s captaincy,
these "poor priests," as they were called--vowed to poverty because
Christ was poor--vowed to accept no benefice, lest they should misspend
the property of the poor, and because, as apostles, they were bound to
go where their Master called them,[18] spread out over the country as an
army of missionaries, to preach the faith which they found in the
Bible--to preach, not of relics and of indulgences, but of repentance
and of the grace of God. They carried with them copies of the Bible
which Wycliffe had translated, leaving here and there, as they
travelled, their costly treasures, as shining seed points of light; and
they refused to recognise the authority of the bishops, or their right
to silence them.

[Sidenote: He is protected by John of Gaunt.]

If this had been all, and perhaps if Edward III. had been succeeded by a
prince less miserably incapable than his grandson Richard, Wycliffe
might have made good his ground; the movement of the parliament against
the pope might have united in a common stream with the spiritual move
against the church at home, and the Reformation have been antedated by a
century. He was summoned to answer for himself before the Archbishop of
Canterbury in 1377. He appeared in court supported by the presence of
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the eldest of Edward's surviving sons,
and the authorities were unable to strike him behind so powerful a
shield.

[Sidenote: Theory that the laity had a right to deprive the clergy of
their property.]

But the "poor priests" had other doctrines besides those which they
discovered in the Bible, relating to subjects with which, as apostles,
they would have done better if they had shrunk from meddling. The
inefficiency of the clergy was occasioned, as Wycliffe thought, by their
wealth and by their luxury. He desired to save them from a temptation
too heavy for them to bear, and he insisted that by neglect of duty
their wealth had been forfeited, and that it was the business of the
laity to take it from its unworthy possessors. The invectives with which
the argument was accompanied produced a widely-spread irritation. The
reins of the country fell simultaneously into the weak hands of Richard
II., and the consequence was a rapid spread of disorder. In the year
which followed Richard's accession, consistory judges were assaulted in
their courts, sanctuaries were violated, priests were attacked and
ill-treated in church, churchyard, and cath