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am a man of unclean lips.* The primary fountain is the papal court, not only because it does not dissipate these evils, and purge these abominations, when it alone has the power, and is under the most imperative obliga... tions to do so; but, in a higher degree, because by its dispensations, provisions, and collations, it sends pastors into the world, who verily destroy the souls of men." Other passages there are, which, without being open charges, involve still severer accusations. Of the corruption of the papal court at this period, in this very city of Lyons, we have evidence no less striking than that of Grossetete. Matthew Paris has preserved the fragment of another discourse, delivered to the clergy by Cardinal Ugo, just as the papal court was preparing to revisit Rome. Brethren," said the cardinal, great has been our usefulness, great our charity, since we came to this city. When we arrived, we found three or four public stews at our departure we leave one only-but to speak the truth, it is a somewhat large one, since it embraces the whole city from east to west!" We should not, therefore, be much surprised at the open charges, and still more cutting irony of the bishop of Lincoln. In conclusion, we may also state, his conduct was as pure as his language; that he zealously practised the virtues which he inculcated to others. He regarded the Dominican and Franciscan friars, both of whom, during his episcopacy, were introduced into England, with peculiar favour: he selected his best preachers from them, and was always accompanied by them in his visitations. The veneration in which his memory is held, the respect with which he is invariably mentioned, the evident approbation with which his remonstrance to the pope is related, are facts highly honourable to the Roman catholic writers, from that day to the present. Great efforts were made for his canonisation; but the reigning pope, who preferred a tool to a saint, a man of no principle to one with any, coldly received the application.-Although the works of Grossetete consist chiefly of sermons, epistles,

Isaiah, chap. vi. ver. 5.

and treatises on the moral virtues and points of ecclesiastical duties and discipline, he wrote on some subjects of philosophy and science. By a competent judge, friar Bacon, he is pronounced perfect in divine and human knowledge. His works are too numerous and too long for notice in almost any work not expressly devoted to the subject.*

1380.

The state of religion and of the church in England, from 1307 the death of the first Edward to the preaching of Wycliffe, to exhibits in an extraordinary degree the progress of the national discontent. The three great causes, the rapacity of the popes, the extortions of the crown, the increasing worldly spirit of the clergy, made a deep impression on the public mind, and roused into action the slumbering elements of resistance. The writings of Grossetete, more still the vices of the papal court, had destroyed much of the reverence in which it had hitherto been held. The dissensions of the monastic and secular orders grew more embittered. Both monks and clergy turned their arms against the friars, who contrived within a short space of time to obtain boundless wealth. For this it is easy to account. In their infancy, before they were corrupted by worldly prosperity, and while zeal glowed with new fervour, their conduct put to shame that of the parochial priests. By these priests, with the permission of the bishops, they were at first willingly received as coadjutors; but by their activity, by their superior knowledge, for superior it was, by their austerities, by their renunciation not only of the comforts but the necessaries of life, they soon absorbed the popular favour, while the ancient clergy fell into disrepute. Hence the efforts of the latter to rid themselves of their rivals. Fortunately for the friars, they were

* Matthæus Parisiensis, Historia, pp. 506-756. passim. Richardus Bardeniensis, de Vita Roberti Greathead, cap. 1-36. (apud Wharton, Anglia Sacra, ii. 326, &c.). Annales de Lanercost, p. 341, &c. Annales Burtonenses, p. 325, &c. Epistolæ Grossetestæ, passim. Epistola Decani et Capituli S. Pauli ad Clementem V. de Canonizando Roberti Greathead, p. 343. Giraldus Cambrensis, de Laudibus Roberti Greathead, p. 344. omnes apud eundem eodemque tomo). Brown, Appendix ad Fasciculum Rerum, tom. ii. p. 250, &c.

