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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
During the 1370s Wyclif wrote to defend a monarchy which made extensive use of bishops and other clergy in the royal administration and yet was faced with aristocratic factions encouraged by bishops like Wykeham and Courtenay who espoused papal supremacy, if not out of conviction, at least as a very convenient weapon to support their independence against royal absolutism. At first sight Wyclifs attempts to define the right relationship between royal and episcopal, temporal and spiritual, power seem as confused as the contemporary political situation. His works contain such a wide range of theories from orthodox two swords dualism to a radical rejection of ecclesiastical authority well beyond that of Marsilius and Ockham that it seems as if his only interest was in collecting every anti-hierocratic idea available for use against the papacy. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that a much more coherent view of episcopal power can be detected beneath his tirades if it is appreciated that his continual demand for a great reform, a reformatio regni et ecclesiae, is inseparably linked to his understanding of the history of the Christian Church, and that in this way Wyclif anticipates Montesquieu in requiring a time factor as a necessary ingredient in constitutional arrangements.
1 For examples (Barton, Netter), see Hudson, Anne, The Premature Reformation (Oxford, 1988), p. 250 Google Scholar.
2 Dialogus, 7, p. 16. Earlier debates on Wyclifs attitude towards tradition are discussed by Hurley, M., ‘ Scriptura sola: Wyclif and his critics’, Traditio, 16 (1960), pp. 275–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Physics, 223b; cf. De gen. et cor., 336b; Problemata, 916a; Protrepticus, frag. 19. Wyclifs commentary on the Physics remains unpublished: see Thomson, W. R., The Latin Writings of John Wyclif (Toronto 1983), pp. 12–14 Google Scholar; otherwise all references are to the Wyclif Society editions (London, 1883–1921).
4 The standard account is Trompf, G. W., The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought from Antiquity to the Reformation (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1979), esp. pp. 11–12, 62–75, 177, 202Google Scholar.
5 De Ecclesia, 17, pp. 389–90; also 9, p. 197 for the succession of the seasons of the year. Plato is credited with the view that the world year lasts 36,000 terrestrial years: De actibus animae, i.3, p. 51.
6 This derives from Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio, ii. prol. 1–6, where Philosophy is emphasizing the difference between divine and human justice: ‘Haec nostra vis est, hunc continuum ludum ludimus: totam volubili orbe versamus, infima summis, summa infimis mutare gaudemus. Ascende si placet, sed ea lege, ne uti cum ludicri mei ratio poscet descendere iniuriam putes.’ For a good late fourteenth- century example see Somer Soneday (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 332), ‘A wifman wiþ a wonder whel weue with þe wynde … And Fortune Y fond’, ed. Turville-Petre, T., Alliterative Poetry of the Later Middle Ages (London, 1989), p. 143 and fig. 5.Google Scholar
7 De Ecclesia, pp. 106–7, citing Eccles. 3.14-15, and Aristotle on motion in the Physics, vii.1. Previous efforts to combine Aristotle’s view of time (taken largely from Physics, iv.10-14, 218–23; also v.3, 226–7 and vi.1-2, 231–2 on the analogy of time as a line) with an Augustinian conception of God as in an eternal present, notably by Wyclif’s predecessor at Merton, Thomas Bradwardine, are well set out by Dolnikowski, E. W., Thomas Bradwardine: A View of Time and a Vision of Eternity in Fourteenth-Century Thought (Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1995)Google Scholar, who rightly indicates the contribution of Euclidean mathematics here. The relevance of the Categories as a source passed on through Boethius and Anselm has been shown by Evans, G. R., ‘Time and eternity: Boethian and Augustinian sources of thought in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries’, Classical folia, 31 (1977), pp. 105–18 Google Scholar, who cites (p. 112) the significant passage in Abelard’s Dialectica that time is either an indivisible instant or a composite succession of instants forming past, present, and future. See Dolnikowski, Thomas Bradwardine, pp. 42–3.
