Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, February, 1885

Now I really do not see how any one is to help liking a nation so happily self-complacent. The Prussians are said to be arrogant and overbearing; but I don’t think they are so, unless they are rubbed the wrong way; and what pleasure is there in rubbing people the wrong way? When Victor Hugo announces that France is supreme among nations, when he invites us to worship the light that emanates from the holy city of Paris, and hints that we might do well to worship also the proclaimer of that light, we are half shocked and half incredulous. The bombast seems too exaggerated to be sincere; it has the air of challenging and expecting contradiction. We find it impossible to believe that any sane man can really mean much of what this great poet tells us that he means. French vanity – and Victor Hugo, whether at his highest or at his lowest, is always essentially French – is not amusing. It is the kind of vanity which is painful to witness, and which cannot but be degrading to those who allow themselves to give way to it. But in the placid North German self-approval there is a child-like element, which is not unpleasing nor even wholly undignified. It may provoke a smile; but the smile is a friendly one. These excellent stout professors and bearded warriors who are so thoroughly pleased with themselves, and who never suspect that anybody can be laughing at them, command our sympathies – perhaps because John Bull himself is not quite a stranger to the sensations that they experience.

Yet, when all is said and done, John Bull remains John Bull. German philosophy, French wit, American acuteness, the “garbo of the Italians” – these things are not for him, nor is he specially desirous of assimilating them. He is as God made him, and has an impression that worse types have been created. At the bottom of his heart – though he no longer speaks it out as freely as of yore – there still lurks the old contempt for “foreigners.” As I have already made so bold as to say, I do not think that the hustle and bustle of the present age have brought him any clearer comprehension of these foreigners than his forefathers possessed, or that the advent of the universal republic has been at all hastened by the rise of democracy and the triumph of steam. Certainly all men are human, and all dogs are dogs; but you will not convert a bulldog into a setter by taking him out shooting, nor a mastiff into a spaniel by keeping them in one kennel. It is doubtless well that those who own a large number of dogs should encourage familiarity among them, and restrain them from delighting to bark and bite, and it might also be a good thing to induce them, if possible, to recognise each others respective utilities. But they never do recognise these. On the contrary, they contemplate one another’s performances with the deepest disdain, and if we could see into the workings of their canine minds we should very likely discover that each is perfectly satisfied with himself, and as convinced that his breed is superior to all others as Victor Hugo is that Paris is the light of the world.

Recent inventions have dealt some heavy blows at time and space, but have not as yet done much towards abolishing national distinctions of character. One result of them, as melancholy as it is inevitable, is the slow vanishing of the picturesque. The period of general dead-level has set in; old customs have fallen into abeyance and old costumes are being laid aside. The “Ranz des Vaches” no longer echoes among the Swiss mountains; the Spanish sombrero has been discarded in favor of a chimney-pot hat; the Hungarian nobles reserve their magnificent frippery for rare state occasions, and the black coat, deemed so significant a sign of the times by Alfred de Musset, is everywhere replacing the gay clothing of a less material era. But, for all that, mastiffs are mastiffs and spaniels spaniels. Democracy claims to be cosmopolitan: perhaps some of us may live long enough to see what the boast is worth. If it be permitted to ground a prophecy upon the lessons of history, we may say that co-operation is possible only so long as interests are identical, and that the mainspring of all human collective action is, and will be, nothing more or less than that selfishness which, as Lord Beaconsfield once told us, is another word for patriotism. —Cornhill Magazine.

FRENCH DUELLING

BY H. R. HAWEIS

One of the liveliest little duels we have lately heard of is that which took place in October between the journalist M. Rochefort and Captain Fournier. It appears that the gallant captain felt himself aggrieved by some free expressions in the “Intransigeant,” challenged the editor, and both belligerents went out with swords, whereupon Rochefort pinked Fournier, Fournier slashed Rochefort, both lost a teaspoonful or so of blood, and honor appears to have been satisfied.

In the eyes of the average Briton there is always something absurd about a duel. He either thinks of the duel in “The Rivals,” as it is occasionally witnessed at Toole’s theatre, or of Mark Twain’s incomparable “affair” with M. Gambetta; but it seldom occurs to any one in this country to think of a duel as being honorable to either party, or capable of really meeting the requirements of two gentlemen who may happen to have a difference of opinion.

The Englishman kicks his rival in Pall Mall, canes him in Piccadilly, or pulls his nose and calls him a liar at his club. He is then had up for assault and battery, his grievance is well aired in public, he is consoled by the sympathy of an enlarged circle of friends, pays a small fine, and leaves the court “without a stain upon his character.” If, on the other hand, his rival is in the right, the damages are heavy, and his friends say, “Pity he lost his temper and made a fool of himself,” and there the matter ends. In either case outraged justice or wounded honor is attended to at the moderate cost of a few sovereigns, a bloody nose, or a smashed hat.

We think on the whole it is highly creditable to England that this should be so. The abolition of duelling by public opinion is a distinct move up in the scale of civilisation.

Perhaps we forget how very recent that “move up” is.

When it ceased to be the fashion to wear swords in the last century, pistols were substituted for these personal encounters. This made duelling far less amusing, more dangerous, and proportionally less popular. The duel in England received practically its coup de grâce with the new Articles of War of 1844, which discredited the practice in the army by offering gentlemen facilities for public explanation, apology, or arbitration in the presence of their commanding officer. But previous to this “the duel of satisfaction” had assumed the most preposterous forms. Parties agreed to draw lots for pistols and to fight, the one with a loaded, the other with an unloaded weapon.

This affair of honor (?) was always at short distances and “point-blank,” and the loser was usually killed. Another plan was to go into a dark room together and commence firing. There is a beautiful and pathetic story told of two men, the one a “kind” man and the other a “timid” man, who found themselves unhappily bound to fight, and chose the dark-room duel. The kind man had to fire first, and, not wishing to hurt his adversary, groped his way to the chimney-piece and, placing the muzzle of his pistol straight up the chimney, pulled the trigger, when, to his consternation, with a frightful yell down came his adversary the “timid” man, who had selected that fatal hiding-place.

