most violent, and when Wyclif was beginning to draw upon
himself the eyes of patriots, there was considerable talk at
the English court about a young man named Geoffrey Chaucer,
who belonged to the king's household, and who both by his
personality and his connections enjoyed the favor of the royal
family. ... On many occasions, even thus early, he had
appeared as a miracle of learning to those about him--he read
Latin as easily as French; he spoke a more select English than
others; and it was known that he had composed, or, as the
expression then was, 'made,' many beautiful English verses.
The young poet belonged to a well-to-do middle-class family
who had many far-reaching connections, and even some influence
with the court. ... Even as a boy he may have heard his
father, John Chaucer, the vintner of Thames Street, London,
telling of the marvelous voyage he had made to Antwerp and
Cologne in the brilliant suite of Edward III. in 1338. When a
youth of sixteen or seventeen, Geoffrey served as a page or
squire to Elizabeth, duchess of Ulster, first wife of Lionel,
duke of Clarence, and daughter-in-law of the king. He bore
arms when about nineteen years of age, and went to France in
1359, in the army commanded by Edward III. ... This epoch
formed a sort of 'Indian summer' to the age of chivalry, and
its spirit found expression in great deeds of war as well as
in the festivals and manners of the court. The ideal which men
strove to realize did not quite correspond to the spirit of
the former age. On the whole, people had become more worldly
and practical, and were generally anxious to protect the real
interests of life from the unwarranted interference of
romantic aspirations. The spirit of chivalry no longer formed
a fundamental element, but only an ornament of life--an
ornament, indeed, which was made much of, and which was looked
upon with a sentiment partaking of enthusiasm. ... In the
midst of this outside world of motley pomp and throbbing life
Geoffrey could observe the doings of high and low in various
situations. He was early initiated into court intrigues, and
even into many political secrets, and found opportunities of
studying the human type in numerous individuals and according
to the varieties developed by rank in life, education, age,
and sex. ... Nothing has been preserved from his early
writings. ... The fact is very remarkable that from the first,
or at least from a very early period, Chaucer wrote in the
English language--however natural this may seem to succeeding
ages in 'The Father of English Poetry.' The court of Edward
III. favored the language as well as the literature of France;
a considerable number of French poets and 'menestrels' were in
the service and pay of the English king.
{814}
Queen Philippa, in particular, showing herself in this a true
daughter of her native Hainault, formed the centre of a
society cultivating the French language and poetry. She had in
her personal service Jean Froissart, one of the most eminent
representatives of that language and poetry; like herself he
belonged to one of the most northern districts of the
French-speaking territory; he had made himself a great name,
as a prolific and clever writer of erotic and allegoric
trifles, before he sketched out in his famous chronicle the
motley-colored, vivid picture of that eventful age. We also
see in this period young Englishmen of rank and education
trying their flight on the French Parnassus. ... To these
Anglo-French poets there belonged also a Kentishman of noble
family, named John Gower. Though some ten years the senior of
Chaucer, he had probably met him about this time. They were
certainly afterwards very intimately acquainted. Gower ... had
received a very careful education, and loved to devote the
time he could spare from the management of his estates to
study and poetry. His learning was in many respects greater
than Chaucer's. He had studied the Latin poets so diligently
that he could easily express himself in their language, and he
was equally good at writing French verses, which were able to
pass muster, at least in England. ... But, Chaucer did not let
himself be led astray by examples such as these. It is
possible that he would have found writing in French no easy
task, even if he had attempted it. At any rate his bourgeois
origin, and the seriousness of his vocation as poet, threw a
determining weight into the scale and secured his fidelity to
the English language with a commendable consistency."
