John Wycliffe

Lore & Background

Wycliffe entered politics in 1374 as part of a group negotiating in Bruges on behalf of the English Government with Gregory XI's papal envoys on disputed points between the king and the pope. Soon after his return he began to write tracts and longer works, including De civili dominio, which attacked the temporal rule of the clergy, the collection of annates, indulgences, and simony, and called for the royal divestment of all church property. In 1377, Pope Gregory XI censured 19 articles of De civili dominio, and Wycliffe was summoned before William Courtenay, Bishop of London, to a convocation on 19 February 1377 at St Paul's Cathedral. The exact charges are not known, as the matter did not get as far as a definite examination. John of Gaunt, the Earl Marshal Henry Percy, and a number of other armed supporters accompanied Wycliffe. A hostile crowd gathered, and an angry exchange occurred between the Bishop of London and John of Gaunt about whether Wycliffe could sit. Gaunt declared he would humble the pride of the English clergy, hinting at secularising the possessions of the Church. The assembly broke up, and anti-Gaunt riots followed the next day in London. On 22 May 1377, Pope Gregory XI sent five copies of a bull against Wycliffe, dispatching one to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the others to the Bishop of London, King Edward III, the Chancellor, and the university. Among the enclosures were 18 theses of his, denounced as erroneous and dangerous to Church and State, all drawn from De Civili dominio. Edward III died on 21 June 1377, and the bull did not reach England before December. Wycliffe was asked to give the king's council his opinion on whether it was lawful to withhold traditional payments to Rome, and he responded that it was. In March 1378, Wycliffe was summoned to appear at Lambeth Palace to defend himself, but Sir Lewis Clifford entered the chapel and in the name of the queen mother (Joan of Kent) forbade the bishops to proceed to a definite sentence. The bishops, divided, satisfied themselves with forbidding him to speak further on the controversy.

Reader's Guide

John Wycliffe's significance lies in his role as a dissident within the Catholic priesthood whose ideas anticipated key aspects of Protestantism. His political-theological theory of dominion held that the church could not own property or have ecclesiastic courts, and that men in mortal sin were not entitled to exercise authority or own property. He insisted on the radical poverty of all clergy. Wycliffe has been characterized as the 'evening star' of scholasticism and as the 'morning star' or stella matutina of the English Reformation. His writings in Latin greatly influenced the philosophy and teaching of the Czech reformer Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415). Certain of Wycliffe's later followers, derogatorily called Lollards by their orthodox contemporaries in the 15th and 16th centuries, adopted a number of the beliefs attributed to Wycliffe such as theological virtues, predestination, iconoclasm, and the notion of caesaropapism, with some questioning the veneration of saints, the sacraments, requiem masses, transubstantiation, monasticism, and the legitimacy or role of the Papacy. Wycliffe's legacy is thus that of a foundational figure whose challenges to church authority and wealth helped shape later reform movements.

Did You Know?

• Wycliffe was born in the village of Hipswell, near Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, though there is dispute about the date—conventionally given as 1324 but records 'suggest he was born in the mid-1320s' and Conti states he was born 'after 1331'.
• In 1356, Wycliffe completed his bachelor of arts degree at Merton College as a junior fellow and that same year produced a small treatise, The Last Age of the Church, in which he argued the close of the 14th century would mark the end of the world.
• Wycliffe was Master of Balliol College in Oxford in 1361, and in 1365 Archbishop Simon Islip placed him at the head of Canterbury Hall, where twelve young men were preparing for the priesthood.
• In 1374, Wycliffe received the crown living of St Mary's Church, Lutterworth in Leicestershire, which he retained until his death.
• Wycliffe wrote De incarcerandis fidelibus ('On the Incarceration of the Faithful'), a late polemical treatise opposing the use of imprisonment as a coercive instrument of ecclesiastical discipline, commonly described as consisting of thirty-three conclusions.