John Wycliffe

Lore & Background

Wycliffe became an influential dissident within the Catholic priesthood during the 14th century and his ideas are often considered an important predecessor to Protestantism. His political-theological theory of dominion meant that the church was not allowed to own property or have ecclesiastic courts, and men in mortal sin were not entitled to exercise authority in the church or state, nor to own property.

Wycliffe insisted on the radical poverty of all clergy. Certain of his later followers, derogatorily called Lollards, adopted beliefs such as theological virtues, predestination, iconoclasm, and caesaropapism, with some questioning the veneration of saints, the sacraments, requiem masses, transubstantiation, monasticism, and the legitimacy or role of the Papacy. Wycliffe's writings in Latin greatly influenced the Czech reformer Jan Hus (1369–1415).

Reader's Guide

Wycliffe was born in the village of Hipswell, near Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England. The date of his birth is unclear: conventionally given as 1324, but records suggest he was born in the mid-1320s, and another source states after 1331. He received his early education close to home and was at Oxford around 1345.

Career in education

He became a priest in September 1351. In 1356, he completed his bachelor of arts degree at Merton College as a junior fellow. That same year he produced a small treatise, The Last Age of the Church, in which he argued that the close of the 14th century would mark the end of the world and that the plague was an indictment of an unworthy clergy. In 1361, he was Master of Balliol College and was presented to the parish of Fillingham.

In 1362, he was granted a prebend at Aust in Westbury-on-Trym. In 1365, Archbishop Simon Islip placed him at the head of Canterbury Hall; after Islip's death in 1366, his successor Simon Langham turned the leadership over to a monk, and Wycliffe's appeal to Rome was refused in 1371. In 1368, he gave up Fillingham and took over the rectory of Ludgershall.

In 1369, he obtained a bachelor's degree in theology, and his doctorate in 1372. In 1374, he received the crown living of St Mary's Church, Lutterworth, which he retained until his death. In 1374, he was part of a group negotiating in Bruges with papal envoys. He wrote De civili dominio, attacking the temporal rule of the clergy, annates, indulgences, and simony.

Politics

In 1377, his ideas on lordship and church wealth caused his first official condemnation by Pope Gregory XI, who censured 19 articles of De civili dominio. He was summoned before William Courtenay, Bishop of London, on 19 February 1377 at St Paul's Cathedral, but the matter did not get as far as a definite examination. Pope Gregory XI sent five copies of a bull against Wycliffe on 22 May 1377, denouncing 18 theses from De civili dominio as erroneous.

Did You Know?

• Wycliffe has been characterised as the 'evening star' of scholasticism and as the 'morning star' of the English Reformation.
• The Black Death, which reached England in the summer of 1348, made a deep and abiding impression on Wycliffe, giving him 'very gloomy views in regard to the condition and prospects of the human race'.
• Wycliffe would have been at Oxford during the St Scholastica Day riot, in which sixty-three students and a number of townspeople were killed.
• Tradition has it that Wycliffe began his translation of the Bible into English while sitting in a room above what is now the porch in Ludgershall Church.