John Wycliffe and The Bible in English

I grew up in a Christian home. As a family, we’d read through God’s Word and my parents answered questions that we’d have. However, it wasn’t until I started homeschooling our children that I learned about America’s Christian history, and what it cost to have copies of God’s Word translated into English. It all began with John Wycliffe, the Morning Star of the Reformation.

The Medieval Era on the History of Liberty Timeline

Providential History

The Bible in English, 1380

John Wycliffe’s Early Years

John Wycliffe was born in Hipswell Village—near Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England—to a landowning family. It seems there isn’t anything else known of his childhood. However, his parents were landowners and among a wealthy class.

Landowners in this time period denoted one of the following in a hierarchy form:

• The highest were nobles like barons and knights—who held land from the king in exchange for military service.
• Next in line were church the clergy/institutions.
• Lastly were various tenants—from wealthy freemen to the vast majority of serfs.

The freemen and serfs held land through various tenures—which involved obligations to the king like rent, labor, or military support. 

His parent’s affluence gave Wycliffe the ability to attend the University of Oxford at the young age of fifteen years. This was the beginning of God’s providence for the Kingdom work He’d call Wycliffe to do. Thankfully, Wycliffe responded to God with obedience to that call.

Wycliffe’s Adulthood

Originally, he was a scholastic philosopher, a Catholic priest, and a theology professor at the University of Oxford. But, he eventually became a Catholic dissident—embracing Protestantism. Some say that Wycliffe was the Evening Star of scholasticism and the Morning Star of the Reformation.

Events and Influences

Around 1345 A.D. Wycliffe was at oxford. During this time, Thomas Bradwardine was the Archbishop of Canterbury (not to be confused with Thomas Beckett in the Archbishop of Canterbury Tales).

The Black Plague wiped out about a third of the population of England (read A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe). Among the dead was Archbishop Thomas Bradwardine. This event caused many who survived it to contemplate life. Bradwardine taught at Oxford and it’s likely that Wycliffe felt a deep loss.

However close Wycliffe was to Bradwardine, he was influenced by Bradwardine’s On the Cause of God Against the Pelagians. This work shaped Wycliffe’s theology and his understanding of the doctrine of grace—based on the Pauline-Augustine doctrine.

He became known as a philosopher when he started writing treatises in Latin. But he became known as reformer when he started to address the corruption within the Roman Catholic Church and advocate for church reform. It was important to him for his countrymen to have access to the Bible in their native language—English. He knew that being able to read and study the Bible would give internal liberty to the individual.

Wycliffe’s Contribution to Liberty

Rosalie J. Slater noted the following in Teaching and Learning America’s Christian History:

“An important part of his ministry was to place the Bible in the heart of the individual. To do this, Wycliffe made one of the earliest translations of the Scriptures from the Latin into English.”(1)

Slater also noted the following about John Wycliffe:

“More than one hundred years before Luther, rose the “morning-star of the Reformation”, John Wycliffe, first in the line of evangelical reformers to whom the Gospel was the precious measure of reform. With To him, the most precious measure of reform was the Gospel.”(2)

Professor G.V. Lechler, D.D. said the following about John Wycliffe:

“The principle that God’s Word should be preached to the people, he expanded into the principle that Scripture must become the common property of all. As a means to this end, he saw the necessity of the Bible being translated into the language of the country, with the view of giving it the widest possible diffusion among the population . . .”(3)

However, Wycliffe wasn’t the only individual during this time period. While Wycliffe was busy translating the Bible into Old English by hand, others were busy teaching literacy.

The Work of the Lollards

Literacy—the ability to read and comprehend what is read—was at an all time low. Individuals who learned from Wycliffe and agree with his teachings, taught individuals how to read. Their intent was to give individuals the ability read and study the Bible for themselves. Those who abhorred their work gave them the derogatory nickname of “Lollards.”

Preparing the Way for Future Protestant Reformers

There are two translations of Wycliffe’s Old-English Bible. The second translation was by John Purvey, who was discipled by John Wycliffe. Purvey’s translation is considered the superior of the two translations.(4)

Purvey prepared the way for Tyndale’s translation of the Bible into Middle English. But that’s history for a later time on a Providential History Timeline.

Lear More About the Protestant Reformation Story

Catch the free Protestant Reformation Story online course at Biblical Classical Community.

You can read more about John Wycliffe in Teaching and Learning America’s Christian History on pages 166-168 (you can purchase it through us at our online shop).

Footnote 1: Rosalie J. Slater, Teaching and Learning America’s Christian History, (San Francisco, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1965), p. 166.
Footnote 2: ibd
Footnote 3: ibd
Footnote 4: David B. Calhounon December 4, 2012, (retrieved 11/21/2025), John Wycliffe: “The Morning Star of the Reformation”, C.S. Lewis Institute, https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/john-wycliffe-the-morning-star-of-the-reformation/