Langland, Wyclif, and the Late Medieval Church (Fall 2010)
Historical background
Investiture Controversy: conflict between Church and states in c11, c12; popes challenged the authority of monarchs to control appointments (investitures) of church officials (bishops, abbots); ended by Concordant of Worms (1122), which was kernel of what would become Treaty of Westphalia, confirming sovereignty of nation-states -- Kings given right ("by lance") to grant secular power to church officials, pope retained right ("by ring and by staff") to grant sacred authority
Good Parliament (1376): longest sitting parliament up to that time; sincere efforts to reform government, hindered by John of Gaunt (third son of Edward III, protector of Wycliffe)
Western Schism (1378-1417): two men claim to be the true pope; political rather than theological differences
Peasants' Revolt (1381): Wat Tyler's Rebellion; public execution of Archbishop of Canterbury; Wycliffe doesn't defend, but does say if you disendow the church, the gov't wouldn't have to pay taxes and the population would be more settled/satisfied
John Wycliffe (1324-1384)
man in a state of sin has no claim upon government; King, though, is has divine right and therefore should remove corrupt clergy (who is then a traitor to the king) -- if he doesn't, he's remiss in his duties
King must accord his laws with God's laws; King should have theologians in his entourage to advise him
sin to oppose the power of the kind, which comes directly from God
predestination: "invisible" church of the elect, vs. "visible" church of Rome
Church should be poor, as in the days of the apostles
state has right to confiscate temporal holdings of corrupt church officials
- John Gaunt was Wycliffe's protector; served his purposes, as he wanted to confiscate land
office of the Pope comes to be equal with the Antichrist in Wycliffe's writings; a Pope is tolerable if he is one of God's elect, but if not he becomes an Antichrist
at first, Wycliffe was supported by mendicant monks; then he began calling for their dissolution, forcing many of them to manual labor
translated (or oversaw translations) of portions of the Bible into English; opponents: "The jewel of the clergy has become the toy of the laity."
wanted to do away with priestly hierarchy , return to priests being poor with no formal vows; itinerant preachers went two-by-two, in long dark red robes carrying a staff -- called Lollards
Wycliffe is shamelessly attached to royal power; happy to be king's priest -- happy for the crown to appoint the priests
- makes him good model for English Reformation
John Van Engen, Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life
schedule of questions by English Bishop asked to suspected Wycliffites:
- Have you harbored hereticks?
- Are the images in the church more than stocks and stones?
- Is there any holiday but Sunday? May man work on Sunday?
- Does the priest have the power to save a man's soul? What is the power of a priest?
- What does you shall worship no false gods mean to you? Should men set candles before
images?
- How do you feel about pilgrimage? (Wycliffites wouldn't have liked) How do you feel about
purgatory? (Wycliffites didn't believe they existed)
issue of disendowment
presses hard on lay elites to disendow the church; if you don't, you're betraying the will of God
-- attacking the liberty of the church
when Pope Gregory first condemns Wycliffe as a heretic in 1377, they don't take his criticisms
as fraternal charity (justified reformation attempts) but as heresy
sword is in the hand fo the laity; spiritual sword in the hands of the monks
- if the laity act, it won't be hard to enact a reformation
- same strategy as Henry VIII
Lollard Disendowment Bill (1406-7) -- wanted to plunder the church to socialize its holdings,
build universities, hospitals
benefits treated in medieval law like property -- priest is property of local landlord of the
manor, who nominated him; yet supposed to be spiritual representative, arm of the Church
friars argue there are good theological reasons to think Church's hold on land is
contingent/subordinate to the needs of the crown
long history of disendowment before Wycliffe
purgatory:
"Prick of the Conscience" -- popular text, long section on pains of purgatory; "Ghost of Guy" -- medieval text, complaining about how living are not caring for the souls of the
dead;
purgatory is for the saved -- living have to look after them
1395, 12 Lollard Conclusions; nailed them on the doors of Parliament and St. Paul's
Thomas Netter, massive critic of Wycliffe and Wycliffite writings; work was printed in counter
-Reformation and used against Calvinism
question of poverty: Thomistic writings: difference between a state of perfection and individual holiness; if you're
wealthy, what matters is the will -- rich man could be more free from attachment to wealth
than an angry poor man might be
thinking about virtue and vice is condition of the _will_: not just actions but from the will behind the actions