CHAPTER V.

_PROSE._

For a long time, and up to our day, the title and dignity of "Father of English prose" has been borne by Sir John Mandeville, of St. Albans, knight, who, "in the name of God glorious," left his country in the year of grace 1322, on Michaelmas Day, and returned to Europe after an absence of thirty-four years, twice as long as Robinson Crusoe remained in his desert island.

This title belongs to him no longer. The good knight of St. Albans, who had seen and told so much, has dwindled before our eyes, has lost his substance and his outline, and has vanished like smoke in the air. His coat of mail, his deeds, his journeys, his name: all are smoke. He first lost his character as a truthful writer; then out of the three versions of his book, French, English, and Latin, two were withdrawn from him, leaving him only the first. Existence now has been taken from him, and he is left with nothing at all. Sir John Mandeville, knight, of St. Albans, who crossed the sea in 1322, is a myth, and never existed; he has joined, in the kingdom of the shades and the land of nowhere, his contemporary the famous "Friend of God of the Oberland," who some time ago also ceased to have existed.

One thing however remains, and cannot be blotted out: namely, the book of travels bearing the name of Mandeville the translation of which is one of the best and oldest specimens of simple and flowing English prose.

I.

The same phenomenon already pointed out in connection with the Anglo-Saxons occurs again with regard to the new English people. For a long time (and not to speak of practical useful works), poetry alone seems worthy of being remembered; most of the early monuments of the new language for the sake of which the expense of parchment is incurred are poems; verse is used, even in works for which prose would appear much better fitted, such as history. Robert of Gloucester writes his chronicles in English verse, just as Wace and Benoit de Sainte-More had written theirs in French verse. After some while only it is noticed that there is an art of prose, very delicate, very difficult, very worthy of care, and that it is a mistake to look upon it in the light of a vulgar instrument, on which every one can play without having learnt how, and to confine oneself to doing like Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain "de la prose sans le savoir."

At the epoch at which we have arrived, and owing to the renovation and new beginnings occasioned by the Conquest, English prose found itself far behind French. In the fourteenth century, if French poets are poor, prose-writers are excellent; as early as the twelfth and thirteenth there were, besides Joinville, many charming tale writers who had told in prose delightful things, the loves of Aucassin and Nicolette, for example; now, without speaking of the novelists of the day, there is Froissart, and to name him is to say enough; for every one has read at least a few pages of him, and a single page of Froissart, taken haphazard in his works, will cause him to be loved. The language glides on, clear, limpid, murmuring like spring water; and yet, in spite of its natural flow, art already appears. Froissart selects and chooses; the title of "historian," which he gives himself, is no mean one in his eyes, and he strives to be worthy of it. The spring bubbles up in the depths of the wood, and without muddying the water the artist knows how to vary its course at times, to turn it off into ready prepared channels, and make it gush forth in fountains.

In England nothing so far resembles this scarcely perceptible and yet skilful art, a mixture of instinct and method, and many years will pass before prose becomes, like verse, an art. In the fourteenth century English prose is used in most cases for want of something better, from necessity, in order to be more surely understood, and owing to this its monuments are chiefly translations, scientific or religious treatises, and sermons. An English Froissart would at that time have written in Latin; several of the chronicles composed in monasteries, at St. Albans and elsewhere, are written in a brisk and lively style, animated now by enthusiasm and now by indignation; men and events are freely judged; characteristic details find their place; the personages live, and move, and utter words the sound of which seems to reach us. Walsingham's account of the revolt of the peasants in 1381, for example, well deserves to be read, with the description of the taking of London that followed, the sack of the Tower and the Savoy Palace, the assassination of the archbishop,[666] the heroic act of the peasant Grindecobbe who, being set free on condition that he should induce the rebels to submit, meets them and says: "Act to-day as you would have done had I been beheaded yesterday at Hertford,"[667] and goes back to his prison to suffer death. Every detail is found there, even the simple picturesque detail; the rebels arm themselves as they can, with staves, rusty swords, old bows blackened by smoke, arrows "on which only a single feather remained." The account of the death of Edward III. in the same annals is gloomy and tragic and full of grandeur. In the "Chronicon Angliae,"[668] the anonymous author's burning hatred for John of Gaunt inspires him with some fiery pages: all of which would count among the best of old English literature, had these historians used the national idiom. The prejudice against prose continued; to be admitted to the honours of parchment it had first to be ennobled; and Latin served for that.

Translations begin to appear, however, which is already an improvement. Pious treatises had been early turned into English. John of Trevisa, born in Cornwall, vicar of Berkeley, translates at a running pace, with numerous errors, but in simple style, the famous Universal History, "Polychronicon," of Ralph Higden,[669] and the scientific encyclopaedia, "De Proprietatibus Rerum,"[670] of Bartholomew the Englishman. The first of these works was finished in 1387, and had at the Renaissance the honour of being printed by Caxton; the second was finished in 1398.

The English translation of the Travels of Mandeville enjoyed still greater popularity. This translation is an anonymous one.[671] It has been found out to-day that the original text of the "Travels" was compiled in French by Jean de Bourgogne, physician, usually called John-with-the-Beard, "Joannes-ad-Barbam," who wrote various treatises, one in particular on the plague, in 1365, who died at Liege in 1372, and was buried in the church of the Guillemins, where his tomb was still to be seen at the time of the French Revolution.[672] John seems to have invented the character of Mandeville as Swift invented Gulliver, and Defoe Robinson Crusoe. Now that his imposture is discovered, the least we can do is to acknowledge his skill: for five centuries Europe has believed in Mandeville, and the merit is all the greater, seeing that John-with-the-Beard did not content himself with merely making his hero travel to a desert island; that would have been far too simple. No, he unites beforehand a Crusoe and a Gulliver in one; it is Crusoe at Brobdingnag; the knight comes to a land of giants; he does not see the giants, it is true, but he sees their sheep (the primitive sheep of Central Asia); elsewhere the inhabitants feed on serpents and hiss as serpents do; some men have dogs' faces; others raise above their head an enormous foot, which serves them for a parasol. Gulliver was not to behold anything more strange. Still the whole was accepted with enthusiasm by the readers of the Middle Ages; with kindness and goodwill by the critics of our time. The most obvious lies were excused and even justified, and the success of the book was such that there remain about three hundred manuscript copies of it, whereas of the authentic travels of Marco Polo there exist only seventy-five. "Mandeville" had more than twenty-five editions in the fifteenth century and Marco Polo only five.[673]

Nothing, indeed, is more cleverly persuasive than the manner in which Jean de Bourgogne introduces his hero. He is an honest man, somewhat naive and credulous perhaps, but one who does not lack good reasons to justify if need be his credulity; he has read much, and does not hide the use he makes of others' journals; he reports what he has seen and what others have seen. For his aim is a practical one; he wants to write a guide book, and receives information from all comers. The information sometimes is very peculiar; but Pliny is the authority: who shall be believed in if Pliny is not trusted? After a description of wonders, the knight takes breathing time and says: Of course you won't believe me; nor should I have believed myself if such things had been told me, and if I had not seen them. He felt so sure of his own honesty that he challenged criticism; this disposition was even one of the causes why he had written in French: "And know you that I should have turned this booklet into Latin in order to be more brief: but for the reason that many understand better romance," that is French, "than Latin, I wrote in romance, so that everybody will be able to understand it, and that the lords, knights, and other noblemen, who know little Latin or none, and have been over the sea, perceive and understand whether I speak truth or not. And if I make mistakes in my narrative for want of memory or for any cause, they will be able to check and correct me: for things seen long ago, may be forgotten, and man's memory cannot embrace and keep everything."[674]

And so the sail is spread, and being thus amply supplied with oratorical precautions, our imaginary knight sets out on his grand voyage of discovery through the books of his closet. Having left St. Albans to visit Jerusalem, China, the country of the five thousand islands, he journeys and sails through Pliny, Marco Polo, Odoric de Pordenone,[675] Albert d'Aix, William of Boldensele, Pierre Comestor, Jacques de Vitry, bestiaries, tales of travels, collections of fables, books of dreams, patching together countless marvels, but yet, as he assures us, omitting many so as not to weary our faith: It would be too long to say all; "y seroit trop longe chose a tot deviser." With fanciful wonders are mingled many real ones, which served to make the rest believed in, and were gathered from well-informed authors; thus Mandeville's immense popularity served at least to vulgarise the knowledge of some curious and true facts. He describes, for example, the artificial hatching of eggs in Cairo; a tree that produces "wool" of which clothing is made, that is to say the cotton-plant; a country of Asia where it is a mark of nobility for the women to have tiny feet, on which account they are bandaged in their infancy, that they may only grow to half their natural size; the magnetic needle which points out the north to mariners; the country of the five thousand islands (Oceania); the roundness of the earth, which is such that the inhabitants of the Antipodes have their feet directly opposite to ours, and yet do not fall off into space any more than the earth itself falls there, though of much greater weight. People who start from their own country, and sail always in the same direction, finally reach a land where their native tongue is spoken: they have come back to their starting-point.

