" He held to the right
of private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture, and denied the
infallibility claimed by the pontiffs. He opposed pilgrimages, held
loosely to image-worship and rejected the system of tithing as it was
then carried on. Wyclif was also a persistent and public foe of the
mendicant friars. The views of this eminent reformer were courageously
advocated by his followers, and for nearly two generations they
continued to agitate the English people. It is easy to understand,
therefore, how Wyclif's opinions assisted in preparing the nation for
the Reformation of the sixteenth century, although it seemed that
Lollardy had been everywhere crushed by persecution. The Lollards
condemned, among other things, pilgrimages to the tombs of the saints,
papal authority and the mass. Their revolt against Rome led in some
instances to grave excesses.
NOTE J
In France, the religious houses suppressed by the laws of February 13,
1790, and August 18, 1792, amounted (without reckoning various minor
establishments) to 820 abbeys of men and 255 of women, with aggregate
revenues of 95,000,000 livres.
The Thirty Years' War in Germany wrought much mischief to the
monasteries. On the death of Maria Theresa, in 1780, Joseph II., her
son, dissolved the Mendicant Orders and suppressed the greater number of
monasteries and convents in his dominions.
Although Pope Alexander VII. secured the suppression of many small
cloisters in Italy, he was in favor of a still wider abolition on
account of the superfluity of religious institutes, and the general
degeneration of the monks.
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