England in the age of Wycliffe

Preface

The book, which is here presented to the public, was originally composed as a dissertation sent in to compete for a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. Its object is to give a general picture of English society, politics, and religion at a certain stage in their progress, and to recount the leading and characteristic events of a brief period in our country's history. That period, which represents, as far as England is concerned, the meeting point of the mediaeval and the modern, is of peculiar interest and importance. As the book is now addressed to the general reader, and not to students alone, I have felt obliged to omit here and there the discussion of historical problems which, though of interest to students, throw little or no light on the period as a whole. For a similar reason I have given my quotations from ' Piers Plowman ' and Wycliffe in modern English ; though I have not ventured to take the same liberty with Chaucer, whose very spelling is sacred to literature. The Notes and Appendices are not intended to contain information of importance to the general reader, but are adduced as proofs of statements in the text, and are intended for the historical critic. For, notwithstanding its wider and more popular aim, I venture to hope that the book may claim to be a serious contribution to history. It is based on original authorities, and many of these authorities have been now for the first time unearthed in the Public Record Office and British Museum.

While this volume was in course of preparation for the

Ti PEEFACE

press, I had the pleasure of reading the new and important work on the Peasants' Eising by M. Andre Eeville and the successor of his labours, M. Petit-Dutaillis. It is needless for me to say how greatly I admire the work of one whose premature death has inflicted a blow on two nations, and with what interest I read the introduction by M. Petit-Dutaillis, so full of matter and so full of thought. I have adopted several new facts from their work ; in all such cases I have acknowledged the debt by a reference in the Notes. But I was already acquainted with the bulk of the valuable documents published in their Appendix. The events of the rebels' admission into London, the risings in Yorkshire and the West, had been already described in my book while it was still a college dissertation, before M. Seville's work appeared. In such cases I have left the text as it stood, and have also left my old references to the documents in the Eecord Office, but have added in brackets the page of M. Seville's book where they can be found by the student ; thus — C.E.E., 488, Eex. 6 (Eev. 190). In absolutely every case where I have altered or added to the text in consequence of M. Eeville's book, I have put a reference in the Notes, not in brackets. Thus — Eev., 251.

I acknowledge my debt to the Wyclif Society, to Professor Skeat, Mr. Matthew, Bishop Stubbs, and (however much we may differ) to Dr. Gasquet. There is besides a whole army of able scholars and editors whose publications have made it possible to attempt a history of the Age of Wycliffe. Although I have not in quite every case adopted the advice given, I wish to thank my friends Dr. Cunningham, Mr Stanley Leathes, and Dr. Verrall of Trinity and Mr. Whitney of King's College, Cambridge, for many valuable suggestions and corrections.

Last, but not least, I must thank Mr. Edgar Powell. It is not only that I used his ' Eising in East Anglia ' without any need to consult the original manuscripts on which his story rested. It is he, the person best fitted to do so by his

PEEFACE vii

experience in the documents of the Peasants' Eising, who hunted out and transcribed for me at the Eecord Office that considerable mass of imprinted matter on which much of the present work is based. It is my hope that in the course of the next year we shall publish a small volume of these materials. It would contain trials of the rebels of 1381 passed over by M. Eeville, the trial of John of Northampton, documents relating to the early Lollards, and various matters that will, I believe, be of permanent value to historians ; the references to these original documents in the Public Eecord Office will be found in the footnotes and appendices to the present volume. Finally, I must say a word as to the period covered by the book, for the 'Age of Wycliffe' is a vague term. I have restricted the political history to the years 1376 to 1385, because they form a separate epoch in secular affairs. On the other hand, I have found it impossible to make any break in the history of the Lollards until Eichard's death (end of Chapter VIII.) . I have besides added an additional Chapter (Chapter IX.), briefly relating their fortunes down to the year 1520. Without this continuation the Age of Wycliffe would lose half its meaning, and remarks occurring in various parts of the book would remain unjustified.

G. M. TEEVELYAN.

Trinity College, Cambridge : February, 1899.

