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No freeman shall be taken, nor imprisoned, nor disseized,
nor outlawed, nor exiled, nor destroyed in any manner;
nor will we pass upon him, nor condemn him,
but by the lawful judgment of his peers,
or by the law of the land.
We will sell to none,
we will deny nor delay to none right and justice.
Magna Carta 39-40For Solomon says that
when the condition of a man
is pleasant and to God's liking,
He changes the hearts of that man's enemies
and constrains them to seek peace of him, and grace.
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales "Tale of Melibeus"Outwardly, the greedy lords deal in the blessings of peace,
but inwardly, wars will stand first with them.
As long as it can store up more loot
through war than through peace,
avarice does not know how
to love the good things of peace.
And envy does not permit you
to conduct yourself peaceably toward me,
for my tears are laughter in your ear.
It is nothing to you
if the downtrodden people bewail their sufferings,
provided that the general misfortune
brings in money to you.
Gower, Vox clamantis 7:31-40The Bible is for the government of the people,
by the people, and for the people.
Wyclif, Preface to his translation of The Bible
From 1199 to 1216 King John caused tremendous
turmoil in his
attempts to rule England.
One of the results of his ineptness
was the
signing of the Great Charter (Magna Carta).
The
prime mover behind this great breakthrough in human rights
was
a man named Stephen Langton.
By oppressing the provinces of Anjou,
Touraine, Maine, and Normandy,
John lost the support of their
barons, and after some battles these provinces
were taken over
by King Philip II of France.
Although Pope Innocent III had assisted
John against Philip,
John's refusal to grant the payments due
from Richard's will led to a quarrel
with the Pope over the appointment
of a new Archbishop of Canterbury.
The younger monks of Canterbury
had selected and installed Reginald,
immediately sending him off
to Rome to be confirmed by the Pope.
John, who frequently acted
out of anger and resentment, demanded that
the bishop of Norwich,
John de Grey, be elected instead,
and the King sent off a deputation
to the Pope with a gift of 12,000 marks.
Pope Innocent III responded by choosing his own man, Stephen
Langton.
Stephen was from Lincolnshire, England and had become
the leading teacher of theology at the university in Paris.
He
agreed with Becket's view that the lordship of God
was higher
than the power of kings.
In Paris, Stephen had taught Lothario,
who
at the age of 37 became Pope Innocent III.
The new Pope called
his friend to Rome,
where Stephen became the most popular preacher.
Stephen was a biblical scholar and helped future generations
by
dividing the scriptures into chapters, and
he placed the books
in the sequence they still have.
He also wrote histories of England's
kings Henry II and Richard
and composed
the hymn, Veni, Sancte
Spiritus, which
is sung in England as Come, Thou Holy Spirit,
Come.
The Pope released John's representatives from their
promise to him,
and eleven of the twelve canons were won over
to Innocent's choice of the capable Stephen.
John, however, refused to allow Stephen Langton to enter England,
and the Pope retaliated by pronouncing an interdict on John's
domain.
This closed the churches and canceled all religious services
and rituals.
John started confiscating Church property, and Innocent
excommunicated him.
As a diversion John fought battles in Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales,
but the lack of religious rituals to which
they were so
accustomed must have deeply affected the people.
Meanwhile Stephen resided for six years at the Cistercian monastery
at Pontigny,
where Becket had resided in similar exile.
Langton
studied the situation and wrote letters to the important people
in England;
it was made a criminal offense to read these letters.
York archbishop Geoffrey opposed John's tax of a thirteenth
on Church rents
and
movables and excommunicated the collectors
and tax payers before he fled England.
Exchequer records indicate
that state revenues from the churches went
from 400 pounds in
1209 to 3,700 the next year and to 24,000 pounds in 1211,
and
there were other revenues from churches in addition.
These funds
helped pay for John's military campaigns
to subdue Scotland, Ireland,
and Wales.
King John invited Cardinal Langton to meet him at Dover;
but
Stephen refused because he had been
addressed as cardinal instead
of archbishop.
He asked John to pay for everything the Church
had lost.
In 1212 the Pope freed all subjects of John from their
oaths of allegiance to him
and declared that anyone who served
King John was excommunicated.
The Pope then deposed John and granted
his crown to Philip.
The French prepared to invade England, but
the English,
concerned about their own safety, rallied their defenses.
