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Home Wyclif and the Lollards Wyclif and the Lollards; Part 3 |
Wyclif and the Lollards; Part 3All these things helped to rouse a feeling of hostility to the clergy, and especially to the popes; and, to make matters worse, the popes themselves had at this time fallen on evil days. First of all, they had been unwise enough to leave Rome and live at Avignon in France, and so they fell much into the power of the kings of France.Englishmen hated France, with which they were carrying on a prolonged war, and included in their hate popes who appeared to be French popes. And the Avignon popes certainly were men of low aims, more interested in the getting of money than they should have been. They strove to find rich posts for all their friends; they reserved the right of appointing to all benefices left vacant by any appointment they made, a claim which enormously extended their patronage; and as the popes received "annates" or firstfruits from every benefice to which a churchman was preferred, they arranged their preferments so as to get as much in annates as they could; they often granted " provisions ", preferments made in advance, before the holder of an office was dead. Incessant disputes about elections all led to appeals to the courts at Avignon, and much money was gathered over these suits. Clement VI, who particularly distinguished himself by gathering money in this way, remarked with a cynical laugh that none of his predecessors had known how to be popes. These usurpations of the popes did not go entirely unchecked. In 1351 the statute of Provisors was passed, which rendered persons who accepted papal provisions liable to imprisonment, and declared that all appointments to which the Pope nominated should pass for that turn to the king. This was followed, in 1353, by the statute of Praemunire, which forbade appeals being made to foreign courts, and in 1393 the statute was repeated, in a more strict form, by mentioning that the getting of processes, excommunications, and bulls from Rome (Whither the popes had returned in 1378.) would incur the penalties of praemunire, i.e. forfeiture of goods and imprisonment at the king's pleasure. These acts were strong enough, but they were not often enforced. The truth was that generally Pope and king could arrange to make and approve such appointments as would suit them both. They had more to gain by being on good terms than by quarrelling. Now and again, when the king was displeased, these statutes would be enforced; normally they were allowed to be idle. Between the intrusions of kings and popes, however, the Church suffered grievously; the rights of chapters were everywhere overridden; and private patrons looked ruefully on the day when Pontius Pilate and Herod made friends against them. |
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