Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/313

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1381]
Condemned at Oxford.
247

tinian schools, where Wyclif himself attended, and maintained his opinions with his usual vigour. The doctors in question were Lawndreyn and Rygge, professors of the "sacred page," Mowbray, a doctor of canon and civil law, Gascoyne, a doctor of decretals, Crump, of the Benedictines, with John Wells from the abbey at Ramsey, three Preaching Friars, Chessam, Bruscombe, and Wolverton, the Franciscan Tyssyngton, Shipton of the Augustinians, and Lovey of the Carmelites.

The Chancellor's decision was given with the unanimous consent of his twelve advisers. It does not contain Wyclif's name, but selects for special condemnation these two contentions—that the substance of material bread and wine remains after consecration, and that the body and blood of Christ are not essentially, substantially, and corporeally present in the sacrament, but only figuratively or tropically. These "pestiferous" errors the judgment emphatically condemns, and a solemn monition—primo, secundo, tertio, et districtias—is launched in the usual canonical terms, to the effect that no man thereafter should openly teach or defend those conclusions, or either of them, in the schools or outside, within the University of Oxford, under pain of imprisonment, suspension from all his offices, and the major excommunication.

Wyclif is said to have been disconcerted by this condemnation and threat; but no actual sign of confusion is mentioned. On the contrary, he sat in his chair and listened to the decision, and after it had been read out he contended that neither the