8 The term duratio was probably borrowed from Augustine. Cf. De logica, iii.10, iii.172, ‘et ilium mundum durare in transitione successiva est tempus’; and see ii. 17, i.224; iii.9, iii.34-5, 80–3; iii.10, iii.181, 196, 211, where he acknowledges that it was reading the Physics (apparently in a commentary perhaps by Averroes but probably Aquinas) which led him to change his original view of time through the theory of the line as ‘continuatio et contiguatio’. The problem of dating the De logica remains unsolved.
9 In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, vii. 2854–8, the cock crows more strongly ‘Than is a clokke or an abbey orlogge. / By nature he knew ech ascencioun / Of the equynoxial in thilke toun; / For when degrees fiftene weren ascended, / Thanne crew he that it myghte nat been amended.’ For the Tales as political and anti-clerical analogies see now L. Scanlon, Narrative, Authority and Power: The Medieval Exemplum and the Chaucerian Tradition (Cambridge, 1994).
10 De Ecclesia, 9, p. 198, ‘et iterum oportet ut fiat nova appropinquatio ad perpendiculare, quodquam fiat directo post diem iudicii solsticium sempiternum, ut patet Apocalypsis ultimo; tunc enim invariabiliter coincident radius incidens et reflexus.’
11 Trompf, Historical Recurrence, pp. 207f. The connection between these concepts has already been pointed out by Smalley, B., Historians in the Middle Ages (London, 1974);Google Scholar and in general see now Burrow, J. A., The Ages of Man (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar.
12 The general principle is in De mandatis divinis, 16, pp. 211–14, although this has four ages for the Old Testament period, apparently to relate to Daniel’s four world monarchies, as indicated by De civili dominio, iii, 15, p. 196. For three Old Testament ages see, e.g., iii.7, p. 60; cf. De veritate sacrae scripturae, 15, i.383, ‘Nam tempore Crisostomi [who referred to heretical priests] … coepit calumnia; tempore Machometi amplius dissipata est; et a tempore editionis Decretalium decrevit honor et pruderantia legis scripturae continue, quod videtur esse via praeparatoria Antichristo’; De civili dominio, iii. 17, p. 247, ‘distinguere circumstantias temporum …. Aliter enim debent vivere patres veteris testamenti et in iuvenile aetate mundi … et aliter provectiones filii mundi senescentis ….’
13 De Ecclesia, 3, p. 51; also De mandatis divinis, 28, p. 410; 30, p. 474; cf. De civili dominio, ii. 17, p. 240, ‘Unde videtur michi quod nunquam ab origine mundi… cum hodie quod et dolendum est…’. On this topic see further Wilks, M., ‘Wyclif and the great persecution’, in Wilks, M., ed., Prophecy and eschatology, SCH.S, 10 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 39–63.Google Scholar
14 E.g. De officio regis, 7, p. 171.
15 De eucharistia, 9, p. 286.
16 Ibid., 2, p. 32, ‘Quare ergo non crederetur tantae vel plus suae sententiae sicut debiliori sententiae succedenti? Ecclesia enim deteriorando quoad fidem scripturae procedit. Et iterum prior sententia plus consonat sensui, rationi, Sanctis doctoribus et scripturis …’; also 9, p. 278; De civili dominio, ii. 11. pp. 124–5.
17 See the lengthy condemnation of Innocent HI in De eucharistia, 9, pp. 274f., although Honorius III was worse for confirming the Orders of friars and Gregory IX for issuing the Decretals (p. 278; also 5, p. 142), and the move to Avignon made matters worse still, 4, p. 106.
18 De civili dominio, ii.14, pp. 178–9.
19 De officio regis, 1, pp. 10, 14; 6, pp. 121–2, 131; although he credits Augustine with this idea. See further G. H. Williams, The Norman Anonymous of 1100 A.D. (Cambridge, Mass., 1951). Perhaps after all, he was the Anonymous of York!
