Page "John Wycliffe" Paragraph 24

Wycliffe tried to gain public favour by laying his theses before Parliament, and then made them public in a tract, accompanied by explanations, limitations, and interpretations.

After the session of Parliament was over he was called upon to answer, and in March, 1378, he appeared at the episcopal palace at Lambeth to defend himself.

The preliminaries were not yet finished when a noisy mob gathered with the purpose of saving him ; the king's mother, Joan of Kent, also took up his cause.

The bishops, who were divided, satisfied themselves with forbidding him to speak further on the controversy.

At Oxford the vice-chancellor, following papal directions, confined the Reformer for some time in Black Hall, from which Wycliffe was released on threats from his friends ; the vice-chancellor was himself confined in the same place because of his treatment of Wycliffe.

The latter then took up the usage according to which one who remained for 44 days under excommunication came under the penalties executed by the State, and wrote his De incarcerandis fedelibus, in which he demanded that it should be legal for the excommunicated to appeal to the king and his council against the excommunication ; in this writing he laid open the entire case and in such a way that it was understood by the laity.

He wrote his 33 conclusions, in Latin and English.

The masses, some of the nobility, and his former protector, John of Gaunt, rallied to him.

Before any further steps could be taken at Rome, Gregory XI died ( 1378 ).

But Wycliffe was already engaged in one of his most important works, that dealing with what he perceived as the truth of Holy Scripture.