^ '■/ u PRINCETON, N. J. \ Part of the ^ ADDISON ALEXANDER LIBRAKY, . which was i>ri-.^onted by II MESSRS. R. L. Asn A. ^-^^^^^^-^^^ BR 375 ,M37 1847 Massingberd, Francis Charles, 1800-1872. The English reformation I THE ENGLISH REFORMATION, BY 1/'' FRANCIS CHARLES MASSINGBERD, Mj RECTOR OF SOUTH ORMSBY. As for my Religion, I die in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith, professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West ; more particularly, I die in the communion of the Church of England as it stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross.— Bishop Ken's Will. SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. M.DCCC.XLVII. VENERABLE EDWAKD CHURTON, M.A., ARCHDEACON OF CLEVELAND AND RECTOR OF CRAYKE ; WHOSE FRIENDSHIP THE AUTHOR COUNTS AMONG THE PRIME BLESSINGS OF HIS LIFE, THESE PAGES, UNDERTAKEN AT HIS REQUEST, AND IMPROVED BY HIS ASSISTANCE, ARE MOST AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. I ADVERTISEMENT. The Writer takes this, the earliest opportunity afforded him, to acknowledge the obligations he was under, in the preparation of the first edition of this book, to his friend, now Archdeacon Churton, who not only under- took to superintend the Press during his unavoidable absence fi'om England, but generously added several matters from the stores of his own learning. The account of King John, in Chapter III., and that of the persecution of the Jews, Chapter V., and some of the earlier parts of Chapter VI., were from his pen. He also supplied the extracts from Thomas of Eccleston, in the history of the Friars, in Chapter VII., and some of those from WycUffe's writings in Chapter VIII. The original Spanish Records of the Marian Persecu- tion, are from a series of papers, by the same hand, in the British Magazine. These researches, which Bishop Burnet was advised, but neglected, to make, throw a new light on those events, and can never be overlooked by any future wi'iter. The Author has taken the opportunity of the present edition, to supply some historical notices of the doc- VI ADYERTISEMENT. trinal innovations in the Medieval Church; and has been able to give the events of the English Reforma- tion somewhat more at length, as they were originally written by him, but necessarily abridged to meet the dimensions to which the books of the Series for which he wrote were confined. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Chapter I. A.D. PAGE Cardinal Pole's opinion on the Abuses of the Church 2 Erasmus on the same ib. Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, his Sermon at the Council of Trent .... .... 3 his part in Cranmer's death 4 Philip de Mornay (Du Plessis) 4 Lord Clarendon, on the English Reformation .... 6 Archbishop Sancroft, on the same 7 Chapter II. Wi/cliffe and Pope Gregory XL 1377 Commencement of Wycliffe's resistance to the Church of Rome .... .... 8 1356 l^\s Last Age of the Church 11 1361 WyclifFe, Master of Balliol CoUege ib. 1372 Doctor of Divinity ib. 1377 Bull of Pope Gregory against him 13 Archbishop Sudbury, character of .... 16 * Courtney, ditto ib. 1378 WycUfFe's first citation at St, Paul's 19 His Defence .... .... 21 Death of Pope Gregory XL 26 Chapter III. Rise and Progress of the Papal Power. — Schism of the Popes, A.D. 1378. Origin of the Papal Power Opinions of St. Gregory Forged Decretals 1066 Pope Hildebrand 1199 Innocent III. 28 ib. 30 32 35 viii CONTENTS. King John and De Bruce 36 Canon Law 40 Excommunication .... .... .•■• ••• •■•• 42 Amount of Church Property 43 Numbers of Clergy 45 1304 Boniface VIII. .- 47 1309 Popes at Avignon 48 1224 Inquisition in Germany .... 49 1233 Inquisition in Thoulouse ib. 1270 Bishops' prisons in England 50 1378 Schism of the Popes ib. Chapter IV. Transuhstantiation. — Penance. — Confession. 820 Paschasius Radbertus, the first Teacher of Transuh- stantiation ... .... .... .... .... .... 53 answered by Bertram 54 970 yElfric's Saxon Homily ib. 1079 Berengarius 55 1215 Decree of Fourth Lateran Council ib. 1264 Corpus Domini 56 Communion in one kind .... .... .... .... 57 1215 Auricular Confession 59 1438 Purgatory 61 .gir indulgences 62 Chapter V. Effects of Papal Supremacy in England. — Jews. — Good Bishops. 1207 Cardinal Langton 64 1234 St. Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury 65 1250 Robert Grosteste, Bishop of Lincoln .... .... ib. Council of Lyons .... .... .... .... .... 67. 1290 E.xpulsion of Jews from England .... .... .... 69 1313 Raynold, Archbishop 73 Privileges granted to him .... .... .... .... 74 1349 Hermit of Hampole .... .... .... .... .... 75 1352 Archbishop Fitzraljjh 77 1349 Arclibishoj) Bradwardine .... .... .... .... 78 Cehbacy of the Clergy 79 CONTENTS. IX Chapter VI. Monasteries and Chantries. A.D. PAGE Gyraldus Cambrensis 81 Lantony, Monmouthshire .... .... .... .... ib. William of Newborough .... 83 Richard 1 84 Benedictines and Cluniacs .... 86 Slavery 88 Number of Inmates 89 Bolton Abbey 90 Chantries 91 Abbe' Fleury 95 Chapter VIT. The Mendicant Orders; their Rise and History. 1221 First Dominican Friars in England 98 St. Francis 99 1224 Stigmata 100 First Franciscans in England .... .... .... 103 Fitzralph opposed to them 107 And Chaucer .... .... .... .... ..., ih. Friar Bacon 110 1276 Friars made Popes 113 1389 Bartholomew of Pisa 115 1328 Immaculate Conception .... .... .... .... Ill Miracle Plays 120 Pilgrimages and Indulgences 122 Chapter VIII. Wydiff^s Translation of the Bible. — His Denial of Tran- substantiation — His Death. 1380 Wycliffe's Translation of the Bible 125 His Doctrine about the use of Holy Scripture .... 127 WyclifFe's " Poor Priests" 129 1383 Bishop Spencer's Crusade 133 Friar Woodford's Arguments 135 WycUffe's '* Charter of Heaven" 138 1381 Public Denial of Transubstantiation .... 140 Oxford Decree against him .... 141 Courtney, Archbishop .... .... 142 1382 English Convocation decrees for Transubstantiation .... 145 1384 Death of Wycliffe 149 CONTENTS. Chapteh IX. Wt/cliffe's Character, Opinions, and Followers. — The Lollards. — Tlieir Numbers and Influence. — Acts of Par- liament against the Papacy. — Archbishop Arundel. A.D. PAGE Character of Wycliffe 150 Supposed origin of his resistance to the Papacy .... 153 His Followers 155 Lollard Noblemen 157 Lollard Wills 158 Lollard Preachers 165 1392 Royal Supremacy acknowledged .... .... .... 169 1395 Lollard Petition to Parliament 170 1396 Archbishop Arundel 172 Chapter X. Usurpation of Henry IV.— Persecuting Statute. — Trials of the Lollards. — Lord Cobham. 1399 Usurpation of Henry IV 174 1401 Statute for burning Heretics .... .... .... 176 1406 Proposal for seizing Church Property 180 1428 Burning of Wycliffe's Bones 183 Trait of Henry V 184 1413 Lord Cobham 187 Chapteu XL Council of Constance. — Bishop Hallam. — Persecutions in England.— Bishop Peacock.— Wars of York and Lan- caster. 1415 Council of Constance 197 1416 Martyrdom of Huss 198 And Jerome of Prague .... ih. Bishop Hallam 199 Election of Martin V. and termination of the Schism 266 1414 Oxford " Articles of Reformation" 201 1416 Archbishop Chicheley's Constitutions 202 1416 John Claydon ih. False accusation of making his Son a Priest .... 204 1444 Bishop Peacock .... .... .... .... .... 205 1447 His recantation 208 CONTENTS. XI Chapter XII. The Church in the Fifteenth Century, — Schools and Colleges founded. — Decline and Vices of Monasteries. A.D. PAGE 1379 William of Wykeham 210 1458 WUliam of Wainfleet 212 1489 Visitation of St. Alban's Abbey 214 1439 Immaculate conception 218 Erasmus at Becket's Shrine .... .... .... .... 220 Miracle of St. Alban's 223 1487 Abuse of Sanctuary 224 1421 College Life 225 Chapter XIII. Condition of the Parochial Clergy in the Fifteenth Century. — Power of the Popes^ and their Character. Poverty of the Parochial Clergy 229 " Provision" and Laws against it .... .... .... 231 Ignorance of the Parochial Clergy 233 Martin V 235 Betrayal of Confessions 236 1438 Pragmatic Sanction 237 Resistance in Germany ib. And in England 238 1492 Pope Alexander VI. 239 1513 Leo X. 241 Chapter XIV. King Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. — Luther.— The King's Divorce, and Submission of the Clergy. 1509 Accession of Henry VIII 242 1514 Promotion of Wolsey 244 1517 Martin Luther 247 1522 Henry styled Defender of the Faith 251 1526 Tindal's Bible 252 1527 Henry sues for a Divorce 254 1529 Trial of the Divorce 256 1530 Fall of Wolsey 258 His Death 260 1531 Submission of the Clergy 264 CONTENTS. Chapter XV. State of Parties. — Cramner, Archhisliop.—Kinp excommu- nicated.— Supremacy/ of Pope renounced hy Parliament. — Bihle in English. A.D. PAGE 1532 Thomas Bilney 267 Latimer 269 1532 Cranmer made Primate 271 John Frith 274 1534 King excommunicated .... .... .... .... 277 Acts of Parliament against Rome .... .... .... 278 Church of England appeals to a General Council .... 281 Law for Suffragan Bishops 282 Convocation's Vote for a Translation of the Bible .... 283 Chapter XVI. Death of More and Fisher. — Paul III. and Cardinal Pole. —Suppression of Monasteries. 1535 Accession of Paul III. 288 Death of More and Fisher ib. Reginald Pole 289 Visitation of Monasteries 293 1536 Suppression of lesser Monasteries 295 Pilgrimage of Grace .... * .... 297 1539 Surrender of larger Abbeys 299 Abbot of Glastonbury 301 Chapter XVII. Conduct and Character of Cranmer. — Last Years of Henri/ VIII. — The Six Articles. — Fall of Cromivell. — Catharine Parr and Ann Askew. — Progress of Reforma- tion.— Council of Trent. 1539 The Six Articles 312 1540 Death of Cromwell 314 1543 Queen Catharine Parr .... .... .... .... .... 317 Ann Askew 320 1547 Death of King Henry VIII 325 Books of Religion published in his reign 327 1545 Council of Trent 329 CONTENTS. XUl Chapter XVIII. Edward VI. — Protector Somerset. — Homilies. — Suppression of Chantries. A.D. PAGE 1547 Accession of Edward VI 333 Somerset made Protector .... .... .... .... 335 Progress of Reformation 341 Chantries suppressed .... 346 Chapter XIX. Communion Service in English. — First Reformed Prayer Book. Consultations on the Mass 349 1548 Communion in English .... .... .... .... 351 Cranmer's Catechism .... .... .... .... 353 1549 First Prayer Book 355 Chapter XX. Foreign Reformers. — Dispute about the Habits. — Popular Discontent. Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr .... 365 1550 Hooper's refusal to wear his Bishop's Dress .... 368 Ridley made Bishop of London .... 361 removes Altars 370 Joan Bocher 373 Popular Tumults 376 Chapter XXI. Fall of Somerset. — Cranmer's Book. — Second Reformed Prayer Book. — Articles.— Reformatio Legiwi. — Death of Edward. — Council of Trent. 1549 Fall of Somerset 379 1550 Cranmer's Defence of the True and Catholic Doc- trine, &(c 380 The " Real Presence" 383 1552 Second Prayer Book 387 1553 The Forty-two Articles 388 The Reformatio Legum 389 1552 Death of Somerset 392 XIV CONTENTS. A.D. PAGE Power of Northumberland .... .... .... .... 393 Deprivation of Tonstal ib. Cranmer's Associates 396 1553 Death of Edward VI. 401 1551 Council of Trent determines for Transubstantiation .... 404 Chapter XXII. Reign of Queen Mary. — Restoration of Popery. — Persecutions. 1553 Lady Jane Gray 405 Gardiner made Lord Chancellor .... .... .... 408 Mass set up at Canterbury 411 Mary's First Parliament 413 Romish Articles 414 1554 Clergy ejected 415 The Bishops at Oxford 417 The Queen's Marriage 421 Authors of the Persecution 423 Sentiments of Charles V 427 And of Philip 429 Spanish Records 431 Chapter XXIII. The Persecutions. — The Bishops at Oxford. — Death of Ridley and Latimer. — Troubles at Frankfort. 1555 Rogers, Hooper, and Taylor burnt 434 Martyrs' Letters 437 Trial of Cranmer 439 Death of Ridley and Latimer .... 443 Recantations 445 Troubles at Frankfort 447 Chapter XXIV. Fall and Death of Cranmer. — Death of Queen Mary. 1556 Cranmer's Recantation 455 His Death 459 1558 Death of Queen Mary 465 Fate of Carranza ib. CONTETTTS. XV Chapter XXV. Queen Elizabeth. — Reformed Religion restoi^ed. A.D. PAGE 1558 Accession of Elizabeth 467 1559 Act of Uniformity 471 Consecration of Archbishop Parker 476 Chapter XXVI. Conduct of Papal Party. — Puritans. — Conclusion, 1559 Jewel's Apology 480 Appendix 501 ENGLISH reformation:'- CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Speak gently of our Sister's fall : — Who knows but gentle love May win her, at our patient call, The surer way to prove ? Christian Year. [HE history of the Church of Christ is the history of a conflict between the powers of evil and the power of good. The enemy of the souls of men never sleeps in his cruel attempt to pervert the best things, and to betray to their ruin those whom God will save. Accordingly, since the time when Cluist set up his Church as the means in and by w^hich he would save the world, it might be expected that the adversary, who could not destroy, would use all his arts to corrupt it. And this may supply a clue to some things in the history of the Church which might seem inexplicable on other grounds. It is hardly possible to conceive anything more mag- nificent than the notion of the Catholic Church, as it must have appeared to the faithful dm-ing the first ages of its existence. The stone cut out without hands which smote the image and became a great mountain and filled B 2 THE ENGLISH KEFOEMATIOX. the whole earth^ : this prophetic figure seemed to be realised in the way in which the Christian Church, without human aid, pervaded the Roman empire, and survived its dissolution. And good men might think it was thus that the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ '^. And yet at this very time there was growing up in the dominions of Him whose kingdom is not of this world, a temporal power which in the com'se of time assumed an empire unknown before, and in connexion with which the Gospel w^as corrupted and the truth sup- pressed in an almost incredible degree. That it was so is no modern fiction, but was confessed almost imiversally in the ages which preceded the Reformation, and even while that event was in progress. The very preachers at the Coimcil of Trent made their pulpits ring with their laments of the profane pomp and secular delights in which faith and charity had become dead. Cardinal Pole, who presided at some of the earlier sessions of that Council, had declared that the abuses of the Court of Rome had brought the Chm-ch to the brink of ruin ; and the clear-sighted Erasmus, though he did not forsake the communion of Rome, complained that " the monks and friars would be content with nothing but the re- establishment of cruelty, ignorance and superstition; and that popes, cardinals, and bishops, who had caused the disorder, could never apply the remedy, or extinguish the fire which theii* o^\ti pride and covetousness had kindled ^." And one of the most distinguished preachers at that Council, taking for his text the question of the Apostles, " Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" describes the progress of the Gospel in the Apostolic times, " Oh blessed ages, that beheld Israel in her beauty !" and then contrasts these ages Mdth his own. " But how does the Church at this day maintain this character ? How have you, fathers, ' Dan. ii. 34, 35. a ^^^ ^.j ^^ 3 Epist. xix. 38, xxix. 69. INTEODTJCTORY. 3 whom Christ left as his vicegerents, you the bishops of his household, the watchmen and guards of his fortress, you doctors and keepers of this city, leaders in this warfare, preserved the purity of the holy spouse of Christ ? Suppose, oh ! fathers, that Christ should now return— He will return quickly — and require of you his spouse as He left her to your care, how will you restore her to Him? Her who goes proudly in this profane pomp and secular apparel? Her who now contends with princes in the magnificence of her palaces. Her who lives at ease in the abundance of secular de- lights? Is this that Holy City separated from the spirit of the M'orld? Is this that city of God governed by divine laws ? The very same. Alas ! how changed from what she was. Is this that city of perfect beauty, the joy of the whole world ? Must we not rather call her all hideous, all her beauty gone — ' the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is no soundness.' Where are thy ornaments with which thou wast pre- pared to be delivered to thy bridegroom ? Where is that faith which even raised the dead? Where thy charity? Where that contempt of life and things present? Where that ardent desire of death and heavenly things ? Where that thirst to behold the kingdom of God ? Where that love of poverty ? Alas ! alas ! my fathers, who shall behold her with tearless eyes ? Oh ! citizens of the New Jerusalem, that royal and holy city, who that understands these things can remain unmoved? Who that has a Christian's heart can hear these things without trembling ? "VVho can but pity his mother ? I will pray with Jeremy, ' Oh that my head were waters and mine eye a fountain of tears. '"' But when we consider that " an enemy hath done this^," it ought to make us humble and mistrustful as to ourselves, as well as charitable towards others. The Labbe. ConciL, torn. xiv. p. 1832. ^ gt. Matt. xiii. 28. B 2 4 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. yeiy author of this beautiful oration, Carranza, arch- bishop of Toledo, was himself afterwards betrayed by the false principles which he had been taught to adopt, to persecute men who sought to restore the Chui-ch to its ancient piu'ity, and residing in England as confessor to Queen Mary, if the historians of his o\vn country may be believed', was a chief agent in the martpdom of Cranmer. And it is thus for the most part that corruptions in religion are brought about. The net would be spread in vain if it were set in our sights but if the betrayer of men's souls can once succeed so far as to entangle them in wrong or wicked principles, he will not fail to m-ge them on into crimes to which those principles necessarily lead. And the same considerations may account for the imperfect way in which whatever was done by way of reformation was accomplished. During the fifteenth centuiy the desu-e of a reformation was so universal, and the acknowledgment of its necessity so general, that all men considered it inevitable, and the only question was when and how it should be done. Even so late as after the civil strifes of the sixteenth century in France, we find the widow of a French nobleman^, who had spent his life in promoting it, writing to her son, that ''' a reformation of the Chm'ch cannot now much longer be delayed ; " not contemplating a separa- tion from the Chm-ch, but the reformation of it. And yet so it was, that the admixture of human error in all the attempts that were made, was permitted to obstruct the excellence of the design, and afforded a plea and a temptation to those whose self-love was wounded, and whose authority was questioned, to adhere more closely to their errors. It is an inquiry too far removed from the subject of these pages, how soon the seeds might be sown from which arose that growth of corruption which claimed ^ Fernandez, Hist. EccL, cxxix. ^ Prov. i. 17. ^ Philip de Mornay. INTRODUCTOBY. 5 the title or the sanction of the Catholic Church during the middle ages. Our business is rather to contemplate the papal system as it was at the time of the Reforma- tion, and in the ages immediately preceding it, in order to form a judgment of what was required to be done by way of reformation, and how far and by what means it was accomplished. And if we shall find, as the result of our inquiry, that we almost alone in England, of aU the people of Western Christendom, were permitted to retain the primitive form and discipline of the Chm-ch, while we regained the primitive profession of Gospel truth, it is to be hoped that we shall learn a lesson of deep thankfulness for such unspeakable mercies, — of thankfulness, and yet of fear. For if such be indeed the character of our Church, we ought to expect that such a Chm-ch will be peculiarly liable to be tried by all changes of temptation, and that prosperity and adver- sity will each in turn be brought to undermine it. But if the view here taken of the course by which error was brought into the Church in former ages be correct, it will be useful to bear it in mind on more accounts than one. It will teach us to mistrust our- selves, and to speak gently of others. The corruptions of popery were the growth of ages; and the course which those corruptions took was in most cases, and in the outset, the perverting or suppressing of some truth rather than the maintaining of falsehood. Only we must take care that we do not confound the boundaries of right and wrong, but remember that error is not less error because it is capable of being explained into some kindred truth. And there is one consideration connected with this inquiry w^hich is calculated to afibrd the utmost con- tentment to all true members of this Reformed Church, as regards their present position. It is capable of being shown that all the most important steps in the progress of our English Reformation were taken by men who found themselves providentially placed, by no seeking of their own, in circimistances in which they were 6 THE ENGLISH KEFORMATION. obliged to act. The supremacy of the crowTi was abeady the law of England before the reign of Henry VIIL, so that the convocation under Archbishop Ware- ham could not do otherwise than recognise what Arch- bishop Courtney had declared near two centuries before. Cranmer, whose introduction to the notice of the king might have seemed as improbable as that of any private tutor in the family of a private gentleman in the present day, found the royal supremacy already established, and the Chm-ch of England placed in what he believed to be its original state of independence, before ever he came to the primacy. And throughout his career, his object was rather to direct the current of events, and regulate as he might the tide on which he was embarked, than to carry out preconceived theories of his own. And though this course may be despised by men of the world, the Christian ever loves to wait God's time, and is content to act when cii'cmnstances, without his own seeking, show him that God's providence calls upon him to do so. This cannot be better expressed than in the words of the great and good Lord Clarendon. " A Church thus reformed, with such pious wariness in the observation, and after a long expectation of the just season of its reformation, and all the religious circumstances requi- site thereto, chose rather for a long time to endm-e many errors and con-uptions in the exercise and worship of the religion that had been established, than precipi- tately to enter upon any alteration, which might have been attended with a concussion in the state, and destroyed its peace and secm-ity ; and by a Christian patience waited God's own leism-e and direction ; and was then so blessed as to abohsh nothing that was necessary or fit to be retained, and retained nothing but what was held decent by the most venerable anti- quity'." With regard to those commimities on the continent ^ Essays, Divine and Moral, p. 275. INTEODUCTORY. 7 of Europe, which shared the struggle of the Reformation, but with less patience in the conflict, and with less happy results, the writer will adopt the language of another venerable authority, well worthy of attention now that our own primate has shown a disposition to lend them his friendly assistance and co-operation. "There are not many persons," said one of his most distinguished predecessors ^ "who have a deeper or more tender resentment than I have of the sad and deplorable state of the reformed churches in some parts of the continent of Europe : and I should count it my joy and the crown of my rejoicing, if I could contribute any thing, besides my daily prayers (may God look to it, and require of me, as I speak !) towards restoring and advancing them to a yet better condition But, whatever becomes of any particular scheme, I can by no means, as our brethren seem to do, give up the whole Protestant cause at once, as lost and desperate, and ready to breathe its last. No ! God hath by the Reformation kindled and set up a light in Christendom, which, I am fully persuaded, shall never be extinguished. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever : and this is the word which hath been preached among us. Only let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing ; let them adore the unsearchable depths of His wise providence ; who, when all our fine policies are baffled and defeated, will take the matter in His own hands, and perfect what concerns us in a way we think not of. For His is the kingdom and the power ; to Him be the glory for ever." Abp. Sancroft. Life, by D'Oyly, i. 198, 201. CHAPTER 11. WYCLIFFE AND POPE GREGORY XT. A good man ther was of religioun, That was a poure ^ persone of a toun ; But rich he was of holy thought and werk. He was also a lerned man, a clerk, That Christe's gospel trewely wolde preche. His parishens devoutly wolde he teche. Chaucer. {T was towards the end of the long reign of ^i3& Edward III. that the stir began in England, ^■^^-^^ which afterwards extended to almost every part of Europe, against the papal power, — ^that power which had for thi^ee centuries ruled supreme in the Western Chm'ch, and, aided at fu'st by public opinion, after- wards strengthened by policy and aims, had often maintained a successful struggle against the kingly crown. The period was one remarkable for great cor- ruption of morals and general discontent. The court was profligate ; the people were poor and ojDpressed. The glories of Edward's French war had faded ; and the hopes of the nation were suddenly extinguished by the death of the Black Prince. The zeal and devotion which had animated the rude breasts of the crusaders was now forgotten ; the spirit of chivalry, which had succeeded, and kept alive at least the soldier's virtues, was passing fast away. The bonds of government were loosened ; armed factions and tm-bulent nobles harassed the state, and gave omen of those long and grievous civil wars, which in the foUo^dng century so often desolated the face of England, and shed the best blood of her people like water on the earth. At this period, a.d. 1377, there had arisen at Oxford a scholar in the science of theology, a plain north- ^ A poor parish priest. WYCLIFFE AND POPE GEEGORY XI. 9 country man, who liad for some time attracted great notice, and drawn many disciples after liim, by teaching publicly in the schools and elsewhere the following determinations and conclusions : — " 1. That the Chm-ch of Rome is not the head of all churches any more than any other church ; and that no more power was given by Christ to St. Peter than to any other apostle. "2. That the Pope of Rome has no more power in binding or loosing men's sins than any other bishop or priest. " 3. That no bishop or priest ought to excommimi- cate or use any ecclesiastical censm^e, in revenge for injm'ies done to himself or others, but only in the cause of God ; and that no man is the worse for excommuni- cation, unless he is first and principally excommunicated by himself. "4. That temporal lords and governors of state have the power of taking away the goods of fortune from a delinquent church ; and that in certain cases they may lawfully and meritoriously do so. "5. That the Gospel is sufficient as a rule of life in this world, for any Christian ; and that all the other rules invented by holy men, observed by the difierent religious orders, add nothing of perfection to the Gospel. "6. That neither the Pope nor any other prelate ought to have prisons for the punishment of offenders against church-discipline ; but that such offenders ought to be left to their personal liberty i." It has seldom happened that any great impulse has been given to the public mind, unless the course of events, some common feeling of grievances, or desire of change, has paved the way for it. Then some master- spirit, embracing with keener perception the prevaihng mood, embodies the general sentiment, and seems to ^ Walsingham, ed. Camden, p. 191. A few portions of his statements are here corrected by comparing them with WyclifFe's own writings. 