ade
with peacocks' feathers and of other shining feathers; and that stands
upon their heads like a crest, in token that they be under man's foot
and under subjection of man. And they that be unmarried have none
such.[14]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: From the "Travels," the earliest extant book written in
English. In this specimen the spelling has been in part modernized.
First printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1429. "Mandeville" has been called
the "Father of English Prose."]

[Footnote 6: An old name for Hungary.]

[Footnote 7: Now known as Livonia, one of the Baltic provinces of
Russia.]

[Footnote 8: Now Oedenburg, a city of Hungary.]

[Footnote 9: The Morava, one of the chief rivers of Servia.]

[Footnote 10: Philippolis.]

[Footnote 11: Adrianople.]

[Footnote 12: An old form of the word Byzantium, a town founded by
Megariaus in the seventh century B.C. When Constantine founded the
city to which he gave his own name, Byzantium, lying east of it, was
included within the city limits.]

[Footnote 13: From the "Travels."]

[Footnote 14: The quaint words in which "Mandeville" concludes his
book are these: "And I, John Mandeville, knight, above said (altho I
be unworthy), that departed from our countries and passed the sea, the
year of grace a thousand three hundred and twenty-two, that have
passed many lands and many isles and countries, and searched many full
strange places, and have been in many a full good honorable company,
and at many a fair deed of arms (albeit that I did none myself, for
mine unable insuffisance), now I am come home, in spite of myself, to
rest, for gouts arthritic that me distrain, that define the end of my
labor; against my will (God knows)."]

JOHN WYCLIF

Born about 1324, died in 1384; "The Morning Star of the
Reformation"; educated at Oxford; rector in Lincolnshire and
Buckinghamshire; Royal ambassador to papal nuncios at Bruges
in 1374; in sermons attacked the Church of Rome; five papal
bulls, authorizing his imprisonment, signed against him;
threw off allegiance to the Church and wrote fearlessly
against papal claims; died of paralysis; his bones in 1428
exhumed and burnt and his ashes cast into the river Swift by
order of the synod of Constance; his translation of the
Bible from the Vulgate, completed about 1382 was the first
complete translation ever made.

THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST[15]

1. The bigynnynge of