John Wyclif

English philosopher and theologian

• Born: c. 1328
• Birthplace: Wyclif-on-Tees, Yorkshire, England
• Died: December 31, 1384
• Place of death: Lutterworth, Leicestershire, England

Wyclif’s ideas became the rallying point for demands for religious reform in England and influenced the Hussite movement in Bohemia, preparing the way for the Reformation. Wyclif’s emphasis on the authority of Scripture and the priesthood of the believer inspired the first translation of the entire Bible into English.

Early Life

Little is known about the early years of John Wyclif. His family was of the lesser aristocracy; they held the manor and living of Wiclif in Richmond, in the lands of John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster. Wyclif entered Oxford sometime around 1345. There is little evidence and much conjecture concerning his career at the university. Three different colleges claim Wyclif as a student: Queen’, Merton, and Balliol. It is known that he took his first degree in the arts, and sometime between 1356 (when he might have become a probationary fellow at Merton) and 1360, he became a regent master in the arts at Balliol.

Wyclif resigned his mastership at Balliol in 1361 and was instituted to the collegiate living of Fillingham in Lincolnshire. It is almost incontestable that he had advanced to the priesthood by then. In 1363, he was granted a license from the bishop of Lincoln to absent himself from Fillingham to return to Oxford; his new course of study was in theology. It appears that Wyclif took a bachelor of divinity degree about 1369. In 1368, he had been granted another license from his bishop for nonresidency at Fillingham and then in the same year exchanged that living for the parish of Ludgershall, which was closer to Oxford.

Wyclif obtained his master of theology degree by December, 1373. Shortly thereafter, probably with John of Gaunt’s sponsorship, he entered the king’s service. While in royal service, Wyclif was appointed to the English deputation, which met at Bruges with papal representatives to negotiate the outstanding differences between England and Rome. On April 7, 1374, King Edward III presented him with the rectory of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, which he was to hold until his death.

Life’s Work

During his Oxford years, Wyclif had established himself as a significant voice in the philosophical debates of his time. Central to these debates was the ongoing opposition between realism and nominalism; in this context, “realism” denotes a belief in the reality of essences independent of the temporally existing objects of perception. Wyclif was an unabashed realist at a time when nominalism was growing increasingly dominant, but had he restricted himself to this issue, narrowly defined, he would not have occasioned controversy outside university circles. As he developed the theological implications of his metaphysics, however, Wyclif entered the public arena with a vengeance, for his was a time in which theological and political issues were inextricably intertwined.

Wyclif came to maturity during the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the Church, the period from 1305 to 1378 when the Papacy was based in Avignon instead of Rome and successive popes were controlled by the French throne. (Wyclif lived to see the beginning of the Great Schism, the period from 1378 to 1417 during which there were rival popes, one at Avignon and one at Rome.) Throughout the fourteenth century, the prestige of the Papacy was low, corruption was widespread, and calls for clerical reform were commonplace. Wyclif’s developing views, however, went far beyond most of these criticisms, for they rested on a radical redefinition of the Church itself.

In keeping with his metaphysical distinction between unchanging universals and temporal particulars, Wyclif distinguished the true Church from the visible Church. The true Church consists of those and only those who, before the beginning of time, were elected by God. Because it is God’s choice alone that determines membership, the priesthood of the visible Church cannot claim to initiate individuals into or exclude them from the true Church.

Wyclif thus shifted authority from the Church hierarchy to the Bible, which he regarded as the sole rule of faith and practice a shift with historic consequences, to be fully realized in the Reformation. Wyclif held that every one of those elected by God was a priest. He noted that the New Testament did not distinguish between priests and bishops, and that they, as church officials, should be honored only because of their character. He implored them to set a good example for their flock through their personal lives. Sincerity in worship, he argued, was of more value than form or ritual; indeed, elaboration and formalization of worship services might hinder true worship. He urged that the Bible be translated into the English vernacular so that the priests could better include scriptural passages in their sermons. He argued that the Scriptures were the supreme authority and that priests and bishops should be familiar with them; he urged priests to stress the exposition of biblical passages rather than the recounting of fables, miracles, and saints’ lives. He also insisted that even unlettered and simple men could understand the Scriptures and should study them.