_B. Ten Brink,
History of English Literature,
book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2, part 1)._
"English was not taught in the schools, but French only, until
after the accession of Richard II., or possibly the latter
years of Edward III., and Latin was always studied through the
French. Up to this period, then, as there were no standards of
literary authority, and probably no written collections of
established forms, or other grammatical essays, the language
had no fixedness or uniformity, and hardly deserved to be
called a written speech. ... From this Babylonish confusion of
speech, the influence and example of Chaucer did more to
rescue his native tongue than any other single cause; and if
we compare his dialect with that of any writer of an earlier
date, we shall find that in compass, flexibility,
expressiveness, grace, and all the higher qualities of
poetical diction, he gave it at once the utmost perfection
which the materials at his hand would permit of. The English
writers of the fourteenth century had an advantage which was
altogether peculiar to their age and country. At all previous
periods, the two languages had co-existed, in a great degree
independently of each other, with little tendency to intermix;
but in the earlier part of that century, they began to
coalesce, and this process was going on with a rapidity that
threatened a predominance of the French, if not a total
extinction of the Saxon element. ... When the national spirit
was aroused, and impelled to the creation of a national
literature, the poet or prose writer, in selecting his
diction, had almost two whole vocabularies before him. That
the syntax should be English, national feeling demanded; but
French was so familiar and habitual to all who were able to
read, that probably the scholarship of the day would scarcely
have been able to determine, with respect to a large
proportion of the words in common use, from which of the two
great wells of speech they had proceeded. Happily, a great
arbiter arose at the critical moment of severance of the two
peoples and dialects, to preside over the division of the
common property, and to determine what share of the
contributions of France should be permanently annexed to the
linguistic inheritance of Englishmen. Chaucer did not
introduce into the English language words which it had
rejected as aliens before, but out of those which had been
already received, he invested the better portion with the
rights of citizenship, and stamped them with the mint-mark of
English coinage. In this way, he formed a vocabulary, which,
with few exceptions, the taste and opinion of succeeding
generations has approved; and a literary diction was thus
established, which, in all the qualities required for the
poetic art, had at that time no superior in the languages of
modern Europe. The soundness of Chaucer's judgment, the nicety
of his philological appreciation, and the delicacy of his
sense of adaptation to the actual wants of the English people,
are sufficiently proved by the fact that, of the Romance words
found in his writings, not much above one hundred have been
suffered to become obsolete, while a much larger number of
Anglo-Saxon words employed by him have passed altogether out
of use. ... In the three centuries which elapsed between the
Conquest and the noon-tide of Chaucer's life, a large
proportion of the Anglo-Saxon dialect of religion, of moral
and intellectual discourse, and of taste, had become utterly
obsolete, and unknown. The place of the lost words had been
partly supplied by the importation of Continental terms; but
the new words came without the organic power of composition
and derivation which belonged to those they had supplanted.
Consequently, they were incapable of those modifications of
form and extensions of meaning which the Anglo-Saxon roots
could so easily assume, and which fitted them for the
expression of the new shades of thought and of sentiment born
of every hour in a mind and an age like those of Chaucer."
_G. P. Marsh,
Origin and History of the English Language,
lecture 9._
ALSO IN:
_T. R. Lounsbury,
Studies in Chaucer._
_A. W. Ward,
Chaucer._
_W. Godwin,
Life of Geoffrey Chaucer._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1360-1414.
The Lollards.
"The Lollards were the earliest 'Protestants' of England. They
were the followers of John Wyclif, but before his time the
nickname of Lollard had been known on the continent. A little
brotherhood of pious people had sprung up in Holland, about
the year 1300, who lived in a half-monastic fashion and
devoted themselves to helping the poor in the burial of their
dead; and, from the low chants they sang at the
funerals--lollen being the old word for such singing--they
were called Lollards. The priests and friars hated them and
accused them of heresy, and a Walter Lollard, probably one of
them, was burnt in 1322 at Cologne as a heretic, and gradually
the name became a nickname for such people. So when Wyclif's
simple priests' were preaching the new doctrines, the name
already familiar in Holland and Germany, was given to them,
and gradually became the name for that whole movement of
religious reformation which grew up from the seed Wyclif
sowed."
_B. Herford,
Story of Religion in England,
chapter 16._
{815}
"A turning point arrived in the history of the reforming party
at the accession of the house of Lancaster. King Henry the
Fourth was not only a devoted son of the Church, but he owed
his success in no slight measure to the assistance of the
Churchmen, and above all to that of Archbishop Arundel. It was
felt that the new dynasty and the hierarchy stood or fell
together. A mixture of religious and political motives led to
the passing of the well-known statute 'De hæretico comburendo'
in 1401 and thenceforward Lollardy was a capital offence."
_R. L. Poole,
Wycliffe and Movements for Reform,
chapter 8._
"The abortive insurrection of the Lollards at the commencement
of Henry V. 's reign, under the leadership of Sir John
Oldcastle, had the effect of adding to the penal laws already
in existence against the sect." This gave to Lollardy a
political character and made the Lollards enemies against the
State, as is evident from the king's proclamation in which it
was asserted "that the insurgents intended to 'destroy him,
his brothers and several of the spiritual and temporal lords,
to confiscate the possessions of the Church, to secularize the
religious orders, to divide the realm into confederate
districts, and to appoint Sir John Oldcastle president of the
commonwealth.'"
