John Wyclif and His Theology

Abstract

England, then, was remarkably free from heresy, especially from popular heresy, when, in the 1350s, John Wyclif came to Oxford, one of the greatest universities in Europe, to embark upon an academic and clerical career. For many years that career was typical of the able and successful academic of the age. He was a junior fellow of Merton College by 1356, and served briefly as Master of Balliol (1360–61) until his presentation to that college’s best living, Fillingham (Lincolnshire), disqualified him from office. This appointment was of course intended not to serve the spiritual interests of the parishioners of Fillingham, but to finance his continued career within the university, as was the canonry in the collegiate church at Westbury-on-Trym to which he was papally ‘provided’ (at the university’s request) the following year. Wyclif had by now completed the arts course, and although he continued to fulfil his statutory obligations by lecturing in logic and philosophy, his studies were directed towards his doctorate in theology. Along the way he met a galling and expensive setback in the later 1360s. Having been appointed master of the new Canterbury College in 1365, his position was legally challenged and he was displaced in favour of a monk. The costs he incurred in this unsuccessful case compelled him to exchange Fillingham for the less remunerative benefice of Ludgershall (Buckinghamshire). According to William Woodford, an Oxford Franciscan who was to spend much of his life refuting the teachings of Wyclif and his followers, this episode left him with a lasting bitterness against monasticism.