Lewis Sergeant

“ This Barnard Castle, about ten miles from Richmond, stands on the northern side of the Durham border, and looks up the splendid vista of Teesdale. It was the same Barnard Castle at which, on the morrow of the fight of Marston Moor, a degenerate Wycliffe paid the penalty of his treachery, and furnished a theme for the author of Rokeby.
The foundation and enlargement of the earlier colleges at Oxford were stimulated at times by other reasons than the desire of benevolent persons to establish homes for poor students at what was now recognised as the "second school of the Church." ”

“ Without building anything upon the name of Spreswell and it is as easy to conclude that the local tradition refers to Thorpeswell as that Leland's original was the otherwise undistinguished village of Hipswell—there is evidence as to a group of houses close to the manor house where the Wycliffes lived, and nearer to it than the village of Wycliffe was. Nothing is more likely than that there should have been a little thorp and a chapel near the gates of the manor house other than the village and the church of Wycliffe. ”

“ In view of these and other dangers—amongst which the proselytism of the monks and friars must have seemed to many parents the most formidable of all—the colleges of Merton, Balliol, and University, followed in the fourteenth century by Queen's, Oriel, and Exeter, were founded not so much to bring education at Oxford within the reach of the poor as to make the conditions of university life more safe, more tolerable, and more refined. ”

“ Now, of course, this theory of a Speswell-on-Tees imposes on its advocates the necessity of explaining away Leland's "good myle from Richemont." Some have evolved an Old Richmond on the river bank, three or four miles below Wycliffe, and have interpreted the "good myle" in the sense of a Scot's "mile and a bit," where the bit is apt to be more than the mile. ”

“ To live at one of them would be more expensive than to put up with the rough lodging and fare of a "chamber dekyn," or to enter at the average hall; and it is reasonable to suppose that a student at Balliol or Merton, unless he came to Oxford at the charges of a wealthy patron, must have belonged to a fairly prosperous family. according to an undisturbed tradition, John Wyclif was a scholar at Balliol, either as soon as he came up or after preliminary training at a grammar school. He afterwards became fellow and master of the college. ”

“ Under the Balliol statutes no one could be made master who was not already a fellow; and, though the condition might be literally fulfilled by electing an outsider successively fellow and master, this supposition seems to be more hazardous than to accept the statement that Balliol was originally Wyclif's college. But there is no record, so far as is known, of the date when he came into residence, either at Oxford or at Balliol. ”

“ Both vengeance of sword and mischiefs unknown before, by which men in these days have had to be punished, were bound to happen for sin of priests. Men shall fall on them and cast them out of their fat benefices, and they shall say, 'One came into his benefice by his kindred, another by covenant made before; one for service and another for money came into God's church.' Then shall every such priest cry, 'Alas, alas! ”

“ During the last ten years of his life (1350-60) , Fitzralph threw himself into the controversy on evangelical poverty, carried to Avignon the grievances of the secular clergy against the mendicant friars, and wrote (amongst other works) a book on The Poverty of Our Saviour—in which, however, he dwelt but lightly on the contrast between the life of Christ and that of his latter-day disciples, which had been so deeply resented from the Italian Fraticelli. ”

“ According to the genealogy, it should have been William Wycliffe who appointed his namesake of Balliol after the death of his father. If he was alive in 1363, John must surely have been his elder brother. If he was dead, John may have been his next brother, or conceivably his uncle; for it is possible (though clearly improbable) that 13 19 is the date of Roger's birth. As a matter of fact, John "Haereticus" refers in one of his Determinations to a brother "olim mortuum" In any case John Wycliffe was an important member of the family, and he ought to be shown on the family tree. Why is he not? ”

“ Now it is on record that, up to the year 1340, no fellow of Balliol was allowed to proceed to a degree in theology, whereas in that year six fellowships were founded on the express condition that their holders should incept in divinity within thirteen years. ”