10 THE EIN'GLISH EEFOEXATIOX. lead the opinions of which he is in fact the representa- tive. The power of such a man depends as much upon the agreement of his own views with the pulse of the times, as upon his genius or skill in maintaining them. Such a man in his time was John Wycliefe, a time of which it has been said, with too much severity, but not without a certain amount of truth, that " the only name of Christ remained among Christians, but his true and lively doctrine was as far unknown unto the most part, as his name was common vmto all men." The minds of high and low were beginning to awake to a sense of the strange encroachments of a foreign juris- diction ; which, under pretence of asserting the liberties of the Church, had broken the sacred ties between the subject and his sovereign, had taken away the plainest duties of obedience to the laws, and not only levied taxes in other realms, but now began to put forth its hand against the liberty and even the life of private men. It was now about eleven years since Pope ^Ur- ban V. — a pope of EngUsh extraction, being the son of William Grisant, an English physician of the same name which he bore — ^had sent to give notice to King Edward III. that he intended to cite him to his court to answer for his neglect in not doing homage, as King John had done, to the see of Rome for his crown, and for not paying the tribute of seven hundred marks which Jolui had covenanted to pay. The king asked the advice of his paiiiament; and their answer was befitting the council of a free and independent nation ; — " that King John had no right to dispose of his cro^\Ti, or subject it to such bondage ; that the peers of Eng- land had no share in that proceeding, which was in violation of his coronation-oath; and that the demand should be resisted by every means — by force and arms, if necessary." It must needs seem strange how it had come to such a pass that a foreign bishop, and but lately a poor monk — for such was Urban, should have made so preposterous a claim, and from a monarch who was apparently his natm-al sovereign. But there were WYCLIFFE AND POPE GEEGOKY XI. 11 other monks in England, who presumed on their immu- nity, to defend this claim, looking probably to gain promotion to themselves, or favom- to their order, from the papal com-t. On this occasion Wycliffe is said first to have distinguished himself as a disputant against one of these teachers, though he was aware of the danger he incurred. Having therefore first professed himself a humble and obedient son of the Roman Church, he set forth an answer, a.d. 1367, in the form of a debate in the House of Lords, in which he put into the mouths of several lords the reasons why the realm of England should not pay this tribute to the Pope, and declared that such a claim " could never be proved either reason- able or honest, before the day shoidd come when all exaction should be at an end." Wycliffe had been distinguished at Oxford while yet a young man, by a book called The last Age of the Church, in which, about a.d. 1356, he had interpreted the prevailing miseries as the signs of the approaching termination of the world. He was a master in aU the learning then in vogue, had committed to memory the abstruser parts of Aristotle, and was gifted with remark- able eloquence ; but his best distinction at a time when the study of Thomas Aquinas had almost superseded that of the Holy Scriptures in the schools, was that he should have obtained the title of the " Evangelical Doctor," according to the pedantic fashion of desig- nating celebrated scholars according to any peculiar excellence which they were thought to possess. About A.D. 1361 he was chosen master of BaUiol College, and in A.D. 1372 he became a Doctor or Professor of Divinity, a rank less common then than it has since become, and which entitled all who attained it to read lectures on divinity in the schools. This designation of Professor of Di-sdnity has led most of his biographers to describe him as having been then appointed to some such high office as that which is now known as a Regius Professorship. But there is no reason to suppose that it was anything more than 12 THE ENGLISH EEFOBMATION. what is now called taking a Doctor's degree, though it is ob\ious that such a degree was at that time reserved to distinguished merit, and conferred some such pri- vileges as now belong to a professorship. Wycliffe ' was not slow to avail himself of the influ- ence derived from his position at Oxford. He was now forty-eight years of age, and had been known as a vehement declaimer against the abuses of the Church for at least sixteen years, that is, since the publication of his Last Age of the Church. Yet he was so far from having lost credit by the com-se he had adopted, that we shall find reason to believe that almost the whole University approved his conduct. Nor was his fame confined to the schools of Oxford. Later in life, when his writings had been pronounced heretical by the authorities of the Church, but few of the great ones of the earth were found to countenance him. But now his indignant sentiments were echoed by the general feel- ing, and he was selected Math Gilbert, bishop of Bangor, to proceed on an embassy to the Pope, to represent the complaints of the English parliament against the enor- mous encroachments of the papal power. That his conduct in this embassy was satisfactory to his em- ployers, appears from the fact of his having been presented by the king, a.d. 1375, to the rectory of Lutterworth, and to a prebend in the collegiate church of Westbury, and he was also chaplain to the king. His colleague, on the other hand, seems to have given more satisfaction to the Pope, by whom he was pro- moted successively to the bishoprics of Hereford and St. David's, as it were in defiance of that very remon- strance against such "Provisions" M^liich he had been deputed to convey. There is reason to believe that this " Evanorelical ^ The spelling of the Reformer's name has been adopted, because it is the name of the village in Teesdale where he was probably born. The last male descendant of the family, who had the same name and spelt it thus, died a few years since at Rich- mond, in Yorkshire. WYCLIFFE AXD POPE GEEGORY XI. 13 Doctor" had not yet ventured to impugn the received opinions on any point of faith. It is, indeed, supposed from internal evidence, that a treatise of his on the Ten Cormnandments, designed for the instruction of the common people, and called the Poor Caitiff, was written, at latest, soon after he became a Professor of Divinity. But the account of his opinions about this time transmitted to the Pope, contained no allusion to the sacramental controversy. We may therefore conclude with sufficient certainty that he had as yet confined himself to denouncing the papal power, and the general corruption of the Church. But this was offence enough. An outcry was raised against him, especially by the parties who seemed to be chiefly attacked, the members of the different religious orders. Such doctrines were declared to be subversive of the Clu-istian faith, heretical, and contrary to the determinations of the universal Church, and full of venom against the monks and their possessions. Gregory XI. therefore issued his buUs, directed to the Chancellor and University of Oxford, and others to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London, to m-ge proceedings against him. There is something so strildng in the imperious tone of these bulls, that it may be weU to give some parts of the first of them at length : — " Gregory the Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to oui' beloved sons the Chancellor and aU the university of students at Oxford, health and the apostolical bene- diction. Needs must we be grieved and surprised, that you, w^ho are, as it were, sailing in the open sea, with God to aid, with so many graces and privileges granted to yom' Oxford school by the apostolic see, and wdth such knowledge of the Scriptures, — you who ought to be strong champions of the orthodox faith, the only health of souls, should suffer tares to grow among the pure wheat of the field of yom- glorious school. This alone is a proof of indolence and sloth, that you suffer them to shoot and grow ; it is still more perni- cious, that you suffer them to run to seed, and take no 14 THE ENGLISH HEFOEMATION". pains to root them up, tarnishing the brightness of your good name, periling your souls, shewing your contempt for the Roman Church, and bringing harm upon the faith. And, what torments us worse than all, we feel the increase of these tares at Rome, before you seem to be sensible of it in England. But it is in England that the remedy should be applied. It has been whispered in our ears, by many credible persons, who were gi'ieved to report such things, that John Wycliffe, rector of Lutterworth, in the diocese of Lincoln, professor of theology, — (would that we were not compelled to add also, a master- teacher of errors !) — has bm'st forth into such detestable madness as to put forth certain erroneous and false propositions and conclusions, savouring of heretical pravity, and plainly tending to subvert and weaken not only the constitu- tion of the Chmxh, but also the system of government of the state. " Wherefore, considering that if such fatal pestilent opinions be not checked in their beginnings, and plucked out by the roots, it may be too late hereafter to prepare medicines, when a great nmnber are infected with the contagion, w^e coidd not endm-e, as indeed we ought not, to shut om- eyes, and suffer them to pass unnoticed. And w^e charge and command your whole university strictly, by these om* apostolic letters, in virtue of your holy obedience, and imder penalty of deprivation of all the gi'aces, indidgences, and privileges granted to you and to your school by the said apostolic see, — that hereafter you do not suffer persons to assert or put forth such conclusions and propositions, expressing bad senti- ments in regard to good works as well as faith, however the proposers may attempt to defend them by nice and difficult argmnents, and abuse of words and terms. And as to the said John Wycliffe, we enjoin by om- authority, that you apprehend him, or cause him to be apprehended, and deliver him to be kept in safe custody to our venerable brothers, the Archbishop of Canter- bury and Bishop of London, or either of them. And WYCLIFFE AND POPE GREGORY XI. 15 if, wliich God forbid, there shall be in your university-, subject to your jurisdiction, any who are corrupted with such errors, and who shall obstinately persist in them, that you apprehend and deliver up these gain- sayers also to the same custody. This, if you shall do, and in other respects proceed with firmness and circum- spection, so as to make up for yom^ lack of diligence in what has passed, ye shall obtain grace and kindness from om'selves and the apostolic see, and the reward and favom- of Divine recompense. " Given at Kome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, in the seventh year of our pontificate. May 22, 1377." Of thi'ee other rescripts, addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London, the first directed them to warn the old King Edward, with Joan of Kent, the widow of the Black Prince, and the peers of England, of the danger and disgrace impending on the devout realm of England from Wycliffe's doctrines, which, it affirmed, were not only full of error as regarded the faith, but, if well noted, would appear destructive of all civil government. They were there- fore te charge these princes and peers very earnestly to help them in the task of rooting out such perilous doctrines. The second, addressed to the same parties, enclosed a copy of several propositions and conclusions, which Wyclifie was accused of having taught ; and directed them, if they found this information correct, to have him apprehended and imprisoned, to examine him upon all the points mentioned in the enclosed paper, and having taken down his answers to send them under seal to the court of Rome. Further, to guard against a difficulty which the Pope's own entangled laws had introduced, and to prevent his own authority from being pleaded against himself, Gregory now suspended, in this case, aU privileges and exemptions granted by former pontiffs to the four orders of friars, and other orders, and colleges or chapters of priests and monks, not knowing whetiber the accused might take the benefit of any of 16 THE ENGLISH REFOEMATIOJf. these to withdraw himself from the archbishop's juris- diction. And because a law of Boniface VIII. had dii-ected that no person should be tried by an eccle- siastical court out of his own diocese, and WyclifFe was in the diocese of Lincoln, in wliich Oxford, as w^ell as Lutterworth, was then situated, the Pope, either dis- trusting the Bishop of Lincoln^ or the University of Oxford, suspended this law also. By a further document it was provided, that in case the culprit should not be found, they should cite him by pubhc edict, to be set forth in Oxford and thi'oughout the diocese, to appear within three months fi'om the day of citation. But whether he should come to answer or not, they were to give notice in the edict, that the Pope woidd proceed upon the articles exhibited, and pronoimce liis condemnation on every point, "as his demerits shall require, and the interests of the faith shaU seem to render most expedient." Such was the kind of trial to which this Italian prelate destined an English clergyman and subject of the English crovm. When these bidls arrived in England, the Oxford men were in no haste to act upon that which fell to their share. The heads of colleges and the proctors met together, and debated whether they should receive it mth outward marks of respect, or refuse it not with- out some appearance of contempt. The former counsel seems to have prevailed; but after the admission of the paper into their conclave, it was laid upon the table, and no measure was founded upon it. The Archbishop of Canterbuiy, Simon Sudburj-, a wise and moderate man, M^as also slow in executing these strong mandates. It seems probable that he was in some j^oints agreed with Wycliffe, though he was far from liking all his doctrines or proceedings. It was in the year 1370, that he, who was then Bishop of London, happened to be travelling towards Canterbury, * John Buckingham, a plain, unlearned man, who afterwards retired into a monastery. WYCLIFFE AND POPE GREGORY XI. 17 at a time when the Pope had ordered a jubilee in honour of Becket, and had offered a plenary indulgence to all who should visit his shrine on the festival kept in remembrance of the translation of his bones, Sudbiu-y, who, like many good men in those times, lamented the excess of these popular superstitions, seeing the crowds who thronged the road, said to them, " My friends, this plenary indulgence, which you hope to find at Canter- bury, will avail you nothing." Such words, from a man so respected, attracted much attention ; and some of the pilgrims, perhaps after further conversation with him, actually turned back from their expedition. But others were sorely oflPended, and followed him with curses and revilings ; among whom, Sir Thomas Aldon, a knight of Kent, made himself conspicuous, by riding up to him, and saying, " Lord Bishop, for this division that you have made in the people against St. Thomas, on my soul you wiU. die an iU death," — words which the monks, or other superstitious persons, pretended to consider as prophetic, when several years afterwards this prelate, for the firm and faithful counsel which he gave to Richard II,, (which was the means of preserving the young king's life,) feU a victim to the fury of the misguided populace in Wat Tyler's insmTection. Sudbury, therefore, suffered some months to elapse before he took any step in compliance with the Pope's letters'. But Gregory seems to have known that he shoidd find a more efficient delegate in William Court- ney, then bishop of London, whose name he had joined in the commission. Courtney had been at an early age a diligent student both of the common and the canon- law, wliich was the best road to preferment in those days, whether from the royal or the papal court. He took the degree of doctor in civil law at Oxford ; and, entering holy orders, was very soon enriched with three pre- ' It is by no means probable that these bulls should have been six months on their way from Rome to England, as Lewis supposes. The journey at that time was performed within two months. C 18 THE ENGLISH KEFOEMATION. bendal stalls, at York, Exeter, and Wells, and a few livings besides. He was made bishop of Hereford a.d. 1369, by a provision of Pope Urban V.; and Gregory himself had aided his translation to London, when Sudbury was by the king's interest made primate. By his means, it seems probable, a mandate was at length issued by the Archbishop in their joint names, addressed to the University of Oxford, and after reciting the charges against Wycliffe from the Pope's letters, requir- ing them to cite him to appear within thirty days to answer to the accusation at a court to be held by the two prelates, or their delegates, in the chapter- house of St. Paul's. They were directed, at the same time, to employ some scholars in theology, of good repute for Catholic sentiments, to collect information, which they should transmit under seal to the court, about the pro- positions enclosed in the Pope's letter. The mandate, however, contained no such order as the Pope had directed for the imprisonment of Wycliffe, and it shows that some good had already resulted from the recent statute of prcemunire, which made it highly penal to execute a papal bull without license from the crown i. The date of this mandate was December 18, 13772. At the very period of the meeting of this court before which Wycliffe was cited, there was no want of proof that the current of opinion was in his favour. The fii'st parliament of Richard H., which had met at the same time, addi-essed the crown with a prayer, that the Pope * A few years later than this Sir W. Brian was committed to the Tower for publishing a bull or brief of the Pope's against some persons who had broken into his house and stolen his papers. Evidently his offence was acknowledging a foreign jurisdiction. ^ Walsingham says it was after the receipt of the bulls that Wycliffe was made to appear at St. Paul's (p. 191) ; though he relates the occurrence as before the death of Edward III., June 21, 1377, which was pretty certainly before the bulls arrived in England. This neglect of chronology in Walsingham has led later writers into a mistake, as they speak of Wycliffe's summons as before the issuing of the bulls. WYCLIFFE AND POPE GEEGOEY XI, 19 might not be allowed to take the firstfruits of vacant benefices ; that no English subject should be suffered to procure a benefice by provision from Rome ; and that no EngHshman should take a lease or farm of any benefice held by a foreigner, under pain of being outlawed. They also prayed that all foreigners holding preferments in England might be compelled to relinquish them within thi-ee months, and the revenues arising from them be employed in paying the expenses of the French war, till that war was concluded. The ground for this last demand was, that the popes, who had during this centuiy resided for near seventy years at Avignon, in France, had shown themselves partial towards French interests ; and it was supposed that the treasure exported by their nominees contributed to supply the French with resources for war. Wycliffe made his appearance before the convocation at St. Paul's, which met, together with the parliament, in February, 1378. The tumultuary scene which followed is characteristic alike of the age and of the parties con- cerned. Wycliffe had become known to John of Gaunt while employed on his embassy to the Pope, and this prince had some personal feeling against the bishops, be- sides the general disgust which high-minded and chival- rous men would feel at the encroachments of the papal power. He determined to accompany the Reformer when he went before the synod, and he came attended by Henry Lord Percy, lately advanced by his influence to the office of earl marshal, afterwards created Earl of Northum- berland, and the father of the famous Henry Hotspur. A great crowd of people were pressing into the court, and some angry words passed between Bishop Courtney and the dul^e. For Com^tney, who besides the blood of his own ancient and royal house, was descended, on his mother's side, from the kings of England, was not disposed to quail before the presence even of such noble intruders. He told the earl marshal, as he saw him moving the crowd aside, that " if he had known what mastery he would have kept in the chvu-ch, he c 2 20 THE ENGLISH PtEFOEMATIOX. would ha^e stopped him out from coming there." This led to a fierce reply from the prince, who heard it; and the feelings of both sides were stiU further excited, when Percy afterwards in the com't called to Wycliffe to be seated, and the bishop, justly ofiended at such inter- ference with the authority of the judges, declared he should not sit there. In the heat which ensued, the duke said, in very threatening language, that he would bring down his pride, and the pride of all the prelacy of England ; he supposed the bishop presumed upon the nobility of his parents; "but," said he, "they shall not help thee ; they shall have enough to do to help them- selves." To which the prelate returned a becoming answer, that his confidence was not in his parents, nor in any man else, but in God alone, who, he trusted, would give him courage to speak the truth. The prince found no reply ; but presently whispered to one that sat next him, in a tone loud enough to be heard, that sooner than endure what he had received from him, he would drag the bishop from the chm'ch by the hair of his head. This unmanly insult was so resented by the London citizens, though they were otherwise favourably dis- posed to Wyclifie, that, amidst the clamour that was raised, the coiu't broke up in disorder. Some of the populace, with whom John of Gaunt was never popular, went that same evening to bm^n or plunder his palace at the Savoy ; but Courtney, having timely notice of it, hastened to the spot, and by his interference prevented the outrage. The bishops, dissatisfied with the disorderly termina- tion of their proceedings, and fearing that Wycliffe, presuming on the support of these powerful peers, would not comply with their injunction, or perhaps having been informed that he disregarded it, summoned him to another com't which was shortly after held at Lambeth. The Londoners on this occasion are said to have shown so much boisterous zed for his cause, as to have penetrated into Lambeth Chapel, and some of them to have addressed the prelates sitting there in his WYCLIFFE AND POPE GREGOEY XI. 21 favoui'. But he had a still more powerful advocate in the widow of the Black Prince, the yoimg king's mother, who sent Sir Lewis Clifford, afterwards a known favourer of Wycliffe's principles, with a message to the court, desiring them not to proceed further, nor pronounce any sentence on the accused. Upon which they again dismissed him with only a reprimand. Much indignation is expressed by the historians of the time, who were most attached to the papal interest, at what they considered the poor-spii-ited conduct of the bishops on this occasion. But probably they may have taken a more just and constitutional ^dew of their own responsibility than has been supposed. The Pope's bull for Wycliffe's imprisonment had not been con- firmed by the king's warrant, and the statute oiiyrcemu- nire subjected them to the severest penalties, if they acknowledged a mandate from Pome without the royal license. The princess, in the childhood of her son, would have something of the authority of regent ; and if the message which she sent was a refusal to grant this license, it follows that they had no power to go beyond a spiritual censure. We shall see hereafter how those churchmen, who were bent upon trying the plan of persecution, succeeded at length in obtaining this power from the crown. Wycliffe defended himself before these courts with much adroitness, and with something of that metaphy- sical subtlety for which he had been noted at Oxford. Two papers have come down to us, differing a little from each other, in which he goes through the several propositions objected to by the Pope, and offers his explanation of them. These propositions, eighteen in number^ all relate to the right by which the Chm-ch held her temporal possessions, the power of excommu- nication as then exercised by popes and prelates, the different orders of the ministry, and the prerogatives of the see of Rome. With respect to the first, he had said, as the original endowment of the Chm-ch was an alms-deed, or work of mercy, it might in certain cases 22 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. be equally an alms-deed to witlihold its revenues from a delinquent church, or, as he had expressed himself elsewhere, from churchmen who habitually abuse them. In calling church-property by the name of alms, he only used the common name applied to it by old custom in England ^ He now explained himself to mean that this was only to be done in cases specified both by the civil and the canon-law ; namely, that if a beneficed clergy- man wasted and dilapidated the endowments of his li^-ing, it was the business of the patron to give infor- mation to the bishop or ecclesiastical judge; if the bishop was neglectful of his duty, then to apply to the archbishop ; and lastly, if nothing was done, to complain to the king. And in such cases the law gave the king power, limited by law, to sequester the living during the incumbent's life, but after his death it was to return to his successor. On the second point, he had said that excommunica- tion does no harm, unless he be first and principally excommunicated by himself In defence of this he quoted the text from Isaiah, lix. 2, Yow- iniquities have separated hetween you and your God; from which he argued that nothing but sin could cut a man oflT from the Di\dne assistance. Therefore, if cursing or excom- munication should be denoimced against a man who was not an adversary of the law of Christ, it could have no force : for if God justijieth, ivho is he that shall con- demn 9 There were several propositions, all bearing on this subject, and evidently tending to shake the pre- ' One instance may suffice, recorded by Gyraldus Cambrensis. Owen Cevelioc, a Welsh prince of Powys-Land, was one day dining with Henry II. at Shrewsbury. The king, as a mark of friendship usual in those days, sent him a loaf from his own hand. Owen cut it up into fragments, and laid it out like alms-bread, or doles to be distributed to the poor, but afterwards took back the pieces and swallowed them one by one. When the king asked him his meaning, he said, alluding to Henry's appropriations of church- preferments to his own use, " I am only calling in my alms, as the king does his." WYCLIFFE AND POPE GREGOKT XI. 23 vailing doctrines of the Pope's power to bind or loose as he pleased, forgetting that the power of Christ's vicar could only be effectual if exercised in compliance with the will of Christ. "There is no Christian," he said, " who may not in this act of excommunication err widely from that purity which will be found in a mem- ber of the Church triumphant hereafter. But if he so errs, he does not then bind or loose, as he pretends. And it seems to me that he who should usurp to himself such power, would be that man of sin mentioned in 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4, sitting in the temple of God, and shew- ing himself as if he were God^ He also blamed those who used such a weapon as excommunication against the withholders of church-dues. This was a very com- mon practice in those times; but what did it prove, said Wycliife, but that men valued their personal con- venience above the honour of God, and thought the loss of a few temporalities more important than the interest of the Church ? Christ would not suffer his disciples to call down fire from heaven on those who refused him hospitality (Luke ix. 5b). This sentence ought never to be passed but in charity to the offender, for his spiritual correction, not for revenge. And the vicar of Christ ought to be moved by charity towards his neigh- bour more than by a love for any temporal good that this world can give. On the third point he had affirmed, that any priest rightly ordained has power to administer all the sacra- ments, and therefore to give absolution for any sin to a contrite penitent. It would seem that he thought there was no difference in the power of orders between bishops and presbyters ; and that, therefore, except that this M^as otherwise directed for convenience by the laws of the Church, priests might administer confirmation, and ordain other priests and deacons. He defended this view on the authority of Hugh de St. Victor, a famous doctor of Paris, who lived about two centuries before, and left many writings. He might also have defended it on the authority of Elfric, the great teacher 24 THE ENGLISH HEFORMATIOX. of the later Anglo-Saxon church, who held that the difference between bishops and priests is one of juris- diction, and not of orders. But other Anglo-Saxon authorities speak of bishops as a distinct order; and this is clearly the doctrine of the primitive Chiu'ch. On the foui-th point, the prerogatives and power of the see of Rome, he had said, that though all the world should agree together till the coming of Christ to give St. Peter's successors political dominion, it could not last for ever. When he was asked to explain this, he said that though the term "for ever" often occurred in deeds and charters of inheritance, still such perpetuity must have a limit. For at least all ci"sdl j)roperty must end before the end of the world ; and he who believes the article of the creed that Chidst shall come to judge the quick and the dead, must believe the truth of this proposition. There is an appearance of banter in this explanation ; and it is perhaps to this and one or two similar passages that Walsingham refers, when he says, with hearty good spite, of Wycliffe, " the double-dealing hyiDOcrite put a good meaning into his abominable propositions." He had said also that any churchman, even the Pope of Rome himself, may in certain cases be corrected by his subjects, and be brought to trial, for the good of the Church, by either clergy or laity. This proposition was naturally very unpalatable at Rome. But it was not very difficult for Wycliffe to defend it in point of fact by referring to instances, in the chronicles of former ages, of popes who had been deposed by the authority of princes. As to the reasons for it, he said with some gi-ave humour : " It is not to be doubted but that the pope is capable of sinning, since he is one of Adam's race ; I do not say capable of committing the sin against the Holy Ghost, for I would not mention this under the respect we all feel for the sanctity, humility, and re- verend character of so eminent a father in the Church. But, as one of om- brethi-en, he is liable to faU into sin, and therefore subject to the law of brotherly reproof WYCLIFFE AND POPE GREGORY XI. 25 (Lev. xix. 17). And therefore if at any time the college of cardinals are remiss in correcting him for the welfare of the Church, it is plain that the rest of the body, which possibly may be chiefly composed of laymen, may medicinally reprove him, and accuse him, and reduce him to live a better life. And though we ought not to suppose the lord pope guilty of any great fall from rectitude without clear evidence, yet it is not to be presumed possible, that if he does fall, he will be further guilty of so much obstinacy as not humbly to accept a cure from his prince, who is his superior in the sight of God. God forbid," he adds at the conclusion of his paper, "that this truth should be condemned by the Church of Christ, because it sounds ill in the ears of sinners and ignorant persons ; for by this rule the whole faith of Scripture might be liable to be condemned." WyclifFe professes, at the beginning of his defence, his determination to live and die, under the grace of God, a soimd Christian, and to defend the law of Christ with all the sufficiency he has, to his last breath. If in ignorance or from any other cause he may have failed, he asks pardon of God, and is ready to retract, submit- ting himself to the correction of the Church. But he complains that his sentiments have been conveyed to Rome " by boys and worse than boys," who misrepre- sented what they did not understand. And it is most probable that, as often happens in controversy, these propositions were taken by themselves, and made to wear a difierent sense from what he intended when he delivered them. However, it was not likely that the contest woidd end with this trial, which seems only to have excited the spii'its of both parties ; and both Com'tney and the parson of Lutterworth were soon to appear in other scenes, one against the other. His position in the meanwhile, though he escaped for the present, was now full of danger. For although the bishops had not as yet any coercive power, except what the Pope might pretend to give them, the king might order the execution of a convicted heretic, and it was 26 THE ENGLISH EEFORMATION. evident that the whole power of the Pope was bent on his conviction. But in tiiis same year in which he appeared before the convocation at Lambeth, Pope Gregory XI, died, and his death, which probably put an end to their commission, was followed by that schism in the papacy which will shortly be mentioned as mark- ing an era in the history of the Chm-ch. CHAPTER III. RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPAL POWER.^ SCHISM OF THE POPES, a.d. 1378. Rome, in happier time, Had turn'd the world to good; and her twin powers Were like two suns, whose several beams cast light On either path, th' imperial rule and God's. Now one hath quench' d the other, and the sword Join'd with the pastoral staff: ill fare they both, Their own due honour lost, their right fear dead. Dante. ,ET any unbiassed reader peruse a narrative of the scenes recorded in the preceding chapter, and he can only come to the conclusion, that the times were strangely out of joint, that both Church and State were wonderfully misgoverned, and each was acting out of its proper province. The fact of a bishop of a remote diocese in a foreign coimtry having sent out what may be called a wan-ant for the apprehension of an English clergyman, having ordered him to be imprisoned, di- rected the form of trial, and pre-ordained the sentence which was to be pronounced against him, is so utterly opposed to all just law, spiritual or civil, that if one did not allow for the influence of opinion, one should suppose that such an experiment on English patience would be treated with contempt. On the other hand, since it is plain that, in any rightly constituted Chm'ch, the bishops ought to exercise the right of hearing charges against presbyters who give offence by their life or doctrine (1 Timothy v. 19, 20), and of imposing silence on those who teach heresies (Titus i. 10, 11); it foUows that nothing could have been more irregular than the interference of the Duke of Lancaster and Lord Percy, if Sudbury and Courtney had intended only to pass a 28 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. spiritual censure on WycliiFe, and if their mandate had not been issued in obedience to a foreign jurisdiction. Even as it was, their interference was so disorderly, as by no means to carry the appearance of an act of the civil power, having much more the character of a factious tumviit excited by those nobles. The inquiry which such a narrative suggests is, " How did things arrive at this state of mutual conflict and distrust ? how were the popes thus enabled to set up in every land, and especially in this coimtry, a separate kingdom and laws of their own ? " There is no question that the Chirrch in this island was originally indepen- dent of Rome. It is not pretended that the British Christians acknowledged any foreign jurisdiction in the government of their churches before the Saxon conquest. When Augustine was sent by Gregory to convert the heathen Saxons, and planted Christianity among a new people, the case was a little different. Thenceforth the Chm'ch of England owed so much respect to Rome as is due from a daughter to a mother church. The Bishop of Rome was to the Chui-ch in England what the Ai'ch- bishop of Canterbury is now to the Church in the British colonies, a patriarch and a founder. We can afford to be thanlvfid to the memory of Gregory the Great, as his virtues deserve ; nor was there any reason why the Saxon archbishops might not continue to re- ceive the pall, the ensign of their dignity, from his successors. The election of the English prelates was freely conducted by the Church at home ; the imity of the Chm'ch was unbroken, and the Roman bishop, as patriarch of Western Em-ope, presided among his equals, not as a lord from whom their right to their sees or their power to govern was derived. It is by the good providence of God that St. Gregory has left on record his sentiments on this point, in the protest which he made against his contemporary, John, patriarch of Constantinople, for assuming the title of universal bishop. It is true, some of his successors soon began to take this title to themselves; but in this RISE AND PSOGRESS OF PAPAL POWER. 