20 De eucharistia, 5, p. 131.
21 De officio regis, 11, p. 251, kings are to act like an aggregate emperor ‘contra ecclesiam malignantium … quamdiu manet civilitas sublunaris et clerus sic aspirat ad terrenum dominium’; also De potestate papae, 7, p. 139.
22 De civili dominio, ii. 16, pp. 318–19, citing Anselm, Cur deus homo, i.7 (PL, 158, col. 368): this cancels the charter of damnation in Col. 2.13-14; cf. De benedicta incamatione, 6, p. 90; G. A. Benrath, Wyclifs Biblekommentar (Berlin, 1966), pp. 72–3 (on Jer. 17.13). See also St Bernard, De consideratione, ii.6 (PL, 182, col. 750); Piers Plowman, B.vii.116.
23 Eadmer, Historia novorum, ed. Rule, M., RS (London, 1884), p. 186 Google Scholar. See further Wilks, M. J., ‘ Ecclasiastica and regalia: papal investiture policy from the Council of Guastalla to the First Lateran Council, 1106–23’, SCH, 7 (Oxford, 1971), pp. 69–85 Google Scholar.
24 This dualistic position is well stated by Howell, M. E., Regalian Right in Medieval England (London, 1962)Google Scholar.
25 For Wykeham see T. Rymer, Foedera, vii. 148–9; cf. Holmes, G.,The Good Parliament (Oxford, 1975), p. 192 Google Scholar. De potestate papae, 10, pp. 222f. on papal taxation; also De Ecclesia, 15, p. 340 on royal rights during episcopal vacancies which allow him to take both feudal and patronage possessions: ‘… in mortibus multorum sacerdotum qui de rege tenent in feudo temporalia cedant regi. Unde ex iure patronatus confert beneficia … Unde cum rex praeter istas regalias aufert saepe temporalia …’.
26 De civili dominio, ii.8, p. 73; this distinction of functions follows from the dual nature of Christ. As priest he is ‘proprieta magnus atque magister’, but as king exercises ‘correptio coactiva’ as defined by Justinian in Novella, 6, (p. 77). De officio regis, 7, p. 186, ‘Dixi autem alias quomodo domini temporales habent potentiam datam eis a Deo ut ubi spirituale bracchium Ecclesiae non sufficit convertere antichristos ewangelica praedicatione, ecclesiastica correctione vel virtutum exemplatione, saeculare bracchium adiuvet matrem suam severa cohercione, et specialiter in pseudo-clericis.’
27 De potestate papae, 10, p. 236, ‘Sacerdotes itaque Christi habent potestatem ante istam iurisdiccionem caesaream edificandi populum ubicumque terrarum quantum sufficiunt, praedicando sanete conversando vel instar sanctorum doctorum scriptis sententiam catholicam commendando; talem autem potestatem regiminis independentem ab invicem habuerunt apostoli plus et minus …’; p. 246, ‘sicut ante dotationem tempore quo crevit Ecclesia quando pure regulabatur per legem Christi et regebatur per sacerdotes socios sine praeeminentia humanitus instituta’.
28 De dominio divino, i. 1, p. 8, ‘Et dominium correspondens voluntario ministerio ad aedificationem corporis Christi mystici voco caritativum dominium sive vicarium, quod habent ecclesiastici, sicut et servitium eo magis quo sunt in ministerio plus perfecti. Aliud autem est dominium coactivum quod quantum ad primam fundationem attinet est ecclesiasticis interdictum …’; De civili dominio, ii.3, p. 25, ‘ecclesiastici quidem ex vi religionis non possident iuste haec temporalia nisi ipsa meruerint cogitatione contempliva’; also ii.9, pp. 86f. where both St Paul and Aristotle’s Physics are called in support. In iii.21, pp. 436, 438, quoting lavishly from the Politics, he suggests a return to the Aristotelian principle that the clergy, being only a pars civitatis, should be drawn from old men no longer capable of being active citizens, only of contemplation.
