Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/621

 THE PAPACY AND ITS OPPONENTS 565 Richard II, when they seem to have been influential even at court; but early in the reign of Henry IV Parliament passed the statute De haretico comburendo, which provided that they should be burned at the stake when turned over by the church courts to the secular authorities. After this the Lol- lards were pretty well stamped out in England, but some survived to help kindle the later reformation. The great schism in the Papacy, which began in 1378, had probably emboldened Wyclif to increase the vigor of his attack upon the Papacy and had enabled him to 0ri £ f escape punishment for his heretical views. Greg- the great ory XI had at last returned to Rome in 1377 and schlsm had died there the following year. The Roman populace now raised a great tumult outside the Vatican palace and insisted upon a Roman, or at least an Italian, as the next pope. The cardinals thereupon elected the Archbishop of Bari, a Neapolitan, who became Pope Urban VI. He soon turned the cardinals against him by his scoldings and other measures directed against their worldly extravagant life and their corrupt manipulation of ecclesiastical offices. Moreover, during the past century the cardinals had ac- quired considerable power and were therefore incensed at what they regarded as an unwarrantable infringement of their privileges and a cruel tyranny. They expected half of the papal revenues and a share in the direction of papal policy. Finally the Ultramontane or French cardinals left Rome and elected one of their own number, Robert of Geneva, as Pope Clement VII (1 378-1 394). There had been schisms in the Papacy before, but the anti-popes had usually owed their office to the Holy Roman Emperor. Now the Church was divided against itself; the schism was due to bond, or irregular wandering clerk or hermit. This last is the sort of life that the poet represents himself as leading when he was "clothed as a loller ... in these long clothes." Again he speaks of "lunatic lollers and wanderers," and in a third passage says: — This is the life of lollers and lewd hermits; To look very lowly in order to gain alms of men, In hope to sit at evening by the hot coals, With outstretched legs lying at their ease. Resting, and roasting their backs by the fire, Drinking dry and deep,"