29 they were no more like him, than his namesake, who condemned WyclilFe's doctrine about excommmiication ; on which St. Gregory's doctrine was, that " the priest who binds and looses for his own pleasm-e, and not for the moral benefit of the people, deprives himself of all power to do either'." Again, as to independence on the civil power, this good man speaks of his own elevation to the bishopric as received from the Grecian emperor, to whom Rome was then subject^. And if the emperor should think fit to depose a bishop, he says, a subject has no choice but to obey : if it is done where no law of the Chm-ch requires it, he must bear it as he can^. There is no pope of Rome whose doctrine the Chm-ch of England is more bound to respect than the first Gregory's; and it does not seem that in this point either Wycliffe or the later doctors of the Church have departed from his teaching. How, then, did so great a change come over the Christian world, that such sentiments as these subjected their proposer to prosecution? And how did the popes find a pretence for the assumption of powers unknown in better times ? In order to understand the progress of those innova- tions by which this state of things had been brought about, it will be usefid to have a definite notion of the several steps in that progress, and the periods to which they belong. The time between the Norman Conquest and the separation of the English Chm'ch from the see of Rome under Hemy VIII., may be conveniently divided into three periods. The first period, of about a century and a half, during which the papal power was advancing to its highest point, may be considered as extending from the papacy of Gregory VII., or the era of the Conquest, to the reign of King John, or the papacy of Innocent III., a.d. 1199. The second period St. Gregory, Homil. xxvi. ^ g. i, Epist. 5. 3 B. ix. Epist. 41. 30 THE ENGLISH EEFORMATION. may be reckoned from the papacy of Imiocent to the begimiing of the schism in the Western Chm-ch on the appointment of two rival popes, a.d. 1378, a year after the accession of Richard II., or, more conveniently, though less accurately, by the termination of the dynasty of King John's rightfid heirs, on the deposition of Richard II., a.d. 1399, thus comprising the whole of the thirteenth and fourteenth centm-ies. It is during this second period that the papal power and corruptions may be considered to be at their height. The last period, from the end of the fourteenth centmy to the time of Heniy VIII., is that dui-ing which the conflict of opinions was preparing the way for reformation, an age of persecution for the party who desired change, but in which their views were constantly gaining ground, till the Chiu'ch was eventually reformed. We have the authority of a most eminent Italian writer, that until the time of Theodoric, king of Lom- bardy, the pope was so far fr-om being the lord of Christendom, that he was hardly acknowledged to have any superiority, even in causes ecclesiastical, above the Chm'ch of Ravenna, a neighbouring eity\ But it was not long after this period, and more than two centuries since the death of the first Gregory, when the world first heard of the Decretal Epistles, since notorious as the Forged Decretals. The "v^Titings pm-porting to express the sentiments of the early Chui*ch are of three kinds : the Apostolical Canons : the Apostolical Consti- tutions : and the Decretal Epistles. The first are not indeed supposed to have been drawn up by the apostles, but they are understood to be recognised by all the early councils, and so far are undoubtedly genuine^. The ApostoHcal Constitutions profess to have been set forth by the apostles in council, Clement of Rome acting as notary. This is not supposed to be the fact. 1 Macchiavelli. It is said that Guicciardi expressed the same in his fourth book, but that it was erased. * Mansi. Cone, i. p. 3. RISE AND PROGRESS OF PAPAL POWER, 31 but these also are universally acknowledged as an authentic exposition of apostolical practice ^ In neither of these documents is there any trace of the primacy of St. Peter. But the third authority, the Decretal Epis- tles, in which this claim is manifestly asserted, is undoubtedly a forgery, and forged for the purpose of promoting this primacy at the time when it began to be asserted. They profess to be the decrees and letters of the earlier bishops of Rome, recorded in the ponti- fical books of Pope Damasus, and extending from the time of St. Clement, the companion of St. Paid, a.d. 69-83, to the time of a pope named Deusdedit, in A.D. 614. The design of them is to prove, by the sup- posed testimonies of these earUer bishops, that all the world had then allowed the Church of Rome to be, in virtue of our Lord's promise to St. Peter, the chief of all churches; that all other bishoprics in the world were founded from Rome, and that this parent Chm'ch had the care of all the flock of Christ ; that no council could give or take away these rights; that no earthly power in Church or State could judge the Roman bishop ; and that whatever was done in the Church by princes, bishops, or councils, had no force without his sanction. This forgery is said to have been brought out of Spain by an ecclesiastic named Isodorus Peccatora: but it was copied into the records of the Church of Metz by a deacon named Benedict Levita, under the authority of its bishop, Riculftis, who presided over that see from a.d. 787 to 814. It was about a.d. 836 that it attracted general attention, and in the year 865 Pope Nicholas I., in a contest with the GaUican church, appealed to these decrees as genuine, and insisted on their authority 3. From this time they seem to have ^ Mansi. Cowc, i. p. 254. * Hincmar. Opusc, c. 24, quoted in Labbe, torn. i. p. 78. ' Nichol., Ep. 42, quoted in Labbe, ubi supra. The learned Labbe and Cosart, in their notice of this forgery, thus express their wonder that any one should defend the authenticity of these 32 THE EKGLISH EEFOKMATIOX, been received without question, and thus it came to pass that all the authority they assign to the papal chair was supposed throughout the middle ages to be supported by primitive practice. The troubled state of Italy for a long time after the death of Nicholas, gave the popes more than enough to do at home. The see became a prey to lawless princes and barons, who made and unmade bishops at wilU; and then fell under the oppressive power of the foreign emperors of Germany. The most unfit and unworthy men were, with few exceptions, placed in St. Peter's chair, till the time of the famous Hildebrand. Hildebrand Hildebrandini, who became pope a.d. 1073, by the name of Gregory VII., was of very humble origin ; his father is said to have been a smith or carpenter at Saona, in Tuscany. In early years, having come to Rome and studied to accomplish him- self for the priestly office, he found his spirit stirred within him by the sight of the prevailing corruptions. The clergy were living in great ignorance and immo- rality, and the episcopal office had become a matter of common traffic, a source of revenue to weak and aban- doned princes, who disposed of it to the best bidder, with a total disreo-ard of the character of those to whom epistles. " Adeo enim perspicacibus viris deformis videntur, hoc saltern tempore, ut nulla arte, nulla purpurissa fucari possint." (torn. i. p. 78.) A modern writer, who admits indeed their false- hood, asserts that it is false that Nicholas I. declared them to be genuine. (Palma. Proilect. Hist. Eccl. ,tom.\\. ft. 2.) This is at best snippressio veri. The professor well knows that Nicholas I. appealed to them as genuine, which served his purpose much better than declaring them to be so. 1 Of these times, their great historian Baronius thus com- plains : — " Quam foedissima Ecclesije Romanae facies, quum Romse dominarentur potentissimae aequo ac sordidissimae meretrices, qua- rum arbitrio mutarentur sedes, darentur episcopi, et quod auditu horrendum et infandura est, intruderentur in sedem Petri earum amasii pseudo-pontifices qui non sunt nisi ad consignanda tantum tempora in catalogo Romanorum pontificum script!."— Baronius An. 912, num. 14. RISE AND PROGRESS OF PAPAL POWER. 33 it fell. The talents of Hildebrand soon recommended him to notice; and for many years before he was himself raised to the papacy, he was employed by several popes in succession to fill high offices of trust, and administer the government. In these offices he labom-ed unweariedly to carry out the principles of the " False Decretals," and saw in them the only way of redress for the evils of the time. And seeing that the world cannot be governed while two rival authorities are at strife with each other, he was not content with asserting the independent power of the Church, but maintained its supremacy, as one to which all temporal sovereignties were subject. The pope, according to his doctrine, derived a kind of hereditary holiness from St. Peter, and could not err in his decisions ; therefore no man could be a Catholic, unless he agreed in all things with the Church of Rome. And holding, as it would seem, that a departm-e from Catholic truth was a forfeitm-e of all right to temporal sway, he followed up these principles by asserting the pope's power to absolve subjects from their obedience, if their prince was not obedient to the laws of Holy Church; and in his contest with the rash and violent Emperor Henry IV., he showed that he was not slow to exert this power. The character of Gregory VII. was weU suited for the work he took in hand. His spiiit Avas undaunted, his manner of life severe and self-denying, and he had something of that fanatic zeal and confidence in his own inspirations, which seems necessary to qualify a man to complete a great public revolution. No text was more frequently on his lips than that which was so often heai-d from the remorseless pm-itans of Cromwell's time. Cursed he he that doeth the work of the Lord negligenthj. His next successors, Urban II. and Pascal 11., were men of talents and character, and seemed to be cast in the same mould ; the first was the great promoter of the crusades ; the other the successful assertor of the right of investiture, ^vhich, by the help of Anselm, he D 34 THE EXGLISH KEFOEMATIOX. gained from King Henrj^ I. of England \ and prepared the way for further encroachments on the English Church. Although nothing can justify the assumption of such authority on false pretences, there is some reason to conclude that the papal power, thus foimded, was poli- tically a public benefit compared with the confusion and darkness which had gone before. To this period of its rise the words of Mr. Southey are meant to apply : " The indignation, which its corruptions ought properly to excite, must not prevent us from seeing, that, raised and supported as this power was wholly by opinion, it must originally have possessed or promised some pecu- liar and manifest advantages. If it had not been adapted to the then condition of Em-ope, it could not have existed. Though in itself an enormous abuse, it was the remedy for some great evils, the palliative of others. We have but to look at the Abyssinians and the oriental Christians, to see what Europe would have become without the papacy. With all its errors, its corruptions, and its crimes, it was, morally and intel- lectually, the conservative power of Chi'istendom. Politically, too, it was the means of saving Em-ope ; for in all himian probability, the West, like the East, must have been overrim by Mahommedanism, if, in that great crisis of the world, the Roman Church had not roused the nations to an united effort, common sm-ate with the danger ^" The moral strength of the cause was still on the side of Rome in the violence and misrule of Stephen's reign, and when Henry II. attempted to re\'ive the same misapplication and sale of Chm'ch-patronage, which Rufiis and his grandfather had begun. The contest with Bccket was maintained stoutly on either side ; but the bloody death by which that unliappy prelate fell turned the scale against the king, by the impression * See Churton's Early English Church. 2 Book of the Church, c. x. mSE AND PEOGHESS OF PAPAL POWER. 35 that is always produced by self-devotion and sacrifice of life even on a mistaken principle. It now remained only for a commanding spirit on tlie papal side to com • plete the subjugation of the opposite power. Such a spii'it was found, when Innocent III., from whose accession, a.d. 1199, w^e have dated the highest point of the papal dominion, w^as forced into active hostility by the profligate and violent King John. This prince, by seizing on the property of the Church within his realm, provoked a power which he was unable to contend with, wielded as it was by a man more able and determined than had yet arisen among the succes- sors of Hildebrand. Innocent's notion of the supre- macy was even more exalted than Gregory's, though he only followed the same principles, when he affirmed that " the Church owes no reverence to any person but the Pope, who has no superior but God." He had, therefore, no scruple in pronouncing sentence of depri- vation on two emperors in succession ; and when John refused to allow him to appoint bishops for the English sees, he at once placed the kingdom mider an interdict, excommmiicated him, and gave away his crown to Philip of France. If we wonder how the peers of England, barons as well as bishops, should have acquiesced in this humi- liation of their sovereign, we must remember who that sovereign was ; an usurper who had invaded the throne, and, if he is not much belied, had secured himself in it by the miu-der of his nephew, the rightful heir, and one whose whole reign was a series of lawless insult, treachery, and cruelty. To reduce the Church to sub- jection, he had seized on her estates and expeUed her ministers. Those who remained in the kingdom were exempted from the protection of law ; their murderers were set at liberty; and a priest who had kiUed a person by charice-medley having fled fi'om the king's vindictive temper, he ordered three innocent persons to be hanged in his stead. As to the barons, if he sus- pected their loyalty, his way of proceeding was to deal d2 36 THE ENGLISH EEFOKMATIOIS'. with them as if under martial law; he reqiurecl hostages from them, seized on their wives and childi'en, and in many instances it was proved that there was but one step for them betAveen a prison and a grave. One instance from private life, which lies out of the common records of the chronicles, will serve to mark the horrors of that time. On the borders of Wales, in an English or Noiman fortress erected in Brecknocksliire, resided a baron named William de Bruce. A writer w^ho knew him well describes his life and character, as one who set God always before him, having a constant regard to the precept of St. James, and saying in all that he designed and undertook, "if the Lord will." He had a large correspondence with persons of distinction in different parts of England, and charged his secretaries to begin with an acknowledgment of the Divine mercy, and to end every letter with a word about the Divine aid. In travelKng, he never came to a church or cross by the way- side without tm-ning aside to it to offer a short prayer ; if engaged at the time in conversation with high or low, commoner or noble, still he would leave it for this duty, and after a brief space return. " What was fiu'thcr remarkable," says this friend, ""whenever he met children in his way, his custom was to invite them to talk with him with a few kind words on either side, that he might, as it were, force the little imiocents to give him their blessing, and give them his own in return. This practice was also his wife"s, Matilda de St. Valeiy, a good wife and mother, and mistress of his house and property. Would to God," he concludes, "that they had both met with as much temporal happiness and comfort at the close of their lives, as I trust they have, for their devout lives, obtained of eternal glory' !" It is not strange that he should thus di'aw a veil over the dreadfid sequel. Kmg John, suspecting De Bruce's fidelity perhaps more from his religious character than Gybaldus Cambr., Itinerarij of Wales, i. 2. EISE AND PEOGRESS OF PAPAL POWER. 37 any other cause, sent to demand his eldest son to be given up for a hostage. The baron was absent from home ; but his lady, noble and high-spirited, indig- nantly resenting the affront, replied to the messenger, "Go, tell your master, his care of his nephew has not been such, that I should consign to him any sons of mine." ^^lien De Bruce heard of this rash answer, he saw that there was no safety for them, and immediatelj' fled \^dth his wife and children to Ireland. There, in the following year, the poor woman, with her eldest son and a daughter-in-law, and other children and little grandchikben, fell into the tyrant's hands ; the old baron himself having gone to France, where he died, and was honourably buiied by Archbishop Langton. Tlie poor prisoners were conveyed to Bristol, and thence to Windsor, where women, children, and infants were thrust into a dark dungeon, and done to death by famine ^ . A thousand ways our mortal steps are kd To the cold tomb, and fearful all to tread ; But that most fearful, when with slow decay Pale hunger drains life's gushing fount away ! After a history like this, can any Christian reader doubt on which side the scale of justice and mercy turned in this contest ? Moreover, if it be true, as it is told with strong evidence of truth by INIatthew Paris, this miscreant king was guilty of an act, which, even in the present state of our laws and constitution, without aid of the Pope, would have enforced the surrender of his crown. This was his secret embassy to Mohammed Ebn Yacub, caliph of the Moors in Africa and Spain, offering to tm^n Mussulman and pay him tribute, if the Moorish prince would assist him against his own sub- jects. The answer of the Miramolin was remarkable, and characteristic of the feelings of a well-educated Mussulman : '"I have latelj^ met with a book ^\Titten in 1 Annals of Mar g an Abbeij, a.d. 1210; Annals of Waverley Abbey, ibid. 38 THE ENGLISH KEFOEMATION. the Greek language by a Greek Philosopher and Chris- tian, named Paul; whose words and actions give me much satisfaction. There is only one thing about him which I like not, that he remained not stedfast in the law in which he was born, but, like an inconstant man and a deserter, fled from it." "When we turn from the degi'aded tlu'one of England to take a view of the court of Home at this period, the contrast is very striking. Instead of the insane and savage despot, w^ho was making priest and peer his prey, w^e see a zealous, self-denying man, in the prime of life, unsparing of his time and care for the public state of Christendom, yet amidst all his labours anxiously stealing a few leisure hours for meditation on the book of Divine truth, and 'WT.iting a commentary on the seven penitential psalms. His wealth was dis- posed of in charitable foundations, and gifts bestowed the sufierins: Chiu:ch in Palestine. Though of a on noble family, he had no nephews or other relations M^hom he sought imduly to advance ; but administered the affairs of his own little state with disinterested integrity, while with the greatest skill and determi- nation he forced the kingdoms of Em-ope to obey his la-\vs. \\Tiile, however, we give the praise which is his due to the man, we must not look with favom- or indulgence on the principles which he thus successfully established. No sooner was the mitre exalted above the cro^sMi, than it began to show the abuses which accompany all unlicensed sway, — with this ftirther evil, that the cruelties and extortions, which before affected only the credit of the civil government, now began to be perpe- trated in the name of religion, and to bring disgrace and infamy on the office of those who sat in the apos- tles' seat. Innocent III. had proclaimed a crusade against King John. If Matthew Paris' s story of the embassy to the Moors be true, it was as lawful as that against Saladin, at least. It is far more questionable on what grounds he afterwards awarded the same RISE AND PROGRESS OF PAPAL POWER. 39 measui-e to the poor sectaries called Albigenses, in Narbonne and the south of France. But when Gre- gory IX. excommunicated the Emperor Frederic II., a prince who had himself obliged the Pope by leading a successful crusade to the Holy Land, — when he j^ro- claimed a crusade, and excited the states of Italy to a protracted war against him, and when for this piu-pose large taxes were levied on the Church of England through the weak connivance of Henry III., — people began to ask whether this was a proper use to which to apply the endo\ATnents of English churches, and whether the Pope could thus make every prince a heretic who had given him some personal offence. Still this evil was tolerable i compared with that which soon followed, when it was found that simony, which Hildebrand had spent so much pains in checking when it was transacted between churchmen and their prince, was now transfi^rred on a much larger scale to the com-t of Rome. It soon became notorious that the candidate for preferment, who went best furnished with treasure, had the best chance of prosecuting a successful suit with pope and cardinals. The issue of the contest between Innocent and King John had taken not only the investiture, but the appointment and patronage of bishoprics from the crown to the pope. From bishop- rics the claim was soon extended to abbacies, deaneries, and other preferments ; and all to be paid for in meal or malt, a sum paid down, or an instalment, to be followed by more. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centui'ies there were sometimes as many as five or six hundred clergymen from England occupied with busi- ness at Rome ; some waiting for preferment, some ^ It is well said by a late writer on this subject : "We are far from approving of the encroachments of pontiffs on the rights of contemporary monarchs : but considering what those princes com- monly were in education and character, and how they exercised their prerogatives, we doubt whether it was in this respect that the usurpations of the Roman see were chiefly to be deprecated."— Encycl. Metrop., History, c. Lxxvii. 40 THE ENGLISH KEFOEMATION, to make appeals against the jurisdiction of bishops iii their dioceses, others seeking new privileges for their monasteries or their religious order. The papal capital was filled with the noise of litigation ; and the pontiff's court was made a kind of court of chancery to every other ecclesiastical coiu't in Em-ope. Even an honest 2)ope, amongst such innumerable temptations to be partial, must have been oppressed with the load of lousiness, so distracting to a mind of any religious temper, and so foreign to the proper emplojonent of a spiritual pastor of the Church of Christ. What was to be expected, when from the political situation which he held in Italy, he was compelled continually to use a variety of shifts to su^^ply an exhausted exchequer, to negotiate peace on hard terms, or liii-e troops to defend him in war ? All this time, the canon-law was receiving new additions from the labom's of those popes, who were most diligent in exacting these supplies. Gregory IX. and Imiocent IV. were great lawyers; and the code, which they enlarged and made more perfect, was con- tinually extending its jurisdiction, so that it becomes difficult to say what causes might not be brought within its circuit. For since all crimes are spiritual offences as well as transgressions of the law of the land, there would be a constant question to which of the two tribunals they should be brought. And, in fact, throughout this period the common law coui-ts and the spiritual were continually at variance. There can be no doubt that the Chm'ch, as a religious society, has an inherent right of self-government ; and even when the law of the land is founded on the revealed word of God, •ds it must be in every Christian country, there are cases in which the spiritual judge ought to exercise a different jurisdiction from that of the state. The loss of all penitential discipline in the Chm'ch is an evil which we deplore ' ; and it is to be feared it is one of ' See the Commination Service, in the Prayer-book. EISE AND PEOGHESS OF PAPAL POWEK. 41 those things which has brought the common people to think nothing a sin w'hich the law of the land does not punish. But this discipline was not destroyed at the Reformation, when many efforts w^ere made to restore it ; but by the conduct of the ecclesiastical courts long before. The system, which came from Rome in the thirteenth and fourteenth centm-ies, was one which, instead of reviving discipline, overlooked the grossest offences, and multiplied positive laws, for the pm-posc of exacting fines when these laws were dispensed with. What other judgment can w^e form of those prohibi- tions of marriage between the most remote cousins, for violating which nothing was required but a sufficient sum paid for a dispensation to the com-t of Rome ? Or if this law was at first put forth by sincere mistaken men, what sense of morality can justify those who afterwards took money for the violation of it ? If the law was bad, why not rescind it ? If it was just and right, it w^as treason to the law of God to permit it to be broken. WiUs, contracts, and bonds, and aU matters in which oaths were to be administered, were easily dra^Ti within the jm^isdiction of the spiritual courts. It would have been well if this had not been made the means of dispensing with the obligation of oaths after they had been taken. But of all pretences by which persons were made responsible to the laws of the Church, none was more multiplied than that of sacri- lege. If an officer of the king took a thief out of a sanctuary, he must be excommunicated till he had paid his fine. If a mischievous knave docked the tail of a bishop's palfrey, or if a stout baron played the practical jest of waylaying the abbot's venison, and prevented him for one day fi'om keeping the custom of " Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time," it was no less than the sin of sacrilege. Such harshness only provoked the offences it \\as intended to check; and the annals of monasteries are full of complaints against their country neighbours, who drained their fish-ponds, broke their park-fences, and carried off their deer. 42 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. The spirit of the time is sufficiently marked by the form of general excommunication, which, dm-ing a good portion of this period, was pronounced four times a year against the enemies of the Church's authority and privileges. The foremost of the offenders enumerated as under a curse are " those that purchasen writs or letters of any lewd court \ to let^ the process of the law of holy Chirche of causes that longen sldlfully^ to Christen court, the which shuld not be denied^ by none other law." The next were those that should alienate any of the Church-lands. And thirdly, those who should withhold or diminish from the Church's portion in tithes and offerings. No doubt these two last were injurious and dishonest practices; but why they should be selected alone out of all the sins against the deca- logue, it would puzzle a man to say, unless it was, as Wycliffe said, that churchmen were more anxious to secure their own temporalities, than to maintain the honour of God's laws. And as to the first, it only proves the outrageous zeal they had to secure those exemptions, which it had cost so much to obtain, and which were so ruinous in their consequences. These criminals, however, and these only, were on such occasions pronounced accursed*. The prelate or priest, coming into the church, mounted his pidpit, and with bell, book, and candles burning, and the form of the merciful Redeemer sculptm-ed on a crucifix lifted up before him, thundered out the words in the plain old English of the time ; for though the prayers were in Latin, the curses were in the ATilgar tongue: "By authority of God, Fader, Son, and Holy Ghost ; and the glorious moder and maiden, our ladie St. Marie, and the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and all apostles, ^ lay court; court of common law. '-^ hinder, or stay. ' belong separately. 4 doomed, judged. * It is scarcely necessary to allude to the contrast presented in our own Church-service for Ash-Wednesday, speaking the solemn sentence of God's law in the words of God. This service is, indeed, in its original far more ancient. KISE AND PROGRESS OF PAPAL POWER. 43 martjTS, confessors, virgins, and the hallows (saints) of God ; we denounce all those accm-syd, that byn so found guiltie, and all those that maintainen them in ther sins, or given them thereto help or counsell. For they be departid fro God and holy Chirche, and they have no part of the passyon of our Lord Ihesu Crist, ne of noe sacraments, ne noe part of the prayers among Christen folk : but they byn accursyd fro the sole of ther foot to the crowTi of ther head, slepyng and wakyng, sittjmg and standyng, and in all ther wordes and in all ther workes, but if (except) they have grace of God to amend them here in this life, for to dwell in the pain of hell for ever withouten end." Then he shut the book with violence ; the candles were quenched, and the bells rung; while the congregation, receiving the sentence as if it had been ratified above, raised a cry of terror for the fate of the persons involved in such a doom. When one reads of such dreadful words, and some- times worse than these, pronounced over trivial offences, applied in vengeance for private quarrels, and often for acts which only the canon-law had perverted into crimes, — and when one thinks of the blessings with which the Gospel was ushered in, and the brotherly love and tender pity which it is its office to shed abroad, — the eye fills with tears at the record of such debasing cruelty and superstition. And yet, for raising his voice against these practices, was Wycliffe thi*eat- ened with imprisonment and bonds. The amount of influence thus exercised upon the country will be more easily judged of by considering the numbers of the clergy in proportion to the popula- tion, and the amount of their property as compared with that of the laity. But in both these respects we are left without any certain ground on which to form a calculation. The statements usually made that the Conqueror found a third of the land of England in the hands of the Church ^ and that in the time of King 1 Sir Wm. Temple, Works, folio, ii. 560. Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 209. 