foundation of which the site is now occupied by a portion
of Christ Church, between the years 1365 and 1367.[1]
As to this matter it is only necessary to notice that a
certain John Wycliffe was appointed to that office, and
afterwards expelled in order to make room for a monk.
The deprived warden appealed to Rome and lost his
case. Now, this being known, when a religious agitator
of the same name had made himself objectionable to
the correct catholics of his day, and in particular to the
religious orders, it was all but inevitable that the antecedent
history of the one should attach itself to the other. There
are indeed strong grounds for believing that the warden of
Canterbury-hall was the same person with the steward
of Merton whose name, as we have already seen, has
caused a certain amount of confusion in the reformer s
biography. But if on the whole we are inclined to reject
the connexion of the latter with Canterbury-hall, it
is right that we should explain that this decision is in
- ↑ The best argument in favour of this identification appeared in the Church quarterly Review 5. 119-141, October 1877. On the other hand Shirley s observations in the Fasciculi zizaniorum 513 528 remain of high critical value; although he erred in underestima ting the authority of a contem porary chronicle, which he knew only from a translation of the six teenth century, but of which the original has recently been dis covered by Mr. [now sir] E. Maunde Thompson. See the latter s edi tion of the Chronicon Angliae 1328-1388 p. 115; 1874. In favour of our Wyclifl e having been warden of Canterbury -hall it may be urged that Middleworth who had been at Merton and who was made fellow of Canterbury -hall at the same time with Wycliffe, was also at a later date resident, as Wycliffe was, at Queen s ; but, as Shirley points out, pp. 519 sq., there was really not much choice, at a time when only six colleges existed and not all were open to all comers. [Nor is it at all certain that the Queen s resident was the same person as the reformer : see H. T. Riley s remarks in the Second Report of the Royal Commission on historical Manuscripts, pp. 141 6 sq., 1871; and H. Rashdall, in the Dictionary of National Bio graphy, 63. 203 6; 1900.] As for the extract printed by Dr. Lechler, vol. 2. 574 sq., and in part by Shirley, p. 526, from Wycliffe s treatise De ecclesia xvi [pp. 370 sq., ed. J. Loserth, 1886], it seems to me to decide nothing ; Dr. Lechler s inference from the passage depends entirely on the force of a com parative, in familiariori exemplo, which need not be pressed to mean in the writer s personal case. [Though most scholars ac cept the identification, one of the latest and most learned, Dr. Rash dall, now dean of Carlisle, inclines with me to reject it, ubi supra, p. 204 b.]
