CHAPTER XXVII THE CHILDREN OF THE FUTURE The Divine Comedy of DANTE ALIGHIERI not only crowned the Middle Ages with a consummate expression of their spirit, but it also opened the new age by its aspirations and ideals. On the threshold of that new age, GIOVANNI BOCCACIO, 1313-1375, touched the heart of the world with a Decameron of short stories that pictured the lamentable humiliation of clerical Christianity, and the consequent laxity of life and morals. "Under pope John XXII, 1313-1334, things were bad." ALVARUS PELAGIUS, in The Lamentation for the Church, said: The gold which is the holiness of virtues has grown dim in the Church. Ordinations and the sacraments are bought and sold for gold. Whenever I entered the apartment of the chamberlain of our Lord the Pope I saw brokers and tables full of gold and clerics counting and weighing florins.1 But a new day was at hand. FRANCESCO PETRARCH, 1304-1374, greeted the new day with a fresh voice, and his coronation with the poetic laurel of Rome in 1341 began a literary revival. "From that day the history of modern literature as a recognised power may be said to date." Although his genius was entirely lyric, his literary labours were not restricted to lyrical poetry. Religion was a forceful element in his character, and some of his moral writings re 1 Edmund G. Gardner, St. Catherine of Siena, p. 27. veal the earnestness of his soul. He addressed two metrical Epistles to Benedict XII, 1334-1342, exhorting him to leave Avignon and return to Italy, and he offered a similar appeal to Clement VI, 1342-1352. In three terrible Sonnets against Avignon he painted for all time the state of the society that gathered about the exiled popes' throne. His Untitled Epistles contain even more frightful pictures of the corruption of the papal court. What difference is there between those enemies of Christ who betrayed Him with a kiss and bent the knee before Him in mockery and the Pharisees of our time? That same Christ, whose name they exalt night and day with hymns of praise, whom they robe in purple and gold, whom they load with jewels, whom they salute and adore prostrate-that very same do they not buy and sell on earth like merchandise? As it were blindfold that He may not see, they crown Him with the thorns of their impious wealth, they defile Him with their impure spittal, and assail Him with viperous hissing; they strike Him with the spear of their poisonous deeds, and so far as in them lies, mocked, naked, poor, and scourged, they drag Him again to Calvary and nail Him again to the Cross. PETRARCH'S interest in the character of AUGUSTINE moved him to write a eulogy of the solitary life entitled Contempt of the World, 1343. The praise of monasticism was also the subject of The Solitary Life and The Ease of the Religious. The most important of these religious pamphlets is the Remedies for both kinds of Fortunes, 1356, in two books, the first treating of the snares of prosperity, the second arming the soul against adversity. His tract His Own and Others Ignorance, gives a lively representation of the struggle between the humanistic scholar and the orthodox Christian. A sterner spirit than that which stirred in Italian humanism found incarnation in the English WILLIAM LANGLAND, 1332-1400, who preached the equality of man, pleaded for justice in social life, and urged the betterment of religion, in his poem The Vision of Piers Plowman, or, as the title should probably be, The Book concerning Piers the Plowman. This is "a calm, allegorical exposition of the corruptions of the State, of the Church, and of social life," designed to reveal to the people the "true causes of the evils under which they were suffering, and to secure the reformation of those grievous abuses." Heremites on an heep With hoked staues, Wenten to Walsyngham and here wenches after; I fonde there Freris alls the foure ordres For coueitise of copis construed it as they wolde. There preched a Pardonere as he a prest were And seide that hym-self myzte assoilen hem alle But by far the most powerful English figure of the fourteenth century was JOHN WICLIF, 1324-1384, the morning star of the Reformation. Inspired by the prophecies of JOACHIM of Floris, and distressed by the corruption of the Church, he issued his first book, The Last Times of the Church. He contributed A Certain Resolve concerning Authority, 1374, to the controversy between King John Lackland and the Pope about the payment of tribute. Two years later he read to his students a treatise on Civil Lordship, in which he advanced his famous principle "that righteousness is the sole indefensible title to dominion and property"; in other words "dominion is founded on grace." In 1378 with the help of members of his circle, he made the first English translation of the Vulgate. This was completed in its earlier form by NICHOLAS HEREFORD, and in 1388 was revised throughout by JOHN PURVEY.2 This translation, together with his Sermons and Tracts, made WICLIF the founder of English prose. It is impossible to over-estimate the influence of his work on the life and literature of England. Ye beleven not, for ye ben not of my scheep. My scheep heren my vois, and I knowe hem, and thei suen me. And I gyve to hem everlastynge life, & thei schulen not perische, withouten end; and noon schal rauysche hem fro myn hond. That thing that my Fadir gaf to me, is more than alle thingis: & no man may rauysche from my Fadris hond. I & the Fadir ben oon (John x.26-30). A Defence, sixty pages in length, appeared in the later editions in explanation of his method. First it is knowe that the best translation is out of Latyn into English, to translate after the sentence, and not oneli after the wordis, so that the sentence be as opin, either openere in English as in Latyn, and go not fer fro the lettre. WICLIF was a copious writer, more than two hundred works are ascribed to him, many of them being of a political or semi-political character. He wrote The truth of Holy Scripture, The Church, The Office of King, The Papa! Power, The Great Sentence of Excommunication Explained, and Confessions. In A Feigned Contemplative Life he condemned those who gave up the work of preaching for the life of the cloister. His Fifty Heresies and Errors of Friars, 2 Cf. Margaret Deanesly, The Lollard Bible and other Medieval Biblical Versions (1920). 1384, denounced the hypocrisy, pride, and covetousness that prevailed in the mendicant Orders. His greater books are the Exposition of the Decalogue, the Eucharist, 1381, and the Trialogus. The Eucharist contains twelve conclusions against the doctrine of transubstantiation of which he says: As a man leeves for to thenk the kinde of an ymage whether it be of oke or of ashe, and settys his thought in him in whom is the ymage: so myche more schuld a man leve tho thenk on the kynde of brede, but thenk upon Christ; and with alle cleness, alle devotion, and alle charitye that God wolde gif him worschippe he Crist, and then he receives God ghostly more needfully than the prist that syngus the masse in less charity. The brilliant Trialogus was the best known and the most influential of all his works. It was the first of his books to be printed, 1525. In it he summarised his opinions on the. ology and philosophy in a three-sided discussion between Truth, Falsehood, and Wisdom. The spirit aroused by WICLIF was challenged by the only great English theologian of the fifteenth century, REGINALD PECOCK, 1395-1459, in a masterly work The Repressor of Over-much Weeting (blaming) of the Clergie, 1455. His other writings include the Book or Rule of Christian Religion, the Book of Faith or the Donet, and the Folewer to the Donet. The Donet is "an introduction to the chief truths of the Christian faith in the form of a dialogue between father and son." His views, however, brought him into conflict with the authorities, for he regarded Scripture as the only standard of right and wrong, and exalted the authority of reason, wishing bi cleer witte drawe men into consente of trewe feith otherwise than bi fire and swerd or hangement. |