John Wycliffe

At the request of the curator, June Barnes, I have tried to clean up the Wycliffe family. This has been difficult because the genealogical record is simply incomplete. I have come up with a plausible record based on the known sources, and I have put in notes where a surmise was required.

A key question is whether John was a member of the immediate family of the lords of Wycliffe. Based on the work of H. B. Workman, "John Wyclif, A Study of the English Medieval Church," and other evidence, I have concluded that he was, in fact, Lord of Wycliffe, probably after the death of his brother William, although he probably left the running of the estate to his widowed mother Katherine.

From Workman, p.44-45: "A more certain deduction is that among Yorkshire gentlemen, Wyclif's name was already known in London in 1367.... Indirectly if gives confirmation of our claim that from about 1360 the Reformer was the lord of the manor of Wycliffe. He seems also to have been returned as lord of the manor in 1375.

"With such slight links between John Wycliffe and his family we must rest content. That so little has been preserved is due, no doubt, to the complete lac of all sympathy with him in the home circle, as we see in the elimination of all mention of his name from our records. In the years of the triumph of Wyclif's faith his family, as also other families in the neighborhood with Yorkshire tenacity remained devoted adherents of Rome, carrying with them the majority of the inhabitants of the tiny village."

What is known about the genealogy can be found at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~bodine/n35251.html

       --G.F.

John Wycliffe (born c. 1320 – 31 December 1384) was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher, translator, reformer and university teacher at Oxford in England, who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century.

His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious movement, which preached anticlerical and biblically-centred reforms. The Lollard movement[1] was a precursor to the Protestant Reformation (for this reason, Wycliffe is sometimes called "The Morning Star of the Reformation"). He was one of the earliest opponents of papal authority influencing secular power.

Wycliffe was also an early advocate for translation of the Bible into the common language. He completed his translation directly from the Vulgate into vernacular English in the year 1382, now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the entire New Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament. Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, with additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.

Wycliffe was born in the village of Hipswell in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England in the mid-1320s. His family was long settled in Yorkshire. The family was quite large, covering considerable territory, principally centred around Wycliffe-on-Tees, about ten miles to the north of Hipswell.

Wycliffe received his early education close to his home. It is not known when he first came to Oxford, with which he was so closely connected until the end of his life, but he is known to have been at Oxford around 1345.

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe

See also Biography

Origins

From Wyclif [Wycliffe], John [called Doctor Evangelicus] (d. 1384) Anne Hudson and Anthony Kenny https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/30122

Wyclif [Wycliffe], John [called Doctor Evangelicus] (d. 1384), theologian, philosopher, and religious reformer, was, according to the chronicler Thomas Walsingham, a northerner.

There is good reason to think that Wyclif was a member of the Richmondshire family from the North Riding village of ..,,

Links

• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe
• link to Theological quarterly, Volume 11