Another grotesque form was the “medical duel,” one swallowing a pill made of bread, the other swallowing one made of poison. When matters had reached this point, public opinion not unnaturally took a turn for the better, and resolved to stand by the old obsolete law against duelling, whilst enacting new bye-laws for the army, which of course reacted powerfully, with a sort of professional authority, upon the practice of bellicose civilians.

The duel was originally a mere trial of might, like our prize fight; it was so used by armies and nations, as in the case of David and Goliath, or as when Charles V. challenged Charlemagne to single combat. But in mediæval times it got to be also used as a test of right, the feeling of a judicial trial by ordeal entering into the struggle between two persons, each claiming right on his side.

The judicial trial by ordeal was abandoned in the reign of Elizabeth, but the practice of private duelling has survived in spite of adverse legislation, and is exceedingly popular in France down to the present day. The law of civilised nations has, however, always been dead against it. In 1599 the parliament of Paris went so far as to declare every duellist a rebel to his majesty; nevertheless, in the first eighteen years of Henri Quatre’s reign no fewer than 4,000 gentlemen are said to have perished in duels, and Henri himself remarked, when Creyin challenged Don Philip of Savoy, “If I had not been the king I would have been your second.” Our ambassador, Lord Herbert, at the court of Louis XIII., wrote home that he hardly ever met a French gentleman of repute who had not either killed his man or meant to do so! and this in spite of laws so severe that the two greatest duellists of the age, the Count de Boutteville and the Marquis de Beuron, were both beheaded, being taken in flagrante delicto.

Louis XIV. published another severe edict in 1679, and had the courage to enforce it. The practice was checked for a time, but it received a new impulse after the close of the Napoleonic wars. The dulness of Louis Philippe’s reign and the dissoluteness of Louis Napoleon’s both fostered duelling. The present “opportunist” Republic bids fair to outbid both. You can hardly take up a French newspaper without reading an account of various duels. Like the suicides in Paris, and the railway assaults in England, duels form a regular and much appreciated item of French daily news.

It is difficult to think of M. de Girardin’s shooting dead poor Armand Carell – the most brilliant young journalist in France – without impatience and disgust, or to read of M. Rochefort’s exploit the other day without a smile.

The shaking hands in the most cordial way with M. Rochefort, the compliments on his swordsmanship, what time the blood flowed from an ugly wound, inflicted by him as he was mopping his own neck, are all so many little French points (of honor?) which we are sure his challenger, Captain Fournier, was delighted to see noticed in the papers. No doubt every billiard-room and café in Paris gloated over the details, and the heroes, Rochefort and Fournier, were duly fêted and dined together as soon as their respective wounds were sufficiently healed.

Meanwhile John Bull reads the tale and grunts out loud, “The whole thing is a brutal farce and the ‘principals’ are no better than a couple of asses.”

Now, admitting that there are some affronts which the law cannot and does not take cognisance of, in these days such affronts are very few. That terrible avenger, public opinion, is in this nineteenth century a hundred-handed and a hundredfold more free, powerful, and active than it used to be, before the printing-press, and, I may add, railways, telegraphs, and daily newspapers. But of all cases to which duelling, by the utmost stretch of honorable license, could be applied – a mere press attack is perhaps the least excusable.

Here are the French extolling the freedom of the English press by imitating – or trying to imitate – English independence and the right to speak and act and scribble sans gêne– and it turns out that an honorable member in the Senate cannot lose his temper, or a journalist write a smart article, without being immediately requested to fight. “Risum teneatis, amici!” and this is the people who think themselves fit for liberty, let alone equality and fraternity! (save the mark!)

The old town clerk at Ephesus in attempting to compose a dispute of a rather more serious character some eighteen hundred years ago, between a certain Jew and a Greek tradesman, spoke some very good sense when he appealed to both disputants thus: “If Demetrius have a matter against any man the law is open, and there are deputies: let them implead one another.”

Next time M. Rochefort pokes fun at Captain Fournier in the “Intransigeant,” we advise the captain, instead of pinking that witty but scurrilous person, to try the law of libel. If he wins he will get money in his purse, which is better than an ugly gash in his side; if he loses he will go home to consider his ways and perchance amend them, under the stimulus of a just public rebuke – a sadder and perhaps a wiser man: that, indeed, both he and Rochefort might easily be. —Belgravia.

JOHN WYCLIFFE: HIS LIFE AND WORK

The quincentenary of the death of John Wycliffe occurring on the 31st day of this month (December 1884), invites us to review the work with which the name of Wycliffe is associated and identified. “John Wycliffe,” says Dean Hook, “may be justly accounted one of the greatest men that our country has produced. He is one of the very few who have left the impress of their minds, not only on their own age, but on all time,”[8 - Lives of the Archbishops, iii, 76.] He is also one of the few who are known to us only in their work, and by their work. For it may be said that, apart from Wycliffe’s work, we know nothing of the man. His work is his memorial: in it he lives.

Wycliffe’s work may be viewed in its relation to the University – Oxford; to the Crown – the national independence; to the hierarchy – the clergy; and to the laity – the people. According to this method of survey and review, Wycliffe appears successively in history as a student and scholastic disputant; as a politician and patriot; as a theologian and reformer; and as a Christian evangelist and preacher of grace, righteousness, and truth. These successive phases of Wycliffe’s work correspond with the events of his life; and they indicate the progress of the great work to which Wycliffe had dedicated his powers. This, again, implies that it was only step by step – little by little – that Wycliffe’s views assumed that form in which they were developed and expressed in the later years of his life.

