CHAPTER XII. LATE MEDIAEVAL PROSE.

As far as literature is concerned the poetry of the period which we have been considering is infinitely more important than the prose. For most prosaic purposes, Englishmen still wrote in Latin: Richard Rolle, that eccentric hermit, and Wyclif, the premature Reformer, were even more prolific in Latin than in English. Prose was used in writing of science, as in Chaucer's treatise concerning the Astrolabe; for translation out of Latin, as in Chaucer's translation of Bo?thius, and Trevisa's rendering of Higden's chronicles; in sermons, and by Wyclif and his followers for their tracts against the rich; against the Friars; against the endowments of the Church (constantly threatened in Parliament); and against the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist; and for their translations from the Latin Bible.

Wyclif.

John Wyclif (born about 1329) was a man of great influence in his day; and the Reformation, when many of his ideas revived, probably found the embers of the fire which he had tended still glowing. He is said to have been born at Hipswell, near Richmond in Yorkshire, and certainly was of the Diocese of York. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford, in 1361. In 1372 Wyclif took the degree of Doctor in Theology: he had already written not a few Latin treatises on philosophical subjects. As a philosopher he was a believer in predestination (on which much might be said), but averse to the theory of the disintegration of matter; indeed his views on this subject controlled his theory of the Eucharist. His desire to reform the Church by reducing her[Pg 116] endowments endeared him to a political party in the State; and when he was summoned before Convocation in 1377, he was supported by John of Gaunt, uncle of Richard II.

The affair ended in a brawl; and in a later examination his ideas were not pronounced heretical. The London mob as well as some persons of high rank were on his side, and when one Pope, Urban, proclaimed a crusade against the other Pope, Clement, Wyclif opposed it in manuscript pamphlets. He had, about 1378, started a kind of order of "poor priests" who spread his doctrines, and, in regard to the unlawfulness of owning private property, went beyond him.

The Bible, not the tradition of the Church, was the centre of Wyclif's inspiration: it would be a mistake to suppose that the Bible was then generally ignored, the literature of the time is full of quotations from Scripture. There was no authorized translation of the Latin Bible, but many separate books of Scripture were circulating in English. There is much controversy as to whether or not Wyclif translated, or caused to be translated, the entire Bible, as a chronicler declares that he did: certainly he made much of it known in English tracts and sermons.

In 1382 he was suspended from teaching at Oxford; he retired to his rectory at Lutterworth, continued to write, and died on Old Year's Day, 1384.

It is impossible, here, to enter into theological details, but Wyclif anticipated many of the great multitude of ideas which flooded Western Europe at the beginning of the Reformation. If we open his sermons at random, we find him preaching on Lazarus and Dives, "how richessis be perilouse, for lightli wole a riche man use hem unto moche lust," that is, luxury. Words of Latin origin are nearly as common in his style as in that of Chaucer or Piers Plowman. In his Englishing of the Bible, Wyclif uses "And" at the beginning of many sentences, just as Mandeville does in his amusing and fabulous "Travels". The sermons have the double merit of being very short, and very plain, with no rhetorical flowers. The tracts can scarcely be called amiable: the word "stinking," for example, is not thought by Wyclif too strong to apply to "proud priests of Rome and Avignon".

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All these brave and earnest men, the Wyclifite pamphleteers and "poor priests," and Piers Plowman, with their socialism and their doubts, their "New Theology," were rehearsing in mediaeval costume the drama of to-day; while Chaucer was arraying the heroes of the Fleece of Gold, of Troy, and of the Ach?ans, in the armour of the men who fought at Crécy and Poitiers. What remains as a gain to literature is the art of Chaucer.

Sweet reasonableness and urbane irony are not to be expected from men full of righteous indignation, and in great danger of being burned alive; for by this penalty did the Church and State suppress the preachers of doctrines which were apt to cause dangerous popular tumults. The Wyclifite Biblical translations look like a canvas later embroidered on by the authors of King James's authorized version, that immortal monument of English prose.

Chaucer's Prose Style.

It was not in the nature of these Reformers to follow the counsel of Chaucer's good Parson in the "Parson's Tale" (the spelling may here be modernized, as an example of the poet's prose).

"Certainly chiding may not come but out of a villain's heart, for after the abundance of the heart speaketh the mouth full often. And ye should understand that I Look ever when any man shall chastise another, that he beware of chiding and reproving, for truly, unless he be wary, he may full lightly kindle the fire of anger and of wrath which he should quench, and peradventure slayeth him whom he might chastise with benignity.... Lo, what saith saint Augustine, 'there is nothing so like the Devil's child as he that often chideth'. Now cometh the sin of them that sow and make discord among folk; which is a sin that Christ hateth utterly, and no wonder it is; for he died to make concord. And more sin do they to Christ, than did they that him crucified; for God loveth better that friendship be among folk than he did his own body, which he gave for unity."

Chaucer's country-priest, not the chiding Wyclifite Sons of Thunder, is the true Christian. There is more of the spirit of the Master in the caressing words of Chaucer's address to "little Louis[Pg 118] my son... pray God save the king that is Lord of this lande, and all that him faith beareth and obeyeth, each in his degree, the more, and the less," than in torrents of bitter chiding, and a hail of unpublishable vituperation.

The English of Chaucer's treatise of "The Astrolabe," despite its difficult astronomical matter, is pellucid, and there is a charm of rhythm in his prose translations of the verses in Bo?thius.

Trevisa.

The English prose of John Trevisa, a Cornish priest, educated at Oxford, and a traveller on the continent (died 1412), was entirely given to translation from the Latin. He is said, by Caxton, to have translated the Bible: he certainly made an English version of the "Polychronicon" of Ranulf Higden, the monk of Chester, which begins with the Creation, and is rich in geographical and social information.

Trevisa occasionally inserts notes of his own. His versions of Higden, and of the mythical popular science and prodigious fables contained in the "De Proprietatibus Rerum" ("Concerning the Properties of Things") of Bartholom?us the Englishman, were very popular, as their amusing nature deserved, and the "Polychronicon" was printed by Caxton. Trevisa himself tells us that in his day English boys in grammar schools were ceasing to learn French, and there was a public for English books supposed to be educational.

Mandeville.

The most famous and by far the most interesting of these adapters of foreign books is the so-called Sir John Mandeville, with his "Voiage and Travaile". The author of this book was not an Englishman, at least he did not write in English, and did write in French, at Liège, about the end of the fourteenth century. It is impossible and unnecessary to discuss here the fables about Mandeville. The author of the book declares that he himself is "Sir John to all Europe," is an Englishman born at St. Albans, that he passed the sea in 1322, that he travelled in Tartary, Persia, Armenia, Lybia, Chald?a, the land of the Amazons, India, and[Pg 119] so forth. In fact he resembles Widsith in the ancient Anglo-Saxon poem—he has been almost everywhere and knows almost everything. He especially writes for pilgrims to Jerusalem; he first wrote his book in Latin, then translated it into French, and finally into English. There are countries that he has not seen; and he says that he could not play a part in the deeds of arms which he beheld. Now he suffers from arthritis, "gowtes artetykes," and he amuses himself by writing his adventures in 1357.

Another version of Sir John's career is given by Jean d'Outremeuse, a writer of histories, who had the felicity of hearing from an old man with a beard in 1472, that he was the genuine Mandeville: but that the author was really Jean d'Outremeuse is not so certain. The author, whoever he was, stole from a manuscript of the time of the First Crusade, and from the book of Odoric, a Franciscan missionary, and the Itinerary of William of Boldensele, (1332-1336) from a History of the Mongols, from a forged letter of Prester John—from every source whence he could pick amusing stories. He fabled with a direct and honourable simplicity which is comparable to that of Defoe, and to the straightforward and moderate statements of Swift's Captain Lemuel Gulliver. With the spelling modernized it is thus that the good knight tells the story of the Pygmies who were known to Homer for their battles with the cranes.

"The folk be of little stature, but three span long, and they be right fair and gentle, after their quantity, both the men and the women. And they marry them when they be half a year of age, and get children. And they live not but six or seven years at the most. And he that liveth eight years, men hold him there right passing old.... And they have often war with the birds of the country that they take and eat. These little folks labour neither in lands nor in vineyards. But they have great men among them of our stature that till the land and labour amongst the vines for them. And of the men of our stature have they a great scorn and wonder as we would have among us of Giants if they were amongst us."

Mandeville speaks as calmly about the ants, known to Herodotus, which guard the hills of gold, and are as large as hounds;[Pg 120] and of the devil's head in the valley perilous, through which the knight and his company travelled in great fear, "and therefore were we the more devout a great deal". Thence he reached an isle where men are from twenty-eight to thirty feet in stature, "and they eat more gladly men's flesh than any other flesh," being indeed the L?strygonians who devoured the men of Odysseus, or the Mermedonians of the Anglo-Saxon poem of "St. Andreas," who meant to devour St. Matthew. Mandeville enjoyed and deserved great popularity, being a follower of Lucian's "True History," and a predecessor of Gulliver.

Pecock. "The Repressor."

A writer of English prose even more interesting, though much less popular and amusing than Mandeville, is Reginald Pecock (1395-1460), the deposed Bishop of Chichester, author of "The Repressor of overmuch blaming of the Clergy". The clergy blamed Pecock, and repressed him. This remarkable man, born shortly before the date of Chaucer's death, in North Wales, was a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford (1417), was patronized by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, obtaining the Mastership of Lord Mayor Whittington's school in London (1431), became Bishop of St. Asaph (1444), and passed his life in attempts to convert the Lollards by persuasion, not by the stake. "The clergy shall be condemned at the last day," he writes, "if by clear wit they draw not men into consent of true faith otherwise than by fire, sword and hangment; although I will not deny these second means to be lawful, provided the former be first used." In the opinion of the Lollards, nothing in ecclesiastical matters was defensible that was not positively inculcated in the Bible as interpreted by the average Christian man, however unlettered. Pecock defended Episcopacy, and even defended non-preaching Bishops, on the score that they had to discharge more important duties. Even the much abused friars he stood up for, arguing that, whatever their offences, they and the world would be worse rather than better if there were no religious orders. His arguments in support of the begging Franciscans who, in counting up money, touched[Pg 121] it with a stick, not with the hand, are certainly even more sophistical than ingenious.

He wrote many pamphlets still in manuscript; the "Repressor" is of 1455, and is a most remarkable book in all ways. Pecock became vastly unpopular, because he was too clever, and, in his dislike of religious persecution, as well as in the nature of his arguments, was in advance, not only of his own age, but of the age of the Reformation. He was thought to give far too high authority to reason, and to the natural faculties of man in the way of developing unrevealed morality and unrevealed religion. "No virtue or governance or truth into which the judgment of man's reason may sufficiently ascend or come to, to find, learn, and know it without revelation from God, is grounded on Holy Scripture."

This conclusion arrives at the end of a sentence of thirty lines, a fair example of Pecock's logical and legal style, by him first used in English. It is not possible, here, to discuss Pecock's ideas, which are concerned with questions that still divide the Church and the world, Anglicans, Catholics, Nonconformists, and Agnostics. The "Repressor" has been described as "the earliest piece of good philosophical disquisition of which our English prose literature can boast"; it may still be read with interest, especially by students of the Reformation. Pecock was opposed to the unjust and brutal war of conquest and of disaster waged by England in France.

In 1450 he became Bishop of Chichester, and shared the unpopularity of the Duke of Suffolk, who was blamed for the disasters in France. His "Book of Faith" (1456) practically abandoned the infallibility of the Church in 1457; he was as unpopular with the clergy as with the mob; twenty-four doctors reported unfavourably on his works: he was a defender of "drowsy reason" and of "unrevealed morality": he was found guilty of heresies which were no heresies, and, with no choice except that of being burned alive, he signed a confession and abjuration of sins which he had not committed: he was consigned to close confinement in the Abbey of Thorney, was deprived of his bishopric—and of writing materials—and died obscurely.

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The source of his misfortunes was this: he was not only clever but he knew it, and wrote that whatsoever man did not agree with an argument of his "is duller than any man ought to be". As few agreed, most were dull, and they did not like to be told it.

Capgrave.

John Capgrave (1393-1464), a Norfolk priest, and Augustinian canon, author of many scriptural commentaries and of a work on "Illustrious Henrys," wrote in English a "Chronicle of England," beginning with the Creation and ending in 1417. Capgrave reminds us that Adam "was made on a Friday, in the field of Damascus"; the date was unlucky. He is nearly as brief as the Anglo-Saxon "Chronicle," his account of Agincourt is no longer than the "Chronicle's" description of Hastings. Here is a sample of his style. "In the same yere III beggeres stole III childyr at Lenne, and of on thei put oute his eyne, the othir they broke his bak, and the thirde thei cut off his handis and his feet, that men schuld of pite give hem good. Long aftir the fadir of on of hem, wheech was a marchaund, cam to London, and the child knew him and cried loude 'This is my fadir.' The fadir took his child fro the beggeris and mad hem to be arrested. The childirn told alle the processe, and the beggeris were hangen, ful well worthy." Such is Capgrave's work, described by himself as "a short remembrance of old stories."

Lord Berners.

Later by two generations, John Bourchier, Lord Berners, was born about the time of Capgrave's death, and while Malory was writing his "Morte d'Arthur" (born 1467, died 1533). As Captain of Calais, the last spot of land held by England in France, Lord Berners had leisure enough, which he spent in translating Froissart, and the French romance of "Huon of Bordeaux" and Oberon the fairy king, "Arthur of Little Britain," and Guevara's Spanish "Dial for Princes," with the "Carcel de Amor" and the "Libro Aureo," books which more or less anticipate the antitheses of "Euphuism". In his translation of Froissart, Berners follows[Pg 123] the style of the original, his language is much akin to that of Malory: in his prefaces he is more rhetorical and "aureate," and has a habit, like Sir Robert Hazlewood in "Guy Mannering," of treble-shotting his verbs. "Histories show, open, manifest, and declare to the reader by example of old antiquity, what we should inquire, desire, and follow, and also what we should eschew, avoid, and utterly fly." This mannerism is tedious, but the translation itself is in admirably simple and expressive English.