Church History · 1382

John Wycliffe and the First Complete English Bible

John Wycliffe was an Oxford scholar who taught that the Bible, not church leaders, is the final authority. He inspired the first complete Bible in English, translated from the Latin Vulgate around 1382. His followers were called Lollards, and in 1428 the church dug up his bones and burned them.

Read it in the Bible: John 3:16 Psalm 119:105

John Wycliffe was an English priest and Oxford professor who believed ordinary people should be able to read the Bible in their own language. Around 1382, he and his followers produced the first complete Bible in English, translated from the Latin Vulgate. Church leaders condemned his teachings, and after his death the Council of Constance declared him a heretic. In 1428 his bones were dug up, burned, and thrown into a river. He is often called the Morning Star of the Reformation because his ideas came more than a century before Martin Luther's.

Who Was John Wycliffe?

Wycliffe was born around 1330 in Yorkshire, in northern England. He studied and taught at Oxford, the leading university in England, and became one of the best known scholars of his time. He also served as a parish priest, mainly at Lutterworth in the English Midlands.

His spelling varies a lot. You will see Wycliffe, Wyclif, Wiclif and more. Medieval people were relaxed about spelling, which is good news for anyone who struggles with it.

What Did John Wycliffe Teach?

Wycliffe lived at a messy time for the Western church. From 1378 there were two rival popes, each claiming to be the real one. Wycliffe looked at the wealth and politics of the church and went back to the Bible to ask what the church should be. His main teachings were:

The Bible is the highest authority. Popes and councils must be judged by Scripture, not the other way around.
The clergy should be poor. He argued the church should give up its vast lands and riches.
Every Christian should have the Bible. If the Bible is the rule of faith, people need to read it in a language they understand.
Doubts about church teaching. He rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, which says the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ in substance.

Powerful friends, including John of Gaunt, the king's uncle, protected him for a while. In 1382 a church synod in London condemned many of his ideas, and he was pushed out of Oxford. He kept writing at Lutterworth until he died after a stroke at the end of 1384.

Did Wycliffe Translate the Bible Himself?

He inspired it, and he may have worked on parts of it, but most scholars think the bulk of the translation was done by his followers. Historians usually speak of two versions. The Early Version, around 1382, was very literal and followed the Latin word order closely. It is linked with a scholar named Nicholas Hereford. The Later Version, finished in the 1390s and often linked with John Purvey, was smoother and easier to read.

Both were translated from the Latin Vulgate, not from Hebrew and Greek, since few scholars in England knew those languages yet. And they were written in Middle English, the English of Chaucer, not the much older Old English of the Anglo Saxons. Here is John 3:16 in the Later Version:

For God louede so the world, that he yaf his oon bigetun sone, that ech man that bileueth in him perische not, but haue euerlastynge lijf. John 3:16, Wycliffe Bible

Read it out loud and it starts to make sense. You can read the whole Wycliffe Bible on this site and compare it side by side with The Owner's Manual.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Printing presses did not exist yet, so every copy was written by hand. Even so, around 250 manuscripts of the Wycliffe Bible survive, which shows how many people wanted one.

Who Were the Lollards?

Wycliffe's followers were called Lollards. The name was probably an insult meaning mumblers. Many were poor preachers who traveled from town to town, reading the English Bible to anyone who would listen. They spread his ideas among ordinary people as well as some knights at the royal court.

The authorities fought back. In 1401 a new law allowed heretics to be burned at the stake in England. In 1409 Archbishop Thomas Arundel issued rules that banned making or owning a new English translation without a bishop's approval. Some Lollards were executed. The movement went underground but never fully died, and it helped prepare England for the Reformation.

Why Were Wycliffe's Bones Dug Up and Burned?

Wycliffe died peacefully, but his ideas kept spreading, especially to Bohemia, where Jan Hus took them up. In 1415 the Council of Constance condemned Wycliffe as a heretic and ordered that his remains be removed from church ground. The order was finally carried out in 1428. His bones were dug up and burned, and the ashes were thrown into the River Swift, which runs by Lutterworth.

A later English writer, Thomas Fuller, made a famous point about it. The Swift carried the ashes to the Avon, the Avon to the Severn, the Severn to the sea, and so Wycliffe's teaching spread around the world. You can read what happened to Hus in the next article.

Why It Matters for You Today

Wycliffe believed God's Word belonged in the hands of every believer, not just scholars and priests. That idea cost his followers dearly, and today we take it for granted. If you own an English Bible, you are holding something people once risked their lives to read.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105

The best way to honor Wycliffe is simple. Open the Book and read it.

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Questions People Ask

Who was John Wycliffe?

John Wycliffe was an English priest and Oxford scholar who lived from about 1330 to 1384. He taught that the Bible is the highest authority for Christians, criticized the wealth of the church, and inspired the first complete translation of the Bible into English.

When was the Wycliffe Bible translated?

The first complete version, called the Early Version, was made around 1382. A smoother Later Version was finished in the 1390s. Both were translated from the Latin Vulgate into Middle English by Wycliffe's followers.

Why were John Wycliffe's bones burned?

The Council of Constance condemned Wycliffe as a heretic in 1415 and ordered his remains removed from consecrated ground. In 1428 his bones were dug up and burned, and the ashes were thrown into the River Swift at Lutterworth.

Why is Wycliffe called the Morning Star of the Reformation?

He taught key ideas of the Reformation, such as the supreme authority of Scripture and the Bible in the common language, more than a century before Martin Luther. Like the morning star before sunrise, he came before the full light of the Reformation.

Sources

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