In the Middle Ages the English were already passionately fond of travels; Higden and others had, as has been seen, noted this trait of the national character. This account of adventures attributed to one of their compatriots could not fail therefore greatly to please them; they delighted in Mandeville's book; it was speedily translated,[676] soon became one of the classics of the English language, and served, at the time of its appearance, to vulgarise in England the use of that simple and easy-going prose of which it was a model in its day, the best that had been seen till then.[677]

Various scientific and religious treatises were also written in prose; those of Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole, count amongst the oldest and most remarkable.[678] We owe several to Chaucer; they pass unnoticed in the splendour of his other works, and it is only fair they should. Chaucer wrote in prose his tale of the parson, and his tale of Melibeus, both taken from the French, his translation of Boethius, and his treatise on the Astrolabe. His prose is laboured and heavy, sometimes obscure; he, whose poetical similes are so brilliant and graceful, comes to write, when he handles prose, such phrases as this: "And, right by ensaumple as the sonne is hid whan the sterres ben clustred (that is to seyn, whan sterres ben covered with cloudes) by a swifte winde that highte Chorus, and that the firmament stant derked by wete ploungy cloudes, and that the sterres nat apperen up-on hevene, so that the night semeth sprad up-on erthe: yif thanne the wind that highte Borias, y-sent out of the caves of the contree of Trace, beteth this night (that is to seyn, chaseth it a-wey, and discovereth the closed day): than shyneth Phebus y-shaken with sodein light, and smyteth with his bemes in mervelinge eyen."[679] Chaucer, the poet, in the same period of his life, perhaps in the same year, had expressed, as we have seen, the same idea thus:

But right as whan the sonne shyneth brighte In march that chaungeth ofte tyme his face, And that a cloud is put with wind to flighte Which over-sprat the sonne as for a space, A cloudy thought gan thorugh hir soule pace, That over-spradde hir brighte thoughtes alle.[680]

Accustomed to poetry, Chaucer sticks fast in prose, the least obstacle stops him; he needs the blue paths of the air. High-flying birds are bad walkers.

II.

Under a different form, however, prose progressed in England during the course of the fourteenth century. This form is the oratorical.

The England of Chaucer and Langland, that poetical England whose prose took so long to come to shape, was already, as we have seen, the parliamentary England that has continued up to this day. She defended her interests, bargained with the king, listened to the speeches, sometimes very modest ones, that the prince made her, and answered by remonstrances, sometimes very audacious. The affairs of the State being even then the affairs of all, every free man discussed them; public life had developed to an extent with which nothing in Europe could be compared; even bondmen on the day of revolt were capable of assigning themselves a well-determined goal, and working upon a plan. They destroy the Savoy as a means of marking their disapprobation of John of Gaunt and his policy; but do not plunder it, so as to prove they are fighting for an idea: "So that the whole nation should know they did nothing for the love of lucre, death was decreed against any one who should dare to appropriate anything found in the palace. The innumerable gold and silver objects there would be chopped up in small pieces with a hatchet, and the pieces thrown into the Thames or the sewers; the cloths of silk and gold would be torn. And it was done so."[681]

Many eloquent speeches were delivered at this time, vanished words, the memory of which is lost; the most impassioned, made on heaths or in forest glades, are only known to us by their results: these burning words called armed men out of the earth. These speeches were in English; no text of them has been handed down to us; of one, however, the most celebrated of all, we have a Latin summary; it is the famous English harangue made at Blackheath, by the rebel priest, John Ball, at the time of the taking of London.[682]

Under a quieter form, which might already be called the "parliamentary" form, but often with astonishing boldness and eloquence, public interests are discussed during this century, but nearly always in French at the palace of Westminster. There, documents abound; the Rolls of Parliament, an incomparable treasure, have come down to us, and nothing is easier than to attend, if so inclined, a session in the time of the Plantagenets. Specimens of questions and answers, of Government speeches and speeches of the Opposition, have been preserved. Moreover, some of the buildings where these scenes took place still exist to-day.[683]

First of all, and before the opening of the session, a "general proclamation" was read in the great hall of Westminster, that hall built by William Rufus, the woodwork of which was replaced by Richard II., and that has been lately cleared of its cumbrous additions.[684] This proclamation forbids each and all to come to the place where Parliament sits, "armed with hoquetons, armor, swords, and long knives or other sorts of weapons;" for such serious troubles have been the result of this wearing of arms that business has been impeded, and the members of Parliament have been "effreietz," frightened, by these long knives. Then, descending to lesser things, the proclamation goes on to forbid the street-boys of London to play at hide-and-seek in the palace, or to perform tricks on the passers-by, such as "to twitch off their hoods" for instance, which the proclamation in parliamentary style terms improper games, "jues nient covenables." But as private liberty should be respected as much as possible, this prohibition is meant only for the duration of the session.[685]

On the day of the opening the king repairs to the place of the sittings, where he not unfrequently finds an empty room, many of the members or of the "great" having been delayed on the way by bad weather, bad roads, or other impediments.[686] Another day is then fixed upon for the solemn opening of the business.

All being at last assembled, the king, the lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons, meet together in the "Painted Chamber." The Chancellor explains the cause of the summons, and the questions to be discussed. This is an opportunity for a speech, and we have the text of a good many of them. Sometimes it is a simple, clear, practical discourse, enumerating, without any studied phrases or pompous terms, the points that are to be treated; sometimes it is a flowery and pretentious oration, adorned with witticisms and quotations, and compliments addressed to the king, as is for instance the speech (in French) of the bishop of St. David's, Adam Houghton, Chancellor of England in 1377:

"Lords and Gentlemen, I have orders from my lord the Prince here present, whom God save," the youthful Richard, heir to the throne, "to expound the reason why this Parliament was summoned. And true it is that the wise suffer and desire to hear fools speak, as is affirmed by St. Paul in his Epistles, for he saith: _Libenter suffertis insipientes cum sitis ipsi sapientes._ And in as much as you are wise and I am a fool, I understand that you wish to hear me speak. And another cause there is, which will rejoice you if you are willing to hear me. For the Scripture saith that every messenger bringing glad tidings, must be always welcome; and I am a messenger that bringeth you good tidings, wherefore I must needs be welcome."

All these pretty things are to convey to them that the king, Edward III., then on the brink of the grave, is not quite so ill, which should be a cause of satisfaction for his subjects. Another cause of joy, for everything seems to be considered as such by the worthy bishop, is this illness itself; "for the Scripture saith: _Quos diligo castigo_, which proves that God him loves, and that he is blessed of God." The king is to be a "vessel of grace," _vas electionis_.[687] The Chancellor continues thus at length, heedless of the fact that the return of Alice Perrers to the old king belies his Biblical applications.

Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was to die such a dreadful death, from the eighth blow of the axe, after having lost the hand which he carried to the first wound, spoke in much the same style. He opened in these terms the first parliament of Richard II.:

"_Rex tuus venit tibi._--Lords and Gentlemen, the words which I have spoken signify in French: Your king comes to thee.--And thereupon, the said archbishop gave several good reasons agreeing with his subject, and divided his said subject in three parts, as though it had been a sermon."

