Part 16

"At the time when the conflict between church and state was most violent, and when Wyclif was beginning to draw upon himself the eyes of patriots, there was considerable talk at the English court about a young man named Geoffrey Chaucer, who belonged to the king's household, and who both by his personality and his connections enjoyed the favor of the royal family. ... On many occasions, even thus early, he had appeared as a miracle of learning to those about him--he read Latin as easily as French; he spoke a more select English than others; and it was known that he had composed, or, as the expression then was, 'made,' many beautiful English verses. The young poet belonged to a well-to-do middle-class family who had many far-reaching connections, and even some influence with the court. ... Even as a boy he may have heard his father, John Chaucer, the vintner of Thames Street, London, telling of the marvelous voyage he had made to Antwerp and Cologne in the brilliant suite of Edward III. in 1338. When a youth of sixteen or seventeen, Geoffrey served as a page or squire to Elizabeth, duchess of Ulster, first wife of Lionel, duke of Clarence, and daughter-in-law of the king. He bore arms when about nineteen years of age, and went to France in 1359, in the army commanded by Edward III. ... This epoch formed a sort of 'Indian summer' to the age of chivalry, and its spirit found expression in great deeds of war as well as in the festivals and manners of the court. The ideal which men strove to realize did not quite correspond to the spirit of the former age. On the whole, people had become more worldly and practical, and were generally anxious to protect the real interests of life from the unwarranted interference of romantic aspirations. The spirit of chivalry no longer formed a fundamental element, but only an ornament of life--an ornament, indeed, which was made much of, and which was looked upon with a sentiment partaking of enthusiasm. ... In the midst of this outside world of motley pomp and throbbing life Geoffrey could observe the doings of high and low in various situations. He was early initiated into court intrigues, and even into many political secrets, and found opportunities of studying the human type in numerous individuals and according to the varieties developed by rank in life, education, age, and sex. ... Nothing has been preserved from his early writings. ... The fact is very remarkable that from the first, or at least from a very early period, Chaucer wrote in the English language--however natural this may seem to succeeding ages in 'The Father of English Poetry.' The court of Edward III. favored the language as well as the literature of France; a considerable number of French poets and 'menestrels' were in the service and pay of the English king. {814} Queen Philippa, in particular, showing herself in this a true daughter of her native Hainault, formed the centre of a society cultivating the French language and poetry. She had in her personal service Jean Froissart, one of the most eminent representatives of that language and poetry; like herself he belonged to one of the most northern districts of the French-speaking territory; he had made himself a great name, as a prolific and clever writer of erotic and allegoric trifles, before he sketched out in his famous chronicle the motley-colored, vivid picture of that eventful age. We also see in this period young Englishmen of rank and education trying their flight on the French Parnassus. ... To these Anglo-French poets there belonged also a Kentishman of noble family, named John Gower. Though some ten years the senior of Chaucer, he had probably met him about this time. They were certainly afterwards very intimately acquainted. Gower ... had received a very careful education, and loved to devote the time he could spare from the management of his estates to study and poetry. His learning was in many respects greater than Chaucer's. He had studied the Latin poets so diligently that he could easily express himself in their language, and he was equally good at writing French verses, which were able to pass muster, at least in England. ... But, Chaucer did not let himself be led astray by examples such as these. It is possible that he would have found writing in French no easy task, even if he had attempted it. At any rate his bourgeois origin, and the seriousness of his vocation as poet, threw a determining weight into the scale and secured his fidelity to the English language with a commendable consistency."

_B. Ten Brink, History of English Literature, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2, part 1)._

