Cabinet Portrait Gallery of British Worthies. Volume I

by Anonymous

There is some uncertainty about both the year and the place of John Wiclif's birth: the place which seems most probable, however, is a little village pleasantly situated near the junction of the rivers Greta and Tees, about six miles from Richmond in Yorkshire; the year 1324. What is known of his life commences with the year 1340, when he entered as a commoner at Queen's College, Oxford, then newly founded: his name is in the list of the first scholars. From Queen's he soon removed to Merton College, at that time highest in repute at the University; where he greatly distinguished himself. The theology taught at this period was that of the schoolmen, who, as Bacon afterwards said of them, "did, out of no great quantity of matter, spin out those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books...admirable indeed for the fineness of the thread, but of no substance or profit." In this scholastic discipline Wiclif became so deeply versed, that his contemporary Knighton, a bitter enemy and a competent judge, declared he was without an equal (in scholasticis disciplinis incomparabilis.) Nor was he skilled in this alone; he appears to have pursued, with almost equal success, the whole round of moral, philosophical, and legal studies as then taught. According to the standard of his time he was an eminently learned man.

The earliest of Wiclif's publications, so far as is known, was written in 1356; it was first printed in 1840. The work itself does not occupy more than fourteen small pages, and is of little value on its own account, but deserving attention, as Wiclif's first work, written when he was thirty-two years old, a period in a man's life when his character is fixed and his tone of thought determined, and when consequently the opinions he has formed will almost certainly colour the actions of the remainder of his life. We may therefore spend a few minutes in looking at this production and at the circumstances which called it forth. In 1349 a fearful pestilence occurred in England. It had marched slowly from the east, ravaging every country it passed through. Nearly the whole of Europe was visited by it. The voice of the terrified nations affirmed that only a tithe of the human race had escaped; that all children born since it were deficient in the number of their teeth; that even the brute creation was not spared, their corpses being so many as to fill the air with a horrible taint. So severe indeed was the visitation, that, in this country at least, it long served as an epoch from which legal documents were dated. The Scriptures told that pestilence had of old been the scourge wherewith an offended God had punished the sins of the nations; and the people devoutly believed that this had been sent for such a purpose. The plague ceased, but sober men saw with sorrow that the rulers and the priests had not heeded the heavenly warning, and to the faithful the wickedness that stalked abroad seemed like an awful defiance of the divine power. Under such circumstances and prompted by some such feelings was it that Wiclif wrote 'The Last Age of the Church.' Taking for his guide the prophecies of Abbot Joachim, a mystic who lived in the twelfth century, and combining therewith a cabalistic computation of the Scriptural prophecies, and turning also to the verses of the Sybil, he thought the end of the world was at hand, and announced its speedy dissolution. He was mistaken, and lived to see that he was mistaken. But although his prophecy failed, there is much in the tract that shows the man as he then was, and throws a bright light on his future career. It proves that he had thus early come to have identified in his mind religion with the whole life of man, to look upon it as reaching to all his duties and employments, that he, indeed, regarded it as the animating principle of the whole of the political and social institutions. It proves that he had cast an anxious look around him, and, dissatisfied with the state of the world, he was more dissatisfied with the ministers of religion, whom he boldly and broadly charges with a disregard of their higher functions, and an indulgence in a greedy and unholy rapacity. It may in a word be said, that the object of the tract is to declare the troubles that will fall upon the church and the world, on account of the simony of the priests, and the encroachments and exactions of the papal power.