Clearly, Wyclif’s patron, John of Gaunt, an antipapist, was alert to the political implications of Wyclif’s views, as spelled out in 1376 in public readings of his treatise De civili dominio (1376-1377). In this work Wyclif argued that all temporal ecclesiastical ownership is God’s and that God’s granting of the use of the property was conditional on the holder rendering faithful service. A stated corollary was that if an ecclesiastical holder continually misused his holdings, he could be stripped of them by the secular power. Wyclif maintained that individual popes might err; he even considered worldly popes to be heretics and suggested that as such they should be removed from office. He also stated that the Papacy was not necessary for the administration of the Church.

His public preaching of these ideas caused English ecclesiastical attention to focus on him as he gained increasing popular support for his views. Bishop Courtenay of London and Archbishop Sudbury of Canterbury forced his appearance before a Convocation held at St. Paul’, London, in February, 1377. This proceeding against him ended, however, without Wyclif being molested or condemned when John of Gaunt’s retainers disrupted the inquiry and removed him. It is obvious that Wyclif enjoyed great aristocratic support at this time.

Within months of the St. Paul’s confrontation, Pope Gregory XI issued five papal bulls that condemned eighteen errors found in Wyclif’s pronouncements. The Papacy urged, but did not command, the arrest of the Oxford don. The king died, the archbishop delayed, and the university would not condemn. Wyclif allowed himself to be placed under house arrest in Black Hall. He refused to appear again at St. Paul’, but he did face the bishops at Lambeth Palace in 1378. His popular support was now perhaps at its greatest; he had significant political support, and his trial produced nothing more than an innocuous warning to him.

The year 1378, however, was also the initial year of the Great Schism. The spectacle of two popes locked in conflict was for Wyclif an infuriating one, and he became even more critical of the Church. He demanded thorough reform of the Church: that it be stripped of its endowments and that these be distributed to the poor; that ecclesiastical temporal holdings be given to the king and the other secular lords; that ecclesiastics surrender all temporal offices and that these henceforth be held only by laymen (Wyclif complained that the secular hierarchy labored more in the king’s business than they labored with the cure of the souls he proposed that the bishops’ wealth be stripped from them and that they be confined solely to spiritual ministration); that the Church surrender all of its judicial administration to the royal courts (he was especially critical of the use of archdeacons within the ecclesiastical courts, because so often the archdeacons were aliens); and that all pastors should preach from the Gospels and be dependent on their flock for their sustenance and clothing. Wyclif denounced the monks and the friars for their vast holdings and was especially critical of the monasteries’ use of lay brethren to do the physical labor. He additionally attacked the friars for setting bad examples that influenced the religious life of the laymen (he charged that they had reduced the sacrament of confession to a farce and that they twisted the words of the Bible out of their true meaning).

It was Wyclif’s attack on the doctrine of transubstantiation , however, that became the focus of the ecclesiastical hierarchy’s attention and caused a second examination of his opinions. While affirming that Christ was in some manner present in the bread and the wine of the Mass, Wyclif denied the orthodox belief of the miracle of the Mass as defined in the doctrine of transubstantiation. In 1380, by a vote of seven to five, a committee of Oxford doctors condemned Wyclif’s statements as being heretical. Shortly thereafter Wyclif left Oxford and retired to his parish at Lutterworth. Another committee was summoned to Blackfriars, London, in May of 1382. It examined twenty-four of Wyclif’s conclusions and found ten to be heretical and the other fourteen to be merely erroneous. Two of Wyclif’s most ardent Oxford followers felt the fury of the Blackfriars Synod: Philip Repingdon was forced to recant his belief in Wyclif’s opinions, and Nicholas of Hereford fled to Rome for safety. Wyclif himself, however, remained at Lutterworth unmolested by the English church.