In truth it is a sermon; the Gospel is continually quoted, and serves for unexpected comparisons. The youthful Richard has come to Parliament, just as the Blessed Virgin went to see St. Elizabeth; the joy is the same: "_Et exultavit infans in utero ejus._"[688]

Fortunately, all did not lose themselves in such flowery mazes. William Thorpe, William of Shareshull, William of Wykeham, John Knyvet, &c., make business-like speeches, simple, short, and to the point: "My Lords, and you of the Commons," says Chancellor Knyvet, "you well know how after the peace agreed upon between our lord the King and his adversaries of France, and openly infringed by the latter, the king sent soldiers and nobles across the sea to defend _us_, which they do, but are hard pressed by the enemy. If they protect us, we must help them."

The reasoning is equally clear in Wykeham's speeches, and with the same skill he makes it appear as if the Commons had a share in all the king's actions: "Gentlemen, you well know how, in the last Parliament, the king, _with your consent_, again took the title of King of France...."[689]

These speeches being heard, and the "receivers" and "triers" of petitions having been appointed,[690] the two houses divided, and deliberated apart from each other; the Lords retired "to the White Chamber"; the Commons remained "in the Painted Chamber." At other times "the said Commons were told to withdraw by themselves to their old place in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey,"[691] that beautiful Chapter House still in existence, which had been built under Henry III.

Then the real debates began, interrupted by the most impassioned speeches. They were not reported, and only a faint echo has reached us. Traces of the sentiments which animated the Commons are found, however, in the petitions they drew up, which were like so many articles of the bargains contracted by them. For they did not allow themselves to be carried away by the eloquent and tender speeches of the Government orators; they were practical and cold-blooded; they agreed to make concessions provided concessions were made to them, and they added an annulling clause in case the king refused: "In case the conditions are not complied with, they shall not be obliged to grant the aid."[692] The discussions are long and minute in both houses; members do not meet for form's sake; decisions are not lightly taken: "Of which things," we read in the Rolls, "they treated at length."[693] In another case, the Commons, from whom a ready-made answer was expected, announce that "they wish to talk together," and they continue to talk from the 24th of January to the 19th of February.[694] Only too glad was the Government when the members did not declare "that they dare not assent without discussing the matter with the Commons of their shire,"[695] that is to say, without consulting their constituents. And this they do, though William de la Pole and others, sent "by our lord the king from thence (that is from France) as envoys," had modestly explained the urgency of the case, and "the cause of the long stay the king had made in these aforesaid parts, without riding against his enemies,"[696] this cause being lack of money.

When the Commons have at last come to a decision, they make it known in the presence of the Lords through the medium of their Speaker, or, as he was called in the French of the period, the one who had the words for them: "Qui avoit les paroles pur les Communes d'Engleterre en cest Parlement."[697] In these replies especially, and in the petitions presented at the same time, are found traces of the vehemence displayed in the Chapter House. The boldness of the answers and of the remonstrances is extraordinary, and from their tone can be conceived with what power and freedom civil eloquence, of which England has since produced so many admirable specimens, displayed itself, even at that distant epoch.

The most remarkable case is that of the Good Parliament of 1376, in which, after having deliberated apart, the Commons join the other house, and by the mouth of their Speaker, Peter de la Mare, bring in their bill of complaints against royalty: "And after that the aforesaid Commons came to Parliament, openly protesting that they were as willing and determined to help their noble liege lord ... as any others had ever been, in any time past.... But they said it seemed to them an undoubted fact, that if their liege lord had always had around him loyal counsellors and good officers ... our lord the king would have been very rich in treasure, and therefore would not have had such great need of burdening his Commons, either with subsidy, talliage, or otherwise...." A special list of grievances is drawn up against the principal prevaricators; their names are there, and their crimes; the king's mistress, Alice Perrers, is not forgotten. Then follow the petitions of the Commons, the number of which is enormous, a hundred and forty in all, in which abuses are pointed out one by one.[698]

Formerly, say the Commons, "bishoprics, as well as other benefices of Holy Church, used to be, after true elections, in accordance with saintly considerations and pure charity, assigned to people found to be worthy of clerical promotion, men of clean life and holy behaviour, whose intention it was to stay on their benefices, there to preach, visit, and shrive their parishioners.... And so long as these good customs were observed, the realm was full of all sorts of prosperity, of good people and loyal, good clerks and clergy, two things that always go together...." The encroachments of the See of Rome in England are, for all right-minded people, "great subject of sorrow and of tears." Cursed be the "sinful city of Avignon," where simony reigns, so that "a sorry fellow who knows nothing of what he ought and is worthless" will receive a benefice of the value of a thousand marcs, "when a doctor of decree and a master of divinity will be only too glad to secure some little benefice of the value of twenty marcs." The foreigners who are given benefices in England "will never see their parishioners ... and more harm is done to Holy Church by such bad Christians than by all the Jews and Saracens in the world.... Be it again remembered that God has committed his flock to the care of our Holy Father the Pope, that they might be fed and not shorn."[699] The Commons fear nothing; neither king nor Pope could make them keep silence. In their mind the idea begins to dawn that the kingdom is theirs, and the king too; they demand that Richard, heir to the throne, shall be brought to them; they wish to see him; and he is shown to them.[700]

In spite of the progress made by the English language, French continued to be used at Westminster. It remained as a token of power and an emblem of authority, just as modern castles are still built with towers, though not meant to be defended by cannon. It was a sign, and this sign has subsisted, since the formula by which the laws are ratified is still in French at the present time. English, nevertheless, began to make an appearance even at Westminster. From 1363,[701] the opening speeches are sometimes in English; in 1399, the English tongue was used in the chief acts and discourses relating to the deposition of Richard. On Monday, the 29th of September, the king signed his act of resignation; on the following day a solemn meeting of Parliament took place, in presence of all the people, in Westminster Hall; the ancient throne containing Jacob's stone, brought from Scotland by Edward I., and which can still be seen in the abbey, had been placed in the hall, and covered with cloth of gold, "cum pannis auri." Richard's act of resignation was read "first in Latin, then in English," and the people showed their approbation of the same by applause. Henry then came forward, claimed the kingdom, in English, and seated himself on the throne, in the midst of the acclamations of those present. The Archbishop of Canterbury delivered an oration, and the new king, speaking again, offered his thanks in English to "God, and yowe Spirituel and Temporel, and alle the Astates of the lond."[702] There is no more memorable sign of the changes that had taken place than the use made of the English language on an occasion like this, by a prince who had no title to the crown but popular favour.

III.

All these translators were necessarily wanting in originality (less, however, than they need have been), and all these orators spoke for the most part in French. In their hands, English prose could not be perfected to a very high degree. It progressed, however, owing to them, but owing much more to an important personage, who made common English his fighting weapon, John Wyclif, to whom the title of "Father of English prose" rightfully belongs, now that Mandeville has dissolved in smoke. Wyclif, Langland, and Chaucer are the three great figures of English literature in the Middle Ages.

Wyclif belonged to the rich and respected family of the Wyclifs, lords of the manor of Wyclif, in Yorkshire.[703] He was born about 1320, and devoted himself early to a scientific and religious calling. He studied at Oxford, where he soon attracted notice, being one of those men of character who occupy from the beginning of their lives, without seeking for it, but being, as it seems, born to it, a place apart, amid the limp multitude of men. The turn of his mind, the originality of his views, the firmness of his will, his learning, raised him above others; he was one of those concerning whom it is at once said they are "some one;" and several times in the course of his existence he saw the University, the king, the country even, turn to him when "some one" was needed.

He was hardly thirty-five when, the college of Balliol at Oxford having lost its master, he was elected to the post. In 1366 Parliament ruled that the Pope's claim to the tribute promised by King John should no longer be recognised, and Wyclif was asked to draw up a pamphlet justifying the decision.[704] In 1374 a diplomatic mission was entrusted to him, and he went to Bruges, with several other "ambassatores," to negotiate with the Pope's representatives.[705] He then had the title of doctor of divinity.

