Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/105

89 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ORIGIN OF CY PR^S. 89 " Clerkes wite the sothe, That all the clergie under Crist ne myghte me cracche fro helle, But oonliche love and leautee, and my lawful domes. Gregorie wiste this wel, and wilned to my soule Savacion for scothnesse that he seigh in my werkes ; And after that he wepte and wilned me were graunted Grace; withouten any bene biddyng his boone was underfongen, And I saved, as ye see, withouten syngynge of masses. By love and by lernynge of my lyvynge in truthe, Broughte me fro bitter peyne, ther no biddyng myghte." The poet adds : ^ — " Nought thorugh preiere of a pope, was that Sarsen saved, But for his pure truthe, as Seint Gregorie bereth witnesse." Again he says : "^ — " Right so if thow be religious renne thow never Further to Rome ne to Rochemadour." Even earlier than Wiclif of Langland, the Archbishop of York, William Greenfield, had in 13 13, repressed sharply the attempt to draw resort to a local shrine — Foston in Yorkshire — by setting up a claim that the local image of the Virgin had a peculiar sanc- tity whereby, as the prelate says,^ there was a " magnus simplicium concursus ac si in eadem plus quam in ahis similibus imaginibus aliquid numinis apparet." The sturdy spirit indicated by these and like protests was not long in bearing fruit, and it is noticeable how soon more practical and public, as distinguished from selfish, superstitious, and indi- vidual, began to be the subjects of charitable devise and bequest during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, until they broadened into the comprehensive legislation of the Statute of Elizabeth. Thus in the will of Lady Bergavenny already referred to,* we find with the masses prescribed, donations to the Church and its priests, and provisions for the repair of the holy structures, not only doles to the poor at her burying and alms to other poor, but appropria- tions for the " marien " of poor maidens, relief of poor prisoners, and even for the practical public duty of making and amending " fabul brugges and foul wayes." The poor, indeed, had always from the earliest days of Christianity been a charity, but the matters of larger public benevolence or concern were later. It is true that 1 Piers Plowman, vv. 6S87-90 (Wright ed.). ^ Jusserand, Eng. Wayf. Life, 346. 2 B. xii. 37 (Skeat ed.). * Nicolas, Test. Vet. i. 224.