was a century after that that Luther burned the Pope's decretals at
Wittenberg, and still later that Henry VIII. threw off the papal dominion
in England. But great crises in a nation's history never arrive without
premonition;--there are no moral earthquakes without premonitory throes,
and sometimes these are more decisive and destructive than that which
gives electric publicity. Such distinct signs appeared in the age of
Chaucer, and the later history of the Church in England cannot be
distinctly understood without a careful study of this period.

It is well known that Chaucer was an adherent of John of Gaunt; that he
and his great protector--perhaps with no very pious intents--favored the
doctrines of Wiclif; that in the politico-religious disturbances in 1382,
incident to the minority of Richard II., he was obliged to flee the
country. But if we wish to find the most striking religious history of the
age, we must seek it in the portraitures of religious characters and
events in his Canterbury Tales. In order to a proper intelligence of
these, let us look for a moment at the ecclesiastical condition of England
at that time. Connected with much in doctrine and ritual worthy to be
retained, and, indeed, still retained in the articles and liturgy of the
Anglican Church, there was much, the growth of ignorance and neglect, to
be reformed. The Church of England had never had a real affinity with
Rome. The gorgeous and sensual ceremonies which, in the indolent airs of
the Mediterranean, were imposing and attractive, palled upon the taste of
the more phlegmatic Englishmen. Institutions organized at Rome did not
flourish in that higher latitude, and abuses were currently discussed even
before any plan was considered for reforming them.


THE CLERGY.--The great monastic orders of St. Benedict, scattered
throughout Europe, were, in the early and turbulent days, a most important