The custom of papal provisors dates from the thirteenth century when the popes began to assume a power of nominating to vacant benefices. In this way foreigners were appointed to many of the most lucrative of the English benefices. Naturally they never came near their parishes, but contented themselves with the appointment of an ill-paid parochial chaplain to discharge the necessary duties. This custom was put an end to by the Statute of Praemunire (1392).
We must also note that the system of pluralities was carried on in the Middle Ages to an extent which seems to us almost incredible to-day. One man might hold several valuable livings which he never went near, whilst a clerk, who was frequently paid a miserable wage, was expected to do the work. Equally vicious was the custom of appointing to benefices men who had only been admitted to minor clerical orders. “A glance at the lists of incumbents of parishes in any good county history will reveal the fact that rectors of parishes were often only deacons, sub-deacons, or acolytes. It is clear that in many of these cases—probably in the majority of them—the men had taken minor orders only to qualify themselves for holding the temporalities of a benefice and never proceeded to the priesthood at all.”[742] Just as in the other cases we have mentioned, these men drew the revenues of the living and then appointed a deputy at a small salary to be responsible for the duty.
Whilst the spiritual effects of this policy were disastrous, the policy itself resulted in education becoming an object of desire to men in the lower social grades, as they saw in education an opportunity of escape from their existing circumstances. It does not follow that these men made either incapable or undesirable priests. One of the most charming pictures drawn by Chaucer is that of the poor parson of the town, but his social position is indicated by the fact that “with him there was a ploughman, was his brother.”
The number of possible ecclesiastical appointments does not end with vicars and parochial chaplains. In addition there were the numerous chantries, which existed in connection with so very many churches in the country, and for each of which one or two priests would be required. Then again the gilds to which we have already referred usually maintained one or more chaplains. In these ways employment would probably be found for a large number of priests. “There were at the Reformation, ten gilds in Windham in Norfolk, seven at Hingham, seventeen at Yarmouth. Moreover, a gild like a chantry, had sometimes more than one gild priest. Leland tells us that the gild of St. John’s in St. Botolph’s Church, Boston, had ten priests ‘living in a fayre house at the west end of the parish churchyard.’ In St. Mary’s Church, Lichfield, was a gild which had five priests.”[743]
Besides all these regular appointments, there were a large number of priests who earned fees by taking “temporary engagements” to say masses for the souls of the departed. Thus Archbishop Islip in his “Constitutions” speaks of this class as those who “through covetousness and love of ease, not content with reasonable salaries, demand excessive pay for their labours and receive it.”[744] Chaucer introduces one of these characters into his Canon Yeoman’s Tale:—
“In London was a priest an annueller,
That therein dwelled hadde many a year
Which was so pleasant and so serviceable
Unto the wife there as he was at table
That she would suffer him no thing to pay
For board ne clothing went he never so gay
And spending silver had he right ynoit.”
Employment for qualified men was also available in connection with the establishments of great nobles. The household books which are available usually contain a record relating to a “maister of gramer.” In addition to grammar masters, these establishments often afforded opportunities for employment for a number of priests. The “Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland” gives us information which enables us to see that he maintained a dean, ten other priests, and six children, who formed a choir for his private chapel.[745]
It was not only noblemen of high standing who numbered chaplains on their establishment. Knights and gentlemen and even wealthy tradesmen and yeomen also had their domestic chaplains. Sir Thomas More writes: “there was such a rabel (of priests) that every mean man must have a priest to wait upon his wife, which no man almost lacketh now.”[746]
We have thus demonstrated that there existed a considerable demand for men who had received a certain amount of education, and that as a result the demand for schools was stimulated. The account we have given in the preceding part of this work shows that a supply of schools was forthcoming to meet this demand. We have confined ourselves here to treating of the demand for men of education in connection with ecclesiastical positions, but it would also have been possible to show that men of education were also needed in connection with commerce and law.
(2) Turning next to the second of the three headings we have indicated, we note that Lollardism is the general term applied to the political and theological doctrines associated with the name of John Wycliffe. His main ideas are embodied in his De Civili Domino and De Domino Divino. The chief subject discussed in these works is the nature of the relationship between a ruler and his subjects and between divine and civil lordship. His conception of this relationship is based on a feudal view of society, and he continually borrows illustrations of the relationship of divine to civil lordship from the connection between feudal lord and vassal. It was his application of this doctrine to questions touching temporal property that brought him under the imputation of heresy because he taught that “ecclesiastical persons or corporations had no indefeasible right to temporalities which might be taken away in case of misuse.”[747] This theory cut across the doctrine of the supremacy of the spiritual power. The State, according to Wycliffe, possessed the power of determining the function of the Church, and when the Church either extended the sphere of its legitimate operations or misused the revenues entrusted to it for spiritual purposes, then it was the duty of the State to take such action as might be necessary for the reformation of the Church.