Chapter CXXXI: Book 4: , number 5 (2)

"In 1264 Simon de Montfort had called up from both shires and
boroughs representatives to aid him in the new work of
government. That part of Earl Simon's work had not been
lasting. The task was left for Edward I. to be advanced by
gradual safe steps, but to be thoroughly completed, as a part
of a definite and orderly arrangement, according to which the
English parliament was to be the perfect representation of the
Three Estates of the Realm, assembled for purposes of
taxation, legislation and united political action. …
Edward's first parliament, in 1275, enabled him to pass a
great statute of legal reform, called the Statute of
Westminster the First, and to exact the new custom on wool;
another assembly, the same year, granted him a fifteenth. …
There is no evidence that the commons of either town or county
were represented. … In 1282, when the expenses of the Welsh
war were becoming heavy, Edward again tried the plan of
obtaining money from the towns and counties by separate
negotiation; but as that did not provide him with funds
sufficient for his purpose, he called together, early in 1283,
two great assemblies, one at York and another at Northampton,
in which four knights from each shire and four members from
each city and borough were ordered to attend; the cathedral
and conventual clergy also of the two provinces were
represented at the same places by their elected proctors. At
these assemblies there was no attendance of the barons; they
were with the king in Wales; but the commons made a grant of
one-thirtieth on the understanding that the lords should do
the same. Another assembly was held at Shrewsbury the same
year, 1283, to witness the trial of David of Wales; to this
the bishops and clergy were not called, but twenty towns and
all the counties were ordered to send representatives. Another
step was taken in 1290: knights of the shire were again
summoned; but still much remained to be done before a perfect
parliament was constituted. Counsel was wanted for
legislation, consent was wanted for taxation. The lords were
summoned in May, and did their work in June and July, granting
a feudal aid and passing the statute 'Quia Emptores,' but the
knights only came to vote or to promise a tax, after a law had
been passed; and the towns were again taxed by special
commissions. In 1294, … under the alarm of war with France,
an alarm which led Edward into several breaches of
constitutional law, he went still further, assembling the
clergy by their representatives in August, and the shires by
their representative knights in October.
{810}
The next year, 1295, witnessed the first summons of a perfect
and model parliament; the clergy represented by their bishops,
deans, archdeacons, and elected proctors; the barons summoned
severally in person by the king's special writ, and the
commons summoned by writs addressed to the sheriffs, directing
them to send up two elected knights from each shire, two
elected citizens from each city, and two elected burghers from
each borough. The writ by which the prelates were called to
this parliament contained a famous sentence taken from the
Roman law, 'That which touches all should be approved by all,'
a maxim which might serve as a motto for Edward's
constitutional scheme, however slowly it grew upon him, now
permanently and consistently completed."

_W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets,
chapter 10._

"Comparing the history of the following ages with that of the
past, we can scarcely doubt that Edward had a definite idea of
government before his eyes, or that that idea was successful
because it approved itself to the genius and grew out of the
habits of the people. Edward saw, in fact, what the nation was
capable of, and adapted his constitutional reforms to that
capacity. But although we may not refuse him the credit of
design, it may still be questioned whether the design was
altogether voluntary, whether it was not forced upon him by
circumstances and developed by a series of careful
experiments. … The design, as interpreted by the result, was
the creation of a national parliament, composed of the three
estates. … This design was perfected in 1295. It was not the
result of compulsion, but the consummation of a growing policy.
… But the close union of 1295 was followed by the compulsion
of 1297: out of the organic completeness of the constitution
sprang the power of resistance, and out of the resistance the
victory of the principles, which Edward might guide, but which
he failed to coerce."

_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, section 244
and chapter 14, section 180-182._

