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Wyclif and the Lollards

Wyclif and the Lollards

More than a hundred years before Martin Luther began his dispute with the Roman Church which ended in the Reformation, England had seen a churchman start on a very similar career. The story of John Wyclif and his followers, the Lollards, shows clearly that England was dissatisfied with the authority of the Pope long before the time came when the nation broke away from the Roman authority, and the Church in England became National.

The worst part of John's quarrel with the Pope had been that it opened the door to interference and taxation from Rome. This showed itself in Henry III's reign, when that king was flattered by the popes into making loans of money to help the papacy in its final struggle against the empire in the person of Frederick II and his descendants. England was regarded by the popes as a "well of wealth from which they could draw unlimitedly". A very great deal of English land was in the hands of churchmen, and the popes strove continually to keep the churchmen under their own control, and cut them loose from the control of the State. For example, Pope Boniface VIII, in his bull, "Clericis Laicos", directed the clergy to pay no taxes to King Edward I unless by his consent. Edward retaliated by outlawing the clergy who refused to pay, and brought Boniface to withdraw. None the less, the independence of the clergy from the State was a point for which the popes strove steadily, and which the State was sure to resent.

In Edward Ill's reign this anti-papal feeling became very strong. Men saw a great deal of money being sent to the Papal Court, and they did not think it right that they should pay it; they saw, too, a great many foreigners who were appointed by the Pope holding rich livings, deaneries, and high posts in the Church, and they would have preferred that Englishmen should have these posts. They saw a few churchmen, each holding many livings, and perhaps never going near some of them, and they contrasted the fine clothes and crowds of servants of these men with the poverty of the parish priests. It seemed to them that these rich churchmen neglected their duty, and thought more of the good things of this world than it was right for them to do. "God", they said, "gave His people to be pastured, not to be shaven and shorn."

Wyclif and the Lollards

Chronology