It is impossible to determine either the date of Wycliffe’s first admission to Oxford or the college in which he first studied. Of his early life at the university, as of his earlier life at home, we know nothing. According to the statements of some of his biographers, Wycliffe was born in the year 1324, in the hamlet of Spreswell, near old Richmond, in Yorkshire. In 1340, he went to Oxford, and was one of the first commoners received into Queen’s college – an institution opened that year for the first time. After a short attendance in Queen’s, he joined himself to Merton, and became a fellow of that famous College. The historian Fuller says that Wycliffe was a graduate of Merton, but he makes no mention of his having been at an earlier time connected with Queen’s College. “We can give no account,” he says, “of Wycliffe’s parentage, birthplace, or infancy; only we find an ancient family of the Wycliffes in the bishopric of Durham,[9 - Camden’s Britannia.] since by match united to the Brackenburies, persons of prime quality in those parts. As for this our Wycliffe, history at the very first meets with him a man, and full grown, yea, graduate of Merton College in Oxford.”[10 - Church History, Book IV. I.] Of the six Oxford colleges of that time, Merton had acquired for itself a splendid and well-deserved reputation. “And, indeed, malice itself cannot deny that this college, or little university, rather, doth equal, if not exceed, any one foundation in Christendom, for the famous men bred therein.”[11 - Ibid., Book III. century xiii.] Roger Bacon (1280), Doctor Mirabilis; John Duns Scotus (1308), Doctor Subtilis; Walter Burley (1337), Doctor Approbatus; William of Ocham (1347), Doctor Singularis or Pater Nominalium; and Thomas Bradwardine (1350), Doctor Profundus, – were all bred in Merton College. John Wycliffe seems to have early entertained and cherished the ambition to add his name to the number of those renowned doctors who as students had preceded him in Merton College. If this was his ambition, he attained to the object of his desire when, by his contemporaries, he was recognised as Doctor Evangelicus. It would appear that, at an early period in his life, he had, after much deliberation, made choice of the Bible or the Gospel as his great theme. To be a “Biblicist,” or Bible student and interpreter, was not considered a high or honorable distinction by the schoolmen – the men of “culture” of that age. But to think for himself and to choose for himself was a notable characteristic of the young Yorkshireman, John Wycliffe. In making his choice and in linking himself indissolubly to the Word and “cause of God,”[12 - Causa Dei – the title of Bradwardine’s great work.] he seems to have been much influenced by the example and by the teaching of Bradwardine. But he made it his aim to be a proficient, and, if possible, a master in all attainable science and learning. That he had been a thorough student of the Trivium and Quadrivium is proved by his works, for they all bear the impress of the disciplined scholastic and the skilful dialectician. In all respects he was a worthy successor of the distinguished band of men who had been his predecessors in Merton. The writings of Wycliffe show that he had studied very carefully the works of Roger Bacon, of Duns Scotus, and of William of Ocham. But the same writings show that he had early learned to call no man master – for while he accepts much from Duns Scotus, he also accepts much from William of Ocham. Truth seems to have been the object of his early, eager, and constant pursuit.

The first notable and formal recognition of Wycliffe’s eminence within the university, is found in his appointment to be Warden or Master of Balliol. In this honorable office he continued only for a few years – 1360-1362. From Balliol he received nomination to the rectorship of the parish of Fylingham, in Lincolnshire. Soon after his appointment to a pastoral cure, he resigned his position as Master of Balliol. Wycliffe’s connection with the diocese of Lincoln, through his being rector of Fylingham, seems to have had an important influence on the progressive development of his ecclesiastical and religious life. A former Bishop of Lincoln – 1235-1254 – Grossetête (Greathead), was spoken of by Roger Bacon as “the only man living” in that age “who was in possession of all the sciences.” The writings of this great and good bishop are continually quoted or referred to by Wycliffe.

A most significant testimony to the standing influence and reputation of Wycliffe in the university was given in 1365 by Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, who appointed him Warden of Canterbury Hall. In the Archbishop’s letter of institution, Wycliffe is described, “as one in whose fidelity, circumspection, and prudence his Grace very much confided, and on whom he had fixed his eyes on account of the honesty of his life, his laudable conversation, and his knowledge of letters.” The significance and worth of this testimony can hardly be overestimated. It is all the more significant because of the circumstances in which it was given, and the nomination to which it was designed to give effect. In founding Canterbury Hall, Islip had appointed Woodhull – a monk of Canterbury – to be Warden. With him three other monks and eight secular scholars were associated in the government of the hall. After a trial of four years of this mixed administration, finding that it did not work well, more particularly because of the jealousies, contentions, and collisions between the monks and the secular associates, Islip, in the exercise of a right which he had reserved to himself, displaced the Warden and the three other monks, and appointed Wycliffe in the place of Woodhull; and three secular priests, Selby, Middleworth, and Benger, to be associates or fellows in the room of the three monks. This action on the part of the Archbishop gave great offence to the monks of Christ Church and to the whole order of the Friars. It was regarded as virtually and in effect an act by which the Archbishop of Canterbury gave the weight of his high position and great authority to those who in Oxford were the resolute and strenuous opponents of the mendicant friars. Consequences that could not have been foreseen by any concerned in this action flowed from it. For not long after Wycliffe’s appointment to the Wardenship of Canterbury Hall, Archbishop Islip died on the 26th April 1366, and was succeeded in November by Simon Langham, who had been monk, prior, and abbot of Westminster. By this Archbishop, Wycliffe and the three secular priests who had been so recently appointed to govern Canterbury Hall were removed. Woodhull and his associates were reinstated in the position from which they had been expelled by Islip, and, in violation of the founder’s will, the eight secular scholars were ejected. The hall thus became virtually a monastic institution. Wycliffe’s appeal to the papal court at Avignon was of no avail. After a protracted process and long delay, the Pope gave judgment against him in 1370. We cannot better conclude this chapter in Wycliffe’s life than by quoting the words of Godwin. They will prepare us for what comes next in the order of events: —

“From Canterbury College, which his predecessor had founded, he (Langham) sequestered the fruits of the benefice of Pageham, and otherwise molested the scholars there, intending to displace them all and to put in monks, which in the end he brought to pass. John Wycliffe was one of them that were so displaced, and had withstood the Archbishop in this business with might and main. By the Pope’s favor and the Archbishop’s power, the monks overbore Wycliffe and his fellows. If, then, Wycliffe were angry with Pope, Archbishop, monks, and all, you cannot marvel.”[13 - A Catalogue of the Bishops of England, by Francis Godwin, now Bishop of Landaff: 1615.]