_W. Stubbs,
Select Charters,
part 7._

"The 13th century was above all things the age of the lawyer
and the legislator. The revived study of Roman law had been
one of the greatest results of the intellectual renaissance of
the twelfth century. The enormous growth of the universities
in the early part of the thirteenth century was in no small
measure due to the zeal, ardour and success of their legal
faculties. From Bologna there flowed all over Europe a great
impulse towards the systematic and scientific study of the
Civil Law of Rome. … The northern lawyers were inspired by
their emulation of the civilians and canonists to look at the
rude chaos of feudal custom with more critical eyes. They
sought to give it more system and method, to elicit its
leading principles, and to coordinate its clashing rules into
a harmonious body of doctrine worthy to be put side by side
with the more pretentious edifices of the Civil and Canon Law.
In this spirit Henry de Bracton wrote the first systematic
exposition of English law in the reign of Henry III. The
judges and lawyers of the reign of Edward sought to put the
principles of Bracton into practice. Edward himself strove
with no small success to carry on the same great work by new
legislation. … His well-known title of the 'English
Justinian' is not so absurd as it appears at first sight. He
did not merely resemble Justinian in being a great legislator.
Like the famous codifier of the Roman law, Edward stood at the
end of a long period of legal development, and sought to arrange
and systematise what had gone before him. Some of his great
laws are almost in form attempts at the systematic
codification of various branches of feudal custom. … Edward
was greedy for power, and a constant object of his legislation
was the exaltation of the royal prerogative. But he nearly
always took a broad and comprehensive view of his authority,
and thoroughly grasped the truth that the best interests of
king and kingdom were identical. He wished to rule the state,
but was willing to take his subjects into partnership with
him, if they in return recognised his royal rights. … The
same principles which influenced Edward as a lawgiver stand
out clearly in his relations to every class of his subjects.
… It was the greatest work of Edward's life to make a
permanent and ordinary part of the machinery of English
government, what in his father's time had been but the
temporary expedient of a needy taxgatherer or the last
despairing effort of a revolutionary partisan. Edward I.
is—so much as one man can be—the creator of the historical
English constitution. It is true that the materials were ready
to his hand. But before he came to the throne the parts of the
constitution, though already roughly worked out, were
ill-defined and ill-understood. Before his death the national
council was no longer regarded as complete unless it contained
a systematic representation of the three estates. All over
Europe the thirteenth century saw the establishment of a
system of estates. The various classes of the community, which
had a separate social status and a common political interest,
became organised communities, and sent their representatives
to swell the council of the nation. By Edward's time there had
already grown up in England some rough anticipation of the
three estates of later history. … It was with no intention
of diminishing his power, but rather with the object of
enlarging it, that Edward called the nation into some sort of
partnership with him. The special clue to this aspect of his
policy is his constant financial embarrassment. He found that
he could get larger and more cheerful subsidies if he laid his
financial condition before the representatives of his people.
… The really important thing was that Edward, like Montfort,
brought shire and borough representatives together in a single
estate, and so taught the country gentry, the lesser
landowners, who, in a time when direct participation in
politics was impossible for a lower class, were the real
constituencies of the shire members, to look upon their
interests as more in common with the traders of lower social
status than with the greater landlords with whom in most
continental countries the lesser gentry were forced to
associate their lot. The result strengthened the union of
classes, prevented the growth of the abnormally numerous
privileged nobility of most foreign countries, and broadened
and deepened the main current of the national life."

_T. F. Tout,
Edward the First,
chapter 7-8._

{811}

"There was nothing in England which answered to the 'third
estate' in France—a class, that is to say, both isolated and
close, composed exclusively of townspeople, enjoying no
commerce with the rural population (except such as consisted
in the reception of fugitives), and at once detesting and
dreading the nobility by whom it was surrounded. In England
the contrary was the case. The townsfolk and the other classes
in each county were thrown together upon numberless occasions;
a long period of common activity created a cordial
understanding between the burghers on the one hand and their
neighbours the knights and landowners on the other, and
finally prepared the way for the fusion of the two classes."

_E. Boutmy,
The English Constitution,
chapter 3._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1279.
The Statute of Mortmain.

"For many years past, the great danger to the balance of power
appeared to come from the regular clergy, who, favoured by the
success of the mendicant orders, were adding house to house
and field to field. Never dying out like families, and rarely
losing by forfeitures, the monasteries might well nigh
calculate the time, when all the soil of England should be
their own. … Accordingly, one of the first acts of the
barons under Henry III. had been to enact, that no fees should
be aliened to religious persons or corporations. Edward
re-enacted and strengthened this by various provisions in the
famous Statute of Mortmain. The fee illegally aliened was now
to be forfeited to the chief lord under the King; and if, by
collusion or neglect, the lord omitted to claim his right, the
crown might enter upon it. Never was statute more unpopular
with the class at whom it was aimed, more ceaselessly eluded,
or more effectual. … Once the clergy seem to have meditated
open resistance, for, in 1281, we find the king warning the
bishops, who were then in convocation at Lambeth, as they
loved their baronies, to discuss nothing that appertained to
the crown, or the king's person, or his council. The warning
appears to have proved effectual, and the clergy found less
dangerous employment in elaborating subtle evasions of the
obnoxious law. At first fictitious recoveries were practised;
an abbey bringing a suit against a would-be donor, who
permitted judgment against him to go by default. When this was
prohibited, special charters of exemption were procured. Once
an attempt was made to smuggle a dispensing bill through
parliament. One politic abbot in the 15th century encouraged
his friends to make bequests of land, suffered them to
escheat, and then begged them back of the crown, playing on
the religious feelings of Henry VI. Yet it is strong proof of
the salutary terror which the Statute of Mortmain inspired
that even then the abbot was not quieted, and procured an Act
of Parliament to purge him from any consequences of his
illegal practices. In fact, the fear, lest astute crown
lawyers should involve a rich foundation in wholesale
forfeitures, seems sometimes to have hampered its members in
the exercise of their undoubted rights as citizens."

