p. 292. An extract from a document of the archiepiscopal archives. 31. Decrevit et declaravit solos Monachos prsedictae ecclesise Cant, secularibus exclusis, debere in dicto collegio perpetuo remanere. — Lewis, No. 7, p. 295. 32. So Vaughan in his latest work on Wiclif, the Monograph, p. 138. 33. Lewis, in Appendix No. 11, p. 304. 34. Comp. Thurot De V Organisation de VEnseignment dans VTJnimersiM de Paris au moyen Age, p. 158. 35. Shirley, Fasciculi, etc., pp. 4, 14, 43, particularly pp. 73 /and 88/. Comp. Introduction, p. xvi. 36. Do. p. 453. 37. Do. p. 456. 38 Lewis, No. 30, p. 349. 39. Lewis, No. 3, p. 290. Personam tuam in artibus magistratam, — so it should be read with Anthony Wood, not magistratam, as Lewis has it. ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III., BY THE TRANSLATOR. NOTE I. — WICLIF'S CONNECTION WITH BALLIOL COLLEGE. On looking recently into the Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense, issued in 1873, under the editorship of Sir Thomas Hardy, Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, my attention was attracted by a document (Vol. III., p. 3S1) entitled " Appro- priation of the Church of Miklebenton to the Master and Scholars of Balliol Hall in Oxford, by Philip de Somerville, and Statutes for the Regulation of six new Fellows of the said Hall, A.o. 1340." The date being nearly coincident with that at which Wiclif must have begun his college career in Oxford, and his mastership o fBalliol only twenty years later being a matter of indisputable record, it at once occurred to me that the document might possibly have some collateral bearing on the question of Wiclif s connection with Balliol at au earlier stage than his Master- ship. Nor was I disappointed in this surmise. I found, on a careful perusal, that this deed of Sir Philip de Somerville supplied some links which had hitherto been missing from the reasonings of Wiclif's biographers on the interesting question of the place and the course of his earliest studies in the University. There are two copies of this deed given in the Registrum, the one forming part of the Register itself, the other printed in the Appendix from the original preserved among the archives of Balliol College. The editor printed the latter "because in many instances it appears more correct than the transcript in the Register, and gives clauses which are there omitted. In some cases, however, the last-named MS. contains what are apparently better readings." The original deed is signed and sealed by the Bishop of Durham (Richard de Bury), at Aukland, ISth October 1340 ; by the Prior and Convent of Durham, 24th October 1340; by the Chan- cellor of the University of Oxford on the day after the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, 1340 ; and by the Master and scholars of Balliol on the same day. On turning next to the Histories of the University and its colleges, by Anthony Wood, and his predecessor Brian Twyne, and to the work entitled " Ballio-Fergus," a Commentary upon tlie foundation, fount/as, and affairs of Balliol College, by Henry Savage, Master of Balliol, published in 1(568, I found not only that Sir ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 133 Philip de Somerville's Statutes had been in print for two centuries, but that a good many other facts in the annals of Balliol and the University were equally available as side lights for the elucidation of Wiclif s early University career ; not indeed to the extent of determining anything connected with it with absolute certainty, for which we have not the attestation of express record, but to the effect of making it appear that there is a high degree of probability that instead of having ever been connected at any period of his University life, prior to his mastership of Balliol, either as a commoner with Queen's, or as a Postmaster or Fellow with Merton, he was all along a Balliol man, from his first coming up to Oxford in 1335 (taking Lechler s approximate date) to his election to the mastership of his college. In bringing together the materials of our argument, we begin with the date of Wiclif s mastership, which has recently been ascertained to have been as eaily at least as a.d. 1360. The year usually assigned hitherto was 1361, but Mr. Riley, in his recent "Report to the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts," 1S74, states that Wiclif's name and style as " Master of the Hall called Le Baillo halle in Oxford " occurs in a Latin memorandum, existing among the College archives, having reference to a suit brought against the college in the matter of some house property belonging to it in the parish of St. Lawrence, Jewry, London, in the 34th year of the reign of King Edward the Third — i.e., A.D. 1360. No man, however, could be elected Master of Balliol unless he was at the time one of the Fellows ; for it was one of the fundamental statutes of the house that the Fellows should always choose the Principal or Master from their own number. The statute stands thus in the original statutes of Devorguilla, a.d. 1282 : — " Volumus quoad scholares nostri ex semetipsis eligant unum principalem cui ceteri omnes humiliter obediant in his quae officium principalis contingunt, secundum statuta et consuetudines inter ipsos usitatas et ajjprobatas." Nor was this fundamental statute afterwards changed by any of the additional or altered statutes which were successively introduced. The statutes of Sir Philip de Somerville, which were added in 1340 to those of Devorguilla, contained a pro- vision " that nothing was to be done under the former contrary to the provisions of the latter." Though nothing therefore is said in these new statutes to the effect of restricting the choice of the Fellows in the election of the Master to their own number, the very reason of this omission was that this provision had been clearly laid down in the fundamental statutes. And it is a strong confirmation of the fact that the original principle of election was not departed from under Sir Philip's new statutes, that when the statutes were revised in 1364 by the Bishop of London, the provision for the election of Master remained still the same — "Qui de se ip*is habeant unum magistrum ; " and again in 1433, when a further modification of the statutes was made by the authority of another Bishop of London — the same restrictive words were continued in force — " Qui de se ijisis habeant unum magistrum." Wiclif, then, was unquestionably a Fellow of Balliol before he was elected Master, and if a Fellow or Postmaster of Merton of the same name had not appeared upon the records of that college in the year 1356, who has for centuries been identified with the master of Balliol, the inference from the fact of his having held a Balliol Fellowship, would have been natural and easy, that he had all along from the first been a member of that House, up to the date of his election to the Master- ship. But in view of that Merton record, such an inference is attended with great difficulty, to surmount which we must either adopt the opinion of the late Professor Shirley, that John Wiclif of Balliol was a different man from John Wiclif of Merton ; or if we still hold them to be the same, we must conclude that as Wiclif the Reformer was a Fellow of both houses, he must either have surrendered his Fellowship of Balliol to go to Merton, or have been elected for the first time a Fellow of Balliol, when he ceased, some time before his election to the Mastership of the latter, to be a Fellow or Postmaster of Merton. To enable us to choose between these alternatives of two different Wiclif s and one only, there are several important facts available, touching the relations of these two colleges to one another, and touching the financial conditions of Balliol College in particular, which, so far as we know, have never yet been brought into view in connection with the question of Wiclif's relation to either or both of these ancient seats of learning. 134 LIFE OF WICLIF. If it be supposed that Wiclif could pass easily during the first twenty years of his university life in Oxford, from Balliol to Merton, and from Merlon to Balliol, or could be in official connection with both at the sane time, no supposition could be more contrary to all probability, in view of the actual and well-ascertained relations of these two colleges at that very time. These two houses were the headquarters of the two great antagonistic factions of the University during the fourteenth century. Both the chief historians of Oxford, Brian Twyne and Anthony Wood, give us ample and graphic information of thexford Colleges, and his able criti- cism is chiefly directed against Professor Shirley's views on the same subject. He agrees with 1 >r. Lechler in maintaining the identity of the Reformer not only with John Wiclif, Warden of Canterbury Hall, but also with John Wiclif. Fellow or Postmaster of Merton. In his investigation of the latter point none of the facts brought together above (Additional Note I.) appear to have fallen under his notice. He is much more successful in his argumentation on the question of the Reformer's Wardenship of Canterbury Hall, and he claims, upon good grounds, " to have established that Dean Hook was premature in regarding the question as conclusively settled in the negative by Professor Shirley's arguments." CHAPTER IV. wiclif's first public appearance in the ecclesiastico- political affairs of england. SECTION I. — Wiclif as a Patriot. AFTER having followed with attention the course of . Wiclif's purely academic career up to the present point, we can only be astonished to behold him all at once appearing upon the stage of public life. Hitherto we have known him only as a man of science — as a quiet scholar. From his youth up to the most vigorous years of manhood, he had only seldom left, so far as we can see, the precincts of the university-city of Oxford. He seems even to have visited but rarely his parish of Fillingham, to which he had been presented in 1361, and on each occasion only for a short time. We know in fact that he obtained a dispensa- tion from his bishop to enable him to remain at the Uni- versity, and devote himself without interruption to science. It is true that as Fellow and Seneschal of Merton College, as Master of Balliol, and as Warden of Canterbury Hall, he had had practical problems of many kinds to solve, and been occupied much with business of an economic, legal, and administrative description. The judgment of his patron in high place, Archbishop Islip, when he entrusted him with the government of Canterbury Hall, is assurance to us that Wiclif had already, both in Merton and Balliol, proved himself to be a man of practical talent, and upright, circum- spect, and energetic in matters of business. Still, all this activity had been put forth within a narrow circle, and one which was more or less closely connected with properly scientific life. But now we see the scholar step out from the quiet spaces of the University to take part in public affairs. For it was not merely that Wiclif began to manifest his interest in the affairs of the kingdom in a Christian and literary way, which he might possibly have done with- out leaving his own chamber in the cloister-like buildings of his college ; but he came personally forward to take an active part in the public business of Church and State. This change of position comes upon us with surprise ; but yet 140 LIFE OF WICLIF. we are not to imagine that Wiclif has become an altered man ; rather must we say to ourselves that we only now come in view of what has hitherto been an unobserved side of his nature. For Wiclif was a many-sided mind ; a man of high murk, who not only felt powerfully all that moved, on many different sides, his own people and times, but who, in some things, was far in advanee of his age — a prophet and type of what was still in the future. And it is only when we bring into view, without abridgement, all that he united in himself, when we sharply distinguish the mani- fold sides of his nature, and again take them together in their innermost unity, that we shall be able to draw a true and faithful picture of his powerful personality. At this moment it is Wiclif the patriot whom we have to place before the eye. He represents in his own person that intensification of English national feeling which was so conspicuous in the fourteenth century, when, as we have seen above, Crown and people, Norman population and Saxon, formed a compact unity, and energetically defended the autonomy, the rights and the interests of the kingdom in its external relations, and especially in opposition to the Court of Rome. This spirit lives in Wiclif with extra- ordinary force. His great works, still imprinted, e.g., the three books De Civili JJominio, his work JJe Eeclesia, and others, leave upon the reader the strongest impression of a warm patriotism — of a heart glowing with zeal for the dignity of the Crown, for the honour and weal of his native land, for the rights and the constitutional liberty of the people. How often in reading his works do we come upon passages in which he recalls the memories of English history! The different invasions of the country by '-Britons, Saxons, and Normans," all stand before his mind's eye; (the Danes alone seem to be already forgotten). St. Augustine, the " Apostle of the English," as he calls him in one place, he mentions repeatedly, as well in learned writings as in sermons; he frequently touches upon the later Archbishops of Canterbury, especially Thomas a Becket ; of kings too, as Edward the Confessor and John, he speaks ever and anon; he refers to Magna Charta with dis- tinguished consideration as the fundamental law of the kingdom, binding equally king and nobles. That Wiclif had made the law of England the subject of special study, in addition to canon and Roman law, has been known since the days of Lewis, and we have come upon several con- firmations of this fact. In the same context where Magna Charta is held up to view, Wiclif brings forward Statutes of wiolif's patriotism. 141 Westminster and Statutes of Gloucester ; at another time he contrasts, in connection with a particular question, the Roman law (lex Quirina), and the English law {lex Anglicana), and he gives his preference to the latter.2 But so far from taking merely a learned interest in these subjects, and showing only a historical knowledge of them, he manifests the most immediate concern in the present condition of the nation, and a primary care for its welfare, its liberties, and its honour. It is not meant that, on this account, he limited his intellectual horizon to the national interests of his own island people. On the contrary, he has all Christendom, and indeed the whole human race, in his eye ; but his cosmopolitanism has a solid and ripe patriotism for its sound and vigorous kernel. It is not wonderful that such a man — a Churchman and highly regarded scholar on the one hand, and a thorough patriot on the other — rich in knowledge, full of insight, and inspired with zeal for the public good — should have been drawn into the career of the statesman and the diplomatist. Yet he never lost himself in purely political affairs ; it was only on questions and on measures of a mixed ecclesiastical and political kind that he gave his co-operation ; and in the end his whole undivided strength was concentrated upon the ecclesiastical domain. But before we follow him into public life, it is necessary to set aside an impression which has hitherto almost univer- sally prevailed. As early as the sixteenth century the literary historians, John Leland and John Bale, put forward the view — which, in the eighteenth, Lewis fully developed in his History, and which is still, in substance, maintained by Vaughan himself — that Wiclif commenced his exertions for a reform of the Church with attacks upon the monastic system, especially upon the Mendicant Orders. The view which is commonly taken is the following : — As early as the year 1360, immediately after the death of the celebrated Archbishop of Armagh, Richard Fitzralph, Wiclif opened an attack in Oxford upon the Dominican and Franciscan Orders, the Augustinians and the Carmelites, on the ground of their fundamental principle of living upon the free-will alms of the people. Indeed, it has even been thought that when Richard of Armagh died, his mantle descended upon Wiclif, by whom his work was immediately taken up and carried farther. Critical investigation, how- ever, is unable to find any confirmation of this common opinion. Vaughan, in 1831, had followed Anthony Wood in the 142 LIFE OF WICLIF. confident statement that Wiclif publicly censured the errors and failings of the Mendicant Orders as early as 13G0, and became the object of their hostility in consequence.3 But in his later work, as the fruit of more careful investigation of the subject, ho is no longer able to arrive at the same confident result upon the point. He remarks, with truth, that there is no direct evidence to show that Wiclif began that controversy at the precise date which he had pre- viously assigned. But he continued to the last, notwith- standing, to be of opinion that Wiclif began his work as a Reformer with attacks upon the Monastic, and especially upon the Mendicant ( Irders ; he believed, besides, that while the exact date at which Wiclif began the con- troversy could not be ascertained, it must yet be fixed at a period not much later than 1360.4 But on this subject we are unable to agree with him, not only because we are not aware, like himself, of any direct and decisive proof that Wiclif began his attacks upon the monks even in the years next following 13()0, but because, on the contrary, we have in our hands direct proofs that Wiclif continued to speak of the begging Orders with all respectful recog- nition during the twenty years which elapsed between 1360 and 1380. AVe content ourselves in this place with stating, in anticipation, so much as this, that the reading of the unpublished writings of Wiclif, among others, yields the most Aveighty confirmation to the statement of his op- ponent, Woodford, that it was in connection with the con- troversy opened by Wiclif on the subject of Transubstan- tiation, and therefore after 1381 at the earliest, that he began to oppose himself, on principle, to the Mendicants, who had come forward as his antagonists on that funda- mental question.-3 But to this point we shall return in the sequel, and we leave it in the meanwhile, to fix our attention upon the part which Wiclif took in the public affairs of England in Church and State.* SECTION II. — Wiclif 8 concern in the Rejection of the Paj>u/ Claim to feudatory Tribute. In the year 13(55, Pope Urban V. had renewed his claim upon Edward III. for the annual payment of one thousand marks, in name of Feudatory Tribute; he had even demanded the payment of arrears extending over a period of no less * See Additional Note at the end of the Chapter. WICLIF AND THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 143 than thirty-three years. For so long a time had the pay- ment of the tribute been discontinued, without the Papal Court having ever till now made any remonstrance upon the subject. In case, however, the King should decline to comply with this demand, he was invited to present himself in person before the Pope as his feudal superior, to answer for his proceeding. The payment in question was imposed in 1213, as we before saw, by Innocent III. upon King John, for himself and his successors, but in point of fact it had been paid from the first with the greatest irregularity, and King Edward III., from the time of reach- ing his majority, had never allowed it, as a matter of principle, to be paid at all. When Urban reminded him of the payment, this prince acted with the greatest possible prudence; he laid the question before his Parliament. He had often enough been obliged, in order to meet the cost of wars, to ask Parliament to consent to increased burdens of taxation ; and all the more acceptable to him was the oppor- tunity of giving into the hands of the representatives of the country the repudiation of an impost which had been in abey- ance for more than a generation. Should Parliament adopt this resolution, the Crown was covered by the country. But the burden of taxation was not the principal point of view from which the Parliament looked at the Papal demand ; much more than that, the honour and independence of the kingdom was the determining consideration for its repre- sentatives ; and this all the more, that, on the one hand, the war with France, and the victories obtained in it, had given a powerful stimulus to the national spirit, while, on the other hand, the political rights and liberties of the people had been heightened and secured in equal proportion to the sacrifices which they had been called to make of property and blood. The Parliament assembled in May 13G6, and the King immediately laid before it the Papal demand, for its opinion. As may well be coneeived, the prelates were the party who were placed in the greatest difficulty by this question, and they begged therefore a day's time for con- sideration and counsel by themselves alone. But on the following day they had already agreed upon a conclusion, and they were of one mind with the rest of the estates. Thus the Lords spiritual and temporal, along with the Commons, arrived at an unanimous decision to the effect that King John had acted entirely beyond his right in subjecting his country and people to such a feudal suporiority with- out their own consent, and besides that this whole com- 144 LIFE OF WICLIF. pact was a violation of his coronation oath. Further, the Lords and Commons declared that in case the Pope should carry out his threatened procedure against the King, they -would place the whole powers and resources of the nation at the disposal of the King for the defence of his crown and dignity. This language was intelligible ; Urban quickly gave in ; and since that day in fact, not one word more has ever been said on the part of Rome of her feudal superiority over England, to say nothing of a payment of feudal tribute. In this national affair of the highest importance Wiclil also bore a part. That this was the case has long been known, but in what form or way he took his share in it has been less clear down to the present time. Since Lewis wrote his "History" of the Reformer, it has been known that Wiclif published a polemical tract upon that question of political right, entirely in the sense of the Declaration of Parliament; and that he did so in consequence of a sort of challenge which had been addressed to him by name by an anonymous Doctor of Theology, belonging to the Monastic Orders. G But how came it to pass that Wiclil and no other was the man to whom the gauntlet was thrown down % In his reply, Wiclif expresses his astonish- ment at the passionate heat with which the challenge to answer the arguments of his opponent had been directed in particular to his address. Nor is the explanation of the puzzle, which he mentions as having been suggested to himself by others, one which is at all satisfactory to ourselves. Three grounds, he says, had been named to him upon which the man had so acted — (1) in order that Wiclif's person might be compromised with the Court of Rome, and that he might be heavily censured and deprived of his church benefices ; (2) that the opponent himself with his connections might conciliate for themselves the favour of the Papal Court ; and (3) that, as the effect of a more unlimited dominion of the Pope over England, the abbacies might be able to grasp in greater numbers the secular lordships of the kingdom, and without being amenable any longer to brotherly hindrance and con- trol. Leaving the two last points untouched, the first point is indeed of a personal character, but it is at the same time of such a nature that we must of necessity ask again, how are we to explain the hostile interest which opponents had in selecting precisely Wiclif's person on this occasion, for the purpose of blackening his character at the Court of Rome, and to bring upon him in particular THE PARLIAMENT OF 1366. 145 censures and material losses? The controversy alleged to have been commenced at an earlier date, between Wiclif and the Mendicant Orders, cannot be used for the explanation of this fact,7 because documentary history knows nothing of such a controversy carried on at that alleged date. Besides, Wiclif has here to do, beyond question, with a member of the endowed Orders, whose interests were by no means identical with those of the Mendicants, but often enough ran counter to them.8 And when it is urged that Wiclif must already before that time have made himself remarkable as an upholder of the inde- pendence and sovereignty of the State in relation to the Church, this, indeed, is extremely likely ; but it is a mere conjecture, without any positive foundation, and is therefore of no real service to us as a solution of the difficulty. Let us look more narrowly at the contents of the tract itself, and see whether it does not itself supply us with a solution of a more distinct and trustworthy kind. The anonymous doctor had taken his stand upon the absolutely indefeasible right of the hierarchy. He had maintained, as regards persons, that under no circum- stances could the clergy be brought before a civil tribunal (exemption) ; and in regard to Church property, he had laid down the proposition that temporal lords must never, nor under any conditions, withdraw from Churchmen their possessions. And with respect to the immediately pending question, touching the relation of the Eng- lish Crown to the Papal See, he had maintained that the Pope had given the King the fief of the government of England, under condition that England should pay the yearly tribute of 700 marks to the Papal Court ; but now this con- dition had remained for a time unfulfilled, and therefore the King of England had forfeited his right of monarchy. In now addressing himself to exhibit this latter assertion in its true light, Wiclif begins by assuring his readers that he, as a humble and obedient son of the Church of Rome, would put forward no assertion which could sound as an injustice against that Church, or which could give any reason- able offence to a pious ear. And then he points his opponent for a refutation of his views to the votes and declarations of opinion which had been given in the Council of temporal lords.10 The first lord, a valiant soldier, had expressed him- self thus : The kingdom of England was of old conquered by the sword of its nobles, and with the same sword has it ever been defended against hostile attacks. And even so does the matter stand in regard to the Church of Rome. K 146 LIFE OF WICLIF. Therefore my counsel is, let this demand of the Pope be absolutely refused, unless he is able to compel pay- ment by force. Should he attempt that, it will be my business to withstand him in defence of our right. The second lord had made use of the following argument: — A tax or a tribute may only be paid to a person authorised to receive it; now the Pope has no authority to be the receiver of this payment, and therefore any sueh claim coming from him must be repudiated. For it is the duty of the Pope to be a prominent follower of Christ ; but Christ refused to be a possessor of worldly dominion. The Pope, therefore, is bound to make the same refusal. As, therefore, we should hold the Pope to the observance of his holy duty, it follows that it is incumbent upon us to withstand him in his present demand. The third lord observed — It seems to me that the ground upon which this demand is rested admits of being turned against the Pope ; for as the Pope is the servant of the servants of God, it follows that he should take no tribute from England except for services rendered. But now he builds up our land in no sense whatever, either spiritual or corporeal, but his whole aim is to turn its temporalities to his own personal use and that of his courtiers, while assisting the enemies of the country with gold and counsel. We must, therefore, as a matter of common prudence, refuse his demand. That Pope and Cardinals leave us without any help either in body or soul, is a fact which we know by experience well enough. The fourth lord — My mind is, that it is a duty we owe to our country to resist the Pope in this matter. For, according to his principles, he is owner-in-chief of all the property which is gifted to the Church or alienated to her in mortmain. Now, as one-third of the kingdom at least is so held in mortmain, the Pope is head over the whole of that third ; but in the domain of civil lordship, there cannot be two lords of equal right, but there must be one lord superior, and the other must be vassal ; from which it follows that during the vacancy of a church either the Pope must be the vassal of the King of England, or vice versa. But to make our King the inferior of any other mail in this respect, we have no mind, for every donor in mortmain reserves to the King the right of feudal superi- ority. During that interval, therefore, the Pope behoves to be the inferior or vassal of the King. But now the Pope has always neglected his duty as the King's vassal, and, therefore, by this neglect he has forfeited his right. SPEECHES OF THE LORDS. 147 The fifth lord puts the question, " What then may have been originally the ground upon which that undertaking (of King John) was entered into? Was that annual pay- ment the condition of the King's absolution and his re- instatement in the hereditary right to the crown ? For a pure gift, and a mere beneficence for all coming times, it could not in any case have been. On the former sup- position (viz., that the payment was a condition of ab- solution), the agreement was invalid on account of the simony which was committed therein ; for it is not allow- able to bestow a spiritual benefit in consideration of the promise of temporal gains to be bestowed — "Freely ye have received, freely give" (Matt. x.). If the Pope im- posed the tax upon the King as a penitential penalty, he ought not to have applied this alms-gift to his own uses, but should have given it to the Church of England which the King had wronged, as a compensation for the wrong. But it is not in accordance with the spirit of religion to say — "I absolve thee under condition that thou payest me so much in all time coming." When a man in this way breaks faith with Christ, other men may also break faith with him, in the matter of an immoral treaty. In all reason a punishment should fall upon the guilty, not upon the innocent ; but as such an annual payment falls not upon the guilty King, but upon the poor innocent people, it bears more the character of avarice than of a wholesome penalty. If, on the other hand, the second case be supposed, viz., that the Pope, in virtue of his concordat with King John, became feudal superior of the Royal House, it would then logically follow that the Pope would have power at his will and pleasure to dethrone a King of England under pretext of having forfeited his throne rightly, and to appoint, at his discretion, a repre- sentative of his own person upon the throne. Is it not, then, our duty to resist principles like these? The sixth lord — It appears to me that the act of the Pope admits of being turned against himself. For if the Pope made over England to our King as a feudal fief, and if, in so doing, he did not usurp a superiority which did not belong to him, then the Pope, at the time of that transaction with King John, was the lord of our country. But as it is not allowable to alienate Church property without a cor- responding compensation, the Pope had no power to alienate a kingdom possessed of revenues so rich for an annual payment so trifling; yea, he might at his pleasure demand our country back again, under the pretence that the Church 148 LIFE OF WICLIF. had been defrauded of more than the fifth part of the value. It is necessary, therefore, to oppose the first beginnings of this mischief. Christ himself is the Lord-Paramount, and the Pope is a fallible man, who, in the event of his falling into liu 'rial sin, loses his lordship in the judgment of theologians, and therefore cannot make good any right to the possession of England. It is enough, therefore, that wo hold our kingdom as of old, immediately from Christ in fief, because JJe is the Lord-Paramount, who, alone and by Himself, authorises, in a way absolutely sufficient, every right of property allowed to created beings. The seventh lord — I cannot but greatly wonder that you have not touched upon the over-hastiness of the King, and upon the rights of the kingdom. And yet it stands fast that a 'hasty, ill-considered treaty, brought on by the King's blame, without the country's consent, can never, with competency and right, be allowed to operate to its permanent mischief. According to the law of the land (consiietndo regni), it is necessary, before a tax of this kind is imposed, that every individual in the country, either directly or by his lord-superior, should give his consent. Although the King and some few misguided persons gave their consent to the treaty, they had no warrant to do so, in the absence of the authority of the kingdom, and of the full number of consenting votes. To these utterances of several lords in Parliament, Wiclif, in the tract referred to, adds little more, so far as it is known from the copy furnished by Lewis. He points out, with reason, that the treaty in question was proved, by the arguments developed in these speeches, to be both immoral and without authority. The speeches unmis- takeably constitute the chief bulk of the tract, both in matter and space. Before we proceed to a closer examination of the speeches which the tract communicates, let thus much be observed in a general way, that Wiclif in this piece, in opposition to the censures cast by the monks upon the recent legislative action of the kingdom, takes up the defence of that action with warmth and emphasis. The question was, whether the State, in certain cases, is entitled to call in Church property, or whether such an act would, in all circumstances, be a wrong. The latter view was maintained by his opponents, the former is the contention of Wiclif; and this view, we shall find beloAv, he syste- malically developed and established at full length. Returning to the above speeches, it immediately appears SPEECHES OF THE LORDS. 149 upon an attentive examination, that the question ot State- right, whether the payment demanded by the Pope as feudal superior of the kings of England ought to be made withouc delay, or ought to be decidedly repudiated, is elucidated in these speeches from the most manifold points of view. The first lord — a soldier — takes for his stand-point the right of the strongest,11 trusts to his own good sword, and reckons with the amount of material force on both sides of the dispute. If this first speech is the outcome of a warrior- like realism, the second is inspired by a Christian idealism ; for the speaker grounds his argument upon the ideal of a Pope as the follower of Christ par excellence, and would carry back the existing Pope to the condition of evangelical poverty. The third lord takes the stand-point of the country's interests, which it behoves the Pope, as " servant of the servants of God," to promote, in order to acquire a right to corresponding services ; but this he does neither spirit- ually nor materially. The fourth lord applies to the question the standard of positive law, especially of the feudal law. The Pope, upon his own principles, is the owner of all church property in England. Now Lord-Paramount of all this he cannot be, for such alone is the King ; he must therefore be a vassal, but he has always disregarded his feudal duty to the throne, and therefore has forfeited his right. The fifth speaker enters into an examination of the different motives which may have led to the concordat in question under King John, and proves the nullity of this concordat from the objectionable character of all the motives that can be thought of; for either there was an unchristian simony in the game, or else a usurpation which, for England, was insufferable. The sixth speaker, like the fourth, takes the feudal law for his starting point, but seeks to prove, that not the Pope, but Christ alone, is to be regarded as Lord-Paramount of the country. Last of all, the seventh lord applies to the question the standard of the constitution of the kingdom, and arrives at the conchision that the concordat between King John and Innocent III. was invalid from the very first, by reason of its lacking the consent of the country in the persons of its representatives in Parliament. If we compare, further, the ground ideas of these speeches with the decision of Parliament, of May 1366, of which, however, only the most general features have come down to us, it is immediately seen that the speeches and the decision in all essential respects agree. The vote of the seventh lord in Wiclif's tract is indeed entirely identical with the 150 LIFE OF WICLIF. first ground given by Parliament in its Act of Repudiation, and the declaration of the first lord with the Parliament's concluding declaration. The conjecture, indeed, has been made, that the whole of these speeches may very well have beeo merely free compositions of Wiclif himself, preferring to put the bold thoughts which he wished to express into the mouths of others, rather than to come forward with them directly in his own person; and in doing so he has kept to the Act of Parliament and to the views of its most distinguished members, but not in the sense of reporting speeches which were actually delivered in Parliament.12 But why it should not be believed that we have here a report of speeches actually delivered, we fail to perceive. But if the ancient accounts of the proceedings in Parlia- ment, notwithstanding their extremely summary character, are nevertheless in remarkable agreement with some, at least, of Wiclif's somewhat fuller speeches, in respect to the whole grounds assigned for these proceedings, and in the whole tone of confident defiance with which they conclude, this fact is in itself a weighty reason for thinking that Wiclif here introduces actual Parliamentary addresses. But independently of this argument, it deserves to be well weighed that the whole effect of this polemical piece of Wiclit (the main substance of which, so far as it has come down to us, lies precisely in these speeches), depended essentially upon the fact that these speeches had been actually de- livered. It may be thought, indeed, that the earls and barons of the kingdom at that period could hardly be credited with the amount of insight, and even occasionally of learning, which is conspicuous in these addresses. But this view can be maintained with all the less force of reason' that the Parliamentary life of England at that day had already held on its course for more than a century, and could not fail to bring with it an amount of practice in political business by no means to be under-estimated, as well as an equal development of interest in public affairs, arising from constant participation in their management. The only thing which can be alleged, with some appearance of force, against the view here taken, is the circumstance that some of the thoughts referred to are spoken, it may be alleged, from the soul of Wiclif himself, e.g., what the second lord says of the Pope, that before all others it behoves him to be a follower of Christ in evangelical poverty, and the like. But at the present day men often fail to have any correct idea of the wide extent to which, since the thirteenth century, the idea of " Evangelical Poverty " had prevailed. And SPEECHES OF THE LORDS. . 151 it may well be conceived that ideas of Wiclifs own, too, may at length have penetrated into those circles of English society to which the language now in question was attri- buted. So much, indeed, as this must be conceded, that the speeches, as they lie before us, were grouped together by Wiclif, and in some particulars so moulded by him that they bear unmistakeably here and there the peculiar colouring of the reporter. But this concession need not hinder our belief, that the principal substance of tbe several speeches was, in fact, taken from the actual proceedings in Parliament.13 If this is so, we cannot avoid the question, From what source did Wiclif learn so accurately these Parliamentary pro- ceedings? The answer would be very simple, if the opinion expressed by some were well grounded, that Wiclif was per- sonally present at that session of the Legislature as a hearer.14 But it is in the highest degree doubtful whether the pro- ceedings of Parliament in that day were open to the public. The Parliament of that period was rather regarded as an enlarged Privy Council of the King, and if we are not mis- taken, all traces are lacking of any man being permitted to be present at its sittings, who was neither a member of Parliament nor a commissioner of the King. On the other hand, it has been thought that Wiclif had received accurate information from one or other of those lords who were personally acquainted with him, and with whom he was associated by similar patriotic sentiments, and that he reported the speeches published by him upon the good faith of his informant. This conjecture is worth listen- ing to; but what if Wiclif was himself a member of that Parliament? If he was, it would then at once be plain how it came to pass that he and no other man was made the object of attack in reference to that Parliament. At first sight, this idea may seem to be a conjecture more bold than probable. Bat however little known, it is a fact established by documentary evidence, that from the end of the thirteenth century, elected representatives of the inferior clergy were summoned to serve in Parliament.10 The fact, besides, is ascertained, that to the Parliament of 1366, besides bishops, abbots, and lords, six masters of arts were summoned by royal order.16 With these facts in view, it is quite conceivable that Wiclif might have had a seat and voice in that Parliament as an elected representative of the inferior clergy, or in virtue of a royal summons. The step, it is true, is still a long one, from abstract possibility to probability. But now I find, in the unprinted works of 1.52 LIFE OF WICLIF. WicK£ one passage at least, from the wording of which it appears clearly enough that he must have been once in Parliament, although this was some years later. In his book, De Ecclcsia, he has occasion to remark that the Bishop of Rochester (this, without doubt, was Thomas Trillek) had told him under great excitement, in open sitting of Parlia- ment, that the propositions which he had set forth in con- troversy had been condemned by the Papal Court.17 It is true that in this passage we must understand the reference to be to a later Parliament than that of 1366. I conjecture that the incident took place in 1376 or 1377, namely, before the Papal censure of Gregory XL upon several of Wiclifs theses was publicly known. But though no more than this is attested, that Wiclif was ten years later a member of Parlia- ment, it becomes not only possible but probable that he may already have been in Parliament sometime before that date. However, I find also in his own writings a hint that Wiclif belonged to the May Parliament of 1366. If other- wise, what could be the sense and bearing of his words, when in the same tract which contains his speeches of the Lords, he says in one place,18 " If such things had been asserted by me against my King, they would have been inquired into before now, in the Parliament of the English Lords." If Wiclif had only published the views of which he speaks, in lectures or writings, it would have been impossible to understand why these must needs have become the subject of inquiry in Parliament. At least he could not himself have entertained such a thought, to say nothing of giving it utterance, without betraying an amount of vanity and excessive self-esteem such as formed no part of his character as we know it. The case is very different when we draw from the above words the conclusion (which seems to be the presumption which they logically imply), that Wiclif wras himself a member of that Parliament in which that highly important question was the order of the day, and that he had there fully and emphatically unfolded his views. For indeed, in that case, if the view he took had touched too nearly the honour and the rights of the crown, it would not have been allowed to pass without decided contradiction on the part of men so patriotic as those speakers were. Last of all, I believe that there is still another utterance of "Wiclif which should be applied to this incident, although hitherto, indeed, it has been otherwise understood. At the very beginning of the remarkable tract still before us, Wiclif declares his readiness, in consideration of his being peculiaris PECULIARIS REGIS CLERICUS. 152 regis clericus, i.e., in a peculiar sense a king's cleric, to take upon himself the office of replying to the opponent, who attacks the law of the land.19 Lewis and Vaughan, and all who follow the latter, have understood this allusion to mean that Edward III. had nominated Wiclif to the office of king's chaplain.20 But we do not find elsewhere a single trace of evidence by which this conjecture is confirmed. For this reason, it has been thought necessary to give the words another meaning — this, namely, that Wiclif meant by that expression to distinguish himself as a cleric of the National Church, in opposition to a cleric of the Papal Church.21 But this explanation does not quite satisfy us, on account of the " talis qualis " of the passage. For this expression of modesty is only in place if the three preceding words denote a certain function or social position, but not so if they indicate only a certain tendency and mode of thought. But what sort of distinguished position are we to think of under the title of a king's cleric, peculiaris regis clericus ? I hold it to be not only possible but probable also, that under that title the summoning of Wiclif to Parliament by the act of the King is meant to be indicated; that is to say, that Wiclif had been called to the Parliament in question as a clerical expert, or in modern phrase, as a Government com- missioner. This sense would answer very well to the peculiaris regis clericus. At least this view may be worth examination as a suggestion, as the meaning of the title used by Wiclif is still so far from being settled. But the result itself, that Wiclif had a seat and vote in the Parliament of 1366, I venture to put forward as one for which I have produced sufficient grounds. The only adverse consideration which might be alleged against it rests upon the way in which Wiclif introduces his account of the speeches of those Lords. For his words sound in such a way as to convey, at first, the impression that the author's know- ledge of the matter is only by hearsay. To this circum- stance, however, no decisive weight can be assigned, for this reason, that possibly Wiclif wished to avoid the appearance as if he was boastful of having been himself an ear-witness of the speeches, and that he preferred to make his appeal to matters which were well enough known and talked about (fertur). But if the real state of the case was that which we think we have made probable, we have then an easier explanation, not only of the detailed character of the report of several of the speeches, but also of two additional points, — first, of the agreement of several ideas in those addresses with certain favourite views of Wiclif, for if Wiclif was a 154 LIFE OF WICLIF. member of that Parliament lie would be able to find all the easier access to men in high position, with the convictions Avliich he cherished upon the great question of the day. And secondly, if Wiclif was then in Parliament, and had exercised some influence upon the decision arrived at, it will then be the more easy to understand why he in particular should have been singled out for challenge by the unnamed monk to whom the action of that Parliament was a thorn in the eyes. Under all circum- stances, so much as this is clear, as the result of our investigation, that Wiclif took part, in a powerful and influential way, in the great Church and State questions of the day, and this in the direction of having much at heart the right and honour of the Crown, and the liberty and welfare of the kingdom. If in this matter he Avas compelled to oppose himself to the claims of the Court of Rome, we are still without the slightest reason to regard as mere phraseology his solemn declaration that, as an obedient son of the Church, he had no wish to touch her honour too closely, or to injure the interesls of piety. We are unable, however, to agree with the observation, that Wiclif's dauntless courage and disinterest edness come out all the more conspicuously from his conduct in this business, that the process touching the headship of Canterbury Hall was at that time in de- pendence before the Roman Court. For if it be true, as we take it to be, along with other scholars before us, that the controversial tract before us was drawn up after the May Parliament of 1366, i.e., in the year 1366 itself, or at latest, in the first months of the following year, Wiclif was still at that date in undisturbed possession of that position. For though Islip had died on 20th April 1366, JSimon Langham was not installed Archbishop of Canter- bury till 25th March 1367, and it was on the 31st March that he transferred the Wardenship of that Hall to the Bene- dictine, John Redingate. It appears, therefore, more than doubtful whether Wiclif was, at the date of the composition of this tract, already deposed from his dignity in the Hall; on the contrary, precisely this dignity may have been included among the "Church benefices," of which he was to be deprived, if things went agreeably to the wishes of his adversaries. AN OBEDIENT SON OF THE CHURCH. 155 SECTION III. — Events after 1366. Wiclif manifested the same spirit on another occasion, some years later. Unfortunately the sources of history do not flow here so richly as to enable us steadily to follow the course of his inner development and his external action. We are obliged, therefore, at this point to pass over an in- terval of six or seven years — the years next following which were sufficiently ill-fated for England in her foreign relations. In May 1360, after the war with France had lasted for twenty-one years, the peace of Bretigny had been concluded. In this treaty the whole south-west of France, along with several cities on the north coast, was surrendered to the English Crown, without any reservation in favour of France of the feudal superiority of these possessions, but includ- ing full rights of sovereignty. On the other hand, Eng- land expressly renounced all claims to the French Crown, and to any further acquisitions of French territory. What was ceded to her, however, was a magnificent acquisition as it stood. But the peace of Bretigny became only a new apple of discord. Soon enough there sprang from it first a tension of feeling between the two nations, then a misunder- standing, and at last an open breach. The brilliant, but in the end barren, expedition of Edward the Black Prince to Spain in 1367, with the view of restoring Pedro the Cruel to the throne of Castile, led to a renewed outbreak of hostility with France, which had given its support to the usurper of the Castilian Crown, the Bastard Henry of Trastamara. This expedition brought upon the heir-apparent of the English throne an attack of gout, as the effect of the Spanish climate, under which he continued to suffer till, in 1376, he died. And when the war with France broke out again in 1369, it was an irreparable misfortune for England that the great general (who had developed, indeed, more mili- tary than administrative talent in the government of his principalities of Aquitaine and Gascony) was incapacitated by bodily disease to resume the post of command. Insur- rection burst forth into flames in the ceded provinces of France, and could never again be subdued. One place of strength after another fell into the hands of the enemy. In August 1372 the city of Rochelle was again French. The English rule over a good part of France was broken into fragments. But this .was not all. The English fleet, too, could no longer, as hitherto, maintain its superiority ; on the contrary, the coasts of England were left a defence- 156 LIFE OF WICLIF. less prey to every landing of the enemy's ships. Public opinion in England, as may readily be supposed, was much disconcerted and disturbed. So long as successes and martial glory had been the harvests of war, the nation had willingly borne the great sacrifices which had to be made in money and blood. But when the successes thus obtained vanished away like shadows, when disaster was heaped upon disaster, and when the country itself was menaced by the enemy, complaints became louder and louder, and grievances more and more bitter, till it was at last resolved to take action against the Government itself. A Parliament met during Lent of 1371, and when Edward III. laid before it a demand for a subsidy in aid of the war of 50,000 silver marks, this proposal led, as it would appear, to very animated debates. On the one side a motion was made, and was also eventually carried, that the richly-endowed Church should be included, to a substantial amount, in the incidence of the new tax ; and on the other, the representatives of the Church, as was to be expected, did not fail to offer opposition to such a proposal. They used every effort to accomplish the exemption of the clergy, the rich monasteries, foundations, etc., from the new burden of taxation. It was very probably in that Parliament that one of the lords replied to the representations of some members of the endowed Orders in the form which Wiclif has preserved in one of his unpublished works.22 The far- seeing peer, in the course of the discussion, told the following- fable : — " Once upon a time there was a meeting of many birds ; among them was an owl, but the owl had lost her feathers, and made as though she suffered much from the frost. She begged the other birds, with a trembling voice, to give her some of their feathers. They sympathised with her, and every bird gave the owl a feather, till she was overladen with strange feathers in no very lovely fashion. Scarcely was this done when a hawk came in sight in quest of prey ; then the birds, to escape from the attacks of the hawk by self-defence or by flight, demanded their feathers back again from the owl ; and on her refusal each of them took back his own feather by force, and so escaped the danger, while the owl remained more miserably unfledged than before." " Even so," said the peer, " when war breaks out we must take from the endowed clergy a portion of their temporal possessions, as property which belongs to us and the king- dom in common, and we must wisely defend the country with property which is our own, and exists among us BISHOPS DEPRIVED OF STATE-OFFICES. 157 in superfluity." The hint was plain enough whence all church-property originally comes, as well as the menace — "And art thou not willing, Then use I main force." The result was that the clergy had the worst of it. Taxes of unexampled weight were imposed upon them for all lands which had come into their hands by mortmain for the last 100 years, and even the smallest benefices which had never been taxed before, were subjected to the new war impost. It cannot be doubted that there was an intimate connec- tion between this financial measure and a new proposition which the same Parliament submitted to the Crown. The Lords and Commons proposed to the King to remove all prelates from the highest offices of State, and to appoint laymen in their places, who could at all times be brought to answer for their proceedings before the temporal courts. This proposal of Parliament was in fact accepted by Edward III. The Bishop of Winchester, William of Wykeham, filled at that time the highest office in the State, as Lord Chan- cellor of England. The Bishop of Exeter was Treasurer, and the Lord Privy Seal was also a prelate. It does not appear, indeed, that Parliament had any personal objections against Wykeham and his colleagues — the proposal was made upon its own merits, and was chiefly designed to secure ministerial responsibility. But as early as the 14th of March, the Bishop of Winchester laid down the dignity of Chancellor, and was succeeded by Robert Thorp ; and at the same date the offices of Treasurer and Keeper of the Seal were bestowed upon laymen. In February 1372, we find the whole Privy Council filled with laymen.23 This change of ministers had its chief importance from its openly declared anti-clerical character. Apart from its bearing upon ques- tions of home administration, especially financial ones, the aim of the measure was also to put the Government in an attitude of emphatic opposition to the encroachments of the Papal Court. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder if the demands of the Papacy excited decided resistance on the part of a country exhausted by an unfortunate turn of the war, and even gave occasion to measures of precaution on the part of the Government. No doubt it was felt by very many to be an expression of what lay deep in their own hearts, when Wiclif stood forward against one of the Papal agents who were traversing the land to collect dues for the Curia, and in the form of a commentary on the obligations which these 1 58 LIFE OF WICLIF. men took upon themselves by oath, opened an attack upon the doings and trafficking of the Pope's nuncio as dangerous to the kingdom. The occasion was this. In February 1372 appeared in England an agent of the Papal See, Arnold Gamier by name (Garnerins, Granarius), Canon of Chalons in Cham- paign, and licentiate of laws. He bore written credentials from Gregory XL, who had ascended the Papal Chair in 1370, as Papal nuncio and receiver of dues for the apostolic chamber. The man travelled with a train of servants and half-a-dozen horses. He remained for two years and a half in the country without a break, and may probably have collected no inconsiderable sums. In July 1374 he made a journey to Rome with the reserved intention of returning to England, for which purpose he was furnished with a royal passport, dated 25th July, which was of force till Easter 1375; and from a letter of Gregory XL to Bishop Wykeham of AVinchester, it appears that Gamier returned to England in due time, to carry forward his work as Nuncio and Receiver.24 When this agent of the Roman Court arrived, in the first instance, he had obtained the consent of the Government to his collectorship, only under condition of swearing solemnly beforehand to a form of obligation in which the rights and in- terests of the Crown and kingdom were guarded on all sides. The Frenchman acceded to this condition without the slightest scruple, and on the 13th February 1372, in the royal palace of Westminster, in presence of all the councillors and great officers of the Crown, he formally and solemnly took the oath.2'5 But with this formality all the misgivings of patriotic men had by no means been put to rest. Wiclif was one of these patriots, and by and bye he wrote a paper on the sworn obliga- tions of the Papal Receiver, the drift of which was to inquire whether Garnier was not guilty of perjury, in so far as he had taken an oath never to violate the rights and interests of the country, while yet such a violation was entirely unavoidable, when, according to his commission, he collected in England a large amount of gold and carried it out of the king- dom.20 The proper aim of the inquiry appears to have been to show that there was an irreeoncilable contradiction between the permission given by the State to collect monies for the Court of Rome on the one hand, and the intention to guard the country against all wrong to its interests on the other. This short paper, it is true, was not written in 1372 or in one of the years next succeeding, but not till 1377, but THE TRACT " DE JURAMENTO ARNALDI." 