PEEFACE TO NEW EDITION

It is not possible for me, on the occasion of this new edition, to make all the many alterations of which, as I am aware, this book stands in need. I have, however, removed several positive errors, and I have altered the chapter on the Peasants' Kising in some few places. Since the first publication of this book, there have appeared in the ' American Historical Keview ' (Jan. and April 1902) two articles by Mr. George Kriehn on the Sources of the Social Kevolt, 1381. I have adopted some of his views on particular events, and he has encouraged me to treat as a high authority the Account of the Eising of 1381 (Stowe MS. Anominalle Chronicalle belonging to the Abbeye of St. Maries in Yorke), which I published in the 'English Historical Eeview' (vol. xiii. July 1898). If this Stowe MS. is to be regarded as a high authority (see Mr. Kriehn's arguments, A. H. E. vii. 266-8) then the incidents at Smithfield take a slightly different colour, and the presentation of the interesting ' Smithfield programme ' of Church disendowment etc., by Wat Tyler, may perhaps be believed (Kriehn, A. H. E. vii. 458-84). I am also particularly obliged for criticisms in the ' English Historical Eeview ' and ' Edinburgh Eeview ' of Jan. 1900, some of which I have now incorporated.

2 Cheyne Gardens, Chelsea : August, 1904.

Contents

CHAPTEE I

WAR AND GOVERNMENT, 1368-1376

PAGH

part i. 1213-1702. = Professor Maitland's Article on the History of a

Cambridge Manor, English Historical Review, vol. ix. = Chronicon Anglias, R. S. = Chronicle of London, 1089-1483, 15th century

chronicle, printed 1837. = Child of Bristow (from Harleian MS.) printed in Retrospective Review, 1854, vol. ii., pp. 198-208. = Gower's Confessio Amantis, ed. 1857, Reinhold Pauli. = Eulogium Historiarum, vol. iii., the 'Continuatio

Eulogii,' R. S. = Coram Rege Rolls, P. R. 0. = Dr. Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and

Commerce, Early and Middle Ages, ed. 1890. = Cutts' Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages. = De Blasphemia, Wyelif Society Publications. = De Ecclesia „ „ „

= Dugdale's Baronage, ed. 1675. = Early English Text Society. = Erasmus' and Melancthon's Letters, ed. 1642. = Fasciculi Zizaniorum, R. S. = Rymer's Feedera ; vol. iii. = vol. iii., part 2, ed. 1830 ;

vol. iv. = vol. iv., ed. 1869. = Foxe's Acts and Monuments, ed. 1837, Catley. = Monumenta Franciscana, Brewer's volume, R. S. = Froissart, English translation by Thomas Johnes,

ed. 1804. = Gibson's Codex, ed. 1713. = Gross' Select Coroners' Rolls, Selden Soc. = Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, R. S. Vol. ix. is a

continuation. = Historia Anglicana Ecclesiastica, Harpsfield, ed. 1622.

xiv PEINCIPAL ABBREVIATIONS

H. R. • . . = Historical Review, English, vol. xiii., pp. 509-22,

July 1898. A chronicle relating to the Peasants' Rising, known as the Stowe MS. or 'Anominalle Chronicalle belonging to the Abbeye of St. Maries in Yorke.'

Knighton . . . = Chronicon Henrici Knighton, R. S.

Kriehn . . . = American Historical Review, vol. vii, nos. 2 and 3 (Jan. and April 1902). Articles on the Social Revolt of 1381, by George Kriehn.

Lechler . . . = Lechler's Wycliff e and his Precursors, Englished., 1878.

Lyndwood . . = Lyndwood's Provinciale, ed. 1679.

Matt. . . . = The English Works of Wyclif hitherto unprinted,

edited by F. D. Matthew, 1880, for the E. E. T. S.

Mon. Eve. . . = Vita Ricardi II. by an Evesham monk. It is always

referred to as ' Mon. Eve.' in Bishop Stubbs' footnotes, so I have kept this abbreviation.

O. E. B. . . . = Old English Bible, Dr. Gasquet, 1897.

Pol. Poems . . = Wright's Political Songs and Poems, R. S.

Pol. Works . . = Polemical Works, Wyclif Society Publications.

Powell . . . = Rising in East Anglia, E. Powell, Cambridge, 1896.