These feelings were brought out more strongly a few years later. In 1360 he engaged in what a recent historian calls "a fierce but ridiculous controversy with the different orders of friars." To the stern moral dignity of Wiclif the controversy did not seem a ridiculous one, and indeed it hardly seems to us more ridiculous than that of Luther with Tetzel and the Dominicans. These friars had been established in England for more than a century, and had obtained considerable influence. Although vowing poverty, they had acquired great wealth; under the guise of sanctity they had concealed, it was affirmed, gross depravity. They had almost from the first been at enmity with the secular clergy, and were especially obnoxious to the University of Oxford. Before Wiclif, they met with a steady opponent in Fitz-Ralph, chancellor of Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Armagh, who carried his charges against them to the papal throne. Fitz-Ralph died in 1360, from which time Wiclif pursued the war fiercely, and only ceased to prosecute it with his life. Of the works he produced against them at this period it is not certain that any remain. Two pieces, one which he presented to the court of Richard II., and the other which seems to have been written a year or two before his death, were printed by Dr. James in 1608, and serve to show the nature of his quarrel. It was not, as Dr. Lingard implies, merely a charge against them for depending upon alms, which Wiclif asserted to be repugnant to the Gospel; though upon that he strongly insisted, but rather that they misled the unwary, by holding out to them false hopes of pardon, and by their untrue representations obtained their property from them, leading them to trust to these worthless pardons thus purchased by money, instead of setting before them the great Gospel truth. He charges them with doing this that they might obtain the wealth of their dupes. They become, he says in his bitter and plain-spoken language, "confessors, preachers, and rulers commonly of all men, and they teachen them not their foul sins, for winning of stinking muck and lusts of their own bellies, that is foul worm's meat and a sack of dirt." And elsewhere, "St. James directs to visit the fatherless and motherless children, and widows in their tribulation, and to keep man unfouled from the world, that is, from pride, covetise, and vanities. But friars do all the contrary, for they visiten rich men, and by hypocrisy getten falsely their alms, and withdraw from poor men; but they visiten rich widows for their muck, and maken them to be buried at the Friars, but poor men come not in there." This was Wiclif's quarrel, and this continued to be his quarrel with them, that while intent only on driving a lucrative and disgraceful trade, they were deceiving the souls of those who trusted to them: no ridiculous controversy that, to a man of Wiclif's mind! As he said, so doubtless he thought—"Friars be worse enemies and slayers of man's soul, than is the cruel fiend of hell by himself. For they under the habit of holiness lead men and nourish them in sin, and be special helpers of the fiend to strangle men's souls." It is not our business to palliate the violence of Wiclifs language, but only to represent his feelings, and a cold statement in the calm phraseology of our day would poorly express the vehemence of his indignation. These words were not probably written till long afterwards, but these were no doubt his sentiments then. His controversy with the friars marks the commencement of his career as a reformer.

The year following that in which he engaged in this controversy he was chosen master of Baliol College, and presented to the living of Fillingham, a valuable benefice in the diocese of Lincoln. Four years afterwards he was appointed warden of Canterbury Hall, by Archbishop Islip, the founder of that college. [21] Originally the archbishop had appointed Woodhall, a friar, to be warden, and had founded eleven scholarships, three to be held by monks, and eight by clerks, or secular clergymen. At this time the dispute between these orders was at its height, and the peace and security of the infant establishment were soon disturbed by the bickerings of its inmates. To such a length were they carried, that Islip felt himself called upon to interfere, and he determined to prevent the probability of a recurrence of the quarrel by removing the monks, and substituting for them seculars. Islip did not live long after this change; and, on the succession of Langham to the vacant see, Woodhall appealed to him, as visitor of Canterbury Hall, to remove Wiclif, who, he affirmed, had procured his appointment at a time when Islip was incapable from sickness of judging aright. He was successful; but Wiclif in his turn appealed from the new archbishop to the pope; his holiness, however, ratified the decision of Langham, but not till after a delay of nearly four years. Meanwhile Wiclif had done nothing to propitiate the papal power, but he had done some things to offend it. In 1365 Urban V. renewed the papal claim to a domination over the sovereignty of England, which had been conceded to the holy see by John; and he demanded the payment of an annual tribute of a thousand marks, together with the arrears of the last thirty years. Edward III. was little disposed either to acknowledge his subjection or to pay the money. He submitted the claim of the pontiff to his parliament, which on the next day, and without dissent from laymen or clergy, declared his submission to the pope to be beyond the power of any sovereign to render, and engaged, if the demand were persisted in, to oppose it with the whole power of the nation. Urban was intimidated by an opposition so much more resolute than he expected. A monk, however, published a tract, in which he reasserted the right of the pontiff to the tribute, and ventured to declare, that England was justly forfeit on account of the non-payment of it; and hence he presumed to assert that the clergy were absolved from their subjection to the English king. To controvert his argument he challenged Wiclif by name. The reformer was not the man to submit quietly to such a challenge. He speedily replied to it, though, as he declared, he was not ignorant that the object of his antagonist was to involve him in difficulties with the pope, and to obtain for himself, and his order, the papal favour. Wiclif gives a statement of the debate in parliament, and of the reasons there adduced against the grant; and then, in his own name, shows that the papal claim, and the grant on which it was founded, were dishonest, and that therefore, as the conditions were bad, the consequences that were asserted to result logically from them were bad also. Wiclif in this tract calls himself the king's chaplain, and it is a proof of the eminence to which he had attained, that he should be singled out for this encounter, unless it arose from his prior controversy.

