An Oxford theologian and preacher, John Wyclif, voiced the popular resentment of the materialism of the church, benefit of clergy, immorality of priests, and the selling of indulgences and pardons. Encouraged by the king, he argued against the supremacy of the papal law over the King's courts and against payments to the papacy. He opined that the church had no power to excommunicate. The friars had become mere beggars and the church was still wealthy. He proposed that all goods should be held in common by the righteous and that the church should hold no property but be entirely spiritual. He believed that people should rely on their individual consciences. He thought that the Bible should be available to people who could read English so that the people could have a direct access to God without priests or the pope. Towards this end, he translated it from Latin into English in 1384. His preachers spread his views throughout the country. The church then possessed about one-third of the land of the nation.
Parliament met about twice a year and lasted from two weeks to several months. There was a well-defined group of about fifty barons and a few spiritual peers who were always summoned to Parliament and who composed a House of Lords. "Peer" now meant a member of the House of Lords. All peers had the right to approach the king with advice. The baron peers reasoned that the custom of regular attendance was a right that should be inherited by the eldest son, or by a female heir, if there were no male heirs. However, the theory of nobility by blood as conveying political privilege had no legal recognition. No female could attend Parliament; the husband of a baroness attended Parliament in her stead. Edward III and Richard II created new peers with various titles of dignity, such as duke and marquess, which were above barons and earls. The dukes and marquesses were identified with a territorial designation such as an English county or county town. Whenever a Parliament was assembled the commons were present. The commons was composed of representatives from 100 boroughs and 37 counties. Each new Parliament required an election of representatives. The members of the commons were generally the most prominent and powerful economic and political figures of the county and were repeatedly reelected. The electors were usually influenced by the sheriff or a powerful lord who suggested suitable men. The wealthy merchants typically represented the boroughs and paid much of the taxes. Under Edward III, the commons took a leading part in the granting of taxes and the presentation of petitions and became a permanent and distinct body, the House of Commons, with a spokesman or "speaker", chosen by the Crown, and a clerk. The speaker came to be an intermediary between the Commons and the king and between the Commons and the Lords. A clerk of Parliament registered its acts and sat with the Lords. A clerk of the Crown superintended the issue of writs and the receipt of the returns and attested the signature of the king on statutes. It became a regular practice for the Chancellor to open Parliament with an opportunity to present petitions after his opening speech. The king then referred them to certain peers and justices, who decided to which court, or Parliament, they should be sent. During the 1300s, the number of barons going to Parliament gradually decreased.
At the 1376 Parliament, ("the Good Parliament") the Commons, which formerly had only consented to taxes, took political action by complaining that the King's councilors had grown rich by war profiteering at the cost of impoverishing the nation and the people were too poor to endure any more taxation for the war and held a hearing on financial malfeasance and dishonesty of two ministers. The chamberlain had extorted enormous sums, had intercepted fines meant for the king's treasury, and had sold a castle to the enemy. The steward had bought debts of the king's. The House of Lords, the High Court of Parliament, found the charges proved and dismissed them permanently from office. This established the constitutional means for impeachment and prosecution by the Commons and removal by the House of Lords of ministers. By this process, there could be no royal intimidation, as there could be in the ordinary courts. The Commons demanded that its members be elected by county citizens rather than appointed by the sheriff.
The roles of Parliament and the King's council are starting to differentiate into legislative and executive, respectively. The legislative function is lawmaking, and the executive is regulation-making that refines and effectuates the laws of Parliament. But the legislative, executive, and judicial authorities have not as yet become so completely separated that they cannot on occasion work together.
Sheriffs dealt directly with the king instead of through an earl.
From 1150 to 1400, resistance was an ordinary remedy for political disagreements. If a popular leader raised his standard in a popular cause, an irregular army could be assembled in a day. (There was no regular army, since England was protected by the sea from invasion.) So misgovernment by a king would be quickly restrained. Society recovered quickly from conflict and civil war because the national wealth consisted chiefly in flocks and herds and in the simple buildings inhabited by the people. In a week after armed resistance, the agricultural worker was driving his team. There was little furniture, stock of shops, manufactured goods, or machinery that could be destroyed.
To support a war with France, the staple was reinstated by statute of 1353 after an experiment without it in which profits of a staple went to staples outside the nation. Wool exports were inspected for quality and taxed through his officials only at the designated staple ports. These officials included collectors, controllers, searchers [inspectors], surveyors, clerks, weighers, and crane-keepers. Wool, woolfells, leather, and lead sold for export had to go through the staple town. The penalty was forfeiture of lands, tenements, goods, and chattel. The mayor and constables of the staple were elected annually by the native and foreign merchants of the place. The mayor gave validity to contracts for a set fee, by seal of his office. He and the constables had jurisdiction over all persons and things touching the staple, which was regulated by the Law Merchant in all matters of contract, covenant, debt, and felonies against foreign merchants. A hue and cry was required to be raised and followed for anyone taking a cart of merchandise or slaying a merchant, denizen [resident alien] or alien, or the town would answer for the robbery and damage done. In 1363, Calais, a continental town held by the English, became the staple town for lead, tin, cloth, and wool and was placed under a group of London capitalists: the Merchants of the Staple. All exports of these had to pass through Calais, where customs tax was collected. The staple statute remained basically unchanged for the next 200 years.
Guns and cannon were common by 1372. In the 1300s and 1400s, the king relied on mercenaries hired directly or by contract with his great nobles for foreign wars. The King reimbursed the contractors with the profits of war, such as the ransoms paid by the families of rich prisoners. The fighting men supplemented their pay by plunder. Featherbeds and blooded horses were favorite spoils of war brought back to England from the continent. As new techniques with footmen came into being, the footmen became the core of the army and the knightly abilities of the feudal tenants-in-chief became less valuable.
Many lords got men to fight with them by livery and maintenance employment agreements such as this one of 1374: "Bordeaux, February 15. This indenture, made between our lord King John [of Gaunt, of Castile, etc.] of the one part and Symkyn Molyneux, esquire, of the other part, witnesses that the said Symkyn is retained and will remain with our said lord for peace and for war for the term of his life, as follows: that is to say, the said Symkyn shall be bound to serve our said lord as well in time of peace as of war in whatsoever parts it shall please our said lord, well and fitly arrayed. And he shall be boarded as well in time of peace as of war. And he shall take for his fees by the year, as well in time of peace as of war, ten marks sterling from the issues of the Duchy of Lancaster by the hands of the receiver there who now is or shall be in time to come, at the terms of Easter and Michaelmas by even portions yearly for the whole of his life. And, moreover, our lord has granted to him by the year in time of war five marks sterling by the hands of the treasurer of war for the time being. And his year of war shall begin the day when he shall move from his inn towards our said lord by letters which shall be sent to him thereof, and thenceforward he shall take wages coming and returning by reasonable daily [payments] and he shall have fitting freightage for him, his men, horses, and other harness within reason, and in respect of his war horses taken and lost in the service of our said lord, and also in respect to prisoners and other profits of war taken or gained by him or any of his men, the said our lord will do to him as to other squires of his rank."
Forecastles and stern castles on ships were lower and broader. Underneath them were cabins. The English ship was still single masted with a single square sail. A fleet was formed with over 200 ships selected by the English admirals acting for the king at the ports. Men were seized and pressed into service and criminals were pardoned from crimes to become sailors in the fleet, which was led by the King's ship. They used the superior longbow against the French sailor's crossbow. In 1372, the Tower of London had four mounted fortress cannon and the port of Dover had six.