To his life’s end Wyclif went on teaching and writing, although many attempts were made to silence him.  At last in 1384 the Pope summoned him to Rome.  Wyclif did not obey, for he answered another call.  One day, as he heard mass in his own church, he fell forward speechless.  He never spoke again, but died three days later.

After Wyclif’s death his followers were gradually crushed out, and the Lollards disappear from our history.  But his teaching never quite died, for by giving the English people the Bible Wyclif left a lasting mark on England; and although the Reformation did not come until two hundred years later, he may be looked upon as its forerunner.

It is hard to explain all that William Langland and John Wyclif stand for in English literature and in English history.  It was the evil that they saw around them that made them write and speak as they did, and it was their speaking and writing, perhaps, that gave the people courage to rise against oppression.  Thus their teaching and writing mark the beginning of new life to the great mass of the people of England.  For in June, 1381, while John Wyclif still lived and wrote, Wat Tyler led his men to Blackheath in a rebellion which proved to be the beginning of freedom for the workers of England.  And although at first sight there seems to be no connection between the two, it was the same spirit working in John Wyclif and Wat Tyler that made the one speak and the other fight as he did.

Chapter XXII CHAUCER—­BREAD AND MILK FOR CHILDREN

TO-DAY, as we walk about the streets and watch the people hurry to and fro, we cannot tell from the dress they wear to what class they belong.  We cannot tell among the men who pass us, all clad alike in dull, sad-colored clothes, who is a knight and who is a merchant, who is a shoemaker and who is a baker.  If we see them in their shops we can still tell, perhaps, for we know that a butcher always wears a blue apron, and a baker a white hat.  These are but the remains of a time long ago when every one dressed according to his calling, whether at work or not.  It was easy then to tell by the cut and texture of his clothes to what rank in life a man belonged, for each dressed accordingly, and only the great might wear silk and velvet and golden ornaments.

And in the time of which we have been reading, in the England where Edward III and Richard II ruled, where Langland sadly dreamed and Wyclif boldly wrote and preached, there lived a man who has left for us a clear and truthful picture of those times.  He has left a picture so vivid that as we read his words the people of England of the fourteenth century still seem to us to live.  This man was Geoffrey Chaucer.  Chaucer was a poet, and is generally looked upon as the first great English poet.  Like Caedmon he is called the “Father of English Poetry,” and each has a right to the name.  For if Caedmon was the first great poet of the English people in their new home of England, the language he used was Anglo-Saxon.  The language which Chaucer used was English, though still not quite the English which we use to-day.