P019 Wycliffe's Bible.
P019 Wycliffe’s Bible.
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III.
WYCLIFFE’S BIBLE.
John Wycliffe,(1) Born 1324; Died 1384.
Contemporaneous with the following:—
Popes: John XXII., 1316-1334; Benedict XII., 1334-1342; Clement VI., 1342-1352; Innocent VI., 1352-1362; Urban V., 1362-1370;Gregory XI., 1370-1378. At the great "Schism of the West," in 1378, Urban VI. was acknowledged in England, and Clement VII. in France, Spain, and Scotland.
Kings of England: Edward III., 1327-1377; Richard II., 1377-1399.
Kings of Scotland: David II., 1329-1371; Robert II., 1371-1390.
Literary Celebrities: Barbour, b. 1326, d. 1396; Chaucer, b. 1328, d. 1400; Gower, b. 1327, d. 1408.
Concerning the early life of Wycliffe we have no certain information. The year 1324 is given as the probable time of his birth, and a little village in Yorkshire as the place.
He was one of the first students in Queen’s College, Oxford, on its foundation by Queen Philippa, in 1340, and afterward held a number of important offices in connection with the University of Oxford.
He took orders as a priest, and soon became popular. About 1360 he opposed the mendicant friars, who were overrunning the land.(2) He also, in his preaching, insisted on the superior authority of Scripture.
He was appointed one of the chaplains to Edward III., and frequently lectured on divinity to the students at Oxford. In 1365 he opposed Pope Urban V. in his demand for tribute from the English crown, the arrears being for thirty-three years at a thousand marks a year. In 1374 he was one of six commissioners sent by Edward III. to Bruges in Netherlands to confer with delegates from Pope Gregory XL, concerning questions of ecclesiastical authority in England.
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(FN1)Also spelled Wickliffe, Wicliffe, Wyclif, Wiclif. There are said to be about twenty different forms of the word. Sometimes the prefix de is added.
(FN2)There were four orders of these: 1. Dominicans, or Black Friars;
2. Franciscans, or Gray Friars; 3. Carmelites, or White Friars; 4. Augustine, or Austin Friars.
They roamed at large, subsisted by begging, and in many instances led scandalous lives.
Chaucer and Gower both denounced them in their poems.
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