Nothwithstanding the very reasonable remark of Godwin that we need not wonder much if Wycliffe, considering the treatment which he had received at the hands of the Pope, the Archbishop, and the monks, should be angry against them all, there is no proof or evidence whatever in support of the allegation of his adversaries, that his antagonism to the friars and his attitude towards the Pope proceeded from irritated feeling, discontent, and disappointed ambition. On the contrary, the absence of all such feelings is one of the most remarkable and characteristic distinctions of his numerous writings.

Wycliffe’s nomination by Islip to the Wardenship of Canterbury Hall is dated the 9th of December 1365. In that year Pope Urban V. revived and urged a claim against Edward III. which had been in abeyance for thirty-three years. This was the demand that Edward should pay the feudal tribute or annual fee which for the crown of England he owed to Urban the Fifth of that name, exercising the functions of Bishop of Rome in the place of the papal captivity at Avignon. The Servant of servants at Avignon – moved by that necessity which knows no law, or by an equally lawless covetousness and ambition – demanded of Edward III. of England payment of the feudal tribute-money alleged to be due by that monarch to the Holy See. The demand of the Pope was for payment of the sum of a thousand marks annually due, and for payment of the arrears that had accumulated for thirty-three years, or since Edward, ceasing to be a minor, had exercised his sovereign rights as monarch of England. This papal claim was accompanied with an intimation to the King of England that, in case of his failing to comply with the pontifical demand, he should appear to answer for his non-fulfilment of this duty in the presence of his feudal lord and sovereign, the Pope of Rome, at Avignon. It is difficult to say whether the arrogance or the folly of Pope Urban V., in reviving and urging this claim at this time was the greater of the two. Edward III., even in his decrepitude, and in the midst of the reverses which marked his declining years, was not likely to crouch, like John, under the ignominious burden laid on him in the time of his adversity by the Papacy. The Pope’s claim proved the occasion of uniting the King and the nation in a common assertion and vindication of the national independence, and of the inalienable rights and prerogatives of the English Crown. It was the occasion of Wycliffe’s first public appearance as the champion of the royal supremacy and national independence against the usurpation and arrogance of the Court of Rome. The papal claim was submitted by Edward to the Parliament which met at Westminster in May 1366. After deliberation, the answer of the Parliament – the Lords and Commons of England – to the demand of the Pope, concluded with these weighty and well-measured words: —

“Forasmuch as neither King John nor any other king could bring this realm and kingdom in such thraldom and subjection but by common consent of Parliament, the which was not done; therefore, that which he did was against his oath at his coronation, besides many other causes. If, therefore, the Pope should attempt anything against the King, by process or other matters in deed, the King, with all his subjects, should with all their force and power resist the same.”[14 - Cotton’s Abridgment of Records, p. 102, quoted by Lewis, in his Life of Wycliffe, p. 19.]

At the time when this resolution was come to, Wycliffe was Warden of Canterbury Hall. At this time, also, he stood in some very special relation to the King, as the King’s private secretary or chaplain – “Peculiaris Regis Clericus.” And his argument – “Determinatio de Dominio” – in vindication of the Crown and the national independence, consists mainly of a statement skilfully compiled by him out of what, according to the report which he had heard, had been spoken by the secular lords in a certain meeting of council – “Quam audivi in quodam consilio a Dominis secularibus esse datam.” Soon after the decision of Parliament to repudiate the Pope’s claim, a monastic and anonymous doctor, writing in support of the papal demand, challenged Wycliffe by name – singling him out from all others – to refute, if he could, the argument urged by him on the part of the Pope; and to vindicate, if he could, the action of the English Parliament in refusing to pay the feudal tribute demanded by Urban the Fifth. Wycliffe showed no hesitation in accepting the challenge of this anonymous doctor. And it must be confessed that he conducts his argument with consummate skill, moderation, and ability. His challenger had laid down the position that “every dominion granted on condition, comes to an end on the failure of that condition. But our lord the Pope gifted our king with the kingdom of England, on condition that England should pay so much annually to the Roman See. Now this condition in process of time has not been fulfilled, and the King, in consequence, has lost long ago all rightful dominion in England.” Wycliffe’s answer is, briefly, that England’s monarch is King of England, and has dominion there, not by the grace of the Pope, but by the grace of God. Two other positions were maintained by this polemical monk – namely, that the “civil power may not under any circumstances deprive ecclesiastics of their lands, goods or revenues; and that in no case can it be lawful for an ecclesiastic to be compelled to appear before a secular judge.” Against these claims of exemption and immunity, Wycliffe urges with irresistible force the argument, that as the King is under God supreme in his kingdom, all causes, whether relating to persons or to property, must be under his dominion, and subject to his jurisdiction. Wycliffe, in beginning his reply, says: “Inasmuch as I am the King’s own clerk, I the more willingly undertake the office of defending and counselling that the King exercises his just rule in the realm of England when he refuses to pay tribute to the Roman Pontiff.” Wycliffe constructs his argument out of what, as reported to him, had been spoken at a conference or council of the barons or the lords temporal of the realm. It is not Wycliffe but the noblemen of England who refute the monk and repudiate the Pope’s illegitimate and arrogant demand. An abstract of the speeches of seven of the barons met in council is so given as to be an exhaustive and unanswerable argument against the papal claims, “Our ancestors,” said the first lord, “won this realm, and held it against all foes by the sword. Julius Cæsar exacted tribute by force; but force gives no perpetual right. Let the Pope come and take it by force; I am ready to stand up and resist him.” The second lord thus reasoned: “The Pope is incapable of such feudal supremacy. He should follow the example of Christ, who refused all civil dominion; the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air their nests, but He had not where to lay His head. Let us rigidly hold the Pope to his spiritual duties, boldly oppose all his claims to civil power.” In support of this the third lord said: “The Pope calls himself the Servant of the servants of the Most High: his only claim to tribute from this realm is for some service done; but what is his service to this realm? Not spiritual edification, but draining away money to enrich himself and his Court, showing favor and counsel to our enemies.” To this the fourth lord added: “The Pope claims to be the suzerain of all estates held by the Church; these estates, held on mortmain, amount to one-third of the realm. There cannot be two suzerains; the Pope, therefore, for these estates is the King’s vassal; he has not done homage for them; he may have incurred forfeiture.” The fifth argument is more subtle: “If the Pope demands this money as the price of King John’s absolution, it is flagrant simony; it is an irreligious act to say, ‘I will absolve you on payment of a certain annual tribute.’ But the King pays not this tax; it is wrung from the poor of the realm: to exact it is an act of avarice rather than salutary punishment. If the Pope be lord of the realm, he may at any time declare it forfeited, and grant away the forfeiture.” Following up this view of the case, the sixth lord says: “If the realm be the Pope’s, what right had he to alienate it? He has fraudulently sold it for a fifth part of its value. Moreover, Christ alone is the suzerain; the Pope being fallible, yea, peccable, may be in mortal sin. It is better as of old to hold the realm immediately of Christ.” The seventh lord concluded the argument by a bold denial of the right of King John to surrender or give way the sovereignty of the realm: “He could not grant away the sovereignty of England; the whole thing – the deed, the seals, the signatures – is an absolute nullity.”[15 - See Milman’s Latin Christianity, Book XIII. chap. vi, and the document itself as given in the Appendix (No. 30) to the Life of Wycliffe, by Lewis.]