Various provincial livings were successively bestowed upon him: that of Fillingham in 1361; that of Ludgarshall in 1368; that of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, in 1374, which he kept till his death. He divided his time between his duties as rector, his studies, his lectures at Oxford, and his life in London, where he made several different stays, and preached some of his sermons.

These quiet occupations were interrupted from time to time owing to the storms raised by his writings. But so great was his fame, and so eminent his personality, that he escaped the terrible consequences that heresy then involved. He had at first alarmed religious authority by his political theories on the relations of Church and State, next on the reformation of the Church itself; finally he created excessive scandal by attacking dogmas and by discussing the sacraments. Summoned the first time to answer in respect of his doctrines, he appeared in St. Paul's, in 1377, attended by the strange patrons that a common animosity against the high dignitaries of the Church had gained for him; John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Lord Henry Percy accompanied him. The duke, little troubled by scruples, loudly declared, in the middle of the church, that he would drag the bishop out of the cathedral by the hair of his head. These words were followed by an indescribable tumult. Indignant at this insult, the people of the City drove the duke from the church, pursued him through the town, and laid siege to the house of John of Ypres, a rich merchant with whom he had gone to sup. Luckily for the prince, the house opened on the Thames. He rose in haste, knocking his legs against the table, and, without stopping to drink the cordial offered him, slipped into a boat and fled, as fast as oars could carry him, to his sister-in-law's, the Princess of Wales, at Kennington.[706] The summoning of Wyclif thus had no result.

But the Pope, in the same year, launched against the English theologian bulls pointing out eighteen erroneous propositions contained in his writings, and enjoining that the culprit should be put in prison if he refused to retract. The University of Oxford, being already a power at that time, proud of its privileges, jealous in maintaining solidarity between its members, imbued with those ideas of opposition to the Pope which were increasing in England, considered the decree as an excessive exercise of authority. It examined the propositions, and declared them to be orthodox, though capable of wrong interpretations, on which account Wyclif should go to London and explain himself.[707]

He is found, therefore, in London in the beginning of 1378; the bishops are assembled in the still existing chapel of Lambeth Palace. But by one of those singularities that allow us to realise how the limits of the various powers were far from being clearly defined, it happened that the bishops had received positive orders not to condemn Wyclif. The prohibition proceeded from a woman, the Princess of Wales, widow of the Black Prince. The prelates, however, were spared the trouble of choosing between the Pope and the lady; for the second time Wyclif was saved by a riot; a crowd favourable to his ideas invaded the palace, and no sentence could be given. Any other would have appeared the more guilty; he only lived the more respected. He was then at the height of his popularity; a new public statement that he had just issued in favour of the king against the Pope had confirmed his reputation as advocate and defender of the kingdom of England.[708]

He resumed, therefore, in peace his work of destruction, and began to attack dogmas. Besides his writings and his speeches, he used, in order to popularise his doctrines, his "simple priests," or "poor priests," who, without being formed into a religious order, imitated the wandering life of the friars, but not their mendicity, and strove to attain the ideal which the friars had fallen short of. They went about preaching from village to village, and the civil authority was alarmed by the political and religious theories expounded to the people by these wanderers, who journeyed "from county to county, and from town to town, in certain habits under dissimulation of great holiness, without license of our Holy Father the Pope, or of the ordinary of the diocese."[709] Wyclif justified these unlicensed preachings by the example of St. Paul, who, after his conversion, "preechide fast, and axide noo leve of Petir herto, for he hadde leve of Jesus Crist."[710]

From this time forth Wyclif began to circulate on the sacraments, and especially on the Eucharist, opinions that Oxford even was unable to tolerate; the University condemned them. Conformably to his own theory, which tended, as did that of the Commons, towards a royal supremacy, Wyclif appealed not to the Pope but to the king, and in the meantime refused to submit. This was carrying boldness very far. John of Gaunt separates from his _protege_; Courtenay, bishop of London, calls together a Council which condemns Wyclif and his adherents (1382); the followers are pursued, and retract or exile themselves; but Wyclif continues to live in perfect quiet. Settled at Lutterworth, from whence he now rarely stirred, he wrote more than ever, with a more and more caustic and daring pen. The papal schism, which had begun in 1378, had cast discredit on the Holy See; Wyclif's work was made the easier by it. At last Urban VI., the Pope whom England recognised, summoned him to appear in his presence, but an attack of paralysis came on, and Wyclif died in his parish on the last day of the year 1384. "Organum diabolicum, hostis Ecclesiae, confusio vulgi, haereticorum idolum, hypocritarum speculum, schismatis incentor, odii seminator, mendacii fabricator"[711]: such is the funeral oration inscribed in his annals, at this date, by Thomas Walsingham, monk of St. Albans. By order of the Council of Constance, his ashes were afterwards thrown to the winds, and the family of the Wyclifs of Wyclif, firmly attached to the old faith, erased him from their genealogical tree. When the Reformation came, the family remained Catholic, and this adherence to the Roman religion seems to have been the cause of its decay: "The last of the Wyclifs was a poor gardener, who dined every Sunday at Thorpe Hall, as the guest of Sir Marmaduke Tunstall, on the strength of his reputed descent."[712]

IV.

Wyclif had begun early to write, using at first only Latin.[713] Innumerable treatises of his exist, many of which are still unpublished, written in a Latin so incorrect and so English in its turns that "often the readiest way of understanding an obscure passage is to translate it into English."[714] He obviously attracted the notice of his contemporaries, not by the elegance of his style, but by the power of his thought.

His thought deserved the attention it received. His mind was, above all, a critical one, opposed to formulas, to opinions without proofs, to traditions not justified by reason. Precedents did not overawe him, the mysterious authority of distant powers had no effect on his feelings. He liked to look things and people in the face, with a steady gaze, and the more important the thing was and the greater the authority claimed, the less he felt disposed to cast down his eyes.

Soon he wished to teach others to open theirs, and to see for themselves. By "others" he meant every one, and not only clerks or the great. He therefore adopted the language of every one, showing himself in that a true Englishman, a partisan of the system of free investigation, so dear since to the race. He applied this doctrine to all that was then an object of faith, and step by step, passing from the abstract to the concrete, he ended by calling for changes, very similar to those England adopted at the Reformation, and later on in the time of the Puritans.

His starting-point was as humble and abstract as his conclusions were, some of them, bold and practical. A superhuman ideal had been proposed by St. Francis to his disciples; they were to possess nothing, but beg their daily bread and help the poor. Such a rule was good for apostles and angels; it was practised by men. They were not long able to withstand the temptation of owning property, and enriching themselves; in the fourteenth century their influence was considerable, and their possessions immense. Thin subterfuges were resorted to in order to justify this change: they had only the usufruct of their wealth, the real proprietor being the Pope. From that time two grave questions arose and were vehemently discussed in Christendom: What should be thought of the poverty and mendicity of Christ and his apostles? What is property, and what is the origin of the power whence it proceeds?

In the first rank of the combatants figured, in the fourteenth century, an Englishman, Richard Fitzralph, archbishop of Armagh, "Armachanus," who studied the question of property, and contested the theory of the friars in various sermons and treatises, especially in his work: "De pauperie Salvatoris," composed probably between 1350 and 1356.[715]

Wyclif took his starting-point from the perfectly orthodox writings of Fitzralph, and borrowed from him nearly the whole of his great theory of "Dominium," or lordship, power exercised either over men, or over things, domination, property, possession. But he carried his conclusions much farther, following the light of logic, as was the custom of schools, without allowing himself to be hindered by the radicalism of the consequences and the material difficulties of the execution.

The theory of "Dominium," adopted and popularised by Wyclif, is an entirely feudal one. According to him, all lordship comes from God; the Almighty bestows it on man as a fief, in consideration of a service or condition the keeping of His commandments. Deadly sin breaks the contract, and deprives the tenant of his right to the fief; therefore no man in a state of deadly sin possesses any of the lordships called property, priesthood, royalty, magistracy. All which is summed up by Wyclif in his proposition: any "dominium" has grace for its foundation. By such a theory, the whole social order is shaken; neither Pope nor king is secure on his throne, nor priest in his living, nor lord in his estate.

