A Literary History of the English People Part 48

But he is so far removed from its realisation that his dream dazzles him, and urges him on to defend chimerical schemes. He wishes the wealth of the clergy to be taken from them and bestowed upon poor, honest, brave, trustworthy gentlemen, who will defend the country; and he does not perceive that these riches would have fallen princ.i.p.ally into the hands of turbulent and grasping courtiers, as happened in the sixteenth century.[737] He is carried away by his own reasonings, so that the Utopian or paradoxical character of his statements escape him. Wanting to minimise the power of the popes, he protests against the rules followed for their election, and goes on to say concerning the vote by ballot: "Sith ther ben fewe wise men, and foolis ben without noumbre, a.s.sent of more part of men makith evydence that it were foli."[738]

His disciples, _Lollards_ as they were usually called, a name the origin of which has been much discussed, survived him, and his simple priests continued, for a time, to propagate his doctrines. The master's princ.i.p.al propositions were even found one day in 1395, posted up on the door of St. Paul's Cathedral, in the heart of London. Among them figure declarations that, at a distance of three centuries, seem a foreshadowing of the theories of the Puritans; one for instance, affirming "that the mult.i.tude of useless arts allowed in the kingdom are the cause of sins without number." Among the forbidden arts are included that of the goldsmiths, and another art of which, however, the Puritans were to make a somewhat notorious use, that of the armorers.[739]

At the University, the followers of Wyclif were numerous; in the country they continued to increase until the end of the fourteenth century.

Energetic measures were adopted in the beginning of the fifteenth; the statute "De haeretico comburendo" was promulgated in 1401 (but rarely applied at this period); the master's books were condemned and prohibited; from that time Wyclifism declined, and traces of its survival can hardly be found at the period when the Reformation was introduced into England.

By a strange fate Wyclif's posterity continued to flourish out of the kingdom. Bohemia had just given a queen to England, and used to send students every year from its University of Prague to study at Paris and Oxford. In that country the Wyclifite tenets found a mult.i.tude of adepts; the Latin works of the thinker were transcribed by Czech students, and carried back to their own land; several writings of Wyclif exist only in Czech copies. His most ill.u.s.trious disciple, John Hus, rector of the University of Prague, was burnt at the stake, by order of the Council of Constance, on the 6th of July, 1415. But the doctrine survived; it was adopted with modifications by the Taborites and the Moravian Brethren, and borrowed from them by the Waldenses[740]; the same Moravian Brethren who, owing to equally singular vicissitudes, were to become an important factor in the English religious movement of the eighteenth century: the Wesleyan movement. In spite of differences in their doctrines, the Moravian Brethren and the Hussites stand as a connecting link between Wesley and Wyclif.[741]

FOOTNOTES:

[666] "Historia Anglicana," vol. i. pp. 453 ff. By the same: "Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani," 3 vols., "Ypodigma Neustriae," 1 vol.

ed. Riley, Rolls, 1863, 1876.

[667] _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 27. See above, p. 201.

[668] "Chronicon Angliae," 1328-88, Rolls, ed. Maunde Thompson, 1874, 8vo. Mr. Thompson has proved that, contrary to the prevalent opinion, Walsingham has been copied by this chronicler instead of copying him himself; but the book is an important one on account of the pa.s.sages referring to John of Gaunt, which are not found elsewhere.

[669] "Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden ... with the English translation of John Trevisa," ed. Babington and Lumby, Rolls, 1865, 8 vols. 8vo.

[670] See above, p. 195.

[671] "The buke of John Maundeuill, being the travels of Sir John Mandeville, Knight, 1322-56, a hitherto unpublished English version from the unique copy (Eg. MS. 1982) in the British Museum, edited together with the French text," by G. F. Warner; Westminster, Roxburghe Club, 1889, fol. In the introduction will be found the series of proofs establis.h.i.+ng the fact that Mandeville never existed; the chain seems now complete, owing to a succession of discoveries, those especially of Mr.

E. B. Nicholson, of the Bodleian, Oxford (_Cf._ an article of H. Cordier in the _Revue Critique_ of Oct. 26, 1891). A critical edition of the French text is being prepared by the Societe des Anciens Textes. The English translation was made after 1377, and twice revised in the beginning of the fifteenth century. On the pa.s.sages borrowed from "Mandeville" by Christine de Pisan, in her "Chemin de long Estude," see in "Romania," vol. xxi. p. 229, an article by Mr. Toynbee.

