CHAPTER III. COUNTER-INFLUENCES; THEIR INEFFICIENCY. Ir now we enquire for any counter-influences at work in England in the fourteenth century, we shall find, at several points, a decided hostility to the encroachments of the Papacy. Edward III. was too spirited and ambitious a monarch to look on patiently, while so large and influential a body of his nominal subjects disowned his authority, and the Pope of Rome exercised more power in his realm, and drew from it far more money than himself. But his quarrel was not with the religion of the Papacy. He was jealous, as well he might be, of the political power and the wealth of the clergy. It chafed him sorely to see papal legates and provisors running through his kingdom, draining it of money, interfering with his own government, and acting as spies to his enemies.* But there is little indication of any enlightened, generous concern for the moral condition of his people, or even for their tempo * During his reign the Papal court was fixed at Avignon, in France, and seven successive Pontiffs were Frenchmen. ral welfare. He was always ready to grind them down to the last point of endurance, sparing neither their property nor their blood, in furtherance of his own ambitious and selfish projects. His efforts had for their object no real reformation within the church, nor would a living, spiritual Christianity have been welcomed by him more cordially than by the Pope himself. His resistance was, moreover, too fitful and capricious to effect a permanent change even in the outward relations of England to the Papacy, being ever the first man to violate his own laws when tempted by some present advantage. Thus the odious system of papal provisions,* against which such spirited laws were enacted by his authority, remained nevertheless in full practical force, because the king himself would still appeal to the Pope whenever he could not otherwise secure the appointment of his favorite candidate. The same was true of the Secular Barons; though, having less to gain from the Papacy, these were, in general, more consistent in their opposition to its encroachments. There is frequently something very imposing, in the tone and bearing with which these martial nobles meet the pretensions both of the sovereign pontiff, and of their own despotic monarchs. Seen through the magnifying haze of time, they rise before us as the representatives, in an age of lawless tyranny, of the great principles of human freedom. A closer view greatly diminishes our admiration. No king was ever more ready than they to defer to the Pope as the vicegerent of God, when it suited their own. No king ever ruled his subjects with a more purposes. Reversionary grants by the Pope to benefices not yet vacant, without reference to the rights of the native legal patrons. The sale of these provisionary grants was a source of large income to the Papal Court. iron hand, than did these liberty-loving nobles their dependents and vassals. Magna Charta itself was the fruit of a coalition, formed under the sanction of Innocent III., between the nobles and the clergy, for the twofold purpose of protecting themselves against the despotism of King John, and of chastising his attempt to throw off the Papal yoke.* Small would have been the gain to liberty, had not other influences come in to extend its provisions somewhat beyond the interests of these " upper classes." Happily, John was not yet brought so low, but that he could claim the insertion of certain articles as distasteful to the Barons as theirs were to him. Happily, they were not so strong, but that the rich though despised tradesmen of London could demand certain provisions for their class as the price of their aid. Even then, it brought to the great body of the people no hope of freedom or improvement. The laboring classes, i. e. the majority of the English people, are but twice mentioned in this famous instrument, and then it is, as Henry remarks, "for the benefit of their masters."† Even then Magna Charta, interpreted by the circumstances of the times, was a guarantee for the perpetual domination of the Romish clergy in England. In the nobles of the fourteenth century, we discover no essential advancement in moral character or breadth of views, beyond those of a hundred years before. Their remonstrances against Papal oppression take no higher or bolder tone, nor would they See an admirable analysis of the Great Charter in Henry's History, vol. vi. p. 65. †The 4th article provides against "the waste of men and goods" on the estates of minors to the detriment of the heir when he shall come of age; the 6th secures to a "villain" his implements of husbandry against seizuro as payment of fines,-a practice very inconvenient to those who lived by his labor. have made any greater figure in the history of English freedom, had they not been immediately followed by the labors of a genuine Reformer. If we turn to the Universities, the sacred schools of those times, in the hope of finding some dawnings of a better day, the same disappointment meets us here. True, they were marked by a strong feeling of nationality, and an active jealousy of that papal influence which was exerted so injuriously to the interests of the native clergy. Their members hated the Friars as the emissaries of the Pope, and their own chief rivals. But for liberal ideas, sound learning, or devoted piety, the academic halls of this period are searched in vain. It would indeed be strange, if the nurseries of the clergy should have surpassed in these respects the demands of the church. The speediest road, both to wealth and clerical preferment, was then found in the practice of the civil, and especially the canon law; and accordingly, many young candidates for the ministry spent their entire term of University study, in fitting themselves to become, in a sense not altogether evangelical, "fishers of men."— The profession of medicine being also very lucrative, and almost monopolized by churchmen, large numbers of the young clergy became deeply skilled in the mystery of healing as then understood-for instance, curing small-pox without scars, by wrapping the patient in "red scarlet cloth;" or stopping epileptic fits, by saying mass over the patient and causing his parents to fast. For those of a speculative turn, there was the scholastic philosophy with its abstruse discussions of entities and non-entities, substances and accidents, substantial forms and occult quali * The system of Papal jurisprudence drawn from the decisions of Popes and Councils. ties. The Universities could boast their subtle, sublime profound, angelic, and seraphic doctors of theology, who could discuss through endless folios the questions: "Does the glorified body of Christ stand or sit in Heaven? Is the body of Christ, which is eaten in the sacrament, dressed or undressed? Were the clothes in which Christ appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, real or only apparent ? Was Christ the same between his death and resurrection, as before his death and after his resurrection?" Subjects even more frivolous and absurd engaged the attention of the sharpest intellects of the times. Thus, the question: "Whether a hog, taken to market with a rope tied round its neck which is held at the other end by a man, is carried by the rope or by the man?" was gravely argued by the logicians, and declared insoluble, the reasons on both sides being perfectly balanced. But their disquisitions were not all so innocent. The obscene and blasphemous character of some of their speculations proves too clearly, that the foulest moral impurity is quite compatible with childish folly. Such had been the general character of these "theological seminaries," ever since the Bible had been cast aside in the spiritual instruction of the people. The decline of all liberal and comprehensive culture had kept pace with the decline of the study of the Holy Scriptures. The great Roger Bacon declared, in the preceding century, that among the scholars of his time, there were but three or four who had any knowledge of Greek or Hebrew. There was, however, then to be found occasionally in the Universities a Bible doctor, (so called in contempt of the antiquated and unprofitable direction of his studies,) though it was difficult for a teacher so far behind the age to obtain the use |