159 Gamier was still in England at this later date, and was still plying his business as a Papal collector.27 Its title, indeed, is not to be found in the catalogues of Wiclif's writings given by Bishop Bale and other literary historians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it stands in a pretty full list of the works and tracts of Wiclif, which is found at the end of a Vienna manuscript (Cod. 3933, fol. 195). There is also an additional circumstance forming an external testimony to its Wiclif authorship not to be undervalued, that the paper forms part of another Vienna MS. (Cod. 1377) which contains in all no fewer than fifty pieces, most of them short ones, which are all the productions of Wiclif. This little tract, besides, in its thoughts and style of speaking, bears unmistakeable features of Wiclif's charac- teristic manner. In particular, we observe a remarkable agreement between this tract and the piece last examined, dating several years earlier, in the peculiar stand-point assumed by the writer, and the sentiment which lies at the basis of both. In both tracts, which in modern phrase we might call "publicistic articles," Wiclif stands before us chiefly in the light of a patriot, who has the honour and the best interests of the country very deeply at heart. In both also, especially in the latter, we learn to recognise him as a Chris- tian patriot ; we see in the patriotic defender of his country's interests, the ecclesiastical Reformer already beginning to be moulded into shape ; and we discern in him the vigorous germs of a coming development. The difference between the two tracts is partly in form and partly in matter. In form the earlier is defensive, the later aggressive. In sub- stance the later piece goes deeper into Church questions than its predecessor, owing to the difference of the two occasions which called them forth. To elucidate more exactly the peculiar character of the tract at present before us, we bring into vieAV, before everything else, this feature of it — that it recognises the domestic prosperity of the country, and the wealth of the public purse, and the military strength of England in rela- tion to foreign enemies, as valuable blessings which must not be allowed to suffer damage. And from this mention of the enemies of the kingdom, it appears clearly enough how much at that time the actual and possible incidents of the French war were occupying all minds, and filling them with earnest anxiety. A second characteristic feature which strikes the eye in the reading of these pages is the decidedly constitutional spirit which is conspicuous in them. The Parliament 100 LIFE OF WICLIF. occupies in them an important position as the representative of the nation, having authority to sit in judgment upon the question of what is injurious to the national interests. And it is to be referred to the same point of view when the author desires to see the State take under its protec- tion the long-descended civil rights of the priests and clerics of the National Church, in opposition to the encroachments of the Papal Receiver. Further, it is not to be overlooked that Wiclif is conscious of giving expression in the main only to what is felt and thought by no small portion, yea, by the majority of the population. He knows that he is uttering what is in the minds of great numbers.28 But ecpially strong, and still more important than the national and patriotic spirit of the author, is the religious and moral, and even the evangelical spirit which he manifests in the way in which he handles the matter with which he is occupied. When Wiclif puts forward the principle that the assistance of God is greatly more valuable than the help of man, and that remissness in the defence of Divine right is a more serious sin than negligence in the duty of defending a human right, he makes his reader feel that he is not in this only formally repeating, perhaps, a traditional maxim, but giving utter- ance to a weighty truth out of the deepest conviction, and with the innermost sympathy, of his heart and con- science. And it is only an application of this general principle Avhen, as if to complete and give the right interpretation of what he has said on the subject of the national welfare, Wiclif makes the remark that the well- doing of the kingdom rests upon the religious beneficence of its people, particularly on pious foundations in behalf of the Church and the poor. We also feel the moral earnest- ness of his tone, and especially the conscientiousness with which he pressed the duty of truthfulness when, in allusion to the sophistical speeches and excuses made use of either by the Papal agents themselves, or by their friends and defenders, he pronounces with great emphasis against a species of craft and guile, which, by means of mental reservations, would bring things to such a pass that even the oath would no longer be "an end of all strife" (Heb. vi. 16). Again, it is a principle of morals and religion which we find expressed by Wiclif in this piece, as so often elsewhere, with peculiar emphasis, that a common participation in sin and guilt is incurred when one knows of the evil-doings of a second party, and might put a stop to them if he would, but neglects to do it. And it is THE TRACT i{ DE JURAMENTO ARXALDI." 161 only the positive side of this thought when it is asserted that the command to inflict brotherly punishment (Matt, xviii. 15), makes it a duty to offer resistance to a trans- gressor whose evil doing might be expected to spread by contagion to others.30 But more characteristic than all else is what Wiclif gave expression to in this tract respecting the Pope and the pastoral office. That the Pope may commit sin was ex- pressed before in one of the parliamentary speeches of the earlier piece; but in the present one that proposition is repeated more strongly still.31 In connection with this view, Wiclif also declares himself opposed to the theory which maintains that absolutely everything which the Pope thinks fit to do must be right, and have the force of law, simply because he does it. In other words, we find Wiclif already in opposition here to the absolutism of the Curia. He is far removed, however, from a merely negative opposi- tion. On the contrary, he puts forward a positive idea of the Papacy, according to which the Pope is bound to be pre-eminently the follower of Christ in all moral virtues — especially in humility and patience and brotherly love. And next, the views which he expresses respecting the pastoral office are well worthy of observation. Whilst severely censuring the Papal collectors for compelling, by help of ecclesiastical censures, those priests who had to pay annates {primi fructus) to the Curia, to make their payments in coin instead of in kind (in natura), he brings into special prominence, as a crying abuse, the fact, that by this undue pressure put upon them, the priests find themselves under the necessity (as they must have the means of living) of holding themselves harmless at the expense of their poor parishioners, and, on the other hand, neglecting the services of public worship, which they are bound to celebrate. From this allusion throAvn out only in passing, we perceive what a watchful eye he must have kept upon the pastoral office and upon its conscientious execution — a subject to which, at a later period, he gave all the fullness and energy of his love. Last of all, we will only call attention to this further point, that already, in this small and essentially " publicistic paper," the principle makes its appearance which Wiclif afterwards asserted in a manner which introduced a new epoch, viz., that Holy Scripture is for Christians the rule and standard of truth. There is a hint, at least, of this prin- ciple when Wiclif says of the payments in question to the Court of Rome that they are obtained by begging in a manner contrary to the gospel (elemosina propter evangelium mendicata). L 162 LIFE OF WICLIF. From all this, this small piece, which has remained un- known till the present time, appears to ns to be not without value, in as much as, on the one hand, it shows us the manner of Wiclif's intervention in an affair of weighty public impor- tance, and lets us clearly see, on the other, in the patriot inspired with undaunted zeal for his country's good, the earliest germs of -his later strivings for the Reformation of the Church. Sectiox IV. — Wiclif as a Royal Commissary in Bruges, 1374, and his Influence in the " Good Parliament" of 1376. In the year 1373 the Parliament had raised again, once more, loud complaints that the rights of patrons were ever more and more infringed and made illusory by Papal pro- visions. To a petition of the Parliament drawn up in this sense, the King gave answer, that he had already sent commands to his commissioners, who were at that very time engaged in peace negotiations with France, to negotiate also upon this business with the Roman Court. He had in this behalf given a commission to John Gilbert, Bishop of Bangor, with one monk and two laymen. These commis- sioners proceeded to Avignon, and treated with the com- missaries of Gregory XI. for the removal of various causes of complaint on the part of the kingdom, especially of the Papal reservations in the filling of English church offices, encroachments upon the electoral rights of cathedral chapters, and the like. The commissioners received con- ciliatory promises, but no distinct and definite answer. The Pope reserved himself for further consultation with the King of England, and for a decision at a subsequent date."1 The further negotiations thus held out in prospect were opened in 1374, in connection with the conferences for the peace, which were still going on in Bruges between England and France. At the head of the peace embassy stood a Prince of the Blood, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward 111., with the Bishop of London, Simon Sudbury. For treating with the commis- saries of the Pope on the pending ecclesiastical questions, were commissioned by the King the before-named John Gilbert, Bishop of Bangor, and in addition, John Wiclif, Doctor of Theology, Magister John Guter, Dean of Segovia,88 Doctor of Laws, Simon of Multon, William of Burton, Knight, Robert of Belknap,"4 and John of WICLIF IN BRUGES. 163 Kenyngton. The commission, dated 26th July 1374, con- veyed to the King's commissaries plenary powers to con- clude such a treaty with the Papal nuncios on the pending points, as should at once secure the honour of the Church, and uphold the rights of the English Crown and realm.35 It is, on the one hand, characteristic of the views by which the Government of England at that time was guided, that a man like Wiclif should have been made a royal commissioner for these diplomatic transactions with the Roman Court. On the other hand, it was a high honour for Wiclif that he, and that, too, as first in order of the commissaries after the Bishop of Bangor, was selected along with others to represent the rights of the Crown and the interests of the kingdom in a treaty with the pleni- potentiaries of the Pope. We see in this fact what con- fidence was felt in his spirit and insight, in his courage and power of action, on the part both of the Government and the country. On the very next day after the commission had been issued, namely 27th July 1374, Wiclif embarked in London for Flanders.36 It was the first time in his life that he had been abroad. Bruges was at that time a great city of 200,000 inhabitants, which, from its important industries, its widely extended trade, the wealth of its burghers, its municipal freedom, and its political power, had a large number of instructive objects of attention to show to the stranger ; especially at a time when an important congress was assembled within its walls. On the side of France two royal princes, the Dukes of Anjou and Burgundy, brothers of the reigning King, Charles V., were present, in addition to many bishops and notables of the kingdom. As English plenipotentiaries appeared, in addition to the Duke of Lan- caster, the Earl of Salisbury, and Simon Sudbury, Bishop of London. The Pope sent in behoof of the treaty between France and England the Archbishop of Ravenna and the Bishop of Carpentras; and commissioned several other prelates, with full powers to negotiate with England on the questions of ecclesiastical right still in dependence. These nuncios were Bernard, Bishop of Pampelona, Ralph, Bishop of Sinigaglia, and Egidius Sancho, Provost of the archi-episcopal chapter of Valencia.37 There was no lack, therefore, in Bruges of men in high place and of great political or ecclesiastical importance, with whom Wiclif, as a prominent man among the English envoys, must have come more or less into contact in the transaction of public business, and no doubt also in social intercourse. 164 LIFE OF WICLIF. It was, wo may be sure, of lusting value for him, that ho should have had on this occasion the opportunity of trans- acting business and cultivating intercourse with Italian, Spanish, and French dignitaries of the Church — all of them men who enjoyed the confidence of the Pope and the cardinals. Here he had it in his power to take many ob- servations in a field of view which could not easily be laid open to his eye among his own countrymen, even among those of them who were most conspicuous for their devotion to the Roman Court. For "The Anglican Church" (this name is no anachronism) had within a century attained to a certain degree of independence in regard to principles and views of ecclesiastical law, to which the life and spirit of the Italian and Spanish Church of that period formed a sensible contrast. Upon a personality like Wiclif, of so much independence of mind, and already inspired with so much zeal for the autonomy of his native church, this resi- dence in Bruges, and its negotiations of several weeks duration with the plenipotentiaries of the Curia, must have made impressions similar to those which Dr. Martin Luther received from his sojourn in Rome in 1510. But even apart from his relations to foreign notabilities, Wiclif s sojourn in Bruges had important consequences for him, by the nearer relations into which it brought him with the Duke of Lancaster. This Prince at that time already possessed great and decisive influence upon the Government. He was usually called " John of Gaunt," for he was born in Ghent, when Edward III., at the beginning of the French war, was in alliance with the rich cities of Flanders, and, with his Queen Philippa, was keeping his court in that city in 1340. The Prince's first title was Earl of Richmond, but after his marriage with Blanche, a daughter of the Duke of Lancaster, he became, on the death of the latter, the heir of his title and possessions. After the death of his first wife, in 13n(.), he entered into a second marriage in 1372, as before stated, with Constance, the daughter of Peter the Cruel, of Castile and Leon, and now took the style by hereditary right of " King of Castile." But this was never more than a title. He never himself wore a crown; but in the following century three of his descendants ascended the English throne, viz., his son, his grandson, and his great- grandson — Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI. — the House of Lancaster and the Red Rose, from 1399-1472. Already, however, the father of this dynasty manifested ambition enough to awaken the suspicion that he Avas aim- ing at the English crown for his own person. In military WICL1F AND JOHN OF GAUNT. 165 talent he stood far behind his eldest brother ; the Black Prince was an eminent military genius. John of Gaunt was a brave swordsman and nothing more. But in political and adminis- trative capacity he was indisputably superior to the Prince of Wales. When the latter found himself obliged to return to England at the beginning of 1371, on account of the obstinate disease which he he had contracted in the Spanish campaign, instead of recovering his vigour on his native soil, he had fallen into a chronic condition of broken health and low spirits, which unfitted him for taking any active part in the business of government ; whilst his father, too, Edward III., was now become old and frail. Lancaster had known how to make use of all these circumstances for the ends of his own ambition, and had acquired ever since his return in the summer of 1374 from the south of France the most decided influence over the King, and the conduct of public affairs. The second prince of the blood, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, was already dead in 1368. For the present, indeed, Lancaster undertook only the lead of the peace negotiations in Bruges ; but it almost appears as if even from Flanders he had governed both the King and the kingdom. That it was first in Bruges that the Duke became ac- quainted with Wiclif, or entered into closer relations with him, is by no means probable. It was he, no doubt, who was the cause of Wiclifs being appointed to take part in these ecclesiastical negotiations. In regard, at least, to John Guter, the Dean of Segovia, who had perhaps accom- panied the Duke to the Spanish campaign in the capacity of Field-Chaplain, it can hardly admit of a doubt that it was to the Duke he was indebted for his nomination upon the commission, as well as for his Spanish prebend ; and it would have been truly surprising if a statesman like the Prince — a zealous promoter of lay government, a persistent opponent of the influence of the English hierarchy upon the administration — had not already for years had his attention and his favour directed to Wiclif, as a man of whose gifts and bold spirit he might hope to be able to make use for his own political objects. I quite concur, therefore, in Pauli's conjecture38 that it was probably Lancaster himself who had brought about the employment of Wiclif upon a mission of so great importance. But be this as it may, these two men could not fail to be much in contact, and to have much exchange of ideas with each other, both in matters of business and in social intercourse, during all the time that they were occupied with that congress in Flanders. The 166 LIFE OF WICLIF. Duke, indeed, in the first instance, had to transact only with France, and his business with the Papal Plenipoten- tiaries was limited to giving his consent to the conclusions arrived at. But still he stood at the head of the whole English legation, and on this account alone, as well as by reason of his personal tendencies and way of thinking, lie could not fail to take the liveliest interest in the course of those negotiations Avhich bore upon the ecclesiastical gravamina of the country; and among the members of this ecclesias- tical commission Wiclif was at least one of the most free from prejudice, and of the deepest insight. A Jew years later, we see the Duke of Lancaster step forward publicly as Wiclif s patron and protector. This favour, grounded upon esteem and personal knowledge of "Wiclif, no doubt increased during the conference of Bruges, though it could scarcely have commenced there. Wiclif returned to England, after the close of the congress, before the middle of September. Neither official documents nor any accounts of contemporary or later chronicles, have come down to us respecting the proceedings of the congress in the matter of the Church-grievances of England, although, no doubt, some original papers belonging to the subject lie concealed in the archives of Rome. We can only draw some inferences from the final result arrived at, as to what was the course of the transactions. In this respect, indeed, it would seem that the negotiations between the Papal Court and England had come to a similar issue as those between France and England. The Chronicler of St. Alban's, Walsingham, has no good to say of the behaviour of France in the peace congress. The thoughts of the French, he says, during all that time were craftily running not on peace, but on war; they were prepar- ing again their old weapons and forging new ones in order to have all the requirements of war in readiness ; while the Englishmen had no thoughts of this kind, accustomed as they are not to be led by prudence and foresight, but only to be driven like unreasoning brutes by the goad. But no doubt they trusted everything to the wisdom of the Duke, and thinking that his eloquence would suffice to obtain for them the blessings of peace, they gave themselves up to carousals and all manner of amusements. Thus it came to pass that the Englishmen unawares came to grief, for the congress was broken off without "the conclusion of peace."aa And the congress between England and the Curia came to a like fruitless conclusion. The representatives of the Roman See, like the plenipotentiaries of France, appear to THE BRUGES ''CONVENTION." 1()7 have busied themselves with the refurbishing of their old weapons, while they were, at the same time, preparing new ones. The Convention in which the congress issued was not of a kind to secure for the future a redress of the Church- grievances of which the country complained. England un- doubtedly fared the worst in the arrangements arrived at, although the Pope made some concessions upon single points ; for these concessions were more apparent than real, and consisted more in matters of detail than in general principles. On the 1st September 1375, Gregory XI. directed to the King of England six bulls relating to this business,40 which amounted in effect briefly to this — to recognise accomplished facts, and to leave the status quo untouched. Whosoever was in actual possession of a church living in England should no longer have his right of incumbency challenged on the side of the Curia ; whosoever had had his right to a church office disputed by Urban V., should no longer have his confirmation in the office reserved; benefices which the same Pope had already reserved, in the event of a va- cancy, should, in so far as they had not already be- come vacant, be filled up by the patrons themselves ; and all annates or first fruits not yet paid should be remitted. In addition, it was conceded that the Church revenues of several cardinals who held prebends in England should be subject to impost, to cover the costs of the restoration of churches and other church edifices belonging thereto, which the holders had allowed to fall into ruin. At first sight these appeared to be numerous and impor- tant concessions, but when carefully examined they were of small consideration, for they all related to matters which be- longed to the past. For the future the Pope remitted nothing of his claims, not even in the smallest trifle. Be- sides, these concessions referred merely to single cases — they regulated only matters of detail, and left the principle entirely untouched. The bulls, it is true, contained also matters of greater importance; the Pope abandoned for the future his claim to the reservation of English Church livings; but the King was also bound, on his side, to abstain in future from conferring Church dignities in the way of simple royal command. But first of all, the Pope herein conceded a surrender of right on his side, only in consideration of a corresponding concession on the side of the Crown ; and in the second place, the concession contained no security, even the least, that the electoral rights of the cathedral chapters should remain thenceforward untampered with. And yet 168 LIFE OF WICI.IK. this had been a capital point aimed at in the efforts of the country, and especially of Parliament, to obtain ecclesiastical reform. That this decisive point had not been made clear and plain by the treaty of L374, is brought into view and censured even by Walsingham himself, with all his disposi- tion to favour the Church.41 Whether the other members of the ecclesiastical com- mission had fulfilled their duty, may be fairly asked; but in regard to Bishop John Gilbert, who stood at the head of it, it is a highly significant fact that eleven days after the drawing up of the above bulls — 12th September 1375 — he was promoted by the Pope to a more important bishoprick. He had lost nothing of Gregory's favour by his conduct at Bruges. Hitherto he had been Bishop of Bangor; his diocese embraced the most distant northwest corner of the princi- pality of Wales. But now, when the Bishop of London, Simon Sudbury, was made Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Hereford, William Courtenay, was promoted to London, Gilbert was nominated to the See of Hereford. The "concordat" which had been concluded between England and the Pope had little enough of importance. It would have been incomparably better to have advanced on the same path which had been trodden in 1343 and 1350, and to have stemmed the evils of the Church by means of national legislation, than to make the attempt to find a remedy for them by diplomatic transactions with the Papal Court. In the very next spring it became manifest that the com- plaints of the country were by no means silenced by that convention. Louder and bolder than ever sounded forth the grievances of Parliament, when it assembled in the end of April 137(5; and that the representatives of the country uttered, in point of fact, the true feeling of the people, is evident from the fact that this Parliament lived long after- wards in the grateful memory of the nation, by the name of the Good Parliament.42 The Parliament represented to the King, in a lengthened memorial, how oppressively and perniciously the encroach- ments of the Roman See operated;48 the aggressions of the Pope are to blame for the impoverishment of the kingdom, — for the sums which are paid to Him for the dignified offices of the Church amount to five times as much as the whole produce of the taxes which accrue to the King. There is no prince in Christendom so rich as to have in his treasury even the fourth part of the sum which iniquit- oiisly goes out the kingdom. Moreover, the Church Brokers in tlie dissolute city of Avignon, promoted for money many PARLIAMENT OF 1370. \Q{) wretched creatures, who were utterly destitute of learning and character, to livings of one thousand marks annual income; while a Doctor of Theology or the Canon Law must content himself with a salary of twenty marks ; and hence the decay of learning in the country. And when foreigners, yea, enemies of the country, are the possessors of English Church livings, without ever having seen their parishioners, or giving themselves any trouble about them, the effect is to bring the service of God into con- tempt, and to do more injury to the Church than is done by Jews or Saracens. And yet the law of the Church prescribes that Church livings ought only to be conferred from pure love, without payment or solicitation ; and reason and faith, as well as law, demand that Church endowments which have been founded from motives of devotion, should be bestowed for the glory of God and suitably to the founder's intention, and not upon foreigners living in the midst of our enemies. God has entrusted the care of the sheep to the Holy Father, the Pope, to feed them, not to fleece them. But if lay patrons witness the avarice and simony of the churchmen, they will learn from their example to sell the offices to which they have the right of collation, to men who will devour the people like beasts of prey — -just as the Son of God was sold to the Jews, who thereupon put him 1o death. A considerable portion of the complaint of Parliament is directed against the Papal Collector, a French subject who lives in the country along with other foreigners who are the king's enemies, and is ever on the look-out for English places and dignities, and seeking to spy out the secrets of the king- dom, to its great damage. This Receiver, who is at the same time the collector of Peter's Pence, has a great house in London, with clerks and officers, as if it were the custom- house of a Prince, and from thence he sends to the Pope about twenty thousand marks a year. This same man, in the present year, has, for the first time, put forward a claim to the first-fruits af all newly-conferred livings, a claim which has hitherto been limited to offices which have be- come vacant in the Papal Court. Even if the kingdom at this moment had as great a superfluity of gold as it ever possessed, the Pope's collectors and the agents of the Cardinals would soon enough carry off the whole of this income to foreign parts. As a remedy for this evil, let a law be laid down, that no Receiver or agent shall take up his residence in England, upon pain of life and limb ; and that upon a like penalty, no Englishman shall become such a Receiver or agent in behalf of others who 170 LIFE OF WICLIF. reside in Rome. For the better investigation of the facts, in relation especially to the Papal Receiver, inasmuch as the whole clergy are dependent upon the favour or disfavour of the latter, and would not willingly run the risk of drawing upon themselves his displeasure, it would conduce to the end in view, if the Lords and Commons of the present Parlia- ment would call before them the priest of St. Botolph's, John Strensale, who resides in Holborn. He could, if strictly required to do so, give them much information, as he has for more than five years done service as a clerk to the said Receiver. It was further set forth, that Cardinals and other prelates, some of them, it is true, natives of England, but the most of them foreigners who reside in Rome, are occasionally possessed of the best prebends in England. One Cardinal is Dean of York, another of Salisbury, a third of Lincoln ; another again is Archdeacon of Canterbury, one of Durham, one of Suffolk, and so on ; and these Cardinals cause to be remitted to them in foreign parts a yearly revenue of twenty thousand marks. The Pope will in time hand over to enemies of the kingdom all the lands which belong to the prebends referred to, as he deals so arbitrarily from one day to another with the Kingdom and the Regalia. When a bishopric becomes vacant by death or otherwise, he translates from four to five other bishops in order to obtain from each of them the first year's fruits ;4G and the like takes place with other church dignities in the realm. As to the abbeys and convents, a loud complaint is made that all those of them which have hitherto possessed the right of free election of their own superiors, have been deprived of this right by the usurpa- tion of the Pope, who claims the right for himself. Last of all, and to come back again to the point of finance, the petition of Parliament called attention to this fact, that the Pope is in the act of raising subsidies from the English clergy in order to buy off Frenchmen who were taken prisoners by the English, and to aid him in carrying on wars of his own in Lombardy. In addition to which, the English Clergy are required to bear the cost of every mission which the Pope sends to the country, and all this is done purely out of love to the kingdom and to English gold. Such was the long array of grievances. The Parliament emphatically assured the King that they brought them for- ward solely from an honest zeal for the honour of the Holy ( Ihurch ; for all the troubles and disasters which had recently befallen the land were only just judgments for the sin of PROPOSALS OF THE GOOD PARLIAMENT. 171 allowing the church to become so deformed and corrupt. Great injustice has always been followed by misfortune and ruin, and will always have the like consequences. Let measures, therefore, be devised to provide a remedy, and this all the more that the current year is the jubilee of the fifty years reign of the King, and therefore a year of grace and joy; 4G but greater grace and joy for the kingdom there could not be, and none which would be more well- pleasing at once to God and his Church than that such a remedy should be provided by the King. Some positive proposals were in fact made touching the ways and means of accomplishing the end in view. The first step must be to send two letters to the Pope, the one in Latin under the King's seal, the other in French under the seals of the high nobility, pressing for redress in the matters mentioned, a course which had on a former occasion been taken at the instance of Parliament.47 Further, it was pressed upon the attention of the Government that they might renew all those ordinances which had already been published against provisions and reservations on the side of Home. It would also be advisable to provide, that on pain of imprisonment, no money should be taken out of the kingdom by exchange or otherwise. What measures, in addition, were proposed to be taken against the traffic of the Papal collectors, have already been mentioned. To this representation the King sent for reply that he had already on previous occasions provided a sufficient remedy in the way of legislation for the evils complained of; he was, besides, at that very time in communication with the Papal See upon the subject, and would further continue to make such communications from time to time until a remedy was provided. This answer sounded lukewarm enough, especially when contrasted with the petition of Parliament, which was sj warmly expressed, and adduced at great length so many grounds in support of its prayer. But though the patriotic zeal of the latter must have been considerably cooled by this royal decision, the Parliament of the next year, January 1377, took up the thread again at the point where the present Parliament had suffered it to drop ; and for the sake of connection, this incident may as well be anticipated in this place. The Commons, in 1377, gave in a petition to the King to the effect that the statutes against provisions, which had from time to time been passed, should be strictly carried into execution, and that measures should be adopted against those Cardinals who had obtained for themselves in the two provinces of Canterbury and York reservations, with the 172 LIFE OF WICLIF. clause antffewi, to the annual value of from twenty to thirty thousand golden crowns. They renewed also their complaints against the Pope's collectors. It was English- men who had always been wont to hold that office, but now it was a Frenchman, who lived in London and kept a large office, which cost the clergy 300 pounds a-year; and this man sends every year to the Pope 20,000 marks, or 200,000 pounds. It would be a means of resisting these innovations and usurpations, if all foreigners, so long as the wars lasted, were driven out of the country, and if all Englishmen were prohibited, upon pain of outlawry, to farm these revenues from the Papal Court, or to make remittances of money to the same without express per- mission.48 The proposals of the Good Parliament of 1376, the echoes of which we still catch in 1377, are of such a character that I am bold to maintain that they afford strong evidence of the influence of Wiclif. In proof of this I point first of all to the circumstance that the proceedings of the Papal Col- lector of that time were one of the Parliament's heaviest subjects of complaint. And this collector was certainly no other than that Arnold Gamier, to whose doings and traffickings Wiclif' s tract of the year 1377 refers. Further, I bring into view the fact that in the petition presented by Parliament various national calamities, including not only the rapid impoverishment of the country, but also famine and disease among men and cattle, are set forth as consequences of the moral disorders which had spread and prevailed in the Church as the effect of the Papal usurpations, and of the blameworthy negligence of the Government and the people.49 Now, exactly this thought is one to which Wiclif so often recurs in different writings, that I must designate it one of his favourite ideas. But independently of this, it is much more allowable to think that an idea so peculiar was thrown out at first by some personage of mark, and afterwards adopted by a whole body, than that a political body first gave expression to it, and that the idea was afterwards taken up and appro- priated at second hand by one of the greatest thinkers of the age. Add to all this yet another circumstance, viz., the incident already mentioned of the Bishop of Rochester,50 in a solemn sitting of Parliament, casting in Dr. Wiclif's face the accusation that his Theses had already beeu condemned by the Roman Court. This incident can in no case have occurred in an earlier Parliament than that of 1376. For the excited language of the Bishop cannot possibly have WICLIF A MEMBER OF THE GOOD PARLIAMENT. 173 been uttered after the Papal censure of Wiclif's nineteen propositions had been published to the world. Evidently the speaker's intention was to make public mention of a fact which up till that time had remained a secret, and the censure of Gregory XL was formally signed on 22d May 1377. Accordingly it might be thought a possible case, that the scene referred to occurred in that Parliament which assembled on 27th January 1377, the year of Edward III.'s death ; and in support of this view the consideration would be of weight, that at this date the information of what had been concluded in Rome against Wiclif might have reached the ear of a member of the English episcopate. But still this conjecture does not bear examination. For the language of the Bishop of Rochester cannot well have been made use of after Wiclif's summons to appear before the English prelates, and this summons had already been issued on 19th February 1377. Various circumstances, therefore, make the supposition a probable one, that the reproach of the Bishop against Wiclif was uttered in some sitting of the Parliament of 1376. But this date need not have been too early for the Bishop's knowledge of what Avas then doing in Rome against Wiclif; for it may well be pre- sumed that a step such as that which Gregory XI. took in the bulls of 22d May 1377 must have originated in a suggestion from England made a considerable time before that date, and must have been prepared in Rome itself during an interval of considerable length. All this warrants the supposition that Wiclif himself was a member of the Good Parliament of 1376, by virtue, we may conjecture, of royal summons. And presupposing this fact, we do not doubt for a moment that he was one of the most influential personalities in the mixed affairs of Ghurch and State, which formed so conspicuous a part of the business of that Parliament. If, at an earlier period, he had shared strongly in the outburst of national feeling, and of the constitutional spirit which was so characteristic of England in the fourteenth century ; still more had he become, in the course of years, one of the leaders of the nation in the path of ecclesiastical progress. This Parliament, indeed, was the culminating point of the influence of Wiclif upon the nation. From that date his influence upon it rather declined, at least in extent of surface, or, so to say, in breadth. On the other hand, the effects which he pro- duced from that time went deeper down into the heart of the English people than they had ever done before. There was still another direction in which the Parlia- 174 LIFE OF WICLIF. moTit of 1376 employed its efforts for the improvement of public affairs. In 1371, as before stated, under the influ- ence of a prevailing anti-clerical sentiment, the representa- tives of the nation had brought forward and carried into effect a proposition that the highest offices of the State should be entrusted to the hands of laymen, instead of the bishops and prelates. But in the course of years there had spread a marked discontent with the Government, as it was from that time conducted. King Edward III. had become almost worn out with old age. Since the death of his queen Philippa (1369), one of her ladies, Alice Perrers, had obtained his favour in an extraordinary degree, and had not only taken a conspicuous position in the Court, but had also unduly meddled in many affairs of State. The influence of this lady the Duke of Lancaster had now turned to his own account, in order to acquire for himself a preponderating weight with his royal father in the business of Government. He was credited, indeed, with designs of a much wider reach. The Prince of Wales, diseased and near his end as he was, was still able to perceive the danger, and, in spite of his forced retirement from the business of State, took into his hand the threads of an intrigue by which the succession to the Crown should be assured to his son Richard, a boy only nine years of age, and the party of his younger brother, John of Gaunt, should be thwarted in their designs. He found means to induce the House of Commons and the clergy to form a coalition against the dominant party of the Duke of Lancaster. Foremost in the management of the affair was Peter de la Mere, chamberlain of the Earl of March, a nobleman who, in virtue of the hereditary right of his Countess, had the nearest presumptive claim to the Throne. This officer of the Court was, at the same time, Speaker of the House of Commons. Upon occasion of the voting of subsidies, the representatives of the counties complained, through their Speaker, of the evil condition of the financial administra- tion, and even of dishonest under- and over-charges which were practised. The persons who were accused and con- victed of these mal-practices were the Treasurer, Lord Latimer, a confidant of the Duke of Lancaster, and Alice Perrers herself. The former was put in prison, the latter banished from the Court. The Duke himself, who was the party really aimed at, no man was bold enough expressly to name; on the other hand, it was proposed, evidently with the view of making the Camarilla incapable of mischief, to strengthen the Privy Council by the addition of from ten COURT INTRIGUES OF LANCASTER. 175 to twelve lords and prelates, who should always be about the King, so that without the assent of six, or at least four of their number, no royal ordinance could be carried into effect. This decisive action of Parliament against the Court party of the Duke of Lancaster was so much after the nation's own heart, that it was principally for this service that the Parliament received the honourable epithet of "The Good."51 While this movement was in progress, Ed- ward the Black Prince died 8th June 1376 — held in equally high esteem as a warrior, and as a man of upright and amiable character. The last care of the deceased prince had been to secure the right of his son and heir, and the House of Commons, sharing the same solicitude, presented an urgent petition to the aged King that he would now be pleased to present to the Parliament his grandson Richard of Bourdeaux, as heir-apparent to the Throne ; which was also done on the 25th of June. But scarcely was Parliament prorogued at the beginning of July, when all the measures which it had originated were again brought to nothing ; the Duke of Lancaster once more seized the rudder ; Lord Latimer recovered again his share in public affairs ; and another friend of the Duke, Lord Percy, was named Lord Marschall. Even Alice Perrers came back again to Court. The Camarilla completely surrounded the aged King. The leaders of the party of the deceased Prince of Wales were compelled to feel the revenge of the small but powerful Court party. Peter de la Mere, Speaker of the House of Commons, was sent to prison, where he remained in durance for nearly two years. The Bishop of Winchester was impeached and banished twenty miles from the Court, and the temporalities of his see were sequestrated. The question arises, what share Wiclif had in the efforts of the Good Parliament to secure the rightful succession to the throne, and to purge the court as Avell as the adminis- tration of unworthy elements. Assuming that he was a member of that Parliament, and co-operated influentially in its ecclesiastico-political proceedings, he could not have remained entirely without a share in its endeavours to secure the succession to the throne, and to reform the Court and the Government. He must have taken his place either on one side or the other. It is true that we hear nothing- definite from himself upon the subject, nor very express testimony concerning it from any other quarter. But we may be sure at least of as much as this, that in no case can he have played a prominent part in the effort to drive the 17(3 LIFE OF WICLIF. favourites of the Duke of Lancaster from the court, and from all influence in state affairs, lor otherwise the Duke would certainly not have lent him his powerful protection only hall-a-year later (on 19th February 1377). But on the other hand, it scarcely admits of being supposed that Wiclif would join the party of Lord Latimer and his colleagues especially as in this business the interests at stake were of that moral and legal character for which, in accord with his whole tone of thought, he must always cherish a warm sympathy. These considerations taken together lead me to the opinion that Wiclif did not indeed oppose himself to the majority of the Parliament who laboured to effect a purification of the Court and Government, but neither did he take any prominent part in the discussion of this subject ; and this all the less, that, as a general rule, he was accustomed and called upon to take a personally active share only in matters of a mixed ecclesiastical and political character. NOTES TO CHAPTER IV. 1. De Civili Dominio, II., c. 5, MS. In Magna Carta, cui rex et magnates Angliaj ex juramentoobligantur, cap. 15, sic habetur : Nulla ecclesiastica persona — censum. This wording and numbering of the passage do not exactly correspond to those of the document now regarded as the original authority. Wiclif has a second refer- ence to Magna Charta in the same chapter. 2. De Civili Dominio, L, c. 34. 3. Life and Opinions of Wydiffe, I., 262. 4. John de Wydiffe, a Monograph, 1S53 ; p. 64, especially p. 87. Comp. also Brit. Quart. Rev., 1858, October. 5. Woodford, 72 Questiones de Sacramt. Altaris ; see above. Prof. Shirley is quite correct in maintaining in his edition of the Fascic. Zizan. XIII. that the view hitherto held upon this point of Wiclif's biography is an unfounded one. 6. A considerable portion of this tract, which is of the highest interest, was included by Lewis in the Appendix to his Hist, of Wiclif, No. 30. The text is un- fortunately in a very imperfect condition, owing, in part at least, to the state of the MS. from which it was derived. But that the tract may have been written very soon after the May Parliament of 1366, and perhaps still earlier in that year ratber than in 1367, is the impression which it leaves upon me as strongly as upon the editors of the Wiclif Bible, vol. I., p. vii., note 10, and Prof. Shirley, Fasr. Ziz. XVII., note 3. 7. As it has been used by Vaughan, John de Wydiffe, a Monograph, 1853, p. 105. 8. The latter fact had been already remarked upon by Vaughan in his earlier work, Life and Opinions, etc., I., p. 283. 9. The tribute amounted to 700 marks for England, and 300 for Ireland, making together the sum of 1000 marks usually given. 10. In quodam concilio. The Parliament is no doubt intended, but Wiclif designedly makes use of a general expression. 11. We would not say, with Boehringer, in his Vorreformatoren, I., Wycliffe, p. 63, that the standpoint taken up by this lord was that of natural right, for there is certainly a distinction to be taken between natural right and the right of the strongest. 12. De Ruever Gronemann. Diatribe in Joh. Wiclif Vitam. Traj. ad Rhen., 1837, p. 93. 13. We entirely agree with Vaughan on this point, who, both in bis earliest and latest works on Wiclif, considers the speeches of the lords to have been actually spoken in Parliament. 14. Vaughan, Life and Opinions, etc., I. 291, drew this conclusion from the words in Wiclif's tract, Quam audivi in quodam consilio a dominis seeularibus ; but the words esse datam, used in connection with these, at once exclude this under- standing of them. 15. The piece entitled Modus trnendi ParHamentum, dating according to recent investigations from before 1295, ed. Hardy, mentions, p. 5, that the bishops were to appoint for every archdeaconry two experienced men as representatives, ad veniendum et interessendum ad Parliamentum. C'omp. Pauli, Gtschichte von Eng- land, IV., p. 670, note 1. M 178 LIFE OF WICLIF. 16. Comp. Parry, Parliaments and Councils of England, Lond. 1S39, p. 129. 17. De Erxlesia, c. 15. MS. 1294 of the Vienna Library, f. 178, col. 2. Undt episcopus Roffensis dixit mihi in publico parliamento ttomachando tpiritu, quod con- clusioius meae sunt dampnatae, sicut testificatum atsibidt Curia per instrument ujn notarii. The words dixit mihi forbid us to understand that the Bishop had only spoken of hiin in his absence ; rather he must have spoken to him and launched his charge against him face to face. Let me only add that the words publicum parlia- mentum do not pre-suppose publicity in the modern sense of the term, but only lay stress upon the circumstance that, instead of a private communication, the charge was made publicly in the hearing of many witnesses. 18. Si autem ego assererem talia contra regem ineum, olim fuissent in parlia- mento dominorum Anglise ventilata, in Lewis, p. 850. According to the connection, the emphasis appears to lie not on ego, but upon contra regem mcum. 19. Ego autem cum sim peculiaris regis clericus talis quails, volo libenter induere habitum responsalis, etc.. in Lewis, p. 319. 20. Lewis, 20 ; Vaughan, Life, I., 284 ; John de Wi/clife, 106 ; Shirley, Faxc. Ziz. XIX. ; Bjornstrom, John Wiclif, Upsala, 1867, p. 36. 21. Boehringer, as above, p. 32. ' 22. Wiclif, lc Domini Civilio, II., c. 1, Vienna MS., No. 1341 (Denis, CCCJ.XXXIL, not CCCLXXX. as Shirley gives it), f. 155, col. 1. Shirley has given the passage in the Introduction to Fasc. Zizan., p. 21. 23. Comp. the signatures of all the King's ministers under the protocol on the oath taken by Arnold Gamier, in Appendix IV. 24. The royal passport is printed in Bymer's Foedera, ed. 4. London, 1830, vol. III., P. 2, f. 1007. The Pope's letter of introduction is printed by Lowth in the appendix of original documents to his life of Wykeham. 25. The textual form of the oath is printed in Norman French in Rymer, III., f. 933. The Latin text was prefixed by Wiclif to the inquiry of which we are to speak immediately ; and as the latter would not be intelligible without the former. I have also communicated the form of the oath in Appendix IV. 26. This paper, which has hitherto been known only by its title, is preserved in two MSS. of the Imperial Library of Vienna, namely, No. 1337 (De'nis, CCCLXXVIIL), f. 115, and No. 3929 (De'nis, CCCLXXXV), f. 246. From the latter MS., which leaves much to be wished for in point of accuracy, I give in full with the exception of a portion at the beginning, which is of inferior importance, in Appendix IV. The conclusion seems to have fallen away, for the text terminates in an etc. 27. Constat ex facto ejus notorie quod sic facit, Art 5. But that this memorial cannot have been written before 1377 is clear from the circumstance that near its end inference is made to regi nostro, licet in at tote juvenili flort nti, which can only apply to Eichard II., not to Edward III., who died in June 1377. 28. Ut a multis creditur — execudo sui officii — si non Jailor, displiceret majori parti populi Anglicani ; regnum nostrum jam sensibUiter percipiens Mud gravamen de ipso conqueritur. 29. Compare the first paragraph in Wiclifs Illustration of the Oath, near the end, in Appendix IV. 30. Compare the last paragraph of do. 31. Cum dominus papa sit satis peccalii/ is. 32. Walsingham, Hist. Anglicana, Ed. Riley, I., 316. 33. Boehringer, Forreformatoren, I., 45, makes Outer Dean of Sechow, although in all England no town or any other place of residence so named exists. It is rather the city of Segovia, in Old Castile, that is meant. The English priest, John Outer, had no doubt obtained a Spanish prebend through the Duke of Lancaster, who, after the death of his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, had married Constance, a daughter of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile, and afterwards put forward claims NOTES TO CHAPTER IV. 179 to the crown of Castile and Leon in her right. Compare John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Ed. Townsend, II., 916, App. 34. When Richard II. ascended the throne in 1377, Robert Relknappe was chief judge on the Bench of the Common Pleas, but was deposed in 1388, and banished to Ireland, for having set himself in opposition to the absolutistic designs of the King.— Vide Walsingham, Ed. Riley, II., 174 ; Knighton, 2694. 35. Rymer, Foedera, III., 2, f. 1007 ; Lewis, 304. 36. Under date 31st July he acknowledged receipt of 60 pounds 20 shillings per day paid to him out of the Royal Treasury for the costs of his journey and main- tenance abroad. See Oxford edition of the Wiclif Bible, I., p. vii., note 13. It is a mere misunderstanding when Charles Werner, in his History of Apologetic and Polemical Literature, III., 1864, p. 560, speaks of Wiclif making a journey to Rome. He was never even in Avignon, to say nothing of Rome, where indeed he could have had no business to transaot at this time, for it was not till 1377 that Gregory XL left Avignon for Italy. 37. According to Barnes — History of King Edward III., p. 866— referred to by Lewis, p. 33. 38. Pauli, Geschichte von England, IV., 487. 39. Historia Anglicana, Ed. Riley, I., 318. 40. Rymer, Foedera, vol. III., P. ii., fol. 1037. 41. Hist. Anglic, I., 317. 42. Quod bonum merko vocabatur. — Walsingham, I., 324. 43. Considerable extracts from this petition, although not in a satisfactory ar- rangement, have fortunately been preserved, and were printed by Foxe in the Acts and Monuments, Ed. Townsend, II., 784. What Lewis communicated from other MS. is not free from errors. 44. I do not for a moment doubt that the Papal Collector here several time3 named was the same Arnold Gamier already known to us, for the description given of him by Parliament applies to Gamier in every particular of chief moment. He is a French subject, he has a head office in London, and has already been em- ployed in London for a series of years. The only objection that can be taken is that Gamier 's commission in England dated only from February 1372, so that in the spring of 1376 he had only been four years, not five, in the kingdom. But this difference is too small to shake the identity which I have assumed. 45. We had matter-of-fact proof of this above. After the death of Archbishop William Whittlesey, in 1374, Gregory XL nominated the Bishop of London, Simon of Sudbury, to be Archbishop ; the Bishop of Hereford, William Courtney, to be Bishop of London ; and the Bishop of Bangor, John Gilbert, to be Bishop of Here- ford. On this occasion, therefore, he translated at the least three bishops, and possessed himself of the first year's revenues of four newly-filled sees. 46. Edward III. succeeded to the crown after the dethronement of his father, Edward II., 25th January 1327. The year 1376 was therefore exactly the fiftieth of his long reign. It was a happy thought that the King's jubilee could not be better celebrated than by carrying out the necessary ecclesiastical reforms. 47. In May 1343. 48. Foxe, Acts, etc., II., 789, from the royal archives. 49. Tit. 94. Against the usurpations of the Pope as being the cause of all the plagues, murrains, famine, and poverty of the realm. Comp. Tit. 100. 50. This must have been Thomas Trillek, who became Bishop of Rochester in 1363, and was still in office at the accession of Richard II., in 1377. Comp. Wal- singham, Hist. Anglic, 1., 299, 332. 51. Lowth, The Life of William of Wykeham, p. SI. Pauli, Geschicltte von England, 4, 489. 180 LIFE OF WICLIF. ADDITIONAL NOTE TO CHAPTER IV., BY THE TRANSLATOR. ON THE LATE DATE AT WHICH WICLIF BEGAN HIS ATTACKS UPOX THE MENDICANT ORDERS. It is one of the most valuable contributions which Dr. Lechler has made to the biography of Wiclif that he has been able to produce from the Reformer's unpub- lished-writings "direct proofs" of the fact "that Wiclif continued to speak of the Begging < Irdera with all respectful recognition during the twenty years which elapsed between 1360 and 1380, and that it was in connection with the contro- versy opened by him on the subject of Transubstuntiation, and therefore after l-'JSl at the earliest, that he began to oppose himself to the Mendicants, who had come forward as his antagonists on that fundamental question." 1 am happy to be able to bring forward an important testimony to the historical accuracy of this representation from the same contemporary source which was laid under contribution in a previous note to chapter iii., viz., the Chronicon Anglice of the Monk of St. Alban's. At p. 116 occurs the following remarkable passage. Describing Wiclif, the hostile chronicler writes: — Erat utique non solum facundus, sed simulator ct hypocrita solidissimus, ad unuin finem intendeus omnia, ut videlicet ejus fama et opinio se inter homines dilataret. Simulabatque se sp mere temporalis tanquam instabilia et caduca, pro aeternorum amore ; et ideo non erat cum possessionatis ejus conversatio, sed ut magis plebis mentes delu- deret, ordinibus adhaesit mendicantium, corum paupertatem approbans, perfect ionem extollens, ut magis falleret commune rulgus. The distinction here taken between Wiclif 's bearing towards the possessionati, the " monk's possessionem," or the old endowed orders, with whom he had little or no familiarity, and Ins good opinion of the Mendicant Orders, with win mi he culti- vated personal intercourse, agrees exactly with the view taken by Professor Lechler, and is a weighty corroboration of its historical truth. This view, how- ever, is of so recent a date, and the opposite view that Wiclif had begun as early as 1360 to take up the old quarrel of Armachamis with the Franciscans, has been so long received that it is not surprising that both Professor Shirley and Mr. Thompson have regarded this passage of the Chronicon as one which throws grave doubt on the authority or the accuracy of the compiler. Referring to the chapter on Wiclif as it stands in the old translation of the Chronicle from which he quotes, Shirley speaks of the single sentence which I have given above in the original as enough to set aside the authority of the whole chapter (vide p. 523 of the Fasc. Zizan.). This is the more unaccountable on his part, as he had previously remarked (Introduction, p. 14), that the " story which connects Wiclif with the con- troversies of 13(50 is implicitly contradicted by contemporary authority, and receives, to say the least, no sanction whatever from the acknowledged writings of the Reformer ; " that, in short, " it is a part of Wiclif's life only by courtesy and repetition." The editor of the Chronicon Anglice has naturally and justly a much higher respect for the authority of its author than Prof. Shirley, who had never seen it in its original text, but he is not a little embarrassed by the very statements about Wiclif, which, from Dr. Lechler's point of view, create no difficulty at all, but are welcome confirmations of historical truth. " It is curious to note," he remarks, in his Introduction, p. 53, "that our Chronicler, either from ignorance, or perhaps from a natural hostility to the Mendicant Orders, lias repre- sented Wycliff as a favourer of their views. It is, indeed, almost hopeless to account for such a glaring perversion of fails, otherwise than by an assumption of the writer's ignorance ; and yet one hardly dares to allow such ignorance in a con- temporary writer. His further statement that the Duke of Lancaster appointed four friars to plead WyclifFs cause at his trial may have some truth in it ; and it is possible that this fact led him to assume that Wycliff was not now opposed to his former antagonists." The discovery of the truth of the case by Dr. Lechler puts an end at once to all these embarrassments. It vindicates the accuracy of the Chronicon, as to the im- portant point now before us ; while the testimony of the Chronicon becomes a valuable corroboration of the biographical datum which Lechler has ascertained from the unpublished writings of Wiclif. CHAPTER V. PROCEEDINGS OF THE HIERARCHY AGAINST WICLIF IN 1377 AND 1378. SECTION I. — Wiclif Summoned before the Convocation. AT the very time when Wiclif stood in the highest estimation with his countrymen, and had reached a position of the greatest influence, a storm burst suddenly upon his head. As a resolute, far-sighted, and experienced patriot, he possessed the confidence of the nation, as well as the favour of the King. Edward III. had already bestowed upon him more than one prebend, and what was still more im- portant as a mark of his royal grace, had, as we have seen good reason to believe, repeatedly summoned him to serve in Parliament, as a man thoroughly conversant with eccle- siastical affairs. How the men of Oxford had previously distinguished him by office and honours, has been already related. After he had been Seneschal of Merton College, we have seen him in the position of Master of Balliol ; and in 1361 this college nominated him to the parish of Fillingham. Seven years later he exchanged this parish for that of Ludgershall, in Buckinghamshire, for no other reason, doubt- less, than that the latter was situated in the neighbourhood of the University. On 12th November 1368, Wiclif entered upon his pastoral charge at Ludgershall. In 1375 he obtained a prebend at Aust, a place romantically situated on the south bank of the Severn, and connected with the endowed church of Westbury, near Bristol, where, in 1288, a foundation in honour of the Holy Trinity had been instituted for a dean and several canons.1 It was not a parish church, but a chapel ; the prebend was evidently regarded merely as a sinecure and place of honour, the holder being at liberty to appoint a substitute to read the masses required by the terms of the foundation. Wiclif however, seems to have resigned the prebend immediately after obtaining it, for in November of the same year, 1375, as appears from an entry in the rolls of the King's Chan- 182 LIFE OF WICLIF. eery, the prebend was bestowed upon a certain Robert of Farrington.2 His nomination to the rectory of Lutterworth, in the county of Leicester, appears, from documentary evidence, to have been an expression of the royal favour. The patron- age of this parish did not, indeed, belong properly to tin; Crown, but to the noble family of Ferrars of Groby, which was owner of the land. But as the heir, Lord Henry Ferrars, was still a minor, the right of collation to the exist- ing vacancy devolved on the Crown, and the King presented John Wiclif in April 1374.:i We shall return to this subject in the sequel. We only remark further at present, that Wiclif appears to have immediately resigned his pre- vious charge at Ludgershall, upon his being appointed to the Rectory of Lutterworth. At least, as early after that appointment as May 1376, a certain William Newbold is named as the parish priest of that village.4 On more than one occasion Wiclif expressed himself strongly enough on the subject of the pluralities which were held by many of the priests and prelates; and he had good reason for doing so. The abuse must have gone very far, when even a Pope spoke of the accumulation of church-offices in one and the same person, as a mischief to the Church, as Urban V. did in a bull of May 1305; in consequence of which Papal cen- sure, a sort of statistical inquiry was set on foot, by requiring of every beneficed man to make an official return to his Bishop of all the different church-livings which he held. From such a return made to the Bishop of London by William W7ykeham, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, but now Archdeacon of London, it appears that he was the holder of not fewer than twelve livings, some of them of very considerable value, while he was not in a position to serve one of these spiritual offices in his own person, being obliged to live continually at Court in the capacity of the King's private secretary.5 This single example speaks loudly enough of the state of things. Wiclif therefore was justified, as matters stood, in strongly censuring such an abuse ; but still we should have been compelled to challenge his personal moral right to complain of it, if he had himself been guilty of what he censured in others. And doubtless his opponents, in this case, would not have spared to cast in his teeth the reproach, that he blamed in other men what he allowed in himself. But he never so acted. Never in any instance did he hold, at the same time, two places involving the cure of souls. But all tin's disinterestedness could not protect him from WICLIF SUMMONED BEFORE CONVOCATION. 