44 THE ENGLISH EEFORMATION. John this amount had nearly reached one-half, seem in each case to exceed probabiHty. As far as can be judged from the Doomsday sm-vey, the amount of Church property at the Conquest would be more nearly one- tenth than one-third, and if this amount were doubled during the two following centuries, when more than five hundi-ed monastic establishments were fomided, it has been thought that this would leave a sufficiently large proportion \ One-fifth of the whole country, and that the best cultivated part, was a vast amount, when it is considered that the proportion which the Church property now bears to other landed property, is some- where about a fiftieth. But in this calculation it is to be remembered that the religious houses were accus- tomed to lease out a great part of their lands to laymen, for easy fines, as Bishops and Deans and Chapters still do^. So that they were not perhaps the direct land- lords of more than one-half that amounts And precisely the same uncertainty exists as to the ' H. Warton: Ha.rmer's Remarks on Bicrnet, p. 41. ^ Harmer, 1. c. ^ But it must be admitted that as far as any records extend from which a judgment might be formed, they will give a much larger proportion. It is stated by Selden, (Titles of Honour, p. 572-3,) from Ordericus Vitalis, who lived in the time of Stephen, that the Conqueror distributed the whole country into about 60,000 portions, called Knights' Fees, and the same writer as well as Stow, (Annals, p. 285,) gives the actual number of Knights' Fees in the time of King John, as 62,215, of which the proportion held by the Church was then reckoned at 28,000, or near one-half. Selden however elsewhere denies that a Knight's Fee was a measured quantity, as is commonly supposed, so that if the lands of the religious were taxed with a greater service than others, this may account for the statement. Besides, if this be a contemporary statement, it does not follow that those who made it were correct. They seem to have reckoned 45,000 parish churches, and 52,080 townships in England^, and this can hardly be accurate. The present number of parishes is about 15,000. It should be added that in Wy- cliffe's answer for the Parliament against paying tribute to the Pope, he gives the speech of a Lord who says, "A third part, or * Selden, ubi supra. RISE AND PROGEESS OF PAPAL POWER. 45 numbers of the clergy. In the absence of all certain information, the following may be offered as a probable conjectiu'e. The number of chantries suppressed by 1 Edward VI., including all chaplaincies to hospitals and colleges, was 2374; of which we may suppose one priest for each, though this would exceed the actual fmiount. The whole number of lesser monasteries, dis- solved 27 Henry VIII., was 376. If we suppose an average of six inmates for each house, this will give us 2256, a more probable number than 10,000, as stated by Stow. The greater monasteries were 186, and their average income about 600^. Calculating their numbers by the same proportion to their income, as in the case of the smaller houses, this will give the average number of inmates at thirty-six, in all 6696. The number of " religious persons," therefore, at the time of the Re- formation, from which time the data for these calcula- tions are taken, will be 8952, besides the priests of the chauntries 2374, in all 11, 326. Of these a considerable proportion were not in holy orders, for there were always lay -brothers in the monasteries, besides that the nuns are included in this calculation \ But in fomiing an estimate of the actual number who, under whatever designation, belonged to the order of the clergy, we must still add to this amount the whole number of parish priests, except those who served cures belonging to the monasteries, and a vast number of inferior persons employed in menial offices in the convents, all of whom had some lesser orders, as well as those who devoted more, of the land of this kingdom is held in mortmain by the Church."— (Le Bas, p. 126.) Hence it is clear that in Edward III.'s time the proportion was reckoned at about a third; as in the time of John it has been at still more. Most probably these calculations were only made upon the cultivated lands, and a third of tliese at that time would be perhaps a fifth of the whole. ^ The writer is indebted for much assistance in this calculation of the number of religious persons, as for many other suggestions and contributions, to his friend, the Rev. Edward Churton, now archdeacon of Cleveland. 46 THE ENGLISH EEFORMATION. themselves to the legal profession, and in some instances also to medical science i. It may be affirmed that the population dm-ing these ages could not exceed 4,000,000, and if we suppose one-third of the inmates of the monasteries to have been priests, stating them at 3000, these with the chantry priests will make 5374, in addition to the whole niunber of parish priests, say altogether 15,000, which will be the same number of working clergy for a population of 4,000,000, that we have now in England when the population is 15,000,000, taking no account of the number of " religious" who had no cure of souls. There were at least as many parishes as now, each with its ovm priest, besides that many Churches had one or more Mass Priests attached to chantries, who were often required to assist the parish Priest in his duties. Then again there was hardly a neighbom-hood in which there were not one or more monasteries, who were the proprietors of many of the village chm'ches, receiving the tithes, and performing the duties by means of a vicar or substitute, answering to what we now im- properly understand by a curate. There were six hundred and sixty religious houses, at least, at the time they were suppressed: but the names are pre- served, in the whole, of eighteen hundred places at which some sort of religious foimdation had at some time existed 2, ' This may account in some degree for the great discrepancy between different calculations of the numbers of these persons. A recent publication (Fullarton's Parliamentary Gazetteer) , which. gives the population of England in a.d. 1377, at no more than 2,300,000, reckons the total number of the religious at the same time at 47,721. 2 An attempt has been made to calculate the revenues of the Church in the year 1337, from the fact that two cardinals who came to England that year, received 50 marks a day for their expenses, being four pennies out of every mark from every church. Macpherson on Commerce, vol. i., 519 (as quoted by Hallara) who cites Knighton (col. 2750), and infers that the Church re- venue was therefore 2000 marks a day, and 730,000 marks a year, mSE AND PHOGKESS OF PAPAL POWEE. 47 The popedom was not without its reverses and dis- asters after it had attained its zenith. The long reigns of Henry III. in England, and Louis IX., commonly caUed St. Louis, in France, and the character of both these kings, had greatly favoiu-ed its advance. But when Edward I. and Philip the Fair were seated on these respective thrones, it would have required a pope of great prudence and circumspection to maintain his influence with them. Such was not Boniface VIII. , a man of overweening self-confidence, and of very ques- tionable character. He is said to have gained the papacy by a shallow trick, but one that sufficed for a weak superstitious old man, his predecessor Celestin Y. As he was reposing himself at night in his chamber, Boniface contrived by a tube to send a voice into his ear, by which he was warned to resign his office. He believed it to be a celestial message, and complied ; but afterwards finding how he had been deceived, he said to his successor, on his election: "You have stolen into the chair like a fox ; your temper wiE. rule in it like a lion; but you wiU die like a dog." The words were verified in the fortunes of Boniface. He began his rule over the Chm-ch of England by sending orders to Arch- bishop Winchelsey, that the clergy should pay no taxes to the king without his concurrence. For acting in compliance with this order, the archbishop brought which he observes was more than twelve times the national revenue in the reign of Henry III., — the revenue of Edward IIL, to whose time this record belongs, not being known. But as regards this last statement, the crown revenue in those days was merely the king's private income from his own estates ; the national revenue, if it existed at all, was in occasional subsidies, and in feudal service. An old Durham MS. which appears to have been written about A.D. 1406, gives the amount of the clergy's tenth in one year at 18,876/., when the lay fifteenth was 37,933/. This would make the proportion of the Church-lands rather less than one-fourth; or if we suppose che 18,876/. to include the tenth of tithes, rather less than one-fifth. And this is according to the estimate of one of the best ecclesiastical antiquaries.— See H. Warton, on Burnet^ as above. 48 THE ENGLISH EEEOEMATION. upon himself and the Church the fierce wi-ath of a stem prince, who soon made him to understand the duty of a subject. This, and opposing Edward's ambitious designs on Scotland, destroyed this Pope's power in England. The French king brought the contest to much closer quarters: he sent an armed force into Italy; and proclaiming charges of heresy, simony, and other crimes, brought by the French clergy against Boniface, and joined by two cardinals of the powerful family of Colonna, whom he had made his enemies, they sm^prised him in his coimtry-residence at Anagnia, made him prisoner, spoiled him of enormous treasures, and left him so destitute and heart-broken, that he died a short time after, a.d. 1304. Tliis event broke the charm of the papal power in its contest with kings; but over the Church it was still undisputed. And now what the Popes could not do by authority, they began by baser means to effect by intrigue. Clement V., to keep up liis credit with Edward I., gave him absolution from fulfilling his coro- nation-oath. This Pope, in a.d. 1309, removed his court to Avignon in France ; where his successors for nearly seventy years continued to reside, and where the old palace wdth its dungeons still remains a monu- ment of tyranny gone by. Here they continued their exactions, and wasted in profligate luxury the goods which a better age had lavished in piety and alms. With the English coui't these Popes of Avignon were deservedly unpopular ; they were governed by French influence, and often thwarted, as far as they could, the designs of England against France. Hence Edward HI., by some -wise laws, as his grandfather had done, checked their appointment of bishops, and cut short their sup- plies. But while the kings consent was necessary, the Pope still provided, as he called it ; and it was not likely that an English clergjmian would be promoted who was in bad esteem at the papal coiut. There were many attractions for ambitious chmx'hmen in the patronage of the Pontiff abroad; and more than one EISE AND PROGKESS OF PAPAL POWER. 49 English archbishop resigned his mitre for a cardinal's hat ; while Mars found lucrative employment as judges and advocates at Avignon and Rome. There was stiU one step wanting to complete the disorders of the Church, and to destroy the last ties of Cln-istian brotherhood. It had followed in other coun- tries almost immediately after the papal triumph ; but in England, though there was manifold corruption and debasing superstition in all quarters, there was as yet no avowed persecution. The papal lawyers had long aimed to introduce a law into all the states of Christen- dom, that persons convicted of heresy by the ecclesias- tical judge should be capitally pmiished by the civil power. They had succeeded, in 1224, in Germany, where the Emperor Frederic 11. had enacted such a law, and another with it, that all temporal lords, who protected heretics after warning from the Chm-ch, should forfeit their estates ; a law which, by a judicial retribution, the Pope afterwards tm-ned against Frederic himself, when he declared this prince a heretic, and drove him from the Kingdom of Sicily, which he gave to Charles of Anjou. They had attempted it in France: but St. Louis, to his great honour, was not seduced by his pious zeal into compliance. His answer was, that no man should suffer by his sentence, who had not been tried by his laws. Yet it was in his time that Gregory IX., a.d. 1233, erected the courts of the In- quisition on the frontiers of his kingdom at Thoulouse: and it would seem that this devout king had greatly aided the fanatic warfare by which Count Raymond was assailed. In the following reigns no country was more disgraced by cruel executions for heresy than France. In England the progress of this cruelty was more slow. The fierce ignorance of the people had indeed been sho\ATi in many di-eadful persecutions of the Jews ; and in the reign of Henry II. a party of thii^ty foreign sectaries are said to have perished miserably, wandering about the coimtry, where no man would give them food E 50 THE ENGLISH KEFOKMATION. or shelter. But as yet, dowTi to Wycliffe's time, there was no statute awarding the extreme penalty of the law. And it is singular enough that the way by which persecution was gradually introduced into England, was by means of the privileges of the clerical order, better known as the benefit of clergy. By this pri\dlege, which was contested between Hemy II. and Becket, and confirmed by King John's charter, no clerical per- son was liable to be tried in the king's courts, and any person, Avho had been so tried, was at liberty to bring proof of what was called "his clergy," on which he was delivered to the ecclesiastical judge and a new trial took place. He was admitted to take his oath that he was innocent, before a jmy of twelve clerks, and to produce twelve compurgators who swore they believed he spoke the truth : witnesses were examined on behalf of the prisoner only, and the result often was the acquit- tal of those who had been condemned in the king's courts'. It was in consequence of the powers thus exercised that the bishops, from the time of the Savoy- ard Boniface, archbishop of Canterbm-y, a.d. 1244 — 1270, began to have prisons in their several dioceses, which prisons, in the time of the LoUards, became places of cruel confinement. Gregory XI. left his court, which he had brought back to Rome, in a stote of miserable dissension. The Roman people assembled in large masses, and forced the cardinals, most of whom were Frenchmen, to elect an Italian to the vacant chair. They chose Urban VI., — a man of harsh temper and manners, severe to him- self, as Walsingham describes him, but more severe to others, and one who never forgave an offence. The French cardinals soon after separated themselves from ^ Blackstone, iv. 367. The terms " clerk," and " scholar," became synonymous, and any man who could read was admitted to claim his clergy. But it was enacted, 18 Eliz. c. 7, that no man allowed his clergy should be committed to his ordinary — that is, he should be tried in the queen's court. mSE AND IKOGRESS OF PAPAL POWER. ol him, annulled their election, and chose another pope of their own body, with the name of Clement VII. Urban immediately declared their cardinalships for- feited, and appointed a new set of cardinals. War ensued. Clement's party were defeated in a pitched battle, with the loss of five thousand men; and he escaped to Avignon, where he was supported by France, Spain, and Scotland; while Germany, England, and Italy adhered to Urban, who suspecting even the cardi- nals who remained with him, soon after put six of them to the torture, and among them Adam Easton, a learned Englishman. He then ordered the rest to be thrown into the sea in sacks, but spared the life of Easton, out of regard to the English nation. When Wycliffe heard of this double election, he felt as a persecuted man might feel, when the tyranny that had almost crushed him was, to all human appearance, tot- tering to its fall. He immediately put forth his spirited tract, entitled. The Schism of the Popes. " Stand we firm," he said, "in the faith that Christ's law teacheth, — for never was there greater need, — and trust we to the help of Christ. For he hath begun to help us gra- ciously, in that he hath clove?i the head of Antichrist, and made the one part to fight against the other. No doubt the sin of the Popes, which has been so long continued, has brought on this division. If both these heads last, or the one by itself, then shall the last error be worse than the first." He therefore called upon emperor and king to put do\Mi the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, and take away the territory of the see in Italy : for this not only he, but almost every wise and thoughtful man in Christendom at this time, looked upon as the source of the eviP. " Maintain God's law, conquer your own ^ Dante, as translated by Milton, had said long before : ** O Constantine, of how much ill was cause — Not thy conversion — but those rich domains Which the first wealthy Pope received of thee !" It was believed in the middle ages that the Emperor Constantine had given the Bishop of Rome his territory in Italy ; though there e2 52 THE ENGLISH EEFOEilATIOX. heritage, and destroy this foul sin, saving the persons. And then were peace found for us, and simony destroyed. Let lords, who love God's law, help their princes in this cause. For to them it belongs ; and more glorious con- quest did never Christian king." If this reformation which he proposed was root and branch, we cannot Avonder at it, when we reflect on the state of things which pressed upon his mind. It is seldom that persecution leads the oppressed to regard the oppressors with more favour than is here intimated, in the wdsh to spare their persons, but to take away their means of doing harm. But before we pass judg- ment on Wycliffe, we must take a closer view of reli- gious society in England at the time when he appeared. was no truth in it, and no proof that there was any lordship belong- ing to the see before the age of Charlemagne. It was also a story at this time often repeated by Wycliffe, John of Trevisa, and other English writers, from the works of the Abbot Joachim, that when the gift was made, an angel's voice was heard, saying, " Alas 1 this day is venom poured forth into the Church ! " CHAPTER IV. TRANSUBSTANTIATION. PENANCE. CONFESSION. O come to our Communion Feast ; There present in the heart, Not in the hands, th' Eternal Priest Will his true self impart. — Christian Year. ^^MIO the same period which we have now been con- ^^^51] sidering must be referred the establishment of ^""^^^ some points of doctrine, which have an equally important bearing on the history of the Reformation. No doubt the first advocates of the transubstantiation were led by a sincere though mistaken zeal, meaning to main- tain the consolatory and scriptural truth, that "the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lord's Supper." But it is a temptation incident to hmnan natinre to bring do^^Ti everything to the level of human reason. And so, rather than acknowledge that there are mj^steries which they could not fathom, men tried to explain the way in which Christ is actually present, according to his promise, by affirming that his natural body and blood are contained in the consecrated bread and wine, and that they cease to be bread and wine, and only seem to be so. Nothing is more certain that this was not the teaching of the Anglo-Saxon Chm'ch. It is said to have been first promulgated about a.d. 820 by Paschasius Rad- bertus, a monk of Corbey, in the diocese of Amiens, who was forced, by the excitement which ensued, to resign the abbacy of his house. He was answered by Bertram, or Rattram, whose book is dedicated to Char- lemagne, and professes to be written by his command'. 1 This book was first printed in English A .D. 1548. It is entitled The Boke of Bartram ])riest, intreating of the bodye and Mode of Chrtjste, written to greate Charles emperoure, and set forth via c yeres agoo. 54 THE EXGLISH EEFOEMATION. He asserts " that the body and blood of Christ, which in the Chui'ch are received by the mouth of the believers, are figures, according to their outward show and visible form, but that according to an invisible substance, that is, according to the power of that divine Word, they are verily and indeed the body and blood of Christ." And as for the change in the elements, he says, " If they will say, that it is made in respect of the substance of the creatures, I answer that that cannot be so ; for in respect of the substance of the creatures, look whatsoever they were before consecration, they are even the same after- wards. But they were bread and wine before, and, there- fore, they remain the same^" It was this book which first convinced our own Ridley, and after him Cranmer, by showing them that the then received doctrine was not the original faith. A little later il^^lfric, abbot of Malms- bury, A.D. 970, translated into Saxon a homily for Easter from the Latin, nearly copied from Bertram's book^. The new doctrine Avas brought into England by Lan- franc of Pavia, made Archbishop of Canterbury by the Conqueror. His learned adversary Berenger, better knoAAii as Berengarius, who was Ai-chdeacon of Angers, in France, wanted the moral courage necessary to a successful defence of the truth. And there was a defect in his teaching, which exposed his opinions to some just exceptions. He is thought to have been a follower of Scotus Erigena, who is said to have denied that there is, in this sacrament, anj-thing more than a bare sign, and no actual presence of Clu-ist. Such an opinion was justly condemned by several councils before which he was smnmoncd, and where he retracted it : but there is some doubt whether he had said so, for when he A^TOte again afterwards he taught that there is a real spiritual presence of Christ in the holy communion. He com- 1 It is important to show this, because some modern Romanists liave asserted that Bertram did not absolutely deny their doctrine of transubstantiation. 2 See the opinions of JElfnc in Churton's Earlt/ English Churchy p. 253. See also Palmer's Church History, p. 127. TEANSIJBSTANTIATION. PENANCE. CONFESSION. 55 pared his own weakness to St. Peter's denial, and com- plained as if threats and terror had been used against him. But in his own solemn and melancholy words, in another place, " the words of a priest must be either the words of truth, or sacrilege." It is a lesson for all times against a wavering soul, to think what may be lost by the sinful compliance of one trying hom\ After several recantations he was finally summoned before Pope Hildebrand at a council at Rome, a.d. 1079, where he was made to submit to the doctrine as propounded by the council. Yet even the words of this formal recantation, commonly called " the decree £go Beren- garius,'' though they most strongly assert the actual and substantial change of the bread and mne into the true body and blood of Chi'ist, were cited by Wyclifie ^ in proof that the Chiu-ch of Rome had not even then arrived at the point of transubstantiation. It is con- fessed that the name was then a novelty, and it shows how divided men's mind were, on the subject in the time of Berenger, that he was made archdeacon by the Bishop of Angers, and wrote, for some time, mider his sanction. It is, indeed, matter of some doubt whether this doc- trine of transubstantiation was absolutely established in the Chiu-ch of Rome before the Council of Trent. But it was generally received from the time of the fomih Lateran Council, held under Innocent III. a.d. 1215, a short time after his successful contest with King John. It was usual for the Acts of every council to open with a confession of faith, but, on this occasion, the following words were introduced, imder the head of belief in the Universal Chm-ch. " In which (Church) Jesus Christ himself is at once both Priest and Sacrifice, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the appearance of bread and wine, the bread being transubstantiated into the body and the wine into the blood by divine power" — a decree to be deplored by all succeeding ages for the divisions, strifes, and 1 Dialogues, Pt. iv. ch, ii. p. 102. 56 THE ENGLISH KEFOEMATIOX. sufferings which it has brought into the Christian church. For, although it was still a question whether this was sufficient to make it a matter of faith, since the Pope merely propounded this confession on his own authority, without submitting it to the deliberation of the council, it was soon after adopted by diocesan and provincial synods in most parts of Clmstendom, and was deemed to be the docti'ine of the Chm-ch. The earliest notice of it, in any canons of the English Church, is at a diocesan synod at Salisbmy, a.d. 1217, two years after this Lateran Council, where it was expressed in the same words ; but we shall find that it had not been formally adopted by the English Convocation until the time of Wycliffe. It was a natm-al consequence of this belief that diWne honom's should be paid to the consecrated elements, and it was accordingly ordained, by Honorius III., the suc- cessor of Innocent, that adoration should be made at the elevation of the host. But it was not long before it was confinned by a special festival, in honom-, as it is said, of this great gift of God to his Chm-ch. This festival, called Corjms Domi?ii, began to be celebrated in Flanders a little before the Lateran Council, in con- sequence of some visions of a mm at Liege \ and was appointed by the Bishop of Liege, about a.d. 1246, but was not confirmed by the Church of Rome imtil A.D. 1264, when Urban IV., being unwilling to sanction it, was induced to do so by the alleged miracle of Bol- sena. The Pope was stajing at Or^deto, a neighbour- ing city, when a priest, who had entertained" doubts about this doctrine, is said to have seen the miracle performed as he was consecrating the sacred elements 2. ^ LiGuORi, Oper. Dogmat., p. 324. Lambertini de Festh; art. Corpus Domini. The present Office was composed by Thomas Aquinas. 2 Even so there seems some contradiction. The vision is said to have been seen inforrndpietatis, in the form of a Pieta or dead Christ, whereas the present doctrine is that the elements are changed into Christ's living body. TRANSUBSTAKTIATION. PEXANCE. CONFESSION. 57 The miraculous host was borne to Orvieto in grand pro- cession, and the Pope no longer hesitated to appoint the festival for the whole Church. This is by no means a single instance of the way in which those in authority may be driven forward, beyond their own wishes or intentions, by the intemperance of inferior persons in carrjdng out opinions to which they are committed. The exposition of the host upon the altar for di\'ine worship is first heard of about a.d. 1248, and in the following centmy the procession of the holy sacrament received the papal sanction' . The practice of commimion in both kinds was not discontinued till the twelfth century, and this innova- tion also was gradually introduced. It had become usual in most parts of Western Christendom to dip the bread in the cup, and thus administer it in a spoon. This was forbidden by the Council of Claremont, a.d. 1095, which ordered that no one should commmiicate of the altar without taking the body separately and the blood in like maimer^. But instead of inducing a retm-n to the primitive usage, this led to withholding the cup altogether from the laity. In the thirteenth centmy there is e\ddence that it was generally discon- tinued, and the Comicil of Constance, in the fifteenth, expressly forbad it. Still a power was reserved to the Pope, of allowing it in certain cases, and the Coimcil of Trent at one time had thoughts of restoring it. Equally great was the departure from ancient usage which was introduced in these ages regarding the frequency of the Holy Communion. Indeed the change of the Communion into what is now understood by the iVIass, is one of the most remarkable in the liistoiy of * LiGUORi, ubi supra. Lambertini thinks the procession was observed from the time that Urban went in procession to conduct the miraculous host into the town of Orvieto. The magnificent Cathedral of Orvieto, one of the most beautiful specimens of Italian mediaeval architecture, was erected in honour of this miracle. ■^ Concil. Clare, a.d. 1095. Labbe, torn. x. p. 508, Can. xxviii. 58 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. the Church. In the first three centuries there is evi- dence that the priest gave the Communion to all who had been present at the celebration. St. Cj^rian saysS " We receive the eucharist every day, as the food of our salvation, unless for some grave offence we are obliged to refrain from it." And Justin Martyr, in his Apology, says the same. The Apostolical Canons, framed, as we have seen in the third, or the beginning of the fourth century, ordained that "those who shoidd come to church and not communicate should be excommuni- cated." Here is some indication of the commencement of a departure from the primitive custom. Two cen- turies later, the Council of Agda ordained, a.d. 506, that every one shoidd commimicate three times in the year, at the Nativity, Easter, and Pentecost. But there is evidence from a writer who lived near that time, that in the Greek church both clergy and laity communicated every Sunday, and those who did not were excommunicated ; and he says the Roman practice was the same, but without excommunication. Mean- while, as the priest continued to celebrate the divine mysteries every day, whether any communicated or not, the people gradually forgot the purpose for which they were instituted, and came to regard the Sacrifice of the Mass as a repetition of the very same sacrifice which the Scriptm-e teaches us was offered once for all upon the cross. For some ages the Church continued to requii-e attendance at the Communion, as the Church of England now does, three times in the year at the least. But the fourth Lateran Council made in this respect also a most material alteration. It was required that a " every adult of either sex should confess, alone, to his own priest, at least once in the year, and reverently receive the eucharist, at least at Easter." This canon, like the rest on such subjects, was intended to restore • De Orat. Domini. 2 Labbe, torn. xi. p. 172. This is the famous Canon, Omnis uiriusque sexus. I TKANSUBSTAXTIATION. PENANCE. CONFESSION. 59 discipline, not relax it, but it shows that the notion of daily or weekly communion was ah-eady abolished. The English bishops, indeed, were slow to carry out this provision of the Lateran Council in its full extent. For by the canons of Walter de Cantilupe, bishop of Winchester, a.d. 1240, it is enjoined that all shall confess at least once a year, but they are exhorted to communicate thrice i, as is now enjoined by the Church of England. And the canons of Poor, bishop of Sarum, A.D. 1217, are to the same effect^. Much more important, however, were the results of this same canon, as regards the other practice to which it refers. To enjoin the attendance at the Holy Com- munion was a good thing, however lax the injunction might be. But the residt of requiring commimion once a-year, preceded hy confession, was to render the con- fessional imperative on every one of the people, and it is impossible to estimate too highly the consequences of this step. These consequences have been twofold, first to impose an intolerable yoke upon the people ; and secondly, to overthi'ow all discipline by the reaction it has caused. The intention of Innocent was probably to revive what had been neglected ; for the practice of confession had existed in the East before the end of the fourth century, but was then discontinued on accoimt of some public disorders arising from it. In western Europe it had been continued without intermission, but as a practice rather than a law, and it does not seem to have been compulsory. One of the clergy at the cathedi-al churches was called a canon penitentiary, whose office it was, in difficult cases, to advise the doubting conscience and to dii'ect persons in works of repentance and acts of penance. Such confession as this, left to the option of the parties, many good men in later times have wished to see revived. Dean Colet told Erasmus that he much approved of secret confes- sion, " professing that he never had so much comfort 1 Labbe, torn. xi. pt. 1. p. 578. ^ Ibid., p. 254. 