oyment of
competence, and security for the fruits of their labour, which the
inhabitants of towns so fully possessed. The fourteenth century was, in
many parts of Europe, the age when a sense of political servitude was
most keenly felt. Thus the insurrection of the Jacquerie in France about
the year 1358 had the same character, and resulted in a great measure
from the same causes, as that of the English peasants in 1382. And we
may account in a similar manner for the democratical tone of the French
and Flemish cities, and for the prevalence of a spirit of liberty in
Germany and Switzerland.[413]

I do not know whether we should attribute part of this revolutionary
concussion to the preaching of Wicliffe's disciples, or look upon both
one and the other as phenomena belonging to that particular epoch in the
progress of society. New principles, both as to civil rule and religion,
broke suddenly upon the uneducated mind, to render it bold,
presumptuous, and turbulent. But at least I make little doubt that the
dislike of ecclesiastical power, which spread so rapidly among the
people at this season, connected itself with a spirit of insubordination
and an intolerance of political subjection. Both were nourished by the
same teachers, the lower secular clergy; and however distinct we may
think a religious reformation from a civil anarchy, there was a good
deal common in the language by which the populace were inflamed to
either one or the other. Even the scriptural moralities which were then
exhibited, and which became the foundation of our theatre, afforded fuel
to the spirit of sedition. The common original and common destination of
mankind, with every other lesson of equality which religion supplies to
humble or to console, were displayed with coarse and glaring features in
these representations. The familiarity of such ideas has deadened their
effects upon our minds; but when a rude peasant, surprisingly destitute
of religious instruction during that corrupt age of the church, was led
at once to these impressive truths, we cannot be astonished at the
intoxication of mind they produced.[414]

Though I believe that, compared at least with the aristocracy of other
countries, the English lords were guilty of very little cruelty or
injustice, yet there were circumstances belonging to that period which
might tempt them to deal more hardly than before with their peasantry.
The fourteenth century was an age of greater magnificence