RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Wuttke Wyclif
Pa tala IE OE EE ION 9 De A ee) ll Ps er oo sR ee a a 2 ay oi ies SE es Ser
won recognition in philosophy. Even his opponents acknowledged the keenness of his dialectic. His writings prove him to have been well grounded in Roman law and in that of his own country, as well as in native history—in this last branch he set great store by the Polychronicon of Ranulf Higden [ed. in Rolls Series, 9 vols., London, 1865-86]. In the university there was no lack of sharp friction both political and scientific. As in other universities of the period, the students were enrolled in “nations” ; in Oxford there were two of these—the northern or “Boreales” and southern or “Australes,” each of which had its procurator chosen by the corps or nation. Wyclif belonged to the former of these, in which the prevailing tendency was anticurial, while the other was curial in its preferences. Not less sharp was the separation over Nominalism and Realism (see Scoonasticism, IV.). Wyclif was a Realist. In the midst of these controversies the university studies of Wyclif were pursued. A family whose seat was in the neighborhood of Wyclif’s home—Bernard Castle— had founded in Oxford the college named after itself—Balliol. To this Wyclif belonged, first as scholar, then as master, and had finally attained to the headship not later than 1360. When he received from the college the presentation in 1361 of the parish of Fylingham in Lincolnshire, he had to give up the leadership of the college, though he received the courtesy of per-
3. Early Ap- mission to live at Oxford; original tespointments. timony indicates that he had rooms in the buildings of Queen’s College. His
university advancement followed the usual course. While as baccalaureate he busied himself with natural science and mathematics, as master he had the right to read in philosophy, and in this he soon gained repute. But of marked significance was his zeal in Bible study, which he pursued after becoming bachelor in theology. His fidelity, truth, and diligence led Simon Islip, archbishop of Canterbury, to place him at the head of Canterbury Hall in December, 1365, in which twelve young men were preparing for the priesthood.* Islip had designed the foundation especially for secular clergy; but when he died in April of 1366, his successor Simon Langham, a man of monastic training, turned the leadership of the college over toa monk. Though Wyclif appealed to Rome, the issue was unfavorable to him. This case would hardly have been thought of again had not contemporaries of Wyclif, such as William Woodford, erroneously seen in it the genesis of his later energetic assaults upon Rome and monasticism. Between 1366 and 1372 he became a doctor of theology; as such he had the right to lecture upon systematic divinity, which right he zealously exercised. But it is an error to trace to these lectures the origin of his Swmma, which was due to quite other stimuli. In 1368 he gave up his living at Fylingham and took over the rectory of Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire, not far from Oxford, and this was a position which enabled him to retain his connection with the university. Six years later (1374) he received the crown living of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, which he retained till his
* Rashdall holds that the Wyclif of Canterbury Hall was not the Reformer.
death. He had already resigned a prebend in Westbury because it was contrary to his convictions to hold command of more positions than those in which he could personally exercise the cure of souls.
At Oxford -he developed a comprehensive activity as academic teacher; there he penned his first reformatory writings and also preached with success. But it was not in these fields that Wyelif gained his position in history; this came from his activities in ecclesiastical politics, in which he engaged about the middle of the seventies, when also his reformatory operations began. In 1374 he was among the English delegates at a peace congress at Bruges. It has been the general opinion that he was given this honorable position in consequence of his spirited and naturally patriotic behavior with which in the year 1366 he sought the interests of his country as against the demands of the papacy. It seems as though he had already a distinguished place as a patriot and reformer; and it suggests the answer to the question how he came to his reformatory ideas. There have been many erroneous ideas as to this, particularly with reference to Wyclif’s relation to earlier reform movements in the Church. Little can be said in favor of a connection with the Waldenses (q.v.), whose activities hardly reached England. [Even if it were certain that older evangelical parties did not exist in England before the time of Wyclif, he might easily have been influenced by continental evangelicals who abounded, whose views were combated by men the works of whom were known to the English reformers. But it seems incredible that continental parties, who were sorely persecuted in the various countries across the channel from England should not have found their way to a land where the inquisition was not at work. Besides, it is highly probable that the older type of doctrine and practise represented by the Iro-Scottish Christians of the pre-Roman time persisted till the time of Wyclif and reappeared in Lollardism. A.H.N.] Rather the root of the Wyclifite reformatory movement must be traced to his Bible study and especially to the ecclesiastical-political lawmaking of his times and of those immediately preceding him. He was well acquainted with the tendencies of the ecclesiastical politics to which England owed the honorable position which she possessed in the fourteenth century. He had given study to the proceedings of Edward I. (1272- 1306), England’s most popular king, and had not only attributed to them the basis of parliamentary opposition to papal usurpations, but had found a model therein for methods of procedure in matters connected with the questions of worldly possessions and the Church. Many sentences in his book on the Church recall the institution of the commission of 1274, the activity of which prepared so much pain and sorrow for the English clergy. He considered that the example of Edward I. should be held in mind by the government of his time; but that with keener implements and to higher purposes the aim should be a reformation of the entire ecclesiastical establishment. And similar was his position with reference to the enactments induced by the ecclesiastical politics ef Edward III. (1327-76), with which
4. Bases of his Reformatory Activities.
Wyclif