Although the English were winning a naval battle at the time,
John was afraid and made an agreement with the papal legate Pandulf
to return ecclesiastical property, submit his crown to the Pope
in feudal vassalage,
and pay an annual tribute for the withdrawal
of the
decrees of interdict, excommunication, and deposition.
John thus ruled England as a papal fief, and churchmen were reinstated.
Langton was received by a prostrated John, and the Archbishop
could not give him the kiss of peace because
the ban of excommunication
was still in effect.
In Winchester Cathedral, Stephen did absolve
John of his sins
and performed the holy Eucharist,
although Innocent
III resented this infringement of his prerogative.
Innocent had to
call off Philip, who was prepared for war,
and the French king
was so frustrated that he attacked Flanders.
Finally after another year the interdict was lifted.
John attacked
France to try to win back the lost provinces;
but he had little
support from the English aristocracy,
who felt that they had been
sold out to Rome.
While John was away, Stephen Langton preached
at St. Paul's in London
and held a meeting with the barons in
which he produced an old document
signed by Henry I which granted
specific English liberties.
When John returned defeated from France,
he tried to take out his animosity by
demanding scutage or payment
from all who had not supported military service.
The barons, stimulated
by Stephen's research and ideas,
demanded a return to these laws
certified by Henry I.
They gathered their forces, which outnumbered
the King's and met John at Runnymede.
Archbishop Langton arranged
a truce between the king and the barons
while the Great Charter
was developed.
King John granted London a charter confirming their
privileges
and giving them the right to elect their mayor annually;
but when the barons refused John's suggested arbitration,
he ordered
sheriffs to confiscate their lands and chattels.
Stephen Langton
with the help of Saire de Quincey
spent four days drafting a document
that everyone could accept.
This Great Charter, which was signed there on June 15, 1215,
has been considered perhaps the most important document in English
history.
They agreed upon liberties and principles of law which
could
protect people from the tyrannical actions of men in power.
The rights of habeas corpus, due process of law,
and trial
by jury were formulated.
The liberties of the Church with its
free elections were guaranteed.
Feudal abuses were to be reformed.
Wards of an inheritance could take no more than was reasonable.
A widow's property rights were protected,
and no widow was to
be forced to marry.
No scutage or payment for an emergency was
to be imposed
unless by common counsel of the kingdom.
A lord
might take reasonable aid only to ransom his own person,
make
his eldest son a knight, or to marry his eldest daughter.
The
liberties and free customs of all cities,
boroughs, towns, and
ports were confirmed.
A fixed court was to hear lawsuits, and
inquests were to be held in each county.
Penalties called "amercements"
were to be proportionate
to the offense and must be decided by
a jury of peers.
No sheriff, constable, or other bailiff could
try serious crimes.
No constable or bailiff could take anyone's
grain or chattels without paying for them.
Standards for weights
and measures were established to protect consumers.
No one could be put on trial without reliable witnesses.
No
freeman could be arrested or punished except by
lawful judgment
of his peers and the laws of the land.
Rights and justice could
not be sold, refused, nor delayed.
Merchants and others except
criminals were granted the right
to come and go free of evil tolls
except during war.
Those from countries at war would be kept in
custody without injury
until the chief justiciar knew how merchants
were treated in their country.
Some restraint was put on forest
officers to limit their oppression,
and inquiries were to investigate
and end abuses.
A council of 25 barons was established to settle
previous disputes
and to make sure that the reforms were enforced.
John immediately tried to renounce the agreement by appealing
to the Pope.
The ailing Innocent annulled the Charter and excommunicated
the barons.
However, Stephen Langton refused to publish the edict
and left for Rome,
while Church authorities suspended the Archbishop
for two years
and helped John raise an army of mercenaries.
At
Rome, Langton was castigated by the Pope and was not allowed to
speak
at the Fourth Lateran Council when he was denounced,
and
the barons were condemned as disobedient vassals.
This same Council,
which determined to fight a crusade against the Cathars
and Waldenses
(which were the most peace-loving sects in medieval Christianity),
confirmed the suspension of Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury.
Stephen thought of becoming a Carthusian monk and stood by helplessly
as the Church forced England into a civil war.
King John's mercenaries
defeated the barons,
who asked for the help of France's prince
Louis.
Louis was excommunicated for invading England;
his French
forces and the barons could only hold London against John.
However,
both John and Innocent III died, and the English nobles were
reconciled with Henry III and his regent so that Louis had to return to France.
After all this folly the Charter remained and was revised several
times
during the reign of Henry III as Parliament was developed.
