life of Wycliffe is obscure. Lewis, on the authority of
Leland,[14] says that he was born near Richmond, in Yorkshire. Fuller,
though with some hesitation, prefers Durham.[15] He emerges into
distinct notice in 1360, ten years subsequent to the passing of the
first Statute of Provisors, having then acquired a great Oxford
reputation as a lecturer in divinity, and having earned for himself
powerful friends and powerful enemies. He had made his name
distinguished by attacks upon the clergy for their indolence and
profligacy: attacks both written and orally delivered,--those, written,
we observe, being written in English, not in Latin.[16] In 1365, Islip,
Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed him Warden of Canterbury Hall; the
appointment, however, was made with some irregularity, and the following
year, Archbishop Islip dying, his successor, Langham, deprived Wycliffe,
and the sentence was confirmed by the king. It seemed, nevertheless,
that no personal reflection was intended by this decision, for Edward
III. nominated the ex-warden one of his chaplains immediately after, and
employed him on an important mission to Bruges, where a conference on
the benefice question was to be held with a papal commission.

Other church preferment was subsequently given to Wycliffe; but Oxford
remained the chief scene of his work. He continued to hold his
professorship of divinity; and from this office the character of his
history took its complexion. At a time when books were rare and
difficult to be procured, lecturers who had truth to communicate fresh
drawn from the fountain, held an influence which in these days it is as
difficult to imagine as, however, it is impossible to overrate. Students
from all Europe flocked to the feet of a celebrated professor, who
became the leader of a party by the mere fact of his position.

[Sidenote: Simplicity of his life and habits.]

[Sidenote: The poor priests.]

[Sidenote: His doctrines.]

[Sidenote: The translation of the Bible.]

The burden of Wycliffe's teaching was the exposure of the indolent
fictions which passed under the name of religion in the established
theory of the church. He was a man of most simple life; austere in
appearance, with bare feet and russet mantle.[17] As a soldier of
Christ, he saw in his Great Master and his Apostles the patterns whom he
was bound to imitate. By the contagion of example he gathered about him
other men who thought as he did; and gradually, under hi