Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/61

 one or both of them was virtually inevitable. As it happened, he had to fight them both; and the manner in which he launched his lightnings and hurled his thunderbolts showed with how light a heart this ill-fated Pope sought to assert his authority as the vice-gerent of God on earth.

Revolt against Rome was ripe in every sense. She had not only encroached on the civil governments, but also harassed and offended the hierarchies of the national Churches. By her interdicts, excommunications, and depositions, she had exasperated monarchs and peoples alike. She had asserted the rights of mandate and investiture, and frequently overruled the elections of metropolitans and bishops, ignoring the claims of the clergy as well as of the Crown. She had exacted large sums of money in the shape of annata on promotions and translations, of direct levies from the Churches, and of tribute from the monarchs. She had set up the papal Curia as a jurisdiction external to every country, yet claiming supremacy in all; and she authorised her legates to override the decisions of the hierarchies, and even the provincial councils of the national Churches. When, on the other hand, clergy, monks, or friars abused their privileges to the manifest detriment of the State, Rome almost invariably encouraged her subordinates to defy and resist the civil power, claiming for them both a moral and a material immunity against the jurisdictions of the land in which they lived.

The vast possessions of the clergy and religious Orders, especially after the new corporations of friars