Stephen Langton continued to mediate between the Church
and
state for peace and justice until his death in 1228.
He revised
the canon laws of England that were promulgated at Osney
in 1222
and came to be called the Constitutions of Langton.
Roger Bacon was born into a wealthy English family in 1214
and was well educated.
After studying under Robert Grosseteste
and the Franciscan Adam Marsh at Oxford,
Bacon lectured on Aristotle's
recently unbanned works at the University of Paris,
where he criticized
the excessive devotion paid to the
theology of Alexander of Hales
and Albertus Magnus.
Bacon had directions for making gunpowder
as early as 1242
before anyone else in Europe, but he did not
pursue it further.
From 1247 Bacon became very interested in experimental
science
and new branches of learning such as languages, optics,
and alchemy (chemistry) along with mathematics and astronomy.
Roger Bacon became a Franciscan about 1250 and taught at Oxford
until 1257.
By then he had spent 2,000 pounds of his own money
on books and research, exhausting his resources.
That year he
was forced to stop teaching because he had angered superiors.
Bacon was allowed to write but not to publish.
He wrote to Pope
Clement IV about his idea for a scientific encyclopedia in 1266;
but the Pope died while he was writing his
Opus majus,
Opus minus, and Opus tertium.
In 1277 his Speculum
astronomiae defended astrology
against the condemnation by
Stephen Tempier.
Franciscan minister general Jerome of Ascoli
(later Pope Nicholas IV) summoned
Bacon to Paris for teaching
novelties and had him imprisoned the next year.
For fourteen years
he was kept in a dark cell and not allowed to study or work.
Bacon
died soon after he was released from captivity in 1292.
In the first part of his Great Work (Opus majus) Roger
Bacon described
four causes why human ignorance fails to attain
truth as following unworthy
authorities, customs and habits, popular
prejudices, and displaying
the appearance of wisdom to cover up
one's ignorance.
He explained that the Fathers did not pursue
science
because their circumstances were different.
The second
part treats of theology and states that the purpose of philosophy
is to lead people to the knowledge and service of God,
and it
culminates in moral philosophy.
In the third part Bacon emphasized
the practical importance of studying
languages scientifically,
especially Hebrew and Greek for the scriptures.
Bacon also wrote
grammars of Hebrew and Greek.
In the fourth part of the Opus majus Bacon discussed
mathematics as the key to the sciences.
He noted that mathematical
astronomy indicates the smallness of the Earth.
He argued that
the suspicion of astrology being deterministic
is unjust because
it does not eliminate free will.
He observed that the movements
of the heavenly bodies can influence humans,
and gaining such
knowledge can be used for good purposes.
Optics is the study of
the fifth part.
He developed Grosseteste's theory that light is
transmitted in pulses like sound waves,
and he prepared the way
for the telescope and microscope
by noting that refraction can
cause objects to appear larger.
In the sixth part Bacon discussed
experimental science.
Reasoning can guide the mind to conclusions,
but only confirmation by experience removes doubt.
Experience
comes from observation by the senses, which can be aided
by instruments
and trustworthy witnesses, and it also comes from spiritual intuition,
which is perceived by the mind from divine illumination.
Bacon
elucidated seven stages of internal knowledge as discoveries from
the sciences,
virtues that keep the mind like a clear mirror as al-Ghazali wrote,
seven gifts of the Holy Spirit enumerated by Isaiah,
the beatitudes
of Jesus, spiritual senses,
fruits like the peace of God, and the raptures of mystical states.
Roger Bacon believed that the seventh and last part of his
Opus majus on moral philosophy was the most important.
This science teaches us the laws and obligations of life, that
these are
to be believed and approved, and that people should
live according to them.
These duties, as scripture taught, are
to God
and the angels, to one's neighbor, and to oneself.
Bacon
defined seventeen metaphysical premises that underlay moral philosophy.
These may be summarized as follows:
1. God's existence is proved by metaphysics.
2. God's existence is naturally known by every person.
3. God is of infinite power, goodness, substance, and wisdom.
4. God is one in essence.
5. God is also triune, which is explained by metaphysics.
6. God created all things and rules nature.
7. God also created spiritual substances known as intelligences and angels.
8. God also created rational human souls.
9. God made souls immortal.
10. Felicity of the other life is the highest good.
11. Humans are capable of this felicity.
12. God morally directs the human race and all nature.
13. God promises future felicity to those who
live correctly in accordance with God's direction.
