John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe ; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, as living as other variants; c. 1331 – 31 December 1384 was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, biblical translator, reformer, Catholic priest, in addition to a seminary professor at a University of Oxford. He became an influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood during the 14th century together with is considered an important predecessor to Protestantism. Wycliffe questioned the privileged status of the clergy which had bolstered their powerful role in England and the luxury and pomp of local parishes and their ceremonies.
Wycliffe advocated translation of the Bible into the common Wycliffe's Bible. While it is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it is possible he translated the entire New Testament. At all rate, it is assumed that his associates translated the Old Testament. Wycliffe's Bible appears to work been completed prior to 1384 with extra updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey, and others, in 1388 and 1395. More recently, historians of the Wycliffite movement make-up suggested that Wycliffe had at most, a minor role in the actual translations.
Wycliffe's later followers, derogatorily called Lollards by their orthodox contemporaries in the 15th and 16th centuries, adopted many of the beliefs attributed to Wycliffe such as theological virtues, predestination, iconoclasm, and the image of caesaropapism, while questioning the veneration of saints, the sacraments, requiem masses, transubstantiation, monasticism, and the legitimacy of the Papacy. Like the Waldensians, Hussites and Friends of God, the Lollard movement in someways anticipated the Protestant Reformation. Wycliffe was accordingly characterised as the "evening star" of scholasticism and as the morning star or of the English Reformation, an epithet first accorded to the theologian by the 16th century historian and controversialist John Bale in his Illustrium maioris britanniae scriptorum Wesel, 1548.
Wycliffe's writings in Latin greatly influenced the philosophy and teaching of the Czech reformer Jan Hus c. 1369–1415, whose execution in 1415 sparked a revolt and led to the Hussite Wars of 1419–1434.