5. Anti-Papal Legislation. 1351—1366.—The antagonism between England and France necessarily led to an antagonism between England and the Papacy. Since 1305 the Popes had fixed their abode at Avignon, and though Avignon was not yet incorporated with France, it was near enough to be under the control of the king of France. During the time of this exile from Rome, known to ardent churchmen as the Babylonian captivity of the Church, the Popes were regarded in England as the tools of the French enemy. The Papal court, too, became distinguished for luxury and vice, and its vast expenditure called for supplies which England was increasingly loth to furnish. By a system of provisions, as they were called, the Pope provided—or appointed beforehand—his nominees to English benefices, and expected that his nominees would be allowed to hold the benefices to the exclusion of those of the patrons. In 1351 the Statute of Provisors[20] attempted to put an end to the system, but it was not immediately successful, and had to be re-enacted in later years. In 1353 a Statute of Præmunire[21] was passed, in which, though the Pope's name was not mentioned, an attempt was made to stop suits being carried before foreign courts—in other words before the Papal court at Avignon. Another claim of the Popes was to the 1,000 marks payable annually as a symbol of John's vassalage, a claim most distasteful to Englishmen as a sign of national humiliation. Since 1333, the year in which Edward took the government into his own hands, the payment had not been made, and in 1366 Parliament utterly rejected a claim made by the Pope for its revival.
6. Predominance of the English Language.—The national spirit which revealed itself in an armed struggle with the French and in a legal struggle with the Papacy showed itself in the increasing predominance of the English language. In 1362 it supplanted French in the law courts, and in the same year Parliament was opened with an English speech. French was still the language of the court, but it was becoming a foreign speech, pronounced very differently from the 'French of Paris.'
7. Piers the Plowman. 1362.—Cruel as had been the direct results of the English victories in France, they had indirectly contributed to the overthrow of that feudalism which weighed heavily upon France and upon all Continental Europe. The success of the English had been the success of a nation strong in the union of classes. The cessation of the war drove the thoughts of Englishmen back upon themselves. The old spiritual channels had been, to a great extent, choked up. Bishops were busy with the king's affairs; monks had long ceased to be specially an example to the world; and even the friars had fallen from their first estate, and had found out that, though they might personally possess nothing, their order might be wealthy. The men who won victories in France came home to spend their booty in show and luxury. Yet, for all the splendour around, there was a general feeling that the times were out of joint, and this feeling was strengthened by a fresh inroad of the Black Death in 1361. To the prevalent yearning for a better life, a voice was given by William Langland, whose Vision of Piers the Plowman appeared in its first shape in 1362. In the opening of his poem he shows to his readers the supremacy of the Maiden Meed—bribery—over all sorts and conditions of men, lay and clerical. Then he turns to the purification of this wicked world. They who wish to eschew evil and to do good inquire their way to Truth—the eternal God—and find their only guide in 'Piers the Plowman.' The simple men of the plough, who do honest work and live upright lives, know how to find the way to Truth. That way lies not through the inventions of the official Church, the pardons and indulgences set up for sale. "They who have done good shall go into eternal life, but they who have done evil into eternal fire." Langland's teaching, in short, is the same as that of the great Italian poet, Dante, who, earlier in the century, had cried aloud for the return of justice and true religion. He stands apart from Dante and from all others of his time in looking for help to the despised peasant. No doubt his peasant was idealised, as no one knew better than himself; but it was honesty of work in the place of dishonest idleness which he venerated. It was the glory of England to have produced such a thought far more than to have produced the men who, heavy with the plunder of unhappy peasants, stood boldly to their arms at Creçy and Poitiers. He is as yet hardly prepared to say what is the righteousness which leads to eternal life. It is not till he issues a second edition in 1377 that he can answer. To do well, he now tells us, is to act righteously to all in the fear of God. To do better is to walk in the way of love: "Behold how good a thing it is for brethren to dwell in unity." To do best is to live in fellowship with Christ and the Church, and in all humility to bring forth the fruits of the Divine communion.
8. The Anti-Clerical Party. 1371.—Langland wished to improve, not to overthrow, existing institutions, but for all that his work was profoundly revolutionary. They who call on those who have left their first love to return to it are seldom obeyed, but their voice is often welcomed by the corrupt and self-seeking crowd which is eager, after the fashion of birds of prey, to tear the carcase from which life has departed. A large party was formed in England, especially amongst the greater barons, which was anxious to strip the clergy of their wealth and power, without any thought for the better fulfilment of their spiritual functions. In the Parliament of 1371 bishops were declared unfit to hold offices of state. Amongst others who were dismissed was William of Wykeham, the Bishop of Winchester. He was a great architect and administrator, and having been deprived of the Chancellorship used his wealth to found at Winchester the first great public school in England. By this time a Chancellor was no longer what he had been in earlier days (see p. [127]), a secretary to the king. He was now beginning to exercise equitable jurisdiction—that is to say, the right of deciding suits according to equity, in cases in which the strict artificial rules of the ordinary courts stood in the way of justice.
William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, 1367-1404: from his tomb at Winchester.