P. PI. . . - = Piers Plowman. References to Piers Plowman always refer to Professor Skeat's three Parallel texts, A, B, or C, ed. 1886.

Ramsay . . . = Lancaster and York, Sir James Ramsay.

Re> = Le Soulevement des Travailleurs d'Angleterre en 1381.

Andre Reville, 1898.

Rogers . . . = History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Thorold Rogers.

Rot. Pari. . . . = Rolls of Parliament ; Rotuli Parliamentarii.

R. S. . . * = Rolls Series.

Sermones . . . = Sermones, Wyclif Society Publications.

Stubbs or St. . = Bishop Stubbs' Constitutional History of England,

edition of 1891.

S. E. W. . . . = Select English Works of Wyclif, by Thomas Arnold, Oxford, 1869-71.

Test. Vet. . . . = Testamenta Vetusta, Nicolas.

T. W. Page . . = Die Umwandlung der Frohndienste in Geldrenten. Thomas Walker Page. (Inaugural Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doctorwurde an der Universitat zu Leipzig.)

Vox Clam. . . = Gower's Vox Clamantis, ed. Coxe. 1850.

Wals. . . . = Thomas Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, R. S.

WUkins . . . *= Wilkins' Concilia, ed. 1737.

ENGLAND

IN THE

AGE OF WYCLIFEE

Chapter I Wab And Govebnment, 1368-1876

THE LOSS OF OUR FRENCH POSSESSIONS. JOHN OF GAUNT AND HIS FRIENDS

The reader who has turned to a history of Chaucer's times in hope of rinding record of the healthy national life suggested by the picture of the jolly poet's companions on the Canterbury pilgrimage, will be disappointed that no aspect of politics or of society reproduces the cheerful impression he had received. But if his zeal for letters or antiquity has carried him through some cantos of Piers Plowman's gloomy and powerful utterances against the same generation, he will be less surprised to find that the chief feature is the decay of those institutions and ideas that had governed mediaeval England throughout the Plantagenet epoch, and the collapse of the old methods, industrial, social, military, governmental, and religious. Yet the gloom of the period is not unrelieved ; historical dulness does not brood over it as it often broods over periods of national decline. The personalities of Wycliffe and Chaucer adorn and humanise the story. The most spontaneous and general uprising of the working classes that ever took place in England, gives to the labour-question that picturesqueness and reality, which are too often lacking in the most important chapters of national development. Above

2 WAE AND GOVEENMENT 1868-76

all, efforts are made towards new possibilities, social, political and religious. Though Medievalism is sick almost to death, the ideas of the modern world are forming in the greatest minds of the day.

In spite, however, of the general decay, in spite of these attempts at change and reconstruction, the succeeding century saw mediaeval institutions bolstered up and the creation of modern England postponed. The diseases that were destroying England in the reign of Eichard the Second were still eating at her heart in the reign of Eichard the Third. The problems that beset her were but laid aside under the Lancastrians, to be solved under the Tudors. Only in the light of later history do we perceive in full that the age of Wycliffe holds a great place in the progress of our country, ihat its efforts were not futile and that its great men did not live in vain.

The first sign of general decadence was the downfall, in the later years of Edward the Third, of the military and naval power that had been erected in the great days of Crecy and Sluys. When in the year 1360 the Treaty of Bretigny made over to the English Crown a third of the country which we now know as France, English seamanship was as supreme in Western waters as English arms on the Western continent. From Corunna to Eotterdam no harbour-master dared to pilfer or annoy the traders who brought the English wool, no foreign craft dared board the vessels that sailed beneath the cross of St. George. From the border where Christendom lay encamped against Islam in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada, to the utmost Bohemian forests, there had been found no chivalry able to contend with the archers of England. Our nobles and gentlemen were the governors of Southern France, the cruel taskmasters of broad and fertile provinces. ' I witnessed,' says Froissart, 'the haughtiness of the English, who are affable to no other nation than their own ; no gentlemen of Gascony or Aquitaine . . . could obtain office or appointment in their own country ; for the English said they were neither on a level with them nor worthy of their society, which made the Gascons very indignant.' Had such high-sounding

1869 EENEWAL OF WAE 3

phrases then been in fashion, the Continental peoples had reason enough to talk of ' the supremacy of the Anglo- Saxons.' This supremacy, which had sprung up in twenty years, was destined to perish with even greater rapidity.

