SOURCE: Heseltine, G. C. “The Myth of Wycliffe.” Thought 7, no. 1 (June 1932): 108-32.

[In the following essay, Heseltine questions Wyclif's status as “a profound philosopher or theologian who paved the way to a purer Christianity on a basis of reason, logic, and sound theological principle.”]

It has become an accepted belief amongst Protestants, and an historical reproach against the Catholic Church, that John Wycliffe, the learned and holy reformer, labored all his life unceasingly for the promulgation of a purer Christianity, was the first to translate the Bible into the vernacular, and suffered shameful persecution for his beliefs. He has been hailed as the father of the Reformation, the pioneer of religious freedom and a man of profound learning, because it has been the fashion of the historians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries so to represent him.

I

In the Life and Opinions of John de Wycliffe, D.D. by Robert Vaughan, D.D., a Congregational divine and, therefore, unlikely to have any personal religious bias against Wycliffe, we are given an account of the man as complete as could be given a century ago and nothing of great importance has come to light since. If we take this authority we find that although the conventional eulogies abound there is little or no historical ground for the conventional picture of the reformer.

The date of Wycliffe's birth is generally agreed to be about 1324-8. He came, probably, of a family of some possessions that had been settled at Wycliffe near Richmond in Yorkshire from Norman times. Under the prevailing voluntary educational system, education was available for those who sought it and John de Wycliffe went to Oxford. Records of his activity there are scanty and uncertain for some years. Vaughan gives it as accepted that he was one of the earliest Commoners at Queen's College (founded in 1340), proceeded thence to Merton College (an older institution which had held Bradwardine, William of Occam and probably Duns Scotus), and ultimately to Canterbury Hall where he was involved in quarrels over the Wardenship. Considerable doubt has been cast on his association with Canterbury Hall, the suggestion being that the John Wycliffe there was not the same man because the facts confound with his mastership of Balliol College, c. 1360. However, the point is unimportant. What is more important is the fact that the first record of his presentation to a living occurs in this year 1361, to Fillingham, which he soon exchanged for Ludgershall in the gift of the Prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. Not until 1366 do we find him in the public eye and he is now forty-two.

The occasion was the dispute between Edward III and the Pope on temporalities and tributes, a permanent bone of contention between kings of England and the Papacy for centuries. A monk had written a tract maintaining that the tribute claimed by the Pope on the strength of the surrender of the kingdom to him by King John, was valid and due. The tract challenged John de Wycliffe by name to prove otherwise.

It appears that Wycliffe was at this time in the service of the king in some capacity at Windsor. It is evident that he must have had some reputation as an opponent of Papal authority or a defender of the King's jurisdiction over temporals, to be thus singled out by the champion of the Papal side. It may be that his activities in that respect had gained him employment in the King's service. The point is significant.

So far he had produced a tract entitled “The Last Age of the Church,” in 1356, wherein he deplored the corruption in the priesthood and expected the current century to see the end of the world. It was not noticeably learned, though informed with pious horror at the lax condition of the clergy, a proper sentiment in a young priest, fully justified by the corruption of the times. He was very outspoken and foretold the calamities that were to come as a punishment on a covetous and sensual clergy.

He had also by this time made some stir at Oxford by his vigorous condemnation of the mendicants. Throughout his life, “friars” are his unfailing abomination. He was by no means the first to attack them—he seems to have stolen the thunder of Fitzralph of Armagh.

Throughout his censures of the mendicants there is never a suspicion that “friars” might be good for the Church if cleansed of their corruptions—they are everything that is evil in their very principle and constitution. Herein is an obvious inconsistency and a serious one. Wycliffe who detested preaching friars, later started the poor priests wandering about preaching. He urged the priesthood and the hierarchy to scorn possessions and imitate the poverty of Christ and his Apostles, yet he strongly condemned the vows of poverty in Religious as not warranted by Scripture. He complained that there was a widespread neglect of the duty of preaching and that priests could not preach where they liked without a licence; yet he raved against the rule of the preaching friars as an insult to Christ “who would have ordered such a rule had it been necessary.” He is not for reforming the corrupt friars but for abolishing friars altogether.

When he comes to answer the monk on the question of Papal tribute he does not use argument but quotes the current speeches of secular lords in support of rejection of the Papal claim. In this he was undoubtedly politic. It was cover for himself and he pleased the prevailing faction.

