OF this tract I can only say that it may be by Wyclif. If so it must be one of the earliest of his English tracts, written before his order of poor priests had been fully organized. It may be taken to express that strong sense of the faults prevalent among the clergy which led him to institute his order of preachers.
The writer was certainly a zealous lover of his University, as may be seen from his complaint (Chapter XXIII.) that the clergy stir rich men to support chaplains and chantry priests rather than poor scholars.
Chapter XXII. deserves notice for its attack on priests who excite the people to war by processions and public prayers. (Cf. p. 170, 1. 3.) Is this utterance due only to a personal horror of bloodshed, or does it point to the existence of a peace party?
Copied from the Corpus MS. X. and collated with the Dublin MS. AA.
| CHAP. I. | Priests commit simony in using influence and bribes to be ordained. |
| II. | Priests sell their masses, and offer a share in the mass to those who pay them. |
| III. | Priests are so ignorant that they cannot read the service properly. |
| IV. | Priests live idle and luxurious lives, haunting taverns, etc. |
| V. | Priests neglect their duties and take secular office with lords. |
| VI. | Priests take money to say prayers and by evil life make their prayers vain. |
| VII. | Priests care chiefly for new song, which sets people dancing, but hides the words of Holy Writ. |
| VIII. | Priests care more to keep the Ordinal of Salisbury than God's com|mandments. |
| IX. | Priests take rash vows of chastity and do not keep them. |
| X. | Priests fear to reprove vice in their patrons. |
| XI. | Priests who preach falsely are Satans transformed etc. |
| XII. | Worldly priests seek their own gain more than the good of souls. |
