Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/180

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The commissionership was an honourable appointment. The Pope had asked King Edward to send to Bruges "claros scientia ac laudandae virtutis, et cuncta prudentia praeditos, cultores justitiae, sedulosque pads et concordiae zelatores." It was no small thing to have been designated in response to such an invitation; but, so far as temporal advantage was concerned, Wyclif was not much the richer by his journey to Flanders. He had been presented by the Crown to the living of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire—of the annual value of £26—some months before the Commission was nominated. Of course he would have to make provision for the superintendence of the parish during his absence, and, as his expenses at Bruges must have been considerable, this would swallow up nearly as much as he could have saved out of his allowance. There was indeed no grudging of rewards amongst the Commissioners on their return. The Bishop of Bangor was promoted to the see of Hereford, vacated in 1375 by Courtenay's translation to London. Berton was placed on another Commission, and afterwards became Chancellor of Oxford. Wyclif was nominated on November 6th to the prebend of Aust, in the cathedral church of Westbury, in the diocese of Worcester. It would have been in keeping with the ordinary clerical morality of the day if he had enjoyed the fruits of this appointment, and of as many more sinecures as his patron Lancaster might have obtained for him. But his past utterances had made it impossible for him to become a pluralist, and so the prebend was refused. Less than a fortnight after