"English was not taught in the schools, but French only, until after the accession of Richard II., or possibly the latter years of Edward III., and Latin was always studied through the French. Up to this period, then, as there were no standards of literary authority, and probably no written collections of established forms, or other grammatical essays, the language had no fixedness or uniformity, and hardly deserved to be called a written speech. ... From this Babylonish confusion of speech, the influence and example of Chaucer did more to rescue his native tongue than any other single cause; and if we compare his dialect with that of any writer of an earlier date, we shall find that in compass, flexibility, expressiveness, grace, and all the higher qualities of poetical diction, he gave it at once the utmost perfection which the materials at his hand would permit of. The English writers of the fourteenth century had an advantage which was altogether peculiar to their age and country. At all previous periods, the two languages had co-existed, in a great degree independently of each other, with little tendency to intermix; but in the earlier part of that century, they began to coalesce, and this process was going on with a rapidity that threatened a predominance of the French, if not a total extinction of the Saxon element. ... When the national spirit was aroused, and impelled to the creation of a national literature, the poet or prose writer, in selecting his diction, had almost two whole vocabularies before him. That the syntax should be English, national feeling demanded; but French was so familiar and habitual to all who were able to read, that probably the scholarship of the day would scarcely have been able to determine, with respect to a large proportion of the words in common use, from which of the two great wells of speech they had proceeded. Happily, a great arbiter arose at the critical moment of severance of the two peoples and dialects, to preside over the division of the common property, and to determine what share of the contributions of France should be permanently annexed to the linguistic inheritance of Englishmen. Chaucer did not introduce into the English language words which it had rejected as aliens before, but out of those which had been already received, he invested the better portion with the rights of citizenship, and stamped them with the mint-mark of English coinage. In this way, he formed a vocabulary, which, with few exceptions, the taste and opinion of succeeding generations has approved; and a literary diction was thus established, which, in all the qualities required for the poetic art, had at that time no superior in the languages of modern Europe. The soundness of Chaucer's judgment, the nicety of his philological appreciation, and the delicacy of his sense of adaptation to the actual wants of the English people, are sufficiently proved by the fact that, of the Romance words found in his writings, not much above one hundred have been suffered to become obsolete, while a much larger number of Anglo-Saxon words employed by him have passed altogether out of use. ... In the three centuries which elapsed between the Conquest and the noon-tide of Chaucer's life, a large proportion of the Anglo-Saxon dialect of religion, of moral and intellectual discourse, and of taste, had become utterly obsolete, and unknown. The place of the lost words had been partly supplied by the importation of Continental terms; but the new words came without the organic power of composition and derivation which belonged to those they had supplanted. Consequently, they were incapable of those modifications of form and extensions of meaning which the Anglo-Saxon roots could so easily assume, and which fitted them for the expression of the new shades of thought and of sentiment born of every hour in a mind and an age like those of Chaucer."

_G. P. Marsh, Origin and History of the English Language, lecture 9._

ALSO IN: _T. R. Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer._

_A. W. Ward, Chaucer._

_W. Godwin, Life of Geoffrey Chaucer._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1360-1414. The Lollards.

"The Lollards were the earliest 'Protestants' of England. They were the followers of John Wyclif, but before his time the nickname of Lollard had been known on the continent. A little brotherhood of pious people had sprung up in Holland, about the year 1300, who lived in a half-monastic fashion and devoted themselves to helping the poor in the burial of their dead; and, from the low chants they sang at the funerals--lollen being the old word for such singing--they were called Lollards. The priests and friars hated them and accused them of heresy, and a Walter Lollard, probably one of them, was burnt in 1322 at Cologne as a heretic, and gradually the name became a nickname for such people. So when Wyclif's simple priests' were preaching the new doctrines, the name already familiar in Holland and Germany, was given to them, and gradually became the name for that whole movement of religious reformation which grew up from the seed Wyclif sowed."

_B. Herford, Story of Religion in England, chapter 16._

{815}

"A turning point arrived in the history of the reforming party at the accession of the house of Lancaster. King Henry the Fourth was not only a devoted son of the Church, but he owed his success in no slight measure to the assistance of the Churchmen, and above all to that of Archbishop Arundel. It was felt that the new dynasty and the hierarchy stood or fell together. A mixture of religious and political motives led to the passing of the well-known statute 'De hæretico comburendo' in 1401 and thenceforward Lollardy was a capital offence."

