[19] See Janssen, _Geschichte des deutschen Volkes_, vol. I., pp. 471-501, where the cry of ‘heathenry!’ is raised against the civil law. Janssen’s attempt to praise the canon law as radically Germanic while blaming the ‘absolutistic’ tendencies of the civil law seems strange. Was not the canon law, with its pope, _qui omnia iura habet in scrinio pectoris sui_, absolutistic enough? [Sidenote: _Wyclif on English and Roman law. Wyclif and the law of the emperor. Wyclif and paynim’s law._] [20] Wyclif, _Tractatus de officio regis_, Wyclif Society, 1887, pp. 56, 193, 237, 250: ‘Leges regni Anglie excellunt leges imperiales cum sint pauce respectu earum, quia supra pauca principia relinquunt residuum epikerie [= ἐπιείκεια] sapientum.… Non credo quod plus viget in Romana civilitate subtilitas racionis sive iusticia quam in civilitate Anglicana.… Non pocius est homo clericus sive philosophus in quantum est doctor civilitatis Romane quam in quantum est iusticiarius iuris Anglicani.… Unde videtur quod si rex Anglie non permitteret canonistas vel civilistas ad hoc sustentari de suis elemosinis vel patrimonio crucifixi ut studeant tales leges … non dubium quin clerus foret utilior sibi et ad ecclesiasticam promocionem humilior ex noticia civilitatis proprie quam ex noticia civilitatis duplicis aliene.’ By ‘the patrimony of the crucified’ Wyclif means ecclesiastical revenues, which some of the bishops have been using in the endowment of legal studies at the universities: e.g. Bishop Bateman at Cambridge. Wyclif, _Select English Works_, ed. Arnold, vol. III., p. 326: ‘It were more profit boþe to body and soule þat oure curatis lerneden and tauȝten many of þe kyngis statutis, þan lawe of þe emperour. For oure peple is bounden to þe kyngis statutis and not to þe emperours lawe, but in as moche as it is enclosid in Goddis hestis. Þanne moche tresour and moch tyme of many hundrid clerkis in unyversite and oþere placis is foule wastid aboute bookis of þe emperours lawe and studie about hem.… It semeþ þat curatis schulden raþere lerne and teche þe kyngis statutis, and namely þe Grete Chartre, þan þe emperours lawe or myche part of the popis. For men in oure rewme ben bounden to obeche to þe kyng and his riȝtful lawes and not so to þe emperours; and þei myȝtten wonder wel be savyd, þouȝ many lawes of þe pope had nevere be spoken, in þis world ne þe toþere.’