Liber tertius

INTRODUGTION.XILancaster spread out his hand to protect WycHf. But then the blowsrained down on WycHf, and to defend himself he wrote the second andthird books of De CiviU Dominio. The consequence is that, unHke thefirst book, the second already has a polemical character, akhough thepolemic ahvays remains moderate. Now he teaches that the secularrule of the clergy should be aboHshed, of whatever sort it might be,that church-property must be sequestrated or entirely confiscated andredistributed. NaturaUy doctrines which gave the temporal powers theright to take to themselves again the property which their ancestorshad given to the Church made the worst impression on the rich orders.A Benedictine monk at Oxford, or perhaps one affiliated to the Benedictines,!for it seems it was a mendicant friar, WiUiam Wadford,accused WycHf of blasphemy, scandal, haughtiness and heterodoxy.^ Inorder to defend himself WycHf was compeUed to foUow up the firstvolume of his work on civil government with a second. We shouldhardly have had the latter but for that circumstance, as the subjectwas pretty well exhausted. He resumes at the sixth of the theses condemnedby Gregory XI, of which he had treated in the 35*^'' chapter ofhis first book: that the secular rulers are justified in taking away fromthe Church her worldly goods, if she go astray. There have been examples.How was it with the Templars? As it could happen to one order itcould be appHed to all. If the clergy have strayed from the right pathand the Church's arm faU, the secular arm must interfere. From casualremarks made by WycHf, we learn that he openly advised secularization.The clergy were tied in the bonds of the world, and spiritual onlyin name. "O how happy,"^ exclaims WycHf, "would our country be,and how productive if every parish there had, as formerly, its rector,1 Loserth, Studien, p. 96. Cf. below p. XXI, note 3.. 2 De Civ. Dom. II, 2.3 O quam sanctum et fertile foret regnum Anglie, si (ut olim) quelibet parrochialisecclesia haberet unum sanctum rectorem cum sua familia residentem, quodlibetregni dominium haberet unum iustum dominum cum uxOre et liberis cumproporcionali familia residentem: tunc enim non sterilescerent in Anglia tot terrcarabiles nec rarescerent ex defectu yconomie tante caristie artificialium pecorumterre nascencium, sed regnum habundaret omni gencre huiusmodi bonorum, adessentqueservi atque artifices labori debito per civiles dominos mancipati. Nunc veromercenarii . . .