I.

The same Register informs us, that at the beginning of CHAP. this same year, the Master and Scholars of Balliol Hall presented Mr. John Wiclif, Presbyter, to the Church of Fylingham, in the archdeaconry of Stow, vacant by the death of John Reyner.

96, 150,

About this time likewise he was much taken notice of, for his taking the part of the University, against the oppo- A. D. 1360. sition and encroachments made by the begging Friars, who had ever since their first settlement in Oxford, A. D. 1230, Antiq. Oxbeen very troublesome, and made it their business to dis-on. p. 88, turb the Chancellor and Scholars, by breaking in upon 154, 155. their statutes and privileges, and setting up an exempt jurisdiction. By one of the statutes of the University it was ordered, "That nobody should proceed Doctor in Divini"ty, unless he had been before a Regent in Arts, either in "that or some other University." Of this the preaching Friars complained, as bearing hard upon them, and to their prejudice. They laboured therefore very earnestly to have this statute repealed, and to be exempted themselves from the performance of the University exercises. For this purpose they appealed to the Pope, petitioned the King, and insulted the Chancellor, Proctors, and Regents of the University; treating them with all imaginable contempt, and doing all they could to stir up the Scholars to be seditious and troublesome.

1

Not content with this, they took all opportunities to entice the youth from the colleges into their convents: insomuch, that people were afraid of sending their children to the University, lest they should be kidnapped by the Friars. By which means the number of students was so far decreased, that whereas they had been thirty thousand, they Armachan. were not in 1357 above six thousand. This obliged the Defensor. Chancellor and Regents to make a statute, that "none "should be received by the Friars into their orders till " they had attained to the age of eighteen." But notwith

• Magister Joh. Wycliffe presbyter presenta. per Magist. et Scholares Aule de Baliol Oxon. ad Eccle. de Fylingham, vac. per mort. Joh. Reyner, 11 Id. May 1361. in Archi. Stow.

Curator.

CHAP. standing, the Friars, by their money and interest at the I. Court of Rome, frequently procured dispensations to be exempted from the force of these statutes: so that the dispute betwixt the University and them continued till

the year 1366, when the matter being brought before the Cotton's A- Parliament, it was ordered, "That as well the Chancellor bridgment, " and Scholars, as the Friars of those Orders in the Uni

p. 102.

"versities, should in all graces, and other school exercises, "use each other in friendly-wise, without any rumour as "before: and that none of these Orders should receive

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any scholar into their said Orders, being under the age of "eighteen years: that the Friars should take no advan"tage, nor procure any Bull, or any other process from "Rome against the Universities, or proceed therein: and "that the King have power to redress all controversies "between them from henceforth, and the offenders to be "punished at the pleasure of the King and of his Coun"cil." But to shew how little the Friars regarded the civil authority, notwithstanding this determination of the

Coll. No. 7. Parliament, about nine years after a Bull was procured, by the instance of the Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, in their behalf, to dispense with the statute of the University, requiring persons to be Regents in Arts before they proceeded Doctors in Divinity.

But now another dispute arose betwixt the Religious and Antiq. Ox- the Members of the University. One Roger Conway a Minorite, in a sermon preached at London about 1354, asserted, that the poverty of Christ was such, that neither he nor any of his Apostles had any thing of their own, but possessed all things in common, and that Christ begged for a livelihood. This opinion, invented on purpose to justify the begging trade of the Friars, was first opposed by Richard Kilmyngton, at that time Dean of St. Paul's; who Ibid. p. 181. was seconded by Richard Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh; who happened to be at London at that time. About A. D. 1360. six years after, the same point being maintained by the Friars at Oxford, they were opposed there by John de Wiclif, John Thoresby, afterwards Archbishop of York,

I.

Uthred Bolton, Nicholas Hereford, c Walter Bryt, or Brytt, CHAP. of Merton College, and Philip Norris, and others, who with great applause of the hearers answered the Friar's arguments.

