Robert Annys: Poor Priest: A Tale of the Great Uprising

Annie Nathan Meyer

Robert Annys: Poor Priest

A Tale of the Great Uprising

Sharp Ink Publishing

2022

Contact: info@sharpinkbooks.com

ISBN 978-80-282-3778-3

Table of Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI

XXXII

XXXIII

I

Table of Contents

The great Minster of the Fens never looked lovelier than at the close of a November day, 1379. The coloring of Fenland is not attuned to the brightness of Spring or Summer, but there is in the late Autumn a subtle quality that brings out its true charm. The dull browns and yellows of the marshes, the warm red-browns of the rushes, the pale greens of the swamp grasses with the glint of the sun low down at their feet,—all on this day found just the right complement in the great, heavy, gray clouds that broke here and there only to show irregular bars of saffron sky. Just before night fell there was one supreme moment when a patch of gold lingered in the north just over the wonderful octagon, the glorious crown of St. Audrey, and the great west front with its noble tower and its wealth of windows flung the orange gleam of the setting sun over the landscape as a gauntlet proudly thrown in the face of Night. The lordly outlines of the vast edifice looked lordlier than ever as the slowly gathering darkness descended and drew it up into itself.

The east wind blowing from over the sea, pungent with the odor of marsh plants, was keen, and caused a man who was surveying the scene to gather his thin gown more closely about him. Until he stirred, this man might almost have been taken for a part of the landscape, so admirably did his garb of coarse russet sacking harmonize with his surroundings. Although he shivered slightly, he did not move from his position, but remained with arms tightly folded on his breast, and his deep-set eyes fixed earnestly upon the solemn pile before him. A solitary figure he stood in the vast stretch of sky and land, and he felt himself peculiarly alone. Yet as he faced the Cathedral there was no sign of faltering or dread in his face, but rather a distinct note of defiance.

Not long before, the stately procession of priests had departed from the Vesper service. A choir boy of angelic countenance, but impish spirit, had for an instant trailed his violet robe in the dust and flung the stone he picked up straight at the russet form. Not a priest in line but envied the boy. Outwardly, the russet priest showed no sign. He thought of St. Francis who had been stoned by the very ones who later placed those stones under his direction. Also he thought of the stoning of One greater than St. Francis.

One year before, at Oxford, Robert Annys had bidden farewell to his beloved master, John Wyclif, and had become one of his noble band of poor priests,—or russet priests, as they were familiarly dubbed,—who went about the country, preaching the Gospel and teaching the people how to read, that they might bring Holy Writ more closely into their lives. As a student, he had passed many happy years by the side of his great master at Balliol, translating the Bible into the language of the people so that they might come to know God and love God by themselves without the shadow of the priestly office ever between. Nevertheless, although he had been well content to pass all his life in that beautiful manner, when the time came that his master ordered him out into the world, he went without a murmur and bravely, empty handed, with no more thought of the morrow than had the twelve whom Christ had bidden:—

Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor wallet, nor bread, nor money; neither have two coats.

Since then he had lived close to the people, he had been of the people. He had come to them, not with the crumbs from the Communion table but with the strong bread of life. He had preached the Gospel in the fields while the heat rose in palpitating waves, and on the downs while the hail beat on his bare head; he had prayed over them while the shears dripped white from the sheep of their overlord; he had hungered with them and thirsted with them and shared such coarse food as they had; he had watched with them as some worn soul departed from its worn body. His way had led to no sumptuous oratories of towered castles, to no cushioned prie-dieux in scented chambers. He had shrived, not grand seigneurs and haughty dames whose momentary comfort had been disturbed by the pricking of a superficial regret, but strong, simple souls who trembled from the sway of tremendous feeling—men who thirsted for the blood of their child's betrayer, victims who raged at infamous injustice and brooded over desperate means to escape their thraldom. No lightly felt peccadilloes were confessed to him, but the agony and shame of those whose tortured souls hung betwixt heaven and hell.

