Reformer or heretic?
Not everyone before the sixteenth-century Reformation was an orthodox Roman Catholic. This portrait is of the philosopher and theologian John Wycliffe (c.1330–1384), Master of Balliol College, Oxford, whom the Pope declared a heretic in 1377. Among his teachings, Wycliffe argued against the spiritual authority of the Pope, the material wealth of the Church, the veneration of relics, and the Catholic doctrine surrounding the Mass. Believing in the supreme authority of scripture, Wycliffe also called for the Bible to be read in the vernacular (the common language of the people). Wycliffe played a leading role in setting out unorthodox religious ideas, but there is little evidence that he organized a heretical movement. It is also unlikely that he was responsible for the production of the first English Bible, translated from the Latin, that was given his name. Scholars today maintain that it was his associates who largely translated and circulated the ‘Wycliffite Bible’. These men also became itinerant preachers spreading his criticisms of the Church and writing their own texts.
Thanks to the protection of the powerful nobleman, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340-99), Wycliffe was never put on trial for heresy, but the Church took a tougher line against his followers, who became known as ‘Lollards’, a medieval Dutch word meaning to ‘mutter' or ‘mumble’ (probably arising from their style of worship, which was based on reading the scriptures). In 1401, Parliament passed a statute, which contained a clause that empowered the State to burn convicted heretics who refused to recant. From then on, trials of Lollards occurred intermittently until early in the reign of Henry VIII. During this period, Lollard communities survived where members secretly heard readings from the Wycliffite Bible. Because of their underground nature, we know little about them except from trial records.
Many English Protestants long viewed John Wycliffe as the ‘morning star’ of the English Reformation, and Lollards as the forerunners of early Protestant reformers. For this reason, the Anglican theological college, Wycliffe Hall, founded in 1877, was named after the Oxford theologian and critic of the late-mediaeval Church.
