Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/575

1920 WYCLIFFE'S CANONRY AT LINCOLN 567 books, I believe, represent the ' lectures ' given by Wycliffe in the Michaelmas term 1375 and the Hilary term 1376. In the De Mandatis Wycliffe is very anxious and perturbed and even violent. Much of his anxiety was largely due no doubt to the temporary loss of his prebend of Aust (November 1375, but recovered thirteen months afterwards), which is pretty clearly in his mind ; but it had other causes. Not far from the beginning of the De Mandatis Wycliffe writes, ' Ubi Christi vicarius scribit " fiat ", et ipse qui dixit et facta sunt non approbat, adquiritur ius aliquod impetranti ' ; ^ a little later he says that papal appointment of itself confers no right to any number of benefices ; while further on he declares that a bishop ought to ignore the pope's orders to promote one who is ineptus'^or minus ydoneus, and afterwards he complains of proctors and others who take fees or gifts to see a matter through and hinjder rather than advance the interests of their client. All this seems a reference to his disappointment at Lincoln, and leads me to think that this occurred before the De Mandatis was begun, i.e. before October 1375. As about this date the pope was very much in Sir John Thornbury's debt and would doubtless be desirous to give him something on account, we need not be surprised if Caistor was filled promptly by the appointment of his son. The remaining and earliest allusion is of a different kind. It comes in the De Ente, ii. 6, at the very end in a passage not yet published. This was written after Wycliffe became a doctor of divinity, and is therefore later than the first Lincoln reservation, which as we know came just before he obtained his licence ; but though separated by several months from the date of Wycliffe 's doctorate (almost certainly Michaelmas term 1372), it must be earlier than December 1373, when Wycliffe's reservation was renewed on better terms. July 1373 would seem to be about the date. This passage shows that even at the date when it was written Wycliffe was already being threatened by his enemies at Oxford with the loss of his reservation, and its chief interest is in suggesting that Wycliffe's hope of preferment was never very good. We return to the words quoted above from the De civili Dominio : ' Dominus papa dedit michi prebendam . . . et, facta soUicitudine ad colligendum sibi primos fructus . . . contulit uni iuveni transmarino eandem prebendam.' The evidence given above persuades me that Wycliffe never got possession of his pre- bend and never paid and was never asked to pay the first-fruits. It hardly foUows from this passage that he did. For in a controversial passage such as this we can do full justice to dedit michi prebendam, if we take it merely of the giving of the reservation, which in ordinary circumstances was a very valuable ' Cf. De civili Dominio, i. 385.