propriations appears to have prevailed much, the monasteries being able to protect their possessions better than individuals; and thus, when they were abolished, the parochial clergy were left worse off than in England. In fact, our conclusion, with regard to Romish influence in Ireland, will be, that it has done little for it, but to corrupt the doctrines of its church, and to impoverish its parochial clergy.

This Tract is printed separately, as a Penny Pamphlet, and may be had at Messrs. Rivingtons'.

ANTIQUITIES, ETC.

WYCLIFFE ON THE LAST AGE OF THE CHURCH.* SIR,-Although I have not completed my promised list of the Wycliffe MSS. preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, yet I shall venture to depart so far from my proposed plan as to attempt, in the mean time, an examination of that short and imperfect treatise, De simonia sacerdotum, or (as it is also entitled †) On the Last Age of the Church, which is supposed to be the earliest of Wycliffe's extant writings. I call it imperfect, because the Dublin copy, said to be the only copy of it in existence, appears to have been transcribed with extreme negligence, and is, in some places, almost unintel ligible.

It is from its early date, rather than from any intrinsic value, that this piece derives its chief value; for its theology is that of the mystic or spiritual school, and is founded upon the speculations of the celebrated Joachim, abbot of Flora, in Calabria, of whom more hereafter. The date, however, is fixed beyond a doubt by the express declaration of the author himself, that "fro crist til now are thrittene hüdrid geere and sixe and fifty geere."

Mr. Lewis introduces this tract to the notice of his readers in the following words :

"The covetous exactions of the popes were, at this time, got to a very great height, insomuch that nothing was to be done at the court of Rome but by the influence of money, with which, in a manner, all church benefices were now purchased. To expose these corrupt and simoniacal practices, which tended quite to destroy the purity of the Christian worship and discipline, Mr. Wiclif wrote a short tract, which he entitled' Of the last Age of the Church.'"

I confess I do not know why Mr. Vaughan has objected to this statement; for to me it appears an adequate and very correct account of the design of the tract. Wycliffe's object was, as I conceive, to prove that Simony was the great sin of the church in his own times, and that this particular sin was described in prophecy as the last plague of Christendom, the iniquity in consequence of which God would withdraw his protection from his church, and suffer Antichrist to be revealed. "But," (says Mr. Vaughan,§) "the document is by no means of the character which Mr. Lewis's notice of it would lead the reader to suppose. It contains no such allusion to the popes. It

This curious and very valuable paper seems to find a more appropriate place among Antiquities than Correspondence. The very learned and accurate writer will, it is to be hoped, hereafter give a full and complete edition of Wycliffe's works. -ED. + See Lewis's List of Wycliffe's Writings, No. 84 and 148.

Lewis, p. 3. Oxf. 1820.

Vaughan, vol. i. p. 254, note, 2nd edit.

relates to the general corruption of the ecclesiastical system, arising from simony and other causes," &c.

Now, I really think it does contain just such an allusion to the popes as the. reader of Lewis's account of it would suppose-it does not, indeed, assert that the pope is the only simonist in the church, but it attacks, and that in the very first sentence, simoniacal exactions, every one of which was at that time claimed by the court of Rome; and, if the object of the tract was to prove this iniquity of the church the precursor of Antichrist, it assuredly may be said, in Mr. Lewis's words, that Dr. Wiclif wrote "to expose the corrupt and simoniacal practices," the existence of which, he asserts, were indicative of the last age of the world.

The treatise commences with the following words :

“Alas forsorwe [for sorrow] grete prestis sittinge in derkenessis and in schadewe of deeth, nogt hauynge him that openly crieth, al this I wille giue gif [if] thou auaunce me; thei make reseruacious, the which ben clepid [called] dymes, first fruytis, oth" [or] pencious, aftir the opinioũ of hem [them] that trete this matir."

The simoniacal practices here enumerated are reservations, dismes, first-fruits, and pensions; and all these, as I have said, were at that time exacted by the papal court. It is also implied that the last three were forms or species of the first. For Reservation, in the general notion of the word, is a rent or profit reserved by the owner of an estate or tenement for his own use; and the annates, dismes, and pensions, exacted by the papal court as the condition of collation to those benefices of which the pope claimed to be patron, were evidently of this nature. This claim is alluded to in the following extract from a statute of Richard II., made thirty-three years subsequent to the date of Wycliffe's treatise :-" Cestassavoir q. ore de novel, &c., Viz., that now of late our holy father the pope, by procurement of clerks, and otherwise, hath reserved, and doth daily reserve, to his collation generally and especially, as well archbishopricks, bishopricks, abbeys, and priories, as all other dignities and other benefices of England, which be of the advowry of people of holy church, and doth give the same as well to aliens as to denizens, and taketh of all such benefices the first fruits and many other profits," &c.-13 Ric. II., stat. 2, cap. 2.

