§ 40. JOHN WYCLIF. 323
indulgence for a year to all joining the army. Mass was said and sermons preached in the churches of England, and large sums collected for the enterprise. The indulgence extended to the dead as well as to the living. Wyclif declared the cru-
sade an expedition for worldly mastery, and pronounced the indulgeiTce " an abomination of desolation in the holy place." Spenser's army reached the Continent, but the expedition was a failure. The most important of Wyclif 's theological treiitises, the Trialogus, was written in this period, ^t lays down the principle that, where the Bible and the Church donotagre^, we must obey the Biblcj^and, where conscience and human authority are in conflict, we must follow conscience.^
Two years before his death,Wyclif received a paralytic stroke which maimed but did not completely disable him. It is possible that he received a citation to appear before the pope. With unabated rigor of conviction, he replied to the supreme pontiff that of all men he was most under obligation to obey the law of Christ, that Christ was of all men the most poor, and subject to mundane authority. No Christian man has a right to follow Peter, Paul or any of the saints except as they imitated Christ. The pope should renounce all worldly authority and compel his clergy to do the same. He then asserted that, if in these views he was found to err, he was willing to be corrected, even by death. If it were in his power to do anything to advance these views by his presence in Rome, he would willingly go thither. But God had put an obstacle in his way, and had taught him to obey Him rather than man. He closed with the prayer that God might incline Urban to imitate Christ in his life and teach his clergy to do the same.
While saying mass in his church, he was struck again with paralysis, and passed away two or three days after, Dec. 29, 1384, ''having lit a fire which shall never be put out."^
■ft-
1 Fasc, p. 341 sq. ; Lechler-Lorimer, p. 417, deny the citation. The replyis hardly what we might have expected from Wyclif, confining itself, as it does, rather curtly to the question of the pope's authority and manner of life. Luther's last treatment of the pope, Der Papst der Ende-Christ und Wider Christ, is not a full parallel. Wyclif was independent, not coarse.
■2 The most credible narrative preserved of Wyclif's death comes from John Horn, the Reformer's assistant for two years, and was written down by Dr.
324 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
Fuller, writing of his death, exclaims, "Admirable that a hare, so often hunted with so many packs of dogs, should die quietly sitting in his form."
Wyclif was spare, and probably never of robust health, but he was not an ascetic. He was fond of a good meal. In temper he was quick, in mind clear, in moral character unblemislied. Towards his enemies he was sharp, but never coarse or ribald. William Thorpe, a young contemporary standing in the court of Archbishop Arundel, bore testimony that "he was emaciated in body and well-nigh destitute of strength, and in conduct most innocent. Very many of the chief men of England conferred with him, loved him dearly, wrote down his sayings and followed his manner of life." ^
The prevailing sentiment of the hierarchy was given by Walsingham, chronicler of St. Albans, who characterized the Reformer in these words : " On the feast of the passion of St. Thomas of Canterbury, John de Wyclif, that instrument of the devil, that enemy of the Church, that author of confusion to the common people, that image of hypocrites, that idol of heretics, that author of schism, that sower of hatred, that coiner of lies, being struck with the horrible judgment of God, was smitten with palsy and continued to live till St. Sylvester's Day, on which he breathed out his malicious spirit into the abodes of darkness."
The dead was not left in peace. By the decree of Arundel, W}'clif's writings were suppreg^ed, and it was so effective that Caxtou and the first English printers issued no one of them from the press. TlieLateran decree of February, 1413, ordered his books burnt, and the Council of Constance, from whose
Thomas Gascoigne upon Horn's sworn statement. Walden twice makes the charge that disappointment at not being appointed bishop of Worcester started Wyclif on the path of heresy, but there is nootherauthority for the story, which is inherently improbable. Lies were also invented against the memories of Luther, Calvin and Knox, which the respectable Catholic historians set aside. J Bale, in his account of the Examination of Thorpe, Parker Soc. ed., I. 80-81. The biographies of Lewis, Vaughan, Lorimer and Sergeant give portraits of Wyclif. The oldest, according to Sergeant, pp. 16-21, is taken from Bale's Summary, 1548. There is a resemblance in all the portraits, which represent the Reformer clothed in Oxford gown and cap, with long beard, open face, clear, large eye, prominent nose and cheek bones and pale complexion.