John Wycliffe and the English Bible

A Schoolman at Oxford

In the second half of the fourteenth century, the most celebrated scholar at Oxford was a Yorkshireman named John Wycliffe. Born around 1330 near Richmond in the North Riding, he spent most of his adult life at the university as student, fellow, and teacher. He was Master of Balliol College around 1360 and became a doctor of theology in 1372. Even his enemies granted his learning. Before he was England's most notorious heretic, he was widely regarded as its leading philosopher and theologian.

His England was bruised and restless. The Black Death of 1348–1349 had killed perhaps a third or more of the people, and the war with France drained the treasury. From 1309 to 1377 the popes lived at Avignon under French influence, and Englishmen resented the money that flowed to them through taxes, fees, and provisions, the papal practice of appointing absent foreigners to rich English church offices.

The crown found Wycliffe useful. In 1374 he joined a royal embassy to Bruges to negotiate with papal envoys, and the king presented him to the parish of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, which he held until his death. He also gained a powerful patron in John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, a son of the king and the greatest noble in England.