and Bishop Grosseteste could urge Oxford students to devote their best morning hours to Scripture lectures.1 But an unsuccessful revolution ends in tightening the chains which it ought to have broken. During the fifteenth century the Bible was not free. And Scripture lectures, though still retaining a nominal place in the academical course of theological study, were thrown into the background by the much greater relative importance of the lectures on the Sentences.' What Biblical lectures were given were probably of a very formal character." : 1 See the remarkable letter of Bishop Grosseteste to the 'Regents ' in Theology' at Oxford—date 1240 or 1246-Roberti Grosseteste Epistolæ, pp. 346-7, of which the following is Mr. Luard's summary :'Skilful builders are always careful 'that foundation stones should be 'really capable of supporting the building. The best time is the 'morning. Their lectures, therefore, ' especially in the morning, should 'be from the Old and New Testa'ments, in accordance with their an'cient custom and the example of 'Paris. Other lectures are more 'suitable at other times.'-P. cxxix. book of the Bible (Monumenta Aca- In the universities they have years, and armed with false prin 2 It would not be likely that statutes, framed in some points specially to guard against Lollard views, and probably early in the fifteenth century, should ignore the Scrip-in beathen learning eight or nine tures altogether. Thus, before inception in theology, by Masters in Theology (see Mr. Anstey's Introduction, p. xciv.), three years' attendance on biblical lectures was required, and the inceptor must have lectured on some canonical ciples with which he is clean shut 'out of the understanding of the Scripture. . . . . And when he 'taketh his first degree, he is sworn that he shall hold uone opinion 'condemned by the Church. A.D. 1496. CHAP. I. Commence ment of a The announcement by Colet of this course of lectures A.D. 1496. on St. Paul's Epistles was in truth, so far as can be traced, the first overt act in a movement, commenced at Oxford in the direction of practical Christian reforma movement, some of the results of which, had they been gifted with prescience, might well have filled the minds of the Oxford doctors with dismay. new movement at Oxford. They could not indeed foresee that those very books of the Sentences,' over which they had pored so intently for so many years, in order to obtain the degree of Master in Theology, and at which students were stil patiently toiling with the same object in view- they could not foresee that, within forty years, these very books would be utterly banished from Oxford,' ignominiously nailed up upon posts' as waste paper, their loose leaves strewn about the quadrangles until some sportsman should gather them up and thread them on a line to keep the deer within the neighbouring woods. The could not, indeed, foresee the end of the movement then only beginning, but still, the announcement of Colet's lectures was likely to cause them some uneasiness. They 'And then when they be admitted What the biblical lectures were it may well have asked, whether, if the exposition of the CHAP. I: Scriptures were to be really revived at Oxford, so dan- A.D. 1496, gerous a duty should not be restricted to those duly authorised to discharge it? Was every stripling who might travel as far as Italy and return infected with the new learning' to be allowed to set up himself as a theological teacher, without graduating in divinity, and without waiting for decency's sake for the bishop's ordination? On the other hand, any Oxford graduate choosing to adopt so irregular a course, must have been perfectly aware that it would be one likely to stir up opposition, and even ill-will,' amongst the older Divines; and it may be presumed that he hardly would have ventured upon such a step without knowing that there were at the university others ready to support him. II. THE RISE OF THE NEW LEARNING (1453-92.) and new In all ages, more or less, there is a new school of The old thought rising up under the eyes of an older school school of of thought. And probably in all ages the men of the thought. old school regard with some little anxiety the ways of the men of the new school. Never is it more likely to be so than at an epoch of sharp transition, like that on which the lot of these Oxford doctors had been cast. We sometimes speak as though our age were par ex- An age of cellence, the age of progress. Theirs was much more so and tranif we duly consider it. The youth and manhood of sition. some of them had been spent in days which may well have seemed to be the latter days of Christendom. ... ''Provinciam sumsisti . . . (ne quid mentiar) et negotii et invidiæ ' plenam.'-Eras. Coleto: Eras. Op. progress CHAP. I. They had seen Constantinople taken by the Turks. A.D. 1496. The final conquest of Christendom by the infidel was a possibility which had haunted all their visions of the future. Were not Christian nations driven up into the north-western extremity of the known world, a wide pathless ocean lying beyond? Had not the warlike creed of Mahomet steadily encroached upon Christendom, century by century, stripping her first of her African churches, from thence fighting its way northward into Spain? Had it not maintained its foothold in Spain's fairest provinces for seven hundred years? And from the East was it not steadily creeping over Europe, nearer and nearer to Venice and Rome, in spite of all that crusades could do to stop its progress? If, though little more than half the age of Christianity, it had already, as they reckoned it had, drawn into its communion five times1 as many votaries as there were Christians left, was it a groundless fear that now in these latter days it might devour the remaining sixth? What could hinder it? Advance of Infidel arms in Europe. Internal weakness of the church. A Spartan resistance on the part of united Christendom perhaps might. But Christendom was not united, nor capable of Spartan discipline. Her internal condition seemed to show signs almost of approaching dissolution. The shadow of the great Papal schism still brooded over the destinies of the Church. That schism had been ended only by a revolution which, under the guidance of Gerson, had left the Pope the constitutional instead of the absolute monarch of the Church. The A.D. 1496. great heresies of the preceding century had, moreover, CHAP. I. not yet been extinguished. The very names of Wiclif and Huss were still names of terror. Lollardy had been crushed, but it was not dead. Everywhere the embers of schism and revolution were still smouldering underneath, ready to break out again, in new fury, who could tell how soon? It was in the ears of this apparently doomed generation that the double tidings came of the discovery of the Terra Nova in the West, and of the expulsion of the infidel out of Spain. The ice of centuries suddenly was broken. The universal despondency at once gave way before a spirit of enterprise and hope; and it has been well observed, men began to congratulate each other that their lot had been cast upon an age in which such wonders were achieved. Even the men of the old school could appreciate these facts in a fashion. The defeat of the Moors was to them a victory to the Church. The discovery of the New World extended her dominion. They gloried over both. But these outward facts were but the index to an internal upheaving of the mind of Christendom, to which they were blind. The men who were guiding the great external revolution-reformers in their way -were blindly stamping out the first symptoms of this silent upheaving. Gerson, while carrying reform over the heads of Popes, and deposing them to end the schism or to preserve the unity of the Church, was at the same moment using all his influence to crush Huss and Jerome of Prague. Queen Isabella and Ximenes, Defeat of the Moors in Spain, and dis covery of America |