protected by the papal court; many of them were presented to the chief ecclesiastical dignities; the patronage they thus acquired they were careful to exercise in behalf of their own order, and, partly through papal and episcopal, partly through royal and popular support, they were soon able to lay splendid foundations in most counties of England. It is a true, but by no means extraordinary fact, that in half a century after their arrival they delivered more sermons and heard more confessions than the secular clergy. In the Roman catholic church, whoever sits in the tribunal of penance may speedily acquire influence. So it was with the Dominicans and Franciscans, who soon acquired the affections, no less than the substance of the people. Hence the bitter enmity with which they were regarded by the clergy, both secular and monastic; hence the complaints which we so frequently meet in our old chroniclers, of the meddling spirit, of the grasping rapacity, of the concealed vices, and consummate hypocrisy of the friars: by some, indeed, they are openly charged with infidelity. Though these charges must be received with great suspicion; though they are evident and wilful exaggerations, we may yet believe that wealth had the same effect on the friars as on other men; that it corrupted their hearts, impaired their zeal, their morals, and their usefulness; that riches made them luxurious, and power insolent. Of this fact, we have other evidence than from monks and secular priests, that of our ancient poets. In those of the fourteenth century, above all, we meet with the keenest satires on these orders, and on the whole body of the priesthood. The pages of Gower and of Chaucer alone would suffice to prove that a very great degree of vice existed among them. To these pages we refer the reader, with the assurance that from them he will derive a better idea of the times than from a hundred volumes of mere history. · - To this mass of dissension, and, by consequence, of popular discontent, we may add that between the villeins and their lords. In the first place, the oppressions of the feudal system had become

intolerable. In the second, the example of the cities of Flanders, Germany, and Italy, Switzerland, and even of France, many of which had wrested important charters from their feudal tyrants, was not lost on this side the channel. In the third, principles of a republican tendency had made great progress among the humbler classes of society. Most of them were probably derived from the Flemish merchants; and they were aggravated by the rapacious overbearing conduct of the feudal gentry, and by the efforts of certain individuals who from time to time arose to direct the popular mind. The writings of the poets themselves would eventually have a great effect. The freedom with which they lashed prevailing vices, could not fail to command applause; their wit would excite the ridicule, their serious pieces the indignation, of the hearer or reader; and when we consider that they were exceedingly popular; that their favourite sayings were repeated by thousands and tens of thousands who were incapable of reading them, we shall cease to be sur prised at the effect produced. On this consideration, we know not that sufficient stress has been laid. Alone, it would almost account for the moral revolution which signalised the latter half of the fourteenth century. Taken concurrently with the other causes, communication with the Flemings; the conduct of the clergy; the tyranny of the feudal superiors; the rapacity of the crown; the reflections of the people themselves; and the forcible denunciations of certain religious reformers, who now began to arise, and assuredly we have reasons enough for that spirit of resistance both to the spiritual and the civil powers, so general at this period.*

At this crisis arose John Wycliffe, one of those mas- 1324 ter minds that are destined to take advantage of circum- to stances, and to influence ages unborn. Born near or 1384. at Richmond, in Yorkshire, in 1324, and early entered at Oxford the assiduity with which he applied to

* Founded on the historians, and, more still, on the poets, of the four

a

scholastic learning, aided by great natural powers, enabled him to obtain the highest dignities of that university. In 1360, being master of Baliol, we find him engaged in an angry dispute with the friars, whose learning and subtlety rendered them more worthy antagonists than he could hope to meet in other ranks of the clergy. These disputes did not regard the essentials of religion; they rather concerned those useless questions, which during the present and preceding age were so freely debated in the schools. But from controversial the parties soon became personal enemies. Wycliffe bore all the antipathy of his order to these mongrel churchmen: he railed at their mendicity, which he represented as inconsistent with the precepts of Christ; and he proved that, while laying claim to extreme poverty, while renouncing the possession of every earthly good, they were living in the midst of wealth, and of all the enjoyments which wealth could purchase. Well might he deride their absurd distinction between the dominion and the use of things, sophism founded on a well-known definition of civil law; that while they represented all their possessions as the property of the pope, whose tenants they were, they employed every thing just as arbitrarily as if they held an unlimited dominion over it. The feelings engendered by this controversy appeared to have accompanied him through life; on every occasion he lashes these his first and most bitter enemies, often with great reason and justice, sometimes in a style of coarse invective. Nor did he bear much affection to the monks. In 1365, aided by archbishop Simon de Islip, the founder of Catherine Hall, he expelled Woodvill, the warden, and the fellows, who were all of the monastic profession, and he was himself appointed to the dignity. Islip died the following year; and the new archbishop, who defended the monks, ordered Wycliffe to make way for the former warden. He refused the revenues of the hall were in consequence sequestered; yet he had still an appeal to the pope. But, as the