Develop-
ment of
his views.
First at-
tempt to
try him.
Second
attempt.
366 ConstitutioHal Histori/. [chap.
the papacy akin to those of Marsilius and. Ockham, blending with
them the ideal of apostolic poverty as the model of clerical
life. As his opinions in the later years of his life developed
rapidly, it is not surprising that he came to look on the
sacramental system of the medieval church with suspicion and
dislike, as the real basis on which papal and clerical authority
rested. Speculations on philosophical dogmas, and a certain
amount of loose thought on doctrinal matters, the age of Ed-
ward III easily tolerated ; archbishop Sudbury, if he were not
afraid of Wycliffe, was not actively hostile to him ; he had
friends at court, and his reputation was so high that he was
employed by the king in the negotiations with the pope which
were held at Bruges in 1374. It was his share in the anti-
clerical policy broached by the earl of Pembroke in 1371, and
by John of Gaunt in 1376, which drew down upon him the
hostility of the bishops1. The convocation which met Feb-
ruary 3, 1377, insisted on the restoration of bishop Wykeham,
on whom John of Gaunt had avenged the humiliation which he
had received in the Good Parliament, and urged the prelates
to attack Wycliffe, whom they regarded as the chief counsellor
of their great enemy. He was accordingly on the 19th
brought before the bishops at S. Paul’s ; but the affray between
his noble protectors and the citizens of London, provoked by
the insult offered to bishop Courtenay, prevented the trial from
proceeding, and the precise charges then laid against him are
unknown 2. A few months later the pope, under the influence
of the friars, urged the bishops to attack him again, and in his
letters distinctly alleged Wycliffe’s following of Marsilius of
Padua and John de Janduno as proving him to be a heretic8.
Again a prosecution was attempted; Wycliffe was brought
before a body of bishops at Lambeth; but again a popular
tumult, encouraged by the attitude of the court, put an end to
1 See above, vol. ii. pp. 440, 447, 457.
s The annalists give a sketch of the heresies generally imputed to
Wycliffe, hut not the precise points on which the investigation was at-
tempted in 1377 ; Cont. Murimuth,pp. 222-224; Wals.i.325. Cf-Shirley,
Fasc. Zizan- pref. p. xxvii.
3 By letters dated May 22, 1377 ; Wal-. i. 345 ; Chr- Angl. p. 174.
Xix.] Prosecution of IPycliffe. 367
the trial. Although he lived six years longer, and by his Hisopinions
attacks on the sacramental system exposed himself, far more
than before, to charges of doctrinal heresy, and although his
tenets were formally condemned, no further attempt was made
to molest him personally. Thus his opinions regarding the
wealth and power of the clergy were the occasion of the first
attack upon him ; the pretext of the second was his theory on
the papacy; and he was not formally brought to trial for his
views on the sacraments. Of the spiritual, the philosophical,
and the political elements in Wycliffe’s teaching, the last was
far the most bffensive to the clergy and the most attractive to
the discontented laity. In Wycliffe himself there is no reason
to doubt that all the three were matters of conviction ; but
neither is there any reason to doubt that the popular favour
which attended on his teaching was caused mainly by the
desire for social change. Both he and his adversaries recog-
nised the fact that on the sacramental system the practical
controversy must ultimately turn; the mob was attracted by
the idea of confiscation.
As soon as the alarm of Wat Tyler’s rising had subsided, Legislation
Courtenay, who had succeeded the murdered Sudbury as arch- læresy in
bishop of Canterbury, undertook the task of repressing the new
heresy which Wycliffe’s emissaries were spreading at Oxford
and in the country at large. In the first parliament of 1382
he procured the passing of an act against heretic preachers.
That parliament sat from May 7 to May 22, and its acts
were promulgated on the 26th; the statute touching heresy
stated that unlicenced preachers of heresy, when cited before
the ordinaries, refused to obey and drew people to hear them
and to maintain them in their errors by great ‘ routs ’ ; it
enacted that commissions should be directed out of chancery to
the sheriffs and others, to arrest the particular persons certified
by the bishops to be heretics or favourers of heresy, that the
sheriffs should arrest them, and they should be held in strong
prison until they satisfied the church ; in other words, instead
of waiting until the heretic had been tιied, found guilty, and
excommunicated, the sheriff was to arrest under a commission