Education in England in the Middle Ages: Thesis Approved for the Degree of Doctor of Science in the University of LondonParry, Albert William
History
Education in England in the Middle Ages: Thesis Approved for the Degree of Doctor of Science in the University of London
Parry, Albert William
Education -- England -- History; Education, Medieval
It was not only noblemen of high standing who numbered chaplains on their
establishment. Knights and gentlemen and even wealthy tradesmen and yeomen
also had their domestic chaplains. Sir Thomas More writes: "there was such
a rabel (of priests) that every mean man must have a priest to wait upon
his wife, which no man almost lacketh now."[746]
We have thus demonstrated that there existed a considerable demand for men
who had received a certain amount of education, and that as a result the
demand for schools was stimulated. The account we have given in the
preceding part of this work shows that a supply of schools was forthcoming
to meet this demand. We have confined ourselves here to treating of the
demand for men of education in connection with ecclesiastical positions,
but it would also have been possible to show that men of education were
also needed in connection with commerce and law.
(2) Turning next to the second of the three headings we have indicated, we
note that Lollardism is the general term applied to the political and
theological doctrines associated with the name of John Wycliffe. His main
ideas are embodied in his _De Civili Domino_ and _De Domino Divino_. The
chief subject discussed in these works is the nature of the relationship
between a ruler and his subjects and between divine and civil lordship.
His conception of this relationship is based on a feudal view of society,
and he continually borrows illustrations of the relationship of divine to
civil lordship from the connection between feudal lord and vassal. It was
his application of this doctrine to questions touching temporal property
that brought him under the imputation of heresy because he taught that
"ecclesiastical persons or corporations had no indefeasible right to
temporalities which might be taken away in case of misuse."[747] This
theory cut across the doctrine of the supremacy of the spiritual power.
The State, according to Wycliffe, possessed the power of determining the
function of the Church, and when the Church either extended the sphere of
its legitimate operations or misused the revenues entrusted to it for
spiritual purposes, then it was the duty of the State to take such action
as might be necessary for the reformation of the Church.
Poole points out[748] that the main principle contained in the writings of
Wycliffe is the recognition of the significance of the individual whom
Wycliffe regarded as directly responsible to God, and to no one else.
Wycliffe divorced the Church from any necessary connection with the State
and conceived of it simply as a spiritual idea and as consisting of
individuals in a certain relation to God. It is to the uniqueness of
Wycliffe's idea of individualism that Poole considers the claim of
Wycliffe to rank as the "precursor of the Protestant reformation" to be
due.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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