The spirit of revolt against the hierarchy, though broken and repressed thus terribly by the measures of Innocent iii., continued to live on obscurely in sequestered spots, in the mountains of Savoy, and Bosnia, and Bohemia, ready on occasion to spring into fresh and vigorous life.  In the following century Protestant ideas were rapidly germinating in England, alike in baron’s castle, in yeoman’s farmstead, in citizen’s shop, in the cloistered walks of the monastery.  Henry Knighton, writing in the time of Richard ii., declares, with the exaggeration of impatience, that every second man you met was a Lollard, or “babbler,” for such was the nickname given to these free-thinkers, of whom the most eminent was John Wyclif, professor at Oxford, and rector of Lutterworth, greatest scholar of the age. [Sidenote:  Wyclif and the Lollards]

The career of this man is a striking commentary upon the difference between England and continental Europe in the Middle Ages.  Wyclif denied transubstantiation, disapproved of auricular confession, opposed the payment of Peter’s pence, taught that kings should not be subject to prelates, translated the Bible into English and circulated it among the people, and even denounced the reigning pope as Antichrist; yet he was not put to death, because there was as yet no act of parliament for the burning of heretics, and in England things must be done according to the laws which the people had made. [1] Pope Gregory XI. issued five bulls against him, addressed to the king, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the university of Oxford; but their dictatorial tone offended the national feeling, and no heed was paid to them.  Seventeen years after Wyclif’s death, the statute for burning heretics was passed, and the persecution of Lollards began.  It was feeble and ineffectual, however.  Lollardism was never trampled out in England as Catharism was trampled out in France.  Tracts of Wyclif and passages from his translation of the Bible were copied by hand and secretly passed about to be read on Sundays in the manor-house, or by the cottage fireside after the day’s toil was over.  The work went on quietly, but not the less effectively, until when the papal authority was defied by Henry viii., it soon became apparent that England was half-Protestant already.  It then appeared also that in this Reformation there were two forces cooperating,—­the sentiment of national independence which would not brook dictation from Rome, and the Puritan sentiment of revolt against the hierarchy in general.  The first sentiment had found expression again and again in refusals to pay tribute to Rome, in defiance of papal bulls, and in the famous statutes of praemunire, which made it a criminal offence to acknowledge any authority in England higher than the crown.  The revolt of Henry viii. was simply the carrying out of these acts of Edward I. and Edward iii. to their logical conclusion.  It completed the