Among these, Wiclif seems to have been one of the most earnest and zealous against the usurpations and errors of the Friars. In one of his tracts yet remaining, he thus of Clerk's exposes them for their drawing the youth of the Univer- Possessionsity into their convents. "Freres," says he, "drawen chil-9. "dren fro Christ's religion into their private Order by hy"pocrisie, lesings and steling. For they tellen that their "Order is more holy than any other, and that they shul" len have higher degree in the bliss of heaven than other " men that ben not therein, and seyn that men of their Or"der shullen never come to hell, but shullen dome other " men with Christ at doomsday. And so they stelen Chil"dren fro fader and moder, sometime such as ben unable " to the Order, and sometime such as shullen susteyn their "fader and moder by the commandment of God; and "thus they ben blasphemers takin upon full councel in "* douty things that ben not expressly commanded ne for- * doubtful. " bidden in holy writ; sith such counsel is appropred to "the Holy Gost, and thus they ben therefore cursed of "God as the Pharisees were of Christ, to whom he seith "thus: Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees that ben writers Matt. xxiii. " of Law, and men of singular religion, that compassen 14. "about the water and the lond to maken of your religion, "and when he is made of your religion, yee maken him "double more a child of helle. And sith he that steleth an "ox or a cow is damnable by God's law, and man's " law also, muckil more he that steleth a man's child " that is better than all earthly goods, and draweth him to "the less perfitt Order. And though this singular Order

were more perfect than Christ's, yet he wot nevere where " it be to damnation of the child, for he wot not to what

• He was afterwards a preacher in the diocese of Hereford, where he met with a good deal of trouble on account of his maintaining Dr. Wiclif's opinions. See Prynne's Animadv. on the 4th part of the Institutes, p. 227.

CHAP. "state God hath ordained him; and so blindly they don I. "agenst Christ's ordinance."

Wiclif writes a

Against the other pretence of the Religious, that Christ gainst the himself was a beggar, Wiclif wrote and publishedd sebeggary of veral tracts, thus entitled; Of the Poverty of Christ; the Friars. Against able Beggary; and Of Idleness in Beggary.

The design of these tracts seems to have been the same that he pursues in some of his writings which are yet reObjections maining, wherein he shews, that " Christ lived on alms

of Freres. MS. c. 5.

" of Mary Magdalen, and other holy men and women" without axing or constreyning: Christ bad his Apostles " and Disciples that they should not bere a sachell ne scrip " (as the begging Friars did to carry to their convents "what they begged) but look what man is able to hear "the Gospel, and eat and drink therein, and pass not " thence, and not pass fro house to house. St. Paul labor" ed or travailed with his hands for him, and for men that " weren with him; and coveted neither gold, ne silver, ne " clothes of men that he taught, to geve other teachers en" sample to do the same in time of nede. St. Paul biddeth "that men that wilen live in idleness and curiosity, and " not * traveile, shullen not eat. St. Clement ordained " that christen men shulden not beg openly; and for to "put away this begging, St. Austin maketh tweie books "how Monks † owen to traveile with their hands for their "liflode." From all which he concludes, that "sith open CHAP. "begging is thus sharply damned in holy writ, it is a "foule error to meyntene it, but that it is more error to "seie that Christ was such a beggar, sith then he must " have been contrary to his own law."

I.

of Freres.

In the same tract he shews, that " it is a leaving the Objections "commandment of Christ of geving of alms to poor feeble MS. c. 6.

"

men, to poor crooked, to poor blind men, and to bedrede " men, to geve alms to hypocrites that feyn them holy and "needy, when they ben strong in body, and have over"much riches both in great wast houses, and precious "cloths and great feasts, and many jewels and tresour: " that poor men are slen with this false begging, sith the "Freres taken falsly fro them their worldly goods, by "which they shulden susteyn their bodily life, and deceiven " rich men in their alms, and meyntenen or comforten them " to live in falsness against Jesu Christ. For sith there

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were poor men enough to taken mens alms before that "Freres camen in, and the earth is now more barren than "it was, other Freres or poor men moten wanten of this "alms; but Freres by subtle hypocrisie gotten to them" selves, and * letten the poor men to have these alms."

* hinder.

An unknown writer intimates, that at this time Mr. Wiclif began to correct the abuses of the Clergy: "John Wic-MS. in Hy

"

lif," says he, "the singular ornament of his time, began peroo Bodl.

" at Oxford in the year of the Lord 1360, in his public lec"tures, to correct the abuses of the Clergy, and their open "wickedness, K. Edward III. being living, and continued

secure a most valiant champion of the truth among the "tyrants of Sodom." But it was not till many years after this that Wiclif read divinity lectures, as will be shewn hereafter. However, it is certain, he got a great deal of credit by his management of these controversies.

163..

chington

In the year 1361, Simon de Islep, Archbishop of Canter- Steph. Birbury, formed a design of founding a Hall in the parish of vitæ ArSt. Mary's in Oxford, to be called by the name of fCanter- chiep. Can

f This Hall was surrendered into the King's hands by the Prior and Chapter

tu. p. 46.

: