Liber tertius

INTRODUCTION.IXproclaim his thcses. Now in a popularly intelligible form they are spreadbroadcast among- the people, and the London churches are chosen asthe scene of the struggles. It will be noticed that the last chapters ofthe first book contain some severe words about the Church.i^ They standout like fingerposts in an interminable plain. It is just these dogmas,which as the chief things, he picks out, and which, doubtless, in apopular form he proclaimed from his professor's chair and from thepulpit. These are his eighteen theses.^ They are all directed against theprevailing church-government. The first five theses treat of the lawsof inheritance and of property, particularly with regard to mortmain,The rights of property and inheritance do not unconditionally holdgood, but they depend on God's will and grace. The reference tochurch-property becomes still more plain in the succeeding theses. Theentire emphasis is laid on the secularization of the Church. These thesesWyclif defended before his pupils in the autumn and winler of 1376 atOxford. He foresaw that they would not remain unassailed; but he wouldhave liked the dispute to remain a purely academical one; but verysoon "it became the talk of the town", and so learned opponents,ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries, heard of it. The former entangledhim in a literary dispute, while the latter sought to set the royal censoragainst him; but he recommended himself to the temporal authorities byhis lively attacks on the temporal possessions of the clergy.^Thus began for Wyclif a time of extraordinary literary productivity,which ended only with his death. He certainly desired that some of histheses should be put into practice. One of his chief ones runs thus: TheChurch must be poor, as once in the days of the apostles, Thereforehe still is a friend of mendicant friars, and it is they whom Lancasterappoints to defend the bold man. Hovvever much Wychf, in the commentaryhe added to the eighteen theses, may assure us that it was nothis intention to urge on the secular authorities to confiscate church-1 De Civ. Dom. I, 25 1, seqq.2 Fasciculi Zizanniorum, p. 245 seqq.3 Ista et plura alia isti errorum magistri publice ad fidei nostre subversionemasserunt et affirmant, in tantum quod domini et magnates terre et multi de populoipsos tamquam sanctos prophetas repulent quia tantam potestatem adauferendum temporalia a viris ccdesiasticis ipsis attribuunt. Higden Polychr.Appendix.