Materials for a better organization were at hand in great abundance; only proper master-builders were needed.

We have seen that everything now betokened the coming of a new era, in State, Church, and literature.
The monarch who came to the throne in 1327, one year before the birth of Chaucer, was worthy to be the usher of this new era to England: a man of might, of judgment, and of forecast; the first truly _English_ monarch in sympathy and purpose who had occupied the throne since the Conquest: liberal beyond all former precedent in religion, he sheltered Wiclif in his bold invectives, and paved the way for the later encroachments upon the papal supremacy.

With the aid of his accomplished son, Edward the Black Prince, he rendered England illustrious by his foreign wars, and removed what remained of the animosity between Saxon and Norman.
REFORM IN RELIGION .-- We are so accustomed to refer the Reformation to the time of Luther in Germany, as the grand religious turning-point in modern history, that we are apt to underrate, if not to forget, the religious movement in this most important era of English history.

Chaucer and Wiclif wrote nearly half a century before John Huss was burned by Sigismond: it was a century after that that Luther burned the Pope's decretals at Wittenberg, and still later that Henry VIII.

threw off the papal dominion in England.