John Wycliffe

John Wycliffe (also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, or Wicklyf; c. 1328 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, a reformer within Christianity, a Catholic priest, and a theology professor at Oxford University. He is often credited with either advocating for or producing a translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible into Middle English, though recent scholars have downplayed how much he was directly involved or pushed for this, since there is no clear contemporary evidence. During the 1300s, he became a notable dissenter inside the Catholic priesthood, and his views are frequently seen as a key forerunner to Protestantism. His political and theological idea of "dominion" held that the church should not own property or run its own courts, and that anyone in a state of mortal sin had no right to hold authority in church or state, nor to own property. Wycliffe also demanded that all clergy live in radical poverty.

Wycliffe has been called the "evening star" of scholasticism and the "morning star" (stella matutina) of the English Reformation. In the 1400s and 1500s, some of his later followers—dismissed as Lollards by their orthodox contemporaries—took up several beliefs linked to him, such as theological virtues, predestination, iconoclasm, and caesaropapism. Some also questioned the veneration of saints, the sacraments, requiem masses, transubstantiation, monasticism, and the legitimacy or role of the papacy. Wycliffe’s Latin writings had a major impact on the philosophy and teaching of the Czech reformer Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415).

Wycliffe was born in the village of Hipswell, near Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, though his exact birth date is disputed. He has traditionally been given a birth year of 1324, but scholars Hudson and Kenny note that records only "suggest he was born in the mid-1320s," while Conti states he was born "after 1331." He received his early education close to home. It is unknown when he first arrived at Oxford, where he remained closely tied for most of his life, but he is known to have been there around 1345. Thomas Bradwardine, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a book titled *On the Cause of God Against the Pelagians* that strongly shaped young Wycliffe’s views, as did the Black Death, which reached England in the summer of 1348. Wycliffe frequently referred to the plague later in life, suggesting it left a deep and lasting impression. According to Robert Vaughn, it gave Wycliffe "very gloomy views in regard to the condition and prospects of the human race." In September 1351, Wycliffe became a priest. He would have been at Oxford during the St Scholastica Day riot, in which sixty-three students and a number of townspeople were killed.

In 1356, Wycliffe earned his bachelor of arts degree at Merton College as a junior fellow. That same year he wrote a short treatise, *The Last Age of the Church*. Given the severity of the plague, which had subsided seven years earlier, his studies led him to believe the end of the world would come at the close of the 14th century. While other writers saw the plague as God’s punishment for sin, Wycliffe viewed it as a condemnation of an unworthy clergy. The death rate among clergy had been especially high, and those who replaced them were, in his opinion, uneducated or generally disreputable. In 1361, he became Master of Balliol College at Oxford. That year, the college presented him with the parish of Fillingham in Lincolnshire, which he visited only rarely during long breaks from Oxford. This required him to give up the headship of Balliol, though he could still live at Oxford. He is said to have had rooms in the buildings of The Queen’s College. In 1362, he was granted a prebend at Aust in Westbury-on-Trym, which he held alongside his post at Fillingham. In 1365, his work led Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, to put him in charge of Canterbury Hall, where twelve young men were training for the priesthood. In December 1365, Islip appointed Wycliffe warden, but when Islip died in 1366, his successor, Simon Langham, a man with a monastic background, handed the college’s leadership to a monk. In 1367, Wycliffe’s appeal to Rome was refused in 1371. This incident reflected the ongoing rivalry between monks or friars and secular clergy at Oxford at the time. In 1368, he left his position at Fillingham and took over the rectory of Ludgershall, Buckinghamshire, near Oxford, which let him keep his university ties. Tradition says he began his translation of the Bible into English while sitting in a room above what is now the porch in Ludgershall Church. In 1369, Wycliffe earned a bachelor’s degree in theology, and his doctorate in 1372. In 1374, he received the crown living of St Mary’s Church, Lutterworth in Leicestershire, which he held until his death.

In 1374, Wycliffe was part of a group negotiating in Bruges on behalf of the English government with Pope Gregory XI’s envoys over several disputed points between the king and the pope. This may have started his connection with the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, a powerful magnate and the third son of King Edward III, though that connection might have begun as early as 1371. Soon after returning from Bruges, he began writing tracts and longer works, no longer satisfied with just using his college position to spread his ideas. In his book *De civili dominio* ("On Civil Dominion"), about the government of God and the Ten Commandments, he attacked the temporal rule of the clergy, the collection of annates, indulgences, and simony.