29 De officio regis, 6, p. 142; 8, p. 196; 12, pp. 275f. In De potestate papae, 7, pp. 140–1, clergy have the key of divine knowledge, not the key of power.
30 De potestate papae, 2, pp. 32–3.
31 De potestate papae, 11, p. 307, following FitzRalph, ‘omnes potestates ordinis sunt aequales, nee minuitur etiam potestatis iurisdictiionis executio nisi de quanto rationabiliter est restricta’; sent, ad 1, p. 398, ‘potestas ordinis … sufficit sine potestate regiminis vel iurisdictionis superaddita’.
32 E.g. De civili dominio, ii.3, pp. 22–3; De officio regis, 6, pp. 118–19.
33 De civili dominio, ii. 14, pp. 167f, 173f.
34 De civili dominio, ii.8, pp. 70–1, ‘domini temporales regant immediate et directe suos subditos quoad temporalia et quoad corpus; consequentur autem et accessorie quoad animam …. Econtra autem sacerdotes Christi debent principaliter et directe regere quoad spiritualia carismata ut virtutes; consequenter autem et accessorie quoad bona naturalia et fortunae; et sic oportet suas iurisdictiones esse commixtas et mutuo se iuvantes …. Necesse est ergo Ecclesiam fulciri bracchio saeculari ut corpore, et clero ut anima, ut iuvent se reciproce in suis officiis a Domino limitatis instar animae et corporis in eodem supposito’; 12, p. 133, ‘iurisdictiones saeculares et ecclesiasticae sunt super clericis commixtae’; also 9, pp. 84–5; 14, p. 173.
35 De potestate papae, 5, p. 89.
36 De civili dominio, iii.13, p. 223, ‘ut redditu et praediis, castris vel aliis adiacentibus et sic militaris foedus, baronia, comitatus, ducatus, regnum et imperium vocantur dominia, quae contingit clericum cum suo clericatus habere sine civilitate ex quod civiliter non dominetur’, citing FitzRalph, De pauperie Salvatoris, vi.31. For Wyclif’s use of FitzRalph see Walsh, K., A Fourteenth-Century Scholar and Primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford, 1981), pp. 378f.Google Scholar
37 In De eucharistia, 9, p. 320, he argues that William I had had to seize all the wealth of the ecclesia Anglicana because the Anglo-Saxon clergy were so delinquent.
38 De Ecclesia, 15, p. 336, ‘et scimus pro tempore antequam Britones et Saxones dotarunt ecclesiam vel enim fuit ecclesia nostra dotata, et interim tempore Saxonum ante adventum Augustini fuit fides Christi infideliter praetermissa, tunc isti principes primo dotantes ecclesiam nostram non erant moti nisi titulo misericordiae donare plus vel minus nostrae ecclesiae …’.
39 De Ecclesia, 15, pp. 350–1, ‘Sed servire civiliter potest esse sine peccato. Nec oportet quod sic homo servit civiliter quod sit servus civilis, cum omnis dominus Angliae sub rege servit sibi civiliter … et sic serviunt clerici regi libere qui tenent de illo in capite … licet regi eos civiliter cohercere non in quantum sacerdotes sed in quantum regis elemosinarii vel homines eius legii contempnentes’; De civili dominio, iii.20, p. 416, ‘si enim talis religiosus sit civilis dominus super baronias et comitatus … tunc est baro vel comes’.
40 See his apparent approval of the priests of the Old Testament who had ‘paucis villis cum suis suburbiis et iliis decimis, oblationibus …’, De civili dominio, ii.4, p. 34; 5, p. 40, ‘rex capit temporalia in manibus tamquam eorum dominus’; cf. iii.21, pp. 451–2, arguing that regalia cannot be lost from royal control and attacking the pope for trying to intrude foreigners into ‘castra episcoporum’.
