WICKLIFF, or WYCLIFF, John, English reformer: b. Sprcswcll, Yorkshire, probably about 13.30; d. Lutterworth, 31 Dec. 1384. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford. of which he became master between 1356 and 1361, in which later year he was appointed by his college to the living of Fillingham, in Lincolnshire. About the same time the Pope bestowed upon him a prebend in the collegiate church of West bury-on-Trym, near Bristol, in which he was confirmed by the king. In 1368 he gave up Fillingham and accepted the living of Ludgers hall, in Buckinghamshire, and four years later qualified as doctor of theology. He was pre sented by the Crown in 1374 to the benefice of Lutterworth, in the south of Leicestershire, which he held till his death. A Latin tract (Determinatio quadam Magistri Johnannis Wy clyff de Dominio contra unum Monachum,' has been regarded as belonging to the controversy raised by the refusal of the Parliament of 1360 to pay a tribute demanded by the Pope Urban V, in virtue of the homage paid by ICng John to Innocent III, but some authorities refer it to a date about 10 years later, when similar cir cumstances arose. At the time of writing the tract. Widif was regarded as royal chaplain, for he calls himself tecuharis regis clericus, and in 1374 was named second on a commission which went to Bruges to try to settle disputes concerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction with the representatives of the Pope Gregory Xl. He had shortly before been appointed a canon of Lincoln, but never actually obtained a prebend in that cathedral. The development of his views on the relation between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the secular authorities brought him into close association with John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and his party, and in 1377 the anti-Lancastrians sought to at their political opponents through Wiclif. He was sumnionsd in that year before Archbishop Sud bury and his suffragans at Saint Paul's, and at tended, accompanied by Lancaster, Lord Percy, and other powerful Lancastrians. A violent altercation between the duke and William uurtenay, bishop of London, caused the break up of the meeting, and the infuriated populace plundered (aunt's palace and attacked Percy's house Coon afterward Pope Gregory sent seseral hulls to the University of Oxford, the of Carnet-fairy, and the bishop of London, in N high he accused \Vida of teach ing the condemned doctrines of Nfarsilins of Padua and f laridun, and ordered him to be And examined The parties were relit IAN to %tee% of iclifs great popularity and influcme, and esen after the bulls had arrived he was consulted by the gov ernment as to whether they might legally pre sent money from going abroad to absentee holders of benefices. He eventually appeared before the prelates at Lambeth in 1378, but the king's mother sent a message forbidding them to interfere with him, and a popular demon stration in his favor put an end to the pro ceedings. In the Gloucester Parliament of 137a he made a defense of John of Gaunt, who had grossly violated the Westminster right of sanc tuary.
This year, 1378, was an important date in Wiclif's religious career. While continuing to inveigh against certain abuses, he began to question the whole basis of sacerdotalism and its authority, and by 1381 had attained to a substantially Lutheran position in regard to transsubstantiation and the mass. About this
time also he commenced his appeal to the common people and presented religion as a popular force rather than a dogmatic system or an organized institution. This appeal assumed two forms, the sending out of his 'poor preachers' and the translation of the Bible from the Vulgate into the English of his day. His itinerant evangelists spread his doctrines throughout the land and soon made the Lollard movement one of great strength and importance. In his translation of the Bible he had the assistance -of Nicholas Hereford, who was responsible for most of the Old Testament, and the whole work was re vised by his assistant, John Purvey, who finished it soon after Wield's death. %Vichrs views on the eucharist were promptly con demned at Oxford and forbidden to he taught there, and in 1382 Courtenay, archbishop of Canterbury, summoned a council in the Black friars' convent hall, at which Wiclif's teaching was condemned and some of his followers ex communicated. This council known as the 'earthquake council* because a violent earth quake occurred during the meeting, ordered the Carmelite, Dr. Stokes, to publish the con demnation at Oxford. The chancellor of Ox ford University at that time, Robert Rygge, was a supporter of Wiclif and evaded the duty of carrying out the council's mandate until absolutely compelled to do so. Wicfif himself remained untouched, but he retired to Lutterworth, where he occupied himself in preaching and writing. It is said that Urban VI summoned him to Rome in 1384, but this is doubtful. He had a paralytic stroke in 1382 or 1383, and again in 1384, from which he died. He was buried at Lutterworth, but in 1428, in accordance with a decree of the council of Constance in 1415, his body was exhumed and burned, and his ashes thrown into the river Swift Of the 24 Wiclifite propositions condemned by the earthquake council, 10 were described as heretical and 14 as erroneous. The most import ant of the 10 were: that transsubstantiation is philosophically false, since the substance cannot be changed while the accidents remain; that transsubstantiation is not taught in the Gospels; that confession is not necessary to salvation; that no one after Urban \'l should he recog nized as Pope; and that it is unscriptnral for eccle•lastics to hold temporal possessions Of the erroneous doctrines, several seriously lnnmecci the right of excommunication in a distinctly Protestant sense, one asserted the right of un licensed preaching, another declared that domin ion, whether civil or ecclesiastical, could not be long to one in mortal sin, and another distinctly asserted the authority of the temporal power over the ecclesiastical in temporal affairs. Wic hf unmistakably made his appeal to Scripture as of higher authority than Church tradition or decrees, and had a strong sense of the individual istic basis of religion. Ile never reached the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, but from denunciation of abuses in the Church rap idly advanced to his three main positions: that all dominion was of divine origin and was for feited by anyone in mortal sin; that transsub stantiation was a doctrine both unphilosophical and unscriptural; and that monasticism in every form was a corrupt institution.