II

Next we see the emergence of Wycliffe's doctrine of “dominion founded on grace.” The Pope in mortal sin, or any other prelate, loses all dominion and authority and may be disobeyed. Priests in mortal sin have no right to hold their benefices or administer their cures. The laity should reprove erring priests and relieve them of their possessions. Since all authority is held of God, it cannot be held by one who is against God, that is, in mortal sin. This also applies to the civil power, which should correct erring ecclesiastics. But who should correct the erring civil power is not made clear. Wycliffe certainly never suggests the Church. He does not for a long time suggest the loss of power of the civil authority through mortal sin. Nor does he indicate the point at which the people may oppose a sinful and oppressive king. It might seem unfair to suggest that he is too discreet, for we have no direct evidence of this, but the circumstances force such a suggestion to mind. Nevertheless, his case is neither so complete nor profound as one might expect from a first-class philosopher and theologian. It is indefinite enough to make for anarchy in practice. It makes no allowance for the frequent fall of the just man, for the sin concealed in the mind, or for methods of deciding when authority has been lost by sin. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Council of Constance condemned the doctrine as “hostile to every social institution.”

It must be observed that the time was ripe and favorable for anyone in England to criticize the clergy with a fair measure of impunity. Laxity and the inevitable corruption of worldly prosperity had done the clergy no good, the Great Plague had depleted them so much that unfit men were made priests to fill the empty benefices. The Papacy was in exile in Avignon with weakened authority. The King, Edward III, victorious in France and “the first Knight in Europe,” was freely using benefices as rewards for faithful service. The clergy was certainly open to criticism; that part of it was easy. Parliament and the King resisting Papal interference thus encouraged anti-Papal criticism. Wycliffe became popular with the powerful in consequence. He accepted the patronage of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, well-known sinner that he was, notwithstanding the theory of “dominion founded on grace.”

We find Wycliffe supporting the Parliament of 1371, which attempted to exclude the clergy from all offices in the State. It is 1372, however, when he is forty-eight years old, that Wycliffe graduates as Doctor of Theology at Oxford, remarkably late for a man of his alleged ability. Soon afterwards he visits Bruges as one of the King's representatives to argue the case of the tribute with an embassy from the Pope. John of Gaunt is there, too.

After this, Wycliffe received the rectory of Lutterworth and the prebend of Aust in the Collegiate Church of Westbury. The Good Parliament of 1376, in which the great William of Wykeham was prominent, was distinguished by its drastic steps against the King's mistress and favorites and its opposition to John of Gaunt, who backed them. What was the pious reformer doing in this company? Early the next year, Wycliffe was called before Courtenay, Bishop of London, and others at St. Pauls to answer charges of erroneous and heretical doctrines. He attended, supported by Gaunt and Henry Percy, Earl Marshal. The attitude of these noblemen towards the Court and the Bishop of London was not a little offensive. The result was a riot which suspended the proceedings. The public proceeded to set fire to Gaunt's palace of Savoy and hung his arms reversed as a traitor's. In the following year, Wycliffe was again cited before an ecclesiastical court at Lambeth when there was again a tumult, during which a royal messenger appeared forbidding the court to proceed to any definite sentence respecting the conduct or doctrine of Wycliffe. On another occasion the queen-mother, Philippa, who was much respected by the citizens, had intervened between them and John of Gaunt's party. It is not clear whether this interposition was of the same nature, or whether, as some claim, the populace was supporting Wycliffe. In either case, the result was that he escaped condemnation a second time. In a paper presented on this occasion, Wycliffe complains that he has been misrepresented by the notions of children and weak persons concerning what he has taught. He, therefore, commits his opinions to writing, stating that he is ready to defend them even unto death. “In my conclusions,” he writes, “I have followed the sacred scriptures and the holy doctors, both in their meaning and in their modes of expression; this I am willing to show, but should it be proved that such conclusions are opposed to the Faith, I am prepared very willingly to retract them.”

III

Nevertheless, it seems pretty clear that he was escaping ecclesiastical condemnation by the interference of the civil power whose authority he exalted over that of the Church. The civil power at least owed such protection to him since he was undoubtedly encouraged in his teaching by the prevalent opposition to Papal authority. The fact that a man of such vigorous and rebellious mind should have reached the age of fifty-three before he was officially interfered with, suggests that the condition of ecclesiastical authority, weak as it was undoubtedly, was even too weak to operate against heresy, or alternatively, that Wycliffe's views or the weight of his influence were not taken seriously enough for prosecution.

Whatever the cause, the long delay in accusing him and the failure of two attempts to judge his case, seems to have emboldened him. It must have given him confidence in his own view that his last appeal would be to the crown and not to the miter, and that it would stand every chance of being successful.