41 He was still capable of confusing the difference by demanding that the clergy should pay homage for all landholdings and have military obligations: De civili dominio, ii.5, p. 39; ii.8, p. 75; ii.18, p. 268.
42 I Cor. 15.20f.; and for Joachim, Trompf, Historical Recurrence, pp. 216–19; E. R. Daniel, ‘Joachim of Fiore: patterns of history in the Apocalypse’, in R. K. Emmerson and B. McGinn, eds, The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y., and London, 1992), pp. 72–88. This was a popular theme in the later fourteenth century: see for example “The Parlement of the Thre Ages’, in Turville-Petre, Alliterative Poetry, pp. 67–100.
43 De civili dominio, i.27, pp. 194–5; iii.21, pp. 437–8; De veritate sacrae scripturae, 4, i.67-70; 15, i.393.
44 De Ecclesia, 23, p, 572, ‘saeculum aureum ut in statu innocentiae’. It was equivalent to the state of nature because there was no private property, but first the laity, and then the clergy, abandoned common ownership: De civili dominio, iii.6, pp. 77–80; iii.8, pp. 111–13.
45 De civili dominio, ii.7, p. 60, ‘sic potest contingere quod Ecclesia Christi sit per apostolos saeculi iudices, optime regulata; secundo per reges, sed male, qui post dotationem ecclesiae constituunt sibi praepositos in suis ecclesiis; sed tertio pessime per sacerdotes qui aspirantes ad principale mundi civile dominium … possent perplexius mundum sibi subicere’; cf. iii.2, pp. 445–7; De potestate papae, 12, p. 395, ‘Constantinum magnum qui dotavit ecclesiam’; 6, pp. 120–1; De Ecclesia, 14, p. 300, ‘ius plenum ad totum imperium’; and therefore is the dominus mundi of Roman law, ‘ex lege imperiali post dotationem factam a Caesare’, 13, p. 282.
46 This is the blasphemy of the papal lawyers which drives the bishops mad: ‘sunt nimis multi maniaci … Et in istam blasphemiam ex defectu intellectus scripturae incidunt multi iuristae, facientes suos praepositos insanire’, De Ecclesia, 14, pp. 320–1. Wyclif prefers to follow the ‘deeper-going doctor of scripture’ (possibly himself?) who saw this as the rule of the bramble in the parable of the trees of Jud., 9.8-15: De veritate sacrae scripturae, 4, i.67-72.
47 De ente in communi, 1, pp. 13–14; cf. Trompf, Historical Recurrence, pp. 167, 192.
48 De Ecclesia, 11, p. 242.
49 De civili dominio, ii.12, p. 153, ‘restitutio Ecclesiae ad statum quern Christus docuit’; De Ecclesia, 9, p. 189, ‘Ecclesia apostolica restituta ad vera privilegia primitiva’; De potestate papae, 11, p. 305, ‘perfectionem status quem Christus instituit renovandi’.
50 M. Aston, ‘“Cairn’s castles”: poverty, politics, and disendowment’, in B. Dobson, ed., The Church, Politics, and Patronage in the Fifteenth Century (Gloucester and New York, 1984), pp. 45–81, reprinted in her Faith and Fire: Popular and Unpopular Religion, 1350–1600 (London and Rio Grande, Ohio, 1993), pp. 95–131, quotation at p. 131.
51 De potestate papae, 12, p. 377, ‘Et ex istis primo patet quod rex Angliae primo et principaliter daret operam ad regulandum clerum suum et specialiter episcopos et vivant similius legi Christi; totum enum regnum est unum corpus …. Ideo oportet … incipere a clero, cum sit pars principalis et stomachus corporis per quern cibi digestio et sanitas sunt ad caetera membra corporis derivanda. Oportet enim regem ab illus incipere secundum leges ordinis naturalis.’