At Lutterworth, his works became yet more polemical. In addition to completing a series of theological writings in Latin, he wrote a series of English sermons. He was summoned to Rome in 1382 but cited his incapacity to travel because of a stroke, a justified excuse for it left him partly paralyzed. During 1383, Wyclif’s scorn for the temporal involvement of the Church intensified because of the crusade into Flanders led by Henry Despenser, bishop of Norwich. A second severe stroke struck Wyclif as he was hearing Mass at Lutterworth on December 28, 1384. He died three days later and, not having been excommunicated, was buried in consecrated ground.

After his death, the force of the Church effected its way. In 1410, his works were publicly burned at Prague and at Oxford. In 1415, the Council of Constance (1414-1418) ordered his remains to be dug up and scattered to the four winds. In 1428, Richard Fleming, bishop of Lincoln, actually carried out this loathsome operation: He dug up the bones of Wyclif, burned them, and cast them into the River Swith.

Significance

Assessments of Wyclif’s influence are sometimes clouded by exaggerated claims. Such claims are not needed to establish his contributions, which stand on their own merit. It is sometimes alleged, for example, that Wyclif’s theories were responsible for fomenting the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Yet, while some of his prescriptions for ecclesiastical reform overlapped with the ideas spread by the “poor priests” who helped to instigate the revolt, that movement was sparked mainly by economic and social concerns, not religious ones.

Wyclif is also frequently credited with having made the first translation of the entire Bible into English. While this claim is in error there is little evidence that Wyclif himself undertook any of the translation work his influence in this area was indeed significant. It is incontestable that the first full translation of the Bible into English was made by followers of Wyclif as a direct result of his emphasis on the authority of Scripture and the priesthood of the believer. The first Wyclifite translation, produced in 1380, was marred by an attempt to reproduce Latin word order in English. In 1384, however, Wyclif’s secretary, John Purvey, produced a much-revised translation that is notable for the idiomatic freshness of its English.

Wyclif’s writings, influential in England during his lifetime but soon lost to the public eye, had their greatest direct impact in Bohemia, where the martyr Jan Hus, an ardent follower of Wyclif, helped to prepare the way for the Reformation. Through Hus, Wyclif had a significant impact on Martin Luther and others among the great reformers.

Bibliography

Dahmus, Joseph H. The Prosecution of John Wyclyf. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952. A revisionary work on Wyclif that is an indispensable corrective to Workman’s standard biography. It investigates the most crucial aspects of Wyclif’s public life. Valuable interpretation of Wyclif’s distance from the “poor priests” and the Lollards.

Kenny, Anthony. Wyclif. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1985. This slim volume in the Past Masters series offers an excellent introduction to Wyclif’s life and thought. The author places greater emphasis on Wyclif’s philosophical concerns than is found in most studies.

Kenny, Anthony., ed. Wyclif in His Time. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1986. This work features the 1984 Wyclif commemorative lectures at Balliol by Anne Hudson, Gordon Leff, and Maurice Keen and several other articles by Wyclif specialists. Valuable for several issues concerning Wyclif.

Lahey, Stephen E. Philosophy and Politics in the Thought of John Wyclif. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Part of the Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought series, presents Wyclif’s philosophical and political ideas. Bibliography, index.

Long, John D. The Bible in English: John Wycliffe and William Tyndale. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1998. Considers the lives and sacrifices of Wyclif and William Tyndale, addressing their roles in translating the Latin Vulgate and the New Testament, respectively.

McFarlane, K. B. John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity. New York: Macmillan, 1953. The author proposes that Wyclif’s excesses and those of his disciples made reform disreputable and thus drove it “underground.” Follows the view that Wyclif and the Lollards were closely linked.

Robson, John A. Wyclif and the Oxford Schools. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1961. A valuable examination of Wyclif’s philosophical and theological development. Concentrates on his early years at Oxford and the philosophers and theologians whose writings influenced Oxford thought.

Workman, Herbert B. John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church. 2 vols. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1926. The standard biography of Wyclif, still useful but in many respects outdated.