im, may be the original work of an English author; but
in any case its main contents are a mere adaptation of a peculiar
outgrowth on a foreign soil of conceptions common to chivalry in
general.

Of another force, which in the Middle Ages shared with chivalry (though
not with it alone) the empire over the minds of men, it would certainly
be rash to assert that its day was passing away in the latter half of
the fourteenth century. It has indeed been pointed out that the date
at which Wyclif's career as a reformer may be said to have begun almost
coincides with that of the climax and first decline of feudal chivalry
in England. But, without seeking to interpret coincidences, we know
that, though the influence of the Christian Church and that of its
Roman branch in particular, has asserted and reasserted itself in
various ways and degrees in various ages, yet in England, as elsewhere,
the epoch of its moral omnipotence had come to an end many generations
before the disruption of its external framework. In the fourteenth
century men had long ceased to look for the mediation of the Church
between an overbearing Crown and a baronage and commonalty eager for
the maintenance of their rights or for the assertion of their claims.
On the other hand, the conflicts which still recurred between the
temporal power and the Church had as little reference as ever to
spiritual concerns. Undoubtedly, the authority of the Church over the
minds of the people still depended in the main upon the spiritual
influence she exercised over them; and the desire for a reformation of
the Church, which was already making itself felt in a gradually
widening sphere, was by the great majority of those who cherished it
held perfectly compatible with a recognition of her authority. The
world, it has been well said, needed an enquiry extending over three
centuries, in order to learn to walk without the aid of the Church of
Rome. Wyclif, who sought to emancipate the human conscience from
reliance upon any earthly authority intermediate between the soul and
its Maker, reckoned without his generation; and few, except those with
whom audacity took the place of argument, followed him to the extreme
results of his speculations. The Great Schism rather stayed than
promoted the growth of an English feeling against Rome, since it was
now no longer necessary to acknowledge a Pope who seemed the henchman
of the arch-foe across the narrow seas.

But although the