The Medieval Church at its Height 495 The most famous and conspicuous critic of the Pope at this John time was John VVycliffe, a teacher at Oxford. He was born ^^' ^ about 1320, but we know little of him before 1366, when Urban V demanded that England should pay the tribute prom- ised by King John when he became the Pope's vassal.^ Parlia- ment declared that John had no right to bind the people without their consent, and Wycliffe began his career of oppo- sition to the papacy by trying to prove that John s agreement was void. About ten years later we find the Pope issuing bulls against the teachings of Wycliffe, who had begun to assert that the State might appropriate the property of the Church, if it was misused, and that the Pope had no authority except as he . acted according to the Gospels. Soon Wycliffe went further and boldly attacked the papacy itself, as well as many of the Church institutions. Wycliffe's anxiety to teach the people led him to have the Wycliffe the Bible translated into English. He also prepared a great num- EnglLh ber of sermons and tracts in English. He is the father of P™^^ English prose,^ for we have little in English before his time, except poetry. Wycliffe and his " simple priests " were charged with encour- influence of aging the discontent and disorder which culminated in the teaching^ Peasants' Rebellion.^ Whether this charge was true or not, it caused many of his followers to fall away from him. But in spite of this and the denunciations of the Church, Wycliffe was not seriously interfered with and died peaceably in 1384. Wycliffe is remarkable as being the first distinguished scholar and re- former to repudiate the headship of <"he Pope and those prac- tices of the Church of Rome which a hundred and fitty years after his death v^ere attacked by Luther in his successful re- volt against the Medieval Church. This will be discussed in a later chapter. 1 See above, p. 418. 2 Yox extracts, see Readings^ chap, xxi. 3 See above, p. 430.