And he had grown to love this life. He had thought to have a peculiar aptitude for letters, and his master had never altered translation wrought by him. Yet he knew now that his gift lay rather in swaying men, and one short year had done much to make his name known from Sussex to Lincolnshire. No wonder, then, that he had joy in his work, for it is not given to man to know greater happiness than this: to watch the face of a fellow-man kindle with a new and great hope, which he knows he has planted within the other's breast. Yet deep down within there had been slowly growing in his heart a secret questioning. He had been warned by his master to hold himself strictly to the work of spreading the knowledge of the Gospel, and he had been clearly enjoined against undoing the peace of the realm and setting serfs against their masters, as a certain mad priest named John Ball was even at that moment doing, both by the reckless violence of his language and the revolutionary quality of his theories. It was easy for Wyclif in the shelter of the University to warn against over-haste and to protest that education must come before a lasting reform could be accomplished, and that one must build on solid foundations for the future. It was not so easy for the wandering poor priest, with the sufferings of the people ever before him, to refrain from pressing the Gospel into immediate action. Annys began very soon to suspect that it was impossible to feed the people with the knowledge of Holy Writ and expect no indigestion to come from the strange diet. If Life truly began to be tested by Holy Writ, some idols must fall—if the Church Hierarchical, alas for it! If Christian society were to be modelled on the plain teachings of its Founder, some strange sights would be seen.

Annys had not needed to be stoned to feel rise up within him a fierce hatred toward that stately church that reared its head so haughtily to heaven. Ah, truly he held with St. Boniface of old that "in the catacombs the candlesticks were of wood, but the priests were golden. Now the candlesticks are of gold."

That morning, when he preached to the men in the fields and told them in homely language of the life of their Lord and His death to save them, a summons had come from the Bishop of Ely bidding Robert Annys appear before him. And, wondering what the Bishop could want of him (unless to order him peremptorily from his diocese, in which case it was scarcely necessary to do so in person), he had had himself rowed over the wide-spreading meres that separated the isle of Ely from the mainland. As he slowly approached the glorious pile, there came over him with a curious stir the memory of that King Canute who had also been thus rowed across and who had bade the oarsmen pause midway that he might listen to the beautiful chanting of the monks.

Truth to tell, for all his passionate disdain for what lay outside of the true heart of Christianity, he was more profoundly moved by the beauty of Ely Minster than he would have dreamed it possible. For he was an ardent student of history, and here before him was wrought as true and noble an epic as ever was writ on parchment. Into these noble arches and soaring towers, these delicate pinnacles, these exquisite traceries, surely the adoring heart of Mediævalism had lavishly poured itself. This russet priest was an artist and worshipped beauty, hence he could not look on Ely unmoved. He was an Englishman to the fingertips, hence he could not stand on ground so alive with heroic traditions and not thrill to the memory of them. As he stood there in the gathering darkness before the church, he saw a long struggle before him. He saw the Bishop of Ely and the whole powerful Church of Rome leagued against him. And why? Because he followed Christ's clear mandates. Yet he was certain that nothing that the Hierarchy could do would conquer him. He would stand to the end, alone if need be, but fearlessly true to his convictions, true to the master who had sent him out into the world to do His work. Something of the grim determination of those Saxons of old entered into him, those hardy warriors who had fought so many hundred years before on that very spot and made their last dogged stand against the conquering Normans; something, too, of the undaunted will of that old monk-architect, who, even amid the roar of the falling walls of the old tower of Ely, had conceived the great new tower, the wonderful octagon which was unique in all England.

