Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/241

 the action of Rome and Canterbury would impel him to a decision from which even his warmest friends would be likely to start back in alarm.

But up to this point the question was not of transubstantiation. The Archbishop and the Bishop, seeing that Wyclif had betaken himself to Oxford, and allowing the claim which he had thus tacitly made on his University, wrote on December 18th to demand that the Chancellor and the theological authorities should hold an inquiry and make a report in answer to the papal bull, and that they should then remit the accused to London, to appear to their own citation. Oxford stood the test. The Chancellor directed Wycliff to remain within the hall where he was lodging, and the "conclusions" which Gregory had condemned were duly examined, together with Wyclif's rejoinder. The decision arrived at was of a most important character. Oxford declared the conclusions to be true, and not heretical, though they were so expressed as to be open to misconception.

With this testimonial from his University Wyclif was able to make his appearance before the prelates with a stout heart, but probably not without a conviction that his struggle against the papal Court was rapidly coming to an issue.

Meanwhile his most implacable enemies must have regarded all these things as mere by-play, and they must have been impatient for the discipline of the Holy See to produce its natural effect. The lightning had been hurled, and they wanted to hear the unmistakable thunders of Rome. It was all