RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Wyclif
tended for the common people. His performances grew in keenness, his following ever became greater. His pronouncements were no longer hedged in by the bounds of the classroom, they spread to the masses. “Every second man that you meet,” writes a contemporary, “is a Lollard.’’ In the midst of this commotion, which moved onward in victorious fashion, fell the great. peasant uprising (1381), called forth by the misery of the suffering masses under epidemics, failure of harvests, and mistakes of government. Although Wyclif disapproved of the revolt, it was laid to his charge. And yet his friend and protector Lancaster was, among the revolutionaries, the most hated of all, and where Wyclif’s influence was the greatest the uprising found the least semblance of support. While in general the aim of the revolt was against the spiritual nobility, this came about because they were of the nobles, not because they were of the Church. So prosecution was directed against Wyclif. His old enemy, Courtenay, now archbishop of Canterbury, called (1882) an ecclesiastical assembly of notables at London. During the consultations an earthquake occurred (May 21); the participants were terrified and wished to break up the assembly, but Courtenay declared the earthquake a favorable sign which meant the purification of the earth from erroneous doctrine. Of the twenty-four propositions, attributed to Wyclif without mentioning his name, ten were declared heretical and fourteen erroneous. The former had reference to the transformation in the sacrament, the latter to matters of church order and institutions. It was forbidden from that time to hold these opinions or to advance them in sermons or in academic discussions. All persons disregarding this order were to be subject to prosecution. ‘To accomplish this latter end the help of the State was necessary; the upper house, frightened by the uprising, was won over, but the commons rejected the bill. The king, however, had a decree issued which permitted the arrest of those in error. The citadel of the reformatory movement was Oxford, where were Wyclif’s most active helpers; these were laid under the ban and summoned to recant, and one of them, Nicholas of Hereford, went to Rome to appeal. In similar fashion the poor priests were hindered in their work. Finally the chief blow fell upon himself. On Nov. 18, 1382, a synod was opened at Oxford, before which he was summoned; he appeared, though apparently broken in body in consequence of a stroke of paralysis, but nevertheless strong in conviction and unbent in will. That he recanted is a baseless calumny. He still commanded the favor of the court and of parliament, to which he addressed a memorial. He was neither excommunicated then, nor deprived of his living.
He returned to Lutterworth, and thence sent out tracts—exceedingly pungent—against the monks and Urban VI. since the latter, contrary to the hopes of Wyclif, had not turned out to be a reforming or ‘‘true” pope, but had exerted his activities in mischievous conflicts. The crusade in Flanders called forth the Reformer’s biting scorn, while his ‘sermons became yet fuller-voiced and dealt with the
17. Last Days.
imperfections of the Church. The literary achievements of his last days, such as the T’rialogus, stand at the peak of the knowledge of his day. His last work, the Opus evangelicum, the last part of which he named in characteristic fashion “Of Antichrist,” remained uncompleted. While he was hearing mass in the parish church on Holy Innocents’ Day, Dec. 28, 1384, he was again stricken down with apoplexy and died on the last day of the year. His remains found no quiet in the grave, for in his lifetime the great Hussite movement (see Huss, Joun, Hus- SITES) arose and set afire the entire West of Europe. The Council of Constance took cognizance of Wyclif as well as of Huss and declared the former (on May 4, 1415) a stiff-necked heretic and under the ban of the Church. It was decreed that his books be burned and his remains be exhumed. This last did not happen till twelve years afterward, when at the command of Martin V. they were dug up, burned, and the ashes cast into the Swift which flows through Lutterworth.
Significant though the work of this man was in the last decade of his life, none of his contemporaries left a complete picture of his person, his life, and his activities. It is most difficult to be certain of his external appearance. While pictures representing him have been found, they are from a later period. Those of the fourteenth century are strongly typical, and yet it can not be said with certainty that they belong to a definite individual. One must therefore be content with certain scattered expressions found in the history of the trial by William Thorpe (1407). It appears that Wyclif was spare of body, indeed of wasted appearance, and not strong physically. He was of unblemished walk in life, says Thorpe, and was regarded affectionately by people of rank, who often consorted with him, took down his sayings, and clung to him. “TI indeed clove to none closer than to him, the wisest and most blessed of all men whom I have ever found. From him one could learn in truth what the Church of Christ is and how it should be ruled and led.” If one rejects this testimony as that of a partizan, one may yet adduce Henry Knighton, who says of him that in philosophy there was no one of his opponents who was his equal, and in Bohemia, according to John Pribram, ‘‘every one cleaves to the declarations of John Wyclif as though he were the fifth Gospel’’; while with a certain excessive warmth Huss wished that his soul might be wherever that of Wyclif was found.
One may not say that Wyclif was a comfortable opponent to meet. On this account Thomas Netter of Walden highly esteemed the old Carmelite monk John Kynyngham in that he ‘‘so bravely offered himself to the biting speech of the heretic and to words that stung as being without the religion of Christ.”” But this example of Netter is not well chosen, since the tone of Wyclif toward Kynyngham is that of a junior toward an elder whom one respects, and in similar fashion he handled also other opponents. But when he turned upon them his roughest side, as for example in his sermons or in his polemical writings and tracts, it is not to be denied that he met the attacks with a tone that could not be styled friendly,
18. Personality.
Wyclif