No! no threat of imprisonment or other punishment on the morrow could make him swerve from the course he had chosen. He would continue to go among his people with only a book and a bag. His people who awaited him among the hayricks, who let plough rest idle in the furrow or tossed aside the spade that they might hearken to him. His people! His eyes dimmed with tears as he thought of the pathetic figure of Piers Ploughman standing in the fields, the light of a great wonder in his face,—Piers in the condition of a man who has had his eyes bandaged for a long time, and now for the first time has had the bandage removed. In the strange light that now bursts upon him the most familiar objects take on a new and strange appearance. In the transformation that is going on about him, all that his honest heart has held stable, omnipotent, eternal, now sways unsteadily before him: Feudal Lords, Sheriffs, King's men and Kings; Fees in Tithe, Manorial Holdings, Rights of Labor, Acts of Parliament, and even Holy Church herself. No, no, come what may, he could never desert Piers now:—

"One side is ...

Popes, cardinals, and prelates,

Priours, abbots of great estates.

The other side ben poor and pale;

And seeme caitives sore a-cale."

The night closed slowly down upon the Cathedral. At last its great mass was felt rather than seen.

Thy strength against mine, the poor priest murmured, as he lingered yet an instant.

Thy strength against mine.

II

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The following morning Thomas Goldynge, Bishop of Ely, lay in bed awaiting those to whom he had promised audience. It was with considerable curiosity that he awaited the young poor priest whom he had summoned. He sighed with relief as he realized that the hard fight which he had waged against Rome was ended. It was a contest over the best method of suppressing the poor priests, and it had taken many secret embassies to Rome, and many letters in cipher sent to trusted friends at the Papal Court. Indeed, it had looked at one time as if the Bishop himself, aged as he was, would have to undertake the long and tedious journey to the Holy City, for the Bishop looked upon this matter as one of vital importance to the Church. He agreed with the Papal Legate that the incendiary preaching of the poor priests must be stamped out, but he had some theories of his own as to this stamping-out process, and persecution bore no part in them. He, more than any other Churchman, realized that the English people needed careful handling. How was the Italian Legate to understand anything of the rage and indignation that were growing up in the hearts of the English against foreign subjection, against a Church that gave the best sees in the land to Italians who scarce deigned to make acquaintance with the very outsides of their churches? The substance of the people was being wrung from them to help the cause of their bitter enemies. The King of England had little or nothing left for his needs because the Church refused to give up one tittle of its moneys for the good of the realm. Goldynge was an Englishman, and he had struggled all his life to place Englishmen in English churches. He was against the new spirit of Nationalism, however, when it asserted itself against the most sacred prerogatives of the Church, for he could look far ahead and see that this spirit might become powerful enough to wreck the Church Universal and give birth in England to a Church that would forswear all allegiance to Rome. He was for doing all in his power to redress the wrongs of the people and keep the breach from widening, for Holy Church had about all the schisms it could well take care of for some time to come.

When Robert Annys was ushered in with head flung well back and every line in the lithe young body eloquent of a proud defiance, the Bishop raised himself on the pillow and looked long and eagerly into his face. Therein he read all that he had counted to find. In the deep-set eyes, the high, narrow brow, the sensitive mouth, the delicately chiselled chin, there were revealed to the shrewd old prelate the enthusiastic temperament of a reformer, the idealism of a poet, the puissant desire to work, to change, to remake. And also, and therein lay his secret satisfaction, he read the fine acumen of a critic. A dangerous quality that, which was certain to make war upon the other qualities that struggled in his breast. Here was before him no blunt fanatic like John Ball, flying as unswervingly to his goal as the arrow shot from the bow, but one with the discerning mind that weighs, discriminates, and looks far enough ahead to see its own heart-break at the end.

You sent for me? although the tone was defiant, it was less so than Annys had intended it. Somehow he found it hard to be arrogant to this gentle old man whose flowing locks looked whiter than ever against the deep red of the bed-curtains. Only a beautiful old man upon his couch, looking at him with dim kindly eyes and a mouth that smiled. Far rather would he have faced a haughty prelate in rustling robes—that would have roused him and strengthened him in his hatred of all for which a Bishop stood.

Yes, replied the old man, very gently, I have sent for thee, for I have heard much of this russet priest who sways great bodies of men as they hearken to him, even as row upon row of corn is swayed by the wind that blows across the fields. I wished to see him and hold converse with him.