_T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History (4th edition),
chapter 11._
"The early life of Wycliffe is obscure. ... He emerges into
distinct notice in 1360, ten years subsequent to the passing
of the first Statute of Provisors, having then acquired a
great Oxford reputation as a lecturer in divinity. ... He was
a man of most simple life; austere in appearance; with bare
feet and russet mantle. As a soldier of Christ, he saw in his
Great Master and his Apostles the patterns whom he was bound
to imitate. By the contagion of example he gathered about him
other men who thought as he did; and gradually, under his
captaincy, these 'poor priests' as they were called--vowed to
poverty because Christ was poor--vowed to accept no benefice
... spread out over the country as an army of missionaries, to
preach the faith which they found in the Bible--to preach, not of
relics and of indulgences, but of repentance and of the grace
of God. They carried with them copies of the Bible which
Wycliffe had translated, ... and they refused to recognize the
authority of the bishops, or their right to silence them. If
this had been all, and perhaps if Edward III. had been
succeeded by a prince less miserably incapable than his
grandson Richard, Wycliffe might have made good his ground;
the movement of the parliament against the pope might have
united in a common stream with the spiritual move against the
church at home, and the Reformation have been antedated by a
century. He was summoned to answer for himself before the
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1377. He appeared in court
supported by the presence of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,
the eldest of Edward's surviving sons, and the authorities
were unable to strike him behind so powerful a shield. But the
'poor priests' had other doctrines. ... His [Wycliffe's]
theory of property, and his study of the character of Christ,
had led him to the near confines of Anabaptism." The rebellion
of Wat Tyler, which occurred in 1381, cast odium upon all such
opinions. "So long as Wycliffe lived, his own lofty character was
a guarantee for the conduct of his immediate disciples; and
although his favour had far declined, a party in the state
remained attached to him, with sufficient influence to prevent
the adoption of extreme measures against the 'poor priests.'
... They were left unmolested for the next twenty years. ...
On the settlement of the country under Henry IV. they fell
under the general ban which struck down all parties who had
shared in the late disturbances."
_J. A. Froude,
History of England,
chapter 6._
"Wycliffe's translation of the Bible itself created a new era,
and gave birth to what may be said never to have existed till
then--a popular theology. ... It is difficult in our day to
imagine the impression such a book must have produced in an
age which had scarcely anything in the way of popular
literature, and which had been accustomed to regard the
Scriptures as the special property of the learned. It was
welcomed with an enthusiasm which could not be restrained, and
read with avidity both by priests and laymen. ... The homely
wisdom, blended with eternal truth, which has long since
enriched our vernacular speech with a multitude of proverbs,
could not thenceforth be restrained in its circulation by mere
pious awe or time-honoured prejudice. Divinity was discussed
in ale-houses. Popular preachers made war upon old prejudices.
and did much to shock that sense of reverence which belonged
to an earlier generation. A new school had arisen with a
theology of its own, warning the people against the delusive
preaching of the friars, and asserting loudly its own claims
to be true and evangelical, on the ground that it possessed
the gospel in the English tongue. Appealing to such an
authority in their favour, the eloquence of the new teachers
made a marvellous impression. Their followers increased with
extraordinary rapidity. By the estimate of an opponent they
soon numbered half the population, and you could hardly see
two persons in the street but one of them was a Wycliffite.
... They were supported by the powerful influence of John of
Gaunt, who shielded not only Wycliffe himself, but even the
most violent of the fanatics. And, certainly, whatever might
have been Wycliffe's own view, doctrines were promulgated by
his reputed followers that were distinctly subversive of
authority. John Ball fomented the insurrection of Wat Tyler,
by preaching the natural equality of men. ... But the
popularity of Lollardy was short-lived. The extravagance to
which it led soon alienated the sympathies of the people, and
the sect fell off in numbers almost as rapidly as it had
risen."
