cardinal dogma of the Church severed these followers of his from its
organism and brought about their suppression. The question as to
Chaucer's own attitude towards the Wycliffite movement will be more
conveniently touched upon below; but the tone is unmistakable of the
references or allusions to Lollardry which he occasionally introduces into
the mouth of his "Host," whose voice is that vox populi which the upper
and middle classes so often arrogate to themselves. Whatever those
classes might desire, it was not to have "cockle sown" by unauthorised
intruders "in the corn" of their ordinary instruction. Thus there is a
tone of genuine attachment to the "vested interest" principle, and of
aversion from all such interlopers as lay preachers and the like, in the
"Host's" exclamation, uttered after the "Reeve," has been (in his own
style) "sermoning" on the topic of old age:--

What availeth all this wit?
What? should we speak all day of Holy Writ?
The devil surely made a reeve to preach;

for which he is as well suited as a cobbler would be for turning mariner
or physician!

Thus, then, in the England of Chaucer's days we find the Church still in
possession of vast temporal wealth and of great power and privileges,--as
well as of means for enforcing unity of profession which the legislation
of the Lancastrian dynasty, stimulated by the prevailing fears of heresy,
was still further to increase. On the other hand, we find the influence
of the clergy over the minds of the people diminished though not
extinguished. This was, in the case of the higher secular clergy, partly
attributable to their self-indulgence or neglect of their functions,
partly to their having been largely superseded by the Regulars in the