In 1368, before the dispute respecting the wardenship of Canterbury Hall was determined, Wiclif exchanged the rectory of Fillingham for that of Ludgershall, also in the diocese of Lincoln. After the award of the pontiff was received, Woodhall remained two years before he could obtain the king's confirmation, which was, it is said, then only procured by a bribe of two hundred marks. But another and more important dignity was at this time conferred upon Wiclif by the University. In 1372 he was elected Professor of Theology, and at the same time he took the degree of D.D. This is a most important period in his life. It is evident that he had already attained a high position in the esteem of those who were most competent to judge of his abilities, but it is probable that his election to this office may have arisen from their gratitude for his services in opposition to the growing influence and power of the monks, and his fervid declaration against the continuous encroachment of the pope. But if it were for these less immediately religious services that he received the appointment of professor of divinity, it is not to be doubted but, in accordance with his repeatedly declared sentiments of the responsibility of the ministers of religion, he would address himself devoutly to the important duties of the office he had undertaken. He appears, indeed, from this time to have more earnestly and more rigorously set himself to the study of the Scriptures. In those days the Scriptures were not unknown to the teachers of religion, as has been sometimes asserted, but the knowledge of them does not appear to have been general or exact. Wiclif's quotations from them were now more frequent; his expositions of them always exhibited them as the ultimate rule. It is probable that from this time we may date the establishment of his main doctrinal views, and also his departure from the received theology. It is not possible in our brief space to extract from the works that appear to belong to this period, but we may say that, if they have been correctly dated, he now distinctly set forth those truths which caused him to be branded as a heretic. His lectures on the Decalogue afford striking proofs of the clearness and vigour of his powers, and exhibit his leading views of religion with much distinctness. These views were very different from those generally received, and must have excited much surprise—much enmity, and much deep attachment. As we shall have to speak of his opinions more hereafter, we may conveniently leave any further remarks upon them for the present.

The papal claims occupied much of the attention of Edward III., especially in the latter part of his reign. An embassy had been sent to the pope, Gregory XI., in 1373, respecting the appointment of bishops, the reservation of benefices, and other matters in which Edward and his parliament declared that the pontiff had largely encroached on the ancient customs. Some partial concessions were made, but the English king was far from being satisfied with the extent of them, and it was resolved in 1374 to send another embassy. The name of Wiclif stands second on the list of commissioners, the first name being that of the Bishop of Bangor, who had been employed in the previous negotiation; with them were united five other persons. The conference was held at Bruges, where the papal nuncios met them. Wiclif appears to have stayed in this city from August, 1374, till July, 1376. What results were obtained are not exactly known. For Wiclif himself the consequences were probably of much importance. At this time, it will be remembered, the pope's residence was at Avignon, and the papal court had attained to a rather bad eminence. It is not probable that, with his strong feelings of the responsibility of the office of a minister of religion, Wiclif would become more attached to the dignitaries of the church from the closer intercourse he would now have with them. His visit to Bruges may have produced as strong an impression on his mind as was wrought on that of Luther by his journey to Rome. In fact, according to Dr. Vaughan, "his rebukes, which had hitherto been directed toward the head of the church but distantly and by implication, are applied in that quarter, soon after this time, with unsparing severity."

