John Wycliffe
Oxford master and parish priest of Lutterworth whose teaching on the Eucharist, the papacy and church property was condemned in 1382 and again at Constance in 1415. A contemporary chronicler credits him with translating the Gospel into English.
Gregory XI’s bull of 1377 describes Wycliffe as rector of Lutterworth and professor of the sacred Scriptures at Oxford, and accuses him of teaching the errors of Marsilius of Padua (Gregory XI, Bull to Oxford (1377)). The conclusions condemned at London in 1382 show what his opponents took his teaching to be: that the bread remains bread after the consecration, that a pope or priest in mortal sin has no power, and that the church should not hold property (Blackfriars Council (1382)). Knighton, a chronicler hostile to him, says that he translated the Gospel from Latin into English (Knighton, Chronicle vol. 2, pp. 151–152).
John Foxe, in the sixteenth century, gives his death at Lutterworth on St Silvester’s day, 31 December, under the year 1384 (Foxe, Acts and Monuments vol. 3, p. 53). The Council of Constance declared him a heretic in 1415 and ordered his bones removed from consecrated ground (Council of Constance, session 8). See Wycliffe and the First English Bible.
In the timeline
- about 1382, estimated dateWycliffe and the First English Bible
The teaching of the Oxford theologian John Wycliffe is condemned at London in 1382. A hostile chronicler says that he put the Gospel into English; the whole Bible is translated in those decades, and a constitution of 1409 forbids such versions without a bishop’s approval.
Primary sources
Bull to the University of Oxford against John Wycliffe
- Gregory XI, Bull to Oxford (1377)sourcebooks.fordham.edu
Conclusions of Wycliffe Condemned at London
- Blackfriars Council (1382)sourcebooks.fordham.edu
Decrees of the Council of Constance
- Council of Constance, session 8papalencyclicals.net