straightforward word of God. The description of the 'persone of a town' in the prologue to the Canterbury Talcs corresponds very closely to the ideal set forth in Wiclif's instructions to these preachers.
What the heresies of Wiclif were is best learned from the list of charges brought forward at the several trials. They may all be regarded as growing out of the one fundamental notion of a divine law—lex Christi—superior to all earthly laws and not intrusted to any human person or institution. It is obvious that in the last resort this divine law is only to be found in the individual conscience using all the means, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional, that it can command. This was Wiclif's real and sufficient offense. It appears in every detail of the charges. In speculative theology the test came, as it continued to do throughout the Reformation period, on the question of the sacramental observances, and especially of the Eucharist. Realist as he claimed to be, Wiclif could not accept the doctrine that in the consecration of the elements the accidents were separated from the substance they represented, and he therefore had to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation. True, he tried every device of the subtlest logic of the schools to prove that he believed in an actual presence of the body of Christ in the Host, but his definitions were vague enough to admit the widest differences of interpretation, and this would not do. His view of the Church was that it consisted of the body of the followers of Christ, and that therefore it could not be controlled by any person or group of persons, such as the Pope and the cardinals. Authority in the Church depended upon the purity with which those who claimed authority lived up to the law of Christ. If they violated that law, they forfeited all claim to obedience. It was the business of temporal authorities to see to it that this law be obeyed, and to recall the rulers of the Church to obedience if they failed. The control of the temporalities of the Church lay in the hand of the civil rulers, who ought to withdraw them if they were abused.
However subversive of existing institutions these principles of Wiclif might be, they would, perhaps, have been overlooked if he had not aroused the bitterest personal enmities by his unsparing application of them to the evils of society. Especially his denunciations of the mendicant Orders brought into the field against him a power that few could in the long run withstand. The episcopal Order felt itself threatened by the growing contempt for organized authority, and was only too ready to connect the social upheavals of the time (1381) with this religious agitation. The sympathy of the ruling classes was diverted from Wiclif in his last years, but it is clear that his teaching was held in reverence by many of the lower and middle classes. 'Lollardry.' as the following of Wiclif came to be called, was doubtless very widely spread and maintained itself for about a generation after Wiclif's death as a powerful religious and political factor in the English people. The most active work in collecting and editing Wiclif's writings has been done under the auspices of the Wiclif Society, which is still engaged in clearing up the evidence as to the reformer's life and work. Consult : Leehler, Johann von Wiclif und die Vorgcschichte der Reformation (Leipzig, 1873; Eng. trans., London, 1884); Burrows, Wiclife Place in History (2d ed., London, 1884); Poole, Wycliffe and Movements for Reform (ib., 188!)) ; Trevelyan, The Age of Wycliffe (ib., 1808) ; Sargeant, John Wyclif (New York, 1893). See Lollard.
WICOPY. See Leatherwood.
WIDDIN. or WIDIN, vĭd-ē͏́n'. An ancient town and the capital of a department in the Principality of Bulgaria, situated on the right bank of the Danul)e, about 100 miles west-north- west of Sofia (Map: Balkan Peninsula, D 3). It is surrounded by marshes and its inaccessibility formerly gave it great strategical importance. There are still preserved the ancient walls and the citadel. A new quarter is growing up along the river. Widdin manufactures gold and silverware, tobacco, and spirits. Population, about 15,000. Widdin was a very strong Turkish fortress and constituted an important strategic point in the last Russo-Turkish war.
WIDE, WIDE WORLD, The. A popular novel bv Susan Warner, under the name of Elizabeth Wetherell (18.50).
WIDGEON, or WIGEON (from OF. vigeon, widgeon, from Lat, vipo, sort of small crane). A river-duck of the genus Mareca, allied to the The file parameter must be given (use "missing" if the image needs to be added later) gadwall and teal, and common throughout the Arctic regions. The true widgeon (Mareca penelope) is seen in temperate latitudes only in winter, when it flies in large flocks, and is a favorite with gunners. Its whole length is about 19 inches. The fore-head and top of the head in the male are white; the cheeks and hind part of the neck reddish chestnut; the bill of a widgeon, upper parts gravish a, profile : b. upper side; e, white, crossed with black; the tail nearly black: the wing-coverts white, tipped with black : the primaries dark brown : speculum green, edged with black : the throat pale rufous : the breast and belly white. The female is very different, the head and neck rufous brown, speckled with dark brown; the back varied with two shades of brown, darker in the centre, and paler in the edges of the feathers. Widgeons feed during the daytime, and chiefly on water-plants. The note is a shrill whistle, whence its French name siffleur, and the English names, 'whew duck' and 'wliewer.' The American widgeon or baldpate (Mareca Americana) is much like the European, but the upper parts are finely waved transversely with black and reddish brown: the under parts are mostly white: the top of the head is almost white: the wing-coverts are white, the greater tipped with black. It is common in winter in the interior of the United States, and its flesh is highly esteemed. It breeds regularly from Minnesota northward, and occasionally much farther south. See Duck.