14. Worship is due to God with all reverence and devotion.
15. As human conduct toward God is regulated by reverence,
human conduct toward neighbors is regulated by justice and peace,
and one's duty to oneself is regulated by integrity of life.
16. A human needs more than one's own effort to please God with worshi
and as to how one should conduct oneself towards one's neighbor and oneself.
17. Revelation is made to one mediator of God and humanity who should be
believed when it is proved certainly that that one is the lawgiver and high priest.
Bacon gave Avicenna
credit for this joining of metaphysics to moral philosophy.
He
referred to Socrates and Plato for the idea that every person
has an angel
guarding against all evils who guides one toward
what is good.
When the soul is separated from the body, the angel
is a witness
before God as to all the soul did in the body.
This
angel witnesses not only one's acts but one's thoughts as well.
Bacon eloquently summarized Plato's concept.
Your angel carefully perceives all things,
sees all things and understands them,
this guardian, individual overseer, household observer,
personal defender, intimate advocate, constant watcher,
personal judge, inseparable witness, condemner of what is evil,
approver of what is good, provider in your uncertainties,
forewarner in your doubts, defender in your perils,
aid in your needs, who is able in dreams, and in signs,
and in person when necessity requires, to curtail your ills,
prosper your good, control your prosperity, ease adversity.1
Bacon described the four hindrances to happiness in the next
life as sin,
preoccupation with the body, obstacles of the physical
world, and lack of revelation.
He cited Avicenna's view that sin,
the body, and the outer world
distract us from the revelation
of the soul.
Bacon followed Avicenna's outline that the laws needed
are
to regulate human relations such as marriage and government.
The state should have administrators, servants, and skilled lawyers.
The legislator teaches people to make laws on patrimonies, inheritances,
and wills.
Ordinances can help individuals to aid and defend each
other
by uniting against enemies of law to subdue them.
Choosing
the successor to the legislator should be done in mutual relationship
between the subjects, prelates, and princes.
Teachers may be appointed
to instruct the young.
In regard to personal conduct everyone should keep one's life
pure
and free from vices for the sake of future happiness.
Love
is the greatest good, and peace and justice are its companions;
for humanity is a social animal.
Bacon also cited the twelve virtuous
means delineated by Aristotle
as courage, chastity, liberality, generosity, magnanimity, high-mindedness,
gentleness, friendliness, honesty, cheerfulness, modesty, and
justice.
Intellectual virtues include intuition, knowledge, art,
prudence, and wisdom.
Bacon noted that Seneca considered virtue
the whole good and the only good in this life.
Sin blinds, defiles,
and weakens the rational soul
and can even reduce one to the level
of brutes.
Bacon listed the seven mortal sins as avarice,
pride,
luxury, gluttony, anger, envy, and sloth.
Six of these are nourished
by prosperity, but anger comes out of adversity.
The first step
in handling anger is to understand its horrible consequences.
Bacon quoted and paraphrased extensively from the
writings of Seneca on anger and other
moral questions.
In the last section of the part on moral philosophy Bacon turned
to the salvation
of the human race and what guides people to the
felicity of the other life.
In an early effort at comparative
religion Bacon discussed the Saracens,
Tartars, pagans, idolaters
(Buddhists), Jews, and Christians.
He criticized the Tartars for
their wars, identifying them with Mars,
and the Muslims with the sensuality associated with Venus.
He was also critical of the Jews, whom he related to Saturn,
and he praised Christianity as the best religion, identifying
it with Mercury.
He did suggest
that the Christians should accept the histories of the Jews
and
Saracens lest they with equal right reject the histories of the
Christians.
He argued that Moses
and Muhammad lacked other
witnesses and
that since John
the Baptist and the disciple Peter
testified to Jesus,
the Christ is the perfect lawgiver.
Roger Bacon argued that crusades actually hindered conversion,
and he recommended the peaceful methods of persuasion,
urging
missionaries to learn the language of the converts.
War is especially
ineffective, because the Christians
are often defeated, especially
overseas.
Rather people and their children are made enemies and
embittered against Christianity because of its violence.
This
faith did not enter the world by arms, and many knowing
little
language and with poor interpreters have made many converts by
teaching.
Most people no longer believed that one could gain spiritual
merit by crusading,
and troubadours mocked the notion that God
favored the crusades.