It cannot now be known how far Wycliffe’s conduct in connection with the claim for the payment of the feudal tribute influenced the papal decision in his appeal; but that decision was given after the publication of Wycliffe’s treatise, “De Dominio.” And there can be no doubt that from May 1366, Wycliffe was marked at Avignon as a dangerous man. To be nearer to Oxford he exchanged, in 1368, the rectory of Fylingham for that of Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire, and he became Doctor in Divinity about the year 1370. The ability, prudence, and courage with which Wycliffe had vindicated the action of the Parliament and of the Crown against the papal claim, as asserted and defended by the anonymous monk, recommended him as singularly qualified to be one of the Royal Commissioners appointed in 1374 to meet with the papal Nuncios at Bruges, to negotiate a settlement of the questions in dispute between England and the Papacy. In this Commission the name of Wycliffe holds the second place, being inserted immediately after that of the Bishop of Bangor. The negotiations terminated in a sort of compromise, according to which it was concluded “that for the future the Pope should desist from making use of reservations of benefices, and that the King should no more confer benefices by his writ Quare impedit.” Although this was but a very partial and unsatisfactory settlement of the matters in dispute, yet the part taken by Wycliffe in the negotiations at Bruges appears to have met with the approbation of the King and his advisers. For in November 1375, he was presented by the King to the prebend of Aust, in the Collegiate Church of Westbury, in the diocese of Worcester. He had previously, in April 1374, received from the Crown, in the exercise of the patronage that devolved on it during the minority of Lord Henry Ferrars, nomination to the rectory of Lutterworth, and had resigned his charge of Ludgershall.

In the same year in which the treaty was concluded (1376), a most elaborate and detailed indictment against the usurpations and exactions of the Papacy and its minions was submitted to Parliament, and after being considered, was passed in the form of a petition to the King, craving that measures of effective redress and remedy should be taken against the notorious and intolerable evils complained of. The Parliament which presented this complaint and petition to the King so commended itself to the people of England that it received the singular designation of “The Good Parliament.” Although the royal answer to the petition was far from being satisfactory or encouraging, yet the Parliament that met in January 1377 presented another petition to the King, craving that the statutes against Provisions passed at former times should be put into effective operation, and that measures should be taken against certain cardinals who had violated those statutes, and against those who in England collected the papal revenues, and by so doing oppressed and impoverished the English people. So vividly do the propositions of these two Parliaments express and represent the ideas and opinions of Wycliffe, that Dr. Lechler concludes that he was a member of both of these Parliaments. But there is no necessity for this inferential assumption. Wycliffe’s doctrines respecting the kingly sovereignty and national independence, and his sentiments regarding the intolerable abuses of the papal officials, were by this time the doctrines and the sentiments of not a few among the lords and commons of England. And without being himself a member of Parliament, Wycliffe had ample opportunity and means for using his influence to stimulate, direct, and guide those who in the National Assembly gave voice to the complaint and claim of the English people as against the usurpation and exactions of the Papacy. To this sort of influence on the part of Wycliffe, as also to the weight attached to his judgment in a case involving a knowledge of canon and civil law, significant testimony was borne by the action of the first Parliament of Richard II., which met at Westminster on the 13th of October 1377. By this Parliament the question was referred to the judgment of Dr. Wycliffe, “Whether the kingdom of England, on an imminent necessity of its own defence may lawfully detain the treasure of the kingdom, that it be not carried out of the land, although the lord Pope required its being carried out on the pain of censures, and by virtue of the obedience due to him?” As might be expected, Wycliffe answered that it was lawful, and demonstrated this by the law of Christ, urging at the same time the common maxim of divines, that alms are not required to be given but to those who are in need, and by those who have more than they need. “By which,” says Lewis, “it appears that Dr. Wycliffe’s opinion was, that Peter-pence paid to the Pope were not a just due, but only an alms, or charitable gift”[16 - See Lewis’s Life of Wycliffe, p. 55, and Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, vol. i. p. 584.]