1 83 the opposition of the hierarchy. In the course of a single year, 1377, he was twice summoned to appear before the spiritual tribunals ; in the first instance, before Convocation, and in the second, before several prelates as commis- sioners of the Pope himself. His summons before Con- vocation is involved in much obscurity, with respect to its immediate occasion and the subjects on which he was required to answer. We find nowhere any documentary information as to what doctrines of Wiclif were meant to be submitted to investigation before that tribunal. On the other hand, we have some information of the course which the proceedings took on the occasion of this appearance of Wiclif before his spiritual judges ; and from these the con- clusion is plain that the hostile step now taken against him was closely connected with the political partisanship of the day. The prelates were embittered against the Duke of Lancaster, who was labouring with all his might to put an end to their political influence. For the moment they were no match for him in the political arena; but all the more readily on this account they seized the opportunity of in- directly humbling him in the ecclesiastical province, in the person of a theologian who stood in intimate relations to his person. The Parliament opened on 27th January 1377. A few days later, on 3rd February, the Convocation — the clerical parliament — also met, and the Convocation summoned Wiclif before its tribunal. The Bishop of London, William Court e- nay, was no doubt the instigator of this proceeding. He was a younger son of the Earl of Devonshire ; a great grand- son of Edward I. on the side of his grandmother; closely related to several families of the high nobility ; and a man, be- sides, of imperious nature, and an arrogant, hierarchical spirit. He had been promoted, in 1375, from Hereford to the im- portant see of London, and was a man of superior energy to his predecessor, Simon Sudbury, now Archbishop of Canterbury. The nobleman and the hierarch were united in him ; and he represented in his own person the coalition of the nobility with the prelacy in opposing the ambitious designs of the Duke of Lancaster. But in view of the fact that political rather than ecclesi- astical motives had to do with the citation of Wiclif, the Duke considered it his imperative duty to afford him his powerful protection. He resolved to accompany him in person to the assembly of the prelates. On Thursday, lilth February 1377, the Convocation assembled in St. Paul's, and at Wiclif' s side appeared the Duke of Lancaster and 184 LIFE OF WICLIF. Lord Henry Percy, the Grand Marshall of England, followed by a band of armed men, and attended by several friends of the learned divine, in particular by five bachelors of divinity of the five Mendicant Orders, who, by the Duke's desire, were to stand forward in ease of need as the advocates of Wiclif.8 The Lord Marshall led the way to clear a passage through the crowd for the Duke and Wiclif; but even with his aid it proved a diffieult matter to get into the Cathe- dral and to press through the Church to the Lady Chapel where the bishops were assembled. This, of course, was not effected without a considerable amount of disturbance in the sacred building, upon which Courtenay declared to Lord Percy that if he had known beforehand the style in which he was going to play the master within the church, he would have barred his entrance. "Whereupon the Duke of Lancaster answered the Bishop in a rage that he was resolved to be master there in spite of the bishops. After much pushing and hustling they forced their way at last into the Chapel, where dukes and barons were seated with the Archbishop and other bishops. Here, then, stood Wiclif before his judges awaiting his examination — a tall, thin figure, covered with a long light gown of black colour, with a girdle about his body; the head, adorned with a full, flowing beard, exhibiting features keen and sharply cut; the eye clear and penetrating ; the lips firmly closed in token of resolution — the whole man wearing an aspect of lofty earnestness, and replete with dignity and character.7 The Grand Marshall now turned to Wiclif, and requested him to be seated. " He had need to rest himself, for he would have many questions to answer." " No ! "' exclaimed the Bishop of London, beside himself with rage, Wiclif must not be seated there ; it was neither lawful nor becoming that when summoned to answer before his judges he should sit during his examination — he must stand. The dispute between them on this point became so violent as to end in the use of abusive language on both sides, by which the multitude of people who witnessed the scene were much disturbed. And now struck in the Duke, assailing the Bishop with angry words, and the Bishop paying him back in full with taunts and insults. The Duke finding himself overmatched in this line, passed to the use of threats, and declared that he would chastise not only the Bishop of London, but all the prelates of England for their arrogance. To Courtenay. in particular, he said: "You PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF WICLIF. 185 talk boastfully of your family, but they will be in no con- dition to help you ; they will have enough ado to protect themselves." To which the Bishop replied, that if he might be bold enough to speak the truth, he placed his trust neither in his family nor in any other man, but singly and alone in God. Hereupon the Duke whispered to the person who stood nearest to him, that he would sooner drag the Bishop out of the Church by the hair of the head than put up with such an affront at his hand. But this was not spoken in so low a voice that several citizens of London did not overhear it. They were highly incensed, and cried out that they would never consent to see their Bishop so shamefully handled ; they would rather lose their lives than he should be seized by the hair of the head. As the business, before it was well commenced, had de- generated into a violent quarrel and tumult, the sitting of the Court was suspended before nine o'clock in the forenoon. The Duke and the Lord Marshall withdrew with Wiclif, without the latter having spoken a single word. But the citizens of London, who saw themselves insulted in the person of their Bishop, were still more enraged when, on the same day, a motion was made in Parliament that the government of the city should no longer be left in the hands of the Mayor, but should be handed over to a royal commissioner, the imprisoned Lord Latimer. Thus a menace to the municipal liberties and self-government of the capital was added to the affront done to their Bishop. No wonder that the wrath of the citizens found vent for itself in action as well as in word. On the following day they held a great meeting to de- liberate upon the double wrong Avhich had been done them — the imperilling of their autonomy, and the insult to their Bishop. At the same moment it came to their ears that the Lord Marshall had imprisoned one of the citizens in his own house in the heart of the city ; they rushed instantly to arms ; they stormed the house of the Marshall, and set at liberty their imprisoned fellow-citizen, and they searched the house through for Lord Percy himself. Not finding him there, they rushed off to the mansion of the Duke of Lancaster in the Savoy, where they thought they should find both the Lords. But they were a second time disap- pointed ; and to make amends, the crowd vented their rage partly upon a priest, whom they mortally wounded on their way back to the city, and partly upon the armorial coat of the Duke, which they had pulled down from his palace in 186 LIFE OF WICLIF. the Savoy, and now hung up in a public place of the city reversed, in token that the Duke was a traitor. They had even a design to demolish the 1 Mike's palace, bnt Bishop Conrtenay himself interposed, and entreated them to return to quietness and good order.8 The Princess of Wales, also, widow of the Black Prince, and mother of Richard the young heir to the throne, came forward to mediate between the Duke and the citizens, and a reconciliation was at length effected, in which the Duke consented that the Bishop of Winchester, who had been banished in disgrace from the Court, and Peter de la Mere, formerly Speaker of the House of Commons, who was still in prison, should be brought to trial before their peers ; while on his side the Duke obtained the concession that the present Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the city should be replaced by others. And further, as the instigators of the riot, and the circulators of abusive rhymes against the Duke could not be found, it was agreed, in satisfaction of these wrongs, that a colossal wax candle should be bought at the expense of the city, and carried in solemn procession, with the Duke's arms attached to it, to St. Paul's, and there kindled before the image of the Virgin Mary.9 The citation of Wiclif before Convocation had thus ended in a manner quite unexpected. Wiclif himself had never opened his mouth. The incident seems to have passed away without affecting him personally in any way. But the scene which took place in the cathedral, and the popular uproar which resulted from it, brought the already high-pitched irritation between Lancaster and the English bishops to an open rupture, in which Wiclif was by no means the chief person engaged. To Wiclif himself it must have been a source of sincere pain that he should have been the occasion of such a scene, and that, too, in a con- secrated place. It would certainly have been more agree- able to him if he had been allowed to answer to the accusations which might have been laid against him. But who will hold him responsible for the fact that his person was made use of for ulterior objects, both by his enemies and his friends ? In citing him before Convocation, the prelates wished to strike a blow, in his person, at the Duke. And the Duke took up the gauntlet as thrown down to him, and was glad to have found an opportunity of humbling the Bishop of London and the English prelates as a body. But when the citizens of London were exasperated against the Duke on account of his doings in St. Paul's, this was no proof that they were also opposed to the cause of Wiclif. THE BISHOPS HAVE RECOURSE TO THE POPE. 187 Within less than a year afterwards, they espoused his interest in the most earnest way ; but I am not disposed to lay stress upon that fact, as it might easily be attributed to the fickleness of the multitude. More weight is due to the circumstance that the sole cause which roused so powerfully the feelings of the citizens, was partly the heinous affront offered to their Bishop, and in part their alarm for the safety of their municipal rights and privileges ; and neither the one nor the other of these causes of offence can with reason be laid to the blame of Wiclif. SECTION II. — Papal Bulls against Wiclif. If the citation of Wiclif before Convocation had been entirely without consequences for his own person, there was no abandonment of the designs of his church-adver- saries against him on that account. The political friends and patrons of the man were too powerful to allow of the prelates carrying out their wishes for his humiliation ; they had recourse therefore to the Papal Court, in order to put him down by the right of the highest authority which existed in the Catholic Church. No doubt the first steps in this direction had already been taken some con- siderable time before. The occurrence in St. Paul's would now be a reason for pushing the matter to a more rapid decision. Who were the principal accusers of Wiclif in Rome % John Foxe's answer to the question is, that it was the English bishops who collected articles of his and sent them to Rome.10 But siuce Lewis's time it has been regarded as pretty well established that it was the monk party, and especially the Mendicant Orders, who appeared in the Curia against him.11 We prefer to agree with Foxe. It is entirely due to a confounding of dates, when it is assumed that, so early as the period now before us, a controversy had already broken out between Wiclif and these Orders on the principles of Monachism. And even if this had been the case, it was not single Orders and their representatives who would have been recognised as competent public accusers in matters of doctrine, but only the bishops of the English Church. And we find, in point of fact, that Wiclif himself considered not the monks but the bishops as the parties who had pressed for a con- demnation of his doctrine in Rome. 12 The Anglican Episcopate, therefore, is, in our opinion, to be regarded as the prime mover of the proceedings of 188 LIFE OF WICLIF. the Roman Court against Wiclif, as an alleged teacher of heresy ; and they took care to prepare and manage the net in which they hoped to take him, with such skill and precaution, as to make sure that the man whom they dreaded, and who had hitherto been shielded by such powerful protectors, should not be able to escape. They had eollected the requisite number of doctrinal proposi- tions which Wielif had publicly propounded, either in lectures and disputations delivered in the University, or in his published writings, and the dangerous tendency of which, menacing the well-being of Church and State, must, as they deemed, be manifest to every eye. But it was also of importance so to weave and intertwine the lines of the net, that the game should be snared, and finally secured. It seemed, too, that this difficult problem had been skilfuly solved ; for no fewer than five bulls were issued on one day, all aimed at one and the same point. On 22nd May, 1377, Gregory XI., who had shortly be- fore removed from Avignon to Italy, and on 17th January had made his solemn entry into Rome, put his hand to five Bulls against Wiclif in the magnificent Church of St. Maria Maggiore. One of the five, and that which appears to contain the essence of the whole number, is addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. 13 It conveys to the two prelates apostolic commission and plenary powers, first of all to ascertain, by private inquiry, whether the propositions contained in a schedule appended to the bull had been actually put forth by John Wiclif;14 and if this should be the case, then to cause him to be put in prison, and to be kept there until such time as they should receive further instructions from the Pope, to follow upon the report made to him of their pro- ceedings. A second bull contains only a supplement to the principal bull.15 It is also directed to the Primate and the Bishop of London, and appoints what course should be taken in case Wiclif should get secret intelligence of the process with which he is threatened, and should save himself by flight from impending imprisonment. To meet this eventuality, the two prelates are commissioned and endowed with full apostolic powers to issue out a public citation to Wiclif to present himself in person before Gregory XI. within three months from the date of citation. A third bull, also addressed to the same prelates,16 requires them, either per- sonally, or by theologians of unsuspected orthodoxy, to bring the condemned doctrines of Wiclif to the notice of King FIVE BULLS OF THE POPE. 189 Edward, and his sons, the princes, as also the Princess of Wales, Johanna, the widow of the Black Prince, and other great personages of the realm, and privy councillors, to satisfy them of the erroneous character of these doctrines. and of the dangers which they threatened to the interests of the State ; and thus to engage them to assist with all their might in rooting out these errors from the kingdom. The fourth bull, directed to the King himself, informed him of the commission relating to Wiclif, which had been con- veyed to the Archbishop and the Bishop of London ; and while warmly commending the zeal which he and his pre- decessors upon the throne had displayed for the Catholic faith, earnestly entreated and required him to extend his royal grace and assistance to the Archbishop and Bishop in the execution of their commission. Last oi all, the fifth bull is addressed to the Chancellor and the University of Oxford,18 to require of them in the most emphatic manner, and even upon pain of the loss of their privileges, not only to guard against the setting forth and maintaining of erro- neous doctrines, but to commit Wiclif and his obstinate followers to prison, and to deliver them over to the Pope's commissioners, the Archbishop and the Bishop of London. The plan of operations, it is plain, had been ripely con- sidered. The attainment of the end in view seemed to be assured, by the King and the royal princes, the Privy Coun- cil and the chief nobility, and the University of Oxford being all drawn into the interest of the Church. It was, therefore, to be expected that the Government, the power of the nobles, and the resources of so important a corporation as the Uni- versity of Oxford, would contribute their aid to the two commissioners of the Roman Conrt to bring Wiclif under the Church's power. For that was the point aimed at. It was not meant that the Primate and Bishop Courtenay should conduct the investigation in chief against Wiclif, and pronounce judgment upon him. It was only a pre- liminary inquiry that Avas committed to them, viz., to satisfy themselves, in a manner entirely secret and confi- dential, that the theses communicated to them from Rome had really been put forward and maintained by Wiclif. But the process for heresy proper the Pope manifestly reserved for himself. It was a well-considered policy on the part of the Pope to make his appeal to England's sense of honour, in order to gain all parties having interest for the object in view. To the King he represented what high reputation both he and his ancestors and his kingdom had ever acquired by their piety and soundness in the faith. 190 LIFE OF WICLIF. The University of Oxford must remember that its celebrated name is dishonoured when it looks on in inactivity, while tares are sown and grow up among the wheat in the field of renown committed to its care. Even the two bishops, whom Gregory entrusts with plenary powers, are not spared a word of admonition. They are reminded that the English bishops of former times ever stood upon their watch tower, and took careful heed that no heresy should spread around them. lint now-a-days such is the lack of watchfulness on the spot, that men in far distant Rome are aware of the secret devices and open attacks of the enemies of the church, before any measures of defence against them have been taken in England itself. Further, it appeared to the Pope advisable to point out this fact to the bishops, that some of Wiclif's propositions appeared to agree in sense with the views of Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, whose book had already been condemned by Pope John XXII. Let us now examine the condemned Articles themselves. They are nineteen in number, but they are not arranged in a strictly logical order. This, of course, is not Wiclif's fault, for it was not he who put them together as they appear in the schedule attached to the Papal bulls, but his opponents. The first five Theses were placed at the head of the whole number, with the calculated design that from the very first of the series the statesmen and nobles of the kingdom should receive the impression that Wiclif held revolutionary views, not only in Church matters, but also in political and municipal affairs, and even called in question the rights of private property and hereditary suc- cession. For in Theses 1-5 the subjects treated of have nothing to do with Church life, but refer exclusively to legal and municipal matters, such as property, right of possession, heritages, and so on. It has always, indeed, been assumed hitherto that the topic here spoken of is the temporal dominion of the Popes, and the political power and secular property of the Church in general. But this is not the fact ; this is a view which rests entirely upon misunder- standing and prejudice. Upon an unprejudiced examination it comes out with certainty that it is only municipal and legal relations which are here in question.11' Wiclif's pro- position is, that all rights of inheritance and property are not to be considered as inherently unconditioned and abso- lute, but as dependent upon God's will and grace. Then in Nos. (! and 7 he lays down the bold proposition, "In the event of the Church falling into error, or of churchmen THE CONDEMNED ARTICLES. 191 persistently abusing the property oi the Church, it is com- petent for kings and temporal rulers to withdraw from them, in a legal and moral manner, the temporal property." However strongly the endowment may have been secured on the part of the founder, it is still, in the nature of things, necessarily a conditioned endowment, and one liable to be annulled by certain derelictions of duty. Whether the Church is or is not, in point of fact, in a condition tj, assumed that both the examinations, at St. Paul's and at Lambeth, took place in consequence of the Papal bulls, and not before, and that not only the later, but the first also took place under Richard II., after King Edward's death. He was followed in this not only by Mosheim, Schrbckh, Gieseler, and Neander, but also by English scholars, such as Lowth, Baber, and a writer in the Westminster Review, 1851. The last-named author believed that he was able to bring positive proof that Walsingham must have been in error when he placed the appearance of W'ielif at St. Paul's at the beginning of 1377, instead of the year 1378. But Vaughan in the Life, etc., I., 357, note '23, 2 edit., has proved, by weighty arguments, that that event took place as early as 1377 (19th February), and that the Papal bulls were not issued till a later date, so that the event cannot have been a consequence of the bulls, but much rather the occasion of their issue on 22d May 1377. To Vaughan, undoubtedly, belongs the merit of having placed this subject in a clear light, both chronologically and pragmatically. The following facts are decisive in support of this view : — 1. The popular tumult in London directed against the Duke of Lan- caster and Marshall Percy, which was undoubtedly a consequence of what occurred in St. Paul's, is always and persistently placed in the year 1337, and not in the year following, 1378. 2. Lord Percy, in the beginning of 1378, was no longer Marshall, but in 1377 he was, without doubt, invested with this dignity. 3. The day of the week which is assigned by the English contemporary chronicler, viz., Thursday before the Feast of St. Peter's, 19th February, corresponds with this day of the month only in the year 1377, but not in the year 1378. 30. The Chronicler of St. Alban's appears to have felt this himself, when he says of Gregory XL's death, " Cujus obitus non modicum fideles contristavit scd in fide falsos, ipsum Johcmnem (Wiclif) etipsius asseclas, animauit." Walsingham, L, 356. CHAPTER VI. WICLIP AS A PREACHER; HIS EPFORTS FOR REFORM IN PREACHING AND FOR THE ELEVATION OF THE PASTORAL OFFICE. SECTION I. — Wiclif as a Preacher; his Homiletical Principles. WICLIF not only made use of scientific lectures from his chair in Oxford, nor only of learned works and small fugitive tracts ; he also availed himself of preaching as a means of battling with the evils which he saw in the religious condition of the National Church, of implanting sound Christian life, and of thus serving, according to his ability, the interests of his Church and people. It is characteristic of the man and his way of acting, that in this extremely important matter he commenced by doing his duty at his own personal post, from which he afterwards extended his influence to wider circles. This comes out with the greatest clearness from his remaining sermons, for these divide themselves into two great groups — the Latin sermons and the English. The latter are partly sermons which he may be presumed to have preached to his congregation at Lutterworth, as parish priest, and partly outlines of sermons which he prepared as a kind of model for itinerant preachers of his school ; we shall return to these in the sequel. The Latin sermons were, without doubt, delivered in Oxford before the Uni- versity, perhaps in St. Mary's.1 This is antecedently pro- bable, but it is also manifest from the form and contents of the sermons themselves. Not unfrequently we find learned matters mentioned in them in a way which makes it certain that the audience must have consisted of people of culture and scholastic learning — as, for example, when, in the first of the "Miscellaneous Sermons," he speaks of the manifold varieties then received of the sense of Scripture, and, in particular, of the sensus tropologicns and anagogicus; when quotations are introduced, not only from the Fathers, but from the Canon Law; and when abstract questions of logic and metaphysics are investigated, such as that which refers 204 LIFE OF WICLIF. to the relation of soul and body, etc. What sort of audience must a preacher have before him when he speaks of the imitation of Christ, as Wiclif does in the third of his Ser- mons for Saints' Days, and asks, What does it help us in the imitation of Christ to pore over the pages of the logicians ? or what aid comes from the knowledge of the natural philosophers acquired at such a cost of labour? or from the well-known method of reasoning adopted by the mathema- ticians? Plainly the preacher has people of learning before him — the professors and students of the University. This was long ago correctly noted by a reader of the Vienna manuscript of these sermons, who writes on the mai'gin, opposite this passage, the words, " Magistri et studentes notate." 2 The preacher, in fact, in one instance mentions Oxford by name ; 3 and one of his sermons from beginning to end is simply an address delivered on occasion of a Doctoral promotion in the University.4 The Latin sermons of Wiclif known to us belong to very different years, as may be gathered with tolerable certainty from several internal marks. The most of these collections, indeed, belong to the latest years of his life, but one of them, containing forty miscellaneous sermons, consists of earlier discourses, all delivered before the year 1378,5 and these are all instructive and valuable for the insight they give into the course of Wiclif's development. At present we say nothing of what is to be learned from this source of the progress of his mind in the matter of doctrine ; we confine ourselves, in the meantime, to what we have been able to gather from it with respect to the views he took of the object of preaching, and of the actual condition of the preacher's office at that period. In the last named collection of Latin sermons, belonging to the period of his academic life and work, he expresses himself in different places on the subject of preachers and preaching. Two sermons in particular — those on Luke viii. 4-15, the Parable of the Sower — the Gospel of the Day for Sexagesima Sunday — supply us with important information as to his views on this point,'' Before everything else Wiclif holds up the truth that the preaching of the Word of God is that function which sub- serves, in a degree quite peculiar to itself, the edification of the Church ; and this is so, because the Word of God is a seed (Luke viii. 11, "The seed is the Word of God"). In reflecting upon this truth, he is filled with wonder, and exclaims, " 0 marvellous power of the Divine Seed ! which overpowers strong men in arms, softens hard hearts, and WIOLIF'S LATIN SERMON'S. 20") renews and changes into divine men, men who had been brutalised by sins, and departed infinitely far from God. Obviously such a high morality could never be worked by the word of a priest, if the Spirit of Life and the Eternal Word did not, above all things else, work with it." But the grander and more exalted the view which Wiclif takes of the preacher's office, so much the more has he an open eye for the faults and deficiencies of the actual average preacher of his own time. As the worst of these, he cen- sures the evil practice of not preaching God's Word, but setting forth stories, fables, or poems, which were altogether foreign to the Bible. He refers again and again to this subject in sermons both of his earlier and later years, as well as in' treatises and tracts.7 We have no ground to assume that sermons of the kind he censures were not preached upon some Bible text. It is rather to be supposed that the preachers, after giving out a text from the Scrip- ture for form's sake, were none the less accustomed to draw the main contents of their sermons from other sources. There were not even wanting instances of preachers who were bold enough to dispense with a Scripture text, and to choose something else. Even an Archbishop of Canter- bury, and a learned scholastic and cardinal, Stephan Langton, fl228, saw nothing offensive in taking for the text of a short Latin sermon which still exists, a dancing-song in old French, allegorically applying, indeed, " the Fair Alice," and all that is said of her, to the Holy Virgin.8 Things of this sort, however, may have been of comparatively rare occurrence ; but in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it had become almost a prevailing pulpit-fashion, instead of opening up Bible thoughts, and applying them to life, to draw the materials of sermons from civil and natural history, from the legendary stores of the Church, and even from the fable- world of the middle ages, and the mythology of the heathen gods. If a priest, on a Saint's Day, recounted the miracles of the saint as set out in his legend, this had still some claim to be listened to as a piece of sacred history. But the Gesta Romanorum, and all manner of tales and fables, taken from profane sources like Ovid's Metamorphoses,9 were made use of by preachers, if not for the edification, at least for the entertainment of their hearers. The taste for allegorical interpretations and applications, as these gradually came into general use, helped men over eveiy objection to the practice, and the craving for entertainment of this description grew always the stronger the less preachers were able to supply the souls of men 2()G LIFE OF WICLIF. with wholesome refreshment from the eternal fountain of the Word of God. No wonder that sermons often became a web whose woof and wefl consisted of all other threads save those of Bible truth. And it was precisely those men of the fourteenth century who were specially trained for the work of popular preaching — namely the Dominicans and the Fran- ciscans— who humoured the corrupt taste of the time, and flavoured their pulpit addresses with such stories and buffooneries. If the multitude were amused for the moment, and the begging friar who tickled their ears got his reward of a collection,10 the end aimed at was gained, and the Penny-Preacher (as Brother Berthold of Regensburg, as early as the thirteenth century, calls this set of preachers) could go on his way rejoicing. It is nothing wonderful that even Catholic literary historians, like the learned continuators of the Histoire literaire de la France, condemn a style of pulpit eloquence such as this; or that even in the beginning of last century a Dominican like the learned Jakob Eckard, pronounced the stories with which the brethren of his Order were accus- tomed to amuse their audiences, to be " stale and absurd."11 But if a contemporary like Wiclif was able to see these serious evils in their true light, and condemned them in so decided a tone, we have here a proof that his judgment had been enlightened and sharpened by the Word of God ; and all the more so that he was himself a large sharer in many of the pulpit faults of his own time in other respects. The second objection which he took to the prevailing pulpit fashion of his age, was that even when the Word of God was preached this was not done in the right way. Preachers were in the habit of breaking down the Bible- thoughts into the smallest and finest particles, and of making moral applications of them in a style so loaded with orna- ments of all kinds, including even the use of rhyme, that the language of (Scripture was thrust into the background, and the language of the preacher came alone to be regarded, as if he were himself the author and discoverer of God's truth. This practice, he remarks, comes from nothing else but the pride of men. every one socking his own honour, every one preaching only himself and not Jesus Christ (2 Cor. rcr. 5). On all such preaching Wiclif pronounced the judgment that it is a dead word, and no1 the word of our Lord Jesus Christ — not the word of eternal life (John vi. 68). And it was this prevailing want of the true seed of the word of life which was to blame, in his view, for the spiritual deadness of the THE STATE OF THE PULPIT. 207 people, and for the wickedness which, as the fruit of this deadness, prevailed in the world. These were weighty truths, having a bearing much wider than a mere reform of preaching, and looking in the direction of a reformation of the Church at large, yea of a regeneration of Christendom from the life-seed of the Word of God. Meanwhile, let us limit ourselves to the pulpit, and take a close view of the strictures which Wiclif makes on the prevalent preaching of his time. Even in cases where God's Word is preached, and not matters of quite another kind, he censures, as already remarked, the manner in which this is done, and what he disapproves of is twofold — first, the scholastic form of preaching ; and next, its rhetorical ornamentation.12 As to the former, Wiclif takes notice of the method of endless logical distinctions and divisions.13 This practice had found its way into the pulpits from the lecture rooms of the scholastics. It was connected with the whole dialectic habit of the middle age, a habit which appeared in frequent definitions, hair-splitting divisions and sub-divi- sions, and in endless syllogistic processes of proof. Hence arose a series of treatises on Method, in particular of helps to the preparation of sermons ; e.g., a treatise by an anony- mous author of the year 1390, under the title of The Art of making Sermons, in which the syllogism is held up as the ground form to which everything else is to be reduced. As to the other point, the rhetorical and poetical ornament with which preachers thought they were bound to set off their sermons, Wiclif repeatedly returns to it.14 He goes into this subject so minutely as to enumerate and set in their true light the grounds upon which men sought to excuse if not to justify the practice, in order to bring into the light the self-conceit which lay at the bottom of it, and to warn preachers against it. The first ground which was alleged in support of the prac- tice was that there was a necessity to give up the old style of preaching and introduce a new one, otherwise there would be no longer any difference between a thoroughly-schooled divine and a poorly-educated priest of the middling sort. To this ground Wiclif allows no weight whatever. It savours, he justly remarks, of nothing else but vain glory, and a desire to take precedence of others. " Not so, be- loved. Let us rather follow the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was humble enough to confess, ' My doctrine is not mine, but the Father's who sent me. He who speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory.' " 208 LIFE OF WICLIF. The second ground upon which men took their stand was this: every subject treated of must have a form answerable to itself. Now, theology is the most perfect of all subjects. It behoves, therefore, to be clothed in the most honourable and beautiful form, and that is the dress of oratory and poetry. Wisdom only becomes perfect when it is set off with eloquence. But to these ideas "Wiclif opposes himself in the most decided manner. This ornamental speech upon which men so plume themselves is so little in keeping Avith the subject of God's Word that the latter is corrupted by it, and its power paralysed for the conversion and regenera- tion of souls. God's Word, according to Augustin, has a peculiar and incomparable eloquence of its own, with all its simplicity and modesty of form. The third ground relied upon was an appeal to the poetical form of several books of the Old Testament, from which it was argued that it is the duty of a theologian to be guided by this precedent, especially as poetry has a charm of its own, and is further of advan- tage for helping the memory. To wdrich Wiclif replies — " It is one thing to sing a spiritual song and another to speak a word of warning. The measure of verse has, it is true, a certain charm, but only a sensuous charm, which rather draws off the soul of the hearer from the spiritual and eternal subject of discourse, and destroys his taste for spiritual nourishment." How sound and good, and worthy of being laid to heart even at the present day, these thoughts of Wiclif are, it is hardly necessary for us to point out at any length. But his criticism has a positive as well as a negative side, and bears upon both the two questions which have here to be distin- guished— what to preach, and how to preach it. To the first he replies, as what precedes shows, it is God's Word that should be preached, for God's Word is the bread of souls, the indispensable, wholesome bread ; and therefore, he thinks, to feed the flock, in a spiritual sense, without Bible truth, is the same thing as if one were to prepare for another a bodily meal without bread.15 God's Word is the life-seed which begets regeneration and spiritual life.16 Now, the chief business of a preacher is to beget and to nourish up mem- bers of the Church.17 Therefore it is God's Word he must preach ; then only will he succeed in these aims. This was why the Church of Christ grew so mighty when the Gospel was preached by the Apostles, whereas at the present day the Church is continually decreasing for the want of this spiritual seed.18 If the prophets of the Old Testament WHAT TO PREACH, AND HOW TO PREACH IT. 209 preface their prophecies with " Thus saith the Lord," and if the Apostles proclaim the Word of the Lord, so must we too preach God's Word and proclaim the Gospel accord- ing to the Scriptures.19 There is one point in particular to which Wiclif draws attention — that believing Christian men, who are really preaching the Gospel, must necessarily give the first place to the preaching of the Gospel history, for in that holy history lies the faith of the Church, which the con- gregation is bound to learn and know.20 " The priests learn and teach holy Scripture for this purpose, that the Church may learn to know the walk of Christ, and may be led to love Christ himself." 21 To the question, How ought the Word of God to be preached? Wiclif replies in general terms, that the truth which edifies ought to be uttered aptly. Of course this taken alone does not amount to much. Coming close to the subject, he calls to his aid the general rule, that every mean subservient to an end is so much the better adapted to that end, the shorter and completer the way is in which it leads to it (compendiosius et ooplasms). As now the sowing of God's Word is the appointed mean for the glory of God and the edification of our neighbour, it is plain that the sowing is all the more aptly done the more shortly and completely it fulfils that end. But, without doubt, this is the case with a plain and simple mode of address (plana locutio), and this mode is therefore 1hat which ought to be made choice of.22 In another place Wiclif expresses his preference for a humble and homely proclamation of the Gospel, and by this he no doubt meant nothing else than this plainness and simplicity of language. And he proceeds on the same principle wheu he remarks — " It was because a flowery and captivating style of address cannot fail to be of little account wherever the right substance of preaching is present, that Christ pro- mises to His disciples (Matt. x. 19) no more than that it would be given to them ivhat they should say. The how must then follow in a manner suitable to the what."23 That the admonitions which occur in a sermon should be suitable to the state of the audience is a self-evident deduction from the same principle. The utterance given to the truth ought to be apposite and fitting (apte loqui veritatem). Only one tiling must never on any account be wanting — genuine devout feeling— the fidelis sermonis ministratio — from which everything in the sermon is the outcome. " If the soul is not in tune with the words, how can the words have power ? If thou hast no love, thou art sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."24 Still there is nothing inconsistent with this in 0 210 LIFE OF WICLIF. the requirement that the preacher should use sharpness of speech (acuti sermones) upon proper occasions. Wiclif re- marks that it must not be supposed that sharpness includes in it malice or ill-feeling. Christ contended sharply with the Pharisees, but he did so out of a pious heart and from love to the Church.25 His last observation on the subject is the crowning one, that "in every proclamation of the Gospel the true teacher must address himself to the heart, so as to flash the light into the spirit of the hearer, and to bend his will into obedience to the truth.''-1' Such are the positive requirements which Wiclif lays down for preaching and preachers. Let us see how far he complied with them himself as a preacher, taking into view his Latin as well as his English sermons.29 What does he preach? He will preach God's Word, not man's ; not worldly things will he preach, but the saving truth. This is what we feel to be his spirit everywhere. That he always takes his texts from the Bible, either from the Church lessons or freely chosen texts, according to circumstances, is a matter of slight im- portance. But he is also fond of connecting one Bible text with another — one lesson for the day with another, e.g., to combine one Sunday Gospel with the Gospel for the pre- ceding Sunday, or with the epistle for the same ; and while doing so, he dwells with admiration upon the excellencies ot the Word of God, as when he observes in one place, that Scripture truths stand in such an intimate connection with each other, that every one of them lends support to every other, and all of them unite in the revelation of God.30 Further, in all cases where he pronounces a judgment upon any doctrine which is before him, or upon any eccle- siastical custom and institution, it is always the Bible which he employs as the standard. He goes back to the teaching of the Redeemer ; he points to the Apostles and their pro- cedure ; the authority of the Primitive Church is everywhere appealed to. To bring out the doctrine of the Scriptures (fides Scripturae) as of supreme authority, is his highest aim. And how much his sermons are saturated with Bible thoughts and interwoven in their whole tissue of thinking and presentation Avith Bible reminiscences, the sermon marked No. III. in the Appendix, may be taken as a proof, which is given as a sample. And with reference to Wiclif s advice mentioned above, that the Biblical history especially should be preached to the people, it should not pass with- out mention that he very frequently narrates, in a clear and simple style, the history contained in the Gospel for the day, interweaving the story with explanatory remarks. wiclif's own preaching. 211 After doing so, it is true, he not unfrequently passes on to set forth the " mystical sense " of the passage. On one occasion he justifies this with the words, " To get at a mean- ing of this history, which will be good for the edification of the people, its mystical sense has to be considered." 31 I find, however, that Wiclif's " mystical interpretation," as he makes use of it in the Latin sermons, sometimes consists in nothing more than a simple bringing out of religious truths, and a moral application to his hearers, and to the present time, of the features of the history which he takes for his text. There are many things, indeed, largely handled in these sermons, which are far from being Biblical subjects, such, e.g., as the Standing and the Rights of the Papacy, the Landed Endowments of the Church, Monachism, and particularly the Mendicant Orders, etc. In this way much matter is brought into discussion, and polemically handled, which is ecclesias- tical and even ecclesiastico-political ; and this seems at first sight to be out of keeping with his own principle, that the matter of preaching should be God's Word. But when I look into the scope and object of these polemical and ecclesi- astico-political discussions, I come to this result, that it is always the Bible which the preacher apj:)lies to these ques- tions as his rule of judgment, and that he has never any other aim in view but to establish Apostolic doctrines, and to realise again, in the present, the conditions of the primi- tive Church. It would be an injustice, therefore, to look upon all these parts of his sermons as digressions, by which Wiclif became untrue to his own principle, that the Gospel is the proper subject of all preaching. There is only one thing about his sermons which must at once be conceded, and that is that the innermost kernel of the Gospel (accord- ing to the conviction of evangelical Christendom in our own time) is not to be met with in them, i.e., the doctrine of reconciliation through Jesus Christ and the way of salva- tion, especially of the justification of the sinner through faith. But this is not the proper place to go into this feet, to which we shall hereafter return in our analysis of Wiclifs doctrine. When we examine the sermons of Wiclif in reference to their form, their manner of presentation, style, and tone, we meet also here with appearances which cannot but seem strange to us when put alongside of his own principles respecting the form of preaching. For we find scholastic formulas, abstract ideas, formal definitions, learned investiga- tions, syllogistic and dialectical argumentation, all in a measure which we should not have expected from him in 212 LIFE OF WICLIF. view of the homiletic maxims which he has himself expressed. But there are two things here which we must not leave out oi sight: first, the circumstance that the Latin sermons, as remarked above, were probably preached in Oxford before the University, or at all events, before audiences made up of men of learning-. In such circumstances the preacher had no need to let himself down to so plain a style as would have been necessary in addressing- a rural congregation. On the contrary, "Wiclif did right to keep in view the require- ments of a University church, and the style of preaching to which such hearers were accustomed. No wonder, then, that we find so much in the form of these sermons, which, to ourfeeling, appears more suitable to the lecture-room than the Church — to the chair of the professor than to the pulpit. And secondly, in order to form a just judgment, we ought not to under-estimate the force of custom and influence which the forms of thought and style prevalent throughout the whole of a period, exercise, sometimes unconsciously, even upon the most distinguished genius. On the other hand, however, we remark that even in these sermons there is no lack of that plana locutio which Wiclif recommended to preachers. The style is very often simple and clear, the mode of expression not without vividness, sometimes picturesque and apposite to popular taste, and here and there too, especially in polemical pas- sages, not without a touch even of banter and raillery. The tone is by no means uniformly didactic; on the contrary, it rises every now and then into considerable animation — into moral pathos, as, e.g., where he is speaking of prayer, and is commending general prayer in comparison with intercession for particular prayers. The preacher, after referring to an argument which was used on the other side, exclaims, " 0 ! if the Apostle had heard this piece of subtle hair-splitting, how much would he have despised it."32 hi the English sermons, we find still more frequently a plain and popular, even a drastic style of speaking, and a moving heart-felt tone, especially when the preacher antici- pates the judgment-seat and the last reckoning. In the sermon on the second Sunday of Advent, we meet with this passage, e.g., " Faith in earnest in this third coming of Christ ought to draw men away from sin and attract them to virtue. For if they had to appear to-morrow morning before an earthly judge, and mighl either win or lose great revenues as the result, they would surely prepare themselves with all diligence for the trial. How much more so if they were to win or to lose their lite itself! Lord, as we are THE TONE OF WICLIF'S SERMONS. 213 certain of this, that the day of the Lord will come, and we know not how soon, and as judgment will then pass upon us, to adjudge us either to life in heaven or to everlasting death in hell, how diligent do we behove to be to make ready for the event ! Verily, it is our lack of faith which is to blame for our indolence ; let us therefore make fast in our convictions the articles of the truth ; these become loose in us like nails in a beam of timber, and so we need to drive them home with the hammer and make them fast," etc., etc.33 Lastly, as concerns the tone of these sermons, and the moral spirit which dictates their whole cod tents, it will not be easy for any one who allows them to work upon him without prejudice, not to receive the impression that there is here a veritable zeal for the glory of God — a pure love to the Redeemer, and a sincere concern for the salvation ot souls. There reigns throughout them a truly godly mind, whose habit is to view all that is earthly in its relations to a higher world, and to deal with it all in the light of eternity. It is impossible to think otherwise of such a preacher, so full of earnest godliness and Christian conscientiousness, but that he must have made a deep impression upon all men who did not deliberately stand aloof from the sphere of his influence and power. SECTION II. — Wiclifs Itinerant Preachers. If Wiclifs work as a preacher in the University was im- portant, it may be expected beforehand that he also did a true and blessed work among his flock at Lutterworth, as a parish priest. In the last years of his life, as we shall see below, he was shut out from the University of Oxford, and was thus able to devote to the pastoral office the whole time and strength which yet remained to him. First, let us be allowed to introduce here a picture whose original has been conjectured, not without good grounds, to have been no other than Wiclif himself. Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry, as he is commonly called, was a younger contemporary of Wiclif; but though he satirises the sins and infirmities of his time without sparing even those of the clergy, he was certainly not a man whose spirit was congenial with Wiclifs. He was entirely a man of the world, of aesthetic culture, enlightened, and an enemy to all superstition, but also to all religious earnestness a stranger. He knows, however, how to value what is good and worthy of honour wherever he finds it. And so, in the prologue to his Canterbury Tales, which are an imitation of 214 LIFE OF WICLIF. Boccacio's Decamerone, he has interwoven the following beautiful description of a country priest, which includes, at all events, some lineaments of VYielif : — " But rich he was of holy thought and work, He was also a learned man — a clerk, That Christ's Gospel truely would preach, His parishens devoutly would he teach. Benign he was, and wondrous diligent, And in adversity full patient ; And such he was yproved often sithes (times), Full loth were him to answer for his tithes, But rather would he given, out of doubt, Unto his poor parishioners about Of his offering, and eke of his substance. He could in little thing have Buffisance. Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder, But he ne left nought for ne rain nor thunder. In sickness and in mischief, to visit The farthest in his parish, much and lit (great and small), Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff. This noble example to his sheep he yaf (gave), That first he wrought and afterward he taught." There are several features of this portrait which agree with the character of Wiclif, and not a single feature can be detected in it which does not suit him. The humility, the contentment, and the unselfishness ; the moral spotless- ness, the compassionate love, the conscientious and diligent faithfulness in his office, and the Biblical matter of his ser- mons,— these lineaments are all apposite. The learning of the man is also made prominent. Pre-eminently like him also is the oneness of teaching and conduct exhibited in the pic- ture; the doing of the good going before the teaching of it. The remark of Vaughan, indeed, has some ground, that in these characteristics of a country priest, the grand features of Wiclif as a Reformer are entirely wanting. But this circumstance by no means tells against the conjecture that the poet intended to paint Wiclif as a pastor, and nothing else. For it is not merely doubtful, but in the highest degree improbable, that Chaucer had any apprecia- tion of the great Reformation-thoughts and strivings of Wiclif, or ever gave them any recognition in a practical form. Chaucer took up a position in reference to ecclesi- astical matters which may most readily be compared with the mode of thought of many of the humanists at the beginning of the sixteenth century — an open eye and a mocking laugh for all clerical failings and weaknesses, but no heart for the earnestness ami the sanctity of the sub- ject. But undoubtedly he had a sense for moral excellence in humble life wiclif's itinerant preachers. 215 If Wiclif, by his conscientious faithfulness in the pastoral cure, stood forth as a model preacher and pastor, he worked in this way effectually for the elevation of the office, even if he had done nothing more. But he did not confine him- self to this : both by word and deed he laboured to promote everywhere the right preaching of the Gospel, and the most effective instrumentality which he used for that end was the institution of a Preaching Itinerancy. It has long been known that Wiclif sent out itinerant preachers of the Gospel. Lewis, it is true, only touches the subject incidentally, in so far as he mentions one or another English tract in which Wiclif speaks of " poor priests," and in their defence. Vaughan, on the other hand, has gone fully into the subject, and has given a clear and distinct picture of those diligent and devoted men.34 Shirley also has deter- mined several interesting points of view in regard to the whole institution.35 The subject is now well understood to a certain extent. There are still, however, certain questions of importance relating to it, which have never yet received an answer, or rather it has hardly yet occurred to any one to propose them. The questions are these : At what date did Wiclif begin to send out itinerant preachers'? And how was he led to entertain the idea of such a step at all? It happens in this case, as so often in history — an important phenomenon steps, mature and in full form, into the light. While it was preparing itself in the silence it was never thought of; all at once it stands revealed before the world. At the end of May 1382, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay, in a mandate addressed to the Bishop 01 London, spoke of " certain unauthorised itinerant preachers who, as he had unhappily been compelled to learn, set forth erroneous, yea, heretical assertions in public sermons, not only in churches, but also in public squares and other pro- fane places," and " they do this," as he adds with special emphasis, under the guise of great holiness, but without having obtained any episcopal or papal authorisation-"36 That the Primate means by these men real Wiclifite itinerants, appears with certainty from the twenty-four articles of doctrine annexed to the mandate, all of which, with hardly an exception, belong to Wiclif. To this same date must also belong several English tracts in which Wiclif undertakes the defence of the proceedings of the itinerants. It is clear that in May 1382, the preaching itinerancy was already in full swing. But we should like to know its first beginnings, for it is only there we can get an insight into 216 LIFE OF WICLIF. the motives and causes which conspired to give it birth. On that subject Wiclif himself could best have given us information ; but he was not the man to speak much of a matter before he took action in it. At the utmost he justi- fied ami defended afterwards what had been done. It might be supposed that it was first at Lutterworth, in his quiet rural charge, that Wiclif began to send forth itiner- ant preachers. In this case the presumption would have readily offered itself, that he had sought and found in this new institute a substitute for the wider and more stirring sphere of work from which he had been cut off. To me, bowrever, it appears, on more than one ground, that Oxford was the cradle of the new institution. First of all, it lies in the nature of the subject that the sending forth of itinerants could only have developed itself gradually, and in the course of several years. But as in May L'uS2, the >ublic attention was already drawn to it, and the itinerancy had manifestly been already for some time in full opera- tion,37 this takes us several years farther back, to a date when Wiclif resided in the University for a good part, at least, of every year. Besides, the work did not consist merely in the sending out of the preachers ; they must be prepared beforehand for their calling. This was the capital point, and this again could not be done in a hurry. This consideration carries our eye naturally to the University, especially as in the small town of Lutterworth we can hardly imagine such a circle of educated theologians being collected round the parish priest, even though the priest was a Wiclif. It is far easier to suppose that Wiclif, while still in Oxford, entered into close relations to a number of young men who were in part graduates in Arts and in part youths under age who were still in their undergraduate course. It is independently probable that a personality of such high distinction, as well in the held of learning as in practical church work, should have drawn around himself not a few susceptible young men, who desired to carry on their culture still further under his guidance. What we could not fail to conjecture beforehand is found to be confirmed by positive proof. An enthusiastic follower of Wiclif — William Thorpe — in his examination before the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, gave the following information concerning the course of his own studios, and his relation to Wiclif: "1 begged my parents for permission to go to such men as were reputed to be wise and virtuous priests, in order to receive their counsel, and to be instructed by them in the office and calling of TRAINING OF ITINERANTS. 