The first Parliament of Richard II appears to have asked his opinion, anyway to have received it in the affirmative, as to whether the country might retain its treasure in case of necessity against the demands of the Pope. His answer was both easy and safe. At this time Papal authority was further decreased by the Great Schism, which Wycliffe affirms, in “The Schism of the Popes,” is punishment for greed and simony. The tract was followed by one on the “Truth and Meaning of Scripture” which is characteristic of him. He maintains the supreme authority of Scripture, the right of private judgment, for all branches of clerical power and for almost every article of moral obligation.

About this time he was taken seriously ill and a deputation of four doctors (friars) and four civil officers from Oxford waited upon him to persuade him to revoke his abuse of the friars. He is said to have replied that he would not die but live and again declare the evil deeds of the friars. He kept his promise. He fought the mendicants without ceasing until his death four years later.

IV

We need not be surprised that the course of events had emboldened Wycliffe to further a more active revolt against the teaching of the Church. About 1380 he came out vigorously with his challenge to the University on the subject of the Eucharist. It is important to note that he never made clear what he did believe on the Sacrament, but he was quite definite on what he did not believe. He did not believe in Transsubstantiation.

This was naturally too much for the University to stand in any circumstances. The event is remarkable for the explicit definition of Catholic teaching given by the twelve doctors in condemnation of Wycliffe. They declared that the true doctrine of the Church was that in the Sacrament “the bread and wine upon the altar are substantially converted into the true Body and Blood of Christ—so that Christ is verily there in His own proper bodily presence.” It was forbidden to teach otherwise under pain of greater excommunication and suspension from scholastic offices. There was, of course, nothing original in Wycliffe's heresy, since he derived it from Berengarius who had long been condemned. He decided, as we might expect, to appeal to Parliament.

Pending the decision of Parliament he composed his work on the subject known as “Wycliffe's Wicket.” In it we find the question “may the thing made, turn again and make Him who made it? Thou, then, that art an earthly man, by what reason mayest thou say that thou makest thy Maker?” Wycliffe's inability to discover a reason does not suggest a very profound acquaintance with theology. “Seek ye busily,” he writes, “if ye can find two words of blessing or giving of thanks wherewith Christ made His Body and Blood of the bread and wine. For if ye might once find out those words then should ye wax great masters above Christ …” It does not require a theologian to recognize the last part of this sentence as nonsense. Moreover, the findings of any number of words would not convince Wycliffe, for he demanded the right to interpret the words his own way. Such an attitude and such methods of controversy are singularly unconvincing. They give no indication whatever of the mind of a philosopher or theologian. It was a poor schoolman, even though he were a friar, who could not have propounded more formidable and logical arguments against received dogma than Wycliffe's. Speaking of heresies in another place, Wycliffe says “there is no greater heresy than for a man to believe that he is absolved from his sin, if he give money, or because a priest layeth his hand on the head and saith ‘I absolve thee.’” This question-begging sort of statement is typical. It does not make a man a great reformer, or his opponents defenders of what he criticizes. “Prayer,” he says, “is good, but not so good as preaching.”

V

Matters came to a head in 1382, after the insurrection of the men of Kent and the murder of Archbishop Sudbury for which Lollardy and the tenets of Wycliffe were blamed, possibly unjustly. A synod at London, presided over by Courtenay, now Primate, with eight prelates, fourteen doctors of civil and canon law, six bachelors of divinity, and a score of others considered twenty-four opinions being propagated, most attributed to Wycliffe and his followers, and condemned ten as heretical and the rest as erroneous. The condemnation was duly circulated and by direct instruction promulgated at Oxford. Here there was some reluctance to pursue the Primate's policy of extirpating the heresies, partly because some leading authorities there were sympathetic and partly because there was a move to make the University independent of outside ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Ultimately, however, Wycliffe and several others, including Repyngdon who retracted and later became a Cardinal, were suspended from all scholastic exercises until they should clear themselves of the suspicion of heresy. Wycliffe remained in his rectory.

The Primate, resolved to deal thoroughly with heresy, though, indeed, he had come too late, got a statute against heretics through Parliament. Wycliffe's counter to this was an appeal or complaint to the King and Parliament on four points: first, that the vows of Religious are a device of man and of no obligation; second, that secular lords may lawfully, and meritoriously in some cases, take away temporal goods given to men of the Church; third, tithes and other voluntary offerings should be withdrawn from prelates or other priests whoever they be when they yield to great sin; fourth, he prays that the doctrine of the Eucharist, which is plainly taught by Christ and His Apostles in the gospels and epistles may be also openly taught in the churches.

