THE NEW SCHAFF-IIERZOG
A few years later Lollards wore numerous in London, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Worcester, and their tenets, no longer restricted to religion, extended to economic and political life. In 1395, doubtless emboldened by the blunt refusal of Parliament to pass the archbishop's bill for the destruction of all Wyclif's translations of the Bible, the Lollards felt themselves sufficiently strong to present a memorial to Parliament and to demand the cooperation of that body in carrying out their reform. The twelve clauses of this memorial were as follows: Faith, love, and hope had vanished from the English daughterchurch since she had been lost in
4. Lollard worldly wealth through her association
Memorial with her great stepmother of Rome; of 1395. the Roman Catholic priesthood was not that of Christ; the priestly law of celibacy resulted in unnatural vice; transubstantiation "was a feigned miracle and conduced to idolatry; prayers over bread, salt, wine, water, oil, wax, and the like were unlawful magic rites; it was contrary to the word of Christ (Matt. vi. 24) to have king and bishop or prelate and judge in one person; prayers for the dead were ineffectual, pilgrimages and the invocation of images were nearly idolatrous; auricular confession was not essential to salvation, but was a source of priestly arrogance and permission to sin; war was contrary to the New Testament, and death and pillage to the poor; the vows of nuns led to infanticide and unnatural impurity; and art was unnecessary and conducive to luxjry and extravagance. [Cf. the text in Fasciculi Zizaniorum, ed. W. W. Shirley in Rolls Series, pp. 360-369, London, 1858; Wilkins, Concilia, III., p. 221; condensed transl. in Lechler's John Wyclif, ed. P. Lorimer, pp. 447-448.] In this memorial, however, the Lollards had overestimated their strength, and the king, who had taken no part hitherto in the episcopal proceedings against them, now admonished them sternly.
The decline of Lollardism now began. In 1396 Thomas Arundel, a bitter opponent of the movement, succeeded Courtenay as archbishop of Canterbury, and three years later Richard II. was murdered. The throne was then occupied by the Lancastrian Henry IV., who found it to his interests to follow the lead of the hierarchic and aristocratic faction which had given him the crown. In Jan., 1400, the bishops declared that they were unable to make headway against the heretics, and the statute De comburendo hmretico was accordingly passed. The first to be executed under its proviv'ons was W. Sawtrey (Chartris), who died at the stake in the following month. The
"-■ Ecclesi- act was enforced with special severity
■ tical Op- in the counties of southern and middle
isition to England, while those who were not
Lollardism. burned to death were either tortured into recantation or ended their lives in prison. Undismayed by these measures, the Lollards sought support in their struggle for religious and political freedom in the hatred of the oppressed peasantry for the priests who lived in luxury. Both the secular and the regular clergy, and especially the friars, were regarded as having long since deserted the principles of their founders and as hav-
ing persecuted their own brethren, the Fraticelli, the Beghards, and the Lollards, for remaining faithful to the teaching of their fathers. In Piers The Plowman's Creed (c. 1394) a man in search of the true doctrines of Christ is represented as inquiring of the four mendicant orders in succession, only to meet the scornful reply that the words of Jesus are no longer remembered, and not until he finds the " Poor Priests " does he obtain what he desires. Popular approbation of the Lollards, however, could avail little against the power of the archbishop, who in 1408 extorted from the convocation of Oxford, then the center of the movement, the Constitutiones Thomas Arundel, which were designed to crush the tenets of Wycl'f. Among other prohibitions, these regulations forbade preaching without the permission of the bishop, as well as the punishment of the sins of the clergy
6. The by the laity, and required that the Constitu- writings of Wyclif and the Lollards be
tions of destroyed. They likewise enacted Arundel, periodical inspection of the residences of Oxford students, and all suspected of Lollardism were ruthlessly expelled. The success of the measure was complete, and within a few years the university was one of the foremost defenders of Roman Catholic orthodoxy.
The movement of repression was now extended, and commoners in city and country alike were in peril of gallows, ax, and stake. On the other hand, many of the nobility remained true to their principles. Prominent among the latter was Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham (see Oldcastle, Sir John), who gave free scope to the Lollards on his Kentish estates, especially as he was protected against Arundel by his friendship with Henry IV. and the Prince of Wales, afterward Henry V. The date of his conversion to Lollardism is unknown, but was before 1410, when he was in high favor with the prince, whom he even sought to win over to his sect. During the reign of Henry IV. he had no need to fear the hostility of the bishops, who hated him for his denial of transubstantiation, and his opposition to auricular confession, pilgrimages, and the adoration of images, as well as for the wealth which he expended on the preparation and maintenance of itinerant preachers.
7. Sir Henry V., however, lent a ready ear John to the complaints of the archbishop
Oldcastle. and the convocation. Oldcastle refused to be convinced of his errors by the king, and left the court without permission, retiring to his castle of Cowley in Kent. Ignoring Arundel's citations, he was placed under the ban for contumacy and arrested by a royal warrant. He now formulated a reply to a committee consisting of Arundel and the bishops of Winchester and London, but his answers concerning transubstantiation and confession were unsatisfactory. After much urging, he finally declared himself ready to accept the teachings of the Church, but denied that the pope, the cardinals, or the prelates had the right to define these matters. He was accordingly brought before another episcopal court on Sept. 25. He refused to retract his opinions and sharply rebuked the pope and the clergy, where-