ENGLAND, CHURCH OF 199 ENGLAND, CHURCH OF
during these three centuries ; but it ma_y be noted that about the middle of this period, viz. 1'213, the Council of St. John Lateran declared transubstantiation, or the bodily presence of Christ in the consecrated elements, to be a tenet of the Church" (Chambers, s. v.). In 1350 the important statute of Provisors was passed. It was provoked by the fact that most of the valuable English benefices were reserved to the pope or to alien clergj', and it provided that the pope should con- fer no English benefice on any one without consent of the king. The statute of Prmnunire (1389 ; enlarged 1393) forbade any interference of the Church with the statute of Provisors, and also all appeals from English civil courts to the pope. The statute of Murtmain (in Magna Charti), and the various amendments and ad- ditions to it, all aimed to prevent the accumulation of property in the Church. See Mortmain.
In the reign of Henry II certain German Church reformers found their way to England — probably Wal- densian Christians; and, though they were bitterlv persecuted, all the good seed did not perish. In 1327 John Wj'clifTe was born. As rector of Lutterworth he preached until his death against the supremacy of the pope, tlie abuses of the hierarchy, and the Romish doctrine of the sacraments. In 1377 he was arrested fur heresy, but no harm came to him. His translation of the Scriptures, and other writings, made a great im- pression upon the more educated classes, but his labors had little effect upon the mass of i;he people. After his death more fruit appeared ; andbj^ 1400 his follow- ers were numerous enough to form a part}' and to get the designation of Lollards (q. v.), and for a centurj- persecution for Lollardism was common in England. " Henry IV thought it necessarj' to fortify his usurped position by assisting the bishops against the Lollards, and from this time to the Reformation there was an uninterrupted succession of confessors and martyrs. Sir John Oldcastle, lord Cobham, was the most illus- trious of these sufferers. Fox gives a detailed account of nearh' twenty individuals burned for heresy be- tween the death of lord Cobliam and 1509, when Henry VIII ascended the throne. To some extent, the blood of these martyrs was the seed of the Reformed Church ; but we must not overlook the ' hidden seed,' which was growing secretly from the time that Wycliffe gave to his countrymen a translation of the Scriptures in their own tongue. The progress of learning, and especiallj' the study of Greek, led to a better understanding of the sacred books, whilst the invention of printing (1442) caused a wider circulation of them" (Chambers, s. v.). See Wycliffe ; Lollards.
(III.) From the Reformatiun to the present Time. — The Church of Rome, however, was to all outward ap- pearance fairly established in England at the time of the accession of Henry VIII in 1509 [see Henry VIII], and his minister, cardinal Wolsey, maintained the splendor of the Church to a degree unexampled in England. Nevertheless, the great edifice was already' undermined. In view of the facts cited in the last paragraph, it is absurd to saj', as Roman writers do, that the source of the English Reformation is to be found in tlie vices of Henry VIII. However, it was not till the reign of that monarch that the Reformation in England in reality commenced. "When Luther de- clared war against the pope, Henry wrote his treatise on the seven saci'aments against Luther's book. Of the Captiviti/ of Bahylon, and was repaid by the pontiff with the title of " Defender of the Faith" (1521). The king had married his brother's widow, Catharine of Aragon, and was weary of her. Wolse}' at first fii- vored a divorce, " to revenge himself on Charles V for having disappointed him of the papacy ; but after the king began to look with favor on Anne Boleyn, one of a house from whom M'olsey had everj'thing to fear, he adopted a covert policy of opposition to the divorce he had suggested. When at last he was pressed on every side, -with no open way before him, and his own