WYCLIF, WICKLIFFE, or WICLIF (the name is spelled in several ways), JOHN, an English reformer; born in the village of Ispreswel (later Hipswell), Yorkshire, England, between 1315 and 1320, the year 1324 assigned by Lewis and accepted by several subsequent biographers being too late to tally with other facts in his life. Of his childhood and youth no account has been preserved. He probably went to Oxford when a mere lad, and he certainly had a re markable university career; but all de tails are wanting till 1356, when we find him (if there is not a confusion with another John Wyclif) seneschal of Mer ton College. In 1361 he was master or warden of Balliol, and though in May of the same year he was appointed rector of Fillingham in Lincoln, the university continued for a long time the main seat of his activity. About four years later, Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed him (if this be not again the other Wyclif) warden of the new founda tion of Canterbury Hall, but after Islip's death he was expelled by the monkish members, whose action was sanctioned by papal bull in 1370 and confirmed by royal decree in 1372.
Meanwhile he had become Professor (i. e., doctor) of Theology. Lehler thinks by Henry the municipal boundary was extended in 1880. Pop. about 20,000.
WYE, a river of South Wales, which, rising from Montgomeryshire, near the Severn's source, and flowing generally S. E. between Radnor and Brecon, through Hereford, and between Glou cester and Monmouth, enters the Severn at Chepstow, 128 miles below its head. Rapid and rockbound as far as Hay, the Wye grows gentler as it gathers vol ume, but throughout is singularly beautiful, making innumerable horseshoe curves between wooded banks, and pass ing by Maeslough, Clifford, Gooderich, and Chepstow Castles, Hereford Cathe dral, and Tintern Abbey.