The confusion is all the greater from the fact that a multitude of other subversive conclusions are appended to this fundamental theory: While sinners lose all lordship, the good possess all lordship; to man, in a state of "gratia gratificante," belongs the whole of what comes from God; "in re habet omnia bona Dei."[716] But how can that be? The easiest thing in the world, replies Wyclif, whom nothing disturbs: all goods should be held in common, "Ergo omnia debent esse communia"[717]; wives should be alone excepted.--The Bible is a kind of Koran in which everything is found; no other law should be obeyed save that one alone; civil and canonical laws are useless if they agree with the Bible, and criminal if they are opposed to it.[718]--Royalty is not the best form of government; an aristocratic system is better, similar to that of the Judges in Israel.[719]--Neither heirship nor popular election is sufficient for the transmission of the crown; grace is needed besides.[720]--The bequeathing to the Church of estates which will become mortmain lands is inadmissible: "No one can transmit more rights than he possesses, and no one is personally possessed of rights of civil lordship extending beyond the term of life."[721]--If the convent or the priest make a bad use of their wealth, the temporal power will be doing "a very meritorious thing" in depriving them of it.[722]

The whole order of things is unhinged, and we are nearing chaos. It is going so far that Wyclif cannot refrain from inserting some of those slight restrictions which the logicians of the Middle Ages were fond of slipping into their writings. In time of danger this was the secret door by which they made their escape, turning away from the stake. Wyclif is an advocate of communism; but he gives to understand that it is not for now; it is a distant ideal. After us the deluge! Not so, answer the peasants of 1381; the deluge at once: "Omnia debent esse communia!"

If all lordship vanishes through sin, who shall be judge of the sin of others? All real lordship vanishes from the sinner, answered Wyclif, but there remains to him, by the permission of God, a power _de facto_, that it is not given us to remove; evil triumphs, but with God's consent; the Christian must obey the wicked king and bishop: "Deus debet obedire diabolo."[723] But the dissatisfied only adopted the first part of the theory, and instead of submitting to Simon Sudbury, their archbishop, of whom they disapproved, they cut off his head.

These were certainly extreme and exceptional consequences, to which Wyclif only contributed in a slight measure. The lasting and permanent result of the doctrine was to strengthen the Commons of England in the aim they already had in view, namely, to diminish the authority exercised over them by the Pope, and to loosen the ties that bound the kingdom to Rome. Wyclif pointed out that, contrary to the theory of Boniface VIII. (bull "Unam Sanctam"), there does not exist in this world one single supreme and unequalled sovereignty; the Pope is not the sole depositary of divine power. Since all lordship proceeds from God, that of the king comes from Him, as well as that of the Pope; kings themselves are "vikeris of God"; beside the Pope, and not below him, there is the king.[724]

V.

The English will thus be sole rulers in their island. They must also be sole keepers of their consciences, and for that Wyclif is to teach them free investigation. All, then, must understand him; and he begins to write in English. His English works are numerous; sermons, treatises, translations; they fill volumes.[725]

Before all the Book of truth was to be placed in the hands of everybody, so that none need accept without check the interpretations of others. With the help of a few disciples, Wyclif began to translate the Bible into English. To translate the Scriptures was not forbidden. The Church only required that the versions should be submitted to her for approval. There already existed several, complete or partial, in various languages; a complete one in French, written in the thirteenth century,[726] and several partial ones in English. Wyclif's version includes the whole of the canonical books, and even the apocryphal ones; the Gospels appear to have been translated by himself, the Old Testament chiefly by his disciple, Nicholas of Hereford. The task was an immense one, the need pressing; the work suffered from the rapidity with which it was performed. A revision of the work of Nicholas was begun under Wyclif's direction, but only finished after his death.[727]

No attempt at elegance is found in this translation; the language is rugged, and on that account the better adapted to the uncouthness of the holy Word. Harsh though it be we feel, however, that it is tending towards improvement; the meaning of the words becomes more precise, owing to the necessity of giving to the sacred phrases their exact signification; the effort is not always successful, but it is a continued one, and it is an effort in the right direction. It was soon perceived to what need the undertaking answered. Copies of the work multiplied in astonishing fashion. In spite of the wholesale destruction which was ordered, there remain a hundred and seventy manuscripts, more or less complete, of Wyclif's Bible. For some time, it is true, the copying of it had not been opposed by the ecclesiastical authority, and the version was only condemned twenty-four years after the death of the author, by the Council of Oxford.[728] In the England of the Plantagenets could be foreseen the England of the Tudors, under whom three hundred and twenty-six editions of the Bible were printed in less than a century, from 1525 to 1600.

But Wyclif's greatest influence on the development of prose was exercised by means of his sermons and treatises. In these, the reformer gives himself full scope; he alters his tone at need, employs all means, from the most impassioned eloquence down to the most trivial pleasantry, meant to delight men of the lower class. Put to such varied uses, prose could not but become a more workable instrument. True it is that Wyclif never seeks after artistic effect in his English, any more than in his Latin. His sermons regularly begin by: "This gospel tellith.... This gospel techith alle men that ..." and he continues his arguments in a clear and measured style, until he comes to one of those burning questions about which he is battling; then his irony bursts forth, he uses scathing similes; he thunders against those "emperoure bishopis," taken up with worldly cares; his speech is short and haughty; he knows how to condense his whole theory in one brief, clear-cut phrase, easy to remember, that every one will know by heart, and which it will not be easy to answer. Why are the people preached to in a foreign tongue? Christ, when he was with his apostles, "taughte hem oute this prayer, bot be thou syker, nother in Latyn nother in Frensche, bot in the langage that they usede to speke."[729] How should popes be above kings? "Thus shulden popis be suget to kynges, for thus weren bothe Crist and Petre."[730] How believe in indulgences sold publicly by pardoners on the market-places, and in that inexhaustible "treasury" of merits laid up in heaven that the depositaries of papal favour are able to distribute at their pleasure among men for money? Each merit is rewarded by God, and consequently the benefit of it cannot be applicable to any one who pays: "As Peter held his pees in grauntinge of siche thingis, so shulden thei holden ther pees, sith thei ben lasse worth than Petir."[731]

Next to these brief arguments are familiar jests, gravely uttered, with scarcely any perceptible change in the expression of the lips, jests that Englishmen have been fond of in all times. If he is asked of what use are the "letters of fraternity," sold by the friars to their customers, to give them a share in the superabundant merits of the whole order, Wyclif replies with a serious air: "Bi siche resouns thinken many men that this lettris mai do good for to covere mostard pottis."[732]

It is difficult to follow him in all the places where he would fain lead us. He terrified the century by the boldness of his touch; when he was seen to shake the frail holy thing with a ruthless hand, all eyes turned away, and his former protectors withdrew from him.[733] He did not, however, carry his doubt to the extreme end; according to his doctrine the _substance_ of the host, the particle of matter, is not the matter itself, the living flesh of the body that Jesus Christ had on earth; this substance is bread; only by a miracle which is the effect of consecration, the body of Christ is present sacramentally; that is to say, all the benefits, advantages, and virtues which emanate from it are attached to the host as closely as the soul of men is united to their body.[734]

The other sacraments,[735] ecclesiastical hierarchy, the tithes collected by the clergy, are not more respectfully treated by him. These criticisms and teachings had all the more weight owing to the fact that they were delivered from a pulpit and fell from the lips of an authorised master, whose learning was acknowledged even by his adversaries: "A very eminent doctor, a peerless and incomparable one,"[736] says Knighton. Still better than Langland's verses, his forcible speech, by reason of his station, prepared the way for the great reforms of the sixteenth century. He already demands the confiscation of the estates of the monasteries, accomplished later by Henry VIII.; he appeals at every page of his treatises to the secular arm, hoping by its means to bring back humility by force into the heart of prelates.

