John Wyclif 640

Today is the 640th anniversary of the death at lotto off in Leicestershire of the rector, John Wyclif - also, of course, spelt as Wycliffe. 

Wyclif had been rector for the previous decade since 1374, but only resident since 1382, and probably reluctantly, for all his inveigling against negligent clergy, He apparently suffered a stroke during Mass in the church on December 28th and died hree days later. He was buried in the church with a memorial, of which fragments were taken in later years by Bohemian admirers back to central Europe. In 1428, by order of the Council of Constance, confirmed by Pope Martin V, and at the order of the diocesan Bishop Richard Fleming of Lincoln, Wyclif’s bones were dug up, burned and the ashes thrown into the local river Swift. Later romantically minded admirers have seen this as spreading his influence worldwide.

To many he came to be seen, and still is, as the “Morning Star of the Reformation”, founder of the Lollard movement and enthusiastic translator of the Bible into English. That is very much the interpretation offered by H.B. Workman in his two volume early twentieth century biography of Wyclif

Twenty or so years later the immensely influential Oxford Historia and reinterpretor of late Medieval English politics K.B. Macfarlane wrote a short but significant life of Wyclif. Unlike Workman Macfarlane was not a religious man and for him Wyclif was a disappointed careerist with high blood pressure. Forced out of Oxford because of his highly controversial views, and after failing to secure a fixed place there and dependent on various small benefices for his income he became ever more critical of the established Church and succumbed to a stroke.

Such were the two prevailing views of Wyclif when I was an undergraduate.

Since then studies on all aspects of Wyclif, his immediate circle, their influence, the development of Lollard ideas and Lollard ( if it existed,that is, as a coherent movement )the impact of his ideas on Jan Hus in Bohemia and on, or arguably not on, the English reformation, and its enduring legacy. As has been pointed out long ago he anticipated almost the whole range of reformist ideas, but not in a systematic way, being in that respect more like Luther than Calvin and his followers.

The result has been much excellent scholarship, much light has been shed and some heat generated. The result is we think we know something or indeed more about Wyclif, but it seems to me that often the more we know, or think we know, the more perplexing he is. That extends to his - putative - followers, and the place of all of them in Ricardian and fifteenth century England.

Just a brief glance at the Wikipedia account of Wyclif indicates something of this. It can be seen at John Wycliffe

It begins with the old emphasis on him as the proto-English protestant but what have been I suspect later revisions indicate how far and wide scholarship has gone in recent decades. There are no easy answers with the life and thought of Wyclif. 

Ten years ago I posted about the anniversary of his death in John Wyclif

In it I recommended the ODNB life by Anne Hudson and Anthony Kenny. That remains a major introduction, as does Kenny’s ‘Past Mastets’ OUP account.  G.R. Evans’ biography is readable and brings late fourteenth century Oxford to life.

Kenny compared Wyclif to Wesley and Newman as three Oxford men with the same Christian name, exiled from Oxford but ever nostalgic for it. For all their immense differences he makes a useful, memorable comparison. All three risked sanctions from essentially the same academic code of regulation and conduct in the age before Victorian reform got to work on the University. I would add that all three wrote vast amounts, and trawling through it all takes time and skill.

Today he might well be a television don, a pundit on everything, or one exiled to the internet for being too politically or ecclesially incorrect.

There is an illustrated account of the church at Lutterworth at Lutterworth Church St Mary Leicestershire | Leicestershire & Rutland Church Journal

I wrote about following Wyclif’s footsteps in modern Oxford in 2014 in Walking round Wyclif's Oxford