have seen, uses very strong language respecting the contrast in which the measures of the new archbishop stood to the ordering (more accurately the last ordering) of his predecessor (eversum est tam pii patroni propositum. Anti-Simon, etc.). And the government decree itself appears to look upon the last re-constitution of the college as a much more serious contradiction to the original foundation approved by the State than the alteration which was made by Islip himself; for of this latter it is only said that it was done præter licentiam nostram supradictam-beyond or in excess of our foresaid licence-whereas the exclusion of all secular members is declared to be contra formam licentiæ nostræ supradicta—in the teeth of our licence, and not merely beyond or in excess of it. This difference of language is plainly intentional, and it will certainly be allowed that the latter expression is the stronger and more decisive of the two. Here the original statute is the only standard of judgment, for in this decree, issued by the Government, it is only the legality of the different acts in question which is dealt with.

But Wiclif does not apply to the question this low formal standard only, but forms his judgment of the last organic change which had been made, upon its substantive merits in point of congruity with the ends contemplated by the foundation. And here his judgment is one of entire disapproval, because the newly-appointed members being already over-richly provided for, were by no means in need of the bounty of such a foundation. He has here in his eye the extensive landed possessions belonging to the Benedictine monastery of Canterbury, which was organically connected with the Archiepiscopal Cathedral, while the colleges in Oxford, as in Paris and other univer

sities, were originally and principally intended for the support of the poorer class of students, and of masters without independent means. This language of Wiclif, however, as before remarked, is used in a purely objective sense, and by no means in such a tone as would warrant us to assume that the painful experiences which he had had to endure in his relations to the oft-mentioned college, may have had a determining influence upon his ecclesiastical views and work. It is only, however, a thorough exhibition of his public conduct that can throw light upon the question, whether there is any truth in the hostile allegation that the position. of antagonism taken up by Wiclif against the Church, and especially against prelates and monastic orders, took its rise in injury done to his own private interests, and was thus inspired by low motives and personal revenge.

Canterbury Hall no longer exists in Oxford as an independent foundation, for after the Reformation the buildings of the hall passed over to the stately college of Christ Church, founded by Cardinal Wolsey.

Returning now to the year 1366—the limit of the period assigned to the present chapter, and which we have been led to exceed by four or six years in order to finish the topic now discussed-this year was possibly the date at which Wiclif reached the highest degree of academic dignity, that of doctor in the Theological Faculty. Since the sixteenth century it has been assumed, on the authority of a statement of Bishop Bale, that Wiclif became doctor of theology in 1372.30 In assigning this date, Bale, it may be conjectured, proceeded upon the fact that in the royal ordinance of 26th July 1374, which nominated commissioners for negotiations with the Papal Court, Wiclif is introduced as sacræ theologiæ professor, at which date, there

fore, he must have been already doctor.31 And here let me remark by the way, that the title of professor of theology given to Wiclif, has generally been misunderstood, as though it meant that he had been appointed to a professorial chair. But this rests upon an anachronism. The mediæval universities, down at least to the fifteenth century, knew nothing of professors in the sense of modern universities. The title sacræ paginæ, or theologiæ professor, denotes in the fourteenth century, not an university office, to be thought of in connection with particular duties and rights, and especially with a fixed stipend, but only an academic degree; for it is equivalent to the title of doctor of theology. Such an one had the full right to deliver theological lectures, but was under no special obligation to do so, nor, apart from some trifling dues as a member of the Theological Faculty, had he any salary proper, except in cases where, along with the degree, some church-living might be conferred upon him.32

