John Wycliffe

EARLY LIFE 

John Wycliffe was born in the village of Hipswell near Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England in around 1320.

Fictional portrait of John Wycliffe, c. 1828

All we know about John Wycliffe's parents is that they were of early Saxon origin, long settled in Yorkshire. They held property principally centred on Wycliffe-on-Tees, about ten miles to the north of Richmond. Hipswell, his birthplace, was an outlying hamlet.

Young John was probably educated initially by his village priest. The Yorkshireman left for Balliol College, Oxford University in around 1345 at a time when a series of illustrious names was adding glory to the fame of the university-such as those of Roger Bacon, Thomas Bradwardine, William of Occam, and Richard Fitzralph.

John Wycliffe owed much to William of Occam's work and thought; he showed an interest in natural science and mathematics, but applied himself to the study of theology, ecclesiastical law, and philosophy. Even his opponents acknowledged the keenness of his dialectic. His writings prove that he was well grounded in Roman and English law, as well as in native history.

The student Wycliffe probably lost many of his university chums through the Black Death epidemic, which ranged between 1349 and 1353.

EARLY CAREER 

Wycliffe's university career followed the usual course. While as baccalaureate he busied himself with natural science and mathematics. He attained the headship no later than 1360; as master he had the right to read in philosophy. More significant was Wycliffe's interest in Bible study, which he pursued after becoming bachelor in theology.

Wycliffe taught Philosophy at Oxford for most of his career while nominally serving as a Priest in a succession of parishes.

John Wycliffe portrayed in Bale's Scriptor Majoris Britanniæ 1548.

When John Wycliffe was presented by the college in 1361 with the parish of Fylingham in Lincolnshire, he had to give up the leadership of Balliol, though he could continue to live at Oxford; he is said to have had rooms in the buildings of Queen's.

In 1368 Wycliffe gave up his living at Fylingham and took over the rectory of Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire, not far from Oxford, which enabled him to retain his connection with the university.

Wycliffe obtained a bachelor's degree in theology in 1369, and his doctorate three years later. As such such he made use of his right to lecture upon systematic divinity. By now Wycliffe was recognized as the leading theologian and philosopher of his age.

Wycliffe received the crown living of Lutterworth in Leicestershire in 1374, which he retained till his death.

King Edward III of England appointed Wycliffe to a commission in 1375 studying differences between the Crown and Papacy. He was sent to Bruges to discuss with the representatives of Gregory XI a number of points in dispute between the king and the pope.

BELIEFS

John Wycliffe challenged penances, indulgences, absolutions, pilgrimages, the worship of images, the use of Holy Water, the adoration of the saints and the distinction between pardonable and mortal sins. He used Scripture as the standard of judging and promoted preaching as being "of more value than the administration of any Sacrament." He said the Bible contains all that is necessary for salvation and emphasised the individual's direct relationship with God through Christ.

Wycliffe's political ideas were summarised by the phrase "dominion is founded in grace" which was an attack on unjust monarchs, emperors, popes, and bishops who claimed their people must obey them as obedience is God's will.

LATER CAREER

John Wycliffe denounced the worldliness and luxury of the papacy. "Christ is Truth" he wrote, "the pope is the principal of falsehood." He concluded that Christ, not the pope, is the head of the church, which annoyed the Catholic hierarchy.

In 1378 he was summoned before the Bishop of London and Wycliffe stubbornly refused to compromise his beliefs. Only a last minute letter from the Queen Mother, Joan of Kent prevented Wycliffe from being pronounced a heretic and he was freed to continue his writing.

In 1381 Wycliffe provoked his greatest reaction yet, with his attack on transubstantiation. He published twelve arguments against the idea that bread and wine of Holy Communion are transformed into the actual physical body and blood of Christ.

