Wycliffe's legacy

Long ago my mother bought me a book about, I don't remember which, Tyndale or Wycliffe. Whichever it was about I didn't read it (sorry!) and have since lost it. Hahn-Wiker is probably going to discuss both. Right now I am reading its long chapter about Wycliffe.

The time in question is the score of years AD 1370s-80s. The king, Edward III, wasn't doing much kinging and his heir the future Richard II was a child. Over the mid 1370s John of Gaunt was doing much of the work... which he did badly, where it mattered, over in France. There was a "Good Parliament" 1376 which took control of the kingdom from John, but John grabbled it back. John ended up as effective regent on Richard's behalf. John's regency by the way overlaps the Catholic schism when Avignon seceded from Rome.

Wycliffe, it seems, had two phases in his theological life. In his first phase, he proposed (a slightly autistic) tiered hermeneutic of Scripture. For him true Scripture was Christ, and the texts were valuable only in pointing to Him. So far, so inoffensive to Catholics, although perhaps overcomplicated. But then came 1381.

Wycliffe, for whatever reason - I suspect brain damage - demoted the Eucharist. This, finally, gave both Popes reason to write him out of the Faith (although he could still attend Mass apparently). Then came Wat Tyler's Revolt which Wycliffe basically supported. Teenaged Richard II, finally coming into his own as royal, played the revolt along until he could crush it - which he did. Wycliffe wrote some embittered tirades against, well, everything and stroked out a couple years later.

The late Wycliffe still had friends in university. The King, for his part, married Anne of Bohemia - who owned a (Czech) vernacular Bible. These friends composed the famous "Wycliffe" Bible in English. (Wycliffe knew no Greek or Hebrew, so had been unable to translate it all himself.) As the Wycliffite Bible and Wycliffe's own teachings leaked out of academe, other dissidents picked them up and formed a sect whom its enemies named "Lollards". Some Bohemians in Anne's entourage got wind of it all too, and brought it to Prague.

Richard was in a tough spot. There was much in Lollardism and even more in early Wycliffe that could be of use to him, in struggles between the nobility, the church, and the commons. And Richard was, as mentioned, quite an intelligent and canny young man. But Lollardism was not something that he could really control.