217 the priesthood. As my father and mother gave their willing and hearty consent to this, I betook myself to those priests of whom 1 had heard that they bore the best names, and led the holiest lives — the most learned too, and the wisest in point of heavenly wisdom. And I remained long enough in intercourse with them to be convinced, by their constant occupation in what was virtuous and good, that their works, so rich in charity and worthy of all honour, even exceeded the fame which I had earlier heard ot them. It was then my en- deavour, after the example of their doctrine, but prin- cipally of their godly and blameless works, to come to a perfect knowledge of God's law, to the best of my ability, with the will and desire to frame my life accordingly." In the further course of his examination the Archbishop inquired, Who then were those holy and wise men whose instruction he had engaged? Whereupon Thorpe replied, "Magister John Wiclif was held by right many for the greatest scholar of that day; he was spoken of, at the same time, as a man of strict religious principles, and blameless in his walk." But, besides Wiclif himself, Thorpe names several of his admirers, such as John Aston, Nicolas Hereford, John Purvey, and others, and then continues thus, — " With all these men I was right-well acquainted, and for a long time had much intercourse with them, and received in- structions from them ; but from Wiclif himself most of all, as the most virtuous and most godly wise man whom I ever heard of, or whom I ever in my life became acquainted with."38 The whole account sounds as though Thorpe had enjoyed the instruction of all these men at the same time. If this is so, then Ave cannot think of Lutterworth, but only of Oxford, as the place where Thorpe had cultivated intercourse with those worthy men, and especially with Wiclif himself. This confession, therefore, leads us directly to the assumption that Wiclif had already begun in Oxford to train younger men to the priestly office, and in particular to the office of preaching, We shall scarcely err, if we assume that Wiclif, as long as he worked in Oxford as a Doctor of Theology, and was in the habit of preaching frequently, if not regularly, before the University, formed there a training school ot preachers, — a sort of Priest Seminary, which, however, was of an entirely private and voluntary character. I have not a moment's doubt, that while he was still in Oxford, Wiclif sent out as voluntary itinerant preachers, young men belonging to this circle, which had attached itself so 218 LIFE OF WICLIF. closely to his person, and had embraced his theological views and convictions as well as his practical Church principles. Perhaps the entrance which the first preachers of his school found among the people, and the warm acceptance which their sermons obtained in the country districts, gave fresh courage to himself and his scholars, so that the first itinerants were followed by ever increasing numbers, and the whole undertaking gradually took root and extended itself. Wiclif, of course, when, at a later period, he withdrew entirely to Lutterworth, did not give up this agency, but carried it on with all the more zeal, the more painfully he felt that, by his dismissal from the University, a field of richly blessed work had been closed to his ministry. But how was this agency meant? and how did the affair develop itself in actual life % Was it meant that a system- atic rivalry and opposition should be made by the itinerants against the parochial clergy ? The opponents of the move- ment naturally viewed it in this light, and even at the present day there are not wanting Roman Catholic historians who have admitted to their minds this idea.39 But how can this view of the subject be even thinkable, when the itinerants, on this supposition, would have pronounced sen- tence of condemnation upon the venerated master himself, who was never himself one of the itinerant preachers, but preferred to work precisely in the character of a parish priest among his own flock. Moreover, the hierarchy would certainly not have omitted to accuse the itinerants of hostility to the parochial clergy, and the calumniation of their char- acters ; but of this I find not a single trace. All they are accused of is that they promulgate erroneous doctrine, and that they preach at their own hand without episcopal sanc- tion. This, indeed, is only an argumentum ex silentio. But I am able to appeal, in support of the opposite view, to express testimonies as well, and these from Wiclif s own mouth. In his little book, Of the Pastoral Office, he does battle, indeed, with much degeneracy among the parochial clergy, with their worldliness, with their neglect in preaching the Gospel, with the evil custom of non-residence in their parishes. 40 Already, too, he appears as the advocate of "the simple priests," i.e., the evangelical itinerants ; but he stands up at the same time for the parish priests, if they only do their duty in some sort, lie defends their rights against the encroachments of the begging monks, and also in the face of the incorporation of parish tithes with foundations and monasteries, he roundly and clearly lays down the THE ITINERANTS AND THE PARISH PRIESTS. 219 principle, that all parishes should be able to pay for the ministrations which their pastors in humility render to them.41 Also in his Latin sermons, Wiclif blames, it is true, those parish priests who are " dumb dogs, and cannot bark" (Is. lvi. 10), or who preach onlv for selfish ends and ambition;41 but still he expects also great things from true and prudent pastors, 43 and lays upon the heart of the parochial clergy, the Redeemer's admonition, " Watch." It is their duty to keep watch over their flocks. And at the end of the tract to be mentioned below — ■ Why Poor Priests have no Tithes — Wiclif gives the ex- press assurance, that these priests, notwithstanding this difference in their position, pronounce no condemnation upon those pastors who do their duty and teach truly and steadfastly the law of God in opposition to the prophets and the decrees of the wicked fiend.45 According to all this, there is certainly no ground to assume that the Wiclifite itinerants allowed themselves to run down the parochial clergy as such without distinction ; although it cannot of course admit of a doubt that with regard to unconscientious and worldly-minded pastors and preachers, they were in the habit of expressing themselves in no very measured language. The sending forth of these itinerant preachers was a measure which, so far as I see, passed through several stages of development. In its first stage, the preachers were exclusively men who had already received orders. This appears from the title which Wiclif is wont to apply to them. In his work on The Pastoral Office, he calls them sometimes " presbyters," sometimes " priests," and yet in such a way as to indicate clearly by the con- nection, or by the use of epithets like faithful or simple priests, or presbyters, what description of clergy he means. However much his opponents may have looked down upon such men, as " uneducated" and " stupid" — a reproach which Wiclif bravely takes to be levelled against himself as well as others4*5 — they must still have been men who had received ordination, otherwise Wiclif would certainly never have applied to them the names of priests. And yet this name occurs both in his Latin writings and in his English sermons and tracts.47 With this also agrees the justification of the free preaching of every priest, which William Thorpe put forth in his examination before Archbishop Arundel a quarter of a century later, and which, without doubt, originally proceeded from the teaching of Wiclif himself. Thorpe expresses himself 220 LIFE OF WICLIF. in the following terms: — "By the authority of the Word ol God, and also of several saints and doctors, I have beeD brought to the conviction that it is the office and duty of every priest, faithfully, freely, and truly to preach God's Word.48 Without doubt, every priest, in determining to take orders, behoved to do so chiefly with the object of preaching the Word of God to the people to the best of his ability. We are accordingly bound by Christ's command and holy example, and also by the testimony of his holy apostles and prophets, under heavy pains, to exercise ourselves in such wise, as to fulfil this duty of the priesthood to the best of our knowledge and powers. We believe that this is the chief duty of every priest : to make God's will known to his people by faithful labour, and to publish it to them in the spirit of love, to the best of our ability, where, when, and to whomsoever we may ; this, by the high warranty of God's Word, is our true duty." Thorpe, who was an itinerant of Wiclif's school, speaks in this passage as a priest himself, and in the name of others like-minded with himself, who were also in priest's orders. But even in this first stage, where only priests went out as itinerants — two sub-stages must, I think, be distinguished from one another. At the beginning of the movement, it was scarcely laid down as a principle, that no one was to accept a pastoral charge. At a later stage, men made a virtue of necessity, and the principle was adopted, that even if such a charge might be obtained, it was better not to accept it. This is the position taken in the tract, Why Poor Priests have no Beneficed and the principle just named is justified on three grounds. 1. Generally speaking, no benefice is to be obtained without simony, whether the right of collation be in the hands of a pre- late or a temporal lord. 2. That the beneficed priest, by reason of his dependence upon his ecclesiastical superiors, will be compelled to give up to them, contrary to right, all that portion of his revenues which exceeds his own necessities, and which by God's law and public right, ought to be expended upon the poor. 3. A priest with- out benefice, not being bound to a particular parish, and being free of the jurisdiction of sinful men, is left at liberty to preach the Gospel wherever he can be of use, and can also without hindrance flee from one city to another, according to Christ's instruction, in case he should be persecuted by the "clergy of Antichrist." But in the second stage of the matter, a step full of LAY-PREACHERS. 221 importance was taken in advance. The adoption of lay preaching was resolved upon, as it had been practised •before among the Waldensians, with whom lay preaching had been a powerful factor of their whole movement ; and yet, (so far at least as I know the writings of Wiclif), he was not at all aware of this precedent, and acted quite independently of it. That lay preachers appeared among the Lollards after Wiclif s death does not admit of a doubt, but that even in his lifetime, and with his knowledge and approval, lay- men were employed as itinerant preachers, I believe I am able to prove. It is certainly no accidental circumstance that Wiclif in sermons of his latest years, when he refers to his beloved itinerants, no longer speaks of them as poor priests, or simple or believing priests, but on all occasions applies to them the names of evangelical men, or " apostolic men."50 It looks as if, in such places, he intentionally avoided the name of priests, because this was now no longer applic- able to all the itinerants. But still more clearly does this appear from a passage in the " Dialogus," or " Speculum Ecclesiae Militantis." In this piece, which was written, certainly not earlier than 1381, and probably not before 1383, when comparing the beneficed clergy with the itiner- ants, he makes use of these words: "And as respects the fruits of preaching, it appears certain that a single unlearned preacher effects more, by the grace of God, for the edifica- tion of the Church of Christ than many who have graduated in schools or colleges, because the former scatters the seed of the law of Christ more humbly and more abundantly both in deed and in word." 51 But the most convincing passage of all, to my mind, is that which occurs in one of his later sermons, where Wiclif shows with great emphasis that for a ministry in the Church the Divine call and com mission are perfectly sufficient ; there is an installation by God Himself, although the bishop has given in such a case no imposition of hands, in accordance with his traditions.52 If the fact was so, as we have now, we believe, shown to be probable, that the "Itinerancy" began at a time when Wiclif still belonged to the University, we are justified in further assuming that Oxford was the starting-point, and that the country immediately surrounding this city was the first theatre of the new movement. It then spread itself from thence more widely in the land. From several facts, attested by written documents, it appears that the town of Leicester was a second centre of the Wriclifite itinerancy — a fact which was, no doubt, connected with the 222 LIFE OF WICLIF. circumstance that in the last years of his life Wiclif had his settled residence in Lutterworth, which lay in the county of Leicester. One of the first who appeared as an itinerant preacher was John of Aston. He was followed, also in Wiclif 's life-time, by William Thorpe, already mentioned, and others. These men went forth in long garments of coarse red woollen cloth, bare-foot, and staff in hand, in order to represent themselves as pilgrims, and their wayfaring as a kind of pilgrimage ; their coarse woollen dress being a sym- bol of their poverty and toil ("poor priests"). Thus they wandered from village to village, from town to town, and from county to county, without stop or rest, preaching, teaching, warning, wherever they could find willing hearers, sometimes in church or chapel, wherever any such stood open for prayer and quiet devotion ; sometimes in the church-yard when they found the church itself closed; and sometimes in the public street or market place.53 Their sermons were, before everything else, full of Bible truth. This was to be expected from them, for these men had all gone forth from Wiclif s school, had imbibed his principles, and had all formed themselves as preachers upon his model. They had learned to regard as their chief duty "the faithful scattering of the seed of God's Word;" and their sole aim was to minister sound nourishment to the people.54 " God's Word," " God's Law," therefore, was not only their text, but their theme ; and it agrees perfectly with the picture which we could not fail beforehand to draw for ourselves, when the Leicester chronicler, who tells us that he had more than once been a hearer of their preaching, testifies that the preachers were continually enforcing that "no man could become righteous and well- pleasing to God who did not hold to God's law, for that," says he, "was their favourite expression — 'Goddis lawe,'55 to which they were ever appealing in all their addresses." Wiclif himself, in his English tract, Of Good Precliyng Prestis, sets forth, that their first aim was directed to this, that God's law should at all times be known, taught, applied, and highly regarded."'1 But that these sermons or exhortations57 were less of a dogmatic than an ethical character, we may gather not only from the name which, after Wiclif s example, they were in the habit of applying to the Word of God, — viz., God's law, — but also from the confirmatory statements of Wiclif and their opponents. In the tract just mentioned. Wiclif states that the second aim of the " good preaching priests " was that all gross open sins prevailing among different ranks, and WHAT THEY PREACHED AND HOW. 223 also the hypocrisy and erroneous teaching of Antichrist and his followers, i.e., the Pope and the Popish clergy, should be done away ; while, in the third place, they strove to promote true love in all Christendom, and especially in England, and so to help men to reach securely the blessed- ness of heaven.58 The form and language of these addresses behoved, according to Wiclifs principles, to be plain and simple.59 But these men, according to all the notices which we pos- sess of them, must have been in the habit of using language of a very emphatic and trenchant description : and this, as well when they laboured directly for the awakening and moral regeneration of the people, setting eternity before their eyes, and exhorting them to live in Christian brother- hood and peace and beneficence, as when they depicted the prevailing sins of the time, held up before all ranks their vices and lusts, and especially exposed to reprobation the vices of the clergy — their hypocrisy, sensuality, avarice and ambition. From the description given of these popular discourses by the ear-witness of Leicester, entirely adverse as he was to the movement, one receives a vivid impression both of the winning attractiveness and unction, and of the arresting and subduing power by which they must have been characterised.*30 When we remember the moral ear- nestness, and the crushing power which we have felt in Wiclif himself as a preacher, we cannot wonder that his scholars also, men in earnest with " God's Law," should have rebuked the prevailing sins of the time without reserve and with all sharpness. Of course this severity of speech, especially when they directed it against the hierarchy, offended the latter in the highest degree, and slanders were spread about the preachers, that the only thing they were able to do was to abuse the prelates behind their backs ; they were undermining the whole frame of the Church ; they were serpents casting forth deadly poison.91 Against these calumnies Wiclif defended his followers in a tract entitled The Deceits of Satan and his Priests. ''Al- mighty God who is full of love, gave commandment to his prophets to cry aloud, to spare not, and to show to the people their great sins (Isaiah lviii. 1). The sin of the common people is great, the sin of the lords, the mighty and the wise, is greater, but greatest of all is the sin of the prelates, and most blinding to the people. And therefore are true men by God's commandment, bound to cry out the loudest against the sin of the prelates, because it 224 LTPE OF WIOLIF. is in itself the greatest, and to the people of greatest mischief." °2 Wiclif, as Ave before had occasion to see, sent forth a con- siderable number of tracts which related exclusively, or at least chiefly, to the itinerant preachers of his school. There are still extant both English and Latin writings of this kind. Those in English are all defences of the preachers, some of them taking the form of controversy against their opponents. To this class belong, e.g.. the following tracts: — Of Good Preaching Priests,® Why Poor Priests hare no Benefices,** Of Feigned Contemplative Life,65 0/ Obedience lo Prelates,66 Mirror of Antichrist.67 These writings, it is true, are all placed by Arnold among the works of doubtful authenticity. Among the Latin writings is, e.g., the small tract. Of Academic Degrees, including a defence of the itinerants; the sole object of which is to prove that the preaching of the Gospel by men who are not graduates is justified by the [Scriptures, and allowed by the Church.68 ' While the tracts hitherto named treat chiefly of the itinerants, but were in the first instance intended less for them than for the people, and in part for the learned class (such as the tract last mentioned), there is also a small book which I find among Wiclif's writings, which was com- posed primarily and directly for those simple preachers them- selves. I refer to the tract of The Six Yokes. For as to the so-called Letter to the Simple Priests, it is neither, as I have been convinced for some years, a real letter in form (although it occurs under this title in two catalogues of Wiclif's writings made at the beginning of the fifteenth century), nor does it relate to the itinerants, but obviously treats of ordinary parish priests. The whole appears to me to be a fragment either taken from some tractate, or (which I think quite possible) from a Latin sermon.09 The tract of The Six Yokes, on the other hand, appears to me to have been designed by Wiclif for those of his friends who devoted themselves to the itinerancy. Its very commencement indicates this, — "In order that unlearned and simple preachers, who are burning with zeal for souls, may have materials for preaching," etc. And as this is the only tract of Wiclif known to us which was written for this purpose, and is besides fitted to give us some insight into the substance of these popular preachings, and particularly into their moral exhortations and reproofs, I think it advis- able to publish it at full length, in Appendix No. 7. I must here remark', however, that the materials of this tract wiclif's tracts on the itinerancy. 225 were originally interwoven with several of his Latin sermons, and were only subsequently formed into an independent whole. For 1 find in the Sai?lts, Day Sermons, some of the same portions which now form several chapters of the tract.70 The English sermons, too, lately issued by the Clarendon Press, leave the impression, at least in several places, of being sketches intended by the author for the use of others rather than his own. At the end of the very first of them, e.g., occurs the remark, " In this Gospel of the day priests have occasion to speak of the false pride of the rich, and of the luxurious living of great men of the world, and of the long-enduring pains of hell and the blessedness of heaven ; and may so extend the sermon as circumstances require." Still more characteristic is the concluding remark of the second sermon. " Here the preacher may touch upon all manner of sins, especially those of false priests and traitors of God, whose duty it is to deal faithfully with the people for their salvation, and to show them the way of the law of Christ, and the deceit- ful wiles of Antichrist."71 These and other passages, of which we could mention several more, lead us to the con- jecture that these sermons of Wiclif were composed by him, in part at least, for the benefit of the itinerants of his school, in the way of helps and guides, and collections of materials. At all events the fact is certain that no inconsiderable part of the literary labours of Wiclif centred in the Institute founded by him for this preaching itinerancy, and was designed to be serviceable to the preachers, either in the way of defending them from attack, or assisting them in their work. NOTES TO CHAPTER VI. 1. Comp. Shirley, Fasc. Zisan., 305. Cum Magister Nicolwus (Hereford) in Quad- ragesima prcedicasset publice in Ecclesia B. Virginia in lingua latina coram toto clero, etc. 2. Evangelia de Sanctis, No. 3, fol. 5, col. 2 of the Vienna MS. 3928. (Denis CCCC.) 3. Twelfth Sermon, fol. 28, col. 4 of the same MS.: — Nam f rater alienigena, de regno suo piortans pecuniam paucam, ut theologiam discat Oxonice, etc. 4. No. 24 in the Twenty-four Miscellaneous Sermons, fol. 185 f. of the same MS. 5. The two oldest extant catalogues of Wiclif's writings, found in two Vienna MSS., dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century, agree in giving this collection the title XL. Sermones compositi dum stetit in sckolis, in contrast to another collection which is entituled, Sermones XX. compositi in fine vitae suae. This confirms the correctness of an observation which I had made before this notice was known to me. 6. This collection of sermons stands beside a collection of Sermons for Saints' Days (written later), and of twenty-four Miscellaneous Sermons (also dating from Wiclif's last years), and also beside a few short essays, in the Vienna MS., 3928 (De"nis CCCC). The collection of forty sermons (which, however, number only thirty-eight) begins at fol. 193 of the MS., and the two sermons on Luke vi. 4 are the eighth and ninth in number of the collection, fol. 206-210. The second of these two is of sufficient importance, in our view, to be printed at full length in the Appendix, No. 5. 7. In the sermon last mentioned (comp. preceding note), Wiclif reminds his hearers of the exhortation of the Apostle Peter, " If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God ;" and declares that men now-a-days in preaching do not preach the Word of God, but gesta, pocmata rel fabulas extra corpus Scripturae, fol. 208, col. 1. He says the same thing in the sermon preceding, fol. 206, col. 3. In a later collection of sermons, 61 Evangelia de Sanctis — in sermon 56 he speaks of tragoediae rel comoediae et fabulae vel sententiae apocriphae, quae sunt hodie populo praedicatae. And in the work De Officio Pastoraii, Leipzig 1S63, v. II., c. 5, p. 37, he says of the Mendicant Monks, Et tota solicitude est eorum, non verba erangelica et saluti subditorum ntilia seminare, sed fraudes, joca, mendacia, per quae possuni populum facilius spoliate. Also in the Treatise, De Veritate S. Scripturae, Wiclif lays down the principle : Theo/ogus debet seminare veritatem Scripturae, non gesta rel chronicas mundiales. 8. Sermo magistri Stephani de Lungeduna, Archiep. Cantuar. de Sancta Maria, in the Arundel MSS. of the British Museum. Wright gives the whole sermon in his Biographia Britannica Lit. II., 446 f. 9. An elder contemporary of Wiclif, Thomas Walleys, an English Dominican, fl340, published a book, entituled Metamorphosis Ovidiana Moraliter Explanata, which was printed six times at least onwards from the end of the fifteenth century. Comp. Histoire Literaire de la France. Quatorzieme siecle. Tom. XXIV., p. 371 and LI. And another Dominican, an Oxford Doctor, John Brom- yard, drew up a collection of histories, alphabetically arranged under certain heads, which were all intended for the use of preachers (hence the title of the work : Summa PraedicanUum) ; but his histories are in good part taken from the popular story-tellers. Hist. Liter, de la France, XXIV., 372. NOTES TO CHAPTER VI. 227 ] 0. Wiclif - Dc Officio Pastoral i, II., 5 — thinks that the pei iple she mid despise such monks as preachers, for an additional reason — viz., because it was their custom to make a collection immediately after their sermons. 11. In 1719, the French Dominican, James Echard, published vol. I., and in 1722 vol. II., of a collection, in historical order, of the works of his Order, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, etc. in which he speaks strongly enough of the Dominican style of preaching in the fourteenth century, and censures those historiolas incptas et insidsas, II. 762. 11. In the sermon referred to above, fol. 208, col. 1, it is said of the modern preacher : Praedicando Scripturam dividet ipsam ultra minuta naturalia, et allegabit moralizndo per colores rithmicos quousque non appareat textus Scripturae. 12. In the same sermon, fol. 208, col. 2 — Inanis gloriae cupidas est qui in nititur divisionibus verborum. Illi invicem invident qui nedum divisiones thematis sed cujuslibet autoritatis occurrentis ingeminant. 13. Ars faciendi sermones. The tract begins with the proposition — Haec est ars brevis et clara faciendi sermones, secundum formam syllogisticam, ad quam omnes alii modi sunt reducendi. Comp. Hist. Liter, de la France, XXIV., 365. 14. He censures the ambitiousness which aims to exalt itself by the use of yrandia verba, and disapproves of the attempt to give a more beautiful form to the sermon by the color rhetoricus and by colligantia rithmica, i.e., rhymes ; he goes the length even of maintaining that by this declamatio herolca, etc., God's Word is only falsified. 15. The twenty-second of the Sermons for Saints' Days (61 Evangelia de Sanctis). Idem est spiritualiter pascere auditorium sine sentcntia erangelica, ac si quis faceret vonvivium corporate sine pane. Vienna MS., 3928. fol. 42. 16. Miscell. Sermons, No. 8. Verbum Dei habet vim regencrativam. In the same MS. as above, fol. 206, col. 3. 17. The twelfth sermon of the same collection has these words — Prtecipuv.m officium viri ecclesiastici est gignere membra ecclesiae, etc., fol. 52, col. 1. Again, in ninth sermon, p. 207, col. 4 —Sacerdos Domini missus ad gignendum et nutriendum populum verbo vitae. 18. Sermons for Saints' Days, No. 22. Quando praedicatum est ab apostolis evangelium crescit ecclesia in virtute, sed modo, ex defectu spiritualis scminis, con- tinue decrescit, fol. 42, col. 3. 18. In sermon 20 of a Collection of Miscellaneous Sermons — MS. 3928, fol. 176, col. 2 — Wiclif says : Auditus tarn praedicantis quam etiam scrmonem audi- entis debet fieri verbo Christi; ethinc est quod prophetce legis veteris dixerunt, "haec dicit Deus," et apostoli praedicaverunt verbum Domini. Farther on he mentions that the whole congregation testifies their veneration for the Gospel, " for when the Gospel is read the people rise to their feet and remain standing — they remove their hats and bonnets, cross themselves, and listen with attention, and kiss the wall of the church ; while the men of rank lay aside their swords. And all this is done to show their devotion before the Gospel of Jesus Christ, while men oft- times deny the Gospel by their deeds. 19. In the twenty -second of the Sermons for Saints' Days, fol. 42, col. 2. 20. Sacerdotes ad hoc discunt et docent Scripturam sacram ut ecclesia cognoscat conversationem Christi et amet eum. MS. 3928, fol. 202, col. 4, Sermon VI. 21. Sermon 9. Appendix 3. 21. Sermons for Saints' Days, No. 31. MS. 3928, fol. 65, col. 1. 22. In the same sermon, fol. 61, col. 4. 23. No. 30 in the same collection, fol. 60, col. 3. Verba exhortationis sun congruentiae auditorii applicanda. 24. XL. Miscell. Sermons, No. 8, fol. 206, col. 2. 25. XXIV. Sermons, No. 4. MS. 3928, fol. 138, col. 4. 26. Same collection, No. 20, fol. 176, col. 1. 228 LIFE OF WICLIF. 27. Vaughan in his Life and Opinions, etc., published pome extracts from Wiclif's English sermons, upon the basis of which Engelhard wrote his " Wykliffe as a Preacher. Erlangen 1834." But these sermons, which, in their complete form, had remained till lately in MS., have been recently given to the world in an excellent form by Thomas Arnold from the Clarendon Press, forming two volumes of Wiclif's Select English Worts. 28. XL. Sermons, No. 11, fol. 213, col. 1. 29. Comp. XL. Miscell. Sermons, No. 5, fol. 201, col. 1. 30. XXIV. Miscell. Sermons, No. 10, fol. 153, col. 3. 31. Sermon on the Gospels, ed Arnold, v. I, 27th serin., p. 70. 32. Life and Opinions, etc., II., p. 139 f. 33. Do. II., 163 f. John de Wy cliff e— a monograph. 1853, p. 275 f. 34. In the preface to his edition of the Fasc. Zizaniorum, p. xl. f. He justly remarks there that this feature of Wiclif's practical church reform has engaged the attention of his biographers much less than it ought to have done. 35. The document is printed in Wilkins' Concilia Magnae Britanniae, III., fol. 158 f. Comp. the Missive of the same Prelate, dated two days earlier, and running in about the same terms, to the Carrnelite, Peter Stokes, in Oxford. Fasc. Ziz., p. 275. 36. Sane frequenti clamore et divulgata fama ad nostrum pervenit auditum, etc. Fasc. Zizan., p. 275. 37. The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, edit, by Townsend, v. III., 256 f. 38. E.g., Lingard — History of England, v. IV. — maintains that the Wiclif preachers thought very meanly of the whole body of the parish priests. 39. Tn one place— De Officio Pastorali, I., c. 17 — he refers to them as pseudo- pastores. 40. In the same treatise, II., 5, he says : Appropriationes ecclesiarum cathedra- Hum defraudant parochias a praedicatoribus Icgitimis rerbi Dei. Deberet p>arochiis cunctis sujficere servitium, quod sacerdotes propril humiliter subministrant. 41. XL. Miscell. Serm. No. 29, MS. 3928, fol. 283, col. 3. 42. Sermons for Saints' Day, No. 56 as above, fol. 117, col. 1. 43. XL. Miscell. Serm. as above, fol. 194, col. 2. 44. Comp. Vaughan, Life and Opinions, II., 169. 45. De Officio Pastorali, II., c. 10, p. 45. Nobis rudibus, comp. II., c. 4, p. 36 ; dicunt de talibus presbitcris, quod sunt stolidi ac rudes. 46. Treue Preestis (True Priests). Sermons published by Arnold, v. I., p. 176, f. II., p. 173, 182 ; pore prestis (poor priests), tract Lincolniensis in Miscellaneous Woi-ks, p. 231. Fifty Heresies and Errors of Friars, c. 36, p. 393. Great sentence of ours expounded, c. 9, p. 293 ; comp. De ecclesia et membris ejus, c. 2, in three Treatises, by John Wycklyffe ; ed. Todd, p. xi. This moveth por prestis (poor priests) to speke now hertily in this mater. 47. That it is everie priest's office and duty for to preach busilie, freely, and truelie the worde of God. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, v. III., p. 260. 48. Vaughan, in Life and Opinions, etc., v. II., p. 164 f., has given large ex- tracts from this tract, which he regards as an indubitable work of Wiclif ; but Arnold, in his Select Works, vol. III., p. xx., places the tract — Whi pore prestis han no benefice, at least among the works of doubtful authenticity. 49. Sermons for Saints' Days, Nos. 31, 37, 53, MS. 3928, fol. 61, col. 2 and 3 ; fol. 76, col. 4 ; fol. 109, col. 1. 50. Dialogus, or Speculum Ecclesia; .Wlitantis, c. 27, Vienna MS. 13S7 (De"nis CCCLXXXIV.), fol. 157, col. 1 ; and the like words again occur in full in the short piece, De graduation ib us Scholasticis,. c. :{, MS. 3929 (Denis CCCLXXXV), fol. 249, col. 2. The words run thus— Quantum ad f ruction, cert inn videtur quod unus ydiota, mediante Dei gratia, plus proficit ad edificandam Christ) ecclesiam, NOTES TO CHAPTER VI. 229 quam multi graduati in scolis sive Collegiis, quia seminat humilius et copiosius legem Christi, tam opere quam sermone. 51. Sermons for Saints' Days, No. 8, MS. 3928, fol. 17, col. 1. Videtur ergo, quod ad esse talis ministerii ecclesise requiritur auctoritas acceptations divinse, et per consequens potestas ac notitia data a Deo ad tale ministerium peragendum, quibus habitis, licet episcopus secundum traditiones suas non imposuit illi manus, Deus per se instituit. 52. This description rests upon several attestations of friends and foes — the latter of an official as well as private character. A document both official and of certain date is the missive given above of William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, of 30th May, 1382, directed against certain itinerant preachers, alleged to be both unauthorised and heretical, published in Wilkins' Concilia, and in Shirley's Fasc. Zizan., p. 275. Among other things it is said— Quidam, aeternae damnationis ftlii, sub magnae sanctitatis velamine, auctoritatem sibi vindieant praedicandi — tam in ecclesiis quam in plateis et aliis locis profanis dictae nostrae provinciae, non rerentur asserere, dogmalizare et publice praedicare. Wiclif himself defends the practice of his friends in preaching everywhere with- out distinction of place, in the 37th of his Saints' Day Sermons. Videtur mihi quod sacerdos zelans pro lege Domini, cui negatur pro loco et tempore praedicatio verbi Dei, debet usque ad passionem martyrii, in casu quo non debet esse sibi conscius, p>rae^ca^onem vel hortationem, in quocunque loco auditorium habere potest, asserere rerbum Dei. Sic enim Ckristus non solum in sinagogis sed in castellis (Mat. ix. 35) constailtius praedicabat. Locus enim non facit sanctum populum, sed e contra. Vienna MS. 3928, fol. 75, col. 3. The Chronicler of St. Albans, Thomas Walsingham, narrates under the year 1377, that Wiclif, partly to disguise his heresy, and partly to spread it more widely, entered into alliance with other men as associates, living partly in Oxford, and partly in other parts of the kingdom, and he describes them talaribus iudutos vestibus de russeto, in sigimm perfectionis amplioris, incedentes nudis pedibus, qui suos errores in populo vcntilarent, etc. He remarks, col. 2657, that he had himself heard several of these men preach. 53. De Officio Pastorali, II., c. 3, p. 34. Salubiter popido praedicantes. 54. Knighton De Eventibus Angliae, col. 2664. Talem enim habebant terminum in omnibus suis dictis semper praetendendo legem Dei, Goddis lawe. 55. Of Good Prechyng Prestis. Comp. Shirley, Original Works of Wiclif, p. 45. Lewis — History of John Wiclif, p. 200 — gives the commencement of the piece, which indicates, at the same time, its chief substance. Arnold in Select English Works, III., p. xix., places this piece among the works of doubtful authenticity. 56. In more than one passage which treats of the Itinerants, Wiclif puts together praedicationes and exhortationcs. 57. Of Good Prechyng Prestis. Comp. Vaughan, Life and Opinions, etc., II., p. 187. 58. De Officio Pastorali, II., c. 3, p. 34. Debet evangelisator praedicare plane evangelicam veritatem. 59. Henr. Knighton, De Eventibus Angliae in Twysden's Historiae Anglicae Scriptures, v. III., col. 2664. Doctrina corum in quibuscumque loquelis in principio dulcedine plena apparuit et devota, in fine quoque invidia subtili et detractione plena defioruit. Comp. col. 2660. Frequenter in suis sermonibus— clamitarerunt, Trewe Preachoures, False Preachowes. 60. The Archbishop of Canterbury in his Mandate of the year 1382, mentioned above. 61 On the deceits of Satan and his priests, after Vaughan, Life and Ofiinions, etc., v. II., p. 184 f. 62. Comp. Lewis, History, p. 200 ; Shirley, Catalogue, p. 45, No. 32. 63. Of feyned contemplatlif lif, Shirley. Comp. Lewis, p. 198. No. 107, 42, No. 2(i. 64. Shirley, 40, No. 1 2. 230 LIFE OF WICLIF. G5. Shirley, 11. No. 17. Vaughan, Lifi and Opinions, II., p. 188 f, under the title, On the Four l>c graduationibus schotasticis, in three chapters, in Vienna MS., 3929 (Denis CVCLXXXV., foL 217, col. 2, 250, and in other MSS). 67. The Epiatola Mi.ixa ad Simplices Sanrdotts is mentioned in both the Catalogues drawn up in Bohemia, which Shirley printed in his " Catalogue"— the first from the Vienna MS., 3933 (Denis CCCXCI.), fol. 195 ; the second from Dmis CCCXCIIL, fol. 102. Conip. especially pp. 62, 68 in "Catalogue." Shirley placed too much confidence in these notices when he printed in his Intro- duction to the Fane. Zizan. the supposed letter (to which he gave, at his own instance, the name of a circular), p. 41, note. The text which he gives requires, indeed, some not inconsiderable corrections, and yet it proves clearly enough that it has no reference to the Itinerants, and in no case was a letter addressed to that elass. 68. The first chapter of the treatise forms the close of the twenty-seventh sermon in the Evanyelia dc Sanctis, in Vienna MSS., 3928, fol. 53, col. 4 ; fol. 54, col. 2. The second and third chapters make up the greatest part of the twenty-eighth ser- mon, from fol. 54, col. 4 onwards. The fourth chapter, again, forms the conclud- ing part of one sermon, viz., the thirty-first, fol. 62, col. 3. The fifth chapter makes the second half of the thirty-second sermon, fol. 63, col. 3. ; fol. 64, col. 3 ; and even so does the last chapter form the second half of the thirty-third sermon, fol. 65, col. 3 ; fol. 66, col. 2. It is not, therefore, quite accurate when Shirley observes of the tractate, De sex juyis, that it is an extract from the Sermon II., No. 27 ; for in this sermon only the beginning of the tractate is to be found, at least in the M8. which I have made use of. There is also observable a difference in the ways in which these several sermons are manipulated to make out the several chapters of the tractate ; for while what is used of the first sermon is closely interwoven with the contents of the first chapter, the portions of the other sermons made use of are only mechanically attached to the following chapters, inserted into them, so to speak, like fragments of exploded stone. 69. Sermon on the Gospels, v. I., 3-6. ADDITIONAL NOTE TO CHAPTER VI., BY THE TRANSLATOR. THE POPULARITY OF WICLIF AND HIS EARLIEST DISCIPLES AS PREACHERS IN LONDON. If Wiclif had confined his teaching to the schools of Oxford, it would have been only slowly and indirectly that his Reformation principles would have reached the ears and the convictions of the general public. But there is some evidence to show that he was occasionally a preacher in the pulpits of London, anil that he spoke out as boldly in the crowded churches of the capital of the kingdom as he had done for many years before in the learned disputations of the University. Nor is proof wanting as to the effects which his preaching produced among the London citizens. The Vhronicon Any I ice, referred to in a former " Additional Note," is again available here, and supplies us, in particular, with some curious facts, which are new to history, touching the moral and religious influence which the Reformer's preaching began to exercise even upon the municipal administration of the city, during the mayoralty of John of Northampton. At p. 116 of the C'/ironicon we read as follows: — "Haec et his multo graviora," referring to the new doctrines, "cum palam non tantum Oxoniaj tractasset in scholia, sed etiam in civitate Londoniarum publics prcedicasset. .... invenit quod diu quaesivcrat, videlicet <|Uosdam regni dominos, vel magis recte diabolos qui ejus amplecterentur deliramenta Quorum suffultus patrociniis multo audacius et animosius communicavit excominunicatam materiam, ita ut non solum dominos sed et simplices quosdam Londoniensium- cives secum EFFECTS OF WICLIF'S PREACHING IN LONDON. 231 attralieret in erroris abysmum. Erat utique non solum facundus sed simulator, etc. (vide Additional note to Chapter V.), ut magis falleret commune vulgus. Qui profecto mollis argumentis, nulla scientia in Deo fulciebatur et floruit, ut opiniones suas probabiles demonstraret, sed sola compositione verborum quae satis eructavit. Unde intricavit minus doctorum aures audientium et ventos pavit inaniter sine1 fructu. Dux tamen et dominus Henricus Percy ejus sententias collaudabant, et scientiam et probitatem coelotenus extollere satagebant. Accidit que ut eorum elatus favore, suas vanitates multo amplius dilatare non pertimesceret, sed de ecclesia in ecclesiam percurrendo auritms insereret plurimorum insanias suas falsas. Unde, licet sero, episcopi stimulati, excitarunt patrem suum archiepiscopum quasi de gravi somno, et quasi potantem crapulatum a vino, vel potius mercenarium avaritise inebriatum toxico, ut ovem errantem revocaret a tarn manifestae perdi- tionis pabulo, et curandum committeret stabulario, aut, aliud si res exigeret, uteretur abscissionis ferro." Here, then, we learn, for the first time, what it was in Wiclif 's doings that first stimulated the bishops to take public action against him — not so much his quiet teaching at Oxford, nor his learned judgments given to the King and Parliament on the points in debate between the kingdom and the Curia, but the wide-spreading effects of his preaching in the churches of London, de ecclesia in ecclesiam per- currendo. He was gaining the ears of the multitude, and was making proselytes not only among the highest nobles of the land, but among the masses of the common people. Nor was it long before his preaching began to tell even upon the proceedings of the mayor and common council of the city. One of Wiclif 's loudest complaints in the pulpit was directed against the corrupt remissness of the clergy, in the exercise of the discipline of the Church against adulterers and fornicators of both sexes. Transgressors of the seventh commandment had been long allowed to compound for their immoralities, and the clergy put money into their pockets by betraying the interests both of public and domestic virtue. The Reformer's indignation passed into the hearts of his London congregations. Many of the citizens resolved to take steps to reform so clamant a social disorder, and the Monkish Chronicler of St. Albans has handed down to us the following long-forgotten record of the rough- handed discipline which was brought to bear upon a batch of the most notorious offenders. " Londonienses isto tempore cceperunt ultra modum insolescere in perniciosum exemplum urbium aliarum. Revera freti Majoris illius anni (1382), Johannis Northamptone auctoritate superciliosa, praesumpserant episcopalia jura, multas dehonestationes inferentes in fornicationibus vel adulteriis deprehensis. Captas nempe mulieres in prisona quae vocatur Dolium apud eos primo seclusas incar- cerarunt, postremo perductas ad conspectum publicum, descissa caesarie ad modum furum quos appellatores dicimus, circumduci fecerunt in conspectu inhabitantium civitatem, praecedentibus tubicinis et fistulatoribus, ut latius innotescerent personse earundem. Nee minus hujusmodi hominibus pepercerunt, sed eos injuriis multis et opprobriis affecerunt. Animati enim fuerant per Joanncn Wyil'fe et sequaces ejus ad hujus modi perpetrandum, in reprobationem pralatorum. Dicebant quoque se abominari curatorum non solum negligentiam, sed et detestari avaritiam, qui studentes pecuniae, omissis poenis a jure limitatis, et receptis nummis, reos fornica- tionis et incestus favorabiliter in suis criminibus vivere permiserunt. Dicebant se utique pertimescere, ne propter talia peccata in urbe perpetrata sed dissimulata, tota civitas quandoque, Deo ulciscente, ruinam pateretur. Quapropter velle se purgationem facere civitatis ab hujusmodi inquinamentis, ne forte accideret eis pestis aut gladius, vel certe absorberet eos tellus." — Chronicon Anglice, p. 349. I add the Monk -Chronicler's portrait of the Lord Mayor of the time, John of Northampton, by whose authority these disciplinary severities had been carried out. He was evidently a follower of Wiclif, and an admirer of his preaching ; and the influence of this first Lollard Lord Mayor was, upon the Chronicler's own showing, of great account in the city. " Erat autem Major eorum homo duri cordis et astutus, elatus propter divitias et superbus, qui nee inferioribus acqniescere, nee superiorum allegationibus sive monitis flecti, valeret, quin quod inceperat proprio ingenio, torvo proposito ad quemcumque finem perducere niteretur. Habcliat plane totius communitatis assensum ad nova molicnda." CHAPTER VII. WICLIF AS BIBLE-TRANSLATOR, AND HIS SERVICE DONE TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Section I. — The Novelty of the Idea of an English Translation of the whole Bible. IN the preceding chapter we have seen Wiclif laying down the principle, that in preaching, God's Word must be taught before everything else, because this Word is the wholesome and indispensable household bread, the seed of regeneration and conversion. Nor was it only in theory that he laid down this principle. How he knew to establish and elucidate it as a matter of doctrine we shall have opportunity to see by and bye when we come to represent his whole dogmatic system. But he also carried out the principle in life and action : first, in his own person as a preacher ; and next, by sending out itinerant preachers to proclaim the Divine Word. But the same principle led him also to the work of Bible-translation. Wiclif was a character who had no love for doing anything by halves. When once he recognised a principle to be right, he knew how to carry it out completely on all sides ; so here in particular. The principle that God's Word should be preached to the people, be expanded into the principle that Scripture must become the common good of all. And as a means to this end, he saw the necessity of the Bible being translated into the language of the country, with the view of giving it the widest possible diffusion among the population. This was a thought so great, so new, and so bold for that age, that we become eager to learn what were the pre- paratory middle stages through which Wiclif was conducted to that great plan and its execution. But in order to under- stand the undertaking in its peculiarity and greatness, we must first have before us a clear idea of what was the posi- tion of this matter before Wiclif took action in it. Sir Thomas More, the well-known statesman under Henry VIII., repelled the charge laid against the hierarchy at the time of the Reformation, that it had withheld the Holy ALLEGED OLDER TRANSLATIONS. 233 Scriptures from the people during the Middle Ages, by the assertion that it was not true to fact, and that Wiclif was by no means the first man who had undertaken a translation of the whole Bible into English for the use of the laity, for com- plete English translations of it had existed long before Wiclif's time. He had himself seen beautiful old manuscripts of the English Bible, and these books had been provided with the knowledge of the Bishops.1 Nor was More the only one who claimed to have knowledge of English translations of the Bible before Wiclif; several Protestant scholars of the seventeenth century were of the same opinion. Thomas James, the first librarian of the Bodleian, a very diligent and indefatigable polemic agaisnt the Papists, had held in his own hands an English manuscript Bible, which he judged to be much older than the days of Wiclif.2 Archbishop Usher followed in the same line, when he assigned this alleged pre-Wiclifite version to about the year 1290.3 And Henry Wharton, the learned editor and completer of Usher's work, even believed himself able to show who the author of this supposed translation was, viz., John of Trevisa, a priest in Cornwall,4 But all these suppositions rest upon error, as was seen several years later by the last named investigator him- self, who corrected both his own text and that of Usher.5 Those manuscripts of the English Bible seen by Sir Thomas More, and later by Thomas James, were, it is cer- tain, nothing more than copies of the translation executed by Wiclif and his followers. There is documentary evidence to show that at the time of the Reformation there were several manuscripts of this translation in the hands of Roman Catholic Prelates. Bishop Bonner, e.g., was possessor of one which is now preserved in the Archi episcopal Library of Lambeth, and a second copy is now in Magdalen College, Cambridge, which belonged in 1540 to a Knight of St. John, Sir William Weston.6 Besides, if the fact were correct, that there ever existed any older English translation of the whole Bible, some sure traces of it on the one hand would not have been wanting, and on the other we may feel very certain that, in that case, the Wiclifites would not have omitted to appeal to that fact in justification of their own undertaking. But it is quite clear from their writings that they knew nothing of any older translation ; but, on the contrary, re- garded their own version as the first English version of the whole Bible.7 Only in one solitary instance, in a tract of the years 1400-1411, is mention made, in defence of the right of possessing the Bible in the English tongue, of the fact 234 LIFE OF WICLIF. that a citizen of London, of the name of Wering, was in possession of an English Bible, which many had seen, and which appeared to be 200 years old.8 Assuming that this statement of age was trustworthy, the translation in question could only have been one belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period. And how stands the case with regard to translations of that period ? All the attempts at Bible-translation and commentary which are known to date from Anglo-Saxon times belong to that period which is called, by linguists and literary historians, the old Anglo-Saxon period, reaching down to A.D. 1100; while the new Anglo-Saxon or Half-Saxon period extends from 1100 to 1250. Now, the old Anglo-Saxon literature is comparatively rich in productions which treat of biblical subjects, both in verse and prose. To these belong the poems which go under the name of the monk Caedmon (f 680, Beda, Hist. Eccl. gentes Anglorum, IV. 24), con- taining editions of several Old Testament passages.10 Bishop Aldhelm,of Sherborn,f 709, according to the testimony of Bale, translated the Psalter ; and an Anglo-Saxon paraphrase of the Latin Psalter, which was discovered in the royal library of Paris at the beginning of the present century, is considered to be in part the work of Aldhelm. The Venerable Bede, also, while producing works for the learned, comprising all the erudition of the age, was not forgetful of the wants of the common people. We know, under his own hand, that he made a translation of the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer into Anglo-Saxon, and presented copies of it to the less educated among the priests with whom he was acquainted ; indeed, his latest work was an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospel of John, which he had no sooner finished than he expired, in the year 735. u The greatest of the Anglo-Saxon princes, King Alfred, is known to have entertained at least the design of making parts of Scripture accessible to his subjects in the mother tongue. Not long after his time there existed a Saxon translation of the Gospels, of which several MSS. have been preserved; and if the Psalter attributed to Bishop Aldhelm should not turn out to have been his work. its date, at least, cannot be later than the tenth century, In addition, two Latin MSS. of the Gospels, with interlinear Saxon glosses, reach up to the days of Alfred, who died in 901.12 Similar glosses upon the Psalter and the Proverbs are known to scholars, which are conjectured to belong to the same century. Towards the end of the tenth century, the monk and NOT. INTENDED FOR POPULAR USE. 235 priest, Aelfric, had the extraordinary merit of executing a translation of selected parts of the Books of Moses, with Joshua and Judges, Kings, and Esther ; and, in addition, of Job and the apocryphal books of Maccabees and Judith ; while in his eighty Homilies he greatly promoted Bible knowledge by his renderings of the text, and by quot- ations from the Bible at large. The writings which have descended to the present time are sufficient to prove that the Anglo-Saxon Church was in possession of a very con- siderable amount of biblical material in the mother tongue. But when we reflect how much of this literature must have perished during the Danish incursions and conquests, and at a later period, in consequence of the Norman Invasion, we must form a very different conception of its extent from what is suggested by its existing remains. These Saxon glosses and translations, however, continued to be in use among the Saxon part of the population during the Norman Period — a fact which is gathered with certainty from the circumstance that several of the MSS. in question were not executed till the twelfth century. In little more than a century after the Norman invasion, the Norman population possessed a prose translation of the Psalms, as well as of the Latin Church hymns, in their own language, the Anglo-Norman. This was the case even before the year 1200 ; and towards the middle of the thirteenth century the Normans had not only a Bible history in verse reaching down to the Babylonish captivity, but also a prose translation of the whole Bible. It is a remarkable fact, in- deed, attested by men of special learning in this field, that the French literature of the mediaeval age was extremely rich in translations of the Bible — that it surpassed indeed in this respect the literature of all the other European peoples.13 Still it must always be borne in mind, as respects England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, that the Norman tongue was only the language of the dominant race, of the higher classes, spoken at Court, in the seats of the nobles and bishops, in the courts of justice, the churches, and the gar- risons,'while the Saxon lived on among the middle and lower strata of the population, the traders, artizans, and peasantry. The Anglo-Norman translations of portions of the Ih'ble could only therefore be of use to the privileged classes, while the mass of the people enjoyed none of the benefit, but on the contrary were all the less considered and provided for the more those classes were satisfied who had the power of the country in their hands. But from the middle of the thirteenth century the Saxon 236 LIFE OF WICLIF. element grew in strength, both in the population and the language. From that date the English language takes its development in three periods: Old English from 1250-1 3.r>0, Middle English to 1500, New English from the sixteenth century downwards. As in Anglo-Saxon and most languages, so also in Old English, the earliest attempts in Biblical subjects are of a poetical kind. Such is the " Ormulum," a Gospel harmony in verse without rhyme,14 a work, however, not of a kind to make way among the common people. Another form some- what later describes the chief facts of the First and Second Books of Moses.1*"' To the end of the thirteenth century belongs a translation of the Psalter in verse, the language of which is simple and full of expression. The oldest prose translation of a Bible book into Old English dates from the fourteenth century — about 1325 — and, what is remarkable, two translations of the Psalms in prose appeared almost simultaneously. The one was exe- cuted by William of Shoreham, a country parish priest, in the county of Kent ; the other was the work of an Eremite, Richard Rolle, of Hampole, who died in 1349. The former wrote the Psalter, verse by verse, in Latin and English, the translation being in general faithful and verbal, except that the author often substitutes the words of the gloss in place of the text. The other, the so-called Hermit of Hampole, had written in the first instance a Latin Commentary to the Psalms. This occasioned him afterwards to translate the Psalter, and to publish it with an English Commentary.16 According to a notice in English verse, found in one of the numerous MSS. of this work, and which dates from the fifteenth century, the author undertook the work at the request of a worthy nun, Dame Margaret Kirkby. The author's original was still to be seen in the nunnery at Hampole ; but many copies of it had been vitiated by the Lollards in the sense of their doctrines — an imputation which the editors of the Wiclif Bible have found destitute of all confirmation, although they have examined many MSS. of this translation and commentary on the Psalter. ir A third translation of the Psalter— which is found in a Dublin MS. of the fifteenth century, and has been supposed to be the work of a certain John Hyde, because the book was at one time his property — appears from the specimens given of it to be nothing more than a revision of the language of the translation of Shoreham.18 To state the whole result for the period, as well of the Anglo-Saxon as of the Norman and the Old English tongues, it stands as follows : — RESULTS OF LATER INVESTIGATIONS. 