§ 39. THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND. 309
year Lincoln, York, Wells and Hastings. He occupied for a time the chief office of chancellor, but fell into disrepute. His memory is preserved in Winchester School and in New Col- J^ege^ Oxford, .which..he founde^. The princely endowment of New College, the first stones of which were laid in 1387, embraced 100 scholarships. These gifts place Wykeham in the first rank of English patrons of learning at the side of Cardinal Wolsey. He also has a place in the manuals of the courtesies of life by his famous words, " Manners makyth man."i
The struggles of previous centuries against the encroachment of Rome upon the temporalities of the English Church was maintained in this period. The complaint made by Matthew Paris 2 that the English Church was kept between two millstones, the king and the pope, remained true, with this difference, however, the king's influence came to preponderate. Acts of parliament emphasized his right to dictate or veto ecclesiastical appointments and recognized his sovereign prerogative to tax Church property. The evident support which the pope gave to France in her wars with England and the scandals of the Avignon residence were favorable to the crown's assertion of authority in these respects. Wyclif frequently complained that the pope and cardinals were " in league with the enemies of the English kingdom " ^ and the papal registers of the Avignon period, which record the appeals sent to the English king to conclude peace with France, almost always mention terms that would have made France the gainer. At the outbreak of the war, 1339, Edward HI. proudly complained that it broke his heart to see that the French troops were paid in part with papal funds,*
The three most important religious acts of England between John's surrender of his crown to Innocent III. and the Act of Supremacy, 1534, were the parliamentary statutes of Mort-
1 See art. by Tait in Diet, of Nat. Biog., LXIII. 225-231.
2 Rolls Series, IV. 559. ^ De eccles., p. 332.
4 Walsingham, Hist. Angl., I. 200 sqq., and the pope's reply, p. 208 sqq. Benedict showed his complete devotion to the French king when he wrote that, if he had two souls, one of them should be given for him. Quoted by Loserth, Stud, zur KirchenpoL, p. 20.
310 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
main, 1279, of Provisors, 1351, and for the burning of heretics, 1401. The statute of_Mortmain or Dead-hand forbade the alienation of lands so as to remove them from the obligation of service or taxation to the secular. |)Qw.ei;. X^i^ statute of Provisors, rene\ved and enlarged in the acts of Praemunire, 1358, 1390 and 1393, concerned the subject of the papal rights over appointments and the temporalities of the English Church. This old bone of contention was taken up early in the 14th century in the statute of Carlyle, 1307,^ which forbade aliens. ■ appointed to visit religjxms houses in England, taking_mone^-8 with themout of the land and also the payment of tallages and Impositions laid upon religious establishments from abroad. In 1343, parliament called upon the pope to recall all " reservations, provisions and collations " which, as it affirmed, checked Church improvements and the flow of alms. It further protested against the appointment of aliens to English livings, "some of them our enemies who know not our language." Clement VI., replying to the briefs of the king and parliament, declared that, when he made provisions and reservations, it was for the good of the Church, and exhorted Edward to act as a Catholic prince should and to permit nothing to be done in his realm inimical to the Roman Church and ecclesiastical liberty. Such liberty the pope said he would " defend as having to give account at the last judgment." Liberty in this case meant the free and unhampered exercise of the lordly claims made by his predecessors from Hildebrand down.^ Thomas Fuller was close to the truth, when, defining papal provisions and reservations, he wrote, "When any bishopric, abbot's place, dignity or good living {aquila 7ion capit muscaa ■ — the eagle does not take note of flies) was like to be void, the pope, by a profitable prolepsis to himself, predisposed such places to such successors as he pleased. By this device he defeated, when he so pleased, the legal election of all convents and rightful presentation of all patrons."
1 Gee and Hardy, pp. 92-94.
2 For the text of the parliamentary brief and the king's letter, which was written in French, see Merimuth, p. 138 sqq., 153 sqq., and for Clement's reply, Bliss, III., 9 sqq.