52 De civili dominio, iii.7, p. 93; iii.8, p. 109.
53 De civili dominio, 11.13, pp. 146f, ‘et specialiter praelatos qui secundum Apostolum, Rom., 12.8, praesunt in sollicitudinc … Unde clerus sollicitans se circa mundum, quod foret in laico licitum, degenerat ut sic a nomine clericali.’ The principle that the bishop should act for the good of the king and his kingdom is in De officio regis, 6, p. 119, ‘Confirmatur ex hoc quod rex fecit quid ex eius auctoritate fecerit legius homo suus: sed episcopi … sunt enim tales legii homines regis … ad finem ut in exequendo suum officium proficiat regno suo … ergo sunt ministri regis’, which relates here to spiritualia, but see 2, pp. 27–9 for the objection to clergy holding lay offices. Similarly in De civili dominio, iii. 16, p. 313, trade should be reserved to the laity, and clergy should only engage in it for a modest sustenance, not for private profit.
54 De officio regis, 4, p. 67, ‘Cum igitur quilibet clericus curatus habet commissum ad eius custodiam castrum vel villam regni coelorum, quod est Ecclesia …’.
55 Thus the Donation of Constantine was made with good intentions and would have remained permissible if, on account of’human fragility’, a Gelasian distinction of powers had operated, De Ecclesia, 9, pp. 186–8; and see the use of Hugh of St Victor to argue for dualism in De potestate papae, 1, p. 7. The time factor is clear in De civili dominio, ii.11, p. 124, ‘Olim quidam Romana curia irroravit vineam Domini aqua sapientiae Salvatoris, id est lege evangelica quae est doctrina Christi; sed modo dicitur quod fodiunt sibi cisternas, quae continere aquas non valent, statuendo traditiones humanas …’
56 De Ecclesia, 16, p. 374, ‘catheclismum appropriationis’. The idea of a three- stage loss of temporals is in De civili dominio, ii.14, pp. 180–1, ‘Pro quo notandum quod triplex est renuntiatio honorum vitae.’
57 De civili dominio, ii.3, pp. 21–2, ‘subtrahendo ab eis baculum temporalium ne furentur sic in simplices christianos. Magna quidem foret elemosina gladium materialiem de manu furiosi eripere …’; cf. De logica, i.11, i.35, ‘Sicut vixerunt apostoli in Ecclesia primitiva, sic etiam tenetur vivere episcopi circa finem mundi.’
58 E.g. De Ecclesia, 15, pp. 331–2. For mortmain see S. Raban, Mortmain Legislation and the English Church, 1279–1500 (Cambridge, 1982).
59 The references are legion: see for instance De civili dominio, ii.2, p. 16; ii.4, p. 28. This would be equivalent to a miracle, as had been the dispossession of the Templars, ii.l, p. 4.
60 The important provisions are in the Statutes of Westminster II (1285) and Carlisle (1307) for monastic property, but should be distinguished from the right of reclamation for failure of feudal service in the Statutes of Marlborough (1267), Gloucester (1278) and Mortmain (1279). For a fuller discussion of Wyclifs use of this legislation see W. Fan, John Wyclif as a Legal Reformer (Leiden, 1974), pp. 96–138.
61 De civili dominio, ii.4, p. 26; iii.22, p. 484 (citing FitzRalph).
62 For the residual spiritual power of the laity, De civili dominio, ii. 17, p. 240, ‘Unde videtur michi quod nunquam ab origine mundi foret plus necessarium quod theologi et ecclesiastici sint vigiles, renunctiantes temporalibus in personis propriis, et hortantes saeculares ne propter nimiam affectionem ad temporalia amittant aeterna, quam est tempus instans, cum hodie, quod dolendum est, dicitur quod ecclesia Romana pro civili dominio conturbat contumeliis pauculos oves Christi quos Spiritus sanctus ex fide residente in laycis providebat’; and see the long and involved argument in De Ecclesia, 20, pp. 500–10, that potestas ordinis pertains in a special sense to all Christians and is not just reserved to the clergy for sacramental duties. Cf. De potestate papae, 1, pp. 10–11, ‘Potestas ordinis vocatur potestas spiritualis quam habet clericus ad ministrandum Ecclesiae sacramenta ut spiritualiter prosit sibi et laicis, ut est potestas conficiendi, absolvendi et sacramenta ministrandi …. Potestas autem spiritualis communis, quam habet quilibet christianus, in exercendo opera spiritualia misericordiae in se et in aliis…’