The action of the English Parliament referring this question to the judgment of Wycliffe, is all the more interesting and significant if respect be had to the time and circumstances in which Wycliffe’s opinion was required by Parliament. It was not only after the death of Edward III., which occurred on the 21st of June 1377, but also after the almost tragical though picturesque incident in Wycliffe’s life, when, accompanied and protected by the Duke of Lancaster and Lord Henry Percy, he appeared in the Ladye Chapel of St. Paul’s Cathedral on the 19th of February in the same year, to answer for himself and his doctrines before a convention of ecclesiastics, presided over by Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by Courtenay, the Bishop of London. It was, also, after no fewer than five papal bulls, dated at Rome on the 22d of May, had been sent forth against Wycliffe. These things give great significancy to the action of Richard II.‘s first Parliament, when for its guidance it desired to have the opinion of Wycliffe respecting the lawfulness of refusing to comply with certain papal exactions.

The position and influence of Wycliffe, his standing in the University and among the representatives and leaders of the people, may be judged of by the elaborate and complicated measures taken against him. One of the Pope‘s missives was addressed to the King, another to the University of Oxford and no fewer than three to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. These documents were accompanied by a schedule or syllabus of nineteen articles which had been reported to the Pontiff, “erroneous, false, contrary to the faith, and threatening to subvert and weaken the estate of the whole Church,” said to be held and taught by Wycliffe. Acting on these instructions, and proceeding in the business with the greatest wariness, the Archbishop summoned Wycliffe to appear before a synod to be held in the chapel at Lambeth early in the year 1378.[17 - The date of this meeting has not been determined with certainty.] On this occasion the Duke of Lancaster and Lord Percy were not with him to protect him, but he received effective though tumultuous and boisterous help from the citizens, who might be heard by the bishops shouting such sentences as, “The Pope‘s briefs ought to have no effect in the realm without the King‘s consent;” “Every man is master in his own house.” But even more effective help than that of the angry citizens was at hand. “In comes a gentleman and courtier, one Lewis Clifford, on the very day of examination, commanding them not to proceed to any definitive sentence against the said Wycliffe.” “Never before were the bishops served with such a prohibition; all agreed the messenger durst not be so stout with such a mandamus in his mouth, but because backed with the power of the prince that employed him. The bishops, struck with a panic-fear, proceeded no further”[18 - Fuller‘s Church History, Book IV. cent. xiv.]– or as a contemporary historian (Walsingham) says: “Their speech became soft as oil; and with such fear were they struck, that they seemed to be as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs.” Wycliffe passed as safely out of Lambert Chapel as on a former occasion he had passed out of the Ladye Chapel of St. Paul‘s. Not long after the sudden conclusion of this Lambeth synod, intimation of the Pope‘s death, on the 27th March 1378, was received in England. This so arrested the process against Wycliffe, that no further action was taken under the five elaborate bulls of Pope Gregory XI. A new chapter in the life and work of Wycliffe begins with the great papal schism of 1378.

Till recently it was supposed that Wycliffe had early assumed the attitude towards the friars which had been taken by Richard Fitzralph, who, after he had been Chancellor of Oxford in 1333, and Archbishop of Armagh in 1347, died at Avignon in 1359. This supposition now appears to be historically without ground; and Dr. Lechler‘s researches tend to show that Wycliffe‘s controversy with the friars belonged not to the earlier but to the later period of his life. This view agrees with all that we know of the method according to which Wycliffe conducted and developed his great argument against the Papacy. Wycliffe‘s study of the papal claims, pretensions, usurpations, and exactions, led him to investigate the grounds and foundations not only of the political, but also of the ecclesiastical and spiritual, power and authority of the Popedom. In his reply in 1366 to the anonymous monk champion of the Papacy, he had represented or reported, with manifest approbation, the statement of one of the secular lords, declaring that the Pope was a man and peccable (peccabilis), and that he might be in mortal sin, and liable to what that involves. After he had taken his degree of Doctor in Divinity in 1370 or 1371, he expounded and vindicated from the Scriptures the doctrines which, by his long study of the Divine Word, he had been led to receive as articles of faith founded on the written Word of God. These views, derived directly and immediately from Holy Scripture, he illustrated by quotations from the early fathers – more particularly from the writings of Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory, the four fathers of the Latin Church. From the time when he became Doctor in Divinity, “he began,” says a contemporary opponent, “to scatter forth his blasphemies.” And as we know, it was after his return from Bruges in 1376 that he began to speak of the Pope not merely as peccable – fallible, and liable to sin – but as “Antichrist, the proud, worldly priest of Rome.”

It has been said that the language of Wycliffe in his tract entitled “De Papa Romana et Schisma Papae” was too strong, too vehement and sweeping; and that his work was, in tendency and effect, destructive rather than constructive. So far is it from being true that his language is that of passion, or of vehemence proceeding from passion, that, on the contrary, it is the language of a reflective, circumspect, and keen-eyed observer of the evils and abuses of the papal system, which he contrasted with the primitive and apostolic model of the Church. When compared with the language of some other assailants of the Papacy, Wycliffe‘s fiercest invectives are but the calm, measured, and temperate declaration of truth and reality, spoken by one who so loved the truth, and was so earnest in his endeavors for the reformation of the Church and the morals of the clergy, that he avowed himself willing, if need be, to lay down his life, if by so doing he could promote the attainment of this end. If the portraiture of the Papacy and of the papal dignitaries, officials, and underlings, given by Petrarch, in his “Letters to a Father,” be compared with the statements of Wycliffe, we shall be constrained to say that the Oxford professor uses the language of reserve characteristic of the well-bred and well-disciplined Englishman who means to give practical effect to his words, as distinguished from the language used by Petrarch, who neither intended, nor had the courage, to add deeds to his words. Historically, Wycliffe‘s work appears to have been more destructive than constructive. But this was not because Wycliffe set himself to root out, to pull down, and to destroy, without, at the same time setting himself to build and to plant. The reason why Wycliffe‘s work appears historically defective or incomplete as a constructive work is that, by the malice, ingenuity, and power of his adversaries, his work in planting and in building – that is to say, his work as constructive – was to the utmost impeded, pulled down, or rooted up. “And,” says Milton, “had it not been the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the divine and admirable spirit of Wycliffe, to suppress him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Huss and Jerome, no, nor the name of Luther or of Calvin, had been ever known; the glory of reforming all our neighbors had been completely ours.”[19 - Milton‘s Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.]