_R. L. Poole, Wycliffe and Movements for Reform, chapter 8._

"The abortive insurrection of the Lollards at the commencement of Henry V. 's reign, under the leadership of Sir John Oldcastle, had the effect of adding to the penal laws already in existence against the sect." This gave to Lollardy a political character and made the Lollards enemies against the State, as is evident from the king's proclamation in which it was asserted "that the insurgents intended to 'destroy him, his brothers and several of the spiritual and temporal lords, to confiscate the possessions of the Church, to secularize the religious orders, to divide the realm into confederate districts, and to appoint Sir John Oldcastle president of the commonwealth.'"

_T. P. Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History (4th edition), chapter 11._

"The early life of Wycliffe is obscure. ... He emerges into distinct notice in 1360, ten years subsequent to the passing of the first Statute of Provisors, having then acquired a great Oxford reputation as a lecturer in divinity. ... He was a man of most simple life; austere in appearance; with bare feet and russet mantle. As a soldier of Christ, he saw in his Great Master and his Apostles the patterns whom he was bound to imitate. By the contagion of example he gathered about him other men who thought as he did; and gradually, under his captaincy, these 'poor priests' as they were called--vowed to poverty because Christ was poor--vowed to accept no benefice ... spread out over the country as an army of missionaries, to preach the faith which they found in the Bible--to preach, not of relics and of indulgences, but of repentance and of the grace of God. They carried with them copies of the Bible which Wycliffe had translated, ... and they refused to recognize the authority of the bishops, or their right to silence them. If this had been all, and perhaps if Edward III. had been succeeded by a prince less miserably incapable than his grandson Richard, Wycliffe might have made good his ground; the movement of the parliament against the pope might have united in a common stream with the spiritual move against the church at home, and the Reformation have been antedated by a century. He was summoned to answer for himself before the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1377. He appeared in court supported by the presence of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the eldest of Edward's surviving sons, and the authorities were unable to strike him behind so powerful a shield. But the 'poor priests' had other doctrines. ... His [Wycliffe's] theory of property, and his study of the character of Christ, had led him to the near confines of Anabaptism." The rebellion of Wat Tyler, which occurred in 1381, cast odium upon all such opinions. "So long as Wycliffe lived, his own lofty character was a guarantee for the conduct of his immediate disciples; and although his favour had far declined, a party in the state remained attached to him, with sufficient influence to prevent the adoption of extreme measures against the 'poor priests.' ... They were left unmolested for the next twenty years. ... On the settlement of the country under Henry IV. they fell under the general ban which struck down all parties who had shared in the late disturbances."

_J. A. Froude, History of England, chapter 6._

"Wycliffe's translation of the Bible itself created a new era, and gave birth to what may be said never to have existed till then--a popular theology. ... It is difficult in our day to imagine the impression such a book must have produced in an age which had scarcely anything in the way of popular literature, and which had been accustomed to regard the Scriptures as the special property of the learned. It was welcomed with an enthusiasm which could not be restrained, and read with avidity both by priests and laymen. ... The homely wisdom, blended with eternal truth, which has long since enriched our vernacular speech with a multitude of proverbs, could not thenceforth be restrained in its circulation by mere pious awe or time-honoured prejudice. Divinity was discussed in ale-houses. Popular preachers made war upon old prejudices. and did much to shock that sense of reverence which belonged to an earlier generation. A new school had arisen with a theology of its own, warning the people against the delusive preaching of the friars, and asserting loudly its own claims to be true and evangelical, on the ground that it possessed the gospel in the English tongue. Appealing to such an authority in their favour, the eloquence of the new teachers made a marvellous impression. Their followers increased with extraordinary rapidity. By the estimate of an opponent they soon numbered half the population, and you could hardly see two persons in the street but one of them was a Wycliffite. ... They were supported by the powerful influence of John of Gaunt, who shielded not only Wycliffe himself, but even the most violent of the fanatics. And, certainly, whatever might have been Wycliffe's own view, doctrines were promulgated by his reputed followers that were distinctly subversive of authority. John Ball fomented the insurrection of Wat Tyler, by preaching the natural equality of men. ... But the popularity of Lollardy was short-lived. The extravagance to which it led soon alienated the sympathies of the people, and the sect fell off in numbers almost as rapidly as it had risen."