The affairs of Spain were the immediate cause of Continental revolt against our domination. In 1369 King Henry of Castile, having been restored to his throne by French arms in the face of English opposition, entered into a naval alliance with France, which secured to the confederates the mastery of the Bay of Biscay and the Channel. Our importance in the councils of Europe, the prosperity of our commerce and our military hold over France, depended on our naval superiority, and that superiority was a thing of the past when the fleets of Castile and France together were in active hostility against us. 1 Our position in Aquitaine was at the same moment being undermined, although the veteran Black Prince himself was the governor. Even among his English soldiers, whose organisation and obedience on the field of battle left nothing to be desired, the state of perpetual discipline proper to an army of occupation was altogether wanting. The regiments, or * companies ' as they were called, were many of them officered by soldiers of fortune whose patriotism was the patriotism of Sir Dugald Dalgetty ; men who had not scrupled, when active employment was wanting in the English service, to follow Du Ouesclin over the Pyrenees and help the French to turn the ally of England off the throne of Castile. The only means by which Prince Edward could have held these men in hand, was pay more regular than the treasury of Aquitaine could afford. In order to satisfy his soldiers, he oppressed his subjects with heavy taxes, the method most effectual to remind them of their French nationality, and to prepare the way for Charles the Fifth as Liberator. "When at last the * companies,' to obtain compensation for their arrears, began to make unauthorised raids into the territory of the French King, the opportunity most desired by that wily monarch had arrived. He had now justification for opening the war. In the spring of 1369 his armies invaded the isolated English possession of Ponthieu in the north of France, and acquired it almost b 2

4 WAR AND GOVERNMENT 1868-76

without striking a blow. The loss of the province must be laid to the account of the ministers who had failed to garrison it during the winter. They had been guilty of acting with similar ignorance and over- confidence in the affairs of Aquitaine. Instead of sending out money to Prince Edward that would have enabled him to keep his army in hand, they had insisted on fining his high-spirited captains for irregularities that would have been better checked by the payment of arrears. The enemies of the ministry ascribed the unauthorised violations of French territory that had brought on the war, to the mutinous spirit engendered among the English ' companies ' by these acts of petty persecution. 1 For two years after the seizure of Ponthieu, the war continued without any other striking event.

The Parliament of February 1371, which called the incompetent ministers to account, marks the commencement of those political movements and party combinations which continued throughout the next fifteen years. As long as Edward the Third had been in the vigour of life, he had himself carried on the administration and decided questions of policy, while his son acted as generalissimo abroad. But now that the King had fallen into dotage, and the Black Prince had returned from Gascony sick of an incurable disease which did not permit him to take a large part in public affairs, a fierce competition arose among the great nobles to secure a larger share in the government than any had previously enjoyed. Although the Duke of Lancaster and the Earls of Pembroke and Cambridge had been since the outbreak of the war entrusted with the command of various armies in France, the ministry at Westminster was still composed, as it had been from time immemorial, of Bishops who were dependent solely on the King, and who were bound to the great lords by no ties of interest or party. William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, was Chancellor, and Thomas Brantingham, Bishop of Exeter, was Treasurer of England. The Duke and the Earls were often consulted by the King on matters of policy, so that the Chancellor and Treasurer had not that monopoly of the royal confidence enjoyed by cabinet ministers of to-day. But the

1 Chron. Ang., lxxv-vi.

1371 FALL OF THE EPISCOPAL MINISTEY 5

persons who held these offices excluded the great lords not only from the ordinary administration, but from most of the patronage of the country, and it was for the purpose of securing these offices for their own adherents that a coterie of lords made use of Parliament in 1371. As Lancaster was in France, the Earl of Pembroke, a young nobleman of twenty- three, led the opposition in the Upper Chamber. 1