So much as this we know from the royal document just mentioned, that Wiclif was a doctor of theology in the year 1374. But it is only the latest possible date which is thus fixed; and Bale conjectured with good reason, that Wiclif must have become a doctor some considerable time before, and suggested the year 1372.33 Shirley, on the other hand, believes that he is able to make out, with some probability, that Wiclif was promoted to this degree as early as 1363. He supports this view upon several polemical pieces of the Carmelite John Cunningham, directed against Wiclif, which he has himself published. And it is indeed worth remarking, that that monkish theologian in his first essay, as well as in the introduction to it, speaks of Wiclif exclusively under the title of magister, whereas in the second and third, he uses the titles magister and doctor interchangeably. But now

the first of these essays where the latter title never once occurs, has reference to a tract of Wiclif, in which he mentions that it is not his intention to go, for the present, into the question of the right of property (de dominio); 35 while a fragment upon this question, which Lewis gives in his appendix to the life of Wiclif,36 was probably written in 1366, and the larger work of Wiclif, De Dominio Divino, from which that fragment, it is likely, was taken, was written at latest in 1368. Hence Shirley believes that he may perhaps indicate the year 1363, as that in which Wiclif received his degree.

We are unable, however, to concur in this conjecture, because we have positive testimony to show that in the end of the year 1365, Wiclif was only master of arts, and not yet doctor of theology. For Archbishop Islip describes him in the document of 9th December 1365, in which he nominates him to the headship of Canterbury Hall, as magister in artibus, whereas 37 the whole connection shows that he would certainly have laid stress upon the higher academic degree, if Wiclif had already possessed it.

The fact then stands thus, that Wielif, in 1374, was a doctor of theology, but not yet in 1365. In the intervening period between these two dates he must have taken that degree; but to fix the time with precision is impossible, for lack of documentary authority.

NOTES TO CHAPTER III.

1. John Lewis, History, etc., I. 4. Vaughan, Life and Opinions, I. 241. Monograph, p. 39 f.

2. Compotus Ric. Billingham, bursarii 30 Edward III., Rot. in thesaurario Coll. Merton, as referred to by the Editors of the Wiclif Bible, p. 7.

3. Shirley, Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 511.

4. Lewis, History, etc., p. 4.

5. Comp. Sam. Lewis, Topographical Dictionary, 5 ed., Lond. 1842; 4to. Abbotsley.

6. Shirley gives an exact account of these documents in notes 4 and 5 on p. XIV. of the "Introduction." [Several of them are transcribed in "Riley's Report to the Royal Commission on Historical MSS. on the Archives of Balliol College."Translator. ]

7. The entry in the Episcopal Register of Lincoln, Bishop Bokyngham's, 13631397, is as follows :—“Idibus Aprilis, anno domini millesimo CCCmo. LXVIII. apud parkum Stowe concessa fuit licentia magistro Johanni de Wycleve, rectori ecclesiæ de Fylingham, quod posset se absentare ab ecclesia sua insistendo literarum studio in Universitate Oxon. per biennium.”

8. The remarks made by Buddensieg in opposition to this view (Zeitschrift für Historische Theologie, 1874, p. 316) rest upon what I consider to be an erroneous interpretation of the entries in the account-books of Queen's College, communicated by Shirley in the "Fasciculi," p. 514; for these entries manifestly refer, not to short stays in the college rooms, but to rents of rooms paid by the year, with which sense alone agrees the recurring mention of Wiclif's camera. In a passage

of his paper further on, Buddensieg himself understands all the entries in question of a two years' rental.

9. Lewis History, Appendix No. 3, p. 290.

10. The substance of the article is given in the appendix to Townsend's edition of Foxe's Acts and Monuments, III. 812, and in the appendix to Vaughan's Monograph, p. 547 f. In the latter, however, the year 1844 is printed by mistake for 1841.

11. "Ad vitæ tuæ et conversationis laudabilis honestatem, literarumque scientiam, quibus personam tuam in artibus magistratam Altissimus insignivit, mentis nostræ oculos dirigentes, ac de tuis fidelitate, circumspectione et industria plurimum confidentes in custodem Aulæ nostræ Cantuar-te Præfecimus," etc.Wood's History and Antiquities, Oxon., I. p. 184; Lewis History, etc., p. 290.

12. In a long Excursus to his edition of the Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 513-528.