THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
he was well acquainted, which appear fully reflected in his political tracts. His own tendencies were in complete accord with the laws of Edward I. and his grandson of the same name.
The Reformer’s entrance upon the stage of ecclesiastical politics is usually related to the question of feudal tribute to which England had been rendered liable by John Lackland (1200-16), which had remained unpaid for thirty-three years until Urban V. in 1365, it is said, had menacingly demanded it. It is related that the whole country was aroused in
one patriotic mass on account of this
5. Begin- demand of the pope, and that parlianing of ment the next year declared that nei- Political ther King John nor any other had the Career. right without its agreement to subject
England to any foreign power. Should the pope attempt to enforce his claim by arms, he would be met with united resistance. It is further said that Urban recognized the mistake he had made and suffered his claim to fall to the ground. However sure may be the fact of the pope’s demand, of such a patriotic uprising there was notalk. The tone of the pope was, in fact, not so threatening, and it was not his intention so to act as to draw England into the maelstrom of politics of western and southern Europe. It was to be expected that sharp words would be heard in England, and this because of the close relations of the papacy with the hereditary foe of England, the French kingdom. It is asserted also that on this occasion Wyclif was prominent, that he served as theological counsel to the government and composed a polemical tract dealing with the tribute, and defended an unnamed monk over against the conduct of the government and parliament. This would place the entrance of Wyclf into politics about. 1865-66. But the tract upon which this conclusion is based, which is known only from an incomplete and incorrect reprint by Lewis, takes its occasion from circumstances which arose a century later. Wyclif’s earlier activities in this direction were exercised in the narrower circle at Oxford, and his more important participation began with the peace congress at Bruges. There in 1374 negotiations were carried on between France and England respecting peace, while at the same time commissioners from England dealt with papal delegates respecting the doing away with ecclesiastical annoyances. Wyclif was among those who served in these affairs in consequence of a decree dated July 26, 1374. If it be claimed that his appointment in this case was due to his earlier stand against the demands of the papacy, the claim overlooks the fact that the choice of a harsh opponent of the Avignon system would rather have broken up than have furthered the peace negotiations, and, once more, that he was designated purely as a theologian, and so considered himself, since a noted Scripture scholar was required alongside of those learned in civil and canon law. There was no necessity here for a man of renown, still less of a pure advocate of state interests. Illustrative of this is the fact that a predecessor in a like case was John Owtred, a monk, who yet formulated the statement that St. Peter had united in his hands spiritual and temporal power—just the opposite of what Wyclif
taught. In the days of the mission to Bruges this monk still belonged in the circle of friends of Wyclif. It will therefore be seen that the construction hitherto placed on Wyclif’s part in this mission was altogether too exalted, since he took by no means a leading part. , :
As yet the Reformer could be regarded by papal partizans as trustworthy, for his opposition to the ruling conduct of the Church might have escaped notice. Testimony to this comes from a later but well-informed source that found it difficult to recog-
nize him as a heretic. The contro-
6. Growth versies in which men engaged at
of Anti- Oxford were rather philosophical than
Curial purely theological or ecclesiastical- Tendencies. political, and the method of discussion was academic and scholastic. Walden
shows the kind of men with whom Wycelif dealt, though very few writings are preserved which exhibit the method. There may be mentioned the tilt with the Carmelite monk John Kyningham (Cunningham; cf. Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 3, London, 1858) over theological questions (wtrum Christus esset humanitas), or ecclesiastical-political ones (De dominatione civili; De dotatione ecclesie). Wyclif’s contest with John Owtred and William Wynham (or Wyrinham) were formerly unknown, as were the earlier ones with his opponent William Wadeford. When it is recalled that it was once the task of Owired to defend the political interests of England against the demands of Avignon, one would more likely see him in agreement with Wyclif than in opposition. But unanimity of sentiment between them was by no means complete. Owtred believed that he committed a sin who held that the temporal power might deprive a priest, even an unrighteous one, of his temporalities; Wyclif regarded that priest a sinner who incited the pope to excommunicate laymen when these had deprived wicked clergy of their temporalities, and enunciated the dictum that a man in a condition of sin had no claim upon govyernment. Light upon another opponent of Wyclif has appeared only in recent investigations. This was the monk William Wynham of St. Albans, where the anti-Wyclifite trend was considerable. Wyclif complained bitterly of this Benedictine and professor of theology at Oxford as the one who dragged into the street the controversies which had hitherto been confined to the academic arena. But public notice of this was bound to come in any event, since the controversies were related in their fundamentals to the opposition which found expression in parliament against the Curia. Wyclif himself narrates (Sermones, ii. 199) how under the deep impression made upon him by his Biblical studies he came to the conclusion that there was a great contrast between what the Church was and what it ought to be, and saw the necessity for reforming it. His reform ideas stress particularly the perniciousness of the temporal rule of the clergy and its incompatibility with the teaching of Christ and the apostles, and they make note of the tendencies which were évident in the measures of the “Good Parliament” (1376-77). A long bill was introduced, with 140 headings, in which were stated the grievances caused by the aggressions of the Curia; all reservations and commissions were to
be done away, the exportation of money was forbidden, and the foreign collectors were to be removed.
It was in this period that Wyclif came significantly to the fore. He was found among those to whom the thought of the secularization of the eccle-
siastical properties in England was wel-
7. Public come. He had as patron no less a man Declaration than John, duke of Lancaster. He was of his Ideas. no longer satisfied with his chair as the
means of propagating his ideas, and soon after his return from Bruges he began to express them in tracts and larger works—his great work, the Summa theologie, was written in support of them. In the very first book, concerned with the government of God and the ten commandments, he assailed the temporal rule of the clergy—in temporal things the king is above the pope, and the collection of annates and indulgences is simony. But his entrance into the politics of the day was made in his great work De civili dominio. Here were precipitated those ideas by which the good parliament was governed—which involved the renunciation by the Church of temporal dominion. From his formulation the items of the ‘long bill” appear to have been derived. In this book there were found the strongest outcries against the entire Avignon system with its commissions, its exactions, its squandering of charities by unfit priests, and the like. To change all this is the business of the State. If the clergy misuses ecclesiastical property, it must be taken away; if the king does not do this, he is remiss in his duty. The work contains eighteen strongly stated theses, the point of which was opposition to the governing methods of the rule of the Church and the straightening out of its temporal possessions. [These are conveniently givenin DNB, lxiii. 208-209.] Wvyclif had set these ideas forth before his students at Oxford in the autumn and winter of 1376, after he had become involved in controversy with such men as William Wadeford, William Wynham, and others. While he would at first have preferred to have these matters restricted in discussion to the classroom, he soon wanted them proclaimed from the very roofs and would have temporal and spiritual lords take note of them. While the last made earnest assault upon him and sought to have him put under ecclesiastical censure, he recommended himself to the former by his mighty attacks upon the worldly possessions of the clergy. This period began a stage of unusual literary fruitfulness which ended only with his death.
Wyclif was possessed with the great desire to see each of his ideas actualized—the fundamental was that the Church should be poor, as it was in the days of the apostles. He had not yet broken with the men-
dicant friars, and from these the duke 8. Conflict of Lancaster chose Wyclif’s defenders.
with the While the Reformer offered reassur- Church ances, in the explanations which he Opened. necessarily gave later, that it was not
his purpose to incite temporal lords to confiscation of the property of the Church, the real tendencies of the propositions remained unconcealed. This was evident as the result of the same doctrines in Bohemia—that land which was richest