and secondly by being poor. They might perhaps have themselves
ultimately played the part of a new Order in England, had not Wyclif
himself by rejecting the cardinal dogma of the Church severed these
followers of his from its organism and brought about their suppression.
The question as to Chaucer's own attitude towards the Wycliffite
movement will be more conveniently touched upon below; but the tone is
unmistakable of the references or allusions to Lollardry which he
occasionally introduces into the mouth of his "Host," whose voice is
that vox populi which the upper and middle classes so often arrogate to
themselves. Whatever those classes might desire, it was not to have
"cockle sown" by unauthorised intruders "in the corn" of their
ordinary
instruction. Thus there is a tone of genuine attachment to the "vested
interest" principle, and of aversion from all such interlopers as lay
preachers and the like, in the "Host's" exclamation, uttered after the
"Reeve," has been (in his own style) "sermoning" on the topic of old
age:-- What availeth all this wit? What? should we speak all day of Holy
Writ? The devil surely made a reeve to preach; for which he is as well
suited as a cobbler would be for turning mariner or physician! Thus,
then, in the England of Chaucer's days we find the Church still in
possession of vast temporal wealth and of great power and
privileges,--as well as of means for enforcing unity of profession which
the legislation of the Lancastrian dynasty, stimulated by the prevailing
fears of heresy, was still further to increase. On the other hand, we
find the influence of the clergy over the minds of the people diminished
though not extinguished. This was, in the case of the higher secular
clergy, partly attributable to their self-indulgence or neglect of their
functions, partly to their having been largely superseded by the
Regulars in the control of the religious life of the people. The Orders
we find no longer at the height of their influence, but still
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