John Wycliffe at work in his study

William Courtney, Archbishop of Canterbury, called a council in 1382 in order to condemn the opinions of Wycliffe and his adherents. During the sittings held in the Dominican monastery at Blackfriars, London, a great earthquake shook the city, which caused many to wish to break up the assembly. However William Courtney persuaded them to continue and Wycliffe and his followers were denounced as heretics.

Later Wycliffe was summoned before the synod at Oxford. The interrogation ended when his patron, the king's uncle John of Gaunt who had accompanied Wycliffe, became involved in a brawl with the Bishop of London. Wycliffe was neither excommunicated nor deprived of his living. However, he was expelled from Oxford and forced to retire to his parish at Lutterworth.

ENGLISH BIBLE AND OTHER WRITINGS

"The Morning Star of the Reformation", as John Wycliffe was later nicknamed, found that the continuing restrictions he was placed under freed him to spend much of his later years translating the Bible into vernacular English from Latin.

John's Gospel in Wycliffe's Bible

Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.

John Wycliffe's English translation of the Bible had to be written out laboriously by hand and it took a copyist nine months to produce one copy at a cost of £40.

Wycliffe's followers were known as the Poor Priests or Lollards (mumblers, so called as they mumble the Bible as they read it). They were sent out to win souls without a purse or staff in their hand and were dependent on food from neighbors. All they carried were a few pages of Wycliffe's Bible and his tracts and sermons.

William Frederick Yeames, Wyclif Giving "The Poor Priests" His Translation of the Bible

The Lollards were clad in russet robes of undressed wool, and went about barefoot.

Wycliffe was fond of cricket metaphors. The original bat was a primitive club, used for attack and defence. In an early translation of the Bible, Wycliffe equipped a crowd of men with "swerdies and battis" while smugglers in southern England who moved about armed with cudgels were referred to as "the Sussex batsmen". When in 1545 Wycliffe's tract on Transubstantiation was published, it was referred to as "Wycliffe's Wicket," presenting "a narrow opening to Salvation."

PERSONAL LIFE 

According to The Testimony of William Thorpe (1407), it appears that Wycliffe was spare of body, indeed of wasted appearance, and not strong physically.

Doctor Evangelicus, as Wycliffe was nicknamed, was fearless and stubborn.  According to William Thorpe, he was of unblemished walk in life, and was regarded affectionately by people of rank, who often consorted with him, took down his sayings, and clung to him. But when he turned upon them his roughest side, as for example in his sermons, polemical writings and tracts, Wycliffe met the attacks with a tone that could not be styled friendly.

LATER LIFE, DEATH AND LEGACY 

While Wycliffe was hearing the Mass in the Lutterworth parish church on Holy Innocents' Day, December 28, 1384, he was paralysed by a stroke. Wycliffe died on December 31, 1384 aged around 64.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Arundel, did not give Wycliffe a favorable eulogy alleging: "that pestilent and most wretched John Wycliffe of darnable memory, a child of the old devil and himself a child or pupil of Antichrist who while he lived, walking in the vanity of his mind-with a few other adjectives, adverbs and verbs which I shall not give-crowned his wickedness by translating the scriptures into the mother tongue."

The Council of Constance convened by John XXIII declared Wycliffe a heretic on May 4, 1415. They banned his writings, effectively both excommunicating him retroactively and making him an early forerunner of Protestantism.

The Council also decreed that Wycliffe's bones be dug up and burnt. This order, confirmed by Pope Martin V, was carried out in 1428.

Burning Wycliffe's bones, from Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1563)

Wycliffe is considered to be the first great English Christian reformer and was a great influence on those from other countries such the Czech reformer Jan Hus. His translation of the Bible into English made him the father of the English prose.

The most famous phrase in Abraham Lincoln's Gettyburg's Address – "government of the people, by the people, for the people" – were likely pinched from the prologue to Wycliffe's Bible.

A mission's agency bearing his name (Wycliffe Bible Translators) was founded in 1934 by American translator Cameron Townsend. They continue to translate the scriptures into languages around the world.