Again, in a parliament held at Coventry in the year 1404 (forty-eight years subsequent to Wycliffe's tract), we find the payment of first-fruits to the pope described as "a damnable custom which is introduce of new in the court of Rome, that no parson, abbot, nor other, should have any provision of any archbishopricke or bishopricke which shall be voide till he hath compounded with the pope's chamber, to pay great and excessive summes of money, as well for the first-fruits of the same archbishopricke or bishoprike, as for other less services in the same court."+

Again, Dismes (Decima) were the tenths of spiritual livings paid to the pope by all beneficed persons, until Pope Urban gave them to Richard II. to aid him against the French king, Charles, and other adherents of the rival

Coke: Part I., lib. ii. c. 12, sect. 215.

+ Stat. 6 Hen. IV., c. 1, apud Gibson Codex J. A., p. 870, 1st edit. Historians are not agreed what pope first imposed the first-fruits. Platina, in his "Life of Boniface IX.," (quoted by Gibson, loc. cit.,) attributes the invention to that pontiff in the year 1400. But the mention of them in this tract of our Reformer, which was certainly written in 1356, together with the allusion to them in the statutes above quoted, sufficiently refute this opinion. Others give John XXII. the merit of this gainful invention, while others assign to it a still greater antiquity.—(See Godolphin, Eccles. Law, chap. 30; Of Annates.). From one of the above extracts it appears that Annates were in 1404a custom introduced of new;" it is probable, therefore, especially as they certainly existed in 1356, that John XXII. was the first who claimed them from the English church. He died in 1334.

pope, Clement VII. Since that period they have always belonged to the crown, until Queen Anne restored them to the church; and they are now, together with the first-fruits, the foundation of the fund called Queen Anne's Bounty.t

Pensions are thus defined in a Constitution of Othobon, passed in the year 1268:-"Quia plerumque evenire didicimus quod cum ad vacantem Ecclesiam fuerit præsentatio facienda, is qui præsentandus est, prius cum patrono de certa summa de bonis ecclesiæ sibi annuatim solvenda paciscitur," &c. The pope, therefore, who claimed to be patron of all spiritual livings, did not, we may be sure, neglect this mode of increasing his revenues; but, lest any doubt should remain upon this point, I shall add the following extract from the Act which abolished all papal exactions in the reign of Henry VIII. :—“ That where your subjects of this your realm, by many years past, have been, and yet be, greatly decayed and impoverished by such intolerable exactions of great sums of money as have been claimed and taken, and yet continually be claimed and taken, out of this your realm, and other your said countries and dominions, by the Bishop of Rome, called the Pope; and the See of Rome, as well in pensions, censes, Peter-pence, procurations, fruits, suits for provisions," &c. &c.-28 Hen. VIII., cap. 21.

These remarks, without going more deeply into the subject, will be sufficient, I hope, to justify Lewis for supposing the treatise before us to relate to the "covetous exactions of the popes," and other "corrupt and simoniacal practices" which at that time tended to destroy the purity of the church; but it is not so easy to explain why Mr. Vaughan has asserted that it contains "no such allusion to the popes" as Lewis's notice of it would lead us to suppose; for although the pope is not, I believe, expressly mentioned as the author of the simoniacal practices which are condemned, yet the mention of "reservations, dismes, first-fruits, and pensions," all which, as we have seen, were exacted by the papal court, implies surely some allusion at least to the "covetous exactions of the popes ;" and just such an allusion, I conceive, as one would expect from Lewis's account of the treatise; that is, supposing the reader to know beforehand what first-fruits, dismes, pensions, and reservations were, for without this little piece of legal knowledge he might, I own, read the tract, as Mr. Vaughan appears to have done, and be unable to discover in it " allusion to the popes."

any such

But to proceed. Our Reformer, having introduced his subject in the paragraph already quoted, adopts the interpretation of Ps. xc. 5, 6 (in our version, Ps. xci. 5, 6), which was given by Joachim, in his book "of the seedis of the profetis, and of the seyingis of popes, and of the chargis of profetis," and also by St. Bernard. These writers suppose four tribulations of the church to be foretold by David in this passage. The first of these Wycliffe describes thus :-"Nyghtly drede was whāne alle that slowen seyntis demyd himsilf do seruyse to god." The second, "the arwe fleynge in day was desceyt of heretikis." The third, "chaffare [merchandize] walkynge in derke

See Cunningham's Law Dictionary, Art. Dismes., where Polydor. Virgil. Hist. Angliæ, lib. 20, is referred to. Godolphin ubi supra, &c.