_C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2, chapter 9._

ALSO IN:
_E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents._

_K. E. Digby,
Law of Real Property (4th edition)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1282-1284.
Subjugation of Wales.

See WALES: A. D. 1282-1284.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1290-1305.
Conquest of Scotland by Edward I.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1290-1305.

ENGLAND: 14th Century.
Immigration of Flemish artisans.
The founding of English manufactures.

See FLANDERS: A. D. 1335-1337.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1306-1393.
Resistance to the Pope.

"For one hundred and fifty years succeeding the Conquest, the
right of nominating the archbishops, bishops, and mitred
abbots had been claimed and exercised by the king. This right
had been specially confirmed by the Constitutions of
Clarendon, which also provided that the revenues of vacant
sees should belong to the Crown. But John admitted all the
Papal claims, surrendering even his kingdom to the Pope, and
receiving it back as a fief of the Holy See. By the Great
Charter the Church recovered its liberties; the right of free
election being specially conceded to the cathedral chapters
and the religious houses. Every election was, however, subject
to the approval of the Pope, who also claimed a right of veto
on institutions to the smaller church benefices. … Under
Henry III. the power thus vested in the Pope and foreign
superiors of the monastic orders was greatly abused, and soon
degenerated into a mere channel for draining money into the
Roman exchequer. Edward I. firmly withstood the exactions of
the Pope, and reasserted the independence of both Church and
Crown. … In the reign of the great Edward began a series of
statutes passed to check the aggressions of the Pope and
restore the independence of the national church. The first of
the series was passed in 1306-7. … This statute was
confirmed under Edward III. in the 4th, and again in the 5th
year of his reign; and in the 25th of his reign [A. D. 1351],
roused 'by the grievous complaints of all the commons of his
realm,' the King and Parliament passed the famous Statute of
Provisors, aimed directly at the Pope, and emphatically
forbidding his nominations to English benefices. … Three
years afterwards it was found necessary to pass a statute
forbidding citations to the court of Rome—[the prelude to the
Statute of Præmunire, described below]. … In 1389, there was an
expectation that the Pope was about to attempt to enforce his
claims, by excommunicating those who rejected them. … The
Parliament at once passed a highly penal statute. … Matters
were shortly afterwards brought to a crisis by Boniface IX.,
who after declaring the statutes enacted by the English
Parliament null and void, granted to an Italian cardinal a
prebendal stall at Wells, to which the king had already
presented. Cross suits were at once instituted by the two
claimants in the Papal and English courts. A decision was
given by the latter, in favour of the king's nominee, and the
bishops, having agreed to support the Crown, were forthwith
excommunicated by the Pope. The Commons were now roused to the
highest pitch of indignation,"—and the final great Statute of
Præmunire was passed, A. D. 1393. "The firm and resolute
attitude assumed by the country caused Boniface to yield; 'and
for the moment,' observes Mr. Froude, 'and indeed for ever
under this especial form, the wave of papal encroachment was
rolled back.'"

_T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
chapter 11._

"The great Statute of Provisors, passed in 1351, was a very
solemn expression of the National determination not to give
way to the pope's usurpation of patronage. … All persons
procuring or accepting papal promotions were to be arrested.
… In 1352 the purchasers of Provisions were declared
outlaws; in 1365 another act repeated the prohibitions and
penalties; and in 1390 the parliament of Richard II. rehearsed
and confirmed the statute. By this act, forfeiture and
banishment were decreed against future transgressors."
{812}
The Statute of Præmunire as enacted finally in 1393, provided
that "all persons procuring in the court of Rome or elsewhere
such translations, processes, sentences of excommunication,
bulls, instruments or other things which touch the king, his
crown, regality or realm, should suffer the penalties of
præmunire"—which included imprisonment and forfeiture of
goods. "The name præmunire which marks this form of
legislation is taken from the opening word of the writ by
which the sheriff is charged to summon the delinquent."