Why should I come here before you that you may look upon me? I owe no allegiance to the Bishop of Ely. I serve him not, I serve only my master, John Wyclif.

And our Master, Jesus Christ? mildly interposed the Bishop.

"Yea, I serve my Master, Jesus Christ, asserted the poor priest, but"—he was annoyed to find that the words in his heart did not rise so easily to his tongue as he would have them do. He felt the old man's eyes gravely fixed upon him.

But? he suggested with sedate politeness—but?

The young man reddened with discomfiture, but remained silent.

I beg of you to go on, said the Bishop, suavely; we are quite alone. I have sent for you to understand what is in your heart, and I would that you open it to me without fear.

The word stung the poor priest as the older man knew it would.

Fear? I have no fear. What should I fear? I would say that one cannot serve two masters at one time, the one Christ, the other Antichrist. I do not see that one can bear at one and the same time the pectoral cross and the cross of Christ Jesus.

It was now the Bishop's turn to redden, but he only bit his lip for an instant and then smiled frankly. I understand, he said, "I have heard somewhat of this kind of thing before. You poor priests claim that Christ founded no cathedrals, and that He worked with fishermen instead of Bishops. I know ye would like to see the palaces of Bishops razed to the ground that bread might be placed between the lips of the hungry, the gold of the altars melted that it might run into the purse of the poor. As your poet hath it,

"'Let Bishops' horses become beggars' chambers.

Is that not it?"

His listener folded his arms tightly over his breast and nodded for answer.

Ah, yes; ah, yes, continued the Bishop, musingly, do I not know? Was I not even as thou in my youthful days? But I am an old man now, and many things lie bathed in the clear white light of knowledge that then lay darkly shrouded in mystery. My dear son, you are only one of many who fix their eyes on what should have been, instead of on what really was. Ye bury your faces within the pages of the Bible, and if ye look up once to see what is going on about you, it is only to contrast with impatience the teaching and example of the Church Visible with the teaching and example of Christ and His disciples. Ye are willing to look on the Church as it now is, and God knows there are faults and crimes enough to excuse some of your impatience, but ye refuse to look at the history of the Church, and at the magnificent service it has rendered in the cause of humanity. Ye refuse to consider gravely and seriously the work that it has accomplished, and to ask yourselves if any other human agency could have done a tenth as well. You critics are as men who have been saved by a bridge from a wild and devastating stream, and now once safely crossed, ye kneel down—not to thank God Almighty for having saved you, but to detect the flaws in the bridge.

Annys could not but be moved by the eloquence of the old man. He began to understand something of the great power which had been wielded from the throne of Ely. Yet he waited not with his answer, Christianity is no longer the Church of Christ, it is the Church of Rome. Why keep up the pretence longer? I am but seeking to bring the people back to Christ as St. Francis did before me.

Ay! as St. Francis did before you. He was so sure that all the world needed was the Word and his Rule of Poverty. Well, how many years after his death was it that the people complained to the authorities of the great wealth of the Franciscan monasteries?

Annys remained silent.

The Church is a more intricate matter than any one Book or any one Rule, went on the Bishop. "Why think you it was that the wolves of the north, as St. Jerome well called them, those wild tribes of Franks and Burgundians, of Vandals and Goths and Visigoths, savage as their onslaught was, yet paused in the face of Rome? Was it not because the Churchmen at the critical time were no idle dreamers, but the greatest statesmen the world ever saw? Ah, my son, if temporal power meant a fall from the early apostolic Church, do not forget that it was a fall brought about by the very greatness of its own servants. It was to the early Bishops that the world was forced to look for its rulers when the reins of government were slipping from the weak hands of all others. It was Cyprian at Carthage, Jerome and Leo at Rome, Ambrose at Milan, Augustine in Africa, Boniface at the court of Pepin, Martin at Tours, Hilary at Poitiers, and Marcel at Paris who were doing the work of the world. It is easy to speak of the Pope's need for Charles the Great when he placed