Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/232

 Oxford, and the other three to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London conjointly. Gregory called upon the Archbishop and Bishop to examine into the truth of the nineteen charges which had been brought against Wyclif, and which were set forth in the bulls. The ecclesiastics were to warn the Government of the country that they were harbouring a dangerous heretic, and were to demand his arrest; but if this demand were not complied with, they were to cite him to appear at Rome. As an alternative course, which may or may not have been suggested beforehand by Courtenay it was certainly in keeping with his personal courage and independence the last bull invited the prelates to arrest the accused (assuming that he was found to be guilty of heresy and that the civil arm would not touch him), and to await the sentence of the Pope.

The bull addressed to the King was an appeal for the royal favour and protection on behalf of the two prelates in their action against Wyclif—whom Gregory described as holding and teaching the "unlearned doctrine" of Marsilius of Padua, damnatæ memoriæ, who stands condemned by Pope John XXII., of happy memory. Writing to Oxford, the Pope declared that he could not but wonder and lament that, by their sloth and laziness, the authorities of the University permitted tares to spring up amongst the genuine wheat of their famous soil, and not only to spring up but, still more pernicious, to come to maturity, without taking any trouble to root them out. The Holy Father had been all the more distressed because the