The theory of "Dominium," adopted and popularised by Wyclif, is an entirely feudal one. According to him, all lordship comes from God; the Almighty bestows it on man as a fief, in consideration of a service or condition the keeping of His commandments. Deadly sin breaks the contract, and deprives the tenant of his right to the fief; therefore no man in a state of deadly sin possesses any of the lordships called property, priesthood, royalty, magistracy. All which is summed up by Wyclif in his proposition: any "dominium" has grace for its foundation. By such a theory, the whole social order is shaken; neither Pope nor king is secure on his throne, nor priest in his living, nor lord in his estate.
The confusion is all the greater from the fact that a multitude of other subversive conclusions are appended to this fundamental theory: While sinners lose all lordship, the good possess all lordship; to man, in a state of "gratia gratificante," belongs the whole of what comes from God; "in re habet omnia bona Dei."[716] But how can that be? The easiest thing in the world, replies Wyclif, whom nothing disturbs: all goods should be held in common, "Ergo omnia debent esse communia"[717]; wives should be alone excepted.—The Bible is a kind of Koran in which everything is found; no other law should be obeyed save that one alone; civil and canonical laws are useless if they agree with the Bible, and criminal if they are opposed to it.[718]—Royalty is not the best form of government; an aristocratic system is better, similar to that of the Judges in Israel.[719]—Neither heirship nor popular election is sufficient for the transmission of the crown; grace is needed besides.[720]—The bequeathing to the Church of estates which will become mortmain lands is inadmissible: "No one can transmit more rights than he possesses, and no one is personally possessed of rights of civil lordship extending beyond the term of life."[721]—If the convent or the priest make a bad use of their wealth, the temporal power will be doing "a very meritorious thing" in depriving them of it.[722]
The whole order of things is unhinged, and we are nearing chaos. It is going so far that Wyclif cannot refrain from inserting some of those slight restrictions which the logicians of the Middle Ages were fond of slipping into their writings. In time of danger this was the secret door by which they made their escape, turning away from the stake. Wyclif is an advocate of communism; but he gives to understand that it is not for now; it is a distant ideal. After us the deluge! Not so, answer the peasants of 1381; the deluge at once: "Omnia debent esse communia!"
If all lordship vanishes through sin, who shall be judge of the sin of others? All real lordship vanishes from the sinner, answered Wyclif, but there remains to him, by the permission of God, a power de facto, that it is not given us to remove; evil triumphs, but with God's consent; the Christian must obey the wicked king and bishop: "Deus debet obedire diabolo."[723] But the dissatisfied only adopted the first part of the theory, and instead of submitting to Simon Sudbury, their archbishop, of whom they disapproved, they cut off his head.
These were certainly extreme and exceptional consequences, to which Wyclif only contributed in a slight measure. The lasting and permanent result of the doctrine was to strengthen the Commons of England in the aim they already had in view, namely, to diminish the authority exercised over them by the Pope, and to loosen the ties that bound the kingdom to Rome. Wyclif pointed out that, contrary to the theory of Boniface VIII. (bull "Unam Sanctam"), there does not exist in this world one single supreme and unequalled sovereignty; the Pope is not the sole depositary of divine power. Since all lordship proceeds from God, that of the king comes from Him, as well as that of the Pope; kings themselves are "vikeris of God"; beside the Pope, and not below him, there is the king.[724]
V.
The English will thus be sole rulers in their island. They must also be sole keepers of their consciences, and for that Wyclif is to teach them free investigation. All, then, must understand him; and he begins to write in English. His English works are numerous; sermons, treatises, translations; they fill volumes.[725]
Before all the Book of truth was to be placed in the hands of everybody, so that none need accept without check the interpretations of others. With the help of a few disciples, Wyclif began to translate the Bible into English. To translate the Scriptures was not forbidden. The Church only required that the versions should be submitted to her for approval. There already existed several, complete or partial, in various languages; a complete one in French, written in the thirteenth century,[726] and several partial ones in English. Wyclif's version includes the whole of the canonical books, and even the apocryphal ones; the Gospels appear to have been translated by himself, the Old Testament chiefly by his disciple, Nicholas of Hereford. The task was an immense one, the need pressing; the work suffered from the rapidity with which it was performed. A revision of the work of Nicholas was begun under Wyclif's direction, but only finished after his death.[727]
No attempt at elegance is found in this translation; the language is rugged, and on that account the better adapted to the uncouthness of the holy Word. Harsh though it be we feel, however, that it is tending towards improvement; the meaning of the words becomes more precise, owing to the necessity of giving to the sacred phrases their exact signification; the effort is not always successful, but it is a continued one, and it is an effort in the right direction. It was soon perceived to what need the undertaking answered. Copies of the work multiplied in astonishing fashion. In spite of the wholesale destruction which was ordered, there remain a hundred and seventy manuscripts, more or less complete, of Wyclif's Bible. For some time, it is true, the copying of it had not been opposed by the ecclesiastical authority, and the version was only condemned twenty-four years after the death of the author, by the Council of Oxford.[728] In the England of the Plantagenets could be foreseen the England of the Tudors, under whom three hundred and twenty-six editions of the Bible were printed in less than a century, from 1525 to 1600.
But Wyclif's greatest influence on the development of prose was exercised by means of his sermons and treatises. In these, the reformer gives himself full scope; he alters his tone at need, employs all means, from the most impassioned eloquence down to the most trivial pleasantry, meant to delight men of the lower class. Put to such varied uses, prose could not but become a more workable instrument. True it is that Wyclif never seeks after artistic effect in his English, any more than in his Latin. His sermons regularly begin by: "This gospel tellith.... This gospel techith alle men that ..." and he continues his arguments in a clear and measured style, until he comes to one of those burning questions about which he is battling; then his irony bursts forth, he uses scathing similes; he thunders against those "emperoure bishopis," taken up with worldly cares; his speech is short and haughty; he knows how to condense his whole theory in one brief, clear-cut phrase, easy to remember, that every one will know by heart, and which it will not be easy to answer. Why are the people preached to in a foreign tongue? Christ, when he was with his apostles, "taughte hem oute this prayer, bot be thou syker, nother in Latyn nother in Frensche, bot in the langage that they usede to speke."[729] How should popes be above kings? "Thus shulden popis be suget to kynges, for thus weren bothe Crist and Petre."[730] How believe in indulgences sold publicly by pardoners on the market-places, and in that inexhaustible "treasury" of merits laid up in heaven that the depositaries of papal favour are able to distribute at their pleasure among men for money? Each merit is rewarded by God, and consequently the benefit of it cannot be applicable to any one who pays: "As Peter held his pees in grauntinge of siche thingis, so shulden thei holden ther pees, sith thei ben lasse worth than Petir."[731]