England In The Age Of Wycliffe

ENGLAND IN THE AGE OF WYCLIFFE BY GEORGE MACAULAY TBEVELYAN LATE FELLOW OF TRINI COLLAGE. CAMBRIDGE NEW IMPRESSION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO, 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON tfOUBTH AVENUE SOTH STREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADBA J 1920 All rights reserved BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE First printed February 1899 New Edition, Jme 1899. Reprinted January 1900 New Edition, October 1904. Reprinted October 1906 New Edition, May 1909 Reprinted January 11U2, July 1915, January 1920. PREFACE THE book, which is here presented to the public, was origin ally composed as a dissertation sent in to compete for a fellow ship at Trinity College, Cambridge. Its object is to give a general picture of English society, politics, and religion at a certain stage in their progress, and to recount the leading and characteristic events of a brief period in our country's history. That period, which represents, as far as England is concerned, the meeting point of the medieval and the modern, is of peculiar interest and importance. As the book is now addressed to the general reader, and not to students alone, I have felt obliged to omit here and there the discussion of historical problems which, though of interest to students, throw little or no light on the period as a whole. For a similar reason I have given my quotations from Piers Plow man and Wycliffe in modern English though I have not ventured to take the same liberty with Chaucer, whose very spelling is sacred to literature. The Notes and Appendices are not intended to contain information of importance to the general reader, but are adduced as proofs of statements in the text, and are intended for the historical critic. For, notwithstanding its wider and morepopular aim, I venture to hope that the book may claim to be a serious contribution to history. It is based on original authorities, and many of these authorities have been now for the first time unearthed in the Public Record Office and British Museum. While this volume was in course of preparation for the KANSAS CITY MO. PUBLIC LIBRARY 681O497 VI PKEFACB press, I had the pleasure of reading the new and important work on the Peasants Rising by M. Andre Beville and the successor of his labours, M. Petit-Dutaillis. It is needless for me to say how greatly I admire the work of one whose premature death has inflicted a blow on two nations, and with what interest I read the introduction by M. Petit-Dutaillis, so full of matter and so full of thought. I have adopted several new facts from their work in all such cases I have acknowledged the debt by a reference in the Notes. But I was already acquainted with the bulk of the valuable documents published in their Appendix. The events of the rebels admission into London, the risings in Yorkshire and the West, had been already described in my book while it was still a college dissertation, before M. Sevilles work appeared. In such cases I have left the text as it stood, and have also left my old references to the documents in the Becord Office, but have added in brackets the page of M. Bevilles book where they can be found by the student thus C. B. R., 488, Bex. 6 Bev. 190. In absolutely every case where I have altered or added to the text in consequence of M. Sevilles book, I have put a reference in the Notes, not in brackets. Thus Bev., 251. I acknowledge my debt to the Wyclif Society, to Professor Skeat, Mr. Matthew, Bishop Stubbs, and howevermuch we may differ to Dr. Gasquet. There is besides a whole army of able scholars and editors whose publications have made it possible to attempt a history of the Age of Wycliffe. Although I have not in quite every case adopted the advice given, I wish to thank my friends Dr. Cunningham, Mr Stanley Leathes, and Dr. Verrall of Trinity and Mr. Whitney of Kings College, Cambridge, for many valuable suggestions and corrections. Last, but not least, I must thank Mr. Edgar Powell...