export and began to buy up raw wool in such quantity that its
export
declined.

An Oxford theologian and preacher, John Wyclif, voiced the
popular resentment of the materialism of the church, benefit of
clergy, immorality of priests, and the selling of indulgences and
pardons. He argued against the supremacy of the papal law over
the King's courts and against payments to the papacy. He opined
that the church had no power to excommunicate. The Friars had
become mere beggars and the church was still wealthy. He proposed
that all goods should be held in common by the righteous and that
the church should hold no property but be entirely spiritual. He
believed that people should rely on their individual consciences.
He thought that the Bible should be available to people who could
read English so that the people could have a direct access to God
without priests or the Pope. Towards this end, he translated it
from Latin into English in 1384. His preachers spread his views
throughout the country. The church then possessed about one-third
of the land of the nation.

Stories were written about pilgrimage vacations of ordinary
people to religious sites in England. Geoffrey Chaucer's "Tales
of the Canterbury Pilgrims" portrayed characters of every social
class, including the knight with his squire, abbot,prioress, nun,
priest, monk, friar, poor parson of the country, summoner (who
enforced the jurisdiction and levied the dues of the church
courts), pardoner (sold pardons from the Pope), scholar, lawyer,
doctor, merchant, sailor, franklin, yeoman, haberdasher,
tapestry-maker, ploughman, cook, weaver, dyer, upholsterer,