The last six years of Wycliffe‘s life – 1378-1384 – were packed full with work. For in these years, besides developing and expounding his ideas of the Church, the Papacy, and the hierarchy, and prosecuting his controversy with the mendicant friars, he trained and sent forth evangelists, “poor priests” to preach the Gospel in all places of the land; he expounded and taught the doctrine of Scripture concerning the Eucharist or the “real presence” in relation to the bread and the wine in the sacrament of the Lord‘s Supper; he professed and taught theology in Oxford; he preached and discharged the duties of an evangelical pastor in Lutterworth; and with the assistance of a few fellow-laborers, who entered into his purpose and shared with him in the desire for the evangelisation of the people of England, he translated the Scriptures out of the Latin Vulgate into the English tongue. “His life,” and more especially this part of it, “shows that his religious views were progressive. His ideal was the restoration of the pure moral and religious supremacy to religion. This was the secret, the vital principle, of his anti-sacerdotalism; of his pertinacious enmity to the whole hierarchical system of his day.”[20 - Milman‘s Latin Christianity, Book XIII. chap. iv.] Hence as his views of truth became deeper, wider, and more fixed, instead of attacking Popes and prelates, he assailed the Papacy and the hierarchy; and instead of attacking friars, he attacked mendicancy itself – denouncing it in common with the Papacy as contrary to the doctrines of the Word of God, and inconsistent with the order instituted by Christ within the Church, which is the house of God, – the pillar and ground of the truth.

When Wycliffe appeared to answer for himself before the Pope‘s delegates at Lambeth, in 1378, he is said to have presented a written statement explanatory of the articles charged against him. The first sentence of that documentary confession is: “First of all, I publicly protest, as I have often done at other times, that I will and purpose from the bottom of my heart, by the grace of God, to be a sincere Christian, and, as long as I have breath, to profess and defend the law of Christ so far as I am able.”[21 - See the Document itself in Lewis‘s Life of Wycliffe, pp. 59-67.]

A document of a somewhat similar kind, called by Wycliffe “A Sort of Answer to the Bull sent to the University,” was presented by him to Parliament.

It is as a true and sincere Christian, and as a faithful and laborious Christian pastor and evangelist, that Wycliffe appears before us in the closing period of his truly heroic life. The written word of God is now to him the supreme, perfect and sufficient rule of faith and morals: it is what, in his protestation, he calls “the law of Christ.” The watchword of his life – the standard test, rule, directory, and measure of faith and duty – is the Word of God written. His appeal is, first and last, to that Word – “To the law and to the testimony; if men speak not according to that Word, there is no light in them;” they are but blind guides of the blind. He had evidently made progress in his study of the writings of Augustine, and had so profited by the study that he is bold to say that “The dictum of Augustine is not infallible, seeing that Augustine himself was liable to err” – “Locus a testimonio Augustini non est infallibilis, cum Augustinus sit errabilis.” The Bible is a charter written by God; it is God‘s gift to us: “Carta a Deo scripta et nobis donata per quam vindicabimus regnum Dei.” This is what a pre-eminently illustrious poet denotes by the words – “Thy gift, Thy tables.” “The law of Christ is the medulla of the laws of the Church.” “Every useful law of holy mother Church is taught, either explicitly or implicitly, in Scripture.” It is impossible that the dictum or deed of any Christian should become, or be held to be, of authority equal to Scripture. He is a mixtim theologus– a motley or medley theologian – who adds traditions to the written Word. He is theologus purus who adheres to the Scripture. “Spiritual rulers are bound to use the sincere Word of God, without any admixture in their rule or administration. To be ignorant of the Scriptures is to be ignorant of Christ.” “The whole of Scripture is one word of God.” “The whole of the law of Christ is one perfect word proceeding from the mouth of God.” “It is impious to mutilate or pervert Scripture, or to wrest from it a perverse meaning.” The true preachers are Viri evangelici, Doctores evangelici. Ignorance of Holy Scripture, or the absence of faith in the written Word of God, is, he says, “beyond doubt, the chief cause of the existing state of things.” Therefore it was his great business, in life or by death, to make known to his fellow-countrymen the will of God revealed in the Scriptures of Truth. The highest service to which man may attain on earth is to preach the law of God. This is the special duty of the priests, in order that they may produce children of God – this being the end for which Christ espoused to Himself the Church.”

Next to the exclusive supremacy of Scripture, the truth which is set forth with perhaps the most marked prominency in the teaching of Wycliffe, is the truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ as the one Mediator between God and man. Christ is not only revealed in the Word; he is Himself the Mediating Word – the way, and the truth, and the life. And what Wycliffe says of the Apostle Paul, that he lifts the banner of his Captain, in that he glories only in the cross of Christ, admits, as Dr. Lechler remarks, of being justly applied to Wycliffe himself; for his text is the evangel, and his theme is Christ. Like Luther afterwards, Wycliffe lived through the truth which he proclaimed. In his case the order was, first the Word, then Christ. In Luther‘s it was, first the Word, then justification by faith. The German‘s experience implied the logical order of the Englishman‘s experience. For the logic of this faith is the Word of grace, the Christ of grace, the righteousness of grace. Luther‘s work implies, develops, and completes the work of Wycliffe, so that it holds true that the one without the other is not made perfect.

