Liber tertius

INTRODUCTION.XVthe pope can simply deprive a priest of his benefice, without so muchas even raising the question of his capacity or incapacityj he may Hkewiserestore their domains to the laity.^ If here WycHf is referring toan incident in his own Hfe, as he seems to be, namely that in thechurch at Lincoln the pope deprived him of a benefice and conferredit on a young foreigner (aHenigena ydiota),^ yet it does not diminishthe respect he has for the head of the Church. On the contrary hestill repeatedly uses expressions which leave no doubt as to hisdevotion to the papal chair.3 That devotion receives its first shockthrough the condemnation of his nineteen theses in the year 1377. Andeven then for a long time he distinguishes between the present popeand the papacy. Not until the eighties is his breach with the papacycomplete, at the time when his fight "with the sects" is at its height.Now in his book De CiviH Dominio he says only good things of themendicant friars. It is they who most nearly approach his ideal ofChristian clergy; for imitating the walk of Christ and his apostles, theyseek to attain to the greatest perfection on earth. He is still far fromadopting the tone of his contemporary Chaucer towards the beggingmonks. But if one looks more closely, one sees the ftrst traces ofthe cleavage hetween Wyclif and tlie mendicant friars^ which howeversoon became too wide to be bridged over. In this book we find theproposition: there should be only one order, the order of JesusChrist. Our abbot is Christ, and in the strictest sense he was poor.^1 Si dominus papa potest committere alicuique ydiote, sine hoc quod ministretin suo beneficio secundum aliquod officium clericale, potestatem et officium spoliandiclericos non convictos ex inhabilitate officii, quin a maiori potest tradere laicopotestatem et iniungere sibi ministerium auferendi bona ecclesie a quocunque clericoabutente, . . .2 Et fidem istius sentencie vellem cum humilitate michi imprimere, cumdominus papa dedit michi prebendam in ecclesia Lincolniensi et facta sollicitudinead colligendum sibi primos fructus quadraginta quinque librarum contulit uni iuvenitransmarino eandem prebendam per viam reservacionis abdite, non facta inquisicionede inhabilitate persone mee nec facta instancla ex parte mea pro huiusmodidispensacione. But cf. Cal. of Entries in the Papal Registres IV, igS.3 Ideo absit Romano pontifici imponere hanc avariciam, ut preter questum. . . .4 Abbas noster fuit summe pauper. And yet in the fourth chapter of thethird book he still calls the order of the Minorites venerable. Exhinc enim venerabilisordo de fratribus minoribus non habent (sic) aliquid in proprio vel communiciviliter; De Civ. Dom. III, p. 57.