This document is most damaging to Wycliffe. Note the order of the articles—the first is yet another tirade against his old enemies the friars, the next two follow this up by the argumentum ad hominem, in a most shameless fashion appealing directly to the personal bias of the secular power. What is more significant is that the last article does not restate his heresy on the subject but leaves the matter open (wisely in the circumstances) and his expansion of that article in the body of his paper deals not with the Eucharist but with the “evils arising from the worldly business of priests,” dodging right off the question. The Commons were sufficiently seduced to ask the King to repeal the recent statute against heretics.

Exclusion from the University, imprisonment and confiscation had been pronounced against all who should hold or favor the doctrines of Wycliffe. He was now summoned to answer for his doctrines before a Convocation at Oxford, on November 19, 1382. At this stage John of Gaunt declined to help him and advised him to submit to his ecclesiastical superiors in doctrinal matters as he had advised Repyngdon, Hereford and other supporters of Wycliffe.

He presented two “Confessions” to the Convocation, one Latin and one English. They concern his belief in the matter of the Eucharist. They are remarkable for their moderation and caution, being definite affirmations of the Real Presence in the Sacrament, the first in the form of a technical defense of the doctrine of the Real Presence. He is very cleverly vague about Transubstantiation. He does not now ask “how can a man remake his Maker?” or “if the Eucharist is the Body of Christ, is it his mortal or risen body?” Instead “We believe as Christ and His Apostles have taught us, that the Sacrament of the Altar, white and round and like our bread or host unsacred, is very God's Body in the form of bread …” There is no assertion here that the Bread is only figuratively God's Body. In the Latin he says: Idem Corpus Christi … ipsum, inquam, idem corpus et eadem substantia est vere et realiter panis sacramentalis vel hostia consecrata quam fideles senciunt in manibus sacerdotis, cujus probacio est quia Christus qui mentiri non protest sic asserit.

Nevertheless, there is sufficient vagueness in certain expressions, especially where he appears to insist that the substance of bread remains, to save him from the charge of having retracted his heresy. There was sufficient vagueness in his papers at least to save him from immediate condemnation, though they do, on closer consideration, deny Transubstantiation, yet more implicity than explicitly. By virtue of royal letters Wycliffe was now excluded from Oxford.

He retired to Lutterworth once more to write with his customary activity. The quite unusual moderation in dealing with him is somewhat difficult to account for, especially in view of the decisive and effective steps taken against his leading supporters. That the temper of Parliament and the power of John of Gaunt made ecclesiastical authority hesitant need not be doubted. But, the limit had surely been passed in Wycliffe's case. There was evidently also a tendency amongst certain prelates, for example William of Wykeham, the famous Bishop of Winchester, to give the rebels as much rope as possible. Wykeham was thoroughly orthodox and carried great weight. It is not unlikely that he was wise enough to see a danger in making a martyr of Wycliffe, especially when he had a good deal of public sympathy. It may well be also that Wycliffe's personality, his sincerity and piety, won toleration for him. Possibly, again, he was regarded as more misguided than dangerous. Whatever the cause, he was singularly lucky and really suffered not at all when we consider the punishment prescribed for his offence.

He continued, as we have seen, to write and preach at Lutterworth. Eventually he is summoned to Rome to answer for his doctrines. The authorities at home no doubt thought it safer to have him dealt with thus. His reply to the Pope is a curious affair, excusing himself on account of his inability to travel, yet in no very respectful tone: “I have joyfully to tell,” he writes; “the belief which I hold, and always to the Pope. For I suppose that if my faith be right and given of God, the Pope will gladly preserve it, and that if my faith be error, the Pope will wisely amend it.” He goes on to lecture the Pope:

This I take as wholesome counsel, that the Pope should leave his worldly lordship to worldly lords, as Christ enjoins him; … and if I err in this sentence I will be meekly amended … and if I might travel in my own person, I would with God's will go to the Pope. But Christ has needed me to the contrary … and I suppose of our Pope that he will not be Antichrist, and reverse Christ in this working to the contrary of Christ's will. For if he summons against reason by him or any of his, and pursue this unskilful [middle English—unreasonable] summoning, he is an open Anti-Christ.

“Anti-Christ” was, indeed, his favorite expression for the Pope, in addition to “poisoner,” “manslayer,” “vice-regent of the devil,” and so on. Yet there is something highly ludicrous in the Rector of Lutterworth solemnly telling the Pope, whom in the same letter he says is “the highest Vicar that Christ has here on earth,” that if he insists on making him travel to Rome that will prove him to be Anti-Christ. Perhaps Urban VI, who was no fool, saw the joke. At any rate Wycliffe was not molested further, though it is probable that he would have been had he not died after a seizure, during Mass it is said, on the last day of 1384.