But he is so far removed from its realisation that his dream dazzles him, and urges him on to defend chimerical schemes. He wishes the wealth of the clergy to be taken from them and bestowed upon poor, honest, brave, trustworthy gentlemen, who will defend the country; and he does not perceive that these riches would have fallen principally into the hands of turbulent and grasping courtiers, as happened in the sixteenth century.[737] He is carried away by his own reasonings, so that the Utopian or paradoxical character of his statements escape him. Wanting to minimise the power of the popes, he protests against the rules followed for their election, and goes on to say concerning the vote by ballot: "Sith ther ben fewe wise men, and foolis ben without noumbre, assent of more part of men makith evydence that it were foli."[738]

His disciples, _Lollards_ as they were usually called, a name the origin of which has been much discussed, survived him, and his simple priests continued, for a time, to propagate his doctrines. The master's principal propositions were even found one day in 1395, posted up on the door of St. Paul's Cathedral, in the heart of London. Among them figure declarations that, at a distance of three centuries, seem a foreshadowing of the theories of the Puritans; one for instance, affirming "that the multitude of useless arts allowed in the kingdom are the cause of sins without number." Among the forbidden arts are included that of the goldsmiths, and another art of which, however, the Puritans were to make a somewhat notorious use, that of the armorers.[739]

At the University, the followers of Wyclif were numerous; in the country they continued to increase until the end of the fourteenth century. Energetic measures were adopted in the beginning of the fifteenth; the statute "De haeretico comburendo" was promulgated in 1401 (but rarely applied at this period); the master's books were condemned and prohibited; from that time Wyclifism declined, and traces of its survival can hardly be found at the period when the Reformation was introduced into England.

By a strange fate Wyclif's posterity continued to flourish out of the kingdom. Bohemia had just given a queen to England, and used to send students every year from its University of Prague to study at Paris and Oxford. In that country the Wyclifite tenets found a multitude of adepts; the Latin works of the thinker were transcribed by Czech students, and carried back to their own land; several writings of Wyclif exist only in Czech copies. His most illustrious disciple, John Hus, rector of the University of Prague, was burnt at the stake, by order of the Council of Constance, on the 6th of July, 1415. But the doctrine survived; it was adopted with modifications by the Taborites and the Moravian Brethren, and borrowed from them by the Waldenses[740]; the same Moravian Brethren who, owing to equally singular vicissitudes, were to become an important factor in the English religious movement of the eighteenth century: the Wesleyan movement. In spite of differences in their doctrines, the Moravian Brethren and the Hussites stand as a connecting link between Wesley and Wyclif.[741]

FOOTNOTES:

[666] "Historia Anglicana," vol. i. pp. 453 ff. By the same: "Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani," 3 vols., "Ypodigma Neustriae," 1 vol. ed. Riley, Rolls, 1863, 1876.

[667] _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 27. See above, p. 201.

[668] "Chronicon Angliae," 1328-88, Rolls, ed. Maunde Thompson, 1874, 8vo. Mr. Thompson has proved that, contrary to the prevalent opinion, Walsingham has been copied by this chronicler instead of copying him himself; but the book is an important one on account of the passages referring to John of Gaunt, which are not found elsewhere.

[669] "Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden ... with the English translation of John Trevisa," ed. Babington and Lumby, Rolls, 1865, 8 vols. 8vo.

[670] See above, p. 195.

[671] "The buke of John Maundeuill, being the travels of Sir John Mandeville, Knight, 1322-56, a hitherto unpublished English version from the unique copy (Eg. MS. 1982) in the British Museum, edited together with the French text," by G. F. Warner; Westminster, Roxburghe Club, 1889, fol. In the introduction will be found the series of proofs establishing the fact that Mandeville never existed; the chain seems now complete, owing to a succession of discoveries, those especially of Mr. E. B. Nicholson, of the Bodleian, Oxford (_Cf._ an article of H. Cordier in the _Revue Critique_ of Oct. 26, 1891). A critical edition of the French text is being prepared by the Societe des Anciens Textes. The English translation was made after 1377, and twice revised in the beginning of the fifteenth century. On the passages borrowed from "Mandeville" by Christine de Pisan, in her "Chemin de long Estude," see in "Romania," vol. xxi. p. 229, an article by Mr. Toynbee.

[672] The church and its dependencies were sold and demolished in 1798: "Adjuges le 12 nivose an vi., a la citoyenne epouse, J. J. Fabry, pour 46,000 francs." Warner, _ibid._, p. xxxiii.

[673] Warner, _ibid._, p. v.

[674] "Et sachies que je eusse cest livret mis en latin pour plus briefment deviser, mais pour ce que plusieurs entendent miex roumant que latin, j'e l'ay mis en roumant par quoy que chascun l'entende, et que les seigneurs et les chevalers et les autres nobles hommes qui ne scevent point de latin ou pou, qui ont este oultre mer sachent et entendent se je dis voir ou non at se je erre en devisant pour non souvenance ou autrement que il le puissent adrecier et amender, car choses de lonc temps passees par la veue tournent en oubli et memoire d'omme ne puet tout mie retenir ne comprendre." MS. fr. 5637 in the National Library, Paris, fol. 4, fourteenth century.

[675] On Odoric and Mandeville, see H. Cordier, "Odoric de Pordenone," Paris, 1891, Introduction.

[676] A part of it was even put into verse: "The Commonyng of Ser John Mandeville and the gret Souden;" in "Remains of the early popular Poetry of England," ed. Hazlitt, London, 1864, 4 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 153.

[677] Here is a specimen of this style; it is the melancholy end of the work, in which the weary traveller resigns himself, like Robinson Crusoe, to rest at last: "And I John Maundeville, knyghte aboveseyd (alle thoughe I ben unworthi) that departed from oure contrees and passed the see the year of grace 1322, that have passed many londes and many isles and contrees, and cerched manye fulle straunge places, and have ben in many a fulle gode honourable companye and at many a faire dede of armes (alle beit that I dide none my self, for myn unable insuffisance) now I am comen hom (mawgre my self) to reste; for gowtes artetykes, that me distreynen, tho diffynen the ende of my labour, agenst my wille (God knowethe). And thus takynge solace in my wrecced reste, recordynge the tyme passed, I have fulfilled theise thinges and putte hem wryten in this boke, as it wolde come in to my mynde, the year of grace 1356 in the 34 yeer that I departede from oure contrees. Werfore I preye to alle the rederes and hereres of this boke, yif it plese hem that thei wolde preyen to God for me, and I schalle preye for hem." Ed. Halliwell, London, 1866, 8vo, p. 315.

[678] See above, p. 216.

[679] "Boethius," in "Complete Works," vol. ii. p. 6.

[680] "Troilus," II. 100. See above, p. 306. _Cf._ Boece's "De Consolatione," Metrum III.

[681] "Et ut patesceret totius regni communitati eos non respectu avaritiae quicquam facere, proclamari fecerunt sub poena decollationis, ne quis praesumeret aliquid vel aliqua ibidem reperta ad proprios usus servanda contingere, sed ut vasa aurea et argentea, quae ibi copiosa habebantur, cum securibus minutatim confringerent et in Tamisiam vel in cloacas projicerent, pannos aureos et holosericos dilacerarent.... Et factum est ita." Walsingham, "Historia Anglicana," vol. i. p. 457 (Rolls).

[682] "Ad le Blakeheth, ubi ducenta millia communium fuere simul congregata hujuscemodi sermonem est exorsus:

Whann Adam dalfe and Eve span Who was thanne a gentil man?

Continuansque sermonem inceptum, nitebatur, per verba proverbii quod pro themate sumpserat, introducere et probare, ab initio omnes pares creatos a natura, servitutem per injustam oppressionem nequam hominum introductam, contra voluntatem Dei; quia si Deo placiusset servos creasse utique in principio mundi constituisset quis servus, quisve dominus futurus fuisset." Let them therefore destroy nobles and lawyers, as the good husbandman tears up the weeds in his field; thus shall liberty and equality reign: "Sic demum ... esset inter eos aequa libertas, par dignitas, similisque potestas." "Chronicon Angliae," ed. Maunde Thompson (Rolls), 1874, 8vo, p. 321; Walsingham, vol. ii. p. 32.