_J. Gairdner, Studies in English History, 1-2._

"Wyclif ... was not without numerous followers, and the Lollardism which sprang out of his teaching was a living force in England for some time to come. But it was weak through its connection with subversive social doctrines. He himself stood aloof from such doctrines, but he could not prevent his followers from mingling in the social fray. It was perhaps their merit that they did so. The established constitutional order was but another name for oppression and wrong to the lower classes. But as yet the lower classes were not sufficiently advanced in moral and political training to make it safe to entrust them with the task of righting their own wrongs as they would have attempted to right them if they had gained the mastery. It had nevertheless become impossible to leave the peasants to be once more goaded by suffering into rebellion. The attempt, if it had been made, to enforce absolute labour-rents was tacitly abandoned, and gradually during the next century the mass of the villeins passed into the position of freemen. {816} For the moment, nobles and prelates, landowners and clergy, banded themselves together to form one great party of resistance. The church came to be but an outwork of the baronage."

_S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger, Introduction to the Study of English History, part 1, chapter 5, sections 14-15._

ALSO IN _L. Sergeant, John Wyclif._

_G. Lechler, John Wiclif and his English Precursors._

See, also, BOHEMIA; A. D. 1405-1415, and BEGUINES.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1377. Accession of King Richard II.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1377-1399. The character and reign of Richard II.

"Richard II. was a far superior man to many of the weaker kings of England; but being self-willed and unwarlike, he was unfitted for the work which the times required. Yet, on a closer inspection than the traditional view of the reign has generally encouraged, we cannot but observe that the finer qualities which came out in certain crises of his reign appear to have frequently influenced his conduct: we know that he was not an immoral man, that he was an excellent husband to an excellent wife, and that he had devoted friends, willing to lay down their lives for him when there was nothing whatever left for them to gain. ... Richard, who had been brought up in the purple quite as much as Edward II., was kept under restraint by his uncles, and not being judiciously guided in the arts of government, fell, like his prototype, into the hands of favourites. His brilliant behaviour in the insurrection of 1381 indicated much more than mere possession of the Plantagenet courage and presence of mind. He showed a real sympathy with the villeins who had undeniable grievances. ... His instincts were undoubtedly for freedom and forgiveness, and there is no proof, nor even probability, that he intended to use the villeins against his enemies. His early and happy marriage with Anne of Bohemia ought, one might think, to have saved him from the vice of favouritism; but he was at least more fortunate than Edward II. in not being cast under the spell of a Gaveston. When we consider the effect of such a galling government as that of his uncle Gloucester, and his cousin Derby, afterwards Henry IV., who seems to have been pushing Gloucester on from the first, we can hardly be surprised that he should require some friend to lean upon. The reign is, in short, from one, and perhaps the truest, point of view, a long duel between the son of the Black Prince and the son of John of Gaunt. One or other of them must inevitably perish. A handsome and cultivated youth, who showed himself at fifteen every inch a king, who was married at sixteen, and led his own army to Scotland at eighteen, required a different treatment from that which he received. He was a man, and should have been dealt with as such. His lavish and reprehensible grants to his favourites were made the excuse for Gloucester's violent interference in 1386, but there is good ground for believing that the movement was encouraged by the anti-Wicliffite party, which had taken alarm at the sympathy with the Reformers shown at this time by Richard and Anne."

_M. Burrows, Commentaries on the History of England, book 2, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _J. R. Green, History of the English People, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 1)._

_C. H. Pearson, English History in the 14th Century, chapter 10-12._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1381. Wat Tyler's Rebellion.

"In June 1381 there broke out in England the formidable insurrection known as Wat Tyler's Rebellion. The movement seems to have begun among the bondmen of Essex and of Kent; but it spread at once to the counties of Sussex Hertford, Cambridge, Suffolk and Norfolk. The peasantry, armed with bludgeons and rusty swords, first occupied the roads by which pilgrims went to Canterbury, and made everyone swear that he would be true to king Richard and not accept a king named John. This, of course, was aimed at the government of John of Gaunt [Duke of Lancaster], ... to whom the people attributed every grievance they had to complain of. The principal, or at least the immediate cause of offence arose out of a poll-tax which had been voted in the preceding year."

_J. Gairdner, Houses of Lancaster and York, chapter 2._