sang the great Florentine poet, "was Christ, in the person of his
vicar, a second time seized by ruffians, a second time mocked, a
second time drenched with the vinegar and the gall." The seat of
the Papal court was carried beyond the Alps, and the Bishops of
Rome became dependants of France. Then came the great schism of
the West. Two Popes, each with a doubtful title, made all Europe
ring with their mutual invectives and anathemas. Rome cried out
against the corruptions of Avignon; and Avignon, with equal
justice, recriminated on Rome. The plain Christian people,
brought up in the belief that it was a sacred duty to be in
communion with the head of the Church, were unable to discover,
amidst conflicting testimonies and conflicting arguments, to
which of the two worthless priests who were cursing and reviling
each other, the headship of the Church rightfully belonged. It
was nearly at this juncture that the voice of John Wickliffe
began to make itself heard. The public mind of England was soon
stirred to its inmost depths: and the influence of the new
doctrines was soon felt, even in the distant kingdom of Bohemia.
In Bohemia, indeed, there had long been a predisposition to
heresy. Merchants from the Lower Danube were often seen in the
fairs of Prague; and the Lower Danube was peculiarly the seat of
the Paulician theology. The Church, torn by schism, and fiercely
assailed at once in England and in the German Empire, was in a
situation scarcely less perilous than at the crisis which
preceded the Albigensian crusade.

But this danger also passed by. The civil power gave its
strenuous support to the Church; and the Church made some show of
reforming itself. The Council of Constance put an end to the
schism. The whole Catholic world was again united under a single