Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/151

 landed property alone more than a third of the soil; their 'spiritualities' in dues and offerings amounting to twice the royal revenue." Such a condition of things must indeed be a peril to any nation; and no one could call himself a statesman in those days without recognising the evil and seeking a remedy for it. That is a justification for much of the Duke's subsequent conduct, as well as for Wyclif's participation in politics.

It was in 1366, as already stated, that the Rector of Fillingham was invited by Parliament to show cause against the further payment of tribute to Rome. The matter called for argument rather than authority; the tribute was already largely in arrear, for Englishmen could no longer brook the humiliation bequeathed to them by one of the most worthless of their kings. Nothing had been paid since 1333, and the conquerors of Crécy and Poitiers were not minded to renew the payment of an annual subsidy which stamped them as vassals to the vassal of France. The Pope had pressed for his dues, which Parliament declined to pay. The former had found his champion in the person of a monk who had apparently addressed a remonstrance to Parliament; and Wyclif was called upon to reply to this document.

He did so in a Latin tract or "determination" on Lordship, which maintained—with the same distinction between temporal and spiritual things which had often been urged in the discussions on ecclesiastical poverty—that the State was always entitled