237 1. A translation of the entire Bible was never during this whole period accomplished in England, and was never even apparently contemplated. 2. The Psalter was the only book of Scripture which was fully and literally translated into all the three languages — Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Old English. 3. In addition, several books of Scripture, especially Old Testament books, were translated partially or in select passages, e.g. by Aelfric, laying out of view poetical versions, and the Gospel of John, translated by Beda, which celebrated work has not come down to us. 4. Last of all, — and this fact is of great importance, — in none of these translations was it designed to make the Word of God accessible to the mass of the people, and to spread Scriptural knowledge among them. The only object which was had in view was partly to furnish aid to the clergy and to render a service to the educated class. SECTION II. — How Wiclif came to engage in this Undertaking. Considering that this was the state of things down to the middle of the fourteenth century, the fact becomes one of a highly important character that only thirty or forty years later a translation of the whole Bible had been executed, and that, too, with the destination of becoming the common good of the nation. And this was the work and merit of Wiclif. To what extent he did the work of translation with his own pen, it will hardly ever be possible to ascertain with perfect certainty ; but so much as this is certain, that it was he who first conceived the idea of the work, that he took a personal share along with others in the labour of its execution, and that the carrying through of the work was due to his enthu- siastic zeal and judicious guidance. This fact is so strongly attested by manifold testimonies of friends and foes as to be put beyond all doubt. Knighton, a chronicler of the period, in a passage which was probably penned before the year 1400, laments the translation of the Bible into English, and ascribes it quite categorically to Wiclif. He maintains that Christ gave the Gospel, not to the Church, but only to the clergy and doctors of the Church, to be by them communicated to the weaker sort and the laity, at need ; whereas Wiclif has rendered the Gospel from the Latin into English, and through him it has become the affair of the common people, and more accessible to the laity, including even the women who are able to read, than it used to be to the well-educated clergy. The pearl is now thrown 238 LIFE OF WICLIF. "before; swine and trodden under foot," etc.19 When the chronicler speaks of" the Gospel" here, we are not to under- stand him in a restricted sense, as though he meant the translation of the New Testament only as distinguished from the Old, or even the Gospels only in distinction from the other New Testament books. We are rather to understand that that name, as is so often the case, is used for the whole of Holy Scripture. If this is so, it needs no further proof to show that Knighton regarded the translation of the Bible as the work of Wiclif. We also find the idea and plan of a Bible-translation attributed to Wiclif in a document of official character. Archbishop Arundel of Canterbury and his suffragan bishops, in the year 1412, addressed a Avritten memorial to Pope John XXIII., with the petition that in the exercise of his plenary apostolic powers he would pronounce sen- tence of condemnation on the heresy of Wiclif and his party. In this document Wiclif is charged among other things with having contended with all his power against the faith and the doctrine of the Church, and, to make his malice complete, with having devised the plan of a transla- tion of the Holy Scriptures into the mother tongue. 20 The language here made use of, it may be remarked in passing, is a clear proof of the fact that before Wiclif's time there was no English translation of the Bible in existence. It is also evident from the words that it was not merely single books, but the whole Bible that had now been translated. The document, however, speaks only of the idea and the plan of the work, without ascribing to Wiclif himself its execution in detail, or the translation of the Bible in all its parts. By the side of these testimonies proceeding from oppo- nents may be placed the language of one of Wiclif's ad- mirers— John Huss — who says, in a polemical tract against John Stokes of the year 1411 : — " It is plain from his writings that Wiclif was not a German, but an Englishman. For the English say that he translated the whole Bible from Latin into English."21 The fact is certain, then, that Wiclif was the first to con- ceive the great idea, then entirely new, of a translation of the whole Bible, and of the Bible for the use of the whole people. What, then, we are led to ask, were the intermediate thoughts and preliminary stages by which Wiclif was led to the conception of this grand design ? As a great number of his writings have come down to us, it is natural that we should first look into these for wiclif's idea entirely new. 239 information on this point. If Luther in his day takes oc- casion, in letters from the Wartburg and later writings to refer every now and then to his Bible-translation, it might be supposed that Wiclif, too, must have had occa- sion to refer to a work whose importance and greatness lay so near his heart, and that such reference would be found to throw light upon the preliminary stages of the undertaking. But, in point of fact, it is very rare to find, either in his Latin or his English writings, any allusions to the work either while in progress or after its comple tion. The condition of things at that time, it must be remembered, was very different from what it was in the third and fourth decades of the sixteenth century. In Wiclif's day men could not conceal from themselves that the business was one attended with danger ; and therefore it was the part of prudence not to talk loudly of the matter, so long as it was only in progress. But, notwithstanding the almost total silence of Wiclif re- specting his own work, one circumstance, at least, is made probable, viz., that it was through the translation of several single books of the New Testament that he was gradually led to contemplate a complete version of the whole Bible. The editors of the Wiclif Bible — Rev. Josiah Forshall and Sir Frederick Madden — are of opinion that the earliest translation of a Biblical book executed by Wiclif was the Commentary upon the Revelation of St John.22 Now, it is true that, as early as the sixteenth century, Bishop Bale included among Wiclifs works an Explanation of the Apocalypse ; and Shirley has admitted the same without hesitation into his list of Wiclif's genuine writings.23 But for my own part, I do not see my way to attribute this Commentary to Wiclif; and all the less so, that the trans- lation of the text contained in the oldest manuscripts of the work does not agree with Wiclif's translation of it in his acknowledged version.24 The case is different, indeed, with the single Commen- taries on the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, as the English version of the Vulgate text given in these writings agrees with the Wiclif translation in its earliest form. But, in my judgment, the Commentary on the Gospel of Luke cannot be recognised as Wiclif's work, because the author in the preface writes of himself in a manner which is not at all applicable to Wiclif. The writer first introduces some words of Scripture, and then proceeds as follows: — "Therefore it is that 240 LIFE OF WICLIF. a poor, insignificant man (a caitiff), who, for a time, lias been inhibited from preaching, for causes known to God, writes the Gospel of Luke in English, for the use of the poor people of his nation, who understand little or no Latin, and are poor in wit and worldly wealth, but none the less are rich in good will to be well pleasing to God."" It is impossible to point out a moment in Wiclifs life when " for a time he was hindered from preaching the Gospel." For the allusion here has no appearance of being to a time of sickness, but rather to some hindrance on the part of ecclesiastical superiors. Thus understood, the side hint that the causes of the hindrance are known to God becomes all the more appropriate, as it hints at the wisdom of God's permission of the hindrance. The whole mode of expression appears to me to be of such a character as to indicate one of Wiclifs itinerant preachers as the writer, but not Wiclif himself."0 Nor does the preface to the Commentary on the Gospel of John speak for the authorship of Wiclif, when the author gives for his determination to write it the following reasons : — " Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, came into the world to save poor humble men, and to teach them the Gospel. Hence the Apostle Paul says that he and the other apostles of Christ are the servants of Christians for the sake of Jesus Christ ; and again he says, 'Let every one bear another's burdens, and so shall you fulfil the law of Christ.' Therefore it is that a simple creature of God, willing to help to carry the burden of simple, poor men who hold with the cause of God — writes a short gloss upon the Gospel of St. John in the English tongue, and only the text of the Holy Scriptures, and the plain, short sayings of holy doctors, Greek and Latin,"27 etc. This description of his own person suggests that he was writing anonymously ; whereas Wiclif, so far as I know, in all cases took the personal responsibility of what he wrote, not to mention the fact that, while he is always glad to have the support of passages in the fathers and later doctors of the Church, Wiclif never confines himself to a mere reproduction of the earlier authorities, as is done in the productions now in question, which, in substance, only give again in English what already stands in the "Catena Aurea " of Thomas Aquinas. However, as I have not been in a position to examine the manuscripts for myself, and can only rest my judgment upon the short extracts which are given in the preface to the Wiclif Bible, I do not pretend to be able to give an TRANSLATION OF A LATIN HARMONY OP THE GOSPELS. 241 authoritative judgment upon the subject. Only so much as this appears to be beyond doubt, that the writer or writers of these Commentaries must have belonged to Wiclif's school. The same thing must also be said of the author of a Com- mentary on the first three Gospels, who gave, in the same way, a translation of the Vulgate text, with commentaries from older fathers and doctors; for "The Servant of God" who encouraged the author to undertake the work gives utterance to precisely such principles as Wiclif maintained. In the preface to Matthew the author writes as follows : — " I was induced some time ago to begin this work by a man whom I take to be truly a servant of God, and who often requested me to undertake this work on the ground that the Gospel is the rule according to which it is the duty of every Christian man to live. Now, several writers had already translated this Gospel into Latin, a language which only the learned understand, and there are many people who would willingly know the Word of God if it were ren- dered into the English tongue. This would be of great utility to the soul of man, and to labour heartily for this useful end is the duty of every man who stands in the grace of God, and to whom God has given the needful knowledges," etc.28 Thus far, then, we have found nothing Avhich can be regar- ded with, an adetpaate degree of confidence as a preliminary labour of Wiclif in the work of Bible-translation. There is more reason for recognising as a work from Wiclif's hand the English translation of the Latin Harmony of the Gospels (en- titled " Series Collecta ") of Prior Clement of Lanthony in Monmouthshire, written in the second half of the twelfth cen- tury. For (1) this translation has always, from the sixteenth century, especially since Bishop Bale, been attributed to Wiclif, and never to any other man. (2) It varies very little from Wiclif's translation of the Gospels. (3) The preface of the translator (to be carefully distinguished from that of the Prior) is a double one, the one being identical with the pre- face which stands before the Commentary on Matthew's Gospel mentioned above, while the other was evidently intended from the first to be the preface to the translation of this Gospel Harmony ; and this latter preface has the unmistakeable stamp of thought and expression which is characteristic of Wiclif. The author of the Preface takes his start from the saying of Christ, " Blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it ; " and he draws from it in particular Q 242 LIFE OF WICLIF. the conclusion that " Christians should labour day and night upon the text of holy Scripture, especially upon the Gospel in their mother tongue.29 And yet," he remarks, "men will not suffer it that the laity should know the Gospel, and read it in their common life in humility and love." Hereupon he continues word for word as follows : — " But pleasure-loving learned men of this world reply and say. laymen may easily fall into error, and therefore they ought not to dispute upon questions of Christian faith. Alas ! alas ! what cruelty it is to rob a whole kingdom of bodily food because a few fools may be gluttonous, and may do themselves and others mischief by their immoderate use of such food.30 Quite as easily may a proud worldly priest fall into error contrary to the Gospel which is written in Latin, as a simple layman may err contrary to the Gospel which is written in English. When a child makes a slip in his first day's lesson, would there be any sense in making that a reason for never allowing children to come to lessons at all? Who then in this way of it would ever become a scholar ? What sort of Antichrist is this who, to the sorrow of Christian men, is so bold as to prohibit the laity from learning this holy lesson which is so earnestly com- manded by God ? Every man is bound to learn it that he may be saved, but every layman who shall be saved is a very priest of God's own making, and every man is bound to be a very priest.31 But worldly priests cry out that holy Scripture in the English tongue would set Christians by the ears, and would drive subjects into rebellion against their rulers ; and there- fore it should not be suffered among the laity. Woes me ! how can they more manifestly blaspheme God, the Author of peace, and His holy law, which everywhere teaches humility, patience, and brotherly love ? So the false Jews, espe- cially the high-priests, and scribes, and Pharisees accused Christ of breeding contention among the people. O Jesus Christ ! Thou who didst suffer death to establish thy law and to redeem Christian souls, put a stop to these blas- phemies of Antichrist and worldly priests. Help that Thy holy Gospel may be known and held fast by Thy simple brethren, and cause them to grow in faith and hope, in love and humility and patience, and with joy to suffer death for Thee and for Thy law. Amen ! Lord Jesu, for Thy mercy sake ! " I repeat, these are through and through genuine thoughts of Wiclif, spoken with godly warmth in his own simple but sharp and original style. The whole preface is THIS TRANSLATION PROBABLY WICLIF'S. 243 nothing else than a pleading for the translation of the Gospel into English, and for its diffusion among the laity. And if this preface was written properly for the translation of the Gospel Harmony, it lets us see that at that date, whatever that date was, Wiclif had already grasped the idea, " the Bible for the people ! " At the same time, this theo- logical vindication of the idea could not fail to lead on to the plan of a complete Bible version. It is to be regarded as a kind of temporary substitute for the latter that to that Gospel Harmony in English there was added an appendix containing first portions of the Catholic epistles, and then selected extracts from other parts of the Bible. This collection pre- sents variations in the different manuscripts in bulk, and also in the arrangement of the several pieces.32 In how far, how- ever, this appendix is the work of Wiclif, it has not hitherto been possible to ascertain. The second half of the fourteenth century produced another work of the same kind which is well worthy of attention, viz., a complete translation of all the epistles of Paul, in which the Latin and English follow each other paragraph by paragraph, or even verse by verse, in such a way that along with a very literal translation there are interwoven occasional explanations of single terms. The circumstance, however, that the full Latin text always stands first is a clear proof that the work could not have been prepared for the people, but rather for the less educated class of priests.33 All the writings hitherto mentioned were preparatory labours by which the proper landing-place to which they all tended was more and more nearly reached, viz., a pure and at the same time a complete English version of the whole Bible. SECTION III. — The Wiclif Translation. The New Testament was naturally translated first. Luther followed the same order nearly 150 years later. But the main difference in the two cases was that Luther trans- lated from the Greek original, Wiclif from the Latin of the Vulgate. There is no need to prove this latter fact. Wiclif had no knowledge of Greek, and everywhere it is Latin, not Greek, which is spoken of as the language out of which the version is made. That the translation of the New Testa- ment was Wiclif 's own work we may assume with a good degree of certainty, for this is the point upon which the testimonies of friends and foes, as given above, most 241 LIFE OF WICLIP. undoubtedly agree. If IIuss speaks of the whole Bible as translated by VVielif, we shall yet find immediately that a great part of the Old Testament was done by one of his friends, and our attention is thus directed chiefly to the New Testament as Wiclif's part of the work. And if Knighton speaks of " the Gospel," and " the Evangelical Pearl," the reference here is of course primarily to the New Testament. Add to this that there is a close resemblance of expression and style in the Gospels as compared with the other parts of the New Testament. The whole version has the appearance of being one casting. Prefaces are attached to the several Books. These, how- ever, are not original productions, but merely translations of the same prologues which usually precede the different books of Scripture in the manuscripts of the Vulgate of the four- teenth century. Whether these prefaces were translated by the same hand as the text has not been ascertained ; and there is some reason to suppose that they were not attached to the text at first, but were added afterwards — at least they are wanting in some manuscripts in the Gospels, and in other copies in the other books. Not unfrequently short explana- tions of words are admitted into the text. The different manuscripts, however, of this original version of the New Testament vary considerably from one another, as the Biblical text in several of them has undergone a considerable number of corrections and changes. The execution of the Old Testament of the work was taken in hand either while the New Testament was still in progress, or shortly after the completion of the latter, — and this not by Wiclif himself, but by one of his friends and fellow-labourers. The original manuscript of this part of the work, remarkably enough, has been preserved.34 A second manuscript, which was copied from this one before under- going correction, contains a remark which ascribes the trans- lation to Nicolas of Hereford ; and this remark, which was manifestly added no long time after, is worthy of full credit. Now, it is a peculiar circumstance that both these manu- scripts break off quite unexpectedly in the middle of a sentence, — namely, in the Book of Baruch, cap. 3, v. 20,35 — a fact which can only be explained by the supposition that the writer was suddenly interrupted in the work. And this supposition admits of being combined, without any pressure, with the fact attested by existing documents, that Nicolas of Hereford, Doctor of Theology, and one of the leaders of the Wiclif party in 1382, after a sermon preached by him before the University on Ascension day, was cited, in June of that NEW TESTAMENT FINISHED IN 1382. 245 year, to appear before a Provincial Synod in London, to answer for his teaching on that occasion. The result of his examination was that on 1st July sentence of excommunication was passed upon him. Against this sen- tence he appealed to the Pope, and, according to Knighton's Chronicle, went in person to Rome to prosecute his appeal, but was there thrown into prison, in which he remained for some years, when he was at length discharged, and returned to England.36 It is easy, therefore, to understand how Nicolas of Hereford came to be so suddenly interrupted in the middle of his work, and as it was impossible for him to carry on the work for several years, the fragment remained as it was when he was unexpectedly compelled to lay down his pen. If these combinations and conjectures rest upon any good ground, they furnish us at the same time with the advantage of a fixed date ; for supposing the above facts to be correct, we shall then be able to assume with some confidence that in June 1382, at the latest, the translation of the New Testa- ment by Wiclif's own hand must have been completed, if his fellow-labourer Hereford had already in the Old Testament advanced as far as the Apocrypha and was now in the middle of the Book of Baruch. The version itself affords proof that it was continued and finished by another hand ; and it is not improbable that the continuator was Wiclif himself. From Baruch hi. 20 the style is one characteristically different from Hereford's, as we shall have occasion to show in the sequel. The prologues to the books of the Old Testament, as in the case of the New Testament, are only a version of those which were then commonly found in the manuscripts of the Vulgate. For the most part they consist of letters and other pieces of Jerome. It must have been a heartfelt joy and deep satis- faction for Wiclif when the translation of the whole Bible was completed, and the great plan accomplished which he had so long cherished and pushed forward with so warm a zeal. This in all probability took place in the year 1382. But Wiclif was not the man to betake himself to rest in any single object attained by him. and least of all in this sacred cause. To him the translation of the Bible was not its own end, but only a means to an end, that end being to put the Bible into the hands of his own countrymen, to bring home the Word of God to the hearts of the English people. His next care, therefore, after the translation was ready, was to make it as useful as possible. For this purpose copies of it were now made, and in such a way that not only the whole 24 1' LIFE OF WICLIF. Bible, but also portions of it, and even single books, were copied out and circulated. Moreover, in many of these copies there were inserted a table of the Bible lectures for Sundays and all the feast and fast days of the ecclesiastical year, which table is still to be found in several of the existing manuscripts. And in order to put these lectures into the hands of many at a cheap price, books were also copied out which contained no more than these gospels and epistles. Of this sort are two manuscripts still remaining, which were written at all events before the close of the fourteenth century. But a still more important work became necessary. As soon as the English Bible was complete and came into use, the imperfections which clung to it began to be manifest ; and in truth it was not to be wondered at that the work should have considerable blemishes. Jt was a work of un- common magnitude, especially for that time, considering that it was executed under unfavourable circumstances by different hands, and without any firm basis of clear and con- sistent principles of translation having been previously laid down. The portion executed by Hereford, embracing the Old Testament books, had a character of its own, differing much from Wiclifs version of the New Testament in its method of translation, and in the form of its English idiom. These and other blemishes could not escape the notice at least of Wiclif himself. And without doubt it was he who suggested a revision of the whole work, perhaps undertook it with his own hand. Just as Luther, too, after his complete German Bible appeared in 1534, began ere long to revise it, and never ceased till his death to improve and polish it, partly by his own hand and partly with the assistance of Melancthon, Bugenhagen, Cruciger, and others. No marvel if the case was not otherwise with the English Bible of the fourteenth century. The revision was a work of time. Wiclif did not live to see it completed. The revised Wiclif Bible did not appear till several years after his death, and the improved form which it now assumed was essentially the work of one man who was a trusted friend of Wiclif, and in his last years his assistant in parochial work, John Purvey. This fact has been made not merely probable but certain by the learned editors of the Wiclif versions of the Bible, who have also shown that the probable date of the completion of the revision was the year 1388 — i.e., four years after \\icdif* s death.157 Before the appearance of the collected edition of the Wiclif translations just referred to, very confused and REVISION OF THE WHOLE OF THE WORK OF JOHN PURVEY. 247 mistaken ideas of the oldest English versions of the Bible prevailed. Not to speak of the already-mentioned and now exploded assertion of Sir Thomas More, that long before Wiclif's day there were already in existence complete trans- lations of the Bible in English, it was a common error, since Lewis's day down to 1848, to take the older translation of Wiclif for the later revised one, and to take the later for the older, i.e., for the genuine or unrevised work of Wiclif. More than this, down to the year 1848, no part of the older translation had appeared in print, with the exception of the Song of Songs, which Dr. Adam Clark had printed in his Bible Commentary from a manuscript in his own possession.38 The fact that the older genuine Wiclif translation had had the fate of being so long ignored is closely connected with the circumstance that it had been thrown into the shade and almost entirely superseded by the later improved version. For the later form of the text of the translation was eagerly sought after. Copies of it came into the hands of people be- longing to all classes of society. These copies must have been multiplied with extraordinary rapidity, for even at the pre- sent day there are still about 150 manuscripts remaining which contain Purvey's revised version either in whole or in part, and the majority of these copies were executed within forty years after the year 1388. It would, however, be extremely short-sighted and hasty if we should undervalue or entirely overlook the work of Wiclif by reason of Purvey's work. Was, then, Purvey's Bible translation anything more than a uniformly executed revision of Wiclif's work already published, and an edition of it improved, in point of language, in respect to its superior legibility? The revision was, indeed, carried through in a consistent manner under the guidance of dis- tinctly conceived principles, but this was a work of far less difficulty than the task of originating the translation itself, especially when we consider the grandeur and the novelty of the first idea of the work, and the tenacious persistency and steady industry which were absolutely required for its execution. Last of all, we point again to the probability before referred to — that it was Wiclif him- self who was first sensible of the need of a revision of the finished translation ; so that it was only the carrying out of the task which fell to Purvey, whose relative merits, however, we have no wish to undervalue. What, now, is the peculiar character and importance _ of the earlier version, in so far especially as it was Wiclif's personal work ? . Its peculiarity becomes clearer to the eye 248 LIFE OF W1CLTF. when we compare the New Testament in the older version with the Old Testament as rendered by Hereford. Here- ford's translation is excessively literal, and keeps as close as possible, almost pedantically, to the Latin expression and order of the Vulgate. This makes the version very often stiff and awkward, forced and obscure. The trans- lator kept only the original in his eye, which it was his wish to render with the utmost possible fidelity ; on the spirit and laws of the English tongue he seems scarcely to have bestowed a thought, and as little on the qualities of intel- ligibility and legibility which it was his business to impart to the translated text. The case is quite different with WicHf in the books which he translated, and above all in the New Testament. He ever keeps in view the spirit of his mother tongue and the requirements of English readers, so that the translation is so simple as to be thoroughly readable. Nay more, it is a remarkable fact that Wiclif s English style in his Bible-translation, compared with his other English writings, rises to an uncommon pitch of perspicuity, beauty, and force.39 But if we compare Wiclif s Bible, not with his own English writings, but with English literature in general before and after his time, a still more important result is revealed. Wiclif s translation of the Bible marks an epoch in the development of the English language almost as much as Luther's translation does in the history of the German tongue. The Luther Bible opens the period of the new High German ; Wiclif s Bible stands at the head of the Middle English. It is usual, indeed, to represent not Wiclif, but Chaucer — the father of English poetry — as the first representative of the Middle English literature. But later investigators of the history of languages — such as Marsh, Koch, and others — rightly recognise Wiclif 's Bible prose as the earliest classic Middle English. Chaucer, indeed, has some rare features of superiority — liveliness of description, a charming way of clothing his ideas, genuine English humour, and a masterly command of language. But such qualities of style address themselves more to the educated classes — they are not adapted to make a form of speech the common property of the nation. That which has the destiny to promulgate a new language must be something which concerns closely the weal and the woe of man, and which for that reason takes hold irresistibly of every man in a nation, the lowest as well as the highest. In other words, it must be moral and religious truths, grasped with the energy of a genuine enthusiasm, and THE STYLE OF WICLIF'S PART OF THE WORK. 249 finding acceptance and diffusion for themselves in fresh forms of speech. If Luther, with his translation of the Bible, opened the epoch of the High German dialect, so Wiclif, with his English Bible, stands side by side with Chaucer at the head of the Middle English. But in the latter dialect are already found the fundamental characters of the new English, which reached its development in the sixteenth century. NOTES TO CHAPTER VII. 1 . Thom. More, Dyalogues, fol. cviii. cxi. cxiv. 2. Treatise of the Corruption of Scripture, Lond., 1612, p. 74. Vide Forshall and Madden'a Wycliffite Versions of the Bible, VI., p. xxi. 3. Historia Dogmatica Controversial de Scripturis ct Sacris Vernaculis. Lond. 1690, 4to, p. 155. 4. Auetorium Historiae Dogmaticae J. Usserii, p. 424. 5. H. Wharton (under the pseudonym Ant. Harmer), Specimens of Errors in the History of the Reformation. Lond., 1693. Vide Vaughan, John de "Wyeliffe, 334, Note I. 6. Wycliffite Versions of the Bible, I. Pref. xxi. lvii. 7. Do. I., p. xxi., Note 9. 8. Printed at the time of the Reformation as A comj>endious olde trcatyse shewyngc how that we ought to have the Scripture in Englyshe. Vide Wycliffite Versions, I. Pref. xxxiii., Note, and xxi., Note 9. 9. Max Muller, Lectures on the Science of Language. Leipsig, 1863, L, p. 349, Note. C. Friedrich Koch, Histortsche Grammati/c der Englischen Sprache, I., p. 8. 10. The only MS. of these Poems, dating from the tenth century, and belonging to the Bodleian Library, does not name the author. Francis Junius, who pub- lished the first edition of the Paraphrase in 1655, in Amsterdam, was the first to put forth the conjecture that Caedmon was the author. New editions have been brought out by Benjamin Thorpe, Lond. 1832, and by Bouterwek, Elberfeld, 1849. 1 1 . Cuthberti Vita Bedae. 12. Namely, the so-called Durham book and the Rushworth Gloss in the Bodleian. 13. Reuss, Revue de Theologie, II. 3 ; Les bibliotheques de la seule ville de Paris contiennent plus de manuscrits bibliques francais que toutes les bibliothe- ques d'Outre Rhin ne paraissent en contenir d'allemands. 14. Called Ormulum, after the author, whose name was either Orm or Ormin, and who was an Augustinian Canon. Edited, with Notes and Glossary, by Wright, Oxford University Press, 1852, 2 vols. Svo. 15. Tlie Story of Genesis and Exodus, an early English song, about a.d. 1250. Edited by Richard Morris for the Early English Tract Society. 1865. 16. For our first reliable information concerning the person and life of this re- markable man we are indebted to the documents published by Mr. Perry in the preface to the English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle de Hampole. Lond., 1866, p. xv. f. Vide Legenda de Vita Ricardi Rolle, preserved in the Cathedral Library of Lincoln. According to these he was born at Thornton, in Yorkshire, studied at Oxford, and returned home in his nineteenth year, where he immediately took to a hermit's life. Later in life he laboured as an itinerant preacher in the northern parts of Yorkshire, and he closed his life in Hampole in 1349. 1 7. Wycliffite Versions of the Bible, VI., Pref. iv. f. At all events one such remark drawn from a single MS. is not sufficient to support the conjecture made by Humphrey Wanley that this translation of the Psalms in its shortest form was a juvenile work of Wiclif himself. NOTES TO CHAPTER VII. 251 18. Wycliffite Versions, etc., Pref. v. and vi., and particularly Note 1. All the preceding statements regarding the Bible translations which were anterior to Wiclif rest upon the learned investigations of the editors of the Wiclif Bible, found in their preface. 19. Henricus Knighton, Chronica de Eventibus Angliae in Twysden's ffistoriae Anglicae Scriptores, X. Lond., 1652. Col. 2644, Hie magister Joannes Wyclif Evangelium quod Christus contulit clericis ct Ecclesiae Doctoribus, ut ipsi laicis et infirmioribus personis secundum temporis eocigentiam et personarmn indigentiam cum mentis eorum esurie dulciter ministrarent, transtulit de Latino in Anglicam linguam non Angelicam ; unde per ipsum fit vulgare, et magis apertum laicis et mulieribus legere scientibus, quam solet esse clericis admodum literatis et bene inlclli- gentibus, et sic evangelica margarita spargitur et a porcis conculcatur, etc. 20. Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae, III., f. 350, Joannes Wycliff — et ipsam ecclesiae sacrosanctae fidem et doctrinam sanctissimam totis conatibus impugnare studuit, novae ad suae malitiae complementum Scripturarum in linguam maternam translationis practica adinventa, etc. 21. Replica contra Jo. Stokes. Quod autem Wicliff non fuit Teutonicus sed Anglicus, patet ex suis scriptis — nam per Anglicos dicitur quod ipse tota Biblia transtulit ex Latino in Anglicum. 22. Wycliffite Versions, I., Pref., p. viii. 23. Catalogue of the Original Works of J. W., p. 36. 24. Wycliffite Versions as above, Note Z. 25. Do. I., Preface, p. ix., Note d. The words run thus : — Herfore a pore caityf lettid fro prechyng for a tyme for causes knowun of God, etc. 26. Arnold in his Introduction to the First Volume of Wiclifs English Sermons, p. 5, concludes against the Wiclif authorship of this Commentary on partly the same grounds as those upon which I had come to the same conclusion some years before ; only he conjectures that its true author may have been a Monk. 27. Herfor a symple creature of God writeth a schort gloss in English, etc. 28. Wycliffite Versions, I., Preface, pp. ix., x., and particularly Note f. "One that I supjjose veraly was God's servant, seyand to me that sethyn the gospelle is rewle, be the whilk ich Cristen man owes to lyf — ilk man that is in the grace of God — owes hertely to bysy him. 29. It is to be regarded as a quite peculiar merit of the Editors of the Wiclif translations of the Bible that they have given in the Preface so rich an anthology of extracts from English manuscripts. One of the most valuable of these com- munications, in my opinion, is the second preface, printed in full from two MSS., to the English translation of the Gospel-harmony of Clemens, in vol. I., p xiv., col. 2, and p. xv., col. 1. The sentence last quoted in our text is worded in the original, thus — Cristen men are moche to trareile nyght and day aboute text of holy writ, and namely the gospel in her moder tunge. 30. Here " unmesurabli " is to be read according to the other MS., not "mesur- abli ' which the editors have preferred. 31. Wycliffite Versions, vol. I., p. xv., col. 1. Thanne each levied man that schal be saved is a real prcst maad of God, and eche man is bounden to be suche a verri prest. But worldly clcrkis crien that holy writ in English wole make Cristen men at debate, and therfor it schal not be suffred among levied men. 32. Wycliffite Versions of the Bible, v. I., XL XII. 33. Do. do. v. I., p. xiii. In an English tract, which may well have come from Wiclifs pen, p. xiv., Note, it is expressly said that " as the parish priesta are often so ignorant that they do not understand Latin books so as to be able to instruct the people, it is necessary not only for the ignorant people, but also for the ignorant priests, to have books in the English language containing the neces- sary instruction for the ignorant people." 34. It is preserved in the Bodleian Library, No. 959 (3093), and is distinguished 252 LIFE OF WICLIF. by the circumstance that very often alterations are made in the middle of a sentence ; not unfrequently a word has been cancelled as soon as it was written, or before it was written fully, in order to put another in its place. Wycliffite Versions, I., p. xvii. and xlvii. 35. The second MS. is in the Bodleian, marked Douci 369, and ends with the words, (t)nl otkyr nun in the place of him risen. The Yungc. Then on the next side stands written by another but contemporary hand, Explicit translation Nicholay herford, v. I., p. xvii. and 1., where a, facsimile of these words with the preceding lines is given. 36. Fasc. Zizan,, ed. Shirley, p. 289 f. Knighton, Chronica., col. 2656 f. 37. To have established this fact, and brought clear light into the manifold dark- ness which rested upon these subjects, is one of the numerous merits of these two men who, with the liberal support of the delegates of the University Press of Ox- ford, carried on their investigations for twenty-two years long, made a thorough search of the most important public and private libraries of Great Britain and Ire- land, and on the basis of a critical comparison of numerous MSS. published the earlier as well as the later translations, along with prefaces. The work has this title, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and Neiv Testaments, with the Apocryphal books, in the earliest English, versions made from the Latin vulgate by John Wycliffe and his followers ; edited by the Rev. Josiah Forshall, F. U.S.., and Sir Frederic Madden, K.H., F.R.S., Keeper of the Manuscripts in the British Museum. Oxford University Press, 1850, 4 vols, large 4to, with a copious Preface in vol. I. (from which we have drawn much of what we have given above), and a Glossary to these translations in vol. IV. The two translations are throughout printed side by side in double columns— the older to the left, the later to the right. The various readings are given in Notes. 38. Henry Wharton, in the Auctarium to Usher's Historia — controversiae — de Scripturis et sacris vernaculis, London, 1690, p. 424 f., had rightly perceived which was the older and which the later translation, and while rightly attributing the older to Wiclif, had incorrectly assigned the later to John of Trevisa. Dr. Waterland had come to see that the Translation, with the " General Preface " to the Bible, was the work of John Purvey ; but he had not held fast to this view, and had even fallen back to the old opinion that the later Eecension was the earlier. He was followed in this by John Lewis, Wyclif's first Biographer, when he published, on the basis of two MSS., the later translation of the New Testa- ment as the work of Wiclif — New Testament, translated out of the Latin Vulgate, by John Wiclif, about 1378. Lond., 1731, fol. This same translation has been twice printed in the present century— in 1810, by H. H. Baker, New Testament, trans- luted from the Latin, in the year 1380, by John Wyclif, D.D. ; and in 1841 upon the basis of one MS. in Bagster's English Hexapla, 4to (The Bible Translations of Wiclif, Tyndale, Cranmer, and otheis). On the other hand, the New Testament in the older translation was first published in 1848 by Lea Wilson, after a MS. in his own possession, under the title The New Testament in English, translated by John Wycliffe, circa 1380. Lond. 4to. Last of all, llev. Josiah Forshall and Sir Frederick Madden gave to the world the Two Translations of the whole Bible, with critical exactness, in the work already mentioned. 39. This remark was first made by Sharon Turner in his History of England during the Middle Ayes. 1830. Vol. V. p. 425 f. Comp. p. 447 f. CHAPTER VIII. WICLIF AS A THINKER AND WRITER ; HIS PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM. SECTION I.- — His Gradual Development as a Thinker and Reformer. IT makes a great difference in our whole view and judg- ment of Wiclif, according as, on the one hand, we assume that from the very beginning of his public work he stood forth with a complete and unified system of thoughts, or as, on the other, we recognise a gradual development of his thoughts, and progress of his knowledge. The first assump- tion was entertained even till recent times. Wiclif's earliest biographer, John Lewis, was followed in this view, and it continued to be held even after Vaughan had been able to throw some light upon the inner progress of Wiclif's ideas. Men imagined they saw Wiclif stand before them at once a finished man, and missed in him that gradual loosening from the bonds of error, and that slow progress in new knowledge, which, in the case of Luther, followed the first decided break with his old thoughts. But this assumption rests upon error, and especially upon an imperfect acquaintance with the underlying facts. Even from the Trialogus, the first of Wiclif's works which was sent to the press, men might have been able to learn with sufficient certainty, that Wiclif must have passed through very considerable changes of opinion. For in more than one place he makes the frankest acknowledgment that on more than one metaphysical ques- tion, he had formerly defended with tenacity the opposite of what he now maintained — that " he was sunk in the depths of the sea, and had stammered out many things which he was unable clearly to make good," etc.2 But still more strongly does he express himself in one of his imprinted writings, where he makes the following free confession — " Other statements which at one time appeared strange to me, now appear to me to be sound and true, and I defend them ; for," in the words of St. Paul (1 Cor. xiii. 11), "when 1 254 LIFE OF WICLIF. was a child in the knowledge of the faith, I spoke as a child, 1 understood as a child; but when, in God's strength, 1 became a man, I put away, by His grace, childish thoughts." He is speaking in this plaee of the freedom of man's will and agency.3 And in a similar way he expresses himself in his work on the "Truth of Holy Scripture," touching his childishly literal understanding of the Bible in his earlier years. "At last," however, he continues — "the Lord, by the power of His grace, opened my mind to understand the Scriptures ;" and he even adds the humbling confes- sion— "I acknowledge that ofttimes, for the sake of vain glory I departed from the teaching of Scripture, both in what I maintained and what I opposed, when my double aim wras to acquire a dazzling fame among the people, and to lay bare the pride of the sophists." We could produce other frank acknowledgments of Wiclif of the same kind, but these may suffice, and I only add here a few more particulars which are worthy of mention. Among the Collections of Wiclif 's Latin sermons there is one, upon which Ave have already remarked above, that when compared with the others it supplies some light re- garding the progress of the preacher in knowledge. We refer to the older collection of forty miscellaneous sermons.5 This comes out especially on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, on which we shall have occasion to remark with more particularity below. In addition to this, it is unmistakeable that on the subject of the Papacy and the Hierarchy, not only the tone of his language, but even his mode of thought, is essentially different, after the occurrence of the Western Schism of 1378, from what it was before that event. Further, on the subject of the Mendicant Orders, Wiclif judges in his earlier writings quite differently from what he does in his later ones. We shall show that there is no good ground for the view which has hitherto prevailed in the tradition of church historians, and upon which even an investigator like Vaughan proceeds in his maturest work upon Wiclif, viz., that Wiclif had commenced his conflict with the Mendi- cant Orders as early as 1360 or the following year, and carried it on for twenty years afterwards.0 It was first in con- nexion with the question of transubstantiation that any controversy of Wiclif with these particular Orders took its rise ; whereas before that time it was rather against the endowed Orders that he aimed his attacks, while towards Francis of Assisi and Dominic and the Orders founded by them, he continued to cherish and express all manner of respect and sincere recognition. THE PROGRESS OF WICLIF'S VIEWS. 255 All these facts constitute a sufficient proof that Wiclif passed through important changes of opinion even after he had arrived at mature years, and had made his first appearance upon the public stage ; and that on several questions of great moment he gradually arrived at essen- tially different conclusions from those of his earlier years. It would indeed have been astonishing if a mind so inde- pendent and thoughtful — a man whose Avhole life was spent in labours on behalf of others, and in efforts for God's glory and the public good — had, in the substance of his teaching, adhered stiffly to the stand-points which he had in the first instance taken up. It will accordingly be our aim, as far as possible, to point out the gradual development of Wiclif's views on all the chief points of his philosophical and theolo- gical beliefs.7 We have to view Wiclif first as a philosophical, and next as a theological thinker and writer ; and though his philo- sophy and theology continually interlock, conformably to the whole character of scholasticism (for Wiclif was a schol- astic divine), yet it may be conducive to clearness if we give to each a separate treatment. SECTION II. — Wiclif as a Philosophical Thinker and Writer. In order that the distinctive features of Wiclif's philosophy may be adequately described, a sufficient amount of his writings in this department must first be forthcoming. But here much is lacking; for of his philosophical works, in the form of treatises, not a single piece has ever appeared in print, down to the present day; and what is more serious, a considerable number of them have in all probability per- ished.8 Contenting ourselves with what remains available, and turning first to his logical pieces, these, so far as we are acquainted with them, consist of only two short tractates, the one entitled Logica, the other Logica? Continuation Both of these have the peculiarity of limiting themselves to the simplest ideas and principles ; whereas the logical treatises of the fourteenth century generally run into excessive length, and lose themselves in the extremest subtleties.10 In the Logica he treats simply of terminus, propositio, and argumentum, each of these forms of thought being defined and exhibited in its simplest varieties. And here we meet with the memoriter-verses on the manifold forms of syllogism which had been in use since the time of William Shyreswood.11 250 LIFE OF WIOLIP. The Logicae Continuation again, examines somewhat more largely the different kinds ot judgments and processes of proof. That Wiclif restricted himself in both works to the most general principles of the science, was no doubt done in view of what was wanted for young men on their first introduction to the study of logic. It is next worthy of notice that these treatises on formal logic have a theological and especially a biblical end in view. In the introduction to the Logica, Wiclif says frankly, " I have been induced by several friends of God's Word (legis Dei amicos) to compose a treatise in explanation of the logic of Holy Scripture. For, as I see many entering upon the study of logic, with the idea that they will be the better able thereby to understand the Word of God, and then leaving it again on account of its distasteful mixture of heathenish ideas, and also of the hollowness of the study when thus conducted, I propose, with the view of sharpening the faculties of believing minds, to give processes of proof for propositions which are all to be drawn from Scripture," etc., etc.12 The reader sees that it is entirely with Christian ideas — with biblical knowledge — that he proposes to concern himself. And yet the result is no sorry mixture of theologi- cal and philosophical matter,13 but a purely formal doctrine of the laws of thought. Even in his latest years he laid great stress upon a right knowledge of logic for the understanding of Christian truth, and maintained that the disesteem of Scripture doctrine, and every error in respect to it, had its root in ignorance of logic and grammar.14 And this was not a thought exclusively his own. W7iclif shared it with William Occam, whom he names more than once in his manuscript works, and sometimes under his scholastic title of honour, Venerabilis Inceptor. Passing from Logic to Metaphysics, the question which Wiclif regarded as by far the most important was that of Universal*. He handles this question not only in several treatises devoted to it, e.g., De Universalibus, Replicatio de Universalibus, De Materia et Forma, De Ideis, but in his theolo- gical works, also, he not seldom returns to this doctrine as being, in his view, one of great reach and decisiveness in its theological bearings. For Wiclif was in philosophy a Realist. He takes his stand firmly and with the greatest decision upon that side which maintains the objectivity and reality of Universals ; following herein Augustin among the fathers of the Church, and Plato among the ancient philosophers, as his authorities and models. In this point he sides with Plato HIS METAPHYSICS. 257 against the criticism which Aristotle directed against the Platonic doctrine of ideas.15 However highly he values Aristotle in other respects, calling him, as the middle age in general did, The philosopher, and usually leaning upon his authority, he is still distinctly conscious that on this suhject he is a Platonist, and essentially at variance with Aristotle — a state of matters which was not at all irreconcileable Avith the fact that Wiclif, like all his contemporaries, had no knowledge whatever of the Platonic philosophy from its original Greek sources. He seems to have known Plato only from Augus- tine and by his mediation ; and he was by no means the first who, while of a Platonizing spirit, was yet unable to withdraw himself from the authority of Aristotle. The Parisian teacher Heinrich Gothals of Ghent, tl293 (Henricus de Gandavo, doctor solemnis), the Averroist Johann of Jandun (about 1320), and Walter Burleigh, fl337, to all of whom Wiclif occasionally refers, had preceded him in the path of an Augustinian Church-Platonism conjoined with Aristotelian method. That Wiclif makes use of the double designation universal and idea in speaking of the same subject, is sufficient to show that he had not overcome the dualism between Aristotelic and Platonic first principles. Nowhere, so far as we know, does he draw a clear and definite distinction between idea and universal. And yet one difference may be observed to prevail in his use of language upon this subject. When he Treats of ideas, his point of view is always one where he looks at matters from a higher to a lower level ; whereas the case is often the reverse when he speaks of univenals. Manifestly, in the one case, the ground taken is a priori ground ; in the other case it is empirical. It is the Platonic spirit which prevails in the former, the Aristotelic in the latter. Still Wiclif is perfectly well aware that the principle is a very disputable one which asserts the objective reality of universals, and he has reflected on the causes which have given rise to the controversy regarding it. Four causes, it appears to him, lie at the bottom of this great and long- standing divergency of opinion. The first cause is found in the strong impressions made by the world of sense, whereby the reason is darkened. The second cause he finds in a striving after seeming instead of real knowledge, as of old among the Sophists, from which arises much contention, insomuch that men dispute propositions which ought to be conceded as necessary truths. A third cause he finds in the preten- tiousness of men, which is always reaching after something R 258 LIFE OF WICLIF. peculiar to itself, and stiffly maintaining and defending it. And finally, he discovers a fourth cause in the want of in- struction.18 Wiclif's doctrine of ideas and their reality does not admit of being set forth without the conception of God. For he takes this conception as his starting point. The Idea is, in his view, an absolutely necessary truth,19 for truth is nothing else but God's thought, which thought is also im- mediately a willing and working, a proposing and doing, on the part of God. For God cannot think anything which is external to Himself, unless this thing is intellectually think- able. What God creates, He cannot possibly create by chance or unwisely ; he must therefore think it ; and his thought, or the archetype of the creature, is identical with the idea; and this same is eternal, for it is the same in time with the Divine knowledge. In its essence it is one with God, in its form it is different from God, as a ground conformably to which God thinks out what He creates. It has in itself a ground in reason, by virtue of which it determines the Divine knowledge.20 In this last expressed proposition lies, as it appears to me, the kernel of AViclif's doctrine of ideas, the central point of his Realism. He is not satisfied with regarding human knowledge as a reflex of actual existence, while the Nominal- ism or Terminism (as Prantl calls it 21) of Occam looks upon knowledge, in so far as it goes beyond the sensible obser- vation of nature and the empirical self-contemplation of the soul, only as something subjective, and cast in a logical form. According to Wiclif, in thinking of universals, we conceive what has an independent existence, what has its ground in God's thought and work. But even God's thought, in his view, does not proceed arbitrarily, but con- formably to its subject, agreeably to reason, answerably to the reason of things. And hence, in more places than one, he decidedly censures the usual practice of speaking of the thinkability of the unreal, or even of the self-contradictory, as empty subtlety, and a copious source of false reasonings and perverted conclusions.22 Rather he lays down the pro- position that God can only think that which he thinks in point of fact, and he thinks only that which is — is, at least in the sense of intellectual entity. In like manner as God, on the side of his willing, working, and creating, can only work and produce that which he actually produces, in its own time. For God's knowing and producing are coincident; that God knows any creature, and that he produces or sus- tains it, are one and the same thing.23 The realism of Wiclif accordingly is a principle of great wiclif's realism. 259 and wide bearing. He is an enemy of all arbitrary, empty, and vague thought ; he will not allow it to have the value of thought ; as, for example, when a man conceives with himself what would possibly have followed if a certain something presupposed had not taken place (conclusiones con- tingentiae). Only the real can be thought. Thus knowing and thinking are coincident, as well in God as in the human mind, which thinks exactly as much as it knows and no more.24 Only, if we would hit Wiclif's meaning, we must not restrict the real to what is perceptible by the senses, and what is a matter of experience at the present moment. Agreeably to that principle he does not allow of any endless series of ideas, according to which every idea should give rise again to another, and that to a third, and so on for ever. Such a reflex action, evermore mirroring back the idea and reduplicating it, is to him something useless and perverted, a mere stammering talk without sense and substance ; whereas we have to occupy ourselves with the realities of things, which objectively determine our knowledge by what they actually are.25 It remains to add that Wiclif loves to give a biblical as well as a philosophical basis and development to these thoughts by means of the idea of the Logos. He is convinced that his doctrine of ideas is agreeable to Scripture, and he lays stress upon it particularly on that account. For the same reason he holds it advisable to expound this doctrine of ideas only to such who are familiar, at least in some degree, with the thoughts of Scripture ; one to whom the latter are still strange may easily take offence at his doctrine.26 Herein Wiclif supports himself, with special liking, upon an expres- sion of John in the prologue of his Gospel — a passage to which, in several of his writings, and in connection with different thoughts, he ever again returns, partly in the way of express quotation, and partly in the way of allusion.27 And yet, remarkably, this passage is one which Wiclif has misunderstood (following, it is true, the lead of the Latin Fathers, especially Augustin, and of several of the scholastics, including St. Thomas Aquinas;) his error lying in throwing into one sentence certain words which properly fall into two. In chap. i. 3, the evangelist says of the Logos — " All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made ; " and then in v. 4 continues — " In Him was life," etc. But Wiclif, following the authority of his predecessors, takes the last words of v. 3, " quod factum est " (in the Vulgate), along with " in ipso vita erat " of v. 4, as forming together one sentence (a mistake which 260 LIFE OF WICLTF. was only possible where the Greek original was not under- stood) ; and then he finds the thought of the whole to be this — " Everything which was created was originally, and. before its creation in time, livingly present, was ideally performed, is the eternally pre-existent Logos."28 "With this passage he connected other biblical expressions ; above all the word of Christ where He testifies of Himself, " I am the way, and the truth, and the life " (John xiv. 4), which last word he understands, certainly not very happily, of the eternal life of thought. In addition, he appeals to the authority of the Apostle Paul, where (Romans xi. 36) he says " Of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things." In particular, he supposes that when the Apostle was caught up into heaven, and saw visions and heard unutterable words, he had a view vouchsafed to him of the intellectual world — the world of idea.'29 And then he traces to the in- structions of St. Paul the initiation of his great convert Dionysius into those high mysteries which the latter has treated of in his work On the Divine Names.30 True knowledge is conditioned by Wiclif, conformably to the above basis of thinking, by the apprehension of the ground of things pre-existing in the eternal reason. If men look at the creatures only in their existence as known to them by experience (in proprio genere), their minds thereby are only dissipated and drawn off from God. If we desire one day to see God in the heavenly home, we must here below con- sider the creatures in the light of those deep intellectual principles, in which they are known and ordered by God, and we must turn our eye towards that eternal horizon under which that light lies concealed.31 But not only true knowledge, but also true morality is conditioned, according to Wiclif's fundamental view, by our grasping and striving after that which is universal. All envy, and every sinful act, has its basis in the want of well- ordered love to the universal. Whoever prefers a personal good to a common good, and sets his aim upon riches, human dignities, etc., places that which is lower and individual above that which is higher and universal — i.e., he reverses the right order of things, he loves not truth and peace (Zech. viii. 19), and therein falls into sin. And thus it is that error in knowledge and feeling with regard to universals (circa vniversalia) is the cause of all the sin that is dominant in the world.32 After this glance at Wiclif's philosophical principles, especially his realistic metaphysics, we pass on to his theo- logical system, in which we shall see again the reflection of the philosophical standpoint which has been indicated above. 