63 De Ecclesia, 7, p. 156; cf. De civili dominio, iii.21, pp. 451, ‘ecclesiae laycali’.
64 De civili dominio, ii.8, p. 82; De Ecclesia, 23, pp. 576–7; De potestate papae, 11, pp. 307–8; 12, pp. 381; De eucharistia, 4, pp. 89–99; De veritate sacrae scripturae, 6, i.137.
65 De potestate papae, 12, p. 368, ‘cum papa dicit principaliter praeeminentiam sanctitatis … iuxta hanc viam quilibet debet esse papam, ut debet esse sanctissimus viatorum. Debet enim esse papa et quocunque iam viante sanctior’; also 11, p. 315, ‘Sicut enim omnis christianus, et specialiter bonus presbiter, est sacerdos, sic est spiritualiter hostiarius, ceroferarius, lector, exorcista, subdyaconus, dyaconus et sacerdos.’
66 De civili dominio, i.40, pp. 310–14; i.42, pp. 335–40, 345, 354–5; De potestate papae, 12, p. 351, ‘Ex istis videtur sequi quod a quocumque praeposito spirituali notorie deficiente in suo officio licet stipendia mundana subtrahere ut decimas, oblationes et alias elemozinas speciales’; p. 358, ‘populus debet decimas et oblationes suas ab ei concorditer et constanter subtrahere et in alios pios usus expendere’.
67 De civili dominio, ii.3, p. 18, ‘relinquitur igitur ex quolibet evidenciis quod tota dotacio ecclesiae sit ex elemosinis dominorum. Quod, ne tradatur in oblicionem cavetur in cartis regni nostri Angliae quomodo rex et alii fundatores in puram et perpetuam elemosinam donarunt talia dominia ecclesiae. Ex quod videtur sequi correllarie quod omnes clerici nedum ad Deum ut omnes homines, sed quoad homines sunt mendici.’ The dissolution of monasteries might be inferred from this, but it is more akin to the Cluniac ideal of the whole Church as a great monastery.
68 Clothing had not been necessary in the state of nature, but clergy now needed it in the harsher climate occasioned by sin: De statu innocentiae, 5, pp. 501–2; 10, p. 523.
69 De potestate papae, 10, p. 246, ‘sic in Europa stat esse perfectos christianos secundum fidem Christi, etsi non recognoscant praeeminentiam pontificis Constantini … ymo patet ex dictis quomodo corpus Christi militaret securius atque perfectius subducto tali ordine caesareo; nam vivendo omnino exproprietarie sicut ante tempore dotationem quo crevit Ecclesia quando pure regulabatur per legem Christi et regebatur per sacerdotes socios sine praeeminentia humanitus instituta, melius et perfectius vixit quam modo. Nee est ratio quin per idem hodie viaret sic perfctius quern nunc viat, igitur cum hoc sit possibile, patet conclusio’; also 9, p. 199, ‘ante dotationem Ecclesiae non fuerunt nomina cleri taliter baptizata et per consequens nee dignitatum officia. Idem enim fuit ante dotationem Ecclesiae presbiter, episcopus et sacerdos’ (again claiming support from FitzRalph); p. 201, ‘sed concludit presbiteros, sacerdotes et episcopos sub nomine apostoli’.
70 As convincingly shown now by E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400-c. 1580 (New Haven and London, 1992). It might almost be said that the Counter-Reformation preceded the Reformation.
