Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/98

 western mind to think, discriminate, and judge. If it was for the time applied to mere phantoms of theology and philosophy, and produced vacant chaff in place of grain, still the training had been given, and the instrument remained bright and keen for future use.

The codification of the canon law, which within certain limits confirmed the authority of the Church whilst it seemed to open up a new field of intellectual activity, had a further and unforeseen effect in strengthening the opposition to papal supremacy. The sentences of the Fathers, the canons and decretals of the Popes, were compiled and re-issued many times in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The decretals were essentially aggressive against the civil power, for they included various decrees of deposition and excommunication of monarchs, and repeated declarations of the right of the Pope to dispense subjects from their allegiance to their rulers. One effect of the publication of the canon law in this form was to add to the army of the clergy and the army of the monks (soon to be reinforced by the army of the friars) yet another army of lawyers, warmly devoted to the interests of the Church.

It is remarkable that just at this time the study of the Pandects, Code, and Institutes of Justinian—the system of Roman law compiled and maintained in Byzantium—was revived after long neglect. Was it a mere coincidence? Or may it not be that the magistrates and lawyers, the teachers and students in the schools, reverted to Justinian out of sheer necessity for relief from the narrow absolutism of the