During his absence at Bruges the king marked his satisfaction with his conduct, by conferring on him the rectory of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, and a prebendal stall in the collegiate church of Westbury, in the diocese of Worcester. The principal commissioner, on the other hand, received his reward from the pope, who translated him to the see of Hereford, and a few years after to that of St. David's. A few months only elapsed after the return of Wiclif, when he was summoned to appear before a convocation to answer the charge of holding heretical doctrines. What was the exact nature of the heresies does not appear; they were probably not definitely stated, owing to a strange scene that occurred. The convocation was held at St. Paul's, February 19, 1377, and that edifice was crowded by the populace, as well as by the clergy, long before the reformer made his appearance. When he arrived it was between two of the most powerful nobles in the land, one the king's eldest surviving son, the celebrated John of Gaunt, the other Lord Percy, the Lord Marshal of England. With Gaunt Wiclif had probably become acquainted at Bruges, for, during his stay there, the duke had visited that city, as ambassador, to conduct some negotiations with the minister of the French monarch; and no doubt Wiclif, from his official position, would have some intercourse with him. The support of the duke and of Lord Percy arose most likely from political rather than religious motives. The dignity of these nobles scarcely sufficed to procure an approach through the crowd to Courtney, bishop of London, who presided on the occasion. Some slight tumult occurred in making their way, which, being perceived by the bishop, he called out "Lord Percy, if I had known beforehand what masteries you would have kept in the church, I would have stopt you out from coming hither." To this rough salutation the Duke of Lancaster replied, "He shall keep such masteries here, though you say nay." Percy desired Wiclif "to sit down, as he had many things to answer to, and needed to repose himself;" but the bishop declared it to be unreasonable that one cited before his ordinary should sit, and peremptorily affirmed that "he must and should stand." Gaunt replied that Percy's motion was but reasonable, and continued, "As for you, my Lord Bishop, who are grown so proud and arrogant, I will bring down the pride not only of you, but of all the prelacy in England." The bishop told him to "do his worst;" and after some further bickering, the duke vowed that sooner than submit to such words he would "pluck the bishop by the hair out of the church." The bystanders had been growing excited by these outrageous proceedings; and now, fancying the duke would proceed to violent acts, they rose in a body for their bishop, and the duke and his followers were compelled to a speedy flight. The Londoners, not content with driving the duke and his friends from the church, assembled in a tumultuous mob and proceeded to his palace, but he had made his escape, and they contented themselves with reversing his arms. They then proceeded to the house of Lord Percy, which they damaged, but they did not succeed in finding its owner: an unlucky priest, however, whom they found, and imagined to be Percy in an assumed habit, they hung. The mayor and aldermen were afterwards removed from their offices for not suppressing the riot, but none of the rioters appear to have been punished. It does not seem that Wiclif took any part in these discreditable proceedings, nor that the mob attempted to injure him. Of course, he would be far more obnoxious than ever to his opponents, and from this period they appear to have pursued him with more determined hate.

