of that resolute papal partizan, and his successor now determined to celebrate in his honour a solemn jubilee, the first of those sanctimonious fairs, which so much enriched Canterbury, and degraded England. Upon this occasion, the young King, Henry III. and an immense concourse of people from every rank in society, were attracted to the scene of Archbishop Langton's holiday shew. For this, arrangements were made upon the most lavish scale of expense; travellers found entertainment provided for their horses all along the road from London to Canterbury; and on the day devoted to the gorgeous translation, fountains running wine attested the Primate's anxiety to honour his martyred predecessor's memory". After an interval of two years from this testimony to the excellence of Becket's cause, Langton proceeded farther to gratify the Roman see by promulging a canon in unison with that doctrine of the Eucharist which Pope Innocent had sanctioned at the Lateran seven years before. At a provincial council holden in Oxford, in 1222, it was enacted, that the Eucharist should be reserved in a pyx of silver, ivory, or other handsome materials; that when the clergy should carry it to sick persons, they should invite all who might hear or see them to treat it with reverence; and should pronounce with particular attention, when celebrating mass,

i "Et audientes et videntes invitent ad habendum tanto Sacramento reverentiam." Constitut. Steph. Cantuar. Archiep, ad calcem constitut. Othon. et Othobon. Paris, 1504. f. 125.

those words of the canon which are thought to indicate a substantial change in the elements *. These cautious approaches towards the complete establishment of transubstantiation, with its consequences, in the Church of England, were followed up with spirit after the lapse of more than half a century. John Peckham, a Franciscan friar, born at Lewes in Sussex, after studying with great reputation at Oxford and Paris, fixed himself at Rome, and was appointed to hear causes in the papal palace there. From this judicial employment, he was intruded by the Pope, in defiance of an election regularly made in favour of another', into the see of Canterbury. In 1281, Archbishop Peckham held a provincial council at Lambeth, in which he lamented, that as regards the Eucharist, the English clergy were highly reprehensible". He probably found that, upon this subject, the parochial priests of his native land had not yet attained to the Italian standard of orthodoxy. He, therefore, obtained the passing of a canon, by which it was enjoined, that, on the elevation of the consecrated elements, one of the bells in the steeple should be rung, in order to invite by its sound persons at home, or in the fields to bend

"Item, verba canonis, præsertim in his quæ ad Sacramenti substantiam pertinent, plene et integre, et cum summa animi devotione proferant." Ibid.

Robert Burnel, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Lord Chancellor.

Multos igitur esse numero et paucos merito Domini sacerdotes quotidianis scandalis experimur." Constitut. Peckham. ut supra. 126.

the authority and endeavours of the Roman Bishops and their creatures, it was long before men generally were persuaded to believe in transubstantiation. In the middle of the fourteenth century, few persons of superior intelligence entertained that opinion'. Its advocates, indeed, could devise no mode of defending it effectually, but by resting it on the authority of the papal see, then infamous throughout Europe for extortion, venality, and every species of political delinquency. By that see the tenet continued to be supported with the most intrepid consistency, and towards the close of the fourteenth century Gregory XI. decided, that should the consecrated bread find its way into the stomach of a mouse, or into the receptacle of human excrement, thither would descend the Saviour's body. But such nauseous absurdities, however defended by subtle

of it, was so notorious a departure from general custom and tradition, that they did not think it safe to venture upon a counter-practice all at once. They left the more knowing people to the benefit of both kinds. And where they were so hardy as to do otherwise, they continued the appearance of the ancient usage, and gave the people the wine, though they retrenched the consecration." Collier, I. 481.

"Paucis hujus sæculi hominibus persuasum fuerit, (quod de sua ætate scribit Robertus Holkot, qui inter nostrates sub medium sæculi XIV. vixit,) corpus Christi esse realiter (aut transubstantialiter) in sacramento altaris." Cosin, 159.

• Scot. "Communis opinio tenenda est, non propter aliquam rationem, sed propter determinationem pontificis Romani." Bacon. Oportet declarationem fidei tenere, quam Romanus pontifex tenendam declarat." Ibid. 160.

t Ibid.

schoolmen, or fanatical friars, were revolting to the good sense of mankind, and therefore it is not matter for surprise, that when Gregory's contemporary, the illustrious Wickliffe, once more introduced to men in superior life the Eucharistic belief of their ancestors", the calumniated priest should have been credited by many competent judges in preference to the tri-crowned pontiff.

The tremendous powers of persecution with which the ruling ecclesiastics contrived to arm themselves after Wickliffe's death, soon banished his opinions from those classes where much of worldly goods may be lost or gained. Nor, as at that period the supply of books was comparatively scanty, were men, divided by a few generations from the contemporaries of our celebrated early Reformer, easily enabled to judge as to the real state of religious opinion at the time of his appearance. The traditional knowledge of man is confined within very narrow limits, and unless he possesses ample means of consulting written documents, he cannot hope for any thing more than a vague idea of that which occurred even a century before his own time. Hence it happened, that at the beginning of the Reformation so few men of learning possessed any acquaintance with the real history of transubstantiation. The century which preceded them was one of fierce per

"Johannem Wycliff hæresiarcham magnum qui multas hareses antiquas resuscitavit in Anglia tempore suo." Lindwood, 205.

secution against all who denied that doctrine; and as the materials for understanding the ecclesiastical history of the middle ages were mouldering in oblivion, the frightful cruelties of the fifteenth century effected their intended object. Scholars examined not the progress of those doctrines which they were called upon to believe. They heard with implicit faith that the church of Rome then professed no other tenets than those which she had entertained from the first. If, therefore, a denial of the carnal presence became the subject of attention, it was not doubted that this was a heresy broached by Berenger and revived by Wickliffe. No scholar, probably, suspected, that something like transubstantiation first attracted notice in the ninth century, and was immediately opposed by divines of the highest reputation; that the Roman Church did not venture to commit as herself to this doctrine until the eleventh century; that she did not embody it in her formularies until the thirteenth; that it was warmly opposed during that and the following age; that it was at length established in superior life by dint of sanguinary persecutions; and that its authority was wholly derived from lying wonders, the interested assertions of popes, and the equivocating sophisms of schoolmen. In consequence of their reliance upon Luther's authority, English divines of eminence attached to the Reformation were particularly late in acquiring a knowledge of these facts. From Saxony were communicated very imperfect materials for forming a correct