261 NOTES TO SECTIONS I. AND II. 1. So, e.g., Oscar Jager, John Wycliffe and his importance for the Reformation, Halle, 1854, p. 119-121. 2. Trialogus, ed. Lechler. Oxford, 1869. Liber III., c. 8, p. 155 ; I., c. 10, pp. 69, 70. 3. Responsiones ad argumenta Radidphi de Strode, Vienna MS., 1 338, f. 1 1 6, col. 3. Et aliae conclusiones, quae olim videbantur mini mirabiles, jam videntur mihi catholicae, defendendo, etc. 4. De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae, c. 6 ; c. 2, Vienna MS., 1294, fol. 13, col. ] ; fol. 3, col. 1 : Deista vana gloria comfiteor Saepe tarn arguendo quam respondendo prolapsus sum a doctrina scripturae, etc. 5. This did not escape the notice of attentive readers, even so early as the Hussite period, as is shown by the remark which is to be read in the margin of the Vienna MS. 3928, fol. 193, from another hand than the transcriber's : Constet omnibus quod iste Wycliff XL. Sertnones illos scribens fuit alius a se ipso hie quain alibi, ut apparet legenti ; Quia demptis paucissimis, paene in omnibus his scriptis sequitur ecclesiam in tide et ritibus et modo loquendi catholico. 6. Vaughan, John de Wycliffe, a monograph, pp. 87, 410. 7. The most accurate and thorough exposition of Wycliff 's teaching hitherto published is that of Dr. E. A. Lewald, "Die Theologische Doctrin Johann Wycliff e's nach den Quellen dargestellt, und Kritisch beleuchtel, " in the Zeitschrift fiir hist. Theologie, 1846, p. 171, f. 503, f. 1847; p. 597 f. Lewald, while making use of Vaughan's Life and Opinions, &c, has founded chiefly on the Trialogus. He investigates Wiclif's doctrine in its most important heads, following the order and carefully analysing the reasonings of the Trialogus. What may still be regarded as defects in this, in many resjiects, excellent product of German industry and learning, are, I think, these two : first, that the author does not exhibit sharply enough what constitute Wiclif's peculiar and distinctive ideas ; and secondly, that the exposition binds itself too closely to each section of the Trialogus succes- sively taken up, whereby the connection of the different parts of the same Doctrine is, in more than one instance, broken up, and repetitions are introduced. 8. In the list of lost works of Wiclif given by Shirley in his Catalogue, p. 50, f., occur not fewer than twenty-four numbers, which appear to have been works of a logical or metaphysical description. 9. Comp. Appendix, No. II. 10. Comp. Prantl, Gcschichte der Logik in Abendlande, Vol. III., p. 178 f. 11. lb., Vol. III., 10 f. 12. Vienna MS., 4523, fol. 1, col. 1. 13. It is not a Theologica Logicis inserere, as the University of Paris expressed its censure in the year 1247. D'Argentre, Collectio judiciorum de novis Erroribus, L, 158. Paris, 1728. 14. E.g., De Universalibus, c. 15 ; Vienna MS. 4523, fol. 57, col. 1. De Veritate Scripturae, c. 14 ; Vienna MS., 1294, fol. 40, col. 4 ; fol. 41, col. 3. 15. Trialogus, ed. Lechler, Book I., c. 8, p. 62 ; I., c. 9, p. 66 ; Book IT., c. 3, p. 83. 16. Comp. Prantl, Gcschichte der Logik in Abendlande, III., 183, 273, 297 f. 17. De Universalibus, Vienna MS., 4523, fol. 70, col. 1: Quidam enim more sophistarum non solum volunt scire sed videri scientes. 18. lb., fol. 70, cols. 1 and 2. 19. Trialogus, Book I., c. S, p. 61: Ydea est, Veritas absolute necessaria. 20. Si (Deus) illud intelligit, illud habet rationem objectivam, secundum quam terminat intellectivitatem divinam. 'Trialogus, I., 8, p. 63. 21. Prantl, Gcschichte der Logik in Abendlande, III., p. 343 f. Comp. Eduard Erdmann, Grundriss der Gcschichte der Philosophic, I. Berlin 1866, p. 432 f. 1H!2 LIFE OF WICLIF. 22. Trkdogus, I., c. 9, p. 67. — Comp. Lewald's Theol. Doctrin Wi/cliffe's, Zeilt- chriftfiir historische Theologie, 1846, 210 f. -'■'>. lb., I., c. 11, p. 74 : Cum idem sit Deum intus legere creaturam quam- libet, ipsam producere et servare. 24. lb., I., c. 10, p. 70 : Intellectus divinus ac ejus notitia sunt paris ambitus, sicut intellectus creatus et ejus notitia. 25. lb., I., c. 11, p. 72 : Falsum est, quod ydeae alia est ydea, et sic in infinitum cum multiplicando ilia verba homo balbutiendo ignorat se ipsum ; p. 73: Intelligimus res, quae per suas existentias movent objective intellectum nostrum. 26. De Ydeis, Vienna MS., 4523, fol. 67, cols. 1 and 2 : Ista rudimenta sunt lactea et infantibilia, in quibus oportet juvenes enutriri, ut subtilia ydearum per- oipiant. Cavebo ne rudibus et non nutritis in lacte scripturae sic loquar ne darem scandalum fratri meo, etc. 27. In Trialoijus, I., c. 8., p. 63, he refers to the passage, and in the tractate, De Yiliis, just quoted, that saying of St. John is, so to speak, the ever-recurring refrain. He applies the same citation in De Yeritate Scriptures Sac, Vienna MS., 1294, fol. 19, col. 1. 28. Lewald, as above, p. 208 f. 29. De Ydeis, in MS. mentioned above, fol. 64, col. 2. 30. 76., fol. 65, col. 1. 31. Liber Mandatorum, Vienna MS., 1339, fol. 139, col. a : Cum visio ecra- turarum in proprio genere sit tam imperfecta et tantum distraheus etiam in viae : — Verisimile est, quod non erit in p>atria. Si ergo voluerimus videre naturam divinam in patria, consideremus creaturas Secundum rationes suas, quibus ab ipso cognoscuntur et Ordinantur, et convertamur ad orizontem seternitatis, sub quo latet lux ista abscondita. 32. De Universalibus, c. 3, Vienna MS., 4523, fol. 69, cols. 1 and 2 : Sic error intellectionis et affectua circa universalia est causa totiUs peccati regnantis in mundo, etc. SECTION III. — - Wiclifs Theological System. (1) The Sources of Christian Truth. In proceeding to treat of Wiclifs theological system, we have to inquire first of all into his fundamental ideas of the Sources of our knowledge of Christian truth. The nature of the subject, and the theological peculiarity of Wiclif, both require precedence to be given to this point. Wiclif recognises a double source from which Christian knowledge is to be derived — reason and revelation, as we are Wont to speak ; ratio and auctoritas, as the scholastics express themselves. For in all the scholastics we find this distinction made ; bringing forward, as it is their wont to do, for one and the same proposition, first rationes, or ground of reason, and next auctoritales or testimonies of Holy Scripture, or of the Fathers, Councils, etc. Wiclif distinguishes, in like manner, between ratio and auctoritas as two bases of theolo- gical argument and of all Christian knowledge.33 Under k' Reason " Wiclif by no means understands anything SOURCES OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH. 263 merely formal — thinking with its inherent laws — in virtue of which it rejects what is contradictory and draws neces- sary conclusions from given premises, and regulates the formation of ideas, the process of proof, and the like ; in one word, with the term ratio Wiclif does not denote merely the formal logic and dialectic. However much stress he lays upon these sciences, in the spirit of his age and of its scholastic philosophy, he by no means contents himself with a merely formal doctrine of thought and a scientific method, but he has a conviction that the reason of man has within itself a certain ground-stock of truth in reference to the invisible, the divine, and the moral. To this stock of intuitional truth belong the universals, or ideas, so far as knowledge or the theoretical reason is concerned. With reference, on the other hand, to action and the practical reason, Wiclif appeals to the law of nature which has its seat in the conscience and the natural reason.34 He looks upon the law of nature as the standard of all laws, so that not only municipal law, but even the moral commandments of Christ, are to be valued according to their conformity to the law of nature.35 On this subject, indeed, I think I have remarked in Wiclif a certain wavering of judgment, or more accurately a progress of thought in the direction of recog- nising the exclusively decisive authority of revelation — i.e., of holy Scripture. For while in the book De Civili Dominio he sets forth the law of nature as the independent standard of all laws, even of the moral law of Christ, I find that in his treatise Of the Truth of Holy Scripture, which was written several years later at the least, he recognises the law of Christ as the absolutely perfect law, as the source of all that is good in every other law.36 But in so saying he has no intention to bring into question that there exists a law of nature in the conscience and the reason. But not only in matters of action and of duty, but also in matters of faith, Wiclif recognises a natural light ; only he most distinctly pronounces to be erroneous the notion that the light of faith is opposed to the light of nature, so that what appears to be impossible, in the light of nature, must be held for truth in the light of faith, and vice versa. There are not two lights thus contradicting each other, but only the natural light has since the fall been weakened, and labours under a degree of imperfection ; but this God heals in the way of grace by the impartation of revealed knowledge. Thus it comes to pass that what one man knows- by the spiritual light of grace, another man knows by natural light. Hence the different stages of knowledge in respect 2f)4 LIKE OF WICLIF. to the articles of faith among different men.37 Tims, e.g., Wiclif has no doubt that Plato and other philosophers were able to know, by means of natural light, that there is a Trinity in the nature of God.38 And he makes the attempt himself to prove by grounds of reason the doctrine of the Trinity, the necessity of the Incarnation of the Divine Logos, and other doctrines of the gospel.3'J He thus credits reason with an independent powder of its own of penetrating deeply into the knowledge of the mysteries of salvation. Herein he occupies the same standpoint as the great majority of the scholastic divines. But his difference from the other scholastics in the view he takes of "Authority," i.e., of positive revelation, is even more marked than his agreement with them on the sub- ject of reason. On this subject Wiclif approves himself a thoroughly independent thinker, and especially as a man imbued with the spirit of the Reformation ; for he has already come in sight of the principle that holy Scripture is the only authoritative document of revelation, that it is the Rule and Standard of all teachings and teachers. But I find that on this decisive point it was only step by step that Wiclif attained to the right knowledge. Apart from reason, the scholastics set forth as a standard principle, "Authority." But under this idea they range, in miscellaneous array, conclusions of Councils, decrees of the Popes, doctrines of the Fathers, Biblical statements. In their eyes holy Scripture has no peculiar, exclusive, privileged position, no weight which is alone of its kind, and absolutely decisive. In other words, the Middle age, in the generic idea of " Authority," brings together, in naive fashion, two different things, which, since the Reformation, have been distinguished from each other, as well by Roman Catholics as by Pro- testants, viz., Scripture and Tradition. Criticism is still lacking to such an extent that these two elements are looked upon and made use of as of like nature and like validity. The Bible itself was regarded as only a part of tradition — a book handed down from one generation to another, just as the works of the Fathers were. And tradi- tion, on the other hand, Avas regarded as falling under the idea of " Scripture," as it was only known by the medium of its written form. We do not mean by this to call in question the fact that the scholastic divines were in general aware of the distinction between the Bible and Church tradi- tion. Evidences of this are, no doubt, to be found in their dogmatic systems, sums, quodlibets, etc. But that was a theoretical distinction. In practice, in bringing proof in SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION. 265 support of any Roman dogma, the distinction was imme- diately forgotten ; traditional elements and scripture proofs were all uncritically jumbled together, as though they were all of equal value ; they were all alike " Authorities." With Wiclif in this respect the case was essentially different. It is true, indeed, as shown above, that he too mentions " authority " along with " reason " in a general way, as sources of knowledge and bases of proof in matters of faith ; and in dealing with such questions, like other scholastics, he places Scripture and Tradition in line together, under the one banner of "Authority." But this in his case, when closely examined, is only like a small fragment of egg-shell still adhering to the wings of the new-hatched chicken. It is merely the force of custom which we recognise in this still lingering use of the tech- nical word " Authority." For in all cases where he is inde- pendently developing his own principles, and maintaining them not merely in theory, but applying them to particular questions of a practical nature, he draws so sharp a line of distinction between Scripture and Tradition that the two can no longer be properly ranged under the common head of " Authority." For he ascribes to holy Scripture, and to it alone, the precise idea of " unlimited authority ; " he dis- tinguishes in principle between God's word and human tradition, and he recognises the Scriptures as, in and by themselves, the all-sufficing source of Christian knowledge. Nor was it only at a later stage of his teaching that Wiclif grasped this decisive principle ; he gave early expression to it. It was only gradually, it is true, that he reached it, and to what extent this was so, will be shown below. But as early as the date of his collection of " Miscellaneous Ser- mons," which all belong to the period of his academic labours, and at all events to the years preceding 1378, he expresses himself in a manner which shows that he fully recognises the alone-sufficiency of the Word of God, and pronounces it to be unbelief and sin to give up the follow- ing of "the law of God," and to introduce in place of it human traditions.40 With a clear consciousness of the whole bearing and extent of this truth, Wiclif lays down the fundamental proposition — God's law, i.e., holy Scripture, is the unconditional and absolutely binding authority. This fundamental principle he expresses in innumerable places in sermons, learned treatises and popular tracts, and in the most manifold manner, but always with the consciousness of bearing witness to a truth of the greatest scope. His opponents, too, were quite sensible 266 LIFE OF WICLIF. of the far-reaching and weighty consequences which must result from this principle; and for this reason they did not fail to make it the object of their attacks. It was in defence of the principle, as well as to illustrate and establish it to the utmost of his power that Wiclif wrote one of the most im- portant of his works under the title, Of the Truth of Holy Scripture (De Veritate Scripturae Sacrae)*1 How he understands his own principle will best appear, if we inquire in what way he partly establishes and partly applies it. In establishing and proving the principle of the absolute authority of Holy Scripture, Wiclif views his subject on the most different sides. First of all, he sets out from the general truth, that in every sphere there is a, first which is the standard for everything else in the same sphere.42 But that the Bible is first and highest in the sphere of religion, he proves by pointing to the fact that holy Scripture is, as a matter of fact, the Word of God. This last proposition he presents in various turns of expression ; at one time he describes holy Scripture as the Will and Testament of God the Father, which cannot be broken;43 and at another he assei'ts that God and his Word are one, and cannot be separated the one from the other.44 In other passages he is wont to describe Christ as the proper author of holy Scripture, and to deduce immediately from that fact its infinite superiority, and absolute authority. As the per- son of one author is to another, so is the merit of one book compared to another ; now it is a doctrine of the faith that Christ is infinitely superior to every other man, and therefore His book or holy Scripture, which is His law, stands in a similar relation to every other writing which can be named.45 This being so, he knows not how to give any other physiological explanation of the indisposition <>f many to acknowledge the unbounded authority of the Bible compared with every other book, in any other way than from their want of sincere faith in the Lord Jesus Christ himself.41"' And as it was a standing usage of thought and speech in the mediaeval period to speak of the Bible as God's law and Christ's law,47 so Wiclif calls Christ our Lawgiver ; he warmly exclaims that Christ has given a law which is sufficient in itself for the whole church militant.48 But holy Scripture with Wiclif is not only the work of Christ as its author, not only a law by Him given ; it stands yet nearer to Christ : Christ himself is the Scripture which we behove to know ; and to be ignorant of the Scripture is the same thing as to be ignorant of Christ.49 This thought leads directly to a third argument in support THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE PROVED. 267 of the unlimited authority of Scripture, viz., the contents of the Bible. The Bible contains exactly that which is neces- sary and indispensable to salvation — a thought which Wiclif gave expression to in allusion to the saying of the Apostle Peter, " Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name given under heaven among men by which we can be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ."50 With this limitation of the contents of the Bible to what is necessary to salvation stands connected the universal application and force of the prescriptions and commands of the Gospel. " If Christ had gone more into detail, even in the least, the rule of his religion would have become to a certain extent imperfect ; but as it now stands, whether lay- man or cleric, married man or monk, servant or master, a man may live in every position of life in one and the same service under Christ's rule. The evangelical law, moreover, contains no special ceremonies whereby the universal observ- ance of it would have been made impossible ; and therefore the Christian rule and religion, according to the form of it handed down to us in the Gospel, is of all religions the most perfect, and the only one which is in and by itself good." 5l Last of all he points to the effects of holy Scripture as an evidence of its truly divine and absolute authority. The sense of Scripture is of more efficacy and use than any other thought or language.52 The experience of the Church at large speaks for the sufficiency and efficacy of the Bible. By the observance of the pure law of Christ, without mixture of human traditions, the Church very rapidly grew ; since the mixing up of traditions with it, the Church has steadily declined.53 Furthermore, all other forms of wisdom vanish away, whereas the wisdom which the Holy Ghost imparted to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost remains for evermore ; and all its enemies have never been able effectually to contradict and withstand it.54 This principle of the absolute authority of the Scriptures, which Wiclif knows how to confirm on so many different sides, immediately finds in his hands the most manifold applications. From the principle of the divine origin of Scripture im- mediately follows its infallibility (whereas every other surety, even an enlightened church doctor, like St. Augustin, easily errs and leads into error),55 its moral purity,56 and its absolute perfection in matter and form. In the respect last named Wiclif more than once calls attention to the fact that holy Scripture has a logic of its own, and that its logic is firmly based and unanswerable, and that every believer 2()8 LIFE OF WICLIF. ought to venerate and follow as an example not only the sense and contents of Scripture, but also its logic.57 For the Holy Ghost led the Apostles into all truth, and delivered to them also, without doubt, a logic of his own, that they might be able to teach others again with the like authority. But the chief inference which Wiclif deduces from the Bible's divine origin and absolute authority is its perfect and entire sufficiency. The Bible alone is the ground document of the Church, its fundamental law, its charta. Evidently with allusion to the Magna Charta. the fundamental charter of the civil liberties of his nation, Wiclif loves to speak of the Bible as the charter of the Church's liberties, as the Cod-given deed of grace and promise.'58 It is the kernel of all laws of the Church, so that every prescription profitable to the Church is contained in it, either expressly or by deduc- tion.53 And Scripture alone and exclusively has this import- ance and authority for the Church — a doctrine which corres- ponds almost literally with the motto of the German Reformation, verbo solo™ the Word alone. To Scripture alone, therefore, is the prerogative ascribed of " authen- ticity." In comparison with it, all other writings, albeit they may be the genuine works of great Church doctors, are " apocryphal," and have no claim upon our faith for their own sake.61 But not merely in the ecclesiastical sphere and in that of religion and morals, but in the whole circle of human exist- ence, including civil life and the state, all law, according to Wiclif, ought to order itself according to the Law of God. Every action, every charitable deed, buying, exchange, etc., is only so far right and good as the action corresponds with the evangelical law ; and in so far as it departs from that law, it is to the same extent wrong and invalid.62 Yea, he goes so far as to assert that the whole code of civil law behoves to be grounded upon the evangelical law as a Divine Rule63 — a view which is less evangelical than legal, and reaches farther in its consequences than can be ap- proved, for it leads directly to a complete Theocracy, if not a complete Hierarchy. From what precedes flows the rule — Put nothing, what- ever it be, upon a footing of equality with holy Scripture, still less above it. Wiclif lays down the proposition without reserve, " It is impossible that any word or any deed of the Christian should be of equal authority with holy Scripture."64 And to place above Scripture, and prefer to it human traditions, doctrines, and ordinances, is nothing but an act of blind presumption. A power THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE SUPREME. 269 of human appointment which pretends to set itself above the holy Scriptures is only fitted to lame the efficacy of the Word of God, and to introduce confusion.65 Yea, it leads to blasphemy, when the Pope puts forward the claim that what he decrees in matters of faith must be received as Gospel, and that his law must, even more than the Gospel itself, be observed and carried out. It is the simple moral consequence of the doctrine, that " Scripture alone is of absolute autho- rity," when Wiclif enforces the duty of holding wholly and entirely to Scripture, and Scripture alone — of " hearing Moses and the prophets "67 (Luke xvi.), and not even to mix the commandments of men with evangelical truths. Men who practice such a mixture of God's truth and human traditions Wiclif calls mixtim-theologi, medley divines.68 He also remarks that it is no justification of a doctrine that it contains, in a collateral way, much that is good and reasonable, for so is it even now with the behests and the whole life of the Devil himself; otherwise God would not suffer him to exercise such power. But Christian law should be only and purely the law of God, which is with- out spot and giveth life to souls ; and therefore a law of tradition ought to be repudiated by all the faithful, on account of the mixture of even a single atom of Anti- christ.69 By a glance into the history of the Church of Christ Wiclif discovers that this departure from the Evan- gelical Law through the mixture of later traditions was at first very slight and almost inobservable, but that in process of time the corruption became always ranker and ranker.70 But this is, unmistakeably, nothing else but the principle that " God's Word pure and simple " ought to be taught, and that God's Word, and nothing else, not even any angel, ought to determine articles of faith, as laid down in the Second of the Lutheran Articles of Schmalkald. In one word, this is the Reformational Bible principle — the so-called formal principle of Protestantism. Wiclif himself was well aware of the importance and wide bear- ing of his Bible principle. That is the reason why he calls his adherents ' Men of the Gospel " — viri evangelici, doctores evangelici?1 etc. — a name which, in the mouth of his admirers and disciples, was applied to himself as a high title of honour. If honorary titles were created for other scholastic divines, which, for the most part, were taken from their scientific pre-eminences, such as Doctor subtilis, irrefragabilis, profundus, resolutissimas, etc.. or from their moral purity and elevation, such as Doctor angelicus, seraplticus, etc. ; so for Wiclif the title of honour, Doctor Evanyelicus, which 270 LIFE OF WICLIF. early became current among his friends and followers, and was also transplanted to the Continent (as appears from a number of passages in Wiclif-manuscripts transcribed by the Hussites), was one of a kind to indicate, in an appro- priate way, his high estimation of the value of the Gospel — an estimate which he put upon nothing else — and to signalise, in fact, his characteristic Bible principle. And here also may be the proper place to mention that WicKfs knowledge of the Bible was, in fact, astonishing. The remarkable number of Scripture passages which, in a single work, he sometimes explains and sometimes applies, e.g., in the Trialogus. is of itself enough to show that he was, in an extraordinary degree, familiar with the Bible. And although his skill in interpretation is not masterly (how could it be so at that time?), yet I have not seldom found in the reading of his unprinted works that he often manifests a felicitous tact and exact judgment in the pro- cess, and that an appropriate passage of Scripture does not easily escape him when his object is to arrange a train of Scripture proof. But his Bible knowledge is almost more remarkable in cases when it is not his object to quote Scripture, but when, notwithstanding, the whole life and movement of what he writes is in Scripture thought and phrase. The fact is not without importance that even the enemies of Wiclif, as before remarked, knew and controverted his Scripture principle. In particular, it may be in place to mention that one of his opponents accuses him of being, on this point, an adherent of the " heretic Occam " ; in other words, that he had borrowed from Occam the prin- ciple of resting exclusively on Scripture— as, in fact, men have ever been inclined, in the case of any tendency mani- festing itself, at any period, which appeared suspicious and erroneous, to identify it with, and to derive it entirely from, some earlier teaching which had been already condemned and branded as unsound doctrine. The fact of this accu- sation having been made I know from Wiclif s own words, as in his book, Of the Truth of HoJxj Scripture, he takes notice of the objection, and replies to it.7-2 His words are to the effect that his nameless opponent had said, as had been told him by three trustworthy men, that Wiclif did exactly what " that heretic " Occam and his followers had done before him, viz., he took his stand upon the literal sense of holy Scripture, and would submit to no other judgment whatever. Farther on, where he answers this accusation, Wiclif replies, among other things, that he had WICLIF AND OCCAM COMPARED. 271 neither borrowed his principles from Occam, nor thought them out for himself; instead of that, they are irrefragably grounded in holy Scripture itself, and are in repeated instances set forth also by the holy Fathers. Now, this assertion of Wiclif is fully confirmed when we look into Occam's own writings upon the point. He appeals, indeed, wherever possible, to holy Scripture (particularly in his controversial pieces against Pope John XXII.), and he knows how to select his proof-passages with intelligence and judgment. But still there is an important difference between him and Wiclif on the subject of the rank and prerogative of the Bible's authority. The difference is this, that Occam always appeals to, and claims authority for, Scripture and Church-teaching in combination — always thinks of the two as being always found in harmony. Evidently he cannot for a moment reconcile himself to the thought that the sanctioned doctrines of the Church itself, as well as the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, must first be tested by the help of Scripture.74 Whereas Wiclif distinguishes quite clearly between Scripture and Church teaching, and recognises the Bible as the supreme stan- dard by which even the doctrines of the Church and the Fathers are to be tried. In brief, any dependence of Wiclif upon Occam for his Scripture principle is an allegation which cannot with any show of right be maintained. On the contrary, Wiclif, in point of fact, took a decided step in advance to the truly evangelical standpoint, the stand- point of the Reformers of the sixteenth century. Wiclif took this step, in our judgment, with entire independence ; and it could not have been owing to a mere self-deception that he was conscious of having derived his principle of the absolute authority of the Bible, and the Bible alone, from no other source than from the Scripture itself, by means of his own personal investigations. Before Wiclif's time, the Waldenses came the nearest to the Biblical principle of the Reformation, when, in their desire to justify their practice of free lay preaching in opposition to the Romish hierarchy, they appealed from the existing law of the Church to divine law, to the Word of God, to holy Scrip- ture. They thus set against Church tradition and Church law the holy Scriptures as the higher and decisive authority, by which they measured and tested not only the prohibition of lay preaching, but also other ordinances and traditions of the existing Church.75 Still it requires to be carefully considered that the Waldenses were led indeed by their practical neces- sities to see and to make use of the normal authority of the 272 LIFE OF WICLIF. holy Scriptures, but the Bible principle itself as such they failed abstractly to grasp and consciously to realise; whereas in the case of Wiclif we find all this present in full measure; not to remind the reader again, which is unnecessary in these circumstances, that Wiclif appears to have had only an imperfect knowledge of all that relates to the Waldenses. We cannot leave this subject before touching upon several points, which, though not of first-rate importance, are yet by no means of quite subordinate interest, The first of these has reference to the interpretation of Scripture. And here we have reached the point which we before hinted at, where I believe I am able to show an important advance in the personal development of Wiclif. The Scripture principle attains to only half its rights, so long as the Bible is acknowledged, indeed, to be the supreme and decisive authority, but yet in practice the authority of Church tradition is exalted anew as the standard of Scripture interpretation. For then the tradition which had been before repudiated comes in again by a back door, and under cover of the motto " Holy Scripture alone," the authority of the Church, and traditional Church doctrine assert themselves once more. At this latter stage of opinion Wiclif found himself, at a time when he was already a doctor of theology, and recognised as an authority, apart from reason, only the holy Scripture, not tradition. On the other hand, he still held two guides to be indispensable to the understanding and interpretation of Scripture, viz., Reason and the inter- pretation of the Holy Church doctors as approved by the Church.76 The work in which he so expresses himself respecting Scripture and its interpretation was written at latest in the year 1376. But only a few years later he had already come to see that not even in the work of Scripture interpretation can the tradition of the Church have a decisive weight. In the third book of his treatise De Civili Domiirio, c. 2ii, he opposes the opinion that every part of Scripture is of doubtful meaning, because it can only be understood by the help of the doctors of the Church, and these doctors may put us in a difficulty by opposing interpretations ; and be- cause it was competent for the Church of Rome to decide that any part of Scripture has a sense the opposite of that which had hitherto been assumed. To which Wiclif replies, " No created being has power to reverse the sense of the Christian faith — the holy doctors put us in no difficulty, but rather teach us to abstain from the love of novelties, and to be sober-minded." But the chief thought which he opposes THE RULE OF SCRIPTURE-INTERPRETATION. 273 to this view is that "The Holy Ghost teaches us. the right understanding of Scripture, as Christ opened the Scripture to the Apostles."77 Here we see that Wiclif has already begun to have doubts respecting the right of the Church to speak with a decisive voice in the business of Scripture interpretation. And it is thoroughly well meant when Wiclif says " the Holy Ghost instructs us in the understanding of the Scripture." The only remaining question is, By what means and in what way do we arrive at certainty that the sense which Ave find in a given passage, or in Scripture as a whole, is really the sense of the Holy Ghost? It would, in Wiclif 's own judg- ment, be to enter upon a dangerous path for an interpreter to be so bold as to claim to be assured by the illumination of the Holy Ghost that he had hit upon the right meaning of Scripture. 7S Wiclif goes no farther, indeed, than this, that an indispensable means of attaining to the right understand- ing of Scripture is the enlightenment of the Scripture inquirer by God Himself; for Christ is the true light which lighteneth every man (John i. 9), and hence it is impossible that any man should have light to know the meaning of Scripture unless he is first enlightened by Christ.79 He even confesses on one occasion for himself that at an earlier period of his life he had spoken about the Scripture " as a child " (1 Cor. xiii. 11), and had felt himself greatly at a loss in the defence of Scripture till his eyes had been graciously opened to perceive the right understanding of it, and to arrive at the conviction of its perfect truth.80 And in con- nection with this he repeatedly insists upon the truth that a devout and virtuous and humble spirit is requisite if a man would understand the genuine sense of Scripture (sensus Catholicus). Putting away all pretentious sophistical hol- lo wness, and renouncing all disputing about mere words, a man must search out the meaning of every Scripture w liter in humility?1 So much on the personal spirit of every honest " Disciple of Scripture." But on the objective matter itself, by far the most important truth taught by Wiclif, and what he re- peatedly insists upon, is the tenor of Scripture teaching as a whole, from which follows the rule of always explain- ing it in single passages in a manner agreeable to its collective sense ; in other words, to interpret Scripture by Scripture. It is a part of this truth when he warns against " tearing the Scriptures in pieces," as the heretics do. We must rather take them in connection, and as a whole ; only then can they be rightly understood, for the 274 LIFE OF WICLIF. whole Holy Scripture is one God's Word. It is in harmony with itself; often one part of Scripture explains the others; it is all the more useful to read Scripture diligently in order to perceive its harmony with itself.8- With such views, it may easily be conceived that W'iclif is no friend of arbitrary interpretation, which played so large a part at that period; lie opposes it often enough. And although he now no longer recognises in principle that the traditional interpretation of the Church is the authorised guide, still the consensus of the Fathers in the understanding of Scriptures has great weight in his judgment, in any case where it occurs; more than once he lays stress upon the consonantia cum sensu Doctorum.*3 But as Wiclif sets out from the conviction, which he derived chiefly from Augustin, that Holy Scripture in- cludes in itself all truth — partly mediately, partly imme- diately— so he maintains, on the one hand, that reason is indispensable to the right understanding of Scripture ; and on the other hand, that the right understanding of Scripture is the only thing which can work in the mind a joyful and unlimited assent to its contents.84 It is well known that in mediseval times the conviction was firmly held that Holy Scripture bears a manifold — indeed, a fourfold sense. To this traditional opinion Wiclif nowhere opposes himself. Ever and anon, e.g., in his sermons, he expressly assents to it. But it is characteristic of the good sense and sobriety of his thinking that it is from the literal sense of Scripture that he sets out ; and that he claims for this sense to be the indispensable, the never-to-be-depre- ciated, and the abiding basis of all thorough and deep nn ler- standing of the Scriptures. He knows right well that a reckless man would be in a position to pervert the whole sense of Scripture, if he denies the literal sense and invents a figurative sense at his pleasure. On the contrary, he lays down the principle that all the counsels of Christ, as all Holy Scripture in general, must be observed to the letter, as every particle of Scripture, in virtue of its incontrovertible contents, is true. The literal sense, indeed, may be taken in two ways : sometimes according to first appearances, as ignorant grammarians and logicians take it ; at other times according to that understanding of it Avhich an orthodox teacher acquires by the instruction of the Holy Ghost. And that, precisely, is the spiritual sense, to reach which the doctors of Holy Scripture are specially bound to use all their endeavours. On this subject I find a thought expressed which is thoroughly to the point, that there is nothing like a gap LITERAL AND GRAMMATICAL INTERPRETATION1. 27a intervening betwixt the literal and the spiritual sense ; but that the latter is immediately connected with the simple sense of the words ; and that everything depends on de- termining the spiritual sense which is couched in the literal sense. And this is wrhat Wiclif also does in the turn which he gives to Scripture. As a rule, he takes his start from the literal sense ; and, as remarked above, he knows, on numerous occasions, how to make Scripture pas- sages yield a sense as simple as it is full and rich. The Curialists in Wiclif's time were accustomed to found upon Luke 22 — " See, here are two swords." taken along with the answer of Jesus — " It is enough " — a Scripture proof of the dogma, that to Peter, and therefore to the Pope as his rightful successor, there appertains a twofold power — the spiritual and the temporal ; for this double power is signi- fied, figuratively, by the two swords. In opposition to this Wiclif observes, with the support of Augustin's rules of interpretation, that a leap from the literal sense to the spiritual avails nothing if this figurative meaning is not founded upon other places of Scripture. But now, he con- tinues, this mystical sense of Peter's double power of the keys has a basis in Scripture nowhere else ; and the whole, therefore, is merely a sophistical, false conclusion, proceeding ultimately from the suggestion of a wicked spirit.80 With this well-founded leaning to the literal sense of Holy Scripture, Wiclif's favourable judgment of Nicolas of Lyra, who was his cotemporary (fl340), may be readily understood. In adduc- ing some of his interpretations, he calls him a modern, indeed, but a thoughtful and pregnant interpreter of Scrip- ture according to the letter.87 As a proof how attentively Wiclif takes notice of the usage of language (usus loquendi), even in small particles, let the circumstance be mentioned here, that in investigating the question of man's ability for good, apart from grace, he remarks upon the distinction between ap'tavTuv and si; kavruv (2 Cor. hi. 5) ; and then, after a comparison of passages bearing a resemblance in point of expression, he adds the observation that the Apostle Paul, on good grounds, was careful in his use of prepositions and adverbs.88 On weighing this observation well, we imme- diately perceive that, if consequently carried through, it would form the basis of a rational system of grammatical interpretation. We are not entitled to suppose, of course, that Wiclif was aware of any such bearing of the thoughts which he expressed. But the expression appears, neverthe- less, worthy of remark, as a minute indication of fine obser- vation and careful interpretation of terms. 27»! LIFE OF WICLIF. To the question in what relation to each other Wiclif placed the Old and New Testament, the only answer that can be given is that while he exhibits, on more than one side, the difference between the two revelations, he is yet not clearly aware of their fundamental difference; In repeated instances he has occasion to speak of the distinction between the two Testaments. Not seldom he mentions, in connection with his censure of the encroachments of the Hierarchy upon the civil province, that the New Testament does not meddle with that sphere.89 But in one place he examines the distinction in question upon its purely scientific side, under several heads, viz., as to their respec- tive contents, authorship, kind and manner of revelation, degree of perfection, etc.9" And here Wiclif, it is true, speaks to the effect that in the Old Testament the pre- vailing thing is fear; in the New Testament, love.91 This appears to be quite apposite. He fails notwithstanding, as already said, in the right insight into the radical ami essential difference between law and gospel. He makes use, indeed, of these two simple and weighty designa- tions of the two Testaments ; and also characterises quite accurately the spirit of the man who stands under the law, and of the man who lives in the state of grace. But the single circumstance that he so often, and with- out the least misgiving, speaks of the evangelical law (lex Evangelica), and describes Christ as our lawgiver (Legifer) is a sufficient indication to us that he had not yet become fully conscious of the essential difference between Moses and Christ, law and gospel, law and grace. The deeper ground of this we shall find below in his doctrine of the way of salvation. It lies in this, that he had not yet come in sight of the material principle of Protestantism — justification by faith alone. We have, ac- cordingly, no ground to understand the title of honour which was given him of Doctor Evai/gelicus in the full sense of a decidedly Pauline theology, and of a truly evangelical doctrine of salvation. If Wiclif had been a Doctor Evan- qelicus in his doctrine of the Avay of salvation, as he was in his doctrine of the sole authority of Scripture, he would not, humanly speaking, have remained a mere precursor of the Reformation, but would have been himself a Reformer. That Wiclif recognised the right of all Christians to the use of the Bible is a point which it is hardly necessary to dwell upon here, after having seen above, in the sixth and seventh chapters, how emphatically he inculcated the duty of preaching God's Word, and how he had translated THE BIBLE A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 277 it into English in order to make it accessible to the people. We may remark, however, that the deep veneration which he felt for the Word of God, and the knowledge which he had acquired of its infinite value, were enough to lead him to the conclusion that the Bible is a book for every man. This thought he expresses often enough in the clearest manner, not only in the treatise Of the Truth of Holy Scrip- ture, where this was most to be expected, but also in other writings. In the work just mentioned he says in one place, the " Holy Scripture is the faultless, most true, most perfect, and most holy law of God, which it is the duty of all men to learn to know, to defend, and to observe, inasmuch as they are bound to serve the Lord in accord- ance with it, under the promise of an eternal reward." 92 In The Mirror for Temporal Lords, he demands for all be- lieving people immediate access to the Holy Scriptures, chiefly on the ground that Christian truth is made known more clearly and accurately there than the priests are able to declare it ; while many of the prelates besides are quite ignorant of Scripture, and others of them inten- tionally hold back from the people certain portions of Scrip- ture doctrine.93 And in his English tract, the Wi/kett, he exclaims with emotion — " If God's Word is the life of the world, and every word of God is the life of the human soul, how may any Antichrist, for dread of God, take it away from us that be Christian men, and thus to suffer the people to die for hunger in heresy and blasphemy of men's laws, that corrupteth and slayeth the soul *? " 94 NOTES TO SECTION III. 33. E.g., Trialogns, I., c. 8, p. 61 : Nee ratio, nee auctoritas hoc convincit ; and similarly in other places. 34. De Veritate Scripiurae, c. 12, Vienna MS., 1294, fol. 31, col. 4. Here he is speaking of violences threatened to his own person, and expresses the opinion that a Jew or heathen would, from an inborn sentiment of goodness, abhor those who were guilty of such, inasmuch as they " obviant legi conscientite et naturaliter insitte rationi." 35. Be Civili Bominio, II., c. 13., Vienna MS., 1341, fol. 207, col. 2 : De quanto aliqua lex ducit propinquius ad conformitatem legis natures est ipsa perfectior. Sed lex Christi patiendi injurias propinquius ducit ad statum naturae quam civilis. Ergo ista cum suis regulis est lege civili perfectior. Comp. c. 17, fol. 236, col. 2. 36. Be Veritate Scrip. Sac, c. 20, fol. 67, col. 1. The love of our neighbour is thoroughly learned and acquired by the law of Christ ; in tantum quod si lex alia docet caritatem aut virtutem aliquam, ipsa adeo est lex Christi. 37. Trialor/us, I., c. 6, p. 55 f. 38. Ik, I., c. 6, p. 56. 39. Ih., I., c. 7, p. 58 ; III., c. 25, p. 214. 278 LIFE OF WICL1F. ■Kt. Vienna MS., 8928, Sermon XVIII., fol. 222, col. 2 : Fnfidelia conBideratio est, c|uu(l ]>i rir.L eeelesia nisi pneter legem I >> i humanis legibufi rcgularetnr. Inline i-iiiui peccatur infideliter, dimittendo executionem legis Dei, et inducendo tradi- tionea humanas fomenta litium. 41. De Vtritate Scriptures Sacrce, Vienna MS., 1294, fol. 1-119, col. 2. Tin's work Forms part of the so called Summit of Wiclif, namely, its Sixth Book, and with its 32 chapters would till a printed volume of about thirty sheets. That this work had its origin in theological lectures is certain, both from its contents and form. Its date also is fixed by two passages to have been the year 1378. The book is properly nothing more than a defence of the Bible against the accusatores or inimici Scriptura of whom the author repeatedly speaks, e.tj., c 12 and 28. From o'je passage in the first chapter it appears that one leading opponent in par- ticular of Wiclif and his teaching, along with others of the same views, had given the proximate occasion to this apology for the Bible ; and this is the reason, no doubt, why the personality of Wiclif himself stands out in this particular work with an almost statuesque effect. I have thought it right to insert in the Appen- dix a somewhat long extract of this nature. 42. De Blasphemia, the 12th book of his Theological Summa, Vienna MS., 3943, fol. 126, col. 2 : In onini genere est unum primum quod est metrum et mensura omnium aliorum. 43. De Veritate Scrip. Sac, Vienna MS., 1294, c. 9, fol. 21, col. 4 : Si non licet tilio infringere testamentum patris terreni, multo magis non licet catholico dissolvere testamentum infrangibile Dei patris. Comp. c. 14, fol. 43, col. 3, where he calls Scripture testimonium Dei, quod voluit remanere in terris, ut suam voluntatem cognoscerent, etc. 44. Wycket, ed. Oxford, 1828, p. 5 : for he (God) and his word are all one, and they may not be separated. 45. Trialogus, B. Ill, c. 31, p. 239. 46. Trialogus, III., 31, p. 238 : Non sincere credimus in Dominum Jesum Christum, cum hoc dato ex fide fructuosa teneremus, quod scripturae s. — sit infinitum major auctoritas quam auctoritas alterius scripturae signandae. 47. Among the writers of the fourteenth century, I name only Occam, Marsilius of Padua, Peter D'Ailly, and of the fifteenth century, John of Goch, which latter lays great stress upon evangelical liberty ; and yet, as little as Occam, finds any difficulty in boasting of the evangelicae legis libertas ; Goch, De quatuor erroribus circa legem evangelicam exortis, in Walch, Monimenta medii sevi, Fuse, 4. p. 75 f. ; Occam, De jurisdictione imperatoris in causis matrimonialibus, in Goldast, Monarchic!, I., p. 24. 48. De Officio Regis, Vienna MS., 3933, c. 9, fol. 46, col. 1 : Legifer noster Jesus Christus legem per se sufficientem dedit ad regimen totius ecelesiae militantis. 49. De Veritate Scripturce s., c. 21, fol. 70, col. 2 : Ignorare scripturas est ignorare Christum, cum Christus sit scriptura, quam debemus cognoscere. 50. De Blasphemia, c. 1, MS. 3933, fol. IIS, col. 3. Comp. De Veritate Scripturae 8., c. 1, fol. 1, col. 2 : in ilia consistit salus fidelium. 51. De Cirili Dominio, II., c. 13, Vienna MS., bill, fol. 31 1, cols. 1 and 2: Nullas particulates cerimonias exprimit, quibus eis universalis observantia vetaretur. Ideo regula ac religio Christiana secundum formam in evangelio traditam est omnium perfectissima et sola per se bona. 52. !)<• Vtritate Scripturce s., c. 15, fol. 45, col. 1 : Efficacia sententise (the subject spoken of is the Bible) est magis utilis .... quam sententia vel locutio aliena. 53. De Cirili Dominio, I., c. 44, MS. 1341, fol. 141, col. 1 : Pure per observantiam legis Christi sine commixtione traditionis humanse erevifc ecclesia celerrime ; et post eommixtionem fuit continue diminuta, 54. lb., III., 26, MS. 1340, fol. 252, col. 2 : Alias logicee et sapiential evanescunt, sed os et sapientia, quam dedit apostolis in die pentecostes, manet in seternum, cui nonpotuerunt efficacitef resistere et contradicere omnes adversarii. 55. Sermons for Saints' Days No. I.V.. MS. 3928, fol. 112, col. 3. Dt Veritate NOTES TO SECTION III. 279 Scripturae s., c. 2, MS. 1294, fol. 4, col. 3 : Locus a testimonio Augustini non est infallibilis, cum Augustinus sit errabilis. 56. De Oivili Dominio, I., c. 34, MS. 1341, fol. 81, col. 2 ; Lexhumanaest mixta multa nequitia, ut patet de . . . . regulis civilibus, ex quibus pullulant multa mala ; lex autem evangelica est immaculata. Conrp. Liber Mandatoram, c. 10, MS. 1339, fol. 114 col. 2 (after Psalm xviii., 31). 57. Trialogus, I., 9, p. 65 : Sicut sacrae scripturse sententia, sic et ejus logica est a fidelilms veneranda, III., 31, p. 242 ; cum logica scripturas sit rectissima, sub- tilissima et maxime usitanda. Comp. Supplementem Trialogi, c. 6, p. 434. De Veritate Scripturae s., c. 3, MS. 1294, fol. 6, col. 1. 58. De Ecclesia, c. 12, MS. 1294, fol. 165, col. 1 : Sine conservatione hujus cartas impossible est quod maneat dignitas ad privilegium vel aliquod bonum gratuitum capiendum. De Veritate Scripturae s., c. 12, fol. 32, col. 4, he calls the Bible carta a Deo scripta et nobis donata, per quam vindicabimus regnum Dei. Comp. c. 14, fol. 43, col. 4. 59. De Veritate Scriptuvce s., c. 21, fol. 71, col. 1 : Lex Christi est medulla legum ecclesias. De Ecclesia, c. 8, fol. 152, col. 3 : Omnis lex utilis sanctae matri ecclesiae docetur explicite vel implicite in scriptura. 60. De Civil i Dominio, I., c. 44, MS. 1341, fol. 133, col. 1 : Sola scriptura s. est illius auctoritatis et reverentiae, quod, si quidquam asserit, debet credi. 61. Trialogus, III., 31, p. 239 : quod scriptura s. sit infinitum magis autentica et credenda, quam quaecunque alia .... Unde scripta aliorum doctorum magnorum, quantumcunque vera, dicuntur apocrypha, etc. In the use of this term apocrypha (it is the same with Occam), Wiclif does not refer to the genuineness of these writings, but to their credibility and authority. 62. De Civili Dominio, I., 35, MS. 1341, fol. 83, col. 2. 63. lb., c. 20, fol. 45, col. 1 : Totum corpus juris humani debet inniti legi evangelicse tanquam regulse essentialiter divinae. 64. De Veritate Scripturae s., c. 15, fol. 48, col. 2 : Impossibile est, ut dictum Christiani vel factum aliquod sit paris auctoritatis cum Scriptura s. 65. De Civili Dominio, I., 36, fol. 86, col. 2 ; Liber Mandatorum, c. 22, MS. 1339, fol 180, col. 1 : Potestas jurisdictions super scripturam s. humanitus introducta potest effectum legis Dei casando confundere. 66. De Blasphemia, c. 3, MS. 3933, fob 125, col. 3. 67. De Civili Dominio, I., 11, fol. 24, col. 1. Spiritual rulers are bound uti pro suo regimine lege evangelica impermixte. De Veritate Scripturae &., c. 14, fol. 32, col. 3 : Videtur mihi summum remedium solide credere fidem scripturae, et nulli alii in quocunque credere, nisi de quanto se fundaverit ex scriptura. Ibid., c. 20, fol. 66, col. 1 : Utilius et undique expeditius foret sibi (ecclesiae) regulari pure lege scripturae, quam quod traditiones humanas sint sic commixtae cum veritatibus evangelicis, ut sunt modo. 68. De Veritate Scripturae, c. 7, fol. 17, col. 3 : utquidamDr. traditionis humanae et mixtim-theologus dicit. Comp. De Condemnation XIX Conclusionum, in Shirley, Fasciculi Zizan., 1858. The opposite to this is purus theologus, De Ecclesia, c. 10. 69. De Blasphemia, c. 8, MS. 3933, fol. 144, col. 1 : Lex autem Christiana debet esse solum lex Domini et immaculata convertens animas, et per consequens recusari debet a cunctis fidelibus propter commixtionem cujuscunque attomi (sic) antichristi. 70. Sermons for Saints' Dags, No. XLIX., MS. 3928, fol. 99, col, 1. 71. lb. No. XXXI., fol. 61, col. 2, No. XXXVIII , fol. 76, col 4. Also in the 24 Miscellaneous Sermons, No. XIX. fol. 175, col. 1. Under viri evangelici in these places, at least in the two last, are chiefly meant Wiclifs itinerant preachers. But of doclores evangelici he speaks in De Civili Dominio, MS. 1340, fol. 163, col. 1. 72. De Veritate Scripturae, as above, c. 14, fol. 40, col 4. Comp. fol. 41. col. 3. Both places are found in the excerpt from this work given in Appendix. 280 LIFE OF W1CUF. 73. E.g., Defenaorium contra Joannem papain XII., in Fasciculus renvmexjk tendarum, etc., ed. Brown, 1690, fol 139-957. Dialogus in Goldast, Monorchia, Frankfort, H56S, II., fol. 398-957. < >pus aonaginta dierum contra errorea Joannnia XXII. papas do utili dominio reruin ecclesiasticarum, etc. Goldast, II., f. 993-1 236. 74. Occam, in his Dialogus, Lib. f. II., fol. 410 f., in Goldast, investigates the question of what constitutes false doctrine, and he brings into view the principle as one which had hcon held by some, while at the same time himself opposing it, that only those doctrines should be held to be orthodox and necessary to salvation which are taught either directly or indirectly in Holy Scripture. With this principle, Wiclif's, it is true, is identical, but there is nothing to show, notwithstanding, that he had borrowed it from any quarter. 75. Dicckkoff, die Waldenser in Mittelaltcr. Gottingen, 1851, p. 171 f., 2G7 f. 76. In Pref. to Book I., De Dominio Divino, MS. 1339, fol. l,col. 1 : Innitar .... in online procedendi rationi et sensui Bcripturae, cui ex religiohe et speciali obedientia sum professus Sed ut sensum hujus incorrigibilia scripturae aequar securius, innitar ut plurimum duobus ducibus, scilicet rationi philosophia revelatae, et postillationi sanctorum doctorum apud ecclesiam approbates. 77. De Civili Dominio, III., 26, MS. 1340, fol. 252, col. 2 : Spiritus sanctus docet nos sensum scripturae, sicut Christus aperuit apostolis sensum ejus. 7S. De Veritate Scripturae s.,e. 15, fol. 45, col. 1 : Ne pseudo-discipuli fingant se immediate habere a Deo suam sententiam, ordinavit Deus coinmunem scripturam sensibilem. 79. De Veritate Scripturae s. c. 9, fol. 23, col. 1. De Chili Dominio, III., 19, fol. 162, col. 2 : Nemo sufficit intelligere minimam scripturas particulam, nisi spiritus s. aperuerit sibi sensum, sicut Christus fecit apostolis. SO. De Veritate Scripturae s., c. 6, fol. 13, col. 1. Comp. c. 2, fol. 4, col 4 : Nisi Deus docuerit sensum scripturae, est error in jamris. 81. lb., c. 15, fol. 45, col. 1 : Ad irradiationem confert sanctitas vitae ; e. 9, fol. 22, col. 4 : virtuosa dispositio discipuli scripturae, is viewed as including auctoritatis scripturae humilis acceptatio ; c. 5, fol. 12, col. 1 : sensus auctoris humiliter indagandus. 82. De Veritate Scripturae s. c. 19, fol. 62, col. 3 : Tota scriptura s. est unum Dei verbum. Comp. c. 12, fol. 31, col. 1 : Tota lex Christi est unum perfection verbum procedens de ore Dei ; c. 4, fol. 9, col. 4 : Non licet lacerare scripturam 8., sed allegare earn in sua integritate ad sensum auctoris. Comp. c. 6, fol. 15, col. 3 : Hseretici lacerando .... negant scripturam s. esse veram, et non concedendn earn ex integro capiunt ; e contra autem catholici allegant pro se scripturam s., . . . cum acceptant ejus autenticam veritateni ex integro ad sensum, quern sancti Doctores docuerant. Farther, c. 9, fol. 22, col. 3 : Crebra lectio partium scripturae videtur ex hoc necessarium (sic), quod saepe una pars scripturae exponit aliam. Prodest crebro legere partes scripturae pro habendo conceptu suae concordantiae. In the Miscellaneous Sermons, No. XL.. MS. 3928, fol. 213, col. 1, Wiclif observes : Sunt enim veritates scripturae quae sunt verba Dei, sic connexae, quod unumquod- que juvat quodlibet. 83. De Veritate Scripturae s., c. 15, fol. 45, col. 1. Comp. c. 12, fol. 31, col. 4. 84. Lewald in Zeitschrift fiir Historiche Theologie, 1846, p. 177. De Veritate Scripturae s., c. 9, fol. 22, col. 4 : Utrobique in scripturae s. est conformitas rationi, et per consequens ratio est testis necessarius ad habendam sententiam scripturarum. 85. De Veritate Scripturae s., c. 2, fol. 4, col. 3 : Et sic posset proterviens totum sensum scripturae subvertere negando sensum literalem et fingendo sensum figura- tivun] ad libitum. De Cirili Dominio, III., 19 : Omnia Christi consilia — sicut et tota scriptura — ad literatum observanda, etc. Et iste sensus est spiritualis, circa quern doctores s-icrae paginae debent specialiter laborare. Comp. c. 9, fol. 56, col. 2 86. De Quatuor Sectis NoveUis, MS. 3929, fol. 232, col. 4: Non valet Baltus NOTES TO SECTION III. 281 a literali sensu scripturae ad sensum misticum, nisi ille sensus misticus sit alicubi fundatus. . . . 