[286] The list of indictments for grave offences in “Munim. Acad.” (R.S.), vol. ii., contains a very large proportion of graduates, chaplains, and masters of Halls; and Gerson frequently speaks with bitter indignation of the number of Parisian scholars who were debauched by their masters.

[287] In Chaucer’s words—

He set ... his benefice to hire
And left his sheep encumbred in the mire,
And ran to London, unto Saintë Paul’s
To seeken him a chanterie for souls.

The Archbishop’s decree may be found in the “Register of Bp. de Salopia,” p. 639; cf. 694 (Somerset Record Society).

[288] Quoted from a MS. collection of 14th-century sermons by Ch. Petit-Dutaillis in “Etudes Dédiées à G. Monod.,” p. 385.

[289] Knighton (R.S.), ii., 191; at still greater length on p. 183. Walsingham, ann. 1387, 1392; cf. “Eulog. Hist.,” iii., 351, 355.

[290] Kingsford, “Chronicles of London,” p. 64; Walsingham, an. 1410.

[291] “P. Plowman,” B., xv., 383: Jusserand, “Epop. Myst.,” p. 217. See especially the remarkable words of Chaucer’s contemporary, the banker Rulman Merswin of Strassburg, quoted by C. Schmidt, “Johannes Tauler,” p. 218. After setting forth his conviction that Christendom is now (1351) in a worse state than it has been for many hundred years past, and that evil Christians stand less in God’s love than good Jews or heathens who know nothing better than the faith in which they were born, and would accept a better creed if they could see it, Merswin then proceeds to reconcile this with the Catholic doctrine that none can be saved without baptism. “I will tell thee; this cometh to pass in manifold hidden ways unknown to the most part of Christendom in these days; but I will tell thee of one way.... When one of these good heathens or Jews draweth near to his end, then cometh God to his help and enlighteneth him so far in Christian faith, that with all his heart he desireth baptism. Then, even though there be no present baptism for him, yet from the bottom of his heart he yearneth for it: so I tell thee how God doth: He goeth and baptiseth him in the baptism of his good yearning will and his painful death. Know therefore that many of these good heathens and Jews are in the life eternal, who all came thither in this wise.”

[292] “P. Plowman,” B., x., p. 51; cf. Langlois, l. c., pp. 211, 264-5.