The House of Commons that met in 1371 was no less hostile to the bishop ministers, though for different and less personal reasons. In the first place, it was rightly considered that the opening of hostilities had been mismanaged, that there had been no counterbalancing success in the last two years, and that the Bishops had not the knowledge and energy requisite for the successful conduct of a war. They were in fact regarded much as Lord Aberdeen's Ministry was regarded in 1855. Their unpopularity was increased by the dislike of the Church and its privileges and consequent distrust of all its members, deeply rooted in the lay mind. This feeling found expression in the request presented by Lords and Commons together to the King, demanding the total exclusion of all clergy from the civil service. This would have indeed been a sweeping reform, for at that time most * clerks ' were * clergy/ The King rejected the petition, as he did not feel called upon to remodel the whole public service in its lower as well as its higher branches. But since the dislike of the present clerical ministry to which this demand had given voice could not be completely ignored, the Bishops holding the higher offices were removed, and were succeeded in their posts by law officers of the crown and laymen distinguished for public service. Some at least of these new ministers were honest and capable men, destined to win the admiration even of the bitterest partisans of the Church party. 2 But they had no independent prestige and position of their own on which to withstand the malpractices that the great nobles soon introduced into the public service. They were but the nominees of those lords who had plotted the overthrow of the Bishops. 5 The House of Commons, carried away by just resentment at the misconduct of the war by the episcopal ministry, had en- 1 Wals., i. 314. 2 Ibid. ii. 68, on Serope. 3 See Ap.

6 WAE AND GOVEENMENT 1368-76

trusted the government to persons even less capable of guarding the interests of the country. William of Wykeham had been, it was afterwards asserted, corrupt in an underhand way, but he was certainly not openly oppressive and extortionate. It was no improvement to give the nation over to the tender mercies of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

Besides the change of ministry, attacks were made in this Parliament on the enormous Church endowments which paid so little towards the heavy expenses of the war, and the budget of the year was drawn up so as to fall heavily on ecclesiastical property. A sum of 50,000Z. was required. It was assumed that there were forty thousand parishes in England, and that if each should pay on the average 22s. 3d., the requisite amount would be raised. Towards this tax all lands that had passed into Mortmain since Edward the First were now forced to contribute, and at the same time the tax voted by the clergy in convocation was extorted from small livings hitherto exempted. In these proceedings we see the beginning of that organised political movement for disendowment of the Church and abolition of her privileges which was the one point of sympathy between the House of Commons and the Duke of Lancaster, and formed the chief connection of Wycliffe with political parties. 1

The Parliament broke up, and the lay ministers took over the government. The hopes of the nation were soon damped. In the first place, the budget had been hopelessly miscalculated. There were not forty thousand, but only nine thousand parishes in England. The ludicrousness of the mistake throws a lurid light on statistical knowledge in the Middle Ages. That the assembled Estates of a great country should agree in solemn conclave that there were forty thousand parishes in the realm when there were only nine thousand, would scarcely command our belief if it were not written in the Book of the Bolls of Parliament. Probably the outgoingministers, since each knew approximately the number of parishes in his diocese, had some suspicion of the truth, but did not feel bound to communicate their knowledge to rivals

1 Hot. Pari, ii. 303-4 ; Wals., i. 312-5 ; Fasc. Z., Introd. xxi.

1372 DISASTER 7

who claimed to be introducing a new era of intelligence and reform. When the mistake was found out, part of the members of the late Parliament were hastily summoned together in June, to raise the average quota of the villages from 22s. 3d. to 116s. 1

As to the conduct of the war, men's hopes were even more bitterly disappointed. Catastrophe followed catastrophe in bewildering succession. In 1372, the young Earl of Pembroke, who had led the proceedings of the Parliament the year before, was sent out as governor of Aquitaine with a great army and a rich treasure to carry on the war. His fleet was surrounded off Eochelle by a greatly superior force of French and Spanish, and after two days of hand-to-hand fighting, the English were overpowered by numbers and captured to a man. 2 The clerical party saw in it the hand of God against the despoilers of His Church, 3 but the nation saw in it the death-blow of its sea-power, and of its dominion in France. In 1373 Poitou was lost, and a splendid English army under the Duke of Lancaster was almost destroyed by a march through France, which can be compared in character to Napoleon's Russian campaign. Exhaustion, not defeat in the field, sapped our resistance. In 1374 John of Gaunt returned to England to raise troops and supplies, but finding the country unable to furnish any more, left our garrisons in Aquitaine unsuccoured. By the end of the year they had nearly all surrendered to the French general. 4 After the loss of Aquitaine the character of the war was entirely changed. As we no longer had large tracts of territory to defend, it was no longer necessary to keep great armies permanently in the field. Our operations were confined to garrisoning Calais, Brest, Bordeaux, and a few smaller fortresses on the coast, which were useful bases for fitful incursions into French territory — ' noble ports and entries whence to grieve the adversary.' 5 The Duke of Brittany's strongholds were also garrisoned by our troops, and his struggle against his feudal