87. De Veritate Scripturae s., c. .12: Doctor de Lyra, licet novellus, tamen copiosus et ingeniosus postillatur scripturae ad literam, scribit, etc. 88. De Dominio Divino, III., c. 5, fol. 84, col. 2 : Apostolus autem de ratione notabili respexit praepositiones et adverbia. S9. De Officio PastoraU, II., c. 7, p. 39 : Christus renuit judicium seculare, quod aj)probat in lege veteri. 90. Liber Mandatorum, c. 7-9, MS. 1339, fol. 104, col. 1 ; fol. 112, col. 1. 91. lb., c. 7, fol. V'5, col. 2: Brevis est differentia legis et evangelii, timor et amor. Comp. c. 8, fol. 10 7, col. 1 : Lex nova tanquam amorosa est lege timorosa perfectior. 92. De Veritate Scripturae s., c. 7, fol. 17, col. 4 : quam omnes homines tenentur cognoscere defendere et servare, cum secundum illam tenentur sub obtentu aeterni praemii Domino ministrare. 93. Speculum Secular ium Dominorum, c. 1. Vide my essay, Wiclif und die Lollarden, Zcitschrift fur histor. Tkeologic, 1853, p. 433, note 30. Comp. Lewald, Theoloyische Doctrin des JohannWycliffc, in the same Zeitsckrift, 1846, 180 f. SECTION IV. — Doctrine of God and the Divine Trinity. In the first four chapters of his Trialoc/us, Wiclif goes into the proofs of the existence of God. He occupies himself partly with the ontological proofs, in which he closely follows Anselm of Canterbury in his Prosloyium, partly with the cosmological proofs. In the former he starts from the idea of " The Highest Thinkable," and comes to the con- clusion that this highest thinkable also exists. In the latter he starts from the idea of a cause, and arrives at the exist- ence of a last and highest cause.95 As Wiclif in this place appropriates to himself successions of thought which had already been made use of by previous thinkers, and appears to be peculiar only in the reflections which he makes upon them, it cannot be necessary for me to enter farther into them here, and I content myself with referring to the ex- position of them given by Lewald. In his inquiry into the attributes of God. on the other hand, we come in sight of a peculiarity of Wiclil's doctrine, which we may briefly indicate as positivity, in the philosophi- cal sense, or as realism. The subject discussed is the nature of our idea of the infinitude of God. Wiclif sets out from the axiom that God is the absolutely perfect Being. Follow- ing Anselm of Canterbury and his Prosloyium, he lays down the twofold principle — (1), God is the highest that can be thought ; (2), God is the best which exists ; and in the inquiry into God's attributes he always proceeds upon the ruling principle that God is all which it is better to be than not to be.07 But according to all this an idea of God may be 282 LIFE OF WICLIF. formed quite different from Wiclifs idea of Him. The in- finitude of God may be thought of in a vague ami absolutely indefinite sense, or in the sense of a positive and substan- tive perfection. Wiclif takes the latter view with distinct consciousness and decision. He insists on its being under- stood, not merely in a negative but positive sense, that God is immeasurable and infinite, as God possesses a positive perfection in this respect.98 How this is meant will become clear when we take up single attributes of God. As to God's omnipotence, Wiclif decidedly rejects the idea of a wholly unlimited power ot doing. It does not follow — e. g., from God's omnipotence — that He has the power to become less than lie is, or the power to lie, etc. Neither is it allowable to conclude, on the other hand, that God's power is a limited one because He is unable to do what men do, namely, to lie, or to fall away from rectitude; for to lie, or to fall away, does not mean the doing of something, but abstaining from the doing of the good." Wiclif regards it as the action of a mis- taken imagination when men suppose that God is able to bring into existence an infinite world for Himself; he puts in the place of an alleged unlimited and boundless power the idea of a power conditioned and limited by no other power, the greatest positive power of all.100 In other words, he con- ceives of the Divine omnipotence as a power self-determining, morally regulated, ordered by inner laws (potentla Del ordinata, in opposition to potentia absoluta).101 He thus arrives at the proposition that God's almighty power and His actual work of creation and causation are coincident with and cover each other. In a similar way he expresses himself respecting the Divine omniscience. This appears to him to be in every respect a real or actual wisdom. God's wisdom is a thing of absolute necessity, for He necessarily knows, first of all, Himself, and also all of which He is the Creator. But the conclusion is a peculiar one. which Wiclif draws from the Divine all-knowledge, viz., that all which ever was, or shall be, is. This he proves in the following way: — Whatever was or shall be, ( rod shall know it. Shall He know that it is, then He knows it now that it is, for God cannot begin or cease to know anything ; but if God knows anything as being, that thing is. Therefore if anything was or shall be, so is it.102 Further, Wiclif rejects the distinction which men were inclined to make between God's power to know and His actual knowing, and instead of this lays down tho pro- position, God can know nothing unless what He knows in god's omniscience and eternity. 283 tact. Fur if God can know it, He knows it now, for He cannot make a beginning or an end of knowing; and God knows nothing but what is, at least in the sense of the ens intelligibilis.10B With this again connects itself Wiclifs view of God's eternity. He deduces this eternity from the consideration that if there existed any measure (mensura) which was ante- cedent to God, then God Himself could not be the first and highest cause, from which it appears that eternity is the proper name for the measure of the Godhead. Accordingly, he regards eternity expressly not as a mere attribute which indwells in God, but as identical with God Himself. But eternity in itself is absolutely indivisible — it has no before and after, like time. From this last proposition he then deduces the Divine unchangeableness. God cannot change His thoughts, His understanding and knoAving. What He thinks and knows, He knows in an eternal manner. II He were to change His thoughts according to the change of their object, He would then be in the highest degree change- able in His thoughts. Yea, God's thought would by and by be constructed out of observations made from moment to moment.103 And with this again is connected the doctrine of what he calls the deep Metaphysic — i.e., his own realistic philo- sophy, viz., that all which ever has been or shall be is present to the Divine mind, i.e., in the sense of real existence.100 The doctrine of the Divine Trinity Wiclif evidently took up simply in the form in which it had been in part con- ceived by the ancient Church, and in part handed down by the scholastic doctors before him. We should in vain seek in his writings for any peculiar and original treatment of this article, especially on the basis of Scripture teaching. There is only a single point of this Trinitarian doctrine, as it seems to me, in which he felt a peculiar interest — the doctrine of God the Son, as the Logos. From all that WTiclif says, as well in the Trialogus as occasionally in other writings, on the subject of the Trinity, it appears indubitable that he presupposes, and proceeds upon as conclusively established, the whole body of Church-dogma, as it was sanctioned in the fourth century, and was finally com- pleted by Augustin. He operates with the technical terms of the Latin Church Fathers — nature and person, as fixed by ecclesiastical sanction ; and yet he is not altogether unacquainted with the definitions of the Greek theology. Still, so far as he occupies himself with definitions, as, e.g., of person, he by no means penetrates into the subject treated of any deeper than others had done before him.107 284 LIFE OF WH'UK. Further, as to what concerns the speculative proof of the doctrine of the Trinity, Wielif, it is true, devotes to it much attention. In the Trialogus, the sophistical opponent Pseustes censures it as an undue pretension of the reason, and as an injury done to faith and its exclusive light, that so specific an article of faith as that of the Trinity should be proved by arguments of reason.108 But Wielif himself, speaking in the character of Phrenesis, ad- heres to the belief that the reason is able to attain to a knowledge of this truth. He finds no difficulty in main- taining that Plato and other philosophers had grasped it. But he laid particular stress, notwithstanding, upon the assertion that a meritorious knowledge (meritorie cognoscere), i.e., a saving knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity is possible, exclusively, to that faith which springs from Divine grace and illumination.109 As to grounds of reason for the doctrine, however, "Wielif remarks that it is self- evident that here any such proof of the " why " is out of the question, and that only the " that " — the Divine fact itself — can admit of such proof; in other words, the Divine Trinity cannot possibly be grasped and proved from its relation to any cause higher than itself, because God Him- self is the highest and last cause ; rather this truth can only be proved from facts which are the effects wrought b}^ the Triune God.110 But when we look more narrowly at the proofs themselves, which Wielif partly indicates and partly states at length, we find that they are merely the same which were first brought forward by Augustin in his great work on the Trinity, founded upon natural analogies — upon memory, cognition, will, and the like, and which among the seholastics had already been appropriated to his own use by Anselm in his Monologiwn. As already observed, Wielif interests himself much the most in the idea of God the Son as the Logos. For in this idea of the Logos lies at the same time the Wielif doctrine of ideas ; in other words, the doctrine of Realism. The Logos — the substantive Word — is the in- clusive content of all ideas — of all realities intelligible (capable of being realised in thought), and is thereby the mediating element or member between God and the world. And yet in the Logos both the God-idea and the world-idea are immediately one. We need not wonder, therefore, if in Wielif we sometimes stumble upon propositions which graze all too nearly upon Pantheism, such, e.g., as the pro- position, "Every existing thing is in reality God Himself, for every creature which can be named is. in regard to its DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY. 285 'intelligible' existence, and consequently its clvef existence, in reality the Word of God " (John i. 3). But hardly has he used this language when he becomes conscious that this thesis has its dangerous side, and therefore immediately guards himself against the conclusion which might be drawn from it, that God is the only existence. His words are, — " But this gives no colour to the conclusion that every crea- ture whatever is every other creature whatever, or that every creature whatever is God." m Here we see that to give support to Pantheism is not at all his meaning or design ; and if, notwithstanding, he approaches it here all too closely, it should not be lost sight of, in excuse for him, that Augustin himself, in whose footsteps he treads in the doctrine of the Logos and that of ideas, has not, in all parts of his works, known how to set aside Pan- theistic thoughts. NOTES TO SECTION IV. 94. Wycket, Oxford 1828, p. 5. 95. Trialogus, I. c. 1-4, p. 39-53. Comp. Lewald, Theologische Doctrin Wgcliffe's, in Zeitschrift fiir histor. Thcologie, 1846, 18S f. 96. lb., I , c. 4, p. 50 : Deus est, quo majus cogitari non potest ; p. 49 : Deus est optima rerum mundi. 97. Trialogus, I., c. 4, p. 62 : Deus est quidquid melius est esse quam non esse. 98. lb., p. 54 : Non solum negative sed positive conceditur Deum esse infinitum, .... cum Deus habeat positivum perfectionis in istis denominationibus. 99. lb., c. 5, p. 53. Comp. Lewald, as above, p. 196, 215 f. 100. lb., I., c. 2, p. 42 : Deus est maximae potentiae positivae, etc. ; comp. c. 10, p. 69 : Sicut Deus ad intra nihil potest producere, nisi absolute necessario illud producat, sic nihil ad extra potest producere, nisi pro suo tempore illud producat. As ahove, p. 71 : Omnipoteutia Dei et ejus actualis creatio vel causatio adae- quantur. 101. De Dominio Divino, III., c. 5, MS. 1340, fol. 30, col. 1 : phantasiantes de Dei potentia absoluta. 102. Trialogus, I., 5, p. 52. 103. lb., I., 9, p. 67. 104. lb., I., c. 2, p. 42 : Aeternitas, quae est omnino indivisibilis, et cum sit ipse Deus, non accidentaliter sibi inest, nee habet prius et posterius sicut tempus. 105. Be Verltate s. Scripturae, c. 19. Vienna MS., 1294, fol. 62, col. 2 : Deus non potest mutare sensum — vel intellectum suum, sed omne quod sentit, intelligit . . . aeternalliter illud cognoscit. Wiclif appeals in support of this partly to Holy Scripture, e.g., Mai. iii. 6, etc., partly to authorities such as Augustin, Anselm, Bradwardine. 106. lb., c. 6, fol. 19, col. 3. 107. Trialogus, I, c. 6 f., especially p. 108. lb., 6, p. 54. 109. lb., p. 56. 110. lb., c. 7, p. 58, applj'ing the Aristotelian distinction between proofs 286 LIFE OF WICLIF. which come to a dion, and such as come to a on, or, as Wiclif expresses himself, demonfltratio propter quid, und demonstratio, quod est. Comp. Lewald, as above, p. 199. 111. Liber Mandatorum, c. 9, .MS., fol. 110, col. 1 : Chime ens est realiter ipBe Deus ; dictum enim est in materia de ydeis, quod <>mnis creatura nominabilia secundum esse intelligibile et per consequens esse prmcipalissimum est realiter verbum Dei, Joh. 1. Nee ex hoc est color, quod quaelibet creatura sit quaelibet, aut quaelibet sit Deus. Comp. Trialogus, I., c. 3, \>. !7. Section V. — Doctrine of the World, of the Creation, and of the Divine Dominion. From what goes before, we may already gather what Wiclif s views will be on the subject of the world; for his ideas of the attributes of God, such as omnipotence and omniscience, could not be otherwise determined than by hav- ing regard to the things of the world. Thus it is nothing more than Avhat, from the foregoing, we might expect, that Wiclif declares the Creation to have been an act of God which was remote from all arbitrariness of determination — an act which in its own nature was necessarily determinate. The School of the Scotists, following the lead of Duns Scotus himself, conceived of the Divine Will and creative work as a matter of freedom and of unconditioned discretion, and maintained, in logical consistency with this view, that God is able to do nothing except what He does in fact ; He does not choose to do anything because it is the best, but it is the best because He chooses to do it; and God might have created the world otherwise than He has created it. In direct opposition to such views, AViclif takes the side of the Thomists, and maintains that it was impossible for God to have made the world larger or fairer or more rapid in ils movement, etc., than it is.113 Like Thomas Aquinas, he lays great stress upon the aphorism expressed in the Book of Wisdom (xi. 22), that God ordered everything by measure, number and weight.114 But he believes that he discerns therein not only a fact of experience, but also an inner law of the Divine Will and creative action, according to which they are free only in this sense, that they are at the same time determined by an inward necessity. Still, it does not follow from this that Wiclif meant to say that the existence of the world is a necessity, that God must needs create the world. In one passage the only thing he says, and yet with a certain timidity of tone, is that God could not for ever have withheld Himself from creating any being, because otherwise lie would not have been in the highest degree communicative and good.115 At all events. GOD AND THE WORLD. 287 that is only a moral necessity, conditioned by the goodness and love of God — attributes most peculiarly his own. But Wiclif concedes so much as this, that every creature of God, in so far as we regard it as an intelligible nature, is as necessary and as eternal as God Himself, for its intel- ligible nature is coincident with God Himself — with the substantive Logos.116 On the other hand, he draws a sharp line of distinction between God and the World in respect to their mode of existence. God alone is eternal, immutable, without fore and after. The World is temporal, i.e., it has a mutable existence, including in it a fore and after. Wiclif posits, besides, as Albertus Magnus had done before him, a third, middling existence, which he calls arum or a>vitas, and which belongs to pure, spiritual beings, as angels, and the blessed in heaven; and here, too, there is no succession of time. Hereby cevitas is distinguished from time ; but how it is to be distinguished from eternity cannot be gathered from his explanations.117 Still, time and eternity form a decisive difference between the world and God. " It is one thing for a thing to be always, and another for a thing to be eternal ; the world it always, because at every time ; and yet it is not eternal, because it is created ; for the moment of creation must have a beginning, as the world had."118 Accepting the ideas of the Aristotelian metaphysics, as taken up and further developed by scholastics like Thomas Aquinas, Wiclif distinguishes in the Creation and all single exist- ences, substance and form, i.e., the substratum capable of receiving determination, and the being which determinates it. It is only both these united which make a creature to be what it is ; and these three, including the resultant creature, answer to the Trinity. The determinating form answers to the Logos; the substantive matter answers to God the Father ; and their union into one points significantly to the communion of the uncreated Spirit.119 Instead, however, of going further into the cosmology of Wiclif, it may be more worth while, as this cosmology con- tains little that is peculiar to himself, to learn what he teaches on the subject of 77ie Divine Dominion. This is a part of his teaching which is quite as characteristic as it has been hitherto little known. The latter circumstance is very easily explained by the fact that the works to which Wiclif committed his views upon this subject have not only 288 LIFE OF WICLIP. never been printed, but are also nowhere to be met with in England, and bave come down t<> us in the Vienna manu- scripts alone. The three Books of The Divine Dominion (De Dominio Divino) form a preliminary work to the great theo- logical collective work of \\ii-lit", the Snmma in Tlieologia; and in the repeated perusal of the books De Dominio Divino I have received the impression, that we have here lying* marked out before us the path of transition by which Wiclif passed over from the philosophical to the properly theological period of his life and authorship. The work itself is of a mixed nature — metaphysical investigations and biblico - theological inquiries passing over into each other. The author, also, has a special value, not only in scholastics like Anselm of Canterbury, but also in the Fathers of the Church, for their philosophical reasonings in support of Christian doctrines. The preface to the work gives occa- sion to conjecture, as Shirley was the first to remark, that Wiclif began it not long after his promotion to the Theolo- gical Doctorate.120 The question is an obvious one enough, How came Wiclif, at this stage of his development, to make precisely this idea of dominion the pole of his philosophico-theological thinking. I am not able to give a direct answer from his own mouth, but from certain hints and indirect proofs, I think I am able to gather that two facts in the history of his century became points of attachment for Wiclif s thinking, and served to link on his thoughts precisely to this idea of Dominion. One of these was the struggle between Church and State which took place on the threshold and in the first half of the fourteenth century — namely, the conflict between France under Philip the Fair and Pope Boniface VIII. ; and then the conflict between Emperor Louis the Bavarian and Pope John XXII. These conflicts, the first of them especially, disclosed a new turn of the public mind in Europe, and turned much more upon questions of principle than the earlier wrestling matches between sacerdotium and imj>ei'inm under the Emperors of the Staufen race. Men were much more conscious now than before, that the question in dispute was whether the State should be in subjection to the Popedom, and the latter should become an absolute world-monarchy, or whether the State or sovereign power, within the sphere of civil life and affairs, should be independent of the Pope- dom. It was a question of lordship. It had to do with domitiion. The other fact was the collision between tin- Papacy and the stricter party of the Franciscans, which, taken along "DE DOMINIO DIVIXO." 289 with the ecclesiastico-theological investigations which took their rise from it, did not pass away without leaving traces on Wiclif. Here the question in dispute, which was answered in the affirmative by Occam and others, was, Ought the Franciscan Order to be poor and without property ? It was a dispute about dominium, in the sense partly of personal and partly of corporate property and rule. These facts appear to have led Wiclif to take the idea of dominium as the kernel or germ of a whole system of thought. But as a mind of deep penetration, he took a more compre- hensive view of the subject, and treated it on a much grander scale, than his predecessors who stood nearer to those con- flicts in actual life, and had therefore investigated the ques- tions involved with a much more direct practical interest indeed, but also under a more restricted point of view. For example, the representatives of the State idea, or the side of Philip the Fair and Louis the Bavarian, contended for the autonomy of the State in purely civil affairs. But Wiclif goes farther, and recognises, as attaching to the State, both a right and a duty even in the internal affairs of the Church. He widens the dominium of the State. Again, the contention of the Franciscans was that the obligation of poverty should be laid only upon the monks, or more strictly upon the Men- dicants, and should be stringently enforced. Wiclif goes farther in this matter also, and would have, in place of do- minion, a ministry of humility in poverty imposed upon the clergy at large, upon the spiritual office in general. He takes a deeper view of the subject, and treats it with a more penetrating insight ; and herein he went in opposition to a mental pre-occupation which everywhere prevailed in the Middle Age. Through the feudal system all the relations of life had been converted into forms of landed possession, all offices into the form of fiefs, into a sort of territorial property and subordinate dominion.121 A natural consequence of this was that the majority of the masters of Canon Law viewed the spiritual office as a dominion. Wiclif, on the contrary, recognises it, not as a mastery, but as a service. In his view it is not a dominium but a ministerium. To come nearer to the subject itself, the plan of Wiclif's great work — the Summa in Theologia — comprehending twelve books as the main subject, besides three preliminary books, is laid out in such a way that the doctrine of the Dominium forms at bottom the kernel of the whole subject. For he treats, first of all, in the three pre- liminary books of the Divine dominion, in such wise that T 290 LIFE OF WICLIF. the First Book, after some observations of the most general kind, investigates the Subject of the dominion, or who is its lord ; the Second Book, the Object of the dominion, or upon whom it is exercised ; the Third, the Acts of the dominion, or wherein it consists. In the Summa itself, the First Book — the Liber Mandatorum or De Preceptis — developes the rightful foundation of all human dominion, viz., the commandments of God. The Second Book — De Statu Innoc entice — defends the nature of the dominion which obtained in the state of innocency as a dominion of man exclusively over nature, and not over his equal. Then the next three Books, I1I.-V., treat of Civil Dominion. And not till now Wiclif enters upon the properly ecclesiastical terri- tory. The Sixth Book — De Veritate Scripturce Sacrce — proves the standard authority of the Bible. Then the Seventh Book treats De Ecclesia. The Eighth — De Officio Regis — handles the question of Christian Magistracy, or of the relation between Church and State. The Ninth Book — De Potestate Papce— illustrates the Roman Primacy ; and the three last Books treat of the chief evils under which the Church is suffer- ing, viz., Tenth, De Simonia; Eleventh, De Apostasia ; Twelfth, De Blasphemia. In the preliminary work, Of the Divine Dominion, Wiclif illustrates first of all the Idea of Dominion in general. He remarks that it has four sides : the subject ruling ; the object ruled over ; the relation of the ruler to the ruled, or wherein it consists ; and the law whereon the rule is founded. He decides for the following definition, "Dominion is the relation of a rational being, in virtue of which he is set over another as his servant,"123 mani- festly an unsatisfactory definition, if judged by a logical standard, as it is only verbal, not substantive, and expresses idem per idem. He then gives a survey of the different species of dominion, according to its subjects, its objects, and its foundations. There are three kinds of rational beings, and therefore also three kinds of dominion — divine, angelic, and human. There are also three different objects of dominion, and therefore the distinction between monastic, municipal, and kingly rule. And there is a like difference in the foundations of dominion, — natural law, evangelical law, and human law, — and thus there is natural dominion, evangelical dominion, which is nothing else but a minis- terium — a service in love in the stead of Christ — and human dominion, i.e., the dominion of force or compulsion.124 No dominion, of whatever kind it is, is absolutely eternal, as it, of course, must first begin with the existence of the SUBJECTION TO THE DIVINE DOMINION. 291 ministering creature. God Himself is not called " Lord " before He has created the world. But God's dominion comes in immediately with the creation, and as a conse- quence of it. To uphold the creatures and to rule them are prerogatives belonging to Him, on the very ground that He is Lord.125 The Divine dominion excels every other in all respects — in virtue of its subject, inasmuch as God in no way stands in need of the creature put under Him ; in virtue of the ground upon which His dominion rests, viz., His infinite power as Creator, on which account, also, God's dominion never comes to an end ; lastly, in respect to the object of His dominion, as the creature must be subject to God whether he will or not.126 Wiclif also takes up the question whether the service of God admits of a more or a less, which he answers in the negative; for every creature is the servant of God, in the sense of service with his whole and full being. Here, however, he remarks that, besides such beings who stand directly under the dominion of God — the individual crea- tures— there are also things which stand under it only indirectly or mediately, e.g., errors and sins. These, indeed, do not themselves serve God ; but the persons who commit sin and are the slaves of sin are subject notwithstanding, in the main, to the supreme God. Wiclif repeatedly returns to this difficult point. In the chapter, especially, where he enquires into the extent of the Divine dominion, he enters into a very full and searching investigation respecting the relation of the human will to the absolute dominion of God over all which is and comes to pass.128 This, however, is not the appropriate place to enter into this investigation. We shall find a more suitable place for it below. The Second Book, as remarked above, treats of the Objects of the Divine Dominion. Here Wiclif's realistic view of the universe comes at once into view. All dominion applies to what is created, consequently God's dominion connects itself with the order in which the creatures were made. And, as being is created before everything else, so God's dominion has first of all to do with created being. God has dominion over the general at an earlier stage than over anything individual which can be named.129 Finally, the Third Book inquires into the single acts by which dominion is exercised. Of these there are sixteen, ot which there are three which belong exclusively to the Divine dominion — creating, upholding, and governing; and thirteen acts which have a relation to human dominion, while some 292 LIFE OF WICLIF. of them likewise belong to God and the Divine govern- ment.130 The first among these acts is the act of Giving. Wiclif treats of this first ; but as the manuscript before me is in- complete, and breaks off at the close of the sixth chapter, he does not get much beyond this act; for in these few chapters he investigates only the idea of Giving, with the correspond- ing idea of Receiving;131 also that of Granting and Recalling, as also that of Lending and Borrowing. Meanwhile we may console ourselves over the fragmentary condition of this Book with the thought that enough of what is characteristic is found in what of it still remains to us. Wiclif begins his treatment here with the observation that the act of giving belongs, in the highest measure, to God, for God's giving is of all the richest, and to the creature the most useful — the richest, inasmuch as God never gives to His servants any gift without giving to them his chief gift — Himself.132 Further, the inquiry respecting the kinds of granting, lending, and so forth, leads up to the idea of merit, and here the author lays down the principle that merit and the means of attaining to merit are absolute grants of God. He is beforehand with us, awakens us, moves us to the acquiring of merit, But from this again Wiclif deduces the consequence, not to be undervalued, that no creature can merit anything before God unless it be in consideration of congruity (de congruo), but under no circumstances in con- sideration of worthiness (de condigno). To this negative proposition, to which plainly the chief importance attaches, Wiclif often returns afresh, in order to lay special emphasis upon it, and to prove it in the most convincing manner — a thought in which the evangelical ground-truth does not indeed come purely into daylight, but still comes into view in some degree. We shall by and bye refer again to these ideas more at length in their own place. In the doctrine of the good and evil angels Wiclif has little that is peculiar. He accepts the Patristic and Schol- astic ideas with regard to differences affecting them, e.g., the difference between the morning-knowledge and the evening-knowledge of the angels — i.e., their foreknowledge and their knowledge from experience. He attaches special importance to the occasions of various kinds which are made use of by the evil spirits, for the temptation and seduction of men ; as well as to the conflict with the powers of darkness which at the end of all things will take the form of a tremendous, decisive struggle between the Church of Christ and the Antichrist. 293 NOTES TO SECTION V. 112. Comp. Erdraann, Oundriss der Oeschichte der Philosophie, I., 1866, p. 424 113. De Dominio Civili, III., c. 5, MS. 1340, fol. 29, col. 1 : Impossibile fuisse ipsum fecisse mundum majorem, pulcriorem, etc. 114. Tricdogus, IV., c. 40, p. 390, and De Dominio Civili, in the passage just quoted : Christus ponit cnncta in mensnra, numero, et pondere. 115. De Dominio (in communi), c. 7, MS. 3929, fol. 123, col. 1 : Concedunt quidam, quod Deus non posset perpetuo continere non producendo aliquam creatu- ram, quia tunc non esset summe communicativus ac bonus, etc. 116. Trialorjus II, c. 1, p. 76. 117. lb., I., c. 2, p. 79, f. 118. lb., I., c. 1, p. 76 : Aliud est rem semper esse et earn aeternaliter esse, . . . . instans creationis oportet incipere sicut mundum. 119. lb., II., c. 4, p. 87. 120. Introduction to Fasciculi Zizanioram, XVI. f. 121. Augustin Thierry, Lettres sur Vhistoire de France, 7th edition. Paris, 1842. Lettre IX., p. 148. 122. De Dominio Divino, Lib. I., in 19 chapters, the last of which has remained a fragment ; at least this applies to all the three Vienna MSS. which contain this book. Lib. II. contains in the MSS. only five chapters, and Lib. III. only six ; both books break off in the middle of the treatment. 123. De Dominio Divino, Lib. I., c. 1, MS. 1339, fol. 1, col. 2 : Potest dominium sic describi : dominium est habitudo naturae rationalis, secundum quam denom- inatur suo praefioi servienti. 124. lb., I., c. 3, MS. 1339, fol. 5, col. 1. 125. De Dominio Divino, I., c. 2, fol. 3, col. 6. The observation upon the Divine name "Lord" is founded upon Genesis ii. 2, where the Vulgate trans- lates the two Hebrew names which here, for the first time, occur together, DTPS* niiT by Dominus Deus. 126. lb., c. 3, fol. 5, col. 2, f. Comp. c. 1. fol. 2, Col, 1 : Quaelibet creatura necessario servit Leo, ut sibi canit ecclesia : " Serviunt tibi cuncta, quae creasti." 127. lb., c. 4, fol. 9, col. 2. 128. 76., c. 10, 14-18. 129. De Dominio Divino, Lib. II., c. 1., MS. fol. 59, col. 1. As the author at this point immediately enters more deeply into his favourite doctrine of the reality of universals, our MS. breaks off at the fifth chapter before he has returned to his proper subject. Still I see, from the commencement of Book III., that in Book II. he had treated of the ideas of creation, conservation, and government. 130. lb., Lib. III., c. 1, MS. fol. 69, col. 1. 131. lb., c 1-3. 132. lb., c. 4-6. 133. lb., c. 3, MS. fol. 71, col. 2 : Deus non dat suis famulis quodvis donum, nisi principaliter det se ipsum. 134. lb., III., c. 4, fol. 78, col. 2 : Nulla creatura potest a Deo mereri aliquid nisi de congruo, sic quod nihil penitus decondigno, fol. 79, col. 1. Creatura penitus nihil a Deo merebitur ex condijnio. 2(.H LIFE OF WICLIF. Section* VI. — Doctrine of Mem and of Sin. In his treatment of the Doctrine of Man, Wiclif mixes up an extraordinary amount of matter which is either of a philosophical kind, or entirely belongs to the natural sciences, especially anatomy and physiology — e.g., the anatomy of the brain,135 or the question in what way the perceptions of the senses take place.136 From his manner of speaking on such subjects we see that Wiclif not only possessed extensive knowledge in the field of the natural sciences — on the scale, of course, of his own age — but was also master of a sound and accurate judgment on such matters. But this is not the place to take notice of his observations in this field, and as little of his philosophical expositions respect- ing the distinction of a double soul in every human being ; concerning the mental faculties, cognition, will, and memory (after Augustin) ; and touching the immortality of the soul.137 We limit ourselves rather to what is important in a theological sense ; and here it is worth remarking that Wiclif, as I see from several places in his imprinted works, finds in the Redemption, with full right, the key to the Creation ; and throws a reflex light from the eschatology of Scripture upon its anthropology, in holding fast to the Biblical idea of the whole man as a Unit made up of Soul and Body.138 The greatest importance, however, seems to attach to all that portion of his treatment of " Man and Sin'r which belongs to the moral sphere, viz., the doctrine of the will, the question concerning the Freedom of the Will, and concerning Evil and Sin. In reference to the human will, Wiclif lays great stress upon its freedom, for to him it is clear that the moral worth or wortblessness of action is conditioned by the free- dom of the will. He maintains that " God has placed man in so great a condition of freedom that He can demand from him absolutely nothing else than what is " meritorious," (i.e., what is of moral worth), and therefore under the con- dition that man performs it freely.139 And yet Wiclif, quite unmistakeably, has a leaning to the Augustinian view. Among all the fathers Augustin is the man to whom he is at all times most indebted, to whom he renders the profoundest respect, and whose disciple he was held to be by his own adherents, who, for this reason, sometimes gave him the name of Joannes Augustini.140 Wiclif, moreover, looked upon Thomas of Bradwardine — the Doctor profundus — as a teacher with whom he was sensible of standing in wiclif's doctrine of sin. 295 intellectual affinity ;141 and manifestly he felt himself one with him not only in a general sense, in virtue of his zeal for God's honour and cause,142 but also in his fundamental view of the all-sufficing grace of God in Christ, and of God's all-determining will. But notwithstanding this, he is so fully convinced of human freedom, that in its defence he places himself in opposition even to a Doctor profundus. He agrees with him, indeed, in the main principle that every thing which takes place takes place of necessity, and, further, in the doctrine that God co-operates in every act of will in the sense of previously determining it ; l43 but notwith- standing this, it is not his meaning to encroach upon the freedom of choice of the human will ; in particular, he repudiates the conclusion drawn from the main principle, that if any one does an act of sin, it is God himself who determines him to the act of sinning. And here we come, at the same time, to Wiclif s doctrine of evil. In every action he distinguishes two things, the act of a being created by God, and the feeling from which the act proceeds. The act itself — the doing of the creature — is good, and is determined by God, who, therefore, so far co- operates in producing it. But the feeling from which the act springs may be a bad, ill-ordered feeling, i.e., morally evil, sinful feeling ; in the production of this wrong direction of the soul, of this evil condition of the will, God in no way co- operates.144 It is only the intention, the feeling of an act, which makes an act to be a sin, and that intention or feeling is not from God. It is the distinction between substance and accident which Wiclif applies here to the subject of evil.145 "Every action," he says, " which is morally evil, is evil only accidenter." But evidently this investigation of the ques- tion is not of a character to solve its knots. For, first of all, there is a multitude of actions, e.g., of deceit, of betrayal, of malice, in which a line of distinction can only be drawn in a forced and artificial way, between the active power of a created being, on the one hand, and the bad or morally censurable intention and feeling of the act, on the other. But, further, the question must be asked, How then does it stand with actions which are moral, pious, and well-pleasing to God ? Does God co-operate in such actions only to the extent of aiding the active power of His creature, and not also towards the production of the pious feeling itself? And if the latter is the true view, viz., that God's co-operation extends, in such cases, both to active power and feeling, as we must assume to be the case, according to the words of the Apostle founded 296 LIFE OF WIOLIF. upon by Wiolif in another place, " Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves" (2 Cor. iii. 5), then arises the question, how it comes that God Himself, in this case, awakens and determines the thoughts and feelings, but does not do so in the other ease? And either there appears to be a marvellous inequality, if not arbitrariness, in the divine procedure, or we are brought back again to the thought that God wills and determines ultimately also the nulling volition of evil in the creature, because He determines all, and, as the ultimate cause, is the Maker of all. This is precisely the point on which Wiclif consciously and deliberately departs from the doctrine of Bradwardine. He gives a decided negative to the view held by the latter, that in the act of sin there obtains a necessity which excludes all freedom of choice, inasmuch as the distinction between God's permission and His positive will and pleasure is, as Bradwar- dine alleges, a nullity; and the truth rather is that God's will precedes every action of man, and infallibly determines it, so that no will of the creature is in itself really free. Wiclif linds here in the Doctor profundus an error of which he seeks an explanation in a false antecedent proposition, viz , that every volition in God is an eternal, absolute substance.140 The thought that God Himself works and occasions the evil voli- tion in the soul of man is repugnant to the feeling and thinking of Wiclif, not only on the ground that the sinner would then be in a position to excuse himself with more than a mere appearance of reason, but chiefly on the ground that, on that pre-supposition, the dark shadow would fall on God Himself, of being privy to sin and consenting to it, and, there- fore, guilty of it. Wiclif says, in distinct terms, that if that were a correct view, every murderer, robber, liar, etc., would be able to say with reason, " God determines me to all these acts of transgression, in order to perfect the beauty of the universe." 147 But it is precisely such blasphemous conse- quences, so dishonouring to the holiness of God, that Wiclif intends to cut away, and therefore he makes a reservation of autonomous freedom — not absolute, indeed, but relative, and placed out of reach of all compulsion — to the innermost sphere of feeling and of volition. With this result, however, in reference to moral volition and action, stands connected a view of the whole world of being and becoming, according to which evil is not a being but a not-being; not a positive action, but a defect or nega- tion. This idea of the negativity of evil Wiclif, as he hints in one place, borrows from no less an authority than Augustin himself. And, in point of fact, howevei strongly Augustin THE NEGATIVITY OF EVIL. 21>7 puts forward the power of sin, especially in bis controversial writings against the Pelagians, he nevertheless speaks of sin in other places as having only a negative existence. Such, in effect, is the significance of the thought that sin is only an occasion of good — a thought which scholastics like Anselni, Albertus Magnus, and others, have also appropriated from Augustin.149 But Augustin also expresses himself in the most direct manner to the effect that sin is not a doing but a defect or omission of doing; 150 it is not anything positive, and therefore has no causa ejjiciens but only a causa dejiciens ; or, otherwise, it is not an afectio but a defectio, etc. This doctrine of the negativity of evil was, in the case of Augustin at least, a consequence of his internal struggle with Mani- chfeism. In order to avoid the concession of an independent existence of evil in opposition to God, he endeavours to represent it as a thing which has in truth no real or substan- tive being of its own — an unreality, a nonentity. This Augustinian thought Wiclif, in fact, made his own. Even in the pulpit (in Latin sermons) he does not shrink from setting forth this speculative doctrine of sin. From the saying of Christ, " If I had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin," he takes occasion to handle the metaphysic of sin, and to maintain its negativity quite in the manner of Augustin.151 He expresses the same thought both in his earlier and later writings. For example, in his work, De Dominio Divino, he lays stress upon the assertion that sin, as such, is a defect, a want, not something positive ;152 and in the Trialogus he repeatedly takes occasion to say that sin is not a being, but a non-being — a defection ; 153 that sin, even original sin, is only an occasion of good ; 154 that there does not exist an idea of evil or sin 155 (non habet peccatum ideam), and that therefore it is out of the question to speak of sin being caused or worked by God. There is, therefore, a putting forth of God's will and power and government in respect to evil, only in so far as God turns the evil into an occasion of good,156 partly in visiting it with punishment, partly when He takes occasion from sin to institute salvation and redemption. In this he goes so far as not even to shrink from maintaining that it is better that there should be a law (the law of the flesh, Rom. vii.) opposing itself to God, than that the universe should be without such opposition, for now the Providence of God is revealed, and His glorious power.157 Even in his Sermons he is not afraid to give expression to these thoughts ; not, indeed, without guarding his hearers from the misunderstanding, as though it might be lawful to do evil that good may come out of it (Rom. iii. 8) ; for in the 298 LIFE OF WICLIF. case of obstinate sinners, their sins serve only to land them in unutterable miseries, and to the redeemed their guilt is of benefit only in the sense of being the occasion of the Mediator's fulness of grace.158 We shall only mention, in brief, that Wiclif treats of the state of innocence in Paradise, of the fall of the first man, and of original sin, entirely in the sense of Scripture and the doctrine of the Church, keeping specially close to Augustin. In his view, Adam was the representative of the whole human race, which he already carried in germ within himself — a view which lay all the nearer to his hand the more deeply he was imbued with the realistic mode of thought ; for as he regarded the genus humanity as a real collective personality, it became easy to him to see represented in Adam, the first transgressor, his whole sinful posterity.159 And yet in this matter Wiclif is not without a mode of thinking which is pecu- liar to himself. Personality stands so high in his regard that he is not content with looking upon the first sin as the col- lective act of the whole human race, but he attempts to con- ceive of original sin as a personal act of every individual human being, i.e., in the intelligible sense.100 Further, in intimate connection with this subject, he pronounces most decidedly against the doctrine which regards the semen generativum as the bearer of the self-propagating peccatimi originate. However much he sides with Augustin and differs from Pelagius in other things, he has no difficulty in openly acknowledging that the latter has proved convincingly that the semen generativum is not the conveyer of original sin. Wiclif himself pronounces with emphasis that not what is corporeal, but the mind is the conveyer of it.161 This does not rest, iudeed, upon any original reflection of Wiclif Irim- self, for Thomas Aquinas had already given expression to the same thought.103 But it is, nevertheless, a fact of some significance for Wiclifs character as a theologian that he preferred the mental to the corporeal view of the subject, and that he laboured to place above everything else the moral personality of every individual man. NOTES TO SECTION VI. 135. Triaiogus, II., c 6, p. 94. 136. lb., II., c. 7, p. 97 f. 137. lb., II., c. 5, p. 90 f., and c. 8, p. 101 f. Wiclif himself, however, in his sermons, does not entirely avoid entering into philosophical questions of this kind, e.g., in No. XXIX. of the Sermons for Saints' Days, MS. 3928, fol. 57, col. 4 f. 1 38 K.. III., fol. 6, col. 2 : Christus — fortificat pugnantes pro causa sua, etc. When in No. II., fol. 3, col. 1, Wiclif says of St. Paul that he lifts the banner of his Captain in glorying only in the Cross of Christ, his words admit of being justly applied to Wiclif himself. In the Liber Mandatorum, c. 26, MS. 3928, fol. 206, col. 2, he remarks that pars Christi sit parte adversa potentior ; and in the same treatise, c. 28, fol. 214, col. 2, he speaks of doetores detegentes sensurn scripturae as Christi discipuli. 180. Be Civili Bominio, II., c. 8, MS. 1341, fol. 179, col. 1 : Die enim, qui est sacerdos in aeternum, propheta inagnus atque magister, exhortatus est saluberrime crebrius praedicando ; sed cum sit rex reguni, exercuit tarn auctoritative quam ministerialiter correptionem humanitus coactivam. Comp. the words quoted in the preceding note, 174 : illi ergo episcopo .... papa. 181. Liber Mandatorum, c. 6, MS. 1339, fol. 102, col. 1. 182. Trialogus, IV., 16, p. 300 : Opera Christi sunt interpres optimus legis suae, cf. III., 31. 183. Be Civili Bominio, I., 28, MS. 65, col. 1 : Omnis Christi actio est nostra instructio. 184. Be Veritate s. Scn'pturae, c. 29, MS. 1194, fol. 101, col. 4 : Vita Christi tanquam communissima et toti ecclesiae notissima super verticem montium posita, est in scolis, in sermonibus atque ecclesiis omni generi hominum detegenda. 185. Saints' Bay Sermons, No. VI., MS. 3928, fol. 12, col. 1 : Petro, Paulo, evangelistae Johanni et ceteris citra Christnm scriptura imponit grave peccatum, et per consequens errorem et stultitiam, .... ideo abbas noster Christus impeccabilis est videndus. 186. Saints' Bay Sermons, No. VIII., MS. 3928, fol. 14, col. 2. 187. Miscellaneous Sermons, No. XXVL, MS. 3928, fol. 235, col. 3 and 4 : Adhuc Deus celavit a nobis puncta talia, ut recognoscentes humiliter nostram ignorantiam, fidei necessarioribus fortius insistamus. 1 88. XL. Miscelkmeous Sermons, No. X VIII., MS. 3928, fol. 222, col. 4 : Christus dicit in nobis cottidie : Hoc passus sum j>ro te, quid pateris pro me ? Comp. the well-known word, "This I did for thee, what doest thou for me ? " 189. Trialogus, IV., 12, p. 288 : Non dubito quin passio Christi tam ad pos- 318 LIFE OF WICLIF. terms tempore [sic) quani ad anterius in Eructus efficaciase extendit. Miscellaneous Sermons, No. I., MS. 3128, foL 193, col. 2 : Sicut virtus meriti Christi su extendit usque ad finem uuniili post ejus completionem, Bic virtus ejusdem meriti se extendit usque ad principium mtuidi ante ijus impletionem. Et nisi sic esset, nunquam fuisset persona humani generic, post praevaricationem primi hominis, justa moraliter sive salva. 190. XXIV. Miscellaneous Sermons, No. VIII., MS. 3928, fol. 148, col. 4. 191. De Ecclesia, c. 3; MS. 3929, fol. 11, col. 2: Christus salvavit totum mundum humani generis, cum apposuit medicinam passionis, quae suffecit redimere multos mune Veritate Scripturae s., c. 30. Tertii dicunt, sicut ego saepe locutus sum, quod Christus solum redemit praedestinatos, quos ordinavit ad gloriam. 194. Trialogus, III., 30, p. 236. 195. Trialogus, IV., 18, p. 306. 195. XXIV. Sermons, No. VI., MS. 3628, fol. 143, col. 4 : Verum concluditur, quod pro nullo peccato suo posset homo satisfacere, nisi esset immensitas miseri- cordiae Salvatoris. Poeniteat ergo homo Deo fructuose, et deserat peccata prae- terita, et virtute meriti Christi et suae gratiae sunt deleta. 196. Trialogus, III.. 2, p. 133. Be Ecclesia, c. 2, MS. 1294, fol. 133, col. 4 : Fides nunc sumitur pro acta credendi, quo creditur, nunc pro habitu credendi, per quem creditur, et nunc pro veritate, quae creditur, ut docet Augustinus XIII0 De Trim (c. 2 and 3). 197. lb., Alia est fides, quae est credulitas fidelis explicita, et alia fides impli- cita, ut catholicus, habens habitum fidei infusum vel acquisitum explicite credit ecclesiam catholicam in communi, et in ilia fide communi credit implicite . . . quodcunque singulariter contentum sub s. matre ecclesia. 198. XL. Sermons, No. XII. ; MS. 3928, fol. 214, col. 1 : Fides est fundamentum religionis Christianae, sine qua impossibile est placere Deo. 199. Be Veritate s. Scripturae, c. 21, MS. 1594, fol. 71, col. 4 : Sicut primum fundamentum virtutum est fides (Heb. xi.), sic primum detrimentum alliciens ad peccandum est infidelitas, etc. And some lines before he says it is certain, non esse quenquam possibile peceare, nisi propter defectum fidei. Trialogus, III., 2, p. 135. Cum impossibile sit quenquam peceare, nisi de tanto in fide deficiat. 200. XL. Miscdl. Serm., No. XII., MS. 3928, fol. 214, cols. 1-3. The connec- tion of thought in this passage is significant : Nemo potest placere Deo nisi ipsiun diligendo ; sed nemo potest Deum diligere, nisi ipsum per fidem cognoscendo. 201. Be Oivili Dominio, I., c. 44, MS. 1341, fol. 143, col. 2: Oportet— omnem christianum de absoluta necessitate salutis quenilibet articulum fidei saltern im- plicite credere. 202. XXIV. Miscellaneous Sermons, No. X., MS. 3928, fol. 155, col. 1 : Quantum ad ill ad de Gregorio orante pro Trajano, credere potest, qui voluerit ; sed ratio exigit, quod quaelibet talis credulitas, si infuerit, insit liomini citra fidem, Wiclif refers at some length to the same tradition in the tractate Be Ecclesia, c. 22, MS. 1294 f. 203. Trialogus, III. 2, p. 133 : Fides (ut dicunt scholastic!) alia est informis, — et alia est fides caritate formata. Be Veritate s. Scripturae, c. 10, MS. 1294, fol. 25, col. 1: Nisi habuerint fidem formatam, damnabuntur tanquam vacui inutiles; c. 2, fol. 133, col. 4: si habuerit fidem caritate formatam. XXIV. Scrm., No. XVII., MS. 3928, fol. 169, col. 1 : in Christum credere — sibi (Christo) per amorem caritatis perpetuo adhaerere. Be Veritate s. Scripturae, c. 21 : Credere in Deum est ere- dendo ipsum sibi adhaerere firmiter per amorem. NOTES TO SECTIONS VII. AND VIII. 319 204. De Veritate s. Scripturae, c. 10, MS. 1294, fol. 25, col. -3: Probat apostolus 11° Hebr., quod fides sit fuudamentum justificationis hominis quoad Deum. 205. XL. Sermons, No. XII., MS. 3928, fol. 214, col. 3 : Inter alia, in quo (sic) fides est utilis, prodest generaliter ad haec tria : 1, omnes regeneneratos in via virtutum vivificat ; 2, viantes ad invadendum inimieos excitat et comfortat ; 3, protegendo impugnantes confundit Habak. ii, 4: "Justus meus ex fide vivit," etc. 206. XXIV. Sermons, No. XX., MS. 3928, fol. 175, col. 3: Sicut vita praecedit omnes alios actus secundos, sic fides virtutes alias, et hinc dicit apostolus Hebr. x. extestimonio prophetae : "Justus ex fide vivet;" ac si intenderet, quod vita spiritualis justorum originatur ex fide Ideo dicit apostolus : Corde creditur ad Justitiam, i.e., quod homo sit Justus, requiritur ipsum credere intellectum. Et cum fides, habita opportunitate, operatur magna, si est, cum mpossibile est tantum semen in terra fructifera non in bonam operam ebullire, ideo subjungit apostolus, quod "ore confessio fit ad salutem." 207. Saints' Day Sermons, No. V., MS. 3928, fol. 8, col. 1 : bona fortunae quae sunt minima, bona naturae, quae sunt media, bona virtutis et gratiae, quae sunt maxima. 208. Trialogus, III., 29, p. 229. De Eeclesia, c. 11, MS. 1294., fol. 161, col. 2: Libei'tas a peccato est maxima, sine qua non est aliqua vera libertas. 209. De Eeclesia, c. 14, MS. 1294, fol. 174, col. 1, on mentioning the pretended donation of Constantine Wiclif says of Silvester: Fuit dominus super astra et omnia inferiora homine in natura, sed non titulo civili, imo titulo gratiae, quo justi sunt omnia. 210. Trialogus, III., 1 and 2, p. 128 f. 211. lb., III., 10, p. 163: Tota radix cujuslibet speciei superbiae stat in isto quod homo errat non credendo humiliter, quod quidquid habuerit est a Deo. 212. De Christo et ejus Adversario, c. 10, MS. 3933, fol. 74, col. 3 : Superbia est primus pes, per quem peccator a Deo decidit, ut patet de Lucifero, etc. XL. Mis- cellaneous Sermons, No. VI., MS. 3928, fol. 8, col. 1 : Superbia est implicite blas- phemia Quum homo superbit, negat implicite se habere superiorem, legibus cujus obediat. 213. Trialogus, III., 11, p. 164 f . : Humilitas est aliis virtutibus funda- mentum. Quicunque est humilior, est Christo propinquior; religio in humilitate fundata. De Graduationibui Sckolasticis, c. 2, MS. 1337, fol. Ill, col. 3: Radix religionis Christi est humilitas. XL. Miscellaneous Sermons, No. VI., MS. 3927, fol. 202, cols. 3 and 4 : Fides et humilitas connexae sunt fundamentum religionis Christianae. Humilitas est quasi aura temperata, in qua oportet omnia plantaria aliarum virtutum conseri, si debeant crescere in christiano. In his English writ- ings, sermons, etc., Wiclif insists often enough, and with the greatest emphasis, upon meekness, e.g., in the 121st sermon in Arnold's edition, I., 399, he says, "Ever as a man is more meek, evere the betere man he is." And meek, meekness signify with Wiclif, according to his Bible translations — ride Wicliffe's Versions of the Bible, Vol. IV., 10 — not softness or gentleness, but humility. 214. Trialogus III., 2, p. 132, 136 f. 215. De Civili Dominio, III., 26, MS. 1340, fol. 247, col. 2 : Ars praecipua, quam in schola virtutem addiscimus, est ars diligendi Deum. XL. Miscel. Serm., No. I., MS. 3928, fol. 194, col 2 : Nullus actus hominis meritorius est, nisi in quo Deus supereminenter diligitur. In one of his English sermons Wiclf says, " Humility is the foundation of all virtues, and Love their summit which reaches to heaven." Select English Works, Vol. I., 64. 216. Liber Mandatorum sive Decalogus, c. 31, MS. 1339, fol. 126, coL 2. 217. Trialogus, III., 2, p. 136: Consistit autem caritas in amore, quo Deus debite diligitur et tota sua fabrica. 218. Saints' Day Sermons, No. LVL, MS. 3928, fol. 114, col. 4 : Ordo caritatis exigit, quod homo primo in ordine diligat suos don.esticos, etc. De Eeclesia, c. 15 MS. 1294, fol. 177, col 2: Patet, quod de lege caritatis et spiritualis elemosinae — 320 LIFE OF WICLIF. tenetur praepositus, subjeetos eorripere. Unde inter omnia peccata, de quibus magia timeo in superioribus regni uostri, sunt caeca pietas, falsa misericordia, etc. 219. Liber Mandator um (Decaloaus), c. 23, MS. 1339,fol. 186, col. 2: Faciat ergo quodlibet membrum ecclesiae, quod incumbit officio sui status, et de quanto facit Bolicius (sic, from soUicicte), de tanto quadam naturalitate cuilibet membro capaci prodest amplius, etc., cf., fol. 187, col. 1. 220. Saints' Bay Sermons, No. III., MS. 3928, fol. 4, col. 2 : Omnem salvandum oportet sequi Lpsum vel in passione vel saltern in morions, lit si sit virtuosus, quomodo Dei virtus causans et exemplana virtutem suam non erit dux, quern sequitur in moribus? 221. lb., No. XVIII., fol. 36, col. 3. 222. Ik Veritnte 8. Scripturae, c. 29, MS. 1294, fol 101, col. 4: De quanto vita Cbristiani est Christo propinquior, de tanto est virtuosior. Et patet correlarie, quod declinatio a religione Christiana ex hoc oritur, quod niniis attenditur ad multos magistros Christo contrarios, doctrina et sequela magistri et dueis option praetermissa. 223. Be Cirili Dominio, II., 13, MS. 1341, fol. 208, cols. 1 and 2 : Secundus fucus hoc dicit, quod sic (cf. Hebr. xi., 36) pati injurias, cum sit consilium, non obligat nisi heroicos, cujusmodi sunt sancti ab ecclesia canonizati ; talia consilia non obligant mediocres. 224. lb., I., 43, MS. 1341, fol. 123, col. 1 : Sicut nemo potest esse neuter quoad virtutem et vitium, sic nulla conversatio hominis potest esse neutra. 225. lb., I., 43, MS. 1341, fol. 202, col. 1 ; fol. 203, col. 1 : Sicut malum de genere potest bene fieri {e.g., Execution of Criminals), sic bonum de genere potest male fieri. Glossa Bernhardi "Deus, inquit, non est remunerator hominum sed adverbiorum," hoc est tantum dicere ; non remunerat [sic) Dens bonum quod fit, sed quod bene fit. Comp. Be Officio Pasforali, I., 10, p. 18. Ideo dicunt loquentes communiter, quod Deus est remunerator adverbiorum. Farther, Be Vcritatc s. Scriptwrae, c. 14, MS. 1294, fol. 116, col. 4 : Non solum debet attendi, quid homo faciat, sed qualiter et qua intentione, cum Deus sit remunerator adverbiorum, quae faciunt maxime ad moralitatem, quam oportet fundari in gratia et caritate, quae non possunt inesse, nisi msit moralitas. 226. The expressions mcrcri praemium in alio seculo, meritum, opera meritoria, are of such frequent occurrence with Wiclif, that the slightest doubt can evidently never have occurred to him of the propriety of applying them to Christians. They are also repeated so often that it appears superfluous to quote passages in proof of the fact. 227. Wiclif defines meritum in one place to be something done by a rational creature which is worthy of reward ; and he remarks that, as the same man may be both father and son, so the same act may be de condigno in relation to one Bet in authority, who rewards without any grace, and de congruo i'i relation to a Lord who rewards only of grace. Be Dominio Divino, III., MS. 1339, fol. 87, col. 1. 228. De Dominio Bicino, III., 4, MS. 1339, fol. 79, col. 1 : Creatura penitus nihil a Deo merebitur ex condigno, cf. 78, col. 2. 