the spirit of revolt against the Church was marked. Of the heresy of the fourteenth century the high-water mark is seen in English Lollardism, which, without touching on the philosophical problem, proceeded on the basis of the teaching of Wiclif to a kind of religious rationalism which not only repudiated the rule of the pope but rejected the institutions of religious celibacy, exorcisms, priestly benedictions, confession and absolution, pilgrimages, masses for the dead, and prayers and offerings to images; and even carried the ethical spirit to the point of denouncing war and capital punishment. In that age, such an ethic could not long thrive. Lollardism, encouraged by the self-seeking nobility while it menaced only the wealth of the Church, which they hoped to gain, was trodden down by them in conjunction with the king and the Church when it turned against the abuses of feudal government. But its destruction was most effectually wrought through the national demoralization set up by the new imperialism of Henry V, who, after passing a new statute for the burning of heretics, won the enthusiastic loyalty of his people by his successful invasion of France. In the corruption of that policy of plunder, and in the ensuing pandemonium of the Wars of the Roses, Lollardism disappeared like every other moral ideal. The time for a union of critical and rapacious forces against the hierarchy was not yet; and when it came in the sixteenth century the critical spirit was on the whole less rational than it had been at the beginning of the fifteenth. CHAPTER III THE SOCIAL LIFE AND STRUCTURE § 1. The Clergy, Regular and Secular In a world so completely under priestly rule, the character of the priest was in general the image of his influence. Whatever good organized Christianity did was in virtue of the personal work of good men in holy orders; and it is comforting to believe that in all countries and in all ages there were some such, after the fashion of the "parson" in Chaucer. To such men, the priestly status might give a special power for righteousness. But seeing that in the average man righteousness is in the ratio of reflection on knowledge, there is no escape from the conclusion that in the Middle Ages most priests were poor moral forces. For their general ignorance is beyond doubt. The number who in a given district at a given time were unable to read Latin may be a matter for dispute; but it is clear that what they did read was as a rule merely distilled ignorance. And if we turn to the records of ecclesiastical legislation, we find constant evidence, for many centuries, of the laxity of priestly life in all grades.