60 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. in anything as in that." The martyr Ridley, a short time before his death, writing from his prison, used these words concerning it : " Confession to the minister, which is able to instruct, correct, comfort, and confirm the weak, wounded, and ignorant conscience, I ever thought might do much good in Christ's congregation ; and so, I assure you, I think at this day." The excellent Jeremy Taylor has left on record an equally favom\able opinion of this part of penitential discipline. And few considerate persons will judge difierently of it. It is siu-ely to be regretted that it is so little practical, except on a sick bed, between priest and people, in om' time. Tliere is a remarkable testimony to the change effected by this new law of Innocent III. respecting the practice of confession, in the extant records of the Waldensian churches ; a testimony not affected by any question as to the origin or antiquity of those churches themselves. In a MS. in the Vaudois language, allowed to be of the fourteenth centmy, and conse- quently 150 years before the Reformation, and less than that time after the Lateran Coimcil, under the head of the Seven Sacraments, are these words concerning penance : "Of which penance we hold for faith, and sincerely at heart coirfess that it is useful to man, by reason of doing away sin. To which people should be continually admonished, and we admonish that sins be confessed according to the form of the primitive Chiu'ch, and that men seek counsel in their needs of priests, who are wise and who know them. The form and obHgation newly introduced by Innocent III., which the simoniac priests commonly use, ought to be declined and avoided by the faithful. The remedies useful to be duly counselled to the penitent, such as are fasting, prayers, alms, and other works of satisfaction, we con- fess that they are usefril and profitable. Auricular confession made only to the priest alone, and the form and usance of absolution, and the enunciation of the penance in number, and foot, and measure, at the will TEAXSUBSTANTIATION. PENANCE. CONFESSIOX Gl of the coiifessor, according to the mode which the simoniac priests adopt, and the obligation of Innocent III., is not of the substance, but (rather opposed to) true penanced" Hence we discover two facts: first, we find that a certain kind of confession, much resem- bling that now prescribed in the Communion Service o± the Church of England, existed before this Lateran Council ; and secondly, we have an almost contemporary testimony as to the mistrust and dislike with which the novelty of auricular confession, with its accompanying penances, was at first received. It matters not to brand these Vaudois as heretics. Their testimony to the matter of fact is independent of their opinions, and it goes to shew that these innovations of the Lateran Council were so considered at the time they were introduced. The advice to confess to priests who hiew them^ has reference to a further innovation, which was introduced by Gregory IX., when he gave authority first to the Dominican Friars in a.d. 1227, to hear confessions^, which was soon extended to other mendicant orders ; " an imheard-of privilege," as Matthew Paris caUs it. Tliis was a \4olation of the law of the Lateran Council, which required that the people should confess to their own priests, and we shall soon have occasion to observe that it was a fruitftd source of mischief, and an endless subject of complaint. The doctrine of pm-gatory was not declared an article of faith till the Council of Florence, a.d. 1438, nor has it ever been determined to be material fire. This is not the place to enter upon the lengthened discussions as to the state of separate souls, which ended in the establishment of this belief. But it is to be observed that the passages from the Fathers usually alleged in its support, relate only to prayer for the dead, except two ' For further particulars of the very valuable MSS. of the Vaudois in the public library at Geneva, see Appendix A. '^ Labbe, xi. p. 335. 62 THE ENGLISH EEFORMATION. places of St. Augustine, which disprove rather than countenance the modern notion \ But the belief in pui'gatory is so intimately connected with the doctrine of indulgences that the one can hardly be separated from the other. It is admitted that the name of indul- gences is not found in the writings of the Fathers'^; and it is plain that they arose out of the practice of imposing penance, which the bishop, in certain cases, had the power to remit. Those who had sacrificed to idols to save their hves were excluded from full communion, by the ancient canons, for five years, being wholly separated from the faithfid for three years, and then admitted only to "communion without oblation" for two years more; that is, they were allowed to be present, but not to communicate themselves. But the Council of Anc}Ta, held a.d. 314, before the first Nicene Comicil, allowed to the bishops a power, " either of using cle- mency or of adding more time." They are, therefore, to " consider the foregoing and subsequent life (of the penitent), and so extend their clemency 3." And by the Nicene Council a similar permission was expressed in these words : " For such (viz., the truly penitent) the bishop shall be allowed to devise more gentle measures." On the occasion of the first Crusade, we find indul- gences granted by the Council of Claremont, a.d. 1096, imder Urban II., to those who should go to the Holy War ; and it is worth while to compare the style of this first indulgence for such a pui'pose with that which was granted a centmy later for a similar object by the Lateran Council. " Whosoever for devotion alone, and not for the sake of honoui' or wealth, shaU go to Jerusa- lem for the Hberation of the Church of God, that journey shall be reckoned to him in the place of aU penance." But the words of Innocent, at the Lateran Coimcil, are ' De Civifat. Dei, 1. xxi., c. 6. Enchiridion, c. 68, on 1 Cor. xii. 13. ■^ LiGuoRT, Opera Dogmat., p. 501. 3 Harduin Con., torn. i. p. 237. Labbe, i., 1458. TRANSUBSTANTIATION. PENANCE. CONFESSION. 63 as follows : " We, therefore, out of that power of bind- ing and loosing which God has bestowed upon us, how- ever unworthy, indulge to all who shall go in person, being contrite and confessed, the plenary forgiveness of all their sins ; and we promise them an augmentation of eternal salvation in the retribution of the just." Here we have the germ of that wonderful assumption which found its completion in the following declaration of Clement VI., a.d. 1342, in his bull Unigemtus; that "in the Chm-ch there is the infinite treasure of the satis- factions of Jesus Christ, and there are also the super- abundant satisfactions of the blessed Virgin, who, being exempt from every actual sin, had no satisfaction to pay for herself; and the satisfactions of the saints, who, in the holy deeds of their lives, have paid more satisfaction than their sins deserved." Thus did the simple remis- sion of penitential discipline become mixed up with a notion that penance continues beyond this present Hfe, which led to the invention of this infinite store of merits dispensed by the rulers of the Church. The next step, in the downward progress, was the sale of such indulgences ; the scandalous traffic in which is almost too notorious to require description here. But we shall have occasion to mention it when we come to speak of the great dealers in this article, the Mendicant Friars. CHAPTER V. EFFECTS OF THE PAPAL SUPREMACY IN ENGLAND ON CLERGY AND PEOPLE. TREATMENT OF THE JEWS. GOOD BISHOPS. If Rome be earthly, why should any knee With bending adoration worship her ? She's vicious, and your partial selves confess Aspires the height of all impiety. Beaumont and Fletcher, ^^^^jO judge of the state of religious society in !pS>^ England during the time of the Papal supre- ^"^^"^^ macy, it -vvill be necessary to take a view of the different classes of which it was composed, the bishops and clergy, the monastic orders, the friars, and the people. All these classes had existed before the rise of the Papal power, except the friars, whose case will require a separate consideration. Of the rest, the question will be whether they were ultimately benefited or not by the system of Church government then estab- lished. And whatever may be thought of the influence of the Papal Court upon the rehgion of these times, it is consoling to find how many good men there were in the Chm-ch of England. The first English bishop appointed by the authority of the Pope was Stephen Langton, made Archbishop of Canterbuiy by Innocent III. a.d. 1207; a man un- questionably of high character, equal to the first of his time in sacred learning, and one who showed a high- minded consciousness in his public conduct; obeying orders from Rome, as long as they seemed bound upon him by his rehgious duty, but refusing to do so when they -vvere injurious to the liberties of his country. Nor ^ See Southey's Book of the Church, cix. near the end. GROSTESTE, BISHOP OF LINCOLN. 65 can it be denied that for a time afterwards some regard was shown at Rome to the character and quahfications of the bishops to be invested, when in a.d. 1234, Gre- gory IX. made choice of Edmnnd Rich, commonly called St. Edmund, a Berkshire clergyman of blameless life and conversation, and a diligent preacher of God's word; whom however he forced upon the monks of Canterbury, after having set aside three other elections. And our respect to both these prelates is due rather for what they did in opposition to the popes who ap- pointed them, than for any act in which they complied ^^dth their commands : to Langton, for his adherence to the barons, who stood against an excommunication from Rome in their contest for the Great Charter; to Edmimd, for his resistance to the rapacity of the legate, Otho, in tithing and toUing the English Chui'ch. It is well known that this good man, after many unavailing attempts to persuade the king to measm-es more befit- ting the honour of his crown, and seeing the discipline of the Chui'ch destroyed by a shameful compact between the Pope and the government at home, retired to the Cistercian house at Pontigny in France, to close his days in mortification and prayer. But the most illustrious ornament of the Chui'ch of England in these times was Robert Grosteste, bishop of Lincoln, in the reign of Hemy III., whose works contain abundant evidence that the love of Christ, and the study of Holy Scripture, were the foundation of his excellence. The following is a specimen of his sermons. It is addressed to his clergy, and entitled, " The persuasion of good shepherds," on the text (St. John x. 11), "I am the good shepherd." "The good shepherd enters in at the right door, namely, by Christ preached : he maketh the sheep hear his voice, he calleth his own sheep by name, for he seeks to know those who are written in the book of life. And he not only knows them, but is known of them, by his works, his goodness, his labours of love ; as Chiist says, ' I know my sheep, E 66 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION, and am known of mine.' He leadeth them out of sin : link by link as their sins connect them, so must the steps of true repentance set them free. He goeth before them, according to the injunction of St. Paul, ' Be an example to the flock in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in purity.' And lastly, he lays down his life for his sheep ; and why not ? when the least virtue is better than the bodily life, for the body lives only through the soul, and virtue is the life of God in the soul of man. If an householder should give liis ser^-ant in charge a worthless penny and a most precious sheep, and the servant should be able to save the life of the sheep by losing the worthless penny, would he not be a wretch to hesitate? AVho then should refuse to lose his woj-thless body for the sake of saving a precious soul ? when instead of the worthless pemiy, the corruptible body, he shall receive a golden treasui'e, a body incon-uptiblei." But it is remarkable that all those who were most distinguished for their piety and learning in these times, were strong in their indignation against the Papal Court, And none more so than Grosteste, who went in person to the Comicil of Lyons, a.d. 1250, and there delivered a protest to the Pope and Cardinals, which contained these words, in which perhaps we may hope that there is something of the style of h>^Derbole, which seems to have been in fashion in the Latin orations of the day. " Pastors who do not preach Christ, even if they have no other sin, are Antichrist, and Satan trans- formed into an Angel of lights But these Pastors add all sorts of sins besides. They are all luxm-ious, forni- cators, adulterers, incestuous, indulgent of their appetite to excess, and to be short, all defiled together with all ' Fasciculi Appendix, p. 260, edition 1690. '^ It was this sentence of Bishop Grosthead that was so much relied upon, and so often quoted by the followers of WyclifFe. " The priest that preacheth not the word of God, though he have none other default, he is Satanas and Antichrist." GROSTESTE, BISHOP OF LINCOLN. 67 sorts of sin and wickedness and abomination." And then with a noble boldness, he tells the Pope and Car- dinals ; " But what is the cause, the foimt and origin of this ? I exceedingly fear to say, and yet I dare not be silent, lest I fall under that woe of the prophet who says, — Woe is me, because I was silent, for I am a man of unclean lips\ The cause, the fomit and origin of it is THIS Court 2;" after which he describes the profli- gacy and venality of the Court of Rome. At this same Council of Lyons, the representatives of the English nation declared that the number of foreigners to whom the Pope had given preferments in England was so great that 60,000 marks were carried out of the country yearly by foreign clergy; and this was afterwards stated at 70,000. For the Pope now assumed the power to nominate to all preferments, and constantly bestowed the best bishoprics and li\ings on Italians, sometimes on boys and libertines. Grosthead himself was afterwards suspended for refusing to induct an Italian boy to a rich living in his diocese given him by the Pope. It is said that the exactions demanded fi'om the diocese of Lincoln alone, in his time, \vere 6000 marks in one year, equal to 20,000^. of om^ money. The former sum stated to have been extracted from the whole kingdom would now be not less than 200,000^. ; but a better way of judging of these amounts may be to compare them with some other payment near the same time. Thus the ransom of the King of Scots, taken prisoner by Edward III., was 100,000 marks, but the sum was so large that the Scots were aUowed to pay it by instalments, 10,000 marks a year. So the largest diocese in England, paid in one year to the Pope or his dependents, more than half as much as the Idngdom of Scotland could afford for the ransom of their king^. ^ Isaiah vi. 5. In our version *' For I am undone," instead of " Because I was silent." 2 Fasc App. p. 252. ' It is said to have been shown in Parliament, a.d. 1532, in the reign of Henry VIII., that there had been paid for the buUes F 2 68 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATIO^J-, Edmund Rich was succeeded at Canterbury by Boni- face of Savoy, a foreigner, a rude and violent man, without any qualities befitting such an office, to which his only recommendation was, that he was uncle to the queen. On his death the Pope sent over Robert Kil- wardby, a Franciscan friar, who a few years afterwards carried off the treasm-es of the see to Italy, to support him in the new honour of a cardinalship, for w^hich he resigned it. Then came another Franciscan friar, John Peclvham, a man in some respects of better stamp, a restorer of discipline, and one who strove to mitigate the harsh conduct of Edward I. towards the Welch people; but trained, by a long practice as one of the judges of the Pope's court at Rome, to deeds of severity, and blinded by cruel superstitition. After paying a sum of 4000 marks to the Pope for his presentation, equal to about 15,000/. of om- present money, his first act was to excommimicate his brother primate, Walter Giffard, of York, for coming into his province with his silver cross borne before him. Giffard was travelling towards London wdth his retinue, and the monasteries and other places of entertainment on their way shut their doors against him, so that he was soon di-iven by peril of famine to submission. His next remarkable act was the issuing'of an order to level to the ground all the Jewish synagogues \Ndthin his province ; a singular mark of the extent to which he thought it allowable to exercise the independent authority of the mitre without consulting the crown. Here, however, his proceeding was checked by Edward I., who had his own plans to carry, by com- manding forbearance. It was in tliis king's reign, and dm-ing Peckham's primacy, a. d. 1290, that the Jews were finally expelled of Bishops (for institution, that is, to their sees), since the 4th year of Henry VII., in fourty-four years, one million and sixty thousand pounds, besides what had been exacted for dispensations and in- dulgences.— (HoLLiNGSHEAD, Ckron. p. 928.) The treasure left by Henry VII., the wealthiest prince of his age, was one million eight hundred thousand pounds. TREATMENT OF THE JEWS. 69 from England, where they had resided since the time of Edward the Confessor. Their history presents a gloomy picture of the manners of the age. In the early Norman reigns, by practising peaceful and pro- fitable arts, while the people neglected them, they had amassed considerable wealth. They were physicians, goldsmiths, and jewellers, and are supposed to have directed their industry to the working of mines in the mineral districts ; but their most gainful emplojTnent was fomid in lending money, and granting letters of credit from one part of the kingdom to another. The advantage of this practice, at a time when travelling with a sum of money was not quite so safe as it is now, was very soon perceived. The kings and theii' ministers encouraged it, at the same time turning it to a source of revenue, by having every money-bill enrolled at some public office, and requiring a fee upon it from the borrower and lender. They had enjoyed more than a century of peaceful commerce, when at the accession of Richard I. they were marked out as victims to the popular fury. The first outbreak was in London, at the time of this king's coronation ; thence it spread to Lynn, Stamford, and Lincoln, and Bmy St. Edmund's, with less violence ; but it ended with a di'cadful massacre, partly occasioned by their own suspicious fears, in the city of York, llie leaders of the populace in this bloody deed were some tlu'iftless profligates, who resorted to murder to cancel their debts, and to recover their bonds deposited in the public office by the Jews ; but it could not have been perpetrated had not some fanatical priests and monks encom^'aged it, who were seen actively engaged in the assault. It is well Imo^oi that the Jews, dis- trusting the protection given them by the Norman governor, had taken theii- opportunity, while he was gone out of the castle, to overpower the guard, and close the «-ates against him. This rash measm-e, turn- ing their only means of safety to their own destruction, united all parties against them. They were closely 70 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION". besieged ; and in their despair the greater part, follow- ing the counsel of an aged rabbin, fell by their own hands. The rest, being nnable to maintain the defence, offered to siu^i'ender and receive baptism, the only terms on wliich life was offered them ; but they were crueUy butchered, in breach of treaty, by a miscreant called Richard le Maubete, or the III Beast, as soon as they had jiiassed the barrier. The only life lost on the side of the besiegers (it would be an abuse of words to call it the Christian side) Avas that of a vile priest, in the garb of a hermit, who had once been a canon in the order of the Premon- strants. He is said to have been so persuaded that the act in which he was about to engage was a religious service, that he received the holy communion himself, and administered it to a chosen party of followers, before he went to join in the fray ! There, as he was busying himself in the foremost rank, and leading an onset or attempt that was made to scale the wall, a large stone hmied from the battlements scattered his brains, and cut short his fanatic exhortations to those around. The other instigators of the tmnult discovered their real motive in the part they took, by going imme- diately to the register-office at the cathedi-al, and obtaining possession of the bonds deposited there, which they committed to the flames. This atrocity was prompted in some measure by the fierce zeal then prevalent for the crusades, which made the ignorant people regard the destruction of the infidel, Turk or Jew, as a religious duty. But the Church had hitherto done something to restrain such madness. St. Bernard, in the earlier part of the same century, indignantly condemns the conduct of a monk, well named Rodolph the Vile, who had attempted to provoke a persecution against the Jews in Germany. The famous Carthusian saint, Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, who lived in the time of Richard I. and John, took some commendable pains to prevent a man fi'om being honoured as a martjT, who had robbed a Jew, but had TREATMENT OF THE JEWS. 71 afterwards himself been murderecl at Northampton for the sake of his pkmder. And William of Newborough, an Austin canon residing in the neighboiu-hood, and an historian of the time, calls this tragedy at York an act of execrable butchery. There is some difficulty in sifting the evidence with regard to those insults which the Jews of the middle ages are said to have committed against Christians. The tumult at Lynn is said to have been occasioned by an attempt which they made on the life of one of their own nation, who had become a Christian convert, and by their assault u^pon the church into which he had fled for refuge. The stories of their cruelties to Christian childi-en are told in the chronicles with the usual cir- cmnstances of facts ; and sometimes, on a trial ensuing, the accused are stated to have confessed their guilt. In an age when men of different faiths were fierce in hostility against each other, it is not improbable that the feelings of humanity on either side should have been blunted; that the Jews should have had theii- rancour against the cross embittered by the wrongs which they endured ; — at least it is not consistent with the acknowledged principles of human nature, that all the cruelty and fanaticism should have been only on the Chi'istian side ^ The wrongs they suffered were indeed extreme. King John, when he made his gaol-deliveries, excepted the Jews from the common benefit. Henry III. on one occasion confiscated a third of all their property-. Edward I. seized, imprisoned, and heavily fined the whole body for a supposed conspiracy in clipping the coin; on which charge great numbers suffered death. Lastly, about nine years after he had checked the out- rage purposed by Peckham, the parliament came to a bargain with the king for their entire deportation, 1 So late as a.d. 1701, a Jew of immense wealth turned his only daughter out of doors utterly destitute for having embraced Chris- tianity ; an act which occasioned the passing of a new statute. Blackstone, b. i. c. 16. 72 THE ENGLISH KEFOKMATION. granting him a fifteenth of all property, on condi- tion that the Jews should quit the realm. They were then a body of more than fifteen thousand persons, who were expelled almost in utter destitution: and they appeared no more in England till the time of Cromwell. Only one act of a more merciful kind is recorded. In the early part of his reign King Henry III. was persuaded to found in London a religious house for the instruction and maintenance of such Jews as should be converted to the Chiustian faith. It stood to the east of Chancery Lane, and the church which belonged to it is now the chapel of the Rolls. It was vmder the government of a master and two or three chaplains, and continued for about a century and half, or eighty years after the expulsion of the Jews. It would appear that some number of converts were received into it ; and there were found good Clu-istians who sought con- ferences with them for removal of their prejudices. But the ill-treatment, which was more prevalent, made the time imfavom^able for such efforts. The good Archbishop Bradwardine, who lived a century later, relates a conversation which passed between him and a Jew, shewing the strength of his ancient prejudices. At the close of it, " If you wiU not hear my reasons," said Bradwardine, " at least promise me that you will pray for me, as I will for you, that God may remove the error from the heart of one or the other of us, and show whether of us foUows that law w^hich is most acceptable in His sight." "No," said the Jew; "for this would be to doubt concerning the truth of my own law; and I have no such doubt. I cannot therefore pray for myself as you desii'e, nor can I consent that you should pray thus for me." " Yet," persisted Bradwardine, " if you will not pray for youi'self, nor take it kindly if I pray for you, I would still entreat you to pray for me, and in those terms in which I have offered to pray for you." " 7\jid this I said (the good archbishop here remarks), hoping at least to melt his KOMISH BISHOPS. 7S hard and stubborn heart to kinder feelings by the benefit of prayer. But this also he peremptorily refused. ' I know,' said he, ' that you will never be a good Jew ; and even if you choose to doubt about the truth of your law, I will never doubt of mine.' " Such answers mai'k the effect of persecution on the human heart. They would not have been given had the Church during this interval produced many Brad- wardines. But the prelates who, under papal influence, were employed to watch over the flock of Clirist, were very few of them gifted with either talents or virtues like to his. The very pretence on which the investiture had been claimed by the disciples of Hildebrand was now virtually abandoned ; and the worthless favourites of weak princes were appointed by the pope's con- nivance as easily as if there had been no appeal to Rome. On the death of Archbishop Winchelsey, in A.D. 1313, a man of leai-ning and charity, though too subservient to Rome, the monks of Canterbury had chosen Thomas Cobham, canon of St. Paul's, a man whose good doctrine and innocency of life had gained him the name of the Good Clerk. Edward II., however, had a friend of his own to serve, Walter Raynold, a man of low origin, being the son of a baker at Windsor ; but this shoidd have been no hinderance to his pro- motion had he been otherwise worthy. The Avignon pope, Clement V., seems to have made little inquiry on this point, being influenced by other considerations. He gladly joined with the king to destroy the free election of bishops, and apjjointed Raynold on his own authority. The new archbishop made it his first object, by leaving a good retaining-fee at the papal court, and a promise of an annual pajTnent, to secure himself against all appeals that might be made in England against his proceedings. There was some ground for this, if he could not act independently of the pope, nor obtain the rights of his primacy other- wise; for vexatious appeals thus made against the bishops were among the crying evils of the system. 74 THE ENGLISH IIEF0E:MATI0X. But the next step was less eqiiivocaL He obtained bulls of pri\ileges, which, must be enumerated, to show how far the papacy had restrained the due authority of bishops, while it usurped the power of licensing them to do many things that were neither consistent with good discipline or good faith. 1 . A privilege to visit his own province of Canterbury during the next thi'ee years, during which time the suffi-agan bishops were to exercise no jui'isdiction. 2. A pri\^lege to restore two hundred rehgious persons who had broken their rvde, to their monasteries. 3. To dispense with the ride about ordaining none below the canonical age, which was then twenty-five, so as to ordain one hundred priests or deacons who had not reached that age. 4. To give absolution to one hundi'cd persons who had assaulted clerg\nnen, such offenders being then boimd to seek absolution of the pope. 5. To dispense ^ith the canon-law against pluralities in the case of forty bene- ficed clerg^Tuen. 6. A privilege to grant pardons for every offence committed within a hundred days to all who sought it, wherever he went on his visitation ^ There is scarcely one of these privileges which does not bear upon the face of it a strong presumption that the object was to seU his episcopal acts and fimctions for money. And the long- continued term v/hich he sti- pidated for has something of a mercenary appearance ; for the primate, on his visitation, expected to find free quarters; and his attendants, a body of eighty men momited, man and horse, were to be entei-tained at the cost of the suffragans^. He was interrupted, however, in his progress by the troubles of the state ; and we must follow him to take a view of his political character. It was only in the spu'it of the times that he interfered to prevent Adam Orleton, bishop of Hereford, from answering, in the King's Covu-t, to a charge of treason, which his sub- ' Godwin, in vit. Raynold. 2 Hist, of Rochester, in Anylia Sacra, 369. HEEMIT OF HAMPOLE. 75 sequent conduct proved to be too well founded. But he had been himself tutor to the unhappy Edward II., and owed his preferment to him; and there is some- thing shocking in the grey-haired perfidy of this low- minded prelate, when we see him coming forward, in a meeting of the rebellious Londoners, at Guildhall, at which it was resolved to dethrone the king, and saying, " The voice of the people is the voice of God^." Whe- ther influenced by fear, or deliberately joining in the revolt, the guilt is nearly equal. Yet in this centuiy also, we may stiU trace the same stream of good men mingling with the turbid waters, and in each case we find them longing and praying for better things. Of these was Richard Rolle, called the Hermit of Hampole, from a place near Doncaster, who lived in the reigns of Edward II. and III., and died A.D. 1349. He translated some parts of Scripture into English, and ex^Dressed his earnest desu^e for a trans- lation of the whole, by applying these words of the Psalmist, "Oh take not the word of thy truth utterly out of my mouth." He is thought to be the author of one of the earliest English poems, called the Priclie of Conscience, and his writings were very popidar, and exercised an extensive influence. What was the nature of that influence may be judged by the following ' It has sometimes been supposed that he brought forward these words as a text of Scripture, and preached from them ; but this seems to be a mistake. Adam Orleton had taken as a text before the University of Oxford, 2 Kings iv. 19 : ** My head ! my head !" and preached a sermon to prove to them that the body poUtio would never be sound till it had a new head. Raynold spoke indeed in a popular assembly ; but it was usual for bishops to begin their speeches in parhament with scripture texts, and he seems to have substituted this misapplied proverb instead. But what a departure ft-om old EngUsh principles ! " The people must be led according to the divine laws, not blindly followed," says Alcuin ; "for you only trust the testimony of the good and honest. Never listen to those who say, The voice of the people is the voice of God. There is always sometliing akin to madness in the sudden move- ments of the multitude." To Charlemagne, Epist. cxxvii. 76 THE ENGLISH IIEFOIIM2ITIOX. specimens from an nnpublislied commentary on the Book of Job\ "What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thy heart upon him ^ ? Oh wondi-ous condescension of the Creator, oh immense benignity of the Redeemer ! For what is man? — a mass of putrefaction, a vessel of abomination, food for worms: — prone to evil, slow to good, fast linked to earthly things, banished far from heavenly joys. \Vhat then is man? Man is become like unto vanity, whom God made in the image and lilveness of himself. Justly, therefore, do the days of man pass like a shadow: but if man had not sinned, he would have remained thi'oughout unchangeable and unchanged. Wherefore, listen, 0 man, to thy misery, understand thy poverty, and behold thy fall. Thou hast fallen down from the delight of Paradise to want and hunger ; falling among thieves, thou hast been left stripped and wounded and half dead. Arise, 0 man, from the nets of ruin, and breathe again toward the kingdom. There are all delights, there the odours of all sweets, there is all beauty, and the fulness of every joy." The same writer has the following beautiful contem- plations on the name of Jesus, from the Song of Solo- mon, (c. i. 3), '* Thy name is ointment poured out, therefore do the vii'gins love thee." "O wondi-ous, 0 delightful name ; for this thy name is most high above eveiy name, without which no man whatever may hope for salvation. For sweet is that name and pleasant to the human heart, affording true consolation. For Jesus is in my mind a song of joy, in my ear a heavenly sound, in my mouth a honeyed taste : no wonder, then, if I love that name which affords me solace in my every straight =*." Of the same age was Richard Fitzralph, archbishop ' Lincoln Minster Library, MS* D. 5, 12. * Job vii. 17. ^ Lincoln MS. ibid. See Hampole's Seven Marks of the Spirit of God, in AncHDEACoi^ Churton's Early English Church, p. 379. I FITZEALFH. 