Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/577

1920 WYCLIFFE'S GANONRY AT LINCOLN 569 concern about it. His concern was perhaps to some extent set at rest by the concession made him in December 1373. But Rome was again careful only to promise, and was doubtless watching how he would develop. In April 1375 Thomas Stowe was confirmed in the prebend of St. Cross, Lincoln (11 marks i), and was assured that the pope did not regard it as reserved for his use. In September 1375 nothing was done for him at Bruges, although for a time he had served on the commission, and at some time about this date, probably a little earlier, but perhaps a few months later, Philip's general reservation was used against him. The papal court was in this within its rights, as a general took precedence of a special reservation ; and the claims of Philip's father were doubtless urgent ; but these claims could have been met from other sources, had it had the mind. WyclifEe's chances of success were of course beyond recovery when his conclusions were condemned in May 1377. One other point remains to be considered. In July 1374 WyclifEe had been employed at Bruges in certain negotiations between the pope and the king of England. The results of these negotiations and of others carried on before and after, in which apparently Wy cliff e took no part, were embodied in certain bulls, which were issued in September 1375, though the papal nuncio had power to prorogue the articles therein contained. In these bulls the pope surrendered all reservations of his predecessors not already used and in certain cases remitted first-fruits. Had then Wycliffe's reservation come to him from Urban V, it could easily have lapsed in September 1375, for between Ingleby's death and the sealing of the bulls there was at the best but little time in which to use it. Probably, before the vacancy occurred, the terms of settlement had been practically agreed upon, and the pope would hardly be expected to snap a prebend up at the eleventh hour, even for a man on whom his heart was set. But though the first bull, in which the pope gave the Lincoln reservation on conditions, has so far not been found, the language of the second bulP shows that Gregory XI was responsible for both, and that about two years came between the two ; Wycliffe, it says, was first granted his Lincoln reservation just before he gained his licence in Divinity (Hilary, 1372, as it seems, which was also the date at which the Canterbury Hall affair *was being settled). Gregory's reservations were not affected directly by the settlement. H. S. Cronin. ' Calendar of Papal Letters, iv. 208 ^ Ibid. iv. 193.