Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/68



CHAPTER III.

MONKS AND FRIARS.

T would be impossible to plot out a faithful picture of the life and character of Wyclif without adding two other sketches to the background, which already reveals the aggressions and the subjection of the Papacy in the fourteenth century. No one who wishes to bring that picture clearly before his mind can afford to leave out of sight the striking figures of the monks and friars by whom the path of the earlier and later Reformers was beset. Still less could the career of Wyclif be appreciated by one who has not made himself in some degree familiar with the Schoolmen whose teaching Wyclif imbibed at Oxford, and whose progressive ideas and ardent love of truth he interpreted to the humblest of his fellow-countrymen. 40