_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 19, section 715-716._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1307.
Accession of King Edward II.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1310-1311.
The Ordainers.

"At the parliament which met in March 1310 [reign of Edward
II.] a new scheme of reform was promulgated, which was framed
on the model of that of 1258 and the Provisions of Oxford. It
was determined that the task of regulating the affairs of the
realm and of the king's household should be committed to an
elected body of twenty-one members, or Ordainers, the chief of
whom was Archbishop Winchelsey. … The Ordainers were
empowered to remain in office until Michaelmas 1311, and to
make ordinances for the good of the realm, agreeable to the
tenour of the king's coronation oath. The whole administration
of the kingdom thus passed into their hands. … The Ordainers
immediately on their appointment issued six articles directing
the observance of the charters, the careful collection of the
customs, and the arrest of the foreign merchants; but the
great body of the ordinances was reserved for the parliament
which met in August 1311. The famous document or statute known
as the Ordinances of 1311 contained forty-one clauses, all
aimed at existing abuses."

_W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets,
chapter 12._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1314-1328.
Bannockburn and the recovery of Scottish independence.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1314; 1314-1328.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1327.
Accession of King Edward III.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1328.
The Peace of Northampton with Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1328.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1328-1360.
The pretensions and wars of Edward III. in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1328-1339; and 1337-1360.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1332-1370.
The wars of Edward III. with Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1332-1333, and 1333-1370.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1333-1380.
The effects of the war in France.

"A period of great wars is generally favourable to the growth
of a nobility. Men who equipped large bodies of troops for the
Scotch or French wars, or who had served with distinction in
them, naturally had a claim for reward at the hands of their
sovereign. … The 13th century had broken up estates all over
England and multiplied families of the upper class; the 14th
century was consolidating properties again, and establishing a
broad division between a few powerful nobles and the mass of
the community. But if the gentry, as an order, lost a little
in relative importance by the formation of a class of great
nobles, more distinct than had existed before, the middle
classes of England, its merchants and yeomen, gained very much
in importance by the war. Under the firm rule of the 'King of
the Sea,' as his subjects lovingly called Edward III., our
commerce expanded. Englishmen rose to an equality with the
merchants of the Hanse Towns, the Genoese, or the Lombards,
and England for a time overflowed with treasure. The first
period of war, ending with the capture of Calais, secured our
coasts; the second, terminated by the peace of Brétigny,
brought the plunder of half [of] France into the English
markets; and even when Edward's reign had closed on defeat and
bankruptcy, and our own shores were ravaged by hostile fleets,
it was still possible for private adventurers to retaliate
invasion upon the enemy. … The romance of foreign conquest,
of fortunes lightly gained and lightly lost, influenced
English enterprise for many years to come. … The change to
the lower orders during the reign arose rather from the
frequent pestilences, which reduced the number of working men
and made labour valuable, than from any immediate
participation in the war. In fact, English serfs, as a rule,
did not serve in Edward's armies. They could not be
men-at-arms or archers for want of training and equipment; and
for the work of light-armed troops and foragers, the Irish and
Welsh seem to have been preferred. The opportunity of the
serfs came with the Black Death, while districts were
depopulated, and everywhere there was a want of hands to till
the fields and get in the crops. The immediate effect was
unfortunate. … The indifference of late years, when men were
careless if their villans stayed on the property or emigrated,
was succeeded by a sharp inquisition after fugitive serfs, and
constant legislation to bring them back to their masters. …
The leading idea of the legislator was that the labourer,
whose work had doubled or trebled in value, was to receive the
same wages as in years past; and it was enacted that he might
be paid in kind, and, at last, that in all cases of contumacy
he should be imprisoned without the option of a fine. … The
French war contributed in many ways to heighten the feeling of
English nationality. Our trade, our language and our Church
received a new and powerful influence. In the early years of
Edward III.'s reign, Italian merchants were the great
financiers of England, farming the taxes and advancing loans
to the Crown. Gradually the instinct of race, the influence of
the Pope, and geographical position, contributed, with the
mistakes of Edward's policy, to make France the head, as it
were, of a confederation of Latin nations. Genoese ships
served in the French fleet, Genoese bowmen fought at Crécy,
and English privateers retorted on Genoese commerce throughout
the course of the reign. In 1376 the Commons petitioned that
all Lombards might be expelled [from] the kingdom, bringing
amongst other charges against them that they were French
spies. The Florentines do not seem to have been equally
odious, but the failure of the great firm of the Bardi in
1345, chiefly through its English engagements, obliged Edward
to seek assistance elsewhere; and he transferred the privilege
of lending to the crown to the merchants of the rising Hanse
Towns."