77 of Ai-magh, and thence more commonly known as Armachanus, from whose Apologi/ against the Friars^ deliyerecl to the Pope at Avignon, a.d. 1352, we derive the best and most authentic account of the miserable condition of the Church in the foui'teenth centmy. He is said to have translated the Bible into Irish, at a time when there was as yet no Enghsh version of Holy Scripture, and when the policy of the Government had been to suppress and discountenance both languages. Having been invited to preach in London, he had delivered seven or eight sermons in English against the practices of the friars, and especially against the way in which they interfered with the ministerial office, by taking the confessions of the people themselves, instead of the parish priest. Chm'chmen did not mind abusing one another in Latin; but an appeal to the people, such as these English sermons, from the primate of Ireland, gave great offence. The friars appealed to the Pope ; and the Ai'chbishop's apology is called the Defence of Cm-ates, that is, of parish priests, against the friars. He laboi.u*ed w^ith aU the eloquence and .skill of which he was master, (and he was one of the best preachers of his time,) to destroy the privileges of the mendicant orders ; but he pleaded at Avignon before Clement VI., one of the most prodigal and profligate of men ; and the mendicants did not want money to secure their cause. Of a mind equally sincere, and of deeper wisdom, was Thomas Bradwardine, who, at the close of a blame- less life, was made Archbishop of Canterbmy by the purest of all elections, the choice of the king and of the clergy of the cathedral being unanimous. This good man was a noble example of the union of religious contemplation with active benevolence. He was chap- lain to Edward III., and attended his armies in France, where he was so beloved, both by the monarch and his soldiers, that he was sometimes able to mitigate the cruelty of the war by his intercessions. He was twice chosen to the archbishopric; the king refusing, on 78 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. tlie first occasion, to part with his faithful confessor. When he went to Avignon to be confirmed in his new dignity, the profligate coui't received him with an act of unmannerly and heartless insult. A nephew of Clement's introduced into the hall a person habited like a peasant and seated on an ass, with a petition to the Pope that he would be pleased to appoint him to the see of CanterburJ^ But this was a case in which the dignity of virtue was conspicuous ; the Pope and the other cardinals resented the affront, and sent him back with due honour. Unfortmiately he scarcely lived to enter upon his office, dying within six weeks after. There can be no doubt that his great work. The Cause of God i^leaded against Pelagius, was suggested by the state of doctrine taught by the friars at the Universities in his time. All ^vi'iters on the doctrines of grace are in some danger of not allowing all that is due on the other side to the consideration of God's justice. But Bradwardine wrote always with one design, to exalt the power and mercy of the Most High. Om- plan does not admit of a description of the doctrinal parts of this spiritual and excellent treatise, which was the labour of his Ufe, and gained him, not undeserv- edly, the title of the "Profound Doctor." But the following specimen of his sentiments on the subject of prayer, will show the character of the man. "I think there cannot be any prayer more profitable or more efficacious, whether in prosperity or adversity, whether concerning what one desires or what one would avoid, than that one may always be able to say unto the Lord, with one's whole heart and soid and strength, Thy will be done. For thus it will come to pass that one shall keep back nothing to oneself, but be able to submit oneself and all one has to the divine will ; wholly desiring the glory and honom' of God, and never one's own, whether in great things or small, fearing nothing and caring for nothing in itself, but gladly embracing, if need be, for the sake of God, the loss of riches, lionom% and fame, — disgrace, ridicide, persecutions, and what- GOOD BISHOPS. 79 ever miseries, except the displeasui-e alone of Almighty God." I'he prelates of these ages rigidly enforced the law of celibacy, as they had learned it from the practice of Gregoiy VII. and Innocent III. ; for however this law had been attempted earlier, it is not pretended that it was generally enforced before this period. Indeed, the case of Gregory I., a.d. 590, the second fomider of the English Church, is in itself a refutation of all notion of its having been a primitive practice. For he was the grandson or great grandson of another pope, Felix III., whose father Felix was also a presbyter ; and these facts are twice mentioned by Gregory himself in his works stiU extant ^ The compulsion of such a law must be regarded as an unmixed evil. The immoral consequences of it, with those who were tempted to break their vow, are recorded in eveiy page from the time of Hildebrand downwards. And it is plain that in many instances the poorer offenders against this law suffered, while the more powerfid escaped. But there were other consequences, perhaps not less pernicious, to those who were enabled to keep it. " It is not possible," says a wise ancient 2, "that he can be a good member of the state, and love justice and equity, who has no children to expose to danger if his country suffers." The law in itself had a tendency to prevent them from being good subjects, more especially when the interests of Chm-ch and State were so divided. " Wife and childi*en," says Lord Bacon, " are a kind of discipKne of humanity; and single men, though they be many times more munificent and charitable, because their means are less exhausted, yet they are, on the other side, more cruel and hard-hearted, because their 1 Homil. 38, in Evan., § 15. Dialog., lib. 4, cap. 16. See Sandini, Vit. Pent., pp. 130, 590. There were married priests in Spain so late as the fourteenth century. A Council at Palencia in Leon, a.d. 1388, regulates their garb and tonsure. L'Enfant, Cone. Pis., Pref. xxvii. * Thucydides. 80 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATIOX. indulgence and tenderness is not so often called into play." The rise of the terrible Inquisition in other countries was indeed an immediate consequence of the establishment of the papal power, and of this law^ rigidly enforced with it. This fearful scoiu-ge was not yet brought into England, but the spirit of it had been manifested in Peckham's mandate against the Jews; and we shall soon see it brought to its height by the primates of Wycliffe's time, Courtney and Ai-undel. ( CHAPTER VI. STATE OF THE MONASTERIES IN WYCLIFFE'S TIME. CHANTRIES. THEIR INSTITUTION, AND PURPOSES. Vain the worshippers who strove God with idols to divide ; Ne'er may man his spirit's love Give to Heav'n and aught beside. — C^DMON, § 50. iHEN in tliese days we look upon the ruined ^M abbey, standing in peaceful solitude, in scenes which nature seems to have spread for the abode of calm content and prayer, it is not easy nor always agreeable to call to mind the true facts on record concerning the usual inmates of these dwellings ; how soon the piety that reared them declined ; how often their own vices, ^dthout the aid of the arm of power, brought on their ruin ; how their numbers fell away, as their reputation decayed; and public opinion, in the oom'se of a few more years, would probably have accomplished, in many instances, what was hastened only a little sooner by the will of an arbitrary king. It is not to be supposed that in former days the heai-t of man was inaccessible to a sense of the beauties of creation, or that this feeling was not often called forth in these retirements, and expressed by devout minds in thanksgiving and adoration. Take Gyraldus's description of one, which still remains to attest the truth of his description — Lantony, in Monmouthsliire. "In the deep vale of Ewias, which is about a bowshot over, and enclosed on all sides mth high mountains, stands a chiu-ch dedicated to St. John the Baptist, a structure roofed with lead, and not mihandsomely built for the remote situation in which it stands. It is a a 82 THE ENGLISH KEFOHMATION. spot on which formerly stood a little humble chapel of St. David the Archbishop, which had no other orna- ments than w^oodland moss and wi'eaths of ivj. In truth, it is a place fit for the abode of religion, and as well furnished as any British monastery with the means of canonical discipline. Two hermits fii'st foimded it to the honom- of a solitary life, in a wild far removed from the noise of the world, on the banks of the river Hondy, which rolls down the deepest part of the valley The rains, which mountainous districts usually produce, are here veiy frequent; the winds high and strong; the winters dark, with almost continual mists and clouds. Yet the air of the valley is so happily tem- pered, as scarcely to be the cause of any diseases ; so that the brothers from a younger foundation at Glou- cester, even when worn out with labour, and seeming past cui-e, if brought for change of climate to the parent house, by a little nm'sing are restored to health. Here the monks, sitting in their cloisters, when they choose to refresh theii' eyes by looking upAvard from their books, may see rising over the roofs of their dwellings on every side the mountain-tops which seem to touch the sky ; and often the goats or ^dld-deer, with which this district abounds, feeding on the summit, and appearing as if at the verge of their horizon. The orb of the sun is seldom visible above the liills, even in the fine sununer season, before half-past seven in the moriiing. It is a spot marked out for heavenly contem- plation, a spot happily chosen, and one that moves the kind affections ; and in its fii'st days well provided and well governed, till it was wronged by the intrusion of English luxmy'." No doubt there were many who found refiige in such places, in whom the flame of devotion bm-nt brightly, and their sense of the mercies of redemption was a strong solace amidst the troubles of oppressors, and the rude manners of a half-barbarous ag-e. We have ' Itinerary of Wales, b. i. c. iii., wriUen about a.d. 1220. MONASTIC DEVOTION. 83 writings of the English monks of the twelfth centuiy, and some of later date, which speak of Divine love in language such as might be studied with advantage now. Nor could anything but a devoted zeal have effected that great sacrifice of wealth, which was poui'ed in during the twelfth and tliirteenth centuries, wherever a monastery began to rear its head. It is a circum- stance, as a well-informed and amiable man has well remarked \ " which must strike every thinking person with some degree of wonder. No sooner had a monastic institution got a footing, but the neighbom-- hood began to be touched with a secret and religious awe. Every person round was desirous to promote so good a work ; and either by sale, by grant, or by gift in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a bene- factor. They who had not lands to spare, gave roads to accommodate the infant foundation." When Mat- thew Paris, the historian of the time, asked Richard, earl of Cornwall, to tell him the cost of his foundation of the Cistertian abbey at Hayles, in Gloucestershire, " I have laid out," he said, "ten thousand marks in the erection of the church only. And would to God that what I have laid out upon my castle at Wallingford had been spent as wisely and as well." The same sentiments were felt and expressed by the religious persons of the age. William of Newborough, an Austin canon of Yorkshire, speaks thus of the Abbey of Foun- tains, then a new foundation: "The place," said he, " is called Fountains ; where, from the time of its foundation, many souls have drank, as from the foun- tains of their Saviour, of the waters springing up to everlasting life." And again, of Rievaulx and Byland, near which he lived, " What are such religious dwellings but the camps of God, where the soldiers of Christ oiu- King keep guard, and the recruits are trained against the assaults of spiritual wickedness ?" Such language may be imbued with the prejudices of the time in Gilbert White, Hist, of Selborne, part ii. lett. 7. g2 84 THE ENGLISH EEFOKMATION. favour of a monastic life, and those pre'judices may be mistaken, or such a life may be imsuitable to a different state of society; but it is the language of Christian piety, and it spoke of feelings which the wi'iter had himself experienced. ^Vhatever benefit, however, these foundations con- ferred upon their time and coimtry, it is plain that the first fervoiu' soon declined. The chief revival after the Norman Conquest was that effected by the Cistertians and Austin Canons; and their frugal industry, hospi- tahty, and charity, is abundantly attested. But in the next age we find them chiefly mentioned as following Reuben's choice, " abiding among the sheep-folds, and listening to the bleatings of the flocks." They drove a great trade in wool, and industry degenerated into avarice. No doubt this was productive of public good; and when the military barons despised agricultm-e, and left the production of food to be the task of their sla\dsh serfs and thralls, it was well if any class in society taught the people how to improve and value the wealth of the country. Then- care and charity enabled them to relieve, in times of dearth, the famishing and impro- vident. But the public opinion of them soon followed the well-knoA\Ta saying of Richard I., in which he cha- racterised three of the leading orders. A religious man in France, of high reputation for sanctity, was prompted to administer to this bold monarch a reproof: "You have thi-ee daughters at home," said he, "whom you love more than the grace of God: — they are Madam Pride, Luxury, and Avarice." The king, siu-prised at the suddenness of the strange address, made a little pause: " My friend," said he, "they are no longer at home: — I have married my daughter Pride to the Templars, Luxuiy to the Black ;^Ionks, and Avarice to the Cistertians." The pride and insolence of those militaiy monks, the Templars, was brought to an end long before the time of Wycliffe. The most monstrous charges were advanced against them, of which it is impossible to believe that the whole body were at all THE BENEDICTINES AKD CLUNIACS, 00 giiilty, of impiety and uncleaimess. There is more reason to believe that they were mined from political causes. Tlie King of France, Philip the Fair, had the Pope at his command, and he was afi'aid of the Avealth and power of the Templars; or, as a sincere English writer of the time reports ^ the grand master of the Templars had lent him a large sum of money, which he took this means of cancelling. If the character of this king was like that of his daughter, the queen of Edward II., this is not improbable. But the old Temple at Paris was of such extent, and maintained so many inmates, that any King of France might well fear that these martial churchmen might prove as dangerous to him as the praetorian guards were to the Roman empe- rors, or the janissaries to the Great Turk'^. It can hardly be doubted, though great cruelty and injustice was shown in the means used, that a sound policy would have advised their dispersion. By the Black Monks, King Richard probably meant both the old Benedictines and the Cluniacs. These last were early noted for thriftless waste and selfish luxmy, " Give them," says Gyraldus, " a place to dwell in, fm-nished with handsome buildings, and en- dowed Avith large revenues and broad lands ; yet within a short time you will find it impoverished and ruined." They did not even keep the first rule of common pro- perty, by living on one common pm'se ; but each took what he could get assigned to himself, and left the public fund destitute. The houses founded for poor monks were turned into rich bachelors' haUs, where the good fellows hawked and hunted, and made a merry life of it. And charity waxed cold ; they would sooner 1 Sir Thomas de la More. 2 When Henry III. went on a visit to St. Louis in a.d. 1254, he was attended by a guard of honour of about 1000 mounted knights and squires. They were all easily lodged and entertained in the Temple, which had buildings large enough to take in an army. — Matt. Paris. 86 THE ENGLISH REFOEMATION. mortgage their estates, and let the poor die at their gates, says Gyraldus, than have one dish diminished from their tables. In fact, there is scarcely one instance of a member of this order who served either the Church of England by his piety and learning, or the state by his counsels. Of the old Benedictines a more respectable character must be given. Their houses had been the nui'series of the Chui'ch; and it was not a change for the better, when first the bishops began to be taken from among the secular clergy or the later monastic orders. Here whatever learning there was in England and in West- em Em-ope, had been preserved. And here still were to be found those who kept faithful cln-onicles of their time, and registered the annals of our native land. The monks of Westminster, St. Alban's, Croyland, Malms- bm-y, and Glastonbmy ; and of the cathedral chm-ches, Canterbmy, Winchester, Worcester, and Durham, and many other Benedictine houses, — are men to whom we owe the most instructive records of the past. It is only want of information that has led some to speak with contempt of monkish historians, as if they were not the best qualified of aU men to give a tme picture of the events and manners of their time. " They who indulge in such ridicule," says an able modern critic ^ "must forget that these monkish wi'iters were often men of princely descent; that they were entrusted with the most important ofiices of state, and therefore could best explain them; that in general they were the most accomplished and intelligent men whom the world could then produce ; and that, in one word, if we were to have any histories at all of those ages, it was absolutely necessary they should be written by the monks. Per- haps," he adds, " the veiy best of situations for a writer of liistory is one not widely difiering from that of a monk; one in which he enjoys good oj^portunities of gaining experimental knowledge of men and their ScHLEGEL, Lectures on the Hist, of Literature, MONKISH HISTOEIAKS. 87 aiiairs, but is at the same time independent of the world, and has full liberty to mature in retirement his reflections upon that which he has seen." In England especially it was the common practice for Norman kings to keep their Christmas at some of the great abbeys ; and the house of parliament, in the fom-teenth and fifteenth century, was most commonly the monks' refectory at Westminster. While, however, we praise the learned diligence and candour of William of Malmsbmy, the patience, good humour, and love of his country, which are the praise- worthy qualities of Matthew Paris,— and something of the same praise is due to many more, — there are also certain signs, by which we can judge of the defective morals, the dissipation, the quarrels and bickerings, and the worldliness, which were often found witliin these monasteries. The history of the monastery of Glaston- bmy for a long period is nothing but the record of a long- sustained quarrel with the Bishops of Bath and Wells, whose property in certain manors the monks had seized upon. The same disputes arose at Canterbury, at Lich- field and Coventry, and at Durham, and wherever there was a Benedictine priory at the Cathedral Church. As we come down nearer to Wycliffe's time, we find things growing worse. The benefits which had accrued to society were passing fast away ; and irreligion and hard- heartedness succeeded. We may suppose the historian Walsingham, who was nearly contemporary with Wy- cliffe, to express the monastic feelings of his time. He was a man, whose mind seems to dwell with satisfaction on acts of persecution, cruel executions, and bloody laws, whose praise is given to the proud and merciless, who condemns all lenity as cowardice or comiivance at crime ^ ^ It is strange that Collier should have taken the representations of this ill-tempered man, who cannot speak of Wycliffe without calling him '* an angel of darkness," — or by his miserable pun upon his name, *' Wicked -belief," — as a fair statement of his doc- 88 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. There is one remarkable fact in the later history of these monasteries, which alone speaks much to prove the selfish luxury into which they had fallen. On no estates did slavery linger so long in England, as on those of the Benedictine Abbots and their convents. In the rebellion of Wat Tyler, the sudden extension of which thi'ough a great part of England was a sad proof of the misery of the poorer classes through the oppression of the great, the slaves on the lands of St. Alban's and other abbeys flocked to join the revolt, and to demand their freedom. The abbot temporised for his omti safety, being advised by the com-t of the danger of the time. The mob were supplied with beer and provisions at the gate ; and the monks prepared charters of free- dom for the contentment of all who asked for them. It might be right that these deeds, which were so extorted, should afterwards be all cancelled: but if there had been any wisdom or mercy to advise with in the monas- tery, this hint would not have been lost, and they would have begun at once to tm-n these poor dependents into free labom-ers. On the contrary, these poor dependents found the monks their hardest masters ; and at the dis- solution of Glastonbury alone, there were on the estate of that monastery nearly three hundred bondmen, whose bodies and goods were transferred from the abbot to the king ^ When we recollect how much pains the early Saxon bishops and ecclesiastics had taken to promote the libe- ration of slaves, and the pious labom-s of the Benedictine bishop Wulstan at the period of the Conquest to the same pm^pose, it must appear that tliis was a strong l)roof of the decay of Clii-istian charity and mercy ; the more so, as at this period slavery was fast disappearing trines. Collier's account is almost all taken from Walsingham, or Walden, the Carmelite, who said of WycHfFe at Oldcastle's trial, that he was " the mid-day devil." This learned historian seems to have had a prejudice against WyclifFe. ' The number was 271 : Hearne's Langtoft, p. 381. DISSOLUTENESS AND PHIDE. 89 in other quarters, and free labour, with industry and self-improvement, was advancing. They were not serfs or tliralis, but the free-born yeomanry of England, whose strong arms and skill in archery gained the vic- tories of Creci and Poictiers. That much dissoluteness had spread into the great monasteries, as well as into those of the lesser sort and of less creditable orders, is evident fr-om such privileges as that of Walter Raynald before mentioned as pur- chased at Rome, to restore two hundred religious persons who had broken their convent- vows. The bishops who followed the Roman model most, often procui-ed privi- leges of tliis kind, as Cardinal Beaufort, Archbishop Arundel, and others. The prelates who were of better character, as William of Wykeham, Wainileet, and Grostete, are recorded in many instances to have struggled in vain to reform the morals, the wasteful expenditm-e, and vagabond habits of the religious of both sexes. But before Wycliffe's time the evil had advanced to this point, that the barons and great persons were offended by the rival pomp and state of my lord abbot, and the poor found no sympathy from the monks in their afflictions. If the Cistertian houses and Austin priories were in some degree free from the idleness and luxury of the rest, not living on rents, but by their own labour, yet they had fallen into great ignorance and neglect of humanising habits. The Cistertians and Carthusians had in their houses an equal or greater number of lay brothers with the professed monks ; and these, being of an inferior class, were treated with less ceremony, expected to work harder, and sit in a lower seat. This led to divisions and difficulties. And these monasteries, which in their first age were crowded with inmates, became at last almost empty of both monks and lay brothers. Waverley Abbey, in Surrey, contained, in a.d. 1187, one hundred and twenty lay brothers and seventy professed monks. When it was dissolved by Henry VIII., there were only thirteen 90 THE ENGLISH REFOEMATION. religious persons reraaining in it. It could, never have been right or wise to keep up these splendid founda- tions, when they were becoming destitute of inhabit- ants. But when the rage for the foundation of monasteries, which was carried to so great an extent for two cen- turies after the Conquest, began to subside, the same opinions which, though they did not originate, had greatly tended to multiply such institutions, gave rise to a minor sort of foundation, of which some account may be given. It was the primitive belief, abimdantly confii-med by Holy Scriptm-es, that the souls of the departed are reserved by God in some middle state of consciousness until the final judgment. And in this faith they came in very early times to commend the souls of their departed friends together with themselves to God's gracious care. It was an innocent practice in itself, from which no one could have foreseen the steps by which succeeding ages would proceed to the belief of their being purified by penal fires, from which the prayers of the faitliful could release them. But in pro- portion as this belief obtained, people became anxious to provide for themselves and their departed fr'iends, those who should pray for their souls in pm-gatoiy, and ofier what they considered the propitiator}^ sacrifice of the mass on their behalf. To give one instance. The beautiful Abbey of Bolton, in Yorkshii-e, is said to have been founded by a lady of the house of Chfibrd for the soul of her only son, disowned in stepping across a narrow part of the river Wharf. And one might envy the faith which would admit such precious tributes to human sorrow, if we did not know that it is human aU and earthly, whereas the Gospel is heavenly. There now the matin beU is rung, The miserere duly sung, And holy men in cowl and hood Are wandering up and down the wood. It had been usual in earliest times to celebrate the Holy Communion at funerals, and our Reformers, with ORIGIN OF CHANTHIES. 01 tlieii' usual regard for antiquity, endeavoured to restore tlie practice. Cranmer administered this holy sacra- ment himself at King Edward's funeral, and in the time of Elizabeth a special service for the purpose was authorised by Act of Parliament ^ But the way in which this practice had degenerated into masses for the dead is thus told by Latimer, in one of his sermons, " The blessed Commmiion, the celebration of the Lord's supper, alack, it hath been long abused, as the sacrifices were before under the old law. Even so it came to pass with our blessed Commimion. In the primitive Oiurch, in places, when their friends were dead, they used to come together to the Holy Communion. What? to remedy them that were dead ? No, not a straw, it was not instituted for no such purpose. But then they would call to remembrance God's goodness and his passion that he suffered for us, wherein they comforted much their faith. Other came afterward and set up all these kind of massing." Thus it had by degrees come to pass that private masses, or if it were not a contra- diction, the private celebration of the Holy Communion, was deemed to be available for the souls of the departed, and people were anxious to obtain it for themselves and others. The fomiders of monasteries were accus- tomed to provide that prayers and masses should be offered for themselves and their families or friends. And this was the common object specified in the foun- dation of chantries ; not indeed the sole object — for no doubt there were services intended by them for the living as well as for the dead. It is to this custom that we owe those beautiful diapeh'ies which still remain in the walls of many of our cathedrals and other churches, usually over the k ^ A.D. 1560, 2 Eliz. : see in Bp. Sparrow's Collection, p. 201, '* An Act for Commemoration of Founders and Benefactors, &c.," and a '* Form of Administering the Holy Communion at Funerals.' 92 THE EXGLISH KEFOEMATION. tomb of the person on whose behalf they were foimded. Here, a priest was retained to say daily masses on the spot, and it was believed that the intention in the mind of the priest could appropriate the benefit of the mass to the soul for whose behoof it was intended. Some- times a chantry was a separate building with no church attached to it, in which on certain days these ser\ices were to be performed. In other instances it was con- nected with hospitals or similar foundations, and it would seem that in general the officiating priest was intended to perform other offices besides that of masses for the dead. Thus a deed of Simon Langham, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, a.d. 1368, recites the foun- dation of the chantry at Eastbridge Hosj)ital by Simon Islip, his predecessor, in which the purpose of the foun- dation is stated to be " the honour of God and of divine worship, and for the health of the souls of certain benefactors, of the hospital itself, and all the faithful departed'." Tlie celebration of masses in this case was far from being the only duty of the priest ; on the contrary, his duties seem to have been the same as if he had been appointed chaplain to the hospital ; for the deed describes them to be the administration of the sacraments and sacramentals (confession and absolution) to the poor and strangers who came there, and to the sick in the hospital. For this pm-pose he was to have a residence in the hospital, a chamber over the gate ; and w^as constantly to reside, never being absent a day without leave of the warden, and then to provide another priest to take his duty. A similar deed of Archbishop A\^iittlesey, a.d. 1371, appointing a chantry priest to the Hospital of St. Nicholas, Her- baldowne, declares that his pm-pose is to supply a proper priest to perform divine service in the Church of St. Nicholas for the poor of the hospital, to hear their confessions, and duly administer the holy sacra- ' Somner's Appendix to Hist. Canterbury, p. 16. OEIGIN OF CHANTRIES. 