Three months later, Pope Gregory XI issued five bulls (church edicts) against Wycliffe, in which Wycliffe was accused on 18 counts and was called "the master of errors."Īt a subsequent hearing before the archbishop at Lambeth Palace, Wycliffe replied, "I am ready to defend my convictions even unto death….
Soon they erupted into an open brawl, ending the meeting. The hearing had hardly gotten underway when recriminations on both sides filled the air. Such opinions got Wycliffe into trouble, and he was brought to London to answer charges of heresy. If anyone should keep such taxes, it should be local English authorities. He argued that the church was already too wealthy and that Christ called his disciples to poverty, not wealth. Wycliffe advised his local lord, John of Gaunt, to tell Parliament not to comply. In the meantime, Rome had demanded financial support from England, a nation struggling to raise money to resist a possible French attack. In 1374 he became rector of the parish in Lutterworth, but a year later he was disappointed to learn he was not granted a position at Lincoln nor the bishopric of Worcester-setbacks that some have seized upon as motives for his subsequent attacks on the papacy. Nonetheless, by then he was already considered Oxford's leading philosopher and theologian. He left for Oxford University in 1346, but because of periodic eruptions of the Black Death, he was not able to earn his doctorate until 1372.
Wycliffe had been born in the hinterlands, on a sheep farm 200 miles from London. Papacy begins "Babylonian" exile in Avignon And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine which now is dispersed the world over." Timeline As a later chronicler observed, "Thus the brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon Avon into Severn Severn into the narrow seas and they into the main ocean. Wycliffe's teachings, though suppressed, continued to spread. John Wycliffe left quite an impression on the church: 43 years after his death, officials dug up his body, burned his remains, and threw the ashes into the river Swift. "Trust wholly in Christ rely altogether on his sufferings beware of seeking to be justified in any other way than by his righteousness."