[672] The church and its dependencies were sold and demolished in 1798: "Adjuges le 12 nivose an vi., a la citoyenne epouse, J. J. Fabry, pour 46,000 francs." Warner, _ibid._, p. x.x.xiii.

[673] Warner, _ibid._, p. v.

[674] "Et sachies que je eusse cest livret mis en latin pour plus briefment deviser, mais pour ce que plusieurs entendent miex roumant que latin, j'e l'ay mis en roumant par quoy que chascun l'entende, et que les seigneurs et les chevalers et les autres n.o.bles hommes qui ne scevent point de latin ou pou, qui ont este oultre mer sachent et entendent se je dis voir ou non at se je erre en devisant pour non souvenance ou autrement que il le puissent adrecier et amender, car choses de lonc temps pa.s.sees par la veue tournent en oubli et memoire d'omme ne puet tout mie retenir ne comprendre." MS. fr. 5637 in the National Library, Paris, fol. 4, fourteenth century.

[675] On Odoric and Mandeville, see H. Cordier, "Odoric de Pordenone,"

Paris, 1891, Introduction.

[676] A part of it was even put into verse: "The Commonyng of Ser John Mandeville and the gret Souden;" in "Remains of the early popular Poetry of England," ed. Hazlitt, London, 1864, 4 vols. 8vo, vol. i. p. 153.

[677] Here is a specimen of this style; it is the melancholy end of the work, in which the weary traveller resigns himself, like Robinson Crusoe, to rest at last: "And I John Maundeville, knyghte aboveseyd (alle thoughe I ben unworthi) that departed from oure contrees and pa.s.sed the see the year of grace 1322, that have pa.s.sed many londes and many isles and contrees, and cerched manye fulle straunge places, and have ben in many a fulle G.o.de honourable companye and at many a faire dede of armes (alle beit that I dide none my self, for myn unable insuffisance) now I am comen hom (mawgre my self) to reste; for gowtes artetykes, that me distreynen, tho diffynen the ende of my labour, agenst my wille (G.o.d knowethe). And thus takynge solace in my wrecced reste, recordynge the tyme pa.s.sed, I have fulfilled theise thinges and putte hem wryten in this boke, as it wolde come in to my mynde, the year of grace 1356 in the 34 yeer that I departede from oure contrees.

Werfore I preye to alle the rederes and hereres of this boke, yif it plese hem that thei wolde preyen to G.o.d for me, and I schalle preye for hem." Ed. Halliwell, London, 1866, 8vo, p. 315.

[678] See above, p. 216.

[679] "Boethius," in "Complete Works," vol. ii. p. 6.

[680] "Troilus," II. 100. See above, p. 306. _Cf._ Boece's "De Consolatione," Metrum III.

[681] "Et ut patesceret totius regni communitati eos non respectu avaritiae quicquam facere, proclamari fecerunt sub poena decollationis, ne quis praesumeret aliquid vel aliqua ibidem reperta ad proprios usus servanda contingere, sed ut vasa aurea et argentea, quae ibi copiosa habebantur, c.u.m securibus minutatim confringerent et in Tamisiam vel in cloacas projicerent, pannos aureos et holosericos dilacerarent.... Et factum est ita." Walsingham, "Historia Anglicana," vol. i. p. 457 (Rolls).

[682] "Ad le Blakeheth, ubi ducenta millia communium fuere simul congregata hujuscemodi sermonem est exorsus:

Whann Adam dalfe and Eve span Who was thanne a gentil man?

Continuansque sermonem inceptum, nitebatur, per verba proverbii quod pro themate sumpserat, introducere et probare, ab initio omnes pares creatos a natura, servitutem per injustam oppressionem nequam hominum introductam, contra voluntatem Dei; quia si Deo placiusset servos crea.s.se utique in principio mundi const.i.tuisset quis servus, quisve dominus futurus fuisset." Let them therefore destroy n.o.bles and lawyers, as the good husbandman tears up the weeds in his field; thus shall liberty and equality reign: "Sic demum ... esset inter eos aequa libertas, par dignitas, similisque potestas." "Chronicon Angliae," ed.

Maunde Thompson (Rolls), 1874, 8vo, p. 321; Walsingham, vol. ii. p. 32.

[683] "Rotuli Parliamentorum, ut et pet.i.tiones et placita in Parliamento." London, 7 vols. fol. (one volume contains the index).