93 ments to them day and night. In other cases the office seems to have been little else than that of private chaplain in a nobleman's or gentleman's family. Thus a charter of the convent of St. Augustine's at Canter- buiy, about a.d. 1260, gives permission to a gentleman to have a chantry in his chapel at Lukehall, in the parish of Littlebourne, to be served by his private chaplain. But in other cases these foundations appear to have been introduced into places where the benefit of the living could hardly have been contemplated. Thus Richard de Ravenser, archdeacon of Lincoln, obtained a license in a.d. 1373 to alienate manors for the support of two chaplains daily to perform service in the chm-ch of Driby, for the health of the living and the souls of the faithful dead ^ And not long after Robert de Bernack founded another chantry in the same church; so that in a parish, of which the jDopulation at the present day does not amount to one hundred persons, and which could not be greater then, three priests were provided for the service of the church, besides the parish rector. In like manner, in a.d. 1264, a chantry was founded for two chaplains, one to officiate in a free chapel in a certain dwelling-house in the parish of St. Paul, at Canterbiuy, and another at the altar of St. John Baptist in St. Paul's Church^, and the number of these priests and their offices in cathedral churches marks the object of their institution. There were in St. Paul's, in London, thirty-five endowed chantries, and fifty-four priests employed to serve them^. The duties of these secluded ministers could scarcely have been any other than those described by one of our poets who had witnessed their suppression : — ^ 07ng. Grostsi Fines, p. 339, as referred to in Oldfield's History of Wainfleet. ^ SoMNER, ubi svjjra. ' DuGDALE, Hist, of St. PauVs, p. xli, Pref. 94 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. They whilome duly used everie day Their service, and their holy things to say ; At morn and eve to sing their amthems sweet, Their pennie masses and their complines meet. These chantries, howeyer, and colleges of singing priests continued to multiply in England; and no doubt, as WyclifFe complains, to the decay of preaching and prajdng. In the first year of Edward VI., at which time these foimdations were all suppressed and their endowments confiscated, the whole nimiber returned was 2374. When so much of the Church's alms, as it w^as called, was thus bestowed in idle superstition, it is no wonder if the poor became dissatisfied. It was a thing which common feeling and plain good sense pointed out as injm-ious to them, that charity should be so lavished, and men paid for saying or singing solitary services over the dead, whose office it was to pray with the lining. Long before the Reformation these poor Sir Johns, as the chantry-priests were called, were held in great aversion by the common people ; and they were commonly the most ignorant and least respectable of their tribe. As the rich and powerfiil had been estranged by the abuse of excommunication and the other obnoxious measures of the canon-law, so the poor were ofiended when the old monastic charities declined, when their instruction failed them more and more, and the mendicant friars came to beg a portion of the small pittance which was left to support their daily toil. Boniface VIII. complained, in one of his most extra- vagant bulls, of "the ancient enmity" between the laity and the clergy. The same complaint often occurs in the English chi'onicles at this period; and the writers seem to speak of it as an incm-able disease, under which the minds of the laity laboured. But where was this " ancient enmity" before the popes liad set up their divided empire ? Where was it in England, when King Oswald interpreted the discom-ses of Aidan ENMITY OF CLEEGY AND LAITY. 95 to his coimtrjTneii ; or when the poor people crowded round a bishop as poor as themselves, and knelt to receive his blessing^? Where was it, when Alfred made his bishops the companions of his studies, the executors of his will, and distributors of his alms? The true state of the case is best described by an excellent candid writer of the French Chm'ch. " It is true," says the Abbe Fleury, " that Jesus Christ said, He came not to send peace on earth, hut a sword. But that was between His disciples and un- believers, not among His disciples themselves. And in tliis war all the violence is to be on the part of the unbelievers ; Christians are only to suffer Avithout resist- ing. Such ought to be the conduct of churchmen ; it is their part to make all advances to re-establish that unity which Christ has so recommended and given for a mark of His true disciples. It is the part of bishops to gain the respect and affection of the people by the holiness of their lives, their zeal for the salvation of their flock, their care in instructing them and procuring them aU kinds of good, spu'itual and temporal; by their gentleness, their patience, and all other Chi-istian graces. " But now they took a way altogether the opposite to this. There was nothing but sternness, liigh disdain, bitter complaints, piercing reproaches, threats, judicial processes, excommimications, and other censures ; aU means, not to extinguish the flame, but to make it bum the more. Thus the laity, provoked more and more, came often to open action and deeds of violence. They stopped on the road the persons who carried bishops' letters or mandates, took them from them, tore and destroyed them. They seized on the persons of clergy- men, beat them, imprisoned them, made them ransom their lives, and sometimes even put them to death ; — and for all this no remedy, but those censm-es which See Churton's Early English Church, c. iv. 96 THE ENGLISH HEFOIIMATIOIS'. had already so often been despised. Such were the fatal effects of the dmsion caused by the excessive extension of ecclesiastical power." Happy had it been for them, if even at this point they had learnt to turn and seek that better way, by which alone a spiritual empire can be won, by which the primitive Christians had overcome their pagan torturers, and converted a world which lay in darker Content to hold Love's banner fast, And by submission win at last. CHAPTER VII. THE MENDICANT ORDERS. THEIR RISE AND HISTORY. He that hath seen a great oke drie and dead, Yet clad with relics of some trophies olde, Lifting to heaven her aged horie head, Whose foote in ground hath left but feeble holde ; But though she owe her fall to the first winde, She of the devout people is ador'd, And manie young plants spring from out her rinde ; — Who such an oke hath scene, let him record, That thus Rome's demon doth himself enforce Againe on foote to reare her mouldred corse. Spenser: Ruins of Rome. JT is a great error in looking back to past ages of the world or of the Chui-ch, to suppose that the human mind was less active then than it is now in striking out new notions, and attempting reforms and changes in goyernment and society. On the contrary, where knowledge and education are less general, these revolutions are more frequent ; more is done by force, and less by argument ; fanatic ignorance acquires more followers ; and mistaken systems are more rapidly esta- blished. There cannot be a more remarkable proof of this than in the rise, progress, and extension of the orders of religious mendicants, or begging friars. Their character and institutions w^ere so different from the rules of the monks, or other regular clergy, that it is necessary to review them separately. And their influ- ence on the Church was so great at certain intervals during the three centuries preceding the Reformation, that it is impossible to understand this great contro- versy without a clear view of their doctrines, discipline, and habits of living. At a time when the English nation had begun to H 98 THE ENGLISH REFOEMATION. groAV a little jealous of the great increase and wealth of the monasteries, the popular mind was attracted by the arrival of some small bodies of religious persons, who professed to live supported only by their own labour, or the alms which they received from day to day, as they went from house to house to preach the Gospel. The Dominicans, or preacliing friars, were the first who came, and they shortly afterwards procured a house at Oxford by the bounty of Isabel De Vere, Countess of Oxford, A.D. 1221. They were followed in a.d. 1224 by the Franciscans and Trinitarian friars, and about twenty years later by the Carmelites, Austin friars. Crouched, Pied, and Bethlemite friars, and other forgotten candi- dates for public favour, most of whom did little more than appear and disappear. As they were distinguished from each other by little else than their dress, it will be sufficient to trace the early history of one of their orders, and that the first in point of time, as well as the most numerous and popidar, and which carried out the princi])le of religious mendicancy to the greatest excess — the Franciscans or Minorites. Of the Dominicans it may be allowed that they generally practised poverty more simply; they were diligent in preaching and teacliiug at Oxford, and other places, and maintained themselves by the wages of learning as tutors in families and domestic chaplains, or as professors and lecturers in schools. It is scarcely possible to read the history of St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order, without believing that there was in him a sincere and self- devoted, however ill-directed piety. The injunctions to his brethren to observe perpetual poverty, without con- demning those who are rich ; to be clad in coarse gar- ments, without judging those who go in gay apparel ; and to be cautious in receiving confessions, lest they should become too familiar with sin, are excellent. He was himself influenced by a missionary zeal, and is said to have preached the Gospel to the Sultan of Eg^^Dt in the face of hostile armies ; and some of his earliest followers ST. FRANCIS. 99 imitating his example and going to preach to the Turks and Saracens, lost their lives among those infidels i, while some of the crusaders, struck by their example, themselves embraced the order. The peculiar regula- tions which he was the first to introduce, were that those who entered the order should sell all they had and give to the poor ; that they should possess no money ; that they should labom^ for their food and clothing, and receive payment for labour in clothes or food instead of money ; if labom* failed them they might beg the neces- saries of life, a permission which his followers seemed too generally to consider as a precept enjoining them to beg, and excusing them from labour. Those who were ignorant of letters were not to care to learn them, a permission which many interpreted as making a merit of illiterate ignorance, and it seems consistent with this that he encouraged illiterate lay-brothers into his order. He called his followers ^r/ars minors^ as being less than the least of religious sects or fraternities ; and their officers not masters or prelates, as in other orders, but ministers^ that they might remember they were to be the servants of all. On the other hand, it is equally clear that this self- devotion was imder the influence either of a very Aveak or very enthusiastic temperament; though it is probable that the wildest stories that are told of him were the invention of his followers, not of himself : and the mind of the age seems to have been prepared for a sort of epidemic enthusiasm. He was represented as having been honom^ed in many respects with a resemblance to our Lord. It was said that his mother could not be delivered till she was removed into a stable, where he was born, and that he had a precursor, who went about Assisi and the neighboui'hood proclaiming peace and health to all, and vanished when he began to preach. 1 A.D. 1220. 261 years afterwards, a.d. 1481, Sixtus IV. recog- nised their martyrdom and allowed the Franciscans to celebrate their office. Their reliques v.-ere said to be at Coimbra. h2 100 THE ENGLISH EEFOKMATION. But the most marvellous story was that of the stigmata, or five wounds of Christ, which it was said had been impressed upon his person by way of special honour. The history of this superstition of the stigmata is a singular instance of the growth of a popular delusion. The earliest allusion of the kind is the story which was read at the second Nicene council, from a spurious work of Athanasius i, which relates that some Jews having in mockery pierced the hands and side of an image of Jesus, blood flowed from the wounds, and many Jews were converted by the miracle. But about the time of St. Francis, to show that there was prevalent a tendency to this enthusiasm, we find that two persons were condemned at a provincial council held at Oxford by Cardinal Langton in a.d. 1222, one of whom pre- tended to bear the marks of the five woimds, and to be sent on a special mission, and the other professed him- self his follower ; at which time, so far from gaining any credit for their imposture, it is related that both were punished, and one account, which we may hope is not correct, asserts that they were crucified 2. These marks are said to have first appeared upon St. Francis in a.d. 1 224, and he died two years after. There .seems no reason to doubt that his body was exhibited in this state after his death, but the evidence of their existence before his death is of the slightest possible kind. It was pretended that he concealed them from modesty, and only one or two of his followers professed to have seen them by stealth before he died. The story was strongly objected to at the time, until Gregory IX. undertook to confirm it, and excommunicated all who should question it. On the whole, it seems more than probable that St. Francis, having an enthusiastic desire to be conformed unto Christ, and placing his notions of 1 The learned Benedictine editors discredit the story, and say that it is obviously not the writing of Athanasius. It is called " The Passion of the Image of Jesus Christ." ^ Labbe, torn. X. p. 287. Matt. Westm., in Flor. Hist. ST. FRANCIS. 101 such conformity in abstract contemplations, might cli-eani or fancy that a seraphim appeared to him on a cross, whose wounds were conveyed to himself. If he men- tioned it to his followers, by whom he was idolized, and who were enthusiasts like himself, and looking out for miracles, prepared also as we have seen to think of such a thing by the reports abeady spread in one or two other cases, they would report that marks were visible, and one or two afterwards might fmcy they had seen them, as Pope Alexander IV., a.d. 1254, affirmed that he had done. It would not be difficult under such cir- cumstances for a few of his immediate attendants to persuade themselves when he died, that the credit of their order, and as they might think, the interests of religion itself, required a pious fraud to make the marks visible which they firmly believed he had received K It was soon said to have been confirmed by miracles, and Mount Avernia, in Tuscany, where it was alleged to have taken place, was declared by a bull of Alexander IV. in A.D. 1255, to betaken under the especial protec- tion of the Holy See. A festival was appointed by the Franciscans in honour of this event in a.d. 1337, which was extended by Paul V. to the whole Church in 1615, and Sixtus IV. in 1475 forbade the represention of any saint with these marks except St. Francis"^. The rapidity with which the new orders spread was wonderful. It was in 1208 that St. Francis first began to preach, not being yet a priest, nor in any sort of orders. In the next year his society w\as sanctioned, not without some difficulty, by Innocent III., for it had but just been decreed by the Lateran council that no new orders should be pennitted; but a cardinal who stood by, said to him, " Take care what you do, lest, in rejecting this poor man, you reject the Gospel itself." Innocent was struck by the words, and gave his assent. 1 Storia particolare delle Stigmata. Assisi, 1804, 4to. 2 See further about St. Catharine of !;iena and the questions beween rival communities, App. B. 102 THE ENGLISH EEFOKMATION. St. Dominic was then a canon of the cathedi-al chm^h of Osma, in Spain, and had engaged a few associates on ti mission to preach to the Albigenses of Langiiedoc, when he heard of this new vow of poverty. He imme- diately advised his companions to bind themselves by a similar vow and rule ; and thus his order arose, who, from this first mission of theirs, in which their preaching was backed by the powers of the newly-foimded Inqui- sition, were called preaching friars. The Carmelites appeared a few years later, when the popularity of such fraternities was on the increase ; they professed to be newly arrived in Italy, driven out by the Saracens from the Holy Land, where they had remained on ]\Iount Carmel from the time of Elisha the prophet. They assert that "the sons of the prophets " had continued on INIount Carmel as a poor brotherhood till the time of Christ, soon after which they were miracidously con- verted, and that the Virgin ]Mary joined their order and gave them a precious vestment called a scapidar. But to return to St. Francis. At the time his order was sanctioned they numbered eleven brothers, of whom one only was a priest. Tlu'ce years later, a sisterhood of the same order was founded by a noble lady of Assisi, named Clara, who absconded from her parents for that purpose, as Francis had also done; and a.d. 1219, ten years only after the first formation of the order, 5000 friars were jDresent at a general chapter at Assisi; nobles and people thronged to bring them provisions, and 500 novices were admitted. On this occasion they divided the world among them for preaching ; Syria and I'lgypt the founder reserved to himself, sending 200 into Spain to preach to the ]Moors ; and the next year five were put to death in Morocco in a similar attempt, as has been already related. At the same chapter Friar Angelo, otherwise called Agnelli, of Pisa, was made provincial minister of England, where some account of their proceedings must now be given. We have a very minute and particular description of their first mission to this country, from Friar Thomas FRANCISCAN FRIARS. 103 of Eccleston, one of their earliest converts, who wrote about thirty- two years after their arrival. The party, which was sent over by the charity of the monks of Fescamp, in Normandy, landed at Dover, Sept. 11, a.d. 1224. It consisted of nine persons, four in the orders of the Church, and five lay brothers. There is some- thing to admire in the power which these rules of life had in uniting persons of different nations and tongues in the bonds of Christian brotherhood. The leader of the mission was the above-named Agnelli, and the clergymen who accompanied him were tlu'ee English- men; one advanced in life, who had long resided in Italy, and distinguished himself as a preacher; the other two youths, eminent for zeal, obedience and patience. The laymen were four Italians and one Frenchman, Lam'ence of Beauvais, to whom St. Francis, in token of his great affection for him, afterwards gave his own tmiic or close vest which he wore. These were shortly afterwards joined by Friar Pedi'o, a Spa- niard, who, following the example of St. Dominic, as he is commonly reported, w^ore, as a mortification of the flesh, a steel cuirass, for an under- waistcoat, and exhibited, as Eccleston says, many other examples of perfection. He became warden of a friary which was fomided at Northamj^ton ; while Friar Thomas, another Spaniard, was fixed as warden at Cambridge. It is clear, from the account that Eccleston gives, that these missionaries, in the first days of their sojourn, underwent many privations, and rigidly kept their rule of poverty. Having proceeded from Dover to Canter- bury, they divided their company, and fovu*, headed by the old English priest, Richard Ingieby, proceeded to London. AgneUi, with the other fom-, obtained the charitable use of a small chamber or cellar, beneath the house of a certain scholar, who seems to have come to study at one of the great monasteries in the former city. Here they sat from day to day, as if their rule had shut them into that narrow place, till, when the scholar came home in the evening, they were allowed 104 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. to enter the house and sit with liim. They then made their fire, and prepared their repast. It consisted of oaten short-cake, sometimes accompanied with onions and thick black beer, warmed at the fire, so thick that it often required a little mixture of water to make it potable. The same hard fare was generally adopted wherever they planted themselves afterwards. The charity of the inhabitants in many of the large towTis began to flow in upon them immediately; but they showed great forbearance, sometimes sending back the parcels of cloth which were brought to them, and only taking in the pittances of food on thi'ee days dm-ing the week. When Ingleby and his companions reached London they were entertained by the black friars or Domini- cans, who had already erected some buildings, for their first convent, in the neighbourhood of Lincoln's Iim ; till John Travers, one of the sherifis, gave them a house in CornhiU. Hence they removed to the place knoAvn henceforth as the Grey Friars, M^here Chi-ist's Hospital now stands, taking possession of a piece of ground which John U^^'in, citizen and mercer, bought for them ; which, as the friars then would not hold any property as their own, he made over to the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the city, for their use. This wealthy mercer afterwards himself entered the order as a lay brother. Other rich citizens poured in their bounty ; one building them a chapel at his own expense, another an infirmary, another enlarging theii' plot of ground, another giving them a conduit. But their patrons were not confined to one order in society. At Canterbury a noble comitess, Lady Baginton, " nou- rished them as a mother might her childi-en," and used her influence, which was very efiectual, as such influence is still, in obtaining favour for them with peers and prelates. Nor were the clergy indifferent to them. Simon Langton, archdeacon of Canterbury, and brother of the archbishop, was a special friend to them on their arrival; two or three priests were among the first to FRANCISCAN FEIAES. 105 take the friar's frock at London ; and they had still further success at Oxford, when Ingleby, with one of his original companions, proceeded to try his fortunes there. A rich mercer and the University miller were here his first patrons ; the miller conveyed a site to the corporation, as had been done in London, and was now generally adopted in other places, for a Franciscan convent. But the great accession to their cause came from a more important quarter. A number of bachelors and students of the University, who were many of them young men of good families, came to enlist themselves as novices, and the king, Henry III., greatly patronised them, and had a lodging built for himself near their convent, being moved thereto by the miraculous death in their beds of three monks of Abingdon in the same night that they had refused them admission on their first appearance. At Cambridge their success was not so rapid. The townspeople gave them a deserted Jewish synagogue close to the town-jail ; where the jailers and prisoners and the poor friars had to go in and out by the same entrance, till they procured the king's leave to make another. Here they built a chapel of lath and plaster, so small and poor that it was little more than one day's work for a carpenter to erect the wooden framework. But in spite of these difficulties they persevered : no sooner had they fomid footing in one place, than they began to think of sending a colony to another ; and before a few years had passed they had houses and convents in Norwich, Lincoln, York, Shrewsbmy, Worcester, 8alisbmy, Southampton, and almost every other ancient city or populous town. Within thii'ty-two years after their landing at Dover, there were in England ninety-nine convents or stations of these friars, and the nvmiber of enrolled members was 1242. Probably, with the other orders then spread about the country, there were not fewer than between foui' and five thousand. The number of em'oUed members, however, does not 106 THE E:^rGLISH EE FORMAT I ON. afford a test of the full extent of their success. We must also take into the account the congregations who came to hear their preaching, the persons of all ranks who came to confess to them, and their habit of cele- brating di^dne service in the open air, when they went on missionary excursions to places where they had ho fixed abode. We must think what must have been the strength of popular favom* which could support such an army of mendicants in different quarters ; for all these friars lived mainly ujDon the alms of the benevolent. The Dominicans, indeed, had some property in houses in London, and a few small endo^^anents elsewhere ; and this might be the case in a very few instances with the other orders ; but the Franciscans, when Hemy VIII. broke up their establishments, do not appear any- where to have had rents amounting in the whole to fifty pounds a year. It was the self-renunciation and reso- lute poverty of these devotees which gained them their support. The contrast it afforded to the worldly wealth of the monks and dignified clergy, was regarded as a new demonstration of the power of the Gospel ; and according to the mode of argument used in those days, it was asked, if it be so praiseworthy for a man to do good works with his worldly store, how much rather to give up his worldly store with himself— to offer not the fruit only, but the stem and tree ? It was, of com-se, however, necessary to regulate the system of begging alms ; for if there had been no restraint, and every friar had been at liberty to wander to what houses he pleased, the alms would either soon have been exhausted by the contributors lacking means, or have been very irregularly supplied. This was effected by assigning districts to each convent, within which its members were to take their rounds, and gene- rally each individual friar had his own Hmits prescribed : whence the name that was commonly given to them of limitors. When the system was established, the alms of bread, bacon, and cheese, logs of M^ood for their fire, and other ordinary gifts, were ready for the fi-iar when CHAUCEE. 107 he called : and lie who refused to give was liable to sus- picion, as if he were no good Clmstian. It was in the nature of things that such a system should degenerate, and deep and loud had become the complaints of all classes against these lusty beggars long before the time of Wycliffe. It Avas commonly said that " no one could sit doA\m to meat, high or low, but he must ask a friar or two, who when they came would play the host to them- selves, and carry away bread and meat besides." Fitz- ralph, in his Apology at Avignon, accused them of ''philosophising" in the chambers of the most beautiful maidens : and Eccleston says, that even so early as his time. Friar Walter of Reigate confessed that these familiarities were one of the ways by which the foul fiend vexed the order. It appears from Chaucer, the contemporary of WycKffe, and who was allied by marriage to his great patron, John of Gaunt, that it had become a practice of these limitors to farm their limits, that is, to contract with their convent to pay them a certain sum from the district assigned them, and pocket the remainder. Indeed, Chaucer's inimitable description of his friar should be studied by all who would see the manners of the age depicted to the life. A frere there was, a wanton and a mery, A limitour, a right solemnne man, In all the orders four is none that can So much of daliance and soft langage. Many a marriage had he made at his o\Aai cost, and well was iie beloved by franklins and their dames. He had more power than the parish priest, so he said, to hear confessions, and he made it agreeable to his penitents. Full swetely heard he confession And plesant was his absolution. Those who coidd afford to give, found him an easy confessor, for a man shows he is well shriven who gives money to a poor brotherhood, and since men's hearts are hard, and they will not weep for their sins, 108 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. let them give money to the poor pious instead of tears and prayers. It was by means of the confessional and of education that their great influence was obtained. They had separate places of worship, where they administered the sacraments and heard confessions. It seems also that they might preach when they pleased in the parish chm-ches, and would often come and order the bell to be tolled to their sermons without consulting the parish priest ; and the effect of these sermons was as great as w^as ever produced by Whitefield or Wesley in later ages. There was an English friar of remarkable elo- quence and talent, Hay mo, of Feversham, who was afterwards promoted to be minister- general of the order. Being at a church in Paris about Easter, and seeing a great crowd of people hastening to receive the Holy Communion, he felt his spirit stirred within him, and ha\dng ascended the pidpit, he warned them of the danger of communicating in mu-epented sin. The people were so affected, that for the next tliree days he had full employment in hearing their confessions. In this instance the result seems to have been good, but it was quite otherwise when this power, which they had obtained from the pope, w^as used, as it soon was, to draw away the parishioners from their own parochial clergy, and in a manner to usurp the place of the latter. Martin IV., a.d. 1281, endeavoured to com- promise matters by requiring one confession in the year to be made to the parish priest ; but while he left the friars their ordinary privilege, this would only lead at most to a formal appearance at the stated time before the less fiivoured confessor. The people liked better to confess to them, being strangers, than to their own clergy, and it thus became a common complaint that the salutary part of confession, the shame of sin, was removed, and the people separated from their appointed pastors. Ai-ch- bishop Fitzralph"s account of this part of their operations is given in terms which mark his own piety and good sense. He says, " The only offices they seek are burials CONFESSION. 109 and confessions, because these are profitable ; yet every good man but themselves shiinks from hearing confes- sions, for it is more than enough for each to find out his own sins, without learning those of others. And thus the people are placed under shepherds who never see their flock or know their sheep, and the shame of con- fession is lost." And he describes the result of this in Ireland in a way too remarkable, as compared with the present state of things in that country, to be overlooked. '■'■ I think I have every year in my diocese two thousand of my flock who are involved in the general sentence of excommunication against wilful murderers, public thieves, incendiaries, and the like, of whom scarce forty in a year come to me or my penitentiaries ; and yet all such persons receive the sacraments like the rest, and are absolved, or said to be absolved, and doubtless they cannot be so by any one else than the friars, since no one else absolves them." This change in the laws of the Church was naturally followed by a change in its doctrine relative to confes- sion. It was one of the bad symptoms during this period, that all literal interpretation of Scripture was abandoned, and strange notions of Church power, and abuses of its exercise, raised from distorted senses of the plainest texts. It was the interest of the friars to keep up the confessional ; and how did they do it ? Scripture speaks of confession to be made to God : I said, I ivill confess my sms unto the Lord ; and so thou forgavest the wickedness of 7ny sin (Psalm xxxii. 6). But the friar interprets it — '' unto the Lord ; that is, to God's vicar, or his priest ; or otherwise, to the honour of God, as Joshua's words are to Achan^ " (c. vii. 19). How difierent fi'om the old doctrine of the Saxon Church ! '■' Every day, once or twice, or oftener if we may, we must in our prayers confess our sins to God, as the prophet says. Lord, my sin have I made known to thee. ' Cardinal Joyce (a Dominican, confessor to Edward I.) on the Psalms, part ii. p. 55. 