As soon as parliament met in the autumn of 1377, Wycliffe was consulted by it as to the lawfulness of prohibiting that treasure should pass out of the country in obedience to the pope's demand. Wycliffe's affirmative judgment is contained in a state paper still extant ; and its tone is plain proof that his views on the main ques tion of church and state had the support of the nation. He had laid before this same parliament his answer to the pope's bulls, with a defence of the soundness of his opinions. His university, moreover, confirmed his argument; his tenets, it said, were ortho dox though their expression might admit of a wrong interpreta tion. Early in 1378 Wycliffe appeared at Lambeth Palace to clear himself before the prelates who had summoned him. A more cautiously worded defence was laid before the council; but its session was rudely interrupted, not only by a crowd of citizens, but also by a messenger from the princess of Wales enjoining them not to pass judgment against Wycliffe; and thus a second time he escaped. Meanwhile his "protestatio" was sent on to Rome, but before any further step could be taken Gregory XI. died.
In the autumn of this year Wycliffe was once more called upon to prove his loyalty to John of Gaunt, who had violated the sanctuary of Westminster by sending armed men to seize two squires who had taken refuge there. One of them was murdered, together with a servant of the church. The bishop of London excommunicated all concerned in the crime (except only the king, his mother and his uncle), and preached against the culprits at Paul's Cross. At the parliament held at Gloucester in October, in the presence of the legates of Pope Urban VI., Wycliffe read an apology for the duke's action, pleading that the men were killed in resisting legal arrest. The paper, which forms part of the De ecclesia, maintains the right of the civil power to invade the sanctuary to bring escaped prisoners to justice.
The schism in the papacy, owing to the election of Clement VII. in opposition to Urban VI., accentuated Wycliffe's hostility to the Holy See and its claims. He did not object to a visible head of the church so long as this head possessed the essential quali fication of righteousness. It was later that Wycliffe definitely branded the pope, qua pope, as Antichrist. (See vol. ii. of the Sermones. Book iii. of his Opus evangelicum is entitled De Antichristo.) Wycliffe's criticism of the established order and of the accepted doctrines he now determined to carry into the streets. For this purpose he instituted "simple" priests to preach his doc trines throughout the country; and, secondly, he translated the Vulgate into English, with the aid of his friends Nicholas Hereford and John Purvey. (See BIBLE, ENGLISH.) This version of the
Bible, and still more his numerous sermons and tracts, established Wycliffe's position as the founder of English prose writing.
Wycliffe had been on good terms with the friars, whose ideal of poverty appealed to him but he had come to recognize that all organized societies within the church were liable to the same corruption, while he objected fundamentally to a special standard of morality for the "religious." His itinerant preachers were meant to supplement the services of the church by religious instruction in the vernacular, and among them were men who held or had held respectable positions at Oxford. The common people were rejoiced by their plain and homely doctrine which dwelt chiefly on the simple "law" of the gospel, while they no doubt relished the denunciation of existing evils in the church. The feeling of disaffection against the rich and careless clergy, monks and friars was widespread but undefined. Wycliffe turned it into a definite channel.
In addition, Wycliffe was appealing to the world of learning in a series of Latin treatises, which followed each other in rapid succession, and collectively form his summa theologise. J. Loserth, in his paper "Die Genesis von Wiclifs Summa Theologiae" (Sit zungsber. der k. Akad. der Wissensch., Vienna, 1908, vol. 156) gives proofs that the Summa was written to provide weapons in the controversies of the time. During the years 1378 and 1379 Wycliffe produced his works on the truth of Holy Scripture, on the church, on the office of king, on the papal power. The De officio regis is practically a declaration of war against the papal monarchy, an anticipation of the theocratic conception of national kingship as established later by the Reformation. (See De officio regis ed. A. W. Pollard and Charles Sayle, from Vienna mss. 3933, WYclif Soc. 1887—cap. vi. p. 119.) Wycliffe now passed from an assailant of the papal to an assailant of the sacerdotal power. In 1379 or 1380 Wycliffe began a formal public attack on what he calls the "new" doctrine in a set of theses on the Eucharist propounded at Oxford. (1381 is the date given in Shirley's edition of the Fasciculi Zizaniorum. F. D. Matthew, in the Eng. Hist. Rev. for April 1890, v. 328, proves that the date must have been 1379 or 1380.) There followed sermons, tracts, and, in 1381, his great treatise De eucharistic. Finally, at the close of his life, he summed up his doctrine in the Trialogus.