_J. Gairdner,
Studies in English History, 1-2._
"Wyclif ... was not without numerous followers, and the
Lollardism which sprang out of his teaching was a living force
in England for some time to come. But it was weak through its
connection with subversive social doctrines. He himself stood
aloof from such doctrines, but he could not prevent his
followers from mingling in the social fray. It was perhaps
their merit that they did so. The established constitutional
order was but another name for oppression and wrong to the
lower classes. But as yet the lower classes were not
sufficiently advanced in moral and political training to make
it safe to entrust them with the task of righting their own
wrongs as they would have attempted to right them if they had
gained the mastery. It had nevertheless become impossible to
leave the peasants to be once more goaded by suffering into
rebellion. The attempt, if it had been made, to enforce
absolute labour-rents was tacitly abandoned, and gradually
during the next century the mass of the villeins passed into
the position of freemen.
{816}
For the moment, nobles and prelates, landowners and clergy,
banded themselves together to form one great party of
resistance. The church came to be but an outwork of the
baronage."
_S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger,
Introduction to the Study of English History,
part 1, chapter 5, sections 14-15._
ALSO IN
_L. Sergeant,
John Wyclif._
_G. Lechler,
John Wiclif and his English Precursors._
See, also,
BOHEMIA; A. D. 1405-1415,
and BEGUINES.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1377.
Accession of King Richard II.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1377-1399.
The character and reign of Richard II.
"Richard II. was a far superior man to many of the weaker
kings of England; but being self-willed and unwarlike, he was
unfitted for the work which the times required. Yet, on a
closer inspection than the traditional view of the reign has
generally encouraged, we cannot but observe that the finer
qualities which came out in certain crises of his reign appear
to have frequently influenced his conduct: we know that he was
not an immoral man, that he was an excellent husband to an
excellent wife, and that he had devoted friends, willing to
lay down their lives for him when there was nothing whatever
left for them to gain. ... Richard, who had been brought up in
the purple quite as much as Edward II., was kept under
restraint by his uncles, and not being judiciously guided in
the arts of government, fell, like his prototype, into the
hands of favourites. His brilliant behaviour in the
insurrection of 1381 indicated much more than mere possession
of the Plantagenet courage and presence of mind. He showed a
real sympathy with the villeins who had undeniable grievances.
... His instincts were undoubtedly for freedom and
forgiveness, and there is no proof, nor even probability, that
he intended to use the villeins against his enemies. His early
and happy marriage with Anne of Bohemia ought, one might
think, to have saved him from the vice of favouritism; but he
was at least more fortunate than Edward II. in not being cast
under the spell of a Gaveston. When we consider the effect of
such a galling government as that of his uncle Gloucester, and
his cousin Derby, afterwards Henry IV., who seems to have been
pushing Gloucester on from the first, we can hardly be
surprised that he should require some friend to lean upon. The
reign is, in short, from one, and perhaps the truest, point of
view, a long duel between the son of the Black Prince and the
son of John of Gaunt. One or other of them must inevitably
perish. A handsome and cultivated youth, who showed himself at
fifteen every inch a king, who was married at sixteen, and led
his own army to Scotland at eighteen, required a different
treatment from that which he received. He was a man, and
should have been dealt with as such. His lavish and
reprehensible grants to his favourites were made the excuse
for Gloucester's violent interference in 1386, but there is
good ground for believing that the movement was encouraged by
the anti-Wicliffite party, which had taken alarm at the
sympathy with the Reformers shown at this time by Richard and
Anne."
_M. Burrows,
Commentaries on the History of England,
book 2, chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_J. R. Green,
History of the English People,
book 4, chapter 4 (volume 1)._
_C. H. Pearson,
English History in the 14th Century,
chapter 10-12._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1381.
Wat Tyler's Rebellion.
"In June 1381 there broke out in England the formidable
insurrection known as Wat Tyler's Rebellion. The movement
seems to have begun among the bondmen of Essex and of Kent;
but it spread at once to the counties of Sussex Hertford,
Cambridge, Suffolk and Norfolk. The peasantry, armed with
bludgeons and rusty swords, first occupied the roads by which
pilgrims went to Canterbury, and made everyone swear that he
would be true to king Richard and not accept a king named
John. This, of course, was aimed at the government of John of
Gaunt [Duke of Lancaster], ... to whom the people attributed
every grievance they had to complain of. The principal, or at
least the immediate cause of offence arose out of a poll-tax
which had been voted in the preceding year."