_C. H. Pearson,
English History in the Fourteenth Century,
chapter 9._

"We may trace the destructive nature of the war with France in
the notices of adjoining parishes thrown into one for want of
sufficient inhabitants, 'of people impoverished by frequent
taxation of our lord the king,' until they had fled, of
churches allowed to fall into ruin because there were none to
worship within their walls, and of religious houses
extinguished because the monks and nuns had died, and none bad
been found to supply their places. …
{813}
To the poverty of the country and the consequent inability of
the nation to maintain the costly wars of Edward III., are
attributed the enactments of sumptuary laws, which were passed
because men who spent much on their table and dress were
unable 'to help their liege lord' in the battle field."

_W. Denton,
England in the 15th Century,
introduction, part 2._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1318-1349.
The Black Death and its effects.

"The plague of 1349 … produced in every country some marked
social changes. … In England the effects of the plague are
historically prominent chiefly among the lower classes of
society. The population was diminished to an extent to which
it is impossible now even to approximate, but which bewildered
and appalled the writers of the time; whole districts were
thrown out of cultivation, whole parishes depopulated, the
number of labourers was so much diminished that on the one
hand the survivors demanded an extravagant rate of wages, and
even combined to enforce it, whilst on the other hand the
landowners had to resort to every antiquated claim of service
to get their estates cultivated at all; the whole system of
farming was changed in consequence, the great landlords and
the monastic corporations ceased to manage their estates by
farming stewards, and after a short interval, during which the
lands with the stock on them were let to the cultivator on
short leases, the modern system of letting was introduced, and
the permanent distinction between the farmer and the labourer
established."

_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 16, section 259._

"On the first of August 1348 the disease appeared in the
seaport towns of Dorsetshire, and travelled slowly westwards
and northwards, through Devonshire and Somersetshire to
Bristol. In order, if possible, to arrest its progress, all
intercourse with the citizens of Bristol was prohibited by the
authorities of the county of Gloucester. These precautions
were however taken in vain; the Plague continued to Oxford,
and, travelling slowly in the same measured way, reached
London by the first of November. It appeared in Norwich on the
first of January, and thence spread northwards. … The
mortality was enormous. Perhaps from one-third to one-half the
population fell victims to the disease. Adam of Monmouth says
that only a tenth of the population survived. Similar
amplifications are found in all the chroniclers. We are told
that 60,000 persons perished in Norwich between January and
July 1349. No doubt Norwich was at that time the second city
in the kingdom, but the number is impossible. … It is stated
that in England the weight of the calamity fell on the poor,
and that the higher classes were less severely affected. But
Edward's daughter Joan fell a victim to it and three
archbishops of Canterbury perished in the same year. … All
contemporary writers inform us that the immediate consequence
of the Plague was a dearth of labour, and excessive
enhancement of wages, and thereupon a serious loss to the
landowners. To meet this scarcity the king issued a
proclamation directed to the sheriffs of the several counties,
which forbad the payment of higher than the customary wages,
under the penalties of amercement. But the king's mandate was
every where disobeyed. … Many of the labourers were thrown
into prison; many to avoid punishment fled to the forests, but
were occasionally captured and fined; and all were constrained
to disavow under oath that they would take higher than
customary wages for the future."

_J. E. T. Rogers,
History of Agriculture and Prices in England,
volume 1, chapter 15._

ALSO IN:
_F. A. Gasquet,
The Great Pestilence._

_W. Longman,
Edward III.,
volume 1; chapter 10._

_A. Jessop,
The Coming of the Friars, &c.,
chapter 4-5._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1350-1400.
Chaucer and his relations to English language and literature.

"At the time when the conflict between church and state was
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."

_J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 5, section 3._