In countenance of clothing In prayers and penances All for the love of our Lord In hope to have after Heaven-riche bliss; 4 As anchors and heremites 5 That holden hem in hir6 cells, To carryen about, For no likerous liflode Hir likame to please 7 And some chosen chaffer 8: They cheveden 9 the better, That swich men thriveth.10 And some murths to make As minstralles con,11 And geten gold with hir glee." John Wycklif 12 was born in Yorkshire about the year 1324, and died on the last day of the year 1384. John Wycklif, 1324(?)1384. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and his life was principally spent at the university or at Fillingham in Lincolnshire, a college living 1 Came disguised. 2 Many put them, applied themselves to, engaged in. 3 Lived full strictly. 4 The bliss of the kingdom of heaven. 5 Anchorites and eremites or hermits. 6 Hold them in their cells. 7 By no likerous living their body to please. 8 Merchandise. 9 Achieved their end. 11 And some are skilled to make mirths, or amusements, as minstrels. 12 The name is spelled in various ways by the chroniclers, either with an i, a y, a ck, a ff, or a ffe. The modern fashions are as above, adopted by "the Wycklif Society," or Wyckliffe, as preferred by the editors of the Wyckliffe Bible. which he accepted in 1361. Previous to entering on the duties of his rectorship he had been elected Master of Balliol, and after doing so he continued to spend a large part of his time at Oxford. In 1374 he was presented by the king to the rectory of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. This he held till his death. There was another John Wycklif, a contemporary of the great Wycklif, a fellow of Merton College in 1356, and the identity of name has led to some confusion about minor events in the reformer's life. Wycklif had publicly acted with those in England who resisted the civic encroachments of the papal power. As early as 1366 he wrote a Latin tract entitled "Determinatio quaedam de Domino," in support of the repudiation of the tribute due the Pope, and soon he passed from political to dogmatic opposition. His abilities as a writer and preacher commended him to John of Gaunt. In 1377 he was summoned to appear before the Bishop of London to answer certain charges, but the proceedings came to nothing, as the court was broken up by a riot. Soon after this the Pope issued bulls against him, addressed to the University of Oxford, the King, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London. The university was to arrest him and send him to the prelates, who were to try him, but the death of the king and the favor of the university and the government rendered these proceedings also nugatory. At a later date, 1382, although an ecclesiastical council condemned Wycklif's works and brought about the imprisonment and recantation of some of his followers, his popularity saved him from personal punishment. In 1384 he was cited by Pope Urban to appear at Rome, but did not go, and in the same year he was seized with paralysis while hearing mass at Lutterworth, and died two years later. Forty-one years later his bones were taken from his grave by the Roman ecclesiastics, publicly burned, and the ashes cast into the river Swift. This incident is commemorated in Fuller's "Church History of Britain," and is made the subject of a sonnet by Wordsworth. Wycklif cannot be overlooked in a brief survey of the history of literature, for he and two men closely connected Wycklif's with him made the first translation of the Bible Bible. into English. Wycklif translated the whole of the New Testament and a large part of the Old Testament from the Latin, and was the director and supervisor of the entire work. Although the diction soon became obsolete, subsequent revisions have each been based on preceding ones, so that many of Wycklif's words and idioms have been handed down, and have become part of our current serious literary speech, since for many generations the Bible was more read in England and America than all other books. Admitting that Wycklif's Bible did not touch the people so widely and generally as the first printed editions did, still it was the precursor of Tyndall's and Coverdale's and of King James's version; and although it was from the Latin, while the last two were independent translations from the Greek, it remains one of the remote fountain heads of English prose. Wycklif's political theories regarding the independence of the Church of England from the Church of Rome, and his doctrinal theories, were far in advance of those of his day. Had he lived two centuries later, he would have been the greatest of English reformers, and his name might have become one of the most celebrated in English history. John Huss, the Bohemian reformer, owed much to Wycklif. He may be regarded as one of those men who are in advance of their time. The following brief extract will show that his language differs from our modern English principally in spelling and the rarity of words of French origin: "And Mary seyde. My Soul magnifieth the Lord And my spirit hath gladid in God myn helthe, For he hath behulden the mekenesse of his handmayden: And his mercy is fro kyndrede into kyndredis to men that dreden him. He hath made myght in his herte, he scatteride proude men with the thought of his herte. He sette doun myghty men fro seete, and enhaunside meke men. He hath fulfilled hungry men with godis, and he has left riche men voide. He having mynde of his mercy took up Israel his child. As he hath spoken to oure fadris, to Abraham, and to his seed into worlds." Sir John Sir John Mandeville is the reputed author of a book of travels originally written in French. He tells us that he crossed the sea on Michaelmas Day, 1322, and styles himself Knight, and states that he was bred and born in the parish of St. Albans. Early in the fifteenth century this manuscript was translated into English and enjoyed extraordinary popularity. For this reason Sir John Mandeville is sometimes called "the father of English prose," although Wycklif would seem to deserve the title much better, for it is even possible that the name Mandeville is fictitious. His book, however, was the source of the notions about Cathay, Farthest Ind, Prester John, "anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," and all the extravagancies which filled the minds of our forefathers of the fifteenth JOHNSON'S LIT. - 5 and sixteenth centuries when they spoke about distant parts of the earth. Sir John says that he "travelled through Turkey, Armenia, Persia, Syria, Arabia, Upper and Lower Egypt, and many countries about India, and has often been to Jerusalem." He maintains the old belief that Jerusalem is the center of the earth, and asserts that a spear planted erect there casts no shadow at noon. So extensive an itinerary would of itself arouse suspicion that much of Sir John's traveling had been done by other men, and it is generally admitted that the book is a compilation of absurd inventions and travelers' tales embroidered with the author's lively fancy. But he added an element of romantic interest to the current marvelous tales about distant countries and enriched the imagination of England. If a man of the present day should give equal credence to every report, and set all down without sifting the evidence, we should say that he was a person of very little judgment and entitled to no respect, but our ancestors were predisposed to believe in the marvelous and had not learned that hearsay evidence must be received with great caution and usually disregarded. Hence solid and sober persons believed the tales about the works of the witches, and chroniclers whose reports of what came under their own observation are careful and accurate, do not hesitate to add extravagant traditionary reports of earlier times in precisely the same tone as veritable historic narratives. The freedom allowed to the imagination gives a color to early history which is reflected in poetry, since there was in history an immense body of semi-imaginative records for poets to draw on and transmute. There is extant also a Latin version of Mandeville's travels, but it is thought that it was not made by him, and |