History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

the protection of churches and churchyards to
murderers and similar malefactors; and that no
subject of Holland shall be summoned to appear in
the bishop's court at Utrecht, upon any account
whatsoever, if the person so summoned be willing
to appear before the spiritual or temporal judge to
whose jurisdiction he belongs.[7]
There follow, as it comes nearer the
Reformation, the greater names of Thomas a.
Kempis and John Wessel. We see them trim their
lamp and go onward to show men the Way of Life.
It was a feeble light that now began to break over
these lands; still it was sufficient to reveal many
things which had been unobserved or unthought of
during the gross darkness that preceded it. It does
not become Churchmen, the barons now began to
say, to be so enormously rich, and so effeminately
luxurious; these possessions are not less ours than
they are theirs, we shall share them with them.
These daring barons, moreover, learned to
deem the spiritual authority not quite so
impregnable as they had once believed it to be, and
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