After Louis IX had been killed in the disastrous
crusade to Tunis in 1270,
the troubadour Austore de Segret wondered
whether they had been led by God or the devil,
for Christians
were destroyed and lost their faith while the Saracens found support.
The troubadour Guillem Daspols composed a tenzone that
also asked why God
honored the Saracens, and he challenged God
to show the Saracens
their errors rather than waste blood in crusades.
The poet Geoffrey Chaucer served occasionally as a diplomat.
When he was about twenty, he was taken prisoner in France
and
ransomed by King Edward III.
Chaucer then acted as a diplomatic
courier in the negotiations
that brought about the Peace of Calais
in 1360.
He married a lady of the English court and for ten years
went on many diplomatic
missions to France and the Low Countries
"on the King's secret affairs."
Chaucer was a close
friend of John of Gaunt and was aided by him in court life.
In
1372 he traveled to Florence and probably heard Boccaccio's lectures
on Dante,
and in 1378 he went to Milan, where Petrarch had spent
his last twenty years.
In 1385 Chaucer became justice of the peace
for Kent,
and the next year he was elected to parliament.
He was
given appointments by Richard II and was also
favored by Henry
IV before he died in 1400.
Chaucer is justly famous for his great work The Canterbury
Tales.
These stories told by various characters while on their
pilgrimage
to Thomas Becket's tomb illustrate many points of view
on life
from ribald accounts of lust to high moral fables.
Each
tale reveals the personality of the storyteller.
In the parson's
tale Chaucer warned that anger can lose an old friend;
but when
it leads to war, every kind of wrong is committed.
Significantly,
after he is cut off in his tale of a knight named Sir Thopas,
the story that Chaucer puts into his own mouth is an enlightened
account
of peacemaking and diplomatic counseling called "The
Tale of Melibeus."
Melibeus is a powerful and rich young man who has a
wife named
Prudence and a daughter Sophie.
One day when Melibeus is out playing
in the fields, three of his old enemies
break into his house,
beat his wife, and wound his daughter in five places.
Melibeus
becomes greatly upset and weeps profusely
as Prudence attempts
to console him.
Melibeus decides to call in all the people he
knows
in order to get advice about what to do.
Melibeus sadly
describes his trouble and angrily
speaks of vengeance and his
eagerness for war.
First the physicians help the wounded and declare
their policy
of never doing harm to anyone; however, they add
that
as diseases are cured by their opposite, so war might be
cured by vengeance.
Many flatterers praise the wealth and might
of Melibeus and his friends
while disparaging the strength of
his enemies.
The older and wiser recommend that he guard his person
and his house,
but that he wait before deciding on war.
Then the
young people rise up and begin to cry, "War, war!"
An
old man advises caution, but the young heckle him until he sits
down.
Melibeus is ready to go along with war when
his wife Prudence
asks him to listen to her counsel.
Melibeus says he would be a
fool to give over his sovereignty to a woman,
women being evil
and unable to keep secrets.
Prudence declares that he ought to
change if previous counsel has been foolish,
that listening to
advice is not giving up one's power to decide,
and that all women
are not necessarily bad and untrustworthy.
So Melibeus agrees
to listen to Prudence.
First, she says, one ought to begin by praying to God for guidance.
Then one must remove the three impediments to good counsel
from
the heart - anger, covetousness, and hastiness.
After having taken
counsel within oneself it is best to keep it secret
so as to receive
unprejudiced and objective counsel from the advisors.
Melibeus
had betrayed his desire,
and all the flatterers had agreed with
his passion.
Prudence suggests that it is best to ask advice from
friends
that are old, faithful, discreet, and wise; he must beware
of
former enemies and those who are afraid of him.
Prudence teaches Melibeus that in counsel
he ought to be truthful
about the situation
and examine the probable results of the advice
and the various causes.
Then Prudence takes up the specific issues.
She points out that vengeance is not the opposite of wickedness
as the physicians thought; but it is wrong for wrong.
Peace is
the opposite of war.
As to guarding his person and garrisoning
his house,
Prudence declares that friends are the best defense.
War would be foolish because his enemies have more relatives
than
he and surely would revenge his acts of vengeance.
Only a judge
with the proper jurisdiction should punish.
The consequences of
war would be injuries, deaths, and the waste of wealth.
Spiritually
the ultimate cause of everything is God.
Therefore if God has
allowed this to happen to his family,
it must be chastisement
for previous sins.
Allegorically the three enemies of mankind
are the world, the flesh, and the devil,
and the five wounds symbolize
the five senses
through which the sins have entered the heart.