After this meeting Wiclif devoted himself to his parochial duties, but in a few months he was summoned from them to answer new charges. Probably some of his more inveterate enemies had forwarded to Rome statements of his heterodox notions, for on the 22nd of May, 1377, the pope issued four bulls against him, addressed respectively to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the University of Oxford, and with these was sent a letter to the king, stating that information had been received from creditable persons that John Wiclif, rector of Lutterworth, and professor of theology, had been actively engaged in propagating certain detestable and erroneous notions utterly subversive of the church. These bulls authorise the incarceration of Wiclif, and his examination upon the various matters stated: the results of the examination were to be transmitted to the pope for his determination. The charges preferred are probably nearly similar to those that would have been brought forward at the convocation but for the unexpected disturbances. These charges, or "conclusions" as they are called, show that the pontiff was most moved by their appearing to question his pre-eminence. They state that Wiclif denied the political supremacy of the pope, and asserted that the whole race of men agreeing had not power to ordain such supremacy—that it was beyond the power of God himself to confer it. That he denied the efficacy alike of benediction and of excommunication assumed by priests; that absolutions are valueless except as they agree with the law of God; and that the spiritual power of the ministers of religion does not differ in degree. These bulls vary only in trifling particulars. They impress alike on all to whom they are sent the urgent necessity of extirpating such detestable heresies, which they liken to those of Ganduno and Marcillus, condemned fifty years before by Pope John XXII. These men opposed the papal see on political grounds; and it is plain from the tone of the bulls that it was the attack on his temporal authority that disconcerted Gregory. Before these documents could arrive Edward III. had ceased to live, and his decease afforded Wiclif a little breathing time. The other parties to whom they were addressed did not take any public proceedings in connexion with them till several months had elapsed. The University of Oxford seriously demurred at receiving the bull, and, when they had received it, took no steps for furthering the object of it. The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, had no such scruples; he addressed a letter to the Chancellor of Oxford, directing him to make inquiries respecting the errors referred to in the papal mandate, and to forward to him the result of his investigations, with his own judgment thereon, sealed with the University seal: he also directs him to cite Wiclif to appear at St. Paul's to answer the charges, on the thirtieth court-day from the 18th of December, 1377. Wiclif appeared not at St. Paul's, but at Lambeth; but the result was not more hurtful to him than on the previous occasion. Gaunt was no longer supreme in the court, but the reformer had now another friend there. The Dowager-Princess of Wales, the king's mother, at this time possessed much influence, and she used it on this occasion on Wiclif's behalf. The Londoners, too, appear to have been now as much opposed to the bishops as they had before been to Wiclif's friends. They attended, and, by their clamours against the proceedings, created much confusion; and before the tumult could be appeased, a messenger from the princess commanded the bishops to abstain from any decision injurious to Wiclif; they, as Walsingham indignantly says, "became soft as oil in their speech; so were they stricken with fear, you would think them as a man who hears not, or one in whose mouth are no reproofs." Before this convocation was held Wiclif had circulated an answer to the papal "conclusions;" which, somewhat altered or corrected, he put in at his trial. These modifications, and his answers or explanations to the "conclusions," have been declared to be "quibbles and evasions unworthy of a sensible or of an honest man." But the proofs adduced by the reverend historian, especially as coming from one so learned in the theology of the schools, are strangely inadequate to sustain so grave a charge. The explanations are undoubtedly strained, but the conclusions are strained too, and the whole bears the appearance of a scholastic wrangle. It would not be worth while to examine these answers here, could we afford the space, but we must repeat that to us they appear anything but evasive, although not consistent with our modes of reasoning. It does not appear that Wiclif had really expressed his opinions in anything like the form they bear in the pope's mandate; they were "conclusions" gathered out of his writings. In judging Wiclif in this matter it should not be forgotten either, that the only authority for the paper ascribed to him is Walsingham, who was most unfriendly to him, and it may be not literally exact. Wiclif concludes his paper by assuring his judges that he is a true son of the church; that he has not advanced any opinions without warrant from Scripture and the writings of holy doctors, as he is ready to show; but that he is most willing to retract whatever can be proved to be erroneous. The answers were admitted as sufficient by the bishops, and he was dismissed with a warning to avoid in future such questionable matters. By Wiclif the result was considered as a triumph, and the warning disregarded. He was immediately afterwards attacked on the subject of the papal infallibility by an anonymous writer whom he calls a "Motley divine" (Mixtus theologus), who appears to have been not a little startled by Wiclif's daring, and in consequence to have thought it necessary to reassert the authority and infallibility of the pontiff in the strongest terms. Among other things he declared, according to Wiclif, that as the pope could not commit mortal sin, whatever he ordained must be just. To which Wiclif replied, that if so, he might remove any book from the Scripture, and introduce any novelty in its place; and thus, making the very Scripture heresy, establish heresy in its stead. From this Wiclif advances to more direct and stronger attacks on a power so enormous and so capable of abuse, and urges the more influential classes to cast off so intolerable a thraldom. He attacks with equal vigour his other positions, but the full swell of his indignation is reserved for the impious declaration that the pope and clergy could as fully absolve from sin as the Almighty himself. It is evident that he had now arrived at the point when he was prepared to oppose to the utmost the papal power.

That this power would soon have been brought to bear upon him, if Gregory had lived, is not to be doubted, but he was saved by the breaking out of the "Great Schism of the West." Pope Gregory XI. died on the 27th of March, 1378, and while the Italian cardinals elected and obeyed Urban VI., those attached to the interests of France chose Clement VII. Urban was acknowledged in England, but he had too much employment at home to prosecute an English heretic. For the next three years, therefore, Wiclif was left undisturbed. He spent most part of this time at Lutterworth, diligently pursuing the course he had already commenced.

The comparative tranquillity in which he now found himself, he left not unimproved. He had now resolutely bent the whole of his energy against the doctrine of the pope's infallibility, and he gladly seized the opportunity of exhibiting the absurdity of the tenet, afforded by the rival claimants. His 'Schism of the Popes,' which he now published, is a keen piece of controversy, and from the circumstances must have been very effective at the time it was produced. All reserve is now cast aside in his attacks on the rival heads of the church, whom he contrasts with Christ and his apostles, and assimilates to Simon Magus.