2 Froiss., vol. ii. chaps, xxxiv-vi. " Wals., i. 314.

4 Longman's Ed. III., ii. 233-4 ; Mr. Oman, in Social England, ii. 178. 8 Bot. Pari., iii. 34, 36.

8 WAE AND GOVEKNMENT 1368-76

superior the French King was kept alive by our aid. These very limited operations, though less absurdly out of proportion to our resources than the attempt to hold a third of France, were still a strain on our finances which proved unendurable to the taxpayer and prevented the revival of prosperity. Further, the command of the sea being lost, the Spanish and French fleets made continual descents on the English coast towns, with results fatal to our shipping and commerce. This miserable state of things continued for ten years more, before we could learn to swallow our pride and submit to treat with the enemy. The decline in trade, the heavy war taxation, the failure and disgrace of the English arms and policy, are conditions which continue without relief throughout the period covered by the ensuing chapters. Such conditions add bitterness to party strife, and lie underneath much of the political, social and religious agitation. Hard times and national disgrace have often aided men to reconsider an unthinking acceptance of the institutions of their country and the intellectual beliefs of their age.

Probably the new ministers were not more to blame for these disasters than the Bishops whom they had succeeded. England had undertaken a task beyond her strength. The loss of the land was inevitable from exhaustion of men and money and from the loss of the sea. The loss of the sea appears to have been the result not of mismanagement only, but of real inferiority in maritime power. At the battle of Eochelle (1372), a defeat almost as signal as the victory of Sluys thirty years before, the capture of Pembroke's ships was only the assertion of a superiority already recognised. The House of Commons had already called attention to the decay of the mercantile marine from economic causes prior to the war, 1 and as the fighting fleet was at that time composed of merchant ships seized for the King's service, the decline of the marine was tantamount to the decline -of the navy.

But although the faults of the ministers were not the sole cause of the disasters that befel their country, there was gross

Bot. Pari, ii. 306, sec. 31 ; ii. 311 and iii. 5, sec. 17.

corruption in the military and civil services, which hastened the downfall. PrinceEdward lay slowly dying, unable to administer affairs. Next to him, his brother John of Gaunt was far the greatest subject in the land. By a fortunate accumulation of titles and estates, he stood in rank and wealth far above the other nobles. His superiority over them all was recognised by the title of Duke, then borne by no other Englishman save the Prince of Wales. But the personal influence of John of Gaunt over the King was the chief reason of his complete supremacy in England, a supremacy which as long as Edward lived was only broken during the session of the Good Parliament. The King, as a patriotic statesman complained, was governed ' by the counsel of one man only.' l He was dotingly submissive to his favourite son, and even consented to be on terms of intimacy with such dependents of the House of Lancaster as Lord Latimer and Sir Eichard Stury. 2 A more disreputable influence was exercised over the once glorious dictator of Europe, who now in dishonourable old age practised the vice which puts princes most easily into the hands of intriguing politicians. Alice Perrers, the King's mistress, was in close league with John of Gaunt.

As long as Edward lived, the only danger against which the Duke had to guard came at the season of year which brought together to Westminster the representatives of a people easily incensed by bad government, and those nobles who were his natural rivals or personal enemies. The Parliament of 1373, however, passed off very successfully for those in power ; partly because they succeeded in putting an entirely false colour on the military events of the year. While the remnants of the splendid army which the Duke had led across France were perishing of cold and hunger in the Auvergne, the Chancellor had the face to declare that, ' by their good and noble government and deeds of arms,' our generals had ' done great damage and destruction to the enemy over there.' 3 His demand for money was generously answered by a grant of taxes for the next two years. 4 Although grants