He should leave vengeance to the sovereign Judge,
for "'Vengeance
is mine,' saith the Lord."
Besides Melibeus does not have
the power to avenge himself.
Chaucer and Prudence discourage fighting
under any circumstances.
It is madness in a man to strive with one
who is stronger than himself;
and to strive with a man of even strength is dangerous;
but to strive with a weaker man is foolish.
And for this reason a man should avoid all strife,
in so far as he may.2
Melibeus figures that he can count upon his wealth;
but Prudence
warns that no amount of wealth is sufficient to maintain war,
and a great man is as easily killed in a war as a poor one.
Prudence
counsels Melibeus to make peace with God
and become reconciled
to His grace,
and God will change the hearts of his enemies
so
that they also will seek peace.
Prudence then tells the adversaries
privately that they ought to repent
for the injury and wrong they
had done to Melibeus, herself, and her daughter.
They are surprised
by her gracious words
and acknowledge the wrong they have done.
She convinces them to trust themselves to Melibeus and her for
a reconciliation.
She then gathers their true friends, and they
being correctly informed give counsel for peace.
When the adversaries
submit, Melibeus still wants to punish them
by confiscating all
their property and banishing them;
but Prudence warns him against
gaining a reputation
for covetousness and then advises mercy.
Finally Melibeus forgives them for all the offenses, injuries,
and wrongs done
against his family so that God will forgive him
the sins he has done in the world.
Thus through Prudence Chaucer
showed us how
to alleviate the mood for war and bring reconciliation.
Another English poet, William Langland (c. 1332-c. 1400),
in Piers the Plowman described the suffering from the long
war and
criticized the Pope for sending men to kill those he should
be saving.
The poet blamed Edward III for the ruinous campaign
in France
that followed his failing to keep the peace treaty of
Brétigny.
In the first version of his poem Langland had
hope that
the Black Prince would become a good king;
but after
Richard II became king, his vision changed to hoping for
the reign
of Christ in which all weapons would be transformed into farm
tools;
the penalty for trying to make a weapon would be death.
The poet John Gower (c. 1330-1408) was a friend of Chaucer.
Although Gower supported Edward III's claims in France,
in 1369
he joined a group of prelates in opposing more taxes
because a
truce with France had been broken.
In his early French poem, The
Mirror of Man, Gower reminded knights that
God looks into
your heart, and that even in a just cause one must do no wrong.
Love, pity, and charity keep war far away.
In his English poem Confessio Amantis (The Lover's Shrift) and in his
Latin
poem Vox Clamantis (Voice of Crying) Gower condemned bloodshed.
The latter was stimulated by the Jack Straw Rebellion of 1381.
Gower criticized the warrior clerics who
practice war when they
should restore peace,
and he castigated the lords who gain loot
from war
and laugh at those who suffer or complain.
Disillusioned
by the Norwich Crusade of 1383, Gower compared the peaceful
preaching of Peter to the current Pope's fighting and killing with armies
for riches.
Gower believed that knights should serve the common
good,
defend orphans and widows, and protect the church;
but he
lamented that avarice often leads them astray.
Gower came to believe that Edward's claims in France
were not
justified, and thus the war was wrong.
Gower agreed with the criticisms
that accused Richard II of eight violations
of his duty to keep
the peace toward the clergy and his people.
Thus Gower supported
Henry IV in his taking of the throne in 1399,
and in a poem addressed
to him he urged
the new king to make peace with France.
Yet he
warned Henry IV that some appeal to peace for their own ends.
The test of peace is if one's motive is love.
In the book on wrath in his English poem Gower
asks the Confessor
if it is lawful to kill a man.
At first the Confessor indicates
that exceptions can be made by a judge
for robbery, murder, and
treason according to the laws,
and one may defend oneself in war.
However, when Gower asks about deadly war
for a worldly cause,
the Confessor says,
If charity be held in awe,
Then deadly wars offend its law:
Such wars make war on Nature too;
Peace is the end her laws pursue —
Peace, the chief gem in Adam’s wealth;
Peace which is all his life and health.
But in the gangs of war there go
Poverty, pestilence, and woe,
And famine, and all other pain
Whereof we mortal men complain,
Whom war shall trample down until
Our only succor is God’s will.
For it is war that brings us naught,
On Earth, all good that God has wrought:
The church is burnt, the priest is slain;
Virgin and wife, vile rapes constrain;
Law pines away, God is not served:
Now tell me, what has he deserved,
The man who brings such warfare in?
