for not to insist upon the perpetual contentions and wars between the
factions of the several popes, by which multitudes lost their fortunes
and lives, all sense of religion was extinguished in most places, and
profligacy arose to a most scandalous excess. The clergy, while they
vehemently contended which of the reigning popes was the true successor
of Christ, were so excessively corrupt as to be no longer studious to
keep up even an appearance of religion or decency" ("Europe During the
Middle Ages," Hallam, p. 359).

Meanwhile, the struggle between Rome and the heretics went on with
ever-increasing fury. In England, Dr. John Wickcliff, rector of
Lutterworth, became famous by his attack on the mendicant orders in A.D.
1360, and from that time he raised his voice louder and louder, till he
spoke against the pope himself. He translated the Bible into English,
attacked many of the prevailing superstitions, and although condemned as
holding heretical opinions, he yet died in peace, A.D. 1387. Rome
revenged itself by digging up his bones and burning them, about thirteen
years later. Rebellion spread even among the monks of the Church, and a
vast number of some nonconformist Franciscan monks, termed Spirituals,
were burned for their refusal to obey the pope on matters of discipline.
The intense hatred between the Franciscan and Dominican orders made the
latter the willing instrument of the papacy; and, in their character as
inquisitors, they hunted down their unfortunate rivals as heretics. The
Flagellants, a sect who wandered about flogging themselves to the glory
of God, fell also under the merciless hands of the inquisitors, as did
also the Knights Templars in France. A new body, known as the Dancers,
started up in A.D. 1373, and spread through Flanders; but the priests
prayed them away by exorcising the dancing devils that, they said,
inhabited the members of this curious sect. Among the sufferers of this
century one name must not be forgotten: it is that of Ceccus Asculanus.