[683] "Rotuli Parliamentorum, ut et petitiones et placita in Parliamento." London, 7 vols. fol. (one volume contains the index).

[684] Richard restored it entirely, and employed English master masons, "Richard Washbourn" and "Johan Swalwe." The indenture is of March 18, 1395; the text of it is in Rymer, 1705, vol. vii. p. 794.

[685] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 103.

[686] Ex. 13 Ed. III., 17 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. pp. 107, 135.

[687] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 361.

[688] "Seigneurs et Sires, ces paroles qe j'ay dist sont tant a due en Franceys, vostre Roi vient a toy." _Ibid._, vol. iii. p. 3. A speech of the same kind adorned with puns was made by Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, to open the first Parliament of Henry IV.: "Cest honorable roialme d'Angleterre q'est le plus habundant Angle de richesse parmy tout le monde, avait estee par longe temps mesnez, reulez et governez par enfantz et conseil de vefves...." 1399, _Ibid._, p. 415.

[689] "Rotuli Parliamentorum." Speech of Knyvet, vol. ii. p. 316; of Wykeham, vol. ii. p. 303. This same Knyvet opens the Good Parliament of 1376 by a speech equally forcible. He belonged to the magistracy, and was greatly respected; he died in 1381.

[690] Ex: "Item, meisme le jour (that is to say the day on which the general proclamation was read) fut fait une crie qe chescun qi vodra mettre petition a nostre seigneur le Roi et a son conseil, les mette entre cy et le lundy prochein a venir.... Et serront assignez de receivre les petitions ... les sousescritz." _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 135.

[691] _Ibid._, vol. ii. pp. 136, 163. "Fut dit a les ditz Communes de par le Roy, q'ils se retraiassent par soi a lour aunciene place en la maison du chapitre de l'abbeye de Westm', et y tretassent et conseillassent entre eux meismes."

[692] Vol. ii. p. 107, second Parliament of 1339.

[693] "Ils treterent longement," _Ibid._, ii. p. 104.

[694] "Sur quele demonstrance il respoundrent q'il voleient parler ensemble et treter sur cest bosoigne.... Sur quel bosoigne ceux de la Commune demorerent de lour respons doner tant qe a Samedi, le XIX. jour de Feverer." A.D. 1339, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 107.

[695] "Ils n'osoront assentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et avysez les Communes de lour pais." They promise to do their best to persuade their constituents. A.D. 1339; "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 104.

[696] "Et les nuncia auxi la cause de la longe demore quele il avoit faite es dites parties saunz chivaucher sur ses enemys; et coment il le covendra faire pur defaute d'avoir." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 103, first Parliament of 1339.

[697] 51 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. p. 374.

[698] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 323. This speech created a great stir; another analysis of it exists in the "Chronicon Angliae" (written by a monk of St. Albans, the abbot of which, Thomas de la Mare, sat in Parliament): "Quae omnia ferret aequanimeter [plebs communis] si dominus rex noster sive regnum istud exinde aliquid commodi vel emolumenti sumpsisse videretur; etiam plebi tolerabile, si in expediendis rebus bellicis, quamvis gestis minus prospere, tanta pecunia fuisset expensa. Sed palam est, nec regem commodum, nec regnum ex hac fructum aliquem percepisse.... Non enim est credible regem carere infinita thesauri quantitate si fideles fuerint qui ministrant ei" (p. 73). The drift of the speech is, as may be seen, exactly the same as in the Rolls of Parliament. Another specimen of pithy eloquence will be found in the apostrophe addressed to the Earl of Stafford by John Philpot, a mercer of London, after his naval feat of 1378. _Ibid._, p. 200.

[699] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. pp. 337 ff.

[700] June 25, 1376.

[701] The speech of this year was made "en Engleis," by Simon, bishop of Ely; but the Rolls give only a French version of it: "Le prophet David dit que ..." &c., vol. ii. p. 283.

[702] "Sires, I thank God, and yowe Spirituel and Temporal and alle the Astates of the lond; and do yowe to wyte, it es noght my will that no man thynk yt be waye of conquest I wold disherit any man of his heritage, franches, or other ryghtes that hym aght to have, no put hym out of that that he has and has had by the gude lawes and custumes of the Rewme: Except thos persons that has ben agan the gude purpose and the commune profyt of the Rewme." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 423. In the fifteenth century the Parliamentary documents are written sometimes in French, sometimes in English; French predominates in the first half of the century, and English in the second.

[703] On Wyclif's family, see "The Birth and Parentage of Wyclif," by L. Sergeant, _Athenaeum_, March 12 and 26, 1892. This spelling of his name is the one which appears oftenest in contemporary documents. (Note by F. D. Matthew, _Academy_, June 7, 1884.)

[704] "Determinatio quedam magistri Johannis Wyclyff de Dominio contra unum monachum." The object of this treatise is to show "quod Rex potest juste dominari regno Anglic negando tributum Romano pontifici." The text will be found in John Lewis: "A history of the life and sufferings of ... John Wiclif," 1720, reprinted Oxford, 1820, 8vo, p. 349.

[705] "Ambassatores, nuncios et procuratores nostros speciales." Lewis, _ibid._, p. 304.

[706] All these details are found in the "Chronicon Angliae," 1328-88, ed. Maunde Thompson, Rolls, 1874, 8vo, p. 123, one of the rare chronicles the MS. of which was not expurgated, in what relates to John of Gaunt, at the accession of the Lancasters. (See above, p. 406.)

[707] This extreme leniency caused an indignation of which an echo is found in Walsingham: "Oxoniense studium generale," he exclaims, "quam gravi lapsu a sapientiae et scientiae culmine decidisti!... Pudet recordationis tantae impudentiae, et ideo supersedeo in husjusmodi materia immorari, ne materna videar ubera decerpere dentibus, quae dare lac, potum scientiae, consuevere." "Historia Anglicana," Rolls, vol. i. p. 345, year 1378.

[708] See in the "Fasciculi Zizaniorum magistri Johannis Wyclif cum tritico," ed. Shirley, Rolls, 1858, 8vo, p. 258: "Responsio magistri Johannis Wycclifi ad dubium infra scriptum, quaesitum ab eo, per dominum regem Angliae Ricardum secundum et magnum suum consilium anno regni sui primo." The point to be elucidated was the following: "Dubium est utrum regnum Angliae possit legitime, imminente necessitate suae defensionis, thesaurum regni detinere, ne deferatur ad exteros, etiam domino papa sub poena censurarum et virtute obedientiae hoc petente."

[709] "Statutes of the Realm," 5 Rich. II., st. 2, chap. 5. Walsingham thus describes them; "Congregavit ... comites ... talaribes indutos vestibus de russeto in signum perfectionis amplioris, incedentes nudis pedibus, qui suos errores in populo ventilarent, et palam ac publice in suis sermonibus praedicarent." "Historia Anglicana," _sub anno_ 1377, Rolls, vol. i. p. 324. A similar description is found (they present themselves, "sub magnae sanctitatis velamine," and preach errors "tam in ecclesiis quam in plateis et aliis locis profanis") in the letter of the archbishop of Canterbury, of May 28, 1382, "Fasciculi," p. 275.

[710] "Select English Works," ed. T. Arnold, Oxford, 1869, vol. i. p. 176.

[711] "Historia Anglicana," Rolls, vol. ii. p. 119. Elsewhere, in another series of unflattering epithets ("old hypocrite," "angel of Satan," &c.), the chronicler had allowed himself the pleasure of making a little pun upon Wyclif's name: "Non nominandus Joannes Wicliffe, vel potius Wykbeleve." Year 1381 vol. i. p. 450.

[712] L. Sergeant, "The Birth and Parentage of Wyclif," in the _Athenaeum_ of March 12, 1892.