In the year 1380, after recovery from a severe illness, Wycliffe published a tract in which he formulated his charges against the friars under fifty distinct heads, accusing them of fifty heresies; and many more, as he said, if their tenets and practices be searched out. “Friars,” says he, towards the conclusion of this tract, “are the cause, beginning, and maintaining of perturbation in Christendom, and of all the evils of this world; nor shall these errors be removed until friars be brought to the freedom of the Gospel and the clean religion of Jesus Christ.”

Wycliffe did not indulge in mere denunciation. His invectives were with a view to the work of reformation. Accordingly, at the time when he published the fifty charges against the friars he was actively training, organising, and sending out agents – “poor priests” to instruct the people in the knowledge of the Gospel, and by so doing undo the works of the friars, and promote evangelical religion and social virtue. At first these itinerant preachers were employed in some places, as in the immense diocese of Lincoln, under episcopal sanction.[22 - Shirley‘s Introduction to Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 49.] But so effectively and extensively did they propagate the evangelical doctrines of Wycliffe, that in Archbishop Courtenay‘s mandate to the Bishop of London in 1382, they are denounced as “unauthorised itinerant preachers, who set forth erroneous, yea, heretical, assertions in public sermons, not only in churches, but also in public squares, and other profane places; and who do this under the guise of great holiness, but without having obtained any episcopal or papal authorisation.” It was against Wycliffe‘s “poor priests” or itinerant preachers that the first royal proclamation in 1382 (statute it cannot be called), at the instance of Courtenay, for the punishment of heresy in England, was issued. The unprecedented measures taken against the “poor priests” bear most significant testimony to the effect produced by their teachings throughout the kingdom. It would be interesting to know how far, if at all, Wesley‘s idea of itinerant preachers was founded on, or proceeded from, the idea and the experiment of Wycliffe. At any rate, these poor priests were not organised, nor was their action modelled, according to any of the guilds, fraternities, or orders that had been formed or that had been in operation before the time of Wycliffe. The idea was truly original, and “the simplicity of the institution was itself a stroke of consummate genius.”[23 - Wycliffe‘s Place in History, by Professor Burrows, p. 101.]

Having acted out his own principles that the student who would attain to the knowledge of the meaning of Scripture must cultivate humility of disposition and holiness of life, putting away from him all prejudicate opinions, and all merely curious and speculative theories and casuistical principles of interpretation, Wycliffe opened and studied the Bible with the desire simply to know and to do the will of God. It is no wonder if, with these sentiments, Wycliffe in his later years, when engaged continually in reading, studying, expounding, and translating the Scriptures, should come to perceive the contrariety of the papal or mediæval doctrine concerning the Eucharist to the doctrine of Scripture.

Wycliffe‘s views respecting transubstantiation having undergone a great change between the years 1378 and 1381, he felt bound in conscience to make known what he now came to believe to be the true doctrine concerning the Eucharist. For, as he says in the “Trialogus,” “I maintain that among all the heresies which have ever appeared in the Church, there was never one which was more cunningly smuggled in by hypocrites than this, or which in more ways deceives the people; for it plunders the people, leads them astray into idolatry, denies the teaching of Scripture, and by this unbelief provokes the Truth Himself often-times to anger.”[24 - Trialogus, iv. cap. ii., Oxford, p. 248.] In accordance with all this, Wycliffe in the spring of 1381 published twelve short theses or conclusions respecting the Eucharist and against transubstantiation.”[25 - See these as given by Lewis – Conclusiones J. Wiclefi de Sacramento Altaris, Appendix No. 19, p. 318, ed. 1820.]

All Oxford was moved by these conclusions. By the unanimous judgment of a court called and presided over by William de Bertram, the Chancellor, they were declared to be contradictory to the orthodox doctrine of the Church, and as such were prohibited from being set forth and defended in the university, on pain of suspension from every function of teaching, of the greater excommunication, and of imprisonment. By the same mandate all members of the university were prohibited, on pain of the greater excommunication, from being present at the delivery of these theses in the university. When this mandate was served on Wycliffe, he was in the act of expounding the doctrine of Scripture concerning the Lord‘s Supper. The condemnation of his doctrine came upon him as a surprise; but he is reported to have said that neither the Chancellor nor any of his assessors could refute his arguments or alter his convictions. Subsequently he appealed from the Chancellor to the King. In the meantime, finding himself “tongue-tied by authority,” he wrote a treatise on this subject in Latin,[26 - Confessio Magistri Johannes Wycclyff. See Appendix No. 21 in Lewis. Of this confession the concluding words are – “Credo, quod finaliter veritas vincet eos.”] and also a tract in English entitled “The Wicket,” for the use of the people. Wycliffe‘s doctrinal system may be said to have attained to its completeness when, rejecting the idea of transubstantiation, he accepted those simple and Scriptural views of the Eucharist which, apart from papalism or medievalism, have in all ages prevailed within the Catholic Church – that is, within the society or congregation of believers in Christ, irrespectively of name, place, time, ceremony, or circumstance. While this is so, “it is impossible,” as Dr. Lechler truly says, “not to be impressed with the intellectual labor, the conscientiousness, and the force of will, all equally extraordinary, which Wycliffe applied to the solution of this problem. His attack on the dogma of transubstantiation was so concentrated, and delivered (with so much force and skill) from so many sides, that the scholastic conception was shaken to its very foundations.”[27 - Lechler‘s John Wycliffe and his Precursors, vol. ii. p. 193.] He anticipated in his argument against the medieval dogma, and in favor of the primitive and catholic faith concerning the Eucharist, the views of the greatest and best of the Reformers, leaving to them little more to do than to gather up, expound, develop, and apply his principles.