people also pressed into the chamber, clamorous for the protection of a man whose crime against the Pope was his patriotic resistance to the plundering of England at a time when England was in sorest need of all means of defence. The Commissioners themselves were not wanting in sympathy with this part of Wyclif's argument. They yielded to the pressure from above and from below. Nothing was done. The Death of Schism in the Soon afterwards, on the 27th of March, 1378, Pope Gregory XI. died, and Urban VI. reigned in his stead, or sought to reign. He was Bartolomeo Prignani, Bishop of Bari, a Neapolitan, was not a cardinal, Gregory XI. and was elected on the 9th of April. French cardinals at Anagni, on the 9th of August, declared that election void, and chose for themselves Robert of Geneva, who, on the 20th of September, took the name of Clement VII. And so that Schism in the Papacy began, which lasted thirty-eight years, and by which the Reform movement in England was yet further helped. 66 John Wyclif, like other Englishmen, accepted Urban VI. as the true Pope, and repudiated Clement VII., who found most favour in France. In his book, "De Ecclesia" written perhaps at the end of the year 1378, Wyclif spoke of the better faith of us English" who obey Pope Urban VI. as humble servant of God, than of the schismatics who obey Clement VII. for worldly dominion and power. And in a Latin sermon preached about the same time on St. Matthew's Day, he said of the choice of Matthew as apostle, that it was more rightful than the choice of Robert of Geneva, to which he added, "Thus our Urban remains justly the true vicar of Peter, and his election is valid. But if our Urban stray from the right path, his election is in error, and it would be much better for the Church to be without them both." Our Urban did stray much from the right path, and * "Ideo maneat Urbanus noster in justitia versus Petri vicarius, et valet sua electio. Quod si Urbanus noster a via erraverit, Wyclif said that it would be better for the Church if both Popes could be put away. They were engaged in feuds and hatreds that had nothing to do with religion. Urban VI. even tried, in 1383, to raise a Crusade in England of Christian against Christian, to put down his competitor. We have seen how John Gower, an orthodox religious Englishman, spoke of the Papacy at the beginning of the schism, in his "Vox Clamantis," * ending with the cry that the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses, the scribes dogmatise, the shepherds care only for plunder, and the sheep wander astray. Give us, O God, prelates who will lead the people in right ways; for if our clergy be good, we also shall be better than we are.---And thus in 1381, when a new conflict was arising between him and Rome, Wyclif was well prepared for throwing off allegiance to any papacy. sua electio est erronea, et multum prodesset ecclesiæ, utroque istorum carere." Vienna MS. 3928, quoted by Dr. Lechler. *E. W." iv. 183-185. CHAPTER IV. WYCLIF AS TEACHER. Active DURING the years of Wyclif's life through which we have traced his labours for reform of the relations between Church and State, he was himself active in the religious work which he thought more proper to a Churchman than the striving after wealth and power. He was, above all things, a great teacher. In the schools at Oxford he was honoured for his erudition, his acuteness in scholastic argument, his pure life, and the high aim of his studies. When the tendencies of thought stirred earnest men in divers places, and Wyclif among them, to translate and otherwise interpret books of Scripture in the language of the people, it was the energy of Wyclif that brought into this work a fellowship of labour towards one great end, the production of a complete English Bible. There remains to us a large body of his sermons, both in Latin and in English, that bear witness to his diligence. in pulpit teaching. All this went side by side with labour on the treatises that form his "Summa" in theology, and work out his ideal of a Church; side by side, also, with his work done in association with the English Parliament, his public work in Bruges and elsewhere, matters with which, for the sake of clearness, we have dealt apart in the last chapter. Wyclif's conflict with the Papacy passed on to open war. "Trust we," he said, "in the help of Christ, for He hath begun already to help us graciously, in that He hath cloven the head of Antichrist and Repudiation of the Рарасу. made the two parts fight against each other; for it cannot be doubtful that the sin of the Popes, which hath so long continued, hath brought in the division." This he wrote in a treatise on the schism, called the "Schisma Papæ," and about the same time he produced a treatise on the “Truth and Meaning of Scripture," in which he maintained the right of private judgment, asserted the supreme authority and the sufficiency of Scripture, and the need of a Bible in English. Translation of the Bible. While the supreme authority maintained that an admitted right of private judgment would lead many to heresy and peril of their souls, and that Holy Scripture in the language of the people, open to interpretation by the ignorant, would diffuse the error from which men were saved by the intervention of welltaught interpreters, the people of this country had, as we have seen, made fullest use of all permitted means of access to the Bible. Since it was lawful to translate the book of Psalms, that book had several translators. A metrical Psalter in Transition English of the North of England, in the thirteenth century, was edited in 1845 by Mr. Joseph Stevenson, for the Surtees Society, in the same volume with a First-English Psalter.* The first prose version of Psalms in Transition English was made about the year 1327, by William of Shoreham, who was Vicar of Chart Sutton, in Kent.† The next English prose version of the Psalms was that of Richard Rolle, the Hermit of Hampole, author of "The Prick of Conscience."‡ In the religious house of Llanthony, in Monmouthshire, there was in the twelfth century a monk named Clement, who wrote in Latin a Monotessaron, or "Harmony of the *E. W." iii. 303, 4. Gospels.' ." Wyclif was supposed by Bale to have translated from Clement of Llanthony a Commentary on Matthew, which was not taken from Clement of Llanthony, and probably was not by Wyclif. In the Prologue to the Commentary upon Matthew's Gospel, their compiler strongly urged that the whole Scriptures ought to be translated into English. The Commentaries included the text they explained, and their method is set forth in this passage of the Prologue to the Commentary upon Luke, a commentary based on the "Catena Aurea," of Thomas Aquinas : "Herefore a poor caitiff letted from preaching for a time for causes known of God, writeth the Gospel of Luke in English, with a short exposition of old and holy doctors, to the poor men of his nation which cunnen little Latin either none, and ben poor of wit and of worldly catel, and natheless rich of goodwill to please God. First this poor caitiff setteth a full sentence of the text together, that it may well be known from the exposition; afterwards he setteth a sentence of a doctor declaring the text; and in the end of the sentence he setteth the doctor's name, that men mowen know verily how far his sentence goeth. Only the text of the Holy Writ, and sentence of old doctors and approved, ben set in this exposition." The writer of the Prologue to the Commentary on Matthew described himself as "a synful caytif." The writer of the Prologue to the Commentary on John said of himself, "a symple creature of God, willinge to bere in party þe chargis of symple pore men, writiþ a schort glos in English on be gospel of Joon." Mr. Thomas Arnold+ argues that there is in these three Prologues a resemblance of style, and although we may think it possible that Wyclif could speak of himself as a poor caitif," which Mr. Arnold thinks unlikely, he certainly was not "letted from preaching." *E. W." iii. 195. 66 +"Select English Works of John Wyclif." Vol. I. Introduction pp. iv., v. |