[713] The Wyclif Society, founded in London by Dr. Furnivall, has published a great part of the Latin works of Wyclif: "Polemical Works in Latin," ed. Buddensieg, 1883, 8vo; "Joannis Wyclif, de compositione Hominis," ed. R. Beer, 1884; "Tractatus de civili Dominio ... from the unique MS. at Vienna," ed. R. Lane Poole, 1885 ff.; "Tractatus de Ecclesia," ed. Loserth, 1886; "Dialogus, sive speculum Ecclesie militantis," ed. A. W. Pollard, 1886; "Tractatus de benedicta Incarnatione," ed. Harris, 1886; "Sermones," ed. Loserth and Matthew, 1887; "Tractatus de officio Regis;" ed. Pollard and Sayle, 1887; "De Dominio divino libri tres, to which are added the first four books of the treatise 'De pauperie Salvatoris,' by Richard Fitzralph, archbishop of Armagh," ed. R. L. Poole, 1890; "De Ente praedicamentali," ed. R. Beer, 1891; "De Eucharistia tractatus maior; accedit tractatus de Eucharistia et Poenitentia," ed. Loserth and Matthew, 1892. Many others are in preparation.

Among the Latin works published outside of the Society, see "Tractatus de officio pastorali," ed. Lechler, Leipzig, 1863, 8vo; "Trialogus cum supplemento Trialogi," ed. Lechler, Oxford, 1869, 8vo; "De Christo et suo Adversario Antichristo," ed. R. Buddensieg, Gotha, 1880, 4to. Many documents by or concerning Wyclif are to be found in the "Fasciculi Zizaniorum magistri Joannis Wyclif cum tritico," ed. Shirley, Rolls, 1858, 8vo (compiled by Thomas Netter, fifteenth century). See also Shirley, "A Catalogue of the Original Works of John Wyclif," Oxford, 1865, 8vo, and Maunde Thompson, "Wycliffe Exhibition in the King's Library," London, 1884, 8vo.

[714] R. Lane Poole, "Wycliffe and Movements for Reform," London, 1889, 8vo, p. 85.

[715] On this treatise, and on the use made of it by Wyclif, see: "Johannis Wycliffe De Dominio divino libri tres. To which are added the first four books of the treatise 'De pauperie Salvatoris,' by Richard Fitzralph," ed. R. Lane Poole, 1890. The "De Dominio divino," of Wyclif, seems to have been written about 1366; his "De Dominio Civili," about 1372.

[716] "Quilibet existens in gratia gratificante, finaliter nedum habet jus, sed in re habet omnia bona Dei." "De Dominio Civili," chap. i. p. 1.

[717] "De Dominio Civili," chap. xiv. p. 96, chap. xvii. pp. 118-120.

[718] "Vel esset lex superaddita in lege evangelica implicata, vel impertinens, vel repugnans." "De Dominio Civili," chap. xvii.

[719] The worst is the ecclesiastical form: "Pessimum omnium est quod prelati ecclesie secundum tradiciones suas immisceant se negociis et solicitudinibus civilis dominii." Chap. xxvii. p. 195.

[720] Chap. xxx. p. 212.

[721] Chap. xxxv. p. 250.

[722] Chap. xxxvii. p. 266.

[723] A conclusion pointed out as heretical by the archbishop of Canterbury in his letter of 1382. "Fasciculi," p. 278.

[724] "Kingis and lordis schulden wite that thei ben mynystris and vikeris of God, to venge synne and ponysche mysdoeris." "Select English Works," ed. Arnold, vol. iii. p. 214.

[725] The principal ones will be found in: T. Arnold, "Select English Works of John Wyclif," Oxford, 1869-71, 3 vols. 8vo; F. D. Matthew, "The English Works of Wyclif, hitherto unprinted," London, Early English Text Society, 1880, 8vo. (Many of the pieces in this last collection are not by Wyclif, but are the work of his followers. In the first, too, the authenticity of some of the pieces is doubtful.) See also: "Wyclyffe's Wycket, which he made in Kyng Richard's days the Second" (a famous sermon on the Eucharist), Nuremberg, 1546, 4to; Oxford, ed. T. P. Pantin, 1828.

[726] S. Berger, "La Bible francaise au moyen age," Paris, 1884, p. 120. This version was circulated in England, and was recopied by English scribes; a copy (incomplete) by an English hand is preserved in the University Library at Cambridge; P. Meyer, "MSS. francais de Cambridge," in "Romania," 1886, p. 265.

[727] "The Holy Bible ... made from the Latin of the Vulgate, by John Wycliffe and his followers," ed. by J. Forshall and Sir Fred. Madden, Oxford, 1850, 2 vols. 4to. On the share of Wyclif, Hereford, &c., in the work, see pp. vi, xvi, xvii, xx, xxiv. _Cf._ Maunde Thompson, "Wycliffe Exhibition," London, 1884, p. xviii. The first version was probably finished in 1382, the second in 1388 (by the care of John Purvey, a disciple and friend of Wyclif).

[728] Labbe, "Sacrorum Conciliorum ... Collectio," vol. xxvi. col. 1038.

[729] "Select English Works," vol. iii. p. 100.

[730] "Select English Works," vol. ii. p. 296.

[731] _Ibid._, i. p. 189.

[732] _Ibid._, i. p. 381.

[733] His adversaries, perhaps exaggerating his sayings, attribute to him declarations like the following: "Quod sacramentum illud visibile est infinitum abjectius in natura, quam sit panis equinus, vel panis ratonis; immo, quod verecundum est dicere vel audire, quod stercus ratonis." "Fasciculi Zizaniorum," p. 108.

[734] "Ille panis est bene miraculose, vere el realiter, spiritualiter, virtualiter et sacramentaliter corpus Christi. Sed grossi non contentantur de istis modis, sed exigunt quod panis ille, vel saltem per ipsum, sit substantialiter et corporaliter corpus Christi; sic enim volunt, zelo blasphemorum, Christum comedere, sed non possunt.... Ponimus venerabile sacramentum altaris esse naturaliter panem et vinum, sed sacramentaliter corpus Christi et sanguinem." "Fasciculi," pp. 122, 125; Wyclif's statement of his beliefs after his condemnation by the University in 1381. Again, in his sermons: "Thes ben to rude heretikes that seien thei eten Crist bodili, and seien thei parten ech membre of him, nekke, bac, heed and foot.... This oost is breed in his kynde as ben other oostes unsacrid, and sacramentaliche Goddis bodi." "Select English Works," vol. ii. p. 169. This is very nearly the theory adopted later by Latimer, who declares "that there is none other presence of Christ required than a spiritual presence; and that presence is sufficient for a Christian man;" there remains in the host the substance of bread. "Works," Parker Society, Cambridge, 1844, vol. ii. p. 250.

[735] Auricular confession, that "rowninge in preestis eere," is not the true one, according to Wyclif; the true one is that made to God. "Select English Works," vol. i. p. 196.

[736] "Doctor in theologia eminentissimus in diebus illis, in philosophia nulli reputabatur secundus, in scolasticis disciplinis incomparabilis." "Chronica de eventibus Angliae," _sub anno_ 1382, in Twysden, "Decem Scriptores," col. 2644.

[737] "Select English Works," vol. iii. pp 216, 217.

[738] _Ibid._, ii. p. 414.

[739] Conclusion No. 12. "Henrici de Blandeforde ... Annales," ed. Riley, Rolls, 1866, p. 174.

[740] "The old belief that the Waldenses (or Vaudois) represent a current of tradition continuous from the assumed evangelical simplicity of the primitive church has lost credit.... The imagined primitive Christianity of these Alpine congregations can only be deduced from works which have been shown to be translations or adaptations of the Hussite manuals or treatises." "Wycliffe," by Reginald Lane Poole, 1889, p. 174. _Cf._ J. Loserth, "Hus und Wiclif," Leipzig, 1884.

[741] The great crisis in Wesley's religious life, what he terms his "conversion," took place on the 24th of February, 1738, under the influence of the Moravian Peter Boehler, who had convinced him, he says in his Journal, "of the want of that faith whereby we are saved."