Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/297

 case the Chancellor's remark would bear another meaning. But it is unlikely that a Chancellor would have broken into a public discourse with emphatic approval of a statement which must have given offence to many of the congregation.

It was in every way a stirring and creative time. The papal Schism had thrown all Christendom into extraordinary ferment, and men had scarcely ranged themselves on their respective sides. It was not until near the end of 1379, eighteen months after the Neapolitan Archbishop and the French Cardinal had placed their rival claims before the Western Churches,that England definitely declared for Urban; but to support the pretensions of one Pope in preference to those of another was not sufficient to set the mind at rest concerning the very disturbing fact of the Schism itself. Wyclif, in common with many a devout Christian at that crisis, was very deeply affected by the events which were occurring day by day.

In connection with the sympathy felt for Wyclif by his own University, it would of course be a mistake to suppose that he was primarily or principally responsible for Oxford's departures from orthodoxy in the fourteenth century. To think that would be to make nothing of the influence of other inquiring minds amongst the Schoolmen, the lay graduates, and even the friars. We have seen already that there were some very liberal-minded men amongst the Franciscans in particular; and as a matter of fact we find traces of "grievous errors" at Oxford before Wyclif came to maturity, and even before he