_J. Gairdner,
Houses of Lancaster and York,
chapter 2._
The leaders of the insurgents were Wat the Tyler, who had been
a soldier, John Ball, a priest and preacher of democratic and
socialistic doctrines, and one known as Jack Straw. They made
their way to London. "It ought to have been easy to keep them
out of the city, as the only approach to it was by London
Bridge, and the mayor and chief citizens proposed to defend
it. But the Londoners generally, and even three of the
aldermen, were well inclined to the rebels, and declared that
they would not let the gates be shut against their friends and
neighbours, and would kill the mayor himself if he attempted
to do it. So on the evening of Wednesday, June 13, the
insurgents began to stream in across the bridge, and next
morning marched their whole body across the river, and
proceeded at once to the Savoy, the splendid palace of the
Duke of Lancaster. Proclamation was made that any one found
stealing the smallest article would be beheaded; and the place
was then wrecked and burned with all the formalities of a
solemn act of justice. Gold and silver plate was shattered
with battle-axes and thrown into the Thames; rings and smaller
jewels were brayed in mortars; silk and embroidered dresses
were trampled under feet and torn up. Then the Temple was
burned with all its muniments. The poet Gower was among the
lawyers who had to save their lives by flight, and he passed
several nights in the woods of Essex, covered with grass and
leaves and living on acorns. Then the great house of the
Hospitallers at Clerkenwell was destroyed, taking seven days
to burn." The young king (Richard II.) and his court and
council had taken refuge in the Tower. The insurgents now
threatened to storm their stronghold if the king did not come
out and speak to them. The king consented and appointed a
rendezvous at Mile End. He kept the appointment and met his
turbulent subjects with so much courage and tact and so many
promises, that he persuaded a great number to disperse to
their homes. But while this pacific interview took place, Wat
Tyler, John Ball, and some 400 of their followers burst into
the Tower, determined to find the archbishop of Canterbury and
the Lord Treasurer, Sir Robert de Hales, who were the most
obnoxious ministers. "So great was the general consternation
that the soldiers dared not raise a hand while these ruffians
searched the different rooms, not sparing even the king's
bedroom, running spears into the beds, asked the king's mother
to kiss them, and played insolent jokes on the chief officers.
{817}
Unhappily they were not long in finding the archbishop, who
had said mass in the chapel, and was kneeling at the altar in
expectation of their approach." The Lord Treasurer was also
found, and both he and the archbishop were summarily beheaded
by the mob. "Murder now became the order of the day, and
foreigners were among the chief victims; thirteen Flemings
were dragged out of one church and beheaded, seventeen out of
another, and altogether it is said 400 perished. Many private
enmities were revenged by the London rabble on this day." On
the next day, June 15, the king, with an armed escort, went to
the camp of the insurgents, at Smithfield, and opened
negotiations with Tyler, offering successively three forms of
a new charter of popular rights and liberties, all of which
were rejected. Finally, Tyler was invited to a personal
conference, and there, in the midst of the king's party, on
some provocation or pretended provocation in his words or
bearing, the popular leader was struck from his horse and
killed. King Richard immediately rode out before the ranks of
the rebels, while they were still dazed by the suddenness and
audacity of the treacherous blow, crying "I will be your
leader; follow me." The thoughtless mob followed and soon
found itself surrounded by bodies of troops whose courage had
revived. The king now commanded the trembling peasants "to
fall on their knees, cut the strings of their bows, and leave
the city and its neighbourhood, under pain of death, before
nightfall. This command was instantly obeyed." Meantime and
afterwards there were many lesser risings in various parts of
the country, all of which were suppressed, with such rigorous
prosecutions in the courts that 1,500 persons are said to have
suffered judicially.
_C. H. Pearson,
English History in the Fourteenth Century,
chapter 10._
The Wat Tyler insurrection proved disastrous in its effect on
the work of Church reform which Wyclif was then pursuing. "Not
only was the power of the Lancastrian party, on which Wyclif
had relied, for the moment annihilated, but the quarrel
between the Baronage and Church, on which his action had
hitherto been grounded, was hushed in the presence of a common
danger. Much of the odium of the outbreak, too, fell on the
Reformer. ... John Ball, who had figured in the front rank of
the revolt, was claimed as one of his adherents. ... Whatever
belief such charges might gain, it is certain that from this
moment all plans for the reorganization of the Church were
confounded in the general odium which attached to the projects
of the socialist peasant leaders."