CENT. both in the court of Rome and in the cabinets of XIV. PART II princes, were carried on under their supreme and absolute direction. The multitude had such a high notion of the sanctity of these sturdy beggars and of their credit with the Supreme Being, that great numbers of both sexes, some in health, others in a state of infirmity, others at the point of death, earnestly desired to be admitted into the Mendicant order, which they looked upon as a sure and infallible method of rendering heaven propitious. Many made it an essential part of their last wills, that their carcasses, after death, should be wrapped in old, ragged Dominican or Franciscan habits, and interred among the Mendicants. For such was the barbarous superstition and wretched ignorance of this age, that people universally believed they should readily obtain mercy from CHRIST, at the day of judgment, if they appeared before his tribunal associated with the Mendicant friars.

They fall

neral odium.

XVIII. The high esteem in which the Mendicant crders were held, and the excessive degree of authority they had acquired, only served to render them still more odious to such as had hitherto been their enemies, and to draw upon them new marks of jealousy and hatred from the higher and lower clergy, the monastic societies, and the public universities. So universal was this odium, that there was scarcely a province or university in Europe in which bishops, clergy, and doctors were not warmly engaged in opposition to the Dominicans and Franciscans, who employed the power and authority they had received from the popes, in undermining the ancient discipline of the church, and assuming to themselves a certain superintendence in religious matters. In England, the university of Oxford made a resolute stand against the encroachments of the Dominicans,

XIV.

Dominicans [b], while RICHARD, archbishop ofC EN T. Armagh, HENRY CRUMP, NORIS, and others, at-PART II. tacked all the Mendicant orders with great vehemence and severity [c]. But RICHARD, whose animosity against them was much keener than that of their other antagonists, went to the court of INNOCENT VI. in the year 1356, and there vindicated the cause of the church against them with the greatest fervour, both in his writings and discourse, until the year 1360, in which he died [d]. They had also many opponents in France, who, together with the university of Paris, were secretly engaged in contriving means to overturn their exorbitant power: but JOHN DE POLLIAC set himself openly against them, publicly denying the validity of the absolution granted by the Dominicans and Franciscans to those who confessed to them, maintaining, that the popes were disabled from granting them a power of absolution by the authority of the canon, entitled, Omnis uttriusque sexus ; and proving from these premises, that all those, who would be sure of their salvation, ought to confess their sins to their own parish priests, even though they had been absolved by the monks. They suffered little or nothing, however, from the efforts of these numerous adversaries, being resolutely protected against all opposition, whether open or secret, by the popes, who regarded them as their best. friends,

[b] See ANT. WOOD, Antiquit. Oxon. tom. i. p. 150. 154. 196, &c.

[c] See WOOD, Antiquit. Oxon. tom. i. p. 181. 182. tom. ii. p. 61. 62.—BaLUZII Vita Pontif. Avenion. tom. i. p. 338. 950.-BOULAY, Histor. Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p. 336.—WadDINGI, Annal. Minor. tom. viii. P. 126.

[d] See SIMON, Lettres Choisies, tom. i. p. 164.-I have in my possession a manuscript treatise of BARTHOLOMEW DE BRISAC, entitled, "Solutiones opposite Ricardi, Armachani episcopi, propositionibus contra Mendicantes in curia Romana coram Pontifice et cardinalibas factis, Anno 1360."

CEN T. friends, and most effectual supports.

XIV.

AccordPART II ingly, JOHN XXII. by an extraordinary decree, condemned the opinions of JOHN DE POLLIAC, in the year 1321 [c].

John Wickliff.

XIX. But among all the enemies of the Mendicant orders, none has been transmitted to posterity with more exalted encomiums on the one hand, or blacker calumnies on the other, than JOHN WICKLIFF, an English doctor, professor of divinity at Oxford, and afterwards rector of Lutterworth; who, according to the testimony of the writers of these times, was a man of an enterprising genius and extraordinary learning. In the year 1360, animated by the example of RICHARD, archbishop of Armagh, he first of all defended the statutes and privileges of the university of Oxford against all the orders of the Mendicants, and had the courage to throw out some slight reproofs against the popes, their principal patrons, which no true Briton ever imputed to him as a crime. After this, in the year 1367, he was deprived of the wardenship of CanterburyHall in the university of Oxford, by SIMON LANGHAM, archbishop of Canterbury, who substituted a monk in his place; upon which he appealed to Pope URBAN V. who confirmed the sentence of the archbishop against him, on account of the freedom with which he had inveighed against the monastic orders. Highly exasperated at this treatment, he threw off all restraint, and not only attacked all the monks, and their scandalous irregularities, but even the pontifical power itself,