A.D. 1703. 2,3 Annæ, cap. 11. See Gibson's Codex, Tit. xxxv. cap. 8. Constit. Legatinæ D. Othonis et D. Othoboni. Oxon., 1663, p. 109. Quoted also by Gibson.

Whether this is intended to describe one or more books I do not know; perhaps it may allude to that mentioned by Joachim's biographers under the title, Liber de Flore, vel de summis pontificibus, which has never, I believe, been published. See Acta Sanctorum, ad diem 29 Maii, tom. vii. p. 89, et seq. Cellier. Hist. des Auteurs Sacrés, tome xxiii. p. 338.

Bernard. in Cantic. Serm. 33, sect. 11, et seq. Tom. iii. p. 61.

Edit. Benedict., Par. 1667.

nessis is the priv heresie of symonyans ;" and the fourth, "schal be the deuel of mydday that is antecrist." He then endeavours to prove that his own times coincided with the third of these periods of tribulation, by a mode of reasoning which I shall not stop to explain, because I may hereafter, perhaps, find an opportunity of noticing it; omitting therefore, for the present, all discussion of the author's premises, I shall quote his conclusion only, giving, in juxta-position, and without any omissions, Mr.Vaughan's abstract of the same passage.

"The sinnes bi cause of whiche such persecuciou schal be in goddis chirche our tyme, ben these, for goddis churche is foudid in kynrade of platis; this same rekened wachim in the bookis bifore; also for goodis of holy chirche that prelatis with holdeth to hem, as pencious, firste frutis, fermes, vendris, the whiche may wel be clepid [called] collibiste, § these synnes and oth'e such ben marchaūdise walkynge in derkenessis; the man'e of tribulacioun schal be such as wachim seith in the book of the charge of profetis: men of holy chirche shall be seyd in aman'e of careyne [carrion]: they schal be cast out as dōgge [dung] in myddis placis her with accordith carnosencis, in a book that he clepith [calleth] pollicricon, [polychronicon]|| the seventhe book the tenthe chaptr'. and he aleyeth gregor, seiynge thus, pestilencis, smyt

• In the Vulgate, a negotio perambulante in tenebris. + In Vulg., dæmonio meridiano.

If I understand this passage aright, 1 would say, that "foundid" is for confounded, i. e., destroyed, injured; and that "kynrade of prelatis" means their connection with the great, to which they owe their preferments, and which Wycliffe, in many of his writings, refers to as a fruitful source of simony and corruption. For example, in his treatise Of prelatis (cap. 5), he mentions "three manners in which simony is done;" the second of which is, "whanne a man cometh to a benefitz by priere [prayer] of lordis or ladies or other men, more than for connynge of goddis lawe and holi lif;" and the third, "whanne a man cometh thereto bi werldli seruice of lordis and ladies, of prelatis, or other mygtty men, more than for good lif and connynge;" and in the same chapter he says, "and also if thei [lords and ladies] geuen a benefis for [because] men ben of there kijn, or for fleshly loue, or werldli frendshipe......... more than for the worshipe of god and profit of mannys soule, it is stynkynge symonye bifore god, as lawes & seyntis techen." I suppose our author, therefore, in the passage before us to assert, that the sins of the church to which he attributes the anticipated calamities are twofold,-1, The appointment of unqualified persons of spiritual offices; and 2, that prelates "with holdeth to hem," i. e., keep to themselves the goods of holy church, which they divert from their legitimate objects, by various exactions and simoniacal taxes imposed upon the secular clergy. It is to be borne in mind that of the prelates of that time, the heads of religious houses formed by far the most numerous part, to say nothing of cadinals and papal legates.

$ Collybista, or Collybistes, koλußiσrηç, mensarius, nummularius. "Collyba dicuntur quæ nos appellamus Tragemata, vel vilia munuscula."-S. Hieron. Com. in Matt. xxi. (Vid. du Cange, Glos. in voce.)

Who Carnosencis was I do not know: a learned friend has suggested Ivo, Episcopus Carnotensis (Chartres) anno 1092; Cave mentions a Chronicon, libris vi. ad Ivonem Carnotensem, written by one Hugo, a monk of Flora, which was very generally attributed to Ivo himself, This is perhaps the Polychronicon quoted by Wyckliffe.

* See the Glossary at the end of Lewis's Life of Wiclif, voce Elispirid; by which it appears (notwithstanding the defective information supplied by his Dublin correspondent) that he had read this tract, or a copy of it.

↑ This reference I do not understand. Perhaps the words "the thridde" should be connected with what follows, in the sense of thirdly, or in the third place; but there are no corresponding divisions in the preceding part of the tract.

Who the Master of Schools is, or what work is here alluded to, I do not know. § Vaughan, vol. i. pp. 258-9.