229. lb., III., 5, MS., 1339, fol. 84, col. 1, f., fiber 2 Cor., iii. 5: In quo dicto videtur mihi, quod apostolus more suo profunde primo innuit, nos posse cogitare aliquid "a nobis," et per consequens Balvatur nobis liberum arbitrium cum potentia merendi de congruo ; secundo per hoc, quod negat nos posse aliquid cogitare "ex nobis," explicat, quod non possumus niereri aliquid sine praecedente gratia, et sic nihil simpliciter de condigno. 230. lb., III., 4, MS., 1339, fol. 30, col. 2 : Non— reor peccatum vel minimum commissum contra dominum per aliquod meritum posse tolli, nisi per meritum hujus viri principaliter sit ablatum. 231. XXIV. Sermons, No. II., MS. 3928, fol. 132, col. 3 f . : Ego non video, quomodo ex condignitate meriti peccantis deleri possit quodcunque peccatum, cum ad satisfactionein requiritur gratia infinita specialis. 232. Trialogus, III., 7, p. 153. Et patet vanitas nostrorum loquentium, qui NOTES TO SECTIONS VII. AND VIII. 321 ponunt, quod gratia talis datur homini. . . . de congruo, ut facilitet hominem ad merenduin. 233. De Dominio Divino, III., MS. 1339, fol. 89, col. 2. Here Wiclif lays down the principle that worldly rulers should ever remember that they are the servants and stewards of God, and he continues as follows : Si ergo istam senten- tiam haberemus prae oculis, tunc non inaniter gloriaremur, quasi hoc haberemus ex nobis, sed cum timore distribueremus bona domini solum dignis, ascribentes Deo honores (sic) et non nobis, qui solum sumus dispensatores et " servi sibi inutiles." 234. lb., III., 4, MS. 1339, fol. 80, col. 1 : Ejus (Christi) quidem conversatio summe meritoria in plenitudine temporis ordinata est principium vivificans, quodlibet aliud meritum subsequens vel praecedens. 235. Trialogus, III., 2, p. 132 f. : Quomodo quaeso posset homo mereri beatitudinem, vivendo et agendo secundum beneplacitum Dei, nisi Deus ex magna sua- gratia hoc acceptet ? Ideo quidquid homo egerit vel natura creata in ipso genuerit, non dicitur virtus moralis meritoria praemii vel laudis perpetuae, nisi ilia virtus ab alto venerit, et per consequens ex gratia Dei sui. 236. Summa, II., 1 Quaest. 114, 3. 237. Saints' Day Sermons, No. XXXIV., MS. 3928, fol. 67, col. 2 : Si agricultor in spe gaudet de fructu sui seminis, quanto magis viator, qui debet credere, se fecisse multa opera meritoria, debet eorum fructibus spe gaudere. 238. XXIV. Sermons, No. VII., MS. 3928, fol. 146, col. 2 : Cautela snb- tilissima a fratribus inventa stat in mendaci fictione thesauri infiniti supererogati meriti ecclesiae triumphantis, quem Deus ponit in potestate distributiva cujus- cunque papae caesarii. Comp. Trialogus, IV., 32, p. 158. Supponunt, quod in colis sint infinita sanctorum supererogata merita et super totum ilium thesaurum Christus papam constituit, etc. 239. Preface to Sententiae veterum de cona Domini, in a letter to Frederick Myconius, about March 1530, Corpus Reformatorum, Vol. II., 32 : Prorsus nee intellexit nee tenuit fidei justitiam. 240. Life and Opinions of John de Wycliffe, ed. 2, Lond. 1831, II., 324 f. 241. De Christo et ejus Adversario, c. 1, MS. 3933, fol. 70, col. 1 : Secundum catholicos ecclesia est praedestinatorum universitas, et sic est triplex ecclesia scilicet, ecclesia triumphantium in coelo, ecclesia militantium hie in mundo, et ecclesia dormientium in purgatorio. Saints' Day Sermons, No. XLVIIL, MS. 3928, fol. 97, col. 3; XXIV. Sermons, No. XII., fol. 157, cols. 3 and 4. In both sermons I find the above sequence introduced. Comp. Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus, V., 106. 242. Comp. De Veritate s. Scripturae, c. 1, MS. 1294, fol. 2, col. 1; De Ecclesia, c. 1, fol. 145, col. 2. SECTION IX. — Doctrine of the Church as the Communion of the Saved. If we ask for Wiclif's most general and most comprehen- sive idea of the Church, he meets our inquiry with a view which is wide enough to embrace both what is visible and invisible, both the temporal and the eternal. " The Church," he says, " is threefold, of the triumphant {triumphantium in coelo) ; of the militant (militantium hie in mundo) ; and of the sleepers (dormientium in purgatorio)^ The first division embraces the angels and the blessed saints in heaven ; the second, the Christians who are alive on earth in conflict with the world ; the third embraces those who are fallen X 322 LIFE OF WICLIF. asleep, in so far as they have not yet reached the estate of blessedness, but are still in Purgatory. More than once Wiclif compares these three parts of the whole Church to the threefold division of Solomon's Temple, as set forth in the well-known sequence — Rex Solomon fecit templum, Cujus ins tar et exemplum Christus et ecclesia. Sed tres partes sunt in templo Trinitatis sub exemplo ; Ima, summa, media. This division of the Church, however, is not a thought peculiar to Wiclif; it is acknowledged by himself to be an ancient division, and he regards it simply as a Catholic doctrine.243 Ancient, indeed, it is not, but, no doubt, mediaeval, and everywhere current among the scholastic divines. There is nothing, then, characteristic of Wiclif in this division any more than there is in the oneness of the Church on earth with the Church in heaven and in Purgatory which it assumes. But there is certainly one peculiar feature in his funda- mental idea of the Church. Not that this peculiarity was anything new, or belonging only to Wiclif (he has it, as he was well aware, in common with Augustin), 2ii but it is a peculiarity of very great importance, and runs like a red thread through the whole system of Wiclif's thinking — we mean the thought that the Church is nothing else than the whole number of the elect. It is to this view that we have, before every other, to direct our attention, for this leads back to the eternal ground of the Church, while its other features relate to its temporal physiognomy and life. According to Wiclif, the eternal ground or basis of the Church lies in the Divine election. He always defines the Church to be the communion or the wThole body of the elect.245 In other words, he places himself in deliberate opposition to the idea of the Church which prevailed in his time, and expressly disapproves of those notions and forms of speech according to which men took the Church to mean the visible Catholic Church— the organised com- munion of the hierarchy. Wiclif, on the contrary, seeks the Church's centre of gravity in the past eternity, in the invisible world above ; for to him the Church is essentially Christ's body or Christ's bride, according to the well-known apostolic figures. A soul is incorporated with Christ, or betrothed to Christ, not by any act of man, not by any earthly means and visible signs, but by the counsel of God, WICLIF'S DOCTRINE OF " THE CHURCH." 823 by His eternal election and fore-ordination.246 The Church therefore, has in the visible world only its manifestation, its temporary pilgrimage ; its home, and its oi'igin, as also its end, it has in the invisible world, in eternity. Every individual devout Christian owes all that he possesses in his inner life to the regeneration which springs out of the seed of election.247 It is only in virtue of the gracious election of God that the individual belongs to the number of the saved, and is a member of the body of Christ, a child of the Holy Mother Church, of which Christ is the Husband. It is self-evident that, with such a view of the Church as this, Wiclif could not but regard as radically false the prevailing notion, according to which the Church and the clergy were looked upon as one and the same thing, all the members of the clerical order being included in the Church, and all non-clergy excluded from it,248 — an error in- volving immense consequences, against which Luther in his day had still to contend. But the idea of the Chm-ch as the whole body of the elect is not only, on the one hand, Avider than that conception of it which identified the Church with the clergy ; it is also, on the other hand, narrower and more exclusive than that conception which it contests — narrower, inasmuch as it shuts out from the com- munion of the Church the ungodly, the hypocrites, and the half-hearted, even when they fill the offices, high or low, of the Church. Further, as Wiclif carries back conversion, salvation, and membership of the Church to the election of grace, i.e., to the eternal and free counsel of God in Christ, he also distances himself at the same time from the assump- tion, which up till that time was universal, that participation in salvation and the hope of heaven were conditioned exclu- sively by a man's connection with the official Church, and were dependent entirely upon the mediation of the priest- hood. There is thus included in Wiclif s idea of the Church the recognition of the free and immediate access of believers to the grace of God in Christ, in other words, of the general priesthood of believers. After thus indicating in general terms the extreme bear- ings and the Reformational importance of Wiclifs idea of the Church, let us now look at it from a nearer point of view. There is included or implied in the idea of " the whole body of the elect" an unexpressed antithesis which not only runs through all time, or all the present, but also reaches into eternity, backwards to the counsel of election, and forwards into the eternity both of the blessed and the 324 LIFE OF WICLIF. condemned. The eternal purpose of God Wiclif conceives of as a twofold ordaining : God has fore-ordained some to salvation and glory, in virtue of his election (praedestinatio); to others he has appointed everlasting punishment, in virtue of his foreknowledge of their sin (praescientia). The former Wiclif calls praedestinati, the latter ordinarily praesciti ; only in one instance do I find him using instead the expression reprobi.2^ He purposely and persistently avoids to speak of a purpose of rejection (reprobatio, or such like), follow- ing, therein, in Augustin's steps. But in so doing he avoids also to maintain a twofold predestination. And yet it is not his meaning, that the Divine adjudication of eternal punishment and damnation is conditioned entirely and purely by God's omniscient prevision of men's own spontaneous choice of evil, and their final continuance in sin. For Wiclif is well assured of the principle that in the nature of things it cannot be the creature which is the cause of any action or even any knowledge in God, but that the ultimate ground of these must lie in God Himself.250 But it by no means follows from this, in his judgment, that the guilt of sin, on account of which a man is punished eternally, should be laid in any wise upon God's ordination or decree. His meaning rather is this, that when predes- tination to punishment is viewed passively, it is the result of the concurrent working of several causes — (1), God him- self; (2), The esse intelligibile of the creature; (3), The future entrance of sin or crime.251 The final issue, accordingly, i.e., the eternal reward or punishment, is, on the one hand, it is true, brought about by the moral action of man or his transgression (factum meritorium sive demeritorium) ; but, on the other hand, this action of man in time is preceded by a conditioning cause in eternity, viz., God's election, or else his ordination in respect to the future action of his creature. But when God ordains a punishment or act of this kind {ordinal punitionem vel actum hujusmodi), He has an end in view which is morally good, which subserves the best in- terests of the Church, and contributes to the perfection of the world.252 It needs no lengthened investigation to make it clear that Wiclif has by no means succeeded by these statements in solving all the difficulties which confront his view of election and the fore-ordination of God. For, assuming this view, only two cases are thinkable. Either the self- determination of a man (as foreknown by God) on the side of evil, and an impenitent persistency in it, is a really free act, and then God's eternal prevision of it and His decree THE CHURCH : " THE WHOLE BODY OF THE ELECT." 325 of damnation awaiting the sinner must be thought of as conditioned by the self-determination of the creature emerging in its own time ; in other words, the Eternal in this case must be determined by the temporal ; the infinite God in His knowing and willing must be thought of as dependent upon His own finite creature. Or, alter- natively, the Divine election and eternal ordination of what comes to pass is absolutely free and independent and all- conditioning, and then the logical sequence cannot be escaped, that the transgression of the creature, the sin of man, comes of God's own will and ordering — a conclusion which would throw a dark shadow of blame upon God Himself, and destroy the responsibility of man. It is to be remarked further, in regard to Wiclif's doctrine of the election ot the saved, and the eternal foreknowledge of those who fall into the state of eternal punishment, that he does not ground it, as Augustin does, upon the doctrine of original sin, and the utter impotency of fallen man for moral good, but exclusively upon the idea of the omnipotence of God, and His all-conditioning work in regard to all that comes to pass. Wiclif's fundamental idea of the Church as " the whole body of the elect," includes in it, as already remarked, an antithesis which runs through the present and actual, as well as through the eternal past and future. He gives clear and sharp expression to this himself. " There are two kinds of men," he observes, "who stand over against each other, since the world's beginning to the world's end. The first kind, that of the elect, begins with Adam and descends through Abel and all the elect to the last saint who, before the final judgment, contends for the cause of God. The second kind is that of the reprobate, which begins with Cain and descends to the last man whom God has foreseen in his persistent im- penitence. To the latter Christ addresses the words, " Woe unto you, for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets," etc. (Luke xi. 47), in which special reference is made to Abel's blood, and the afflicted lot of all the prophets and righteous men. Here Wiclif has in his eye the whole history of man- kind, not the Church of Christ exclusively.253 As to the latter, the fundamental conception of it as the whole num- ber of the elect draws a separating line in connection with it also ; and the only question is whether this line is drawn within the Church or outside of it. There are some authors well acquainted with Wiclif's writings who are of opinion, that his conception of the Church draws the separ- ating line outside and around the Church; and that precisely 32f> LIFE OF WICLIF. this is the fundamental error of his touching on the subject . of the Church, viz., his maintaining that only these who are saved souls are members of the Church ou earth, while the un- godly, on the contrary, are in no sense of the word Church members.264 In this judgment we cannot entirely concur. At the beginning of the English tract adduced in support of this view by Dr. Todd of Dublin, Wiclif, it is true, makes use of language which appears to warrant it.255 And in other places besides we find the same principle expressed in the most decided maimer, as one agreeable to Scripture and con- linn ed by many testimonies of the Fathers — i.e., that only the elect man is a member of the Church.256 And it is only an application of this doctrine when Wiclif, speaking of worldly-minded and immoral bishops, says of them — " That they are indisputably no members of the Holy Church, but members of Satan, disciples of Antichrist, and children of the synagogue of Satan."'267 Here we have a strong antithesis, not between the Church and the world outside of Christendom, but between holy Mother Church and the Church of the malignants, ecclesia malignantium, a term borrowed from Ps. lxiv. 3 in the Vulgate version ;'J5Sand between the members of the Holy Church and the members of Satan and the disciples of Antichrist.259 The harshness of this dualism may seem strange to us, as though it were an utterance of excited feeling and very violent antagonism. We shall, however, judge it more mildly when we remember that even with a Pope like Gregory VII. the very same dualism between members of Christ and members of the devil or members of Antichrist was quite a common usage of speech. The application of the language, it is true, is exactly opposite in the hands of Gregory VII. and Wiclif, but that makes no difference with regard to the dualism itself. But still, on the other hand, I find that Wiclif not very unfrequently gives expression also to another view, accord- ing to which his fundamental conception of the Church as the whole body of the elect draws a separating line through the heart of the Church itself. In other words, Wiclif at times makes use of language which shows that he distin- guishes within the circle of the Church between true members and only apparent members, which is an approxi- mation to the distinction made by the Reformers of the sixteenth century between the visible and the invisible Church. Thus, in a sermon on the mania ge feast and the guest without a marriage garment, he says of the Apostles that they filled the Church militant with the elect and the foredoomed (praedestinatis et praescitis) ; and in another THE TRUE AND THE SIMULATED BODY OF CHRIST. 327 sermon he observes on the words of Christ (John x. 26), " Ye are not my sheep," that there are two flocks in the militant Church, the flock of Christ and manifold flocks of antichrist; and the shepherds, too, are of opposite kinds;260 and by the Church militant Wiclif always understands the Church upon earth. Thus, in his view, there is not only a separating line, drawn like a tangent to the circle outside the Church, to serve as a bounding line, but there is another also, like a cord drawn through the Church itself. Wiclif took over from Augustin the distinction between the true body of Christ and the mixed or simulated body of Christ, permixtum, simulatum.261 It was his contest with the Donatists which led Augustin to that distinction. He holds, indeed, firmly to the truth that only true believers — the elect — belong to the Church in the proper sense, and form the true body of Christ ; but still he concedes that these true members of the Church are for the present mixed with the unconverted, as wheat and chaff are mixed together on the thrashing-floor (jpermixtum). He acknow- ledges that in the present life the unconverted, to all ap- pearance, form also a part of the Church (corpus simulatum). Thus Augustin recognises, indeed, the whole body of elect and truly converted men as the proper kernel of the Church, and yet does not shut his eyes to the observation that in actual experience that kernel exists only with a shell - like surrounding of seeming Christians — a view which coincides with the Reformation doctrine that the Church in the proper sense of the word is the congrega- tion of believers.202 And inasmuch as Wiclif accepts that Augustinian distinction, he recognises the unconverted, the only apparently holy, etc., as being also members of the Church in a wider or improper sense, and thus draws by his conception of "the whole body of the elect" a separat- ing line which runs through the Church itself, when the Church is taken in the wider sense. The fact is, that Wiclif did not disengage himself from a certain wavering of view between these two ideas. I can- not find that he was attached to one of the two only in an earlier stage of his thinking, while giving his preference to the other in a later stage ; at least the last quoted passages of his sermons belong to very different periods of his life — the one to a collection of sermons preached in his earlier years, the other to another collection belonging to his latest life263 — and in both alike he avers that even within the Church militant the elect of God and the adherents of Anti- christ exist side by side. This wavering, however, serves to 328 LIFE OF WICLIF. prove that Wiolif cannot have, made the idea of the Church the subject of very mature reflection in a dogmatic sense ; he attached more importance to the practical side of the subject. So much is certain that the real members of the Church, or of the true body of Christ, are, upon Wiolif s fundamental principle, exclusively those who have been chosen ' of God unto salvation, and who therefore persevere in the stand- ing of grace to the end ; from which it necessarily fol- lows that no man knows with certainty the extent of the Church, or who does, or does not, belong in fact to it. No one knows of another whether he is an elect man and a child of the Church or no ; and Wiclif thinks that this ignorance is a real advantage to us ; it keeps us from hasty judgments respecting the spiritual condition of those among whom we live, — for no one has a right to pass judgment upon a man that he is a true member of the Church, or to condemn and excommunicate him, to canonise him as a saint, or to allow himself in any other sentence upon him, unless on the footing that he has received a supernatural revelation upon the subject.264 Nor only so; Wiclif also holds to the purely Roman Catholic view, that no Christian can even be sure of his own standing in grace, and so be able to arrive at an assured conviction of his own proper membership in the Church of Christ ; no more than probability, and by no means assurance, is to be reached on the question.'205 A man may, indeed, have know- ledge of his standing in grace for the present, but the main point concerns the question whether he will continue therein to the end ; and this is what no one can know of himself with certainty for the future.266 But the probability that any one is of the number of God's elect, and therefore a real child of the Church, rests upon a life of piety and morality, upon good works and the imitation of Christ.267 Every pilgrim upon earth should have the hope of eternal blessedness, and therefore should be able to rest in the calm belief that he has a standing in grace which makes him well- pleasing to God ; and for this very reason it is needful that he should carefully search and try his walk and conversation, whether he is conscious to himself of no mortal sin, and whether, without any misgiving, he is able to believe that he has a standing in love.208 The thought is no doubt one of great importance — that a Christian, as well in regard to his own standing in grace as in regard to the membership of others in the Church of Christ, can only find in the moral fruits of grace a true ASSURANCE OF FINAL SALVATION. 329 standard of measurement, and distinctive marks which are really certain. It establishes the right, at all times, to apply the moral standard in testing the actual life of the Church, as it presently is; and this moral feature is one which we find, from Wiclif downwards, in all the Precursors of the Reformation. NOTES TO SECTION IX. 243. Trialogus, IV., 22, p. 324 f. : Vere dicitur ecclesia corpus Ckristi mysticura, quod verbis praedestinationis aeternis est cum Christo sponso ecclesiae copulatum, etc. De Civili Dominio, I., 43, MS. 1341, fol. 1]6, col. 1. Necesse est supponere unam veritatem metaphysicam .... scilicet quod ecclesia catholica sancta apostolica sit universitas praedestiuatorum . . . . et istam ecclesiam necesse est esse sponsam capitis, quam ratione praeordinationis ac promissionis non potest ipsain (sic) deserere. Liber Mandatorum (Decalogus), c. 23, MS. 1339, fol. 184, col. 1 : Omnes Christiani praedestinati simul collecti constituunt unam personam, quae est sponsa Christi. De Ecclesia et membris ejus, c. 1, p. 4, and this chirche is moder to eche (each) man that shal be saved, and conteyneth no membre but only men that shulen be saved. 244. Trialogus, IV., 22, p. 324 f., where this doctrine of the church is signi- ficantly enough attached to the treatment of the sacrament of marriage. 245. XXIV. Sermons, No. XII., MS. 3928, fol. 158, col. 1 : De nativitate ex semine praedestinationis, after 1 Joh. hi. 9. 246. In the English tract under the title Octo in quibus seducnntur simplices Christiani, in Wiclif 's Select English Works, ed. Arnold, III., 447, Wiclif says : " Whanne men speken of holy Chirche, thei understonden anoon prelatis and prestis, monkis, and chanouns, and freris, and alie men that han crownes (that have the tonsure) though thei lyven nevere so cursedly agenst Goddis lawe, and clepen not ne holden seculeris men of holy churche, though thei lyven nevere so trewely after Goddis lawe, and enden in perfect charite. But netheles alle that schullen be savyd in blisse of hevene ben membris of holy Chirche, and ne moo." 247. In a passage of his Saints' Day Sermons, No. XL VII., given below in note 251. 248. Trialogus, II., 14, p. 122. Praedestinationis aut praescientiae divinae est causa indubie ipse Deus, cum nulla creatura causat, formaliter intelligendo, hos actus sive notitias Deo intrinsecas atque aeternas. 249. lb., II., 14, p. 122. Intelligendo autem passive praedestinationem vel praeparationem ad pcenarn, videtur, quod illae sunt a Deo, ab esse intelligibili creaturae, et a futuritione criminis concausatae. 250. Comp. the whole 14th chap, of 2d Book of the Trialogus, and the Analysis of the same in Lewald. Zeitschrift fur Historische Theologie, 1846, p. 222-225. 251. Saints' Day Sermons, No. XL VII., MS. 3928, fol. 94, col. 1. Duo genera a principio mundi usque ad finem contraria, primum electorum ab Adam incipiens et descendens per Abel et cunctos electos usque ad sanctum novissimum ante diem judicii mili tan tern; secundum genus reproborum a Caym incipiens et transiens per alios reprobos usque ad praescitum novissimum ; et illis Christus dirigit hunc sermonem. 252. Dr. Todd has taken this view in his notes to Wiclif 's tract, De Ecclesia et membris ejus, vide Three Treatises by John Wycklyffe, Dublin, 1851, p. CLVII. f. 253. De Ecclesia et membris ejus, c. 1, p. 543, note 2, end. 254. Supplementum Trkdogi, c. 2, p. 415 : Patet ex fide Christi scripturae et multiplici testimonio sanctorum, quod nullum est membrum sanctae matris ecclesiae nisi persona praedestinata. De Ecclesia, c. 19, MS. 1294, fol. 189. col. 4 : Supposito ex fide scripturae elaborata a Sanctis doctoribus, quod solum prae- 330 LIFE OF WICLIF. destinati sunt membra s. matris ecclesiae, restat dnbium ulterius: si praesciti gerant ordinea et officia illius ecclesiae ? Et videtur ex dictis, quod non, etc. In the same Book, c. 3, Wiclif appeals, in Bupport of this view, particularly to Thomas Aquinas : Non enim vidi in S. Thoma vel alio Doctore probabili, quod totuni genus (humanum) sed pars ejus praedestinata sit sancta mater ecclesia . . . et universalis ecclesia, etc. 255. Saints' Buy Sermons, No. II., MS. 3028, fol. 3, col. 1 : Omnes episcopi, qui ad temporalia, ad mundanos honores in familia, in apparatibus, vel expensis ministerio Christi superfluis anhelant, omnes inquam tales apostotant [sic) cum antiehristo et Bolvunt infidelitur — totum decalogum ; et tales indubie non sunt membra s. matris ecclesiae. Vita eorum mundana ostendit patule, quod sunt membra diaholi et diseipuli antiehristi. Comp. Trialogus, IV., 32, p. 325 : Filios sanctae matris ecclesiae. . . . filios synagogae Satanae (after Apocal. ii., 9). 25G. E.g., Supplementum Trialoyi, c. 2, p. 416 ; c. 8, p. 447. 257. XX. Sermons, in Select Works, ed. Arnold, I., 50 : There ben (are) here two, manere of chirche, holy Chirche or Chirche of God, that on no manere may be dampned, and the cherche of the fend, that for a time is good, and lastith not; and this was nevereholy Chirche, ne part therof. 258. Miscel. Sermons, No. XXXIIL, MS. 3928, fol. 243, col. 2 : Et impleverunt (so. apostoli) ecclesiam militantem de praedestinatis et praescitis. And XXI V. S( mi., No. IV., fol. 136, col. 4 : Sunt autem greges duplices in ecclesia militante, scilicet grex Christi et greges multiplies antiehristi, etc. 259. Augustinus de Doclrina Christ., III., c. 32. 260. Confessio Augustana, Art. VII. : Est autem ecclesia congregatio sanctorum, in qua evaugelium recte docetur et recte administrantur sacramenta. 261. The XL. Miscellaneous Sermons belong to the earlier years, the XXI V Sermons to the very latest period of Wiclif's life. 262. Trialogus, IV., 22, p. 325 : Ex istis videtur, quod non solum quantitatem ecclesiae sed ejus quidditatem communiter ignoramus, etc. 263. De Ecclesia et membris ejus, e. 7, L. ed. Todd : Certis this pope wot not him silf, i.e., whether he is one of the members of Clirist. 264. Trialogus, III., 6., p. 150 : Concedi debet, quod multi praesciti sunt in gratia secundum praesentem justitiam, praesciti tamen nunquam sunt in gratia iinalis perseveiantiae, etc. 265. lb., IV., 22, p. 325 : Reputare tamen debemus recte nobiscum viventes esse filios sanctae matris ecclesiae, et contrarie viventes esse filios synagogae Satanae. Supplementum Trial., c. 2, p. 416: Non enim supponeret, quod sint tales (real members of the Holy Church), nisi ab evideutia capta ex opere, quo sequerentur dominum Jesum Christum. 266. Be Veritate s. Scripturac, c. 14, MS. 1294, fol. 33, col. 3. SECTION X.— The Worship of the Church. We pass on now to the temporal existence and life of the Church, and direct our attention (1) to its Worship. One principal side of the worship of the Church — viz., the preaching of the Word — we do not think it necessary to speak of in this place at any length, as we have already shown (chap, vi.) what Wiclifs judgment was regard- ing the manner of preaching which was prevalent in his time. We only remind the reader in a word that there were two things which he censured in the sermons of his age: DEGENERACY OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. 331 first, that men, as a general rule, did not preach the Word of God, but other things ; and secondly, that when the Word of God was preached, this was not done in a way suitable to make its influence felt as a " Word of eternal life." With regard to the other parts of Diviue service, Wiclif again and again censures its degeneracy in the direction of an extreme sensuousness. " Would that so many ceremonies and symbols," he exclaims in one place, " were not multi- plied in our Church,"269 for in this he recognises a relapse into Judaism, which seeks after signs, and a departure from the spiritual nature of Christianity. " There lies a danger for the Church militant in the practice of Judaising — i.e., of valuing in a carnally sensuous spirit those symbols and the human traditions connected with them more highly than the spiritual things which they signify ; and even of giving heed to the Word of God more with the bodily eye than with the eye of the mind and by the light of faith.270 When the monks appealed, in defence of the splendour of their cloister churches, to the glory of Solomon's temple, as a proof that the Basilicas ought to be more beautiful still in the period of grace, Wiclif in one passage replies that one must only mar- vel that the monks should imitate so closely that idolatrous and luxurious king in the Old Testament, and not the example of Christ, the Head of the Church and the King of kings, who also had foretold the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem.271 And he gives on another occasion a reply still more severe. "Those senseless Galatians (Gal. hi. 1) wished to burden the Church with the ceremonies of the Mosaic law, and to leave on one side the counsels of Christ ; and yet it is the inner man that should be adorned with virtues, as every moral virtue is infinitely better than all the riches or all the ornaments of a body without a soul. " 272 What gave most offence to Wiclif s eye in the sensuous degeneracy of Christian worship was the numerous images in the churches, and the veneration paid to them. He was prudent enough, indeed, to admit that images, though pro- hibited in the law of Moses, are not in themselves forbidden in the Christian Church. He acknowledges it also to be in- disputable that images may be made with a good design when it is done for the purpose of stirring up the believing to a devout adoration of God Himself. But, on the other hand, he recalls the fact that in the early Church images were not used in such great numbers as they are at present. Nor does he conceal the fact that the use of images operates mischievously on men's minds in more than one direction. It leads, e.g., to error in the faith, and to the idea that God the 332 LIFE OF WICLIF. Father and the Holy Ghost are corporeal, when the Trinity is represented by artists in such a way that God the Father appears as an old man who holds between His knees God the Son hanging upon the cross, while God the Holy Ghost lights down in the form of a dove upon them both ; and such like. Very many besides have fallen into the error of taking an image for something animated, and solemnly bowing to it, which indisputably is idolatry. Many also have been led to believe in miracles performed by the image, a superstition resting upon mere delusion, or at most a diabolical deception. " And by such delusions of an adulterous generation which seeketh after a sign" (Matt. xvi. 4) are the people of Christ blinded more and more; and therefore must we preach against all such costliness, beauty, and other arts, which are employed more for the purpose of extracting gold from deluded strangers than to promote the religion of Christ among the people.274 " The effect of every image should only be this, to wake up the mind and heart of a man to attend to heavenly things ; but when this effect has been produced, the sooner the imagination of the man drops all attention to the qualities of the image so much the better, for in the con- tinued dwelling of the imagination upon these qualities lies concealed the venom of idolatry. As, now, the first and greatest commandment forbids us to pray to any work of man, insomuch that it was prohibited to the Jews to make any images whatsoever, it is manifest that we behove with the highest care to be on our guard against the poison under the honey,275 i.e., against an idolatrous worship of the image instead of the Divine being imaged." " The people, therefore, must be faithfully warned of the danger which lies in this matter, especially as merely nominal Christians, men of an animal nature, dismissing all faith in spiritual things, are wont at the present day to feed their senses to excess in religion, as, e.g., their eyes with the sumptuous spectacle of the Church's ornaments, then- ears with bells and organs and the new art of striking the hour of the day by the wonderful chimes, not to men- tion many other sensuous preparations by which their other senses are moved, apart altogether from religious feeling." 27G By far the largest number of images were representations of the saints, their acts, and their martyr deaths. What ^Viclif thought of saint-worship has been much better known hitherto than his judgment respecting images, for he has given sufficient expression to his views upon it in SAINT-WORSHIP. 333 the Trialogus. Vaughan remarked with truth that Wiclif became step by step more clear and decided in his re- pudiation of saint-worship,277 and we are in a position to confirm this general statement by particular proofs. Thus, e.g., it appears worthy of remark that in a sermon of his earlier life, preached on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, he is still teaching, quite unsuspectingly, that the mother of our Lord is to her worshippers a mediatrix full of mercy. " Even pilgrims upon earth, moved by the love of their neighbours, come to their help in the time of need, but now the blessed Virgin in heaven beholds our necessities, and is still fuller of love, still richer in compassion ; and all the more faithfully does she care for our needs, as she knows that she has attained to so high honour in order that she might become the refuge of sinners. What would men have more ? " 27S The preacher makes only one condition, that we be the imitators of Mary's virtues, especially of her humility, purity, and chastity, for she loves so much only those who are like herself. If, however, the objection should be raised that any one who exercises these virtues Avill certainly obtain the eternal reward even without Mary's help, Wiclif replies — " It seems to me to be impossible that we should obtain the reward without the help of Mary. There are, however, degrees in her help. No one goes away from her quite empty of her overflowing aid ; even those who have done no good thing as yet shall have experience of her soothing power ; for the sake of her humility and in- tercession for mankind they shall be more mildly punished. For she was herself in some measure the cause of the incar- nation and passion of Christ, and so of the whole redemption of the world. There is no sex or age, no rank or position of any one in the whole human race, which has no need to call for the help of the Holy Virgin." 279 Thoughts these — which vie with the most ardent glorifications of Mary and her merits. In his later years Wiclif's judgment was entirely different. There were two questions here which engaged his further reflections — first, the right of the Church to canonise certain personalities ; and next, the moral value of the devotions and rituals which are offered to the saints. The first question occupied Wiclif, as we are able to see, for a length of time. I find traces of this in his work De Civili Dominio. But here he still expresses himself with caution, even with a certain degree of reserve ; for he main- tains only the possibility that the Church in her canonisa- 334 LIFE OF WICLIF. tions may deceive both herself and others, either from 1 lie love of money, or from the inordinate love of those persons who stand in near relation to the individuals concerned, or through illusions of the devil, lie puts, also, the case that many holy monks stand higher in blessedness than certain Saints whose festivals the Church celebrates. Still, how- ever, it surpasses the judgment of man to decide upon this subject in individual cases, and therefore men must defer to the determination of. the Church. It may, indeed, well be that the holders of the Primacy receive special directions from heaven in this matter.280 Wielif takes a step in ad- vance of this in his work De Ecclesia, when he observes " that certainly no Christian can believe that it is necessary to salvation to believe of this or that person whom the Church canonises, that he is in glory on that account, espe- cially in respect to certain modern saints."281 But most strongly of all does he speak in the Trialogus when he puts into the mouth of others the assertion that it is nothing less than a blasphemous pretension of the Romish Curia when, apart from any special revelation, it pronounces persons to be saints, of whose holiness she can know as little as the priest-prince John in far-off Asia, or the Sultan of Turkey. And the hearing of witnesses in such a matter cannot pos- sibly supply any proof.282 Here the authority of the Church to confer canonisation is denied in the most distinct and decided way. The second question concerns the moral value or the con- trary, of the devotions and festivals celebrated in honour of the saints. On this subject Wielif took up, in his later life, a position essentially different from that which we have seen him occupying in his earlier years ; for now he lays down, with entire decision, the principle that a devotion or a festival offered to any saint is only of value, in so far as it is fitted to promote and to heighten the feeling of pious devo- tion towards the Saviour Himself.283 And it is, at bottom, only another turn of the same thought when he says that the blessed saints in heaven look down with contempt upon the perverted praise which men offer to them, and upon the many commemorations and numerous festivals, often of a very worldly character, with which men desire to honour them; and they withdraw their assistance from all such wor- shippers.284 In so saying, he expresses also an unfavourable judgment of the excessive number of saints' days, which he looked upon as in no way promoting the good of the Church. " As the Apostles, without any such saints' days, loved Jesus Christ more than Ave do, it appears to many VENERATION OF RELICS. 335 orthodox Christians a rash and dangerous thing to institute so many saints' festivals, and that it would be better not to have so many celebrations burdening the Church."285 " It would be no sin in a parish priest," he says, "in dealing with people who did bodily labour on one of the saints' days appointed to be kept holy by the Church, but having no confirmation of their sanctity from holy Scripture, if he did not censure nor trouble them as transgressors of the Ten Commandments, whereas he should rather preserve the liberty of the Christian Church within the limits prescribed by Christ Himself.''' In these circumstances it would have surprised us if Wiclif had not also spoken with disapproval of the veneration of relics as well as of pilgrimages, both of which practices were so closely connected with saint-worship ; and in fact he has done so in an unmistakeable way, although sometimes with much caution. The language, however, is sufficiently strong when he remarks that " a culpable blindness, an immoderate and greedy worshipping of relics cause the people to fall into gross error, as the punishment of their sin. Whence, in many countries, the love of money brings things to such a pass, that in numerous churches a portion of the body of some one who has been canonised as a confessor or martyr is more honoured with pilgrimages, and costly oblations, and orna- ments of gold and precious stones lavished upon his grave, than the body of the mother of God, or the apostle Peter, or Paul, or any other of the acknowledged saints."288 "For my part I condemn no act of this kind, but at the same time there are few or none which I can positively com- mend, because those who go on pilgrimage, worship relics, and collect money, might at least occupy themselves more usefully, if they omitted these practices. From the Word of God it even appears to be the duty of all such persons to employ themselves better at the present time, and conse- quently that they are guilty of great sin in failing so to em- ploy themselves. I say nothing of the sins which occur on these occasions, and how the practice itself is a pharisaical one, savouring of the Old Testament, but without any ground in the new law."21'6 It is a remarkable fact, psychologically, that in the same sermon on the feast of the Assumption, which is so strongly marked with Mary-worship, there already occurs a refer- ence to the errors which develope themselves from the veneration of relics. As stated above, Wiclif is there in- vestigating the question whether Mary went up corporeally to heaven, or was taken up after her death, and shows his 336 LIFE OF WICLIF. leaning rather to the latter view. He then adds the re- mark, "and because the contrary might happen in con- sequence of erroneous worship and the covetousness of the clergy, it seems to me probable that God ordered it so that the bodies of Moses, of the Virgin Mary, of the Evangelist John, and of many other martyrs, should remain unknown to us on account of the errors which might result from such veneration." On the other hand, in a sermon delivered in the last year of his life, on the feast of John the Baptist, Wiclif expresses the thought that God and the Church tri- umphant regard the worshipping of corporeal relics at large with no approbation ; and then he continues as follows : — " It would therefore be to the honour of the saints and the fit of the Church, if the costly ornaments, so foolishly lavished upon their graves, were divided among the poor. I am well aware, however, that the man who would sharply and fully expose this error would be held for a manifest heretic by the image worshippers, and the greedy people who make gain of such graves ; for in the adoration of the eucharist, and such worshipping of dead bodies and images, the Church is seduced by an adulterous generation.287 The difference of tone between the two last mentioned passages falls so strongly on the ear, as to show clearly enough what important progress Wiclif must have made in the interval in his insight into the night side of saint-worship. Only one thought on the subject of pilgrimages may yet be touched here ; it is this — that the Christian people would do better to stay at home, and keeps God's commandments in private, than to make pilgrimages and bring gifts to the thresholds of the saints.288 In quite a similar spirit Wiclif expresses himself on the subject of masses for the dead, and all that concerns them. He attaches little importance to them, and though he does not exactly deny that such masses and prayers for the dead, and foundations for their benefit, may be of some benefit to the departed, he yet affirms with all emphasis the view that in all circumstances the good which a man does in his life- time, should it be only the giving of a cup of cold water, out of love and for the sake of Christ, is of more use to him than the spending of thousands on thousands of pounds by his executors after his death, for the repose of his soul.289 3. Another side of the life of the Church on earth in regard to which Wiclif s judgment may be of importance for us, is the moral condition and character of the Church. Everywhere Wiclif sets out from ethical ideas, and applies to all conditions and actions the standard of morals. There wiclif's judgment on the state of the church. 337 are occasions also when he speaks under the influence of strong feeling in the representations he makes and the censures he pronounces upon such subjects. At such times his discourse has a tone of deep earnestness, and becomes truly impressive, even incisive. The judgment which he pronounces upon the religious and moral condition of Christendom, when he tries it by the stan- dard of the first commandment, is sufficiently unfavourable. He finds that idolatry and creature worship are in the ascend- ant everywhere. " It is clear as day," says he, " that we so- called Christians make the creatures to be our gods. The proud or ambitious man worships a likeness of that whicli is in heaven (Exod. xx. 4), because, like Lucifer, he loves, above all things, promotion or dignity in one form or an- other. The covetous man worships a likeness of that which is in the earth beneath. And although going in sheep's clothing we hypocritically confess that our highest of all service is in the worship of God, yet it would very well become us care- fully to inquire, whether we faithfully carry out this confes- sion in our actions. Let us then search and examine whether we keep the first and greatest commandment, and worship God above all. Do we not bend and bow ourselves before the rich of this world, more with the view of being rewarded for this obeisance with worldly honour or temporal advan- tage, than for the sake of their moral good or spiritual profit? Does not the covetous man stretch out now his arms and now his hands to grasp the gold, and does he not pay court with all his pains to the men who have it in their power to hinder or to help his gains ? Does not the sensual man, as though he were making an offering to the idol Moloch, cast himself down with his whole body before the harlot ? Does he not put upon such persons worldly honour ? Does he not offer to them the incense of purses of gold, in order to scent the flow of sensual delight with the sweetest perfumes ? Does he not lavish upon his mistress gift upon gift, till she is more wonderfully bedizened with various ornaments than an image of the Holy Virgin ? And does not all this show that we love the flesh, the world, and the devil more than God, because we are more careful to keep their commandments ? What violence do we hear of the Kingdom of Heaven suffer- ing in our times (Matt. xi. 12), while the gates of hell are bolted1? But, alas ! broad and well trodden is the way which leadeth to hell, and narrow and forsaken the way which leadeth to heaven ! This it is which makes men, for lack of faith, love what is seen and temporal more than the blessings which they cannot see, and to have more delight in buildings, Y 338 LIFE OF WICLIF. dress, and ornaments, and other things of art and men's in- vention, than in the uncreated architypes of heaven." In the end Wiclif concludes that at least the greatest part of Christendom is infected with the prevailing idolatry, and in reality treasures the work of its own hands more highly than God the Head.-90 Taking all things into view, Wiclif arrived at the con- viction that the moral condition of the race was sinking lower and lower. As the world is forsaking the law of Christ, and in conformity to human maxims is surrender- ing itself to the lust of secular things, it cannot but be that offences and scandals will arise.291 And when he com- pares the various classes of wicked men with one another, it appears to him that there is a threefold gradation of evil among them. The common people are bad, the secular rulers are worse, and the spiritual prelates are worst of all.292 It may be anticipated from this language that Wiclif would not be blind to the moral corruption of the clergy of his own age. On the contrary, it is quite clear to him that the Church has much more to fear from enemies within than without, and especially from " a clergy who are given up to avarice, and therefore enemies to the Cross of Christ and the Gospel."293 These few words alone are sufficient to show that while his eye was open to all the religious shortcomings and all the moral faults of the clergy of his time, he looked upon their worldly-mindedness and love of wealth as the proper root of all their evil. But this topic does not admit of being fully treated except in connection with the whole body of his teaching on the subject of the constitution of the Church. NOTES TO SECTION X. 269. Be Ecclesia, c. 2, MS. 1294, fol. 134, col. 2 : Utinam non multiplicarentur tot cerimoniae et signa in nostra ecclesia ! 270. lb., c. 19, MS. 1294, fol. 192, col. 1: Sed in isto stat periculum militantis ecclesiae, quod judaizando secundum sensum carnalem signa ilia cum traditionibus humanis plus suis signatis praeponderet, vel etiam legem Dei plus attendat judicio sensus corporei, quam oculo mentis vel etiam lumine fidei. 271. Saints' Bay Sermons, No. XVI., MS. 3928, fol. 32, col. 1. 272. Be Blasp/temia, c. 6, MS. 3933, fol. 134, col. 4 : Sed isti insensati Galatae volunt monstrose onerare Christi ecclesiam cum cerimoniis legis antiquae, dimLssis Christi consiliis, etc. 273. Life and Opinions of John do Wycliffe, II., 296, f. 274. Liber Mandatorum {Bccalogus), c. 14, MS. 1339, fol. 133, col. 2, f. particu- larly 134, col. 1 : Et de ista deceptione generationis adulterae signa quaerentis populus Christi continue plus caecatur, etc. NOTES TO SECTION X. 339 275. lb., fol. 134, col. 2 : Ideo de quanto expeditius post expergefactionem ad colestia imaginativa hominis dimittit accidentia imaginis, de tanto est melius, quia in mora imaginandi latet venenum idolatriae ; . . . . patet, quod summa diligentia cavere debemus venenum sub melle, adorando idolatrice signum loco signati. 276. lb. : Videtur mihi periculum diligentius exponendum, specialiter cum nomine tenus christiani tanquam animates vel bestiales dimissa fide credendorum spiritualium nimis hodie pascunt sensus, ut visum, spectaculis ornamentorum ecclesiae sumptuosis, auditum, campanis organis et novo modo discernendi horas diei per campanam mirabiliter tin tinan tern, et sensibilia, quibus irreligiose moven- tur sensus alii, sunt parata. 277. Life and Opinions, II., 293 f. 278. XL. Miscett. Sermons, MS. 3928, fol. 235, col, 2 ; fol, 36, col. 2, particularly 236, col. 1 : Tertium, quod debemus credere de matre domini, quod ipsa est suis et veris cultoribus propitia procuratrix. Nam viatores ex impetu caritatis suffragantur egentibus. Sed b. virgo Maria videt in verbo (colo ?) nostram egentiam, et est magis caritativa et magis misericors. Ideo credendum est, quod fidentius procurat contra nostram egentiam et eo specialius, quo noscit se adeptain tantum honorem, ut sit refugium pecatorum. 279. XL. Miscell. Sermons, fol. 236, col. 2 : Hie videtur mihi, quod impossibile est nos praemiari sine Mariae suffragio Imo illi, qui nihil meruerunt, sentient ejus levamen, cum occasione suae humilitatis et interpellationis pro humano genere mitius punientur. Ipsa enim fuit quodammodo causa incarnationis et passionis Christi, et per consequens totius salvationis mundi. 280. De Civili Dominio, III., c. 10, MS., 1340, fol. 67, col. 1 : Contingit etiam, quod multi ss. monachi et fratres sint in beatitudine altiores quam dati sancti, quorum festa solemnisat ecclesia, verumtamen discretio hujus in particulari excedit humanum judicium. Ideo standum est determination! ecclesiae. 281. De Ecclesia, c. 2, MS. 1294, fol. 134, cols. 1 and 2 : Absit christianum credere, quod de necessitate salutis oportet omnem fidelem credere explicite de isto et quocunque, quem ecclesia nostra canonizat, ut eo ipso sit beatus. De aliis autem modernioribus, qui canonizantur ratione parentelae, questus vel muneris, non oportet nos apponere tantam fidem, etc. 282. Trialogus, III., 30, p. 237 : Insuper videtur multis, quod curia ista sic canonizans sanctos blaspheme praesumit, cum subducta revelatione tarn plane ignorat sanctitatem defuncti, quam plane ignorat Johannes presbiter vel Soldanus. 283. Saints' Day Sermons (delivered later than 1378), No. 1. 3928, fol. 1, col. 1 : Non valet festum vel devotio cujuscunque sancti citra dominum, nisi de quanto in ejus devotionem supereminenter persona solemnisans accenditur. 284. lb., No. II., fol. 3, col. 1 : Cum sancti viatores graviter ferunt exaltationem sui, multo magis beati despiciunt illam laudem eorum perversam ; et sic beati creduntur contemnere multas canonisationes ; et ita cum beati contemnuut quoscunque Deus contemserit, necessario subtrahunt suffragia a sic eos colentibus. 285. Lb., No. I., fol. 1, col. 1 : Cum apostoli sine talibus festis sanctorum plus nobis dilexerunt Jesum Christum, videtur multis catholicum (pure Christian truth), tot sanctorum festa instituere esse temerarium ; unde videtur quibusdam, quod melius esset non fore tot solemnitates ad onus ecclesiae, etc. 286. De Ecclesia, c. 19, MS. 1294, fol. 192, col. 4 : Unde talis culpanda caecitas, inordinatus ac cupidus cultus circa reliquias faciunt in pcenam peccati populum multum falli. Unde in multis patriis cupido pecuniae facit in multis ecclesiis, quod pars personae, emtae ut canonizetur pro confessore vel martyre, plus hon- oretur peregrin atione, sumptuosa oblatione et sepulcri ornatione auro et lapidibus preciosis, quam corpus matris Dei, etc. Comp. Sermons on the Gospel, No. XXXII., Select Works, I., 83. 287. Saints' Day Sermons, No. XXII., MS., fol. 43, col. 3. The following words occur at the end of the Sermon, fol. 44, col. 1 : Unde ad honorem foret sanctorum et utilitatem ecclesiae, quod distributa forent pauperibus jocalia (jewels) sepul- crorum, quibus stulte . . . sunt ornata. Scio tamen. quod acute et diffuse detegena hunc errorem foret a cultoribus signorum et avaris reportantibus ex talibus 340 LIFE OF WICLIF. sepulcris lucrum, manifestua haereticus reputatus ; nam in cultu et venerationc eucharistiae, tali cultu inortuoruin corporum atque iuiaginuin, per generationem adulterant eccle.sia est seducta. 288. De Civili Dominio, III., 10, MS. 1340, fol. 67, col. 1 : Melius occuparetur populus domi in praeceptoruin Dei observantia, quam in peregrinatione et oblatione visitando sanctorum limina. 289. XL. Miscellaneous Sermons, No. VI., MS. 3928, fol. 203, col. 3: Licet mortuis prosint suffragia ecclesiae, verumtamen quantumlibet opus meritorium . . . factum a superstite est sibi magis utile, quain foret, ipso mortuo, quantumlibet magnum suffragium ; sic quod plus prodest homini viventi dare in caritate " calicem aquae f rigidae " pro Christ] nomine, quam pro ipso mortuo, in purgatorio punito, darentur ab executoribus millies mille librae. Librr Mandatorum [Decalogus), c. 23, MS. 1339, fol. 816, col. 2 : Si quaeritur de praestantiori modo juvandi mortuos, dicitur quod juvando vivos ainplius indigentes, ut seminando opera misericordiae tarn corporalia quam spiritualia secundum spiritum consilii. Non enim oportet imprudenter in uno globo una die celebrare tot missas, facere tot distributiones aut simul tot jejunationes. 290. Liber Mandatorum (Decalogus), c. 15, MS. 1339, fol. 136, col. 1 ; fol. 137, col. 2. 291. De Civili Dominio, II., 17, MS. 1341, fol. 238, col. 1 : Mundo quidem, relicta Christi lege, declinante secundum traditiones bumanas ad cupiditatem temporalium, neccsse est ut contumeliae et scandala oriantur. 292. De Ecclesia, c. 5, MS. 1294, fol. 142, col. 3 : Omnes praesciti constituunt unum corpus. . . . Ex quo patet, quod oportet esse unam generationem, quae fuit mala in vulgaribus, pejor in secularibus praepositis, sed pessima in praelatis. 293. De Civili Dominio, II., 2, MS. 1341, fol. 156, col. 1 : Si non fallor, longe plus infestatur ecclesia ab inimicis domesticis, ut clero avaritiae dedito et sic cruci Christi ac legi evangelicae inimico, quam a Judaeis paganis foiinsecus. SECTION XI. — Constitution of the Church. The first foundation-principle of the Roman Catholic Consti- tution is the division of the Church into two ranks — Clergy and Laity — or the division between the teaching and hearing Church — the governing and obeying Church. A distinction which the Reformation a priori abolished by putting the idea of office in the place of a distinction of rank, or in other words, by maintaining the universal priesthood of believers. This fundamental principle of the Church of Rome Wiclif does not deny with any clear consciousness of the opposite conception, but nevertheless he puts forth views which are indirectly opposed to it. For the personal respon- sibility, and the consequent liberty of conscience of the private members of the Church, are principles which he is far from ignoring ; on the contrary, he requires that every Christian should have knowledge of the truth, should in a sense be a theologian, for faith is the highest theology. The difference in knowledge between Church member and priest is only one of degree."94 He goes further still. Not only does he think the case possible that theologians and priests might take a wrong direction in doctrine and THE RIGHT OF THE LAITY AS AGAINST THE CLERGY. 341 life, while the laity remained steadfast in the truth, but he maintains the existence of this state of matters as a matter of actual fact. Upon occasion of his opposing the doctrine of Transubstantiation, he observes that God always preserves natural knowledge among the laity, and keeps up among some of the clergy the right understanding of the Faith, as in Greece and elsewhere, as seemeth to him good.295 He does not even shrink from laying down the principle, however much offence it may excite, that the laity have the right, in case their spiritual rulers fail to do their duty, or give themselves up to certain vices and evil ways, to withhold from them the Church's revenues — a principle which undoubtedly rests on the assumption that the laity are in a position and are entitled to judge respecting the life of their spiritual superiors, and the way in which they execute the duties of their office. To maintain such a principle would have been an astound- ing pitch of boldness if the Canon Law itself had not been on its side, and papal precedents had not conceded to the congregations of the Church that right. And these facts Wiclif knew right well how to avail himself of in his own support. We mention only the measure which Gregory VII. had recourse to in his day in order to carry through his reforms, and, in particular, to root out the marriage of priests. For this end he laid his injunctions upon the congregations — that is upon the laity — that they should no longer hear masses read by married priests, that they should cease to visit the churches where such priests officiated, and should, so to speak, put a mark of infamy upon them — all by papal command.296 Wiclif, it is true, makes a different application of the prin- ciple from Hildebrand, but the principle in both cases is still the same, i.e., that unfaithful and conscienceless clergy de- serve the reprimand and actual repudiation of the laity. Wiclif emphasises the right, of the laity so strongly that he puts it forward as a formal duty, the neglect of which cannot be justified. A member of the congregation who omits such a reprimand makes himself a partner of the sin of his spiritual rulers :2