pope Nicholas IV, and afterwards exacted larger sums from the clergy, till they in their turn obtained a bull which forbade the transfer of any ecclesiastical revenues to lay purposes without the concurrence of the holy see.

§. 68. Most of the contests which took place concerned the property of the church, and might more justly be viewed as questions of civil right, than as belonging to ecclesiastical matters. The church is a body corporate, with spiritual functions, but possessed of temporal rights; the injustice generally arose with regard to the temporalities, ordinarily with respect to the appointments; and as the ecclesiastical body had no other means of defending its own rights, than by spiritual thunders, the invasion of a right purely temporal in its nature became a question of spiritual power, from the way in which the contest was carried on a. The king kept the bishopric or abbey vacant, and let the temporalities out to farm. The church was injured by the want of a head, but the injustice was such as might have been remedied without any appeal to a foreign power, if the barons had maintained the rights of the church ; but when the church found no other remedy, her members were forced to seek for aid from any source which could afford it to them, and so put themselves under the protection of

a See the Constitutions of Boniface, in Johnson's Canons, 1261, which, though they were never established as law, yet mark strongly the violence and folly of those who then wished to legislate as friends of the church.

Rome. And that see usually shewed itself eager to support the weaker party, till the stronger submitted to acknowledge the authority of its decisions, but exhibited no objection to subject the church to the crown, provided the crown was subservient to Rome.

§. 69. So again with regard to the right of taxation, the church had always possessed the privilege of imposing taxes upon her members, but the necessities of Edward I. induced him to demand a contribution of one fifth of their moveables from the clergy; and Winchelsey, then archbishop of Canterbury, (1296) obtained a bull prohibiting princes to levy, and churchmen to pay, any taxes imposed without the permission of the Roman see. Edward reduced the clergy to submission by putting them out of the protection of the law, as they would contribute nothing to the support of the government; but his conduct was certainly very tyrannical. The papal bull claimed a power over the crown, to which there could be no just pretension, but such a claim could hardly deprive the clergy of the right of taxing themselves. The question was not whether or no they should pay taxes, but as to the authority which should impose such taxes. This proceeding of the king was an infringement of their civil rights; and had in its nature a tendency to weaken the dependence of the church on the crown, and to transfer the allegiance of the heart of the churchman from his king to the pope; and the frequency of political disturbances and personal insecurity induced the wealthy mem

bers of the church to prepare every means of defence within their power; so that if we regard the higher clergy in their manner of life, and their proceedings against the crown, they resembled laymen rather than ministers of the gospel. There were many instances when they engaged personally in war, and their castles were often as strong, their retainers as numerous and warlike, as those of any temporal lord; and the history of the churchmen of this period can hardly be reckoned as belonging to ecclesiastical history, any further than as it records the temporal wealth and power with which they were then invested.

§. 70. In order to discover the source of that political influence which was possessed by Rome, we must look at the elements of which society was then composed. The king was the monarch of a military oligarchy, whose power mainly depended on the military strength which he possessed ; and therefore, chiefly on his own personal character, and the manner in which he used the resources of the crown. The church was a confederacy of corporations, sole and aggregate, whose very existence depended on opinion, and whose real strength consisted in combination, and in cultivating the arts of peace and civilization. Rome, possessed of many advantages in other respects, formed a centre of combination for the church, and the folly and injustice of the crown and of the barons, would have rendered Rome and the church invincible, had not those vices, which are, humanly speaking, inseparable from power and

wealth, destroyed the illusion of public opinion, and prevented churchmen from being able to trust in each other. The vices of monarchs and of nations first made the pope a king of kings; and the vices of Rome and her servants destroyed a power which no other human force could have subdued.

CHAPTER III.

FROM WICLIF 1356, TO HENRY VIII. 1509.

101. Men wish to remedy abuses when they affect themselves.

102. Political abuses; separate jurisdiction of the clergy. 103. Money drained out of the kingdom. 104. Laws to restrain the papal power. 105. Moral abuses; the mendicant orders. 106. Doctrinal abuses; pardons; transubstantiation. 107. Little prospect of redress; inutility of canons. 108. Wiclif a leader in the reformation. 109. His enmity to the friars. 110. He defends the crown against the papal power. 111. Attacked by the papal authority, but defended. 112. Driven from Oxford. 113. Summoned to Rome, but dies. 14. His talents and opposition to Rome. 115. Opinions of Wiclif; papal supremacy. 116. Church property; celibacy. 117. Purgatory; episcopacy. 118. Seven sacraments. 119. Transubstantiation; on justification and sanctification. 120. Wiclif's followers. 121. Enactments of Henry IV, in favour of persecution. 122. William Sawtre, martyr. 123. Lord Cobham. 124. His execution. 125. Pretended rebellion of Lord Cobham. 126. Pecock. 127. His excuse for images and pilgrimages. 128. Papal supremacy and monastic orders. 129. The Bible; celibacy; fasting. 130. Continued persecution. 131. Summary of the history; origin of ecclesiastical power. 132. Competitors for the nomination to preferments. 133. Origin of the claim of each. 134. Each seek their own advantage, in consequence of the wealth of the preferment. 135. Advantages and disadvantages of wealth to the church. 136. Civil offices in the hands of churchmen; these evils were destroyed when they came to be examined. 137. Many steps made towards reformation, but an Almighty hand was

still wanting. 8. 101. THE period which we are about to examine is often regarded with less attention perhaps than it deserves, since it must contain traces of those steps which eventually led to the reformation. The opin