"The Morning Star of the Reformation"
© Phyllis Agronsky
When the plague swept Europe in the mid-14th century, many people thought it was the end of the world. People were dying at an astounding rate, across all sections and walks of life. In some cases, whole towns and villages were depopulated. In England as a whole, somewhere between one-third and one-half of the population perished. But by far, the institution most effected by the plague was the Roman Catholic Church.
The deaths of thousands of priests, monks, abbots, and archbishops meant that unqualified men increasingly filled the ranks of the clergy. The faith of the flock, already shaken to its core by the indiscriminate death tolls, began to flounder.
Wycliffe's position was relatively simple, and completely revolutionary: Christ is man's only overlord and power should depend on a state of grace. This idea made him a champion of the people against the abuses of the Church. A theologian of Oxford University, John Wycliffe attracted the support and patronage of royalty because he developed ideas that supported increased power of the monarchy over the church and the clergy. (The story of Henry II and Thomas Becket nearly 200 years earlier is only one example of the ongoing struggle for supremacy between church and state.) Areas that had previously been impervious to heresy, now became nurseries for free thought. One of the most famous of these was Oxford University, and perhaps the best-known free thinker of his age was John Wycliffe (1328 - 1384). An English reformer whose theology reflected the widespread disillusionment with the Church, his doctrine found fertile ground in post-plague England.
Though his ideas would eventually threaten the foundations of the divine right of the monarchy, it was Wycliffe who represented the English crown in negotiations of payment of tribute to the Holy See in 1374. Although the papacy was at this time dominated by the King of France, (even to the point of its removal from Rome to the French city of Avignon), Wycliffe defended the political rights of England.
He challenged a number of Roman Catholic doctrines with arguments that later would echo during the Protestant Reformation. He spoke out against the monastic system, the sale of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins and the doctrines of baptismal regeneration and transubstantiation. He proclaimed predestination and salvation by faith alone, in a time of great fear and superstition. He preached in English at Oxford and London, spread the idea that the Scriptures were the supreme authority, and the good offices of the Church not requisite to grace.
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