[684] Richard restored it entirely, and employed English master masons, "Richard Washbourn" and "Johan Swalwe." The indenture is of March 18, 1395; the text of it is in Rymer, 1705, vol. vii. p. 794.

[685] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 103.

[686] Ex. 13 Ed. III., 17 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii.

pp. 107, 135.

[687] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 361.

[688] "Seigneurs et Sires, ces paroles qe j'ay dist sont tant a due en Franceys, vostre Roi vient a toy." _Ibid._, vol. iii. p. 3. A speech of the same kind adorned with puns was made by Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, to open the first Parliament of Henry IV.: "Cest honorable roialme d'Angleterre q'est le plus habundant Angle de richesse parmy tout le monde, avait estee par longe temps mesnez, reulez et governez par enfantz et conseil de vefves...." 1399, _Ibid._, p. 415.

[689] "Rotuli Parliamentorum." Speech of Knyvet, vol. ii. p. 316; of Wykeham, vol. ii. p. 303. This same Knyvet opens the Good Parliament of 1376 by a speech equally forcible. He belonged to the magistracy, and was greatly respected; he died in 1381.

[690] Ex: "Item, meisme le jour (that is to say the day on which the general proclamation was read) fut fait une crie qe chescun qi vodra mettre pet.i.tion a nostre seigneur le Roi et a son conseil, les mette entre cy et le lundy prochein a venir.... Et serront a.s.signez de receivre les pet.i.tions ... les sousescritz." _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 135.

[691] _Ibid._, vol. ii. pp. 136, 163. "Fut dit a les ditz Communes de par le Roy, q'ils se retraia.s.sent par soi a lour aunciene place en la maison du chapitre de l'abbeye de Westm', et y treta.s.sent et conseilla.s.sent entre eux meismes."

[692] Vol. ii. p. 107, second Parliament of 1339.

[693] "Ils treterent longement," _Ibid._, ii. p. 104.

[694] "Sur quele demonstrance il respoundrent q'il voleient parler ensemble et treter sur cest bosoigne.... Sur quel bosoigne ceux de la Commune demorerent de lour respons doner tant qe a Samedi, le XIX. jour de Feverer." A.D. 1339, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 107.

[695] "Ils n'osoront a.s.sentir tant qu'ils eussent conseillez et avysez les Communes de lour pais." They promise to do their best to persuade their const.i.tuents. A.D. 1339; "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 104.

[696] "Et les nuncia auxi la cause de la longe demore quele il avoit faite es dites parties saunz chivaucher sur ses enemys; et coment il le covendra faire pur defaute d'avoir." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii.

p. 103, first Parliament of 1339.

[697] 51 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. p. 374.

[698] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 323. This speech created a great stir; another a.n.a.lysis of it exists in the "Chronicon Angliae"

(written by a monk of St. Albans, the abbot of which, Thomas de la Mare, sat in Parliament): "Quae omnia ferret aequanimeter [plebs communis] si dominus rex noster sive regnum istud exinde aliquid commodi vel emolumenti sumpsisse videretur; etiam plebi tolerabile, si in expediendis rebus bellicis, quamvis gestis minus prospere, tanta pecunia fuisset expensa. Sed palam est, nec regem commodum, nec regnum ex hac fructum aliquem percep.i.s.se.... Non enim est credible regem carere infinita thesauri quant.i.tate si fideles fuerint qui ministrant ei" (p.

73). The drift of the speech is, as may be seen, exactly the same as in the Rolls of Parliament. Another specimen of pithy eloquence will be found in the apostrophe addressed to the Earl of Stafford by John Philpot, a mercer of London, after his naval feat of 1378. _Ibid._, p.

200.

[699] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," ii. pp. 337 ff.

[700] June 25, 1376.

[701] The speech of this year was made "en Engleis," by Simon, bishop of Ely; but the Rolls give only a French version of it: "Le prophet David dit que ..." &c., vol. ii. p. 283.

[702] "Sires, I thank G.o.d, and yowe Spirituel and Temporal and alle the Astates of the lond; and do yowe to wyte, it es noght my will that no man thynk yt be waye of conquest I wold disherit any man of his heritage, franches, or other ryghtes that hym aght to have, no put hym out of that that he has and has had by the gude lawes and custumes of the Rewme: Except thos persons that has ben agan the gude purpose and the commune profyt of the Rewme." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p.

423. In the fifteenth century the Parliamentary doc.u.ments are written sometimes in French, sometimes in English; French predominates in the first half of the century, and English in the second.