110 THE ENGLISH EEFOKMATION. and mine unrighteousness I hide not from thee. I said, I icill cofifess to thee, Lord, mine unrighteousness hj my- self; and thou. Lord, didst forgive the iniquity of my sin. The confession that we make to mass-priests of om* sins cloth ns this good, that receiving fi-om them wholesome coimsels and ghostly medicines for the stains of oui* souls, and following their directions, we may thus do away the habit of sin. But the confession that we make to God alone doth us this good, that the oftener we remember them, God the rather forgets them; as the Lord says by the prophet, Thy sins L reinemher no onore '." If the influence obtained by means of education was not so great, it was perhaps more permanent, and ought to have been less objectionable. The first care of the provincial Agnelli on his arrival at Oxford, was to erect a handsome school or lectm-e-room at the Grey Friary, and he was eminently successfid in the lecturers whom he engaged. The first of these was the famous Robert Grostete, abeady mentioned, afterwards bishop of Lin- coln, and the most distinguished man of learning of his time. He Avas succeeded by Roger Wesham, a man of the most conciliating manners, as well as a man of learning, who was also raised to the bench of bishops, holding the see of Liclifield while Grostete m\^.s at Lin- coln ; and by Thomas of Wales, so called fi-om the land of his birth, who became bishop of St. David's. None of these learned teachers took the order of St. Francis upon them, but their engagement with the Grey Friars shows in what esteem the new society was held in its infancy by some of the msest and best men of the time. And the name of Friar Bacon, who was one of the fii'st scholars of the Oxford Franciscans, must ever rescue the science and learning of the order from contempt \ > Anglo-Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes. Thorpe, vol. ii p. 42G. '■' Roger Bacon was bom at Ilchester, in Somerset, about a.d. 121 J. His researches in natural philosophy were so far beyond the FEIARS. Ill It was not long before a similar school was set np at Cambridge ; and lectm-eships were established at their convents in London, Canterbmy, and other places. But if they abused the office of confessors, their practices w^th their pupils in their schools were often not more wholesome. We may judge of the principles instilled into their scholars by a few specimens. The Italian missionaries seem to have used fables and familiar stories of the same kind as are stiU used in Italian sermons, where the friars rather act a comedy than preach. Friar Alberti had a fable to teach the juniors how to practise unquestioning obedience : " A clown gained admission into paradise. He knocked at the door, and St. Peter opened to him. ' You may come in and see ; but you must ask no ques- tions.' He began to look about him, and the first thing he saw was a plough drawn by two oxen, one fat and one lean. The diiver of the plough sufiered the fat beast to go as he would, but kept goading the lean one. ' Fie upon you,' said the clown, ' why do you so ?' St. Peter was at hand, and immediately tln-eatened to expel him ; but, on his entreaty, gave him a second trial. Going a little further, he saw a man carrying a long piece of timber, and trying to enter the doorway of a house ; but as he bore it transversely, he was con- stantly forced back. He began to direct him how to carry it straight, but was interrupted a second time by the door-keeper of paradise, who dismissed him again after a more sti*ict admonition. A third strange sight caught his attention ; it was that of a woodman in a grove, who was felling the young growing trees and sparing the old trunks, which were of age to make good spirit of his age, that he was suspected of practising magic. It is said that lie invented a telescope. It is certain that he had dis- covered the error in the calculation of time, which afterwards was rectified by some Italian philosophers at Rome, two centuries ago, and led to the difference between our old style and new style. He entered the Franciscan order at Oxford, where he resided to a good old age, and was buried in the convent church there, a.d. 1293. 112 THE EJTGLISH EEFOBMATION-. timber. The clown was imable to restrain himself, and began to chide the man who so misused his axe ; when St. Peter caught him by the arm, expelled him from the sacred place, and shut the gate behind him." The aim of this story was plainly to inculcate that im- plicit faith in the commands of a superior, which was afterwards taught with such pernicious effect by the Jesuits — to teach the pupil to do as he was bid, however unreasonable the command might appear. Such doc- trine, under pretext of enforcing reverence to authority, destroys the exercise of the moral feelings ; it checks due inquiiy on one side, and tempts to abuse of power on the other. But it is a pretext which has often prevailed with young and earnest minds, bent upon self-sacrifice. " Do you wish to go into England ?'' said the warden of the convent at Paris to a young English friar of his society. He had learnt his lesson : "I do not yet laiow," he said, "what my own wish is to be." His meaning was, that he would form no wish till he knew his su^x^rior's will. The powers of persuasion exerted by the friars were certainly very remarkable, if we may trust Fitzralph's account. He declared that their prac- tices to entice boys away from school or college to join their order were such, that parents now would rather consign their sons to the plough, than send them to Oxford, \\'here the numbers had decreased, in his memory, from 30,000 to 6000 students. These numbers arc probably stated on a loose calculation, but they are about the same proportions as are related to have quitted the University of Prague in the time of Jerome, the Bohemian reformer, and we must remember that, as none of our public schools were then founded, all the boys who would otherwise have gone to Eton, West- minster, and the hundi-ed other schools founded since the Reformation, went then at an early age to Oxford or Cambridge, and mixed with older students, who came from the monastic schools, and were intended for the monastic life, or to make the Church their profession. The mendicant orders, however, continued to increase ; FRIARS MADE POPES. 113 and when the devout ceased to join them from motives of piety, the ambitious flocked to them as the best road to promotion. This was marked by the course which things took in England. Ralph de Maidstone, bishop of Hereford, in a.d. 1240, renounced his mitre, and retired into a Franciscan convent, persuaded by a dream which he interpreted as a divine warning. He di'eamt that he was presiding in state in a synod of his clergy, when a stranger came, and sprinkling water in his face, changed him from a bishop to a beggar. The moral was, that he shoidd go and join himself to a set of men who were in their way of life most like the poorest of the poor. Walter Mauclerc, bishop of Car- lisle, and lord-treasurer, a few years later, a.d. 1246, in like manner gave himself up to the Dominicans. But in the next generation, instead of keeping to their scapulary and cord, the fiiars of both these orders were \ying with each other in aiming at the highest stations in the Church. '' If they maintain their state of poverty for the most perfect," said Wycliffe, "why forsake it for the less perfect ?" Three popes, Jolm XXI., Innocent V., and Benedict XI., were all taken from the order of Black Friars, between a.d. 1276-1303. Nicholas III., a.d. 1277, was a great patron of the Grey Brothers, for it was said that St. Francis had predicted in a vision to him when yomig, his future elevation. He it was who enabled them to hold property without violating the letter of their vow of poverty, by giving them the usufruct of property vested for them in the Holy See. This order also had its popes, of whom the first, Nicholas IV., presided four years, to their great advantage, from a.d. 1288-1292. Cardinals and bishops there were many. And what gave them further splendour in England was, that it began to be con- sidered, as King Charles II. said of the system which nourished it, that it was a comfortable religion to die in. Princes and nobles often, as the closing scene of a life of luxury, put on the poor mendicant's dress, and gave their hearts or their whole corpses to be bmied at their 114 THE ENGLISH KEFORMATION. conveut-cliapels. " What good can the dress do?" says Erasmus, in one of his colloquies, " to a dead or dying man ?" " Nay," replies the other speaker, " it is well if they renoimce their pride and ambition at their death- beds ; for how many are there who, even in their life-time, please their imagination with the thought of the splen- did fimeral and procession that is to follow them to the grave ?" " It would be M^ell," the other rejoins, " if there were no other way of escaping from such pomp and pride. But why not order themselves to be rolled up in a cheap winding-sheet, and carried out by poor pall-bearers, to be buried in the churchyard with the poor ? For this mode of bm-ial seems rather to change the kind of pomp, than to avoid it altogether." These were the sentiments of a more enlightened age. At the time of which we write, Eleanor, queen of Edward I., gave her heart, and that of her son Alphonso, who died before her, to be buried with the Black Friars. Johanna, widow of the Black Prince, made the same present to the Minorites at Stamford; and her son, Richard II., was buried at another Dominican house, founded by liis predecessors, at King's Langley, Hert;s. Another marvellous way, by which the rich were brought in to share all the graces of poverty, without practising its privations, was by conventual letters, or charters of fraternisation; by which the person pre- sented with them was entitled to all the benefit of the prayers, masses, and meritorious deeds of the order. A better expedient could not be devised to take in rich l)atrons, and secm-e their alms, than this ; by which, as Wycliffe said of it, " they made property of ghostly goods, where no property may be, and professed to have no property in Avorldly goods, where alone property is kwful." It was probably under the persuasion of this benefit, that Edward II. gave up to the Carmelites one of his own royal residences, Beaumont palace, near Oxford, built by Henry I. for a veiy different purpose. It ^yas a singidar change when the friars began to dwell in palaces and stately houses. When thev first BLASPHEMIES. 115 came into England, their superiors rigidly enforced the law that they should dwell within mud walls, so that w^hen some benefactors had built their cloisters and dormitories of stone, they even went so far as to level them with the gromid, and rear them again of such materials as the poorest labourers used for their cabins. It was not exactly in this spirit that Richard Leather- head, a grey fi'iar from London, having been made bishop of Ossory, in a.d. 1318, pulled down tln-ee churches to get materials for his palace. But the conventual buildings, especially of the Black Friars, are described by the author of Pierce Plowman s Greedy a poet of Wycliffe's time, as rivalling the old monasteries in mag- nificence. There is a memorable story told by Walsingham, which, if true, speaks plainly enough of the character both of the friars and their great patron at the close of their first centmy. The Franciscans in Italy, having amassed immense wealth, wished to hold estates like the monastic orders. To get permission for this they offered Boniface VIII. , in a.d. 1299, 40,000 ducats iii gold, which they lodged with a banker in Rome. The Pope dismissed them with a dubious answer, and then, having absolved the banker from his obligation to the depositors, seized the money, and told them it was not good for them to depart from their rule of poverty. It was almost a natiu'al consequence of theii* precarious mode of maintenance, that they should have sought to support their credit by miracidous revelations. The wonderful story of the five wounds of our blessed Saviour impressed upon St. Francis has been already related; but the pious blasphemy was carried still fui'ther in the following century, when a book was exhibited at the Franciscan chapter at Assisi, a.d. 1389, by Friar Bartholomew of Pisa, and approved by general consent, in which it was taught that St. Francis was made a type of Christ in his passion, that he received in a vision the same wounds, suffered the same griefs, and that the passion of Christ was renewed I 2 116 THE ENGLISH EEFOHMATION. in him for the salvation of souls. And it declared, that he was made by his merits the Son of God, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, by reason of a scroll which Friar Leo saw descend from heaven and fall upon the head of St. Francis, w^herein it was written, " This man is the grace of God ; wholly conformable unto Clu'ist ; the image of all perfection." And again, the same book spoke of the hood of St. Francis, as con- ferring, on all who put it on, the same grace as holy baptism, full remission of sins, and deliverance both from their guilt and punishment. To such lengths can man be carried by misplaced reverence for his fellow- men. Nor were the followers of Dominic a whit behind. " Christ," said they, " raised three only that were dead ; St. Dominic raised thi-ee in the city of Rome. Chi-ist, being immortal, entered twice among his disciples, the doors being shut. Dominic, yet mortal, entered by night into the church, lest he should waken his brethi-en. He had the angels at his service, the elements listened to his call, thf^ devils trembled at him, and were not able to disobey him' ." To Avhich must be added what one fiin would not \^Tite, " Christ prayed once in vain, Dominic never prayed in vain." It may be asked, how so many wise and learned men, as the popes often were, should have given authority to such gross inventions. It must be remembered that the papal power itself coidd have only been secui-e by keeping its hold upon public opinion ; and, while the cm-rent of opinion ran strongly in favour of the mendicants, it M'ould scarcely have been safe to oppose them. Some of them had excited seditions and civil war in Italy ; and at Paris there was a sect of Minorites who set out for sale at the chm'ch of Notre Dame, a book impiously called The Everlasting Gospel, which raised a great commotion in that city. This book con- tained a prophecy that the successors of St. Peter ' Lewis's Life of Pecocfs. WAT TYLEE AND THE FRIARS. 117 should shortly be put down, and a new power be raised in the Church, under the patronage of St. John, which should utterly destroy the adherents of the see of Rome. This power was to stand, as might be expected, in the supjDort of the friars, who were to be the only clergy left alive under the new system. Pope Alexander IV. ordered this book to be bm^it by the executioner in a.d. 1256 ; but the friars gave him so much trouble, that he declared "he woidd rather have one of the most power- fid kings in Cliristendom for an enemy, than a disciple of Dominic or Francis." A decision of John XXII., A.D. 1316, revoking in some measiu-e the permission of Nicholas III. to hold property, and condemning those who should say that Christ and his apostles had nothing of their own, gave great offence, and a section of Fran- ciscans from this time rejected the pope, and lurked about Italy for a century and a half, holding strange doctrines, and practising, as their enemies asserted, unheard-of and unnatural rites. They were called Fraticelli, and were cruelly persecuted ' . It is remarkable that in the rebellion of the boors in England in the following century, shortly before the death of Wycliffe, the same design was entertained of leaving no clergy except the friars ; and it is a very suspicious circumstance against them, as having been the exciters of that insurrection. When Jack Straw was brought to execution in London, a.d. 1381, the lord mayor bfsgged him to make a full confession of the designs of Wat Tyler and his accomplices, promising him a good number of masses for his soul, if he com- plied. He confessed, among other things, that after destroying all the nobility and gentry, they meant to have killed the king, and all the clergy who had either land or fee, the bishops, monks, canons, and rectors of chm'ches. "None but the begging friars," said he, i Some curious particulars of this persecution may be seen in a small book published in Germany, and entitled Vier Documenten ausden Romischen Archiven. Leipsig, 1843. 118 THE ENGLISH EEEOEMATION. "should have been left upon the face of the earth; and they would have been enough to do all the duties of the churches '." This was not a random calculation, if, as Wycliffe says in one of his tracts, there were then " many thousands " of these friars. He calculates theu' collections in alms as amounting to not less than 60,000 marks, which, as ten marks a year was then sufficient for the maintenance of a chantry-priest, would support at least six thousand friars. Among these there were, doubtless, many ignorant laymen, but the notion of consigning all ministerial duties to the friars was natural enough at a time when they had already, as Fitzi-alph and Wycliffe alike bear witness, almost driven the rectors and cui'ates from the discharge of their office. Another remarkable doctrine of the friars is the rather to be noted in this place, as it seems to have arisen first in England. It was recorded at a council in London, a.d. 1328, that St. Andrew had appointed a festival in honour of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, which this council accordingly ordained to be observed in the province of Canterbury. It was asserted that the Blessed Virgin " was free from original sin tlu'ough sanctifying grace which God infused into her at the time when the soul was united with the body ^." And this assertion was for three centuries a fruitful source of altercation in the Church, the Franciscans affirming and the Dominicans denying the doctrine, and 1 Walsixgham, p. 265. It is remarkable that Collier, where he relates this confession, sets down the words "to destroy the monks, canons, and rectors, and not to spare any of the clergy, excepting the friars mendicant, and some 2)Oor priests to officiate.'^ Whereas Walsingham says nothing whatever of these "poor jiriests," but precisely what the reader will find in the text. Did Collier mean to hint that Wycliffe's " poor priests " had made common cause with the friars, who were their bitterest enemies ? Walsingham elsewhere tries to insinuate this. But Jack Straw's confession is alone enough to determine this question. 2 Lambeutini (Benedict XIV.) cle Festis, p. 460. DOMINICANS. 119 the popes in vain attempting to mediate between them. Once it was adopted by the Comicil of Basil, a.b. 1439 ; but this comicil not having had at that time the papal sanction, its decree is not received, and the question is not yet settled, though a great living authority has written in favour of it \ expressing a hope that it will yet be affirmed by the Church. And yet the followers of Dominic were hardly behind the votaries of Francis in their exaltation of Mary. One of his biographers recorded that she was present when St. Dominic was celebrating the Lord's supper ; that she took the sacrament at his hands, and helped liim afterwards to mirobe. He calls Dominic the spouse of the Holy Virgin, and proceeds to describe the way in which he himself also had been in like maimer favoured by her, and presented with a ring and a chain of her hair -. Who can wonder, and who can doubt, that in such times saints and angels, images and pil- grimages, were in equal honour with the Saviou-r, and other names advanced above the holiest one ? The adoration of the Virgin supplies one of the earliest instances of harmonious cadence in English poetry : — Mary, mother, well thee be, Mary, maiden, think on me ; Maiden and mother was never none Together, lady, save thee alone. As all the services, except the sermon, were in Latin, they had a soi-t of poetical description of the Old and Nevv" Testament history, which was recited or acted on Sundays and holydays before the people. But such was the strange confusion of all knowledge, that one of these rhyming stories introduces a legend of a bishop called Antiochus, at the time of the Annunciation, ^ Cardinal Lambruschini on the Immaculate Conception. 2 Alanus de Rupe, quoted with just censure by the Bollandisti, 4th of August, p. 361. 120 THE ENGLISH EEF0EMATI01S-. before om- Saviour's birth '. These histories wei'te called Miracles, or Miracle Plays, and were repre- sented in chui-ches, sometimes by means of puppets, .sometimes by the clergy themselves dressed up in character. It M^as a rude device adapted to a rude age, and perhaps we ought not to censure any attempt, however imperfect, to represent the sacred history to the minds of the people. But these exhibitions were usually conducted by the mendicant orders, and con- sidering their wanderino- habits, it must have tended to give them very much of the character of roving players or minstrels. This was done especially at Easter, when the subject was the awful mystery of the resurrection of Christ ; and these actors were not afraid to make an idle mock-representation of the angels at the sepulchre, the soldiers, and the women. About Christmas they kept the festival of the Star, as it was called ; and not only the wise men from the East were represented, but a manger and oxen were brought into the chm'ch. In like manner Balaam's history was made a piece of pro- fane di'ollery, and this interlude was caUed the Festival of the Ass. This was a custom to be matched in later times in Italy and Spain, where it used to be a practice on St. Marks day to bring a buU, to which they had administered a sleeping potion, into their chm-ches to hear mass. Pope Clement VIII., about A.I). 1600, forbade it in his own territories ; but it pre- vailed in the last century in the provinces of the peninsula. It is of such profanations that a Benedic- tine of that country speaks, when he applies to them the text : Behold, I will spread duny upon your faces, even the duny of your solemn feasts ; aful o?ie shall take you away with it (Malachi ii. 3). They prevailed against the wishes of Bishop Grostete and William of Wyke- ham, who labom-ed to suppress them ; and against the strongest condemnation expressed by other clergymen, ' See two specimens of these plaj's given at length in Stephens's Supplement, i. 139. See also Warton's EnyUah Poetry, ii. 82.' BOY BISHOP. 121 such as William de Wadington, a poet of this period, who spoke his mind in Norman-French verse : "To make such assemblies of fools in the streets and chm-ch- yards, — to abuse the chm^ch-vestments, consecrated to other purposes, in these follies, — who can beheve such things to be done, as it is pretended, for the honour of God? Verily it is nothing else but a devil's game, and an act of sacrilege, and the spectators share the crimei ."" More harmless in its character was the festival of the boy-bishop on Innocents' day, when a child from the choir was di'essed up in vestments like a bishop, and acted his part for the day as a grave father of the Chm-ch. Something of this kind appears to have been kept up after the Reformation, when we find good Dean Colet providing for the little pageant at his foundation of St. Paul's school, and his friend Erasmus composing a speech to be delivered by the boy-bishop. In the next age the younger singers of the choir were taken to play in court-masques and interludes, where, perhaps, their talents for mimicry were not better employed *. We need not harshly condemn what such men as Dean Colet and Erasmus thought fit to be tolerated, and what was but a Chi'istmas-holyday game at worst. Of a very different character were those base representations and corrupt scenes enacted by their elders, and which were so bound up with the religion of the party opposed to reformation, that they were revived again in London in the days of Queen Mary. Still worse was it when the festival of a saint's trans- ' " E jnz del diable pur verite," &c. Price on Warton's Hist, of Poetry, vol. ii. p. 69. '^ Ben Jonson's pretty lines on the death of Salathiel Pavey, a child of the Queen's chapel, speak as if he might have acted boy- bishop : — He did act, what now we moan, Old men so duly, That the three sisters thought him one, He played so truly, &c. 122 THE ENGLISH EEFOEMATION. lation came roimd, and crowds of votaries came throng- ing to the holy place. But what the scenes w^ere at such places as were most celebrated, we may judge by the only modern parallel in any English settlement, a camp-meeting in the woods of North America. This again might be proved by the coarse but faithful description left us of the Canterbmy pilgrimage by Chaucer. What was the character of these scenes at a later date in Spain? "The pen cannot enter upon it," says our Benedictine, " without horror. No man, Avho has ever been present at these meetings, will hesi- tate to bear witness to the innumerable disorders which are committed there ; vice scarcely disguises itself wdth the cloak of piety ; dissoluteness triumphs in its proper garb and form. And no wonder ; for it is the very end for which they go. With very few exceptions, it may be said that the most innocent intention, with which any appear at these meetings, is to see and to be seen." He goes on to speak of the excesses which follow by day and night, and ends with the significant proverb, " No great artillery is needed to batter down walls which are ready to fall with the shghtest breath of wind \" One other of the practices of the friars is yet to be mentioned. When indulgences came to be sold, the pope made them a part of his ordinary revenue, and according to the usual way in those, and even in much later times, of farming the revenue, he let them out usually to the Dominican friars. Here again we must refer to Chaucer for the best and most authen- tic description of the '' gentle pardoner." His wallet lay before him in his lap, Brimful of pardon, come from Rome all hot. He hadreliques too, as well as pardons, our Lady's veil, and part of the sail of St. Peter's ship. And thus with fained flattering and gapes ^, He made the parson, and the peple, his apes. J Fei/joo, Theatr. Crit., vol. vi. p. 39. ^ Tricks. PIEKS PLOWMAN. 123 And yet he was a noble ecclesiastic, and sang an offer- tory better than the best. Popular poetry, always influential, is especially so in a rnde age, and these poems, and others, such as the Vision of Piers Ploivman, and the Plowman" s Crede, at once indicated and promoted the desire after better things. But Chaucer, with the love of virtue insepa- rable from a true poet, was not content to lash prevailing vices ; he would also hold up ideal excellence to view ; and his beautiful description of a parish priest, familiar to us all in the modern paraphrase of Dryden, has sometimes been thought to be intended for Wycliffe himself; certainly it represents such a pastor as all priests may emulate, and all parishes desire to see. A parish priest was of the pilgrim train, An awful, rev'rend, and religious man. His eyes diffused a venerable grace. And charity itself was in his face. Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor, (As God had clothed his own Ambassador,) For such on earth his bless 'd Redeemer bore '. See the motto of Chap. 11. CHAPTER VIII. WYCLIFFE'S TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. HIS DENIAL OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION. HIS DEATH. O book, infinite sweetness, let my heart Suck every letter, and a honey gain, Precious for any grief, in any pain, To clear the heart, and mollify all pain. G. Herbert, of Holy Scripture. ^FTEIl the second citation of Wycliffe, when he appeared before the convocation at Lambeth, A.D. 1378, an interval of tln^e years seems to have occurred without any ftu'ther proceedings against him ; but it was a momentous period in the history of his life. We have seen that the papal schism, to which it is probable that he owed the suspension of these pro- ceedings, had immediately become a fruitful topic of his censure. But if his former conduct was calculated to bring him into disrepute with the leaders of the Church, stiU more were those steps on which he now adventured. These were the translation of the Bible into English, and the denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation. The English people had as yet no entire version of the Scriptm-es in their own language. There were, indeed, some parts of the sacred volume translated at different times, which were probably in few hands ; and it is not easy to say how far the old Anglo-Saxon trans- lations might still have been understood'. But these were not for the people, and there was no pro-vision that it should be read in churches. The rulers of the Church had neglected their duty, and any man who should midertake to supply the want, would midertake an ' See the quotation from Sir Thomas More in Southey's Book of the Church, cxi. p. 204, 4th edit. WYCLIFFE S BIBLE. 125 invidious task, — more especially WjxlifFe, who was ali-eady embarked in avowed hostility to them. It happened as might have been expected ; rather than acknowledge their ovm neglect, the clergy found out that the people had no right to the word of God, and that they had done their duty in withholding it — thus perverting and bringing into contempt another truth ; for though tlie Gospel is committed to the ministry of the Chm-ch, it is that they may keep it only to teach it to the flock of Christ, not withhold or suppress the sacred deposit. Wycliffe's translation was made not from the original Hebrew and Greek, but fi-om the Latin ; and he was assisted in it, as he says in his preface, by some of his friends, particularly Dr. Nicholas Hereford, one of the most learned of them. Happy man, and true patriot, who amidst reproach and trouble could refresh his own soul fr*om the fomitains of eternal life which he was poming forth upon his country ! The Bible thus translated was fii-st put forth in the year 1380, and the price of it in the year 1429 is known to have been 21. I6s. Sd., which in our money would be ten or twelve times as much, — a vast price ; for printing was not yet in use, and the cost of transcribing was very great. But it was soon in great request, and copies multiplied amazingly ; for it seems the people were of WycHffe's own opinion, as expressed in his preface, " that Chiis- tian men and women, old and young, should study fast in the New Testament, — should cleave to the study of it, — and that no simple man of wit, no man of small knowledge, should be afraid unmeasurably to study in the text of holy writ." This translation was not immediately denoimced or put down by authority ; for when an attempt to sup- press it by.act of parliament was made about four years later, Johji of Gaunt interfered, and declared that " all other nations had the Bible in their own language, and the English should not be the dregs of all men ;' — a declaration which, being made after Wycliffe"s death, may perhaps mark some conscientious regret at 126 THE EXGLISH EEFOHMATION. Ilis abandonment of the Reformer, as we shall see, shortly before his death, on accomit of his opinions concerning the holy sacrament of the Lord's snpper. So the attempt for the present miscarried; and the translation was first condemned by Ai-chbishoj) Ai'midel's influence in convocation, a.d. 1408 ', The grounds on wliich the chm'chmeu of those days objected to the translation were not, indeed, that it is Mi^ong in itself for people to read the Bible, but that it is A\Tong for unauthorised persons to put out their versions of it. For, on another occasion, this same Archbishop Armidel, in preaching the funeral sermon of Anne of Bohemia, queen of Richard II., highly extolled her for liaA-ing the fom- Gospels in English, and for sending them to him for his inspection and approval. If this was the only objection, however, they would have best proved it by issuing an authorised version to be read in churches. The hermit of Hampole had made a trans- lation of the Psalms, with an English commentary, a few years before, which is so like Wycliffe's version, that probably WyclifFe had seen it. And another version of the whole Bible appeared about the same time with Wycliffe's, by John of Trevisa, a Cornishman, chaplain to Lord Berkeley, a young baron who seems to have had a taste for better things than the usual occcupations of his age. The only copy of this version knowTi to have existed in this comitry was destroyed by fire ; but other wTitings of John of Trevisa, which remain, show that hcAvas a man of principles near akin to Wycliffe's, and opposed, on the same groimds, to the temporal power of popes and prelates^. Wycliffe's Bible was never condemned by act of parliament. The act 2 Henry V. c. vii., which is sometimes said to have con- demned it, contains no such clause. ^ It is singular that Foxe makes no mention of Wycliffe's ver- sion of the Bible, and Collier speaks as if he had not seen it. A specimen of Hampole's Psalter, and Wycliffe*s Translation of the Book of Job, will be found in the Appendbc to this volume, C. WYCLIFFE's EIBLE. 127 It is observ