and

[] See Jo. LAUNOIUS, De Canone: Omnis utriusque Sexus, tom. i. part I. opp. p. 271. 274. 287, &c.—Baluzii Vit. Pontif. Avenion. tom. ii. p. 19. & Miscellanor. tom. i. p. 153.— DACHERII Spicil. Scriptor. Veter. tom. i. p. 112. s.—It was published by EDM. MARTENE, in. Thesauro Anecdotor. tom. i. p. 1368. See also BALUZII Vit. Pontif. Avenion. tom. i. p. 132. 182, &c.

XIV.

and other ecclesiastical abuses, both in his ser-C EN T. mons and writings. From hence he proceeded pART II. to yet greater lengths, and, detesting the wretched superstition of the times, refuted, with great acuteness and spirit, the absurd notions that were generally received in religious matters, and not only exhorted the laity to study the scriptures, but also translated into English these divine books, in order to render the perusal of them more universal. Though neither the doctrine of WICKLIFF was void of error, nor his life without reproach, yet it must be confessed that the changes he attempted to introduce, both in the faith and discipline of the church, were, in many respects, wise, useful, and salutary [ƒ].

XX. The monks, whom WICKLIFF had prin- His adver cipally exasperated, commenced a violent prose-saries. cution against him at the court of GREGORY XI. who, in the year 1377, ordered SIMON SUDBURY, archbishop of Canterbury, to take cognizance of the affair in the council held at London. Imminent as this danger evidently was, WICKLIFF escaped it by the interest of the duke of Lancaster and some other peers, who had an high regard for him. And soon after the death of GREGORY XI. the fatal schism of the Romish church commenced, during which there was one pope at Rome, and another at Avignon; so that of course the controversy lay dormant a long time. But no sooner was this embroiled state of affairs tolerably settled, than the process against him was revived by WILLIAM DE COURTENEY, archbishop of Canterbury, in the year 1385, and was carried on with great vehemence in two councils held at London

[f] A work of his was published at Leipsic and Francfort, in 4to, in the year 1753, entitled Dialogorum Libri quatuor, which, though it does not contain all the branches of his doc. trine, yet shews sufficiently the spirit of the man, and his of thinking in general.

way

XIV.

CENT London and Oxford. The event was, that of the PART II, twenty-three opinions, for which WICKLIFF had been prosecuted by the monks, ten were condemned as heresies, and thirteen as errors [g]. He himself, however, returned in safety to Lutterworth, where he died peaceably in the year 1387. This latter attack was much more dangerous than the former; but by what means he got safely through it, whether by the interest of the court, or by denying or abjuring his opinions, is to this day a secret [b]. He left many followers in England, and other countries, who were styled Wickliffises and Lollards, which last was a term of popular reproach translated from the Flemish

[g] In the original Dr MOSHEIM says, that, of eighteen articles imputed to WICKLIFF, nine were condemned as beresies, and fifteen as errors. This contradiction, which we have taken the liberty to correct in the text, is perhaps an oversight of the learned author, who may have confounded the eighteen heresies and errors that were ennumerated and refuted by WILLIAM WODFORD in a letter to AURENDEL archbishop of Canterbury, with the twenty-three propositions that had been condemned by his predecessor COURTNEY at London, of which ten were pronounced beretical, and thirteen erroneous. See the very curious collection of pieces, entitled Fasciculus rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum ORTHUINI GRATII, published first at Cologn by the compiler in the year 1535, and afterwards at London in 1690, with an additional volume of ancient pieces and fragments by the learned Mr EDWARD BROWN. The letter of WODFORD is at full length in the first volume of this collection, p. 191.

[b] We have a full and complete History of the Life and sufferings of JOHN WICKLIFF, published in 8vo at London in the year 1720, by Mr JOHN LEWES, who also published, in the year 1731, WICKLIFF's English translation of the New Testament from the Latin version, called the Vulgate. This translation is enriched with a learned Preface by the editor, in which he enlarges upon the life actions, and sufferings of that eminent. reformer. The pieces, relative to the controversies which were set on foot by the doctrines of WICKLIFF, are to be found in the learned work of WILKINS, entitled Concilia Magna Britanniæ et Hibern. tom. iii. p. 116. 156.--See also BOULAY, Histor. Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p. 450.--- ANT. WOOD, Antiqq. Oxoniens. tom. i. p. 183. 187, and passim.