VI

It is in his last years, from 1377 to 1384, that Wycliffe is credited with having undertaken the translation of the whole Bible into the vernacular “for the first time.” The fiction that vernacular Scriptures were not extant before Wycliffe has been fully exploded, by such scholars as Cardinal Gasquet among others. Many manuscripts of portions of the Scriptures in the vernacular from the earliest times can be seen today. It is impossible that Wycliffe could have proceeded far with a work of such magnitude in view of the few years available, his other activities and his failing health. Much that was formerly credited to him has in fact been found to be earlier work incorporated with his, for example the translation and commentary on the Psalter by Richard Rolle of Hampole who died in 1349. The vernacular Scriptures were not forbidden as is commonly inferred from Wycliffe's statements, but unauthorized translations were forbidden and for obvious good reasons. Wycliffe himself insists on four qualifications for “interpreting” Scripture, namely, ability to collate manuscripts, logic, comparison of Scripture with Scripture, and illumination by the Holy Ghost—no small essentials. He was, therefore, quite illogical and unreasonable in objecting to even more rigorous stipulations such as the Church required for those who would prepare Scripture for others to interpret.

It would seem to be undeniable that Wycliffe got off very lightly. There is little in all his voluminous works to indicate that he was an especially learned, profound or wise thinker. He is always vigorous and forceful, a master of the abusive controversial methods of the pamphleteer. Most of his productions are pamphlets rather than reasoned treatises. They exhibit little or none of the calm reasoning of the philosopher or theologian, but any amount of the down-right dogmatic assertion, the uncompromising, crushing invective against the other side, which is the mark of the successful pamphleteer. He supposes the College of Cardinals to be formed into a corps of banditti, he sarcastically suggests that it is believed “that inasmuch as he [the Pope] is known by the name of Most Holy Father, he is, of course, free from sin.” Most of Wycliffe's writings, in the words of his Protestant biographer, “bear the marks of hurried composition,” their references to earlier authorities are neither as apt nor as accurate as one would expect from a theologian of eminence. His Protestant biographer states: “It is not pretended that his taste was free from the barbarism which pervaded the literature of the period, nor that his authorities were always the most pertinent that might have been adduced; nor that they are given in every instance with all the caution that was desirable.” In other words his actual learning was neither great nor well-applied. He does not give much time to confuting the opinions of authorities of undoubted eminence and sanctity against him. Friar Thomas Aquinas was neither so wicked a friar nor so inconsiderable a philosopher and theologian that anyone basing a case on reason could afford to ignore his arguments on the Eucharist.

Wycliffe, in short, did not appeal to reason. Honestly shocked as he was at the abuses of his time, he attacked them by appealing to the prejudices of his time. His attack survived and he continued it by the protection of forces neither inspired by his zeal nor worthy of his acceptance. The inheritors of the Protestant tradition who regard Wycliffe as their pioneer, take their religion from views not based on reason but expediency, from a pamphleteer rather than a philosopher or theologian.

He gained little distinction until he was past middle age: he was nearly fifty before he was Doctor, over fifty before he got preferment and came into the public eye. He appears to have owed even so much distinction as he achieved at least in part to his association with John of Gaunt and his usefulness to Gaunt's political party. In the main, apart from his “dominion founded on grace,” his claim to private judgment in the interpretation of Scriptures (neither tenet backed by reasoned argument but rather by the argumentum ad hominem) and his vague and erratic heresy on the Eucharist, he proposed no new doctrine which has gained acceptance by his followers. There is not a single Protestant sect which reveres the memory of Wycliffe, that would accept his doctrines, for example, on the Eucharist. Certainly none practise his theory of “dominion founded in grace.” The bulk of his work was against the clerical abuses of his day, matters of discipline and not doctrine. It is quite probable that he owes not a little of his fame to his condemnation by the Council of Constance.

VII

That he was a devout, pious and sincere man will be readily granted. That he was a vigorous and truculent controversialist is obvious. But that he was a profound philosopher or theologian who paved the way to a purer Christianity on a basis of reason, logic and sound theological principle is not borne out by his works. The eulogies even of contemporary chroniclers such as Knighton are not necessarily to be credited any more than the abuse of contemporaries such as Walsingham, when they conflict with the evidence of the man's works. In a healthier condition of the Church he would not have arisen, or if he had he would have been quickly and effectively controverted and discredited. He might even have been a friar.