First, if he stirred up war to win
Advantage, count his heavy cost,
With all the people who are lost:
By any worldly reckoning,
The man has not won anything.
Then, if he acts in hope of grace
From heaven, it is not my place
To speak of such rewards; but still,
Both love and peace were Our Lord’s will;
And he who works their opposite
Must reap an ill reward from it.
Since in their nature, as we find,
Battles and wars of every kind
Are so displeasing to Our Lord,
And since their temporal reward
Is woe, it mystifies the mind
To guess at what can ail mankind
That they agree no armistice:
Sin, I think, is what makes us miss;
And sin is paid with death. I know
Not how such matters truly go;
But as for us, who are of one
Belief, in my opinion
Peace were a better thing to choose
Than ways by which we doubly lose.3
The Confessor finds the real cause of war in coveting.
He tells
a story of a pirate who justifies himself to the great Alexander
by arguing
he only does on a small scale what Alexander does with
his empire.
Yet even Alexander met a tragic end.
The Confessor
concludes that only in a just cause is slaughter justified.
Gower
then asks if it is lawful for men to go across the sea to slay
Saracens,
but the Confessor says this is contrary to the examples
of the Christ
and those he sent out to preach to the world.
If
they had killed, the faith would be uncertain.
Thus all killing
is evil, because murder makes men worse than beasts.
John Wyclif was born about 1328 and was educated at Oxford,
gaining his master of arts at Balliol about 1358.
He became vicar
of Fillingham in 1363 and of Ludgershall in 1368,
but he got permission
to be absent while
he studied at Oxford for several more years.
Wyclif earned his doctor of divinity in 1372.
The previous year
papal nuncio Arnold Garnier had arrived in England
to recover all property bequeathed for the deliverance of the holy land.
However, in February 1372 Garnier was forced by King Edward III
to swear
before Chancellor Thorpe and others that he would not
act contrary to the interests
of the realm nor take any treasure
out of England for the pope or cardinals.
Wyclif may have been
present; but even if he was not, he was impressed by this.
In
1374 Edward III sent Wyclif on a commission to Bruges to negotiate
peace
with France and resolve differences over appointments in
England with papal agents.
Wyclif wrote treatises on civil and divine dominion,
suggesting
that a church in sin should give up its possessions.
Three principles
he emphasized were that the clergy and
especially the pope should
be humble and ready to serve,
that they must remove themselves
from secular affairs according to the apostolic example,
and that
thus the Church should be relieved of its excessive endowments.
Under the influence of John of Gaunt, Wyclif preached in favor
of moderate disendowment.
Wyclif agreed with the Franciscan Spirituals
that possessions not only by monks and friars
but also by the
Church itself were evil, because poverty was the way of the true
Church.
Thus he repudiated all costly churches, especially those
of friars.
In his sermons Wyclif urged that the goods of the friars
be seized and given to the poor.
In 1377 Pope Gregory XI issued
five bulls against Wyclif and called for his arrest.
Before these
documents arrived, Wyclif urged the first Parliament
under Richard
II to detain money from the Pope.
His treatise on the truth of
sacred scripture was published the next year,
and in this he argued
that all lying is sinful;
a good intention does not justify falsehood,
even for the pope.
After Gaunt's men killed a squire taking refuge
in Westminster Abbey,
Wyclif argued that royal servants had the
right
to bring criminals to justice even from sanctuaries.
Wyclif studied the original teachings of Jesus and objected
to church rituals;
he could not agree with the doctrine of the
Eucharist transubstantiation that
the spiritual presence of the
Christ also made the physical bread his body.
He argued that Jesus
conferred spiritual powers on Peter, not metal keys,
and that
all saints that come to heaven have these spiritual keys.
He bitterly
criticized and satirized the pope's practice of getting money
by tribute
and taxation, comparing such priests to those who clip
coins and cut purses.
Wyclif lamented that Bible study
was excluded from the religious life
and
that officials were reluctant
to spread this knowledge among the people.
He called the scriptures
"God's Law," and he believed that every person
should
know and obey the law of God directly.
In 1380 he began translating
the Bible so that an order of Poor Preachers
could take
its message to the people.
Wyclif believed it was a fundamental
sin to withhold the scriptures from the laity,
and he held that
the first duty of a priest is
to make them known in the mother-tongue
of the people.
The next year Wyclif sympathized with the Peasants' Revolt
that
arose after a flat tax of half a mark was laid on the head
of all clergy;
poor vicars had to pay as much as rich prelates;
deacons, acolytes, and other inferiors had to pay one shilling.
People were upset by government corruption, rampaging soldiers
and because
Parliament had forced all adults to work for their
present lord at the same pay
as was current before the Black Death
even though Edward III
had depreciated the silver coinage in 1351.
During the uprising the propertied and clergy such as Spenser
of Norwich
helped the state by hanging hundreds of peasants.
Shortly
after the revolt Wyclif in his de Blasphemia urged patience
and clemency
to avoid hatred and division in the realm, and he
blamed the people's excesses
for the murder of Canterbury archbishop
Simon of Sudbury;
yet he did assert that Sudbury died in sin because
he also held the office of chancellor.
His successor, William
Courtenay, condemned the works of Wyclif in 1382,
and Oxford banned
his writings.
A synod at Blackfriars arrested many of his followers
but left Wyclif himself alone,
perhaps because he suffered a stroke
that year.
Wyclif was also disgusted by the crusade Norwich bishop Henry
de Spenser
was preparing for Urban VI against the Avignon Pope
Clement VII in 1383,
and he wrote tracts condemning the clerics, curates,
prelates, priests, and monks
who are enemies of peace and maintainers
of war in order to
perpetuate their possessions and rob poor tenants.
If they loved peace, they would give up their lordships in charity;
but they maintain armed men to kill Christians in the thousands.
Using biblical scholarship Wyclif challenged the Church's authority
to sanctify war.
In his Trialogus Wyclif elucidated the
principles that
if the Bible and the Church do not agree,
one should follow the Bible,
and when conscience and human
authority conflict, one should obey conscience.
Wyclif was summoned
to Rome by Pope Urban VI,
but he refused to go and sent him a
letter explaining his views.
Wyclif noted that Jesus had refused
to let the people make him king,
and he urged the Pope also to
renounce all worldly lordship.
Wyclif died on the last day of
1384.
Before Wyclif's death probably in 1382 his followers called
the Lollards
were the first to publish a complete English translation
of the entire Bible.
The treatise On the Seven Deadly
Sins has been attributed to Wyclif;
but it was written in
a western dialect he did not use, and it was published
by his
follower Nicholas Hereford about 1384.
It noted that anger is
the opposite of fellowship and charity and can lead to war,
and
Christ taught that men should not fight.
Those called Lollards
referred to themselves as "true men" or "Christian
men"
and went even further than Wyclif in denouncing war
and promoting English translations of the scriptures.
Nicholas
Hereford said that Jesus Christ taught them
the law of patience
and not to fight bodily.
In a sermon in 1382 Hereford urged King Richard II to lessen
the tax burden on the laity by reforming the clergy.
William Swynderby
was charged by the bishops of
Hereford and Lincoln in 1390 and
went into hiding.
Swynderby sent a letter to the bishop of Hereford,
pointing out that Jesus taught loving our enemies,
but the pope's
law permits hating and killing them for money.
Two Cambridge professors
replied that a just war against infidels was holy;
but Walter
Brut supported Swynderby's view and criticized the Roman pontiff
for promoting wars not only against infidels
but against Christians
too for earthly goods.
In 1395 the Lollards presented Twelve Conclusions
to Parliament, and
the tenth point was that war and killing are
contrary to the teaching of Christ.
The bishops responded with
sixteen charges against the heretics,
condemning the belief that
it is not lawful to kill any person.
In 1401 Parliament passed England's first act for burning heretics,
and the statute specifically cited the Lollards for having wrong
thoughts
about the sacraments and for usurping the office of preaching.
The law forbade people to preach, teach in schools, and publish
books.
Most of the Lollards abjured, but a few were burned.
That
year William Sawtré was burned for denying the material
presence
of Christ's body in the bread, for condemning adoration
of the cross,
and for teaching that preaching is the priest's
most important duty.
When Lollards were charged with heresy in
courts in the 15th century,
they were often also accused of opposing
killing or fighting.
1. Opus Majus by Roger Bacon, tr. Robert Belle Burke,
Volume 2, p. 647.
2. Canterbury Tales "Tale of Melibeus" 44 by
Chaucer, tr. J. U. Nicolson.
3. Confessio Amantis 2261-2304 by John Gower, tr. Terence
Tiller.
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