John Wycliffe (About 1330–1384)
John Wycliffe (WIH-cliff) was a scholar from England. Wycliffe challenged the
Church’s right to money that it demanded from England. When the Great
Schism began, he publicly questioned the pope’s authority. He also criticized
indulgences and immoral behavior on the part of the clergy.
During the Middle Ages, Church officials tried to control how the Bible was
interpreted. Wycliffe believed that the Bible, not the Church, was the supreme
source of religious authority. Against Church tradition, he had the Bible
translated from Latin into English so that common people could read it.
The pope accused Wycliffe of heresy, or opinions that contradict official
doctrine. Wycliffe’s followers were persecuted, and some of them were burned
to death as heretics, or people who behave against official teachings. After his
death, the Church had Wycliffe’s writings burned, too. Despite the Church’s
opposition, however, Wycliffe’s ideas had wide influence.
Medieval Sourcebook:
John Wycliffe: On the Sacrament of
Communion
Wycliffe’s Trialogus is a long treatise in the Scholastic style on various subjects
which he believed were being wrongfully taught in the Catholic Church. He cast the
argument in the form of a classical dialogue between three people called Alithia,
Pseudis and Phronesis. The argument against transubstantiation (the conversion of
the substance of the Eucharistic elements into the body and blood of Christ at consecration, only
the appearances of bread and wine still remaining), a small part of which follows, is based
on his logical proof that bread and body cannot be in the same place at the same
time.
ALITHIA. I must request you, brother, to show still farther, from reason or
Scripture, that there is no identification of the bread with the body of Christ... For I
am no means pleased with the spurious writings which the moderns use, to prove an
accident without a subject, because the church so teaches. Such evidence should
satisfy no one.
PHRONESIS. As to identification, we must, in the first place, agree on what you
mean by the term. It signifies, God's making natures, which are distinct in species
or number, one and the same - as though, for instance, he should make the person of
Peter to be one with Paul... For if A is identical with B, then both of them remain;
since a thing which is destroyed is not made identical, but is annihilated, or ceases
to