Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/143

 through it. At the universities in particular it would long continue to be a memorable landmark, if only for its effect in largely diminishing the number of students. A man of Wyclif 's devout and sympathetic disposition could not fail to be deeply moved by what he had seen and heard of the pestilence, and of the ecstasies of repentance, self-torture, and reaction which followed closely in its train.

From the capture of Calais to the treaty of Bretigny (1347-1 360), Wyclif would be penetrated, in common with his countrymen, by the military achievements of Edward III. and the Prince of Wales, by the collapse of the French armies, and by the annexation of some of the fairest provinces of France. He probably saw the captive kings in London; and he must have heard of the rich spoils carried home by the soldiers, or sent by settlers to their friends in England, where, according to enthusiastic contemporaries, there was scarcely a house which did contain some ornament or other valuable brought over from the conquered country. He may have seen and conversed with the famous son of a Gloucestershire outlaw, Richard Whittington, who, after his own death, presided three times over the merchant princes of the metropolis. He would not be ignorant of the vast accumulation of land and wealth in the hands of a comparatively small section of the nation. And side by side with this wealth he saw—we know from his writings that he saw—the misery of the serfs, the poverty and starvation of the labourers, the grinding taxation of the industrious classes, and the growing