Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/80

 more in harmony with and loyal to their superiors on the continent than the generality of the Orders in England. Whilst it is not unusual to find men of independent thought amongst the friars in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, like the Franciscan Roger Bacon (whose brother Robert was a staunch Dominican) and the Carmelite John Baconthorpe, we scarcely ever come across a Preaching Friar who was not imbued with the narrow and aggressive spirit of St. Dominic against the merest indication of heresy.

Wyclif may have had friends and sympathisers in every Order. He was certainly at one time on fairly good terms with many of the Franciscan Friars. But no tolerance for his bolder views and innovations could be expected from the Dominican obscurants. They were amongst the first to detect his heresy, to denounce him at home and at Rome, to reproach the bishops for their indifference to his false teaching, and to produce against him that keen-edged sword which their founder had entrusted to them. We may anticipate our story so far as to quote from a list of the more celebrated members of the Order (given by Stevens from the papers of Anthony à Wood, who was indebted to Bishop Bale) the names of certain Dominicans who particularly signalised themselves by their zeal in refuting the errors of Lollardy. Thus we read of William Jordan (1370) "who with much boldness excelled among the Oxford masters, carrying himself with much boasting ostentation, and like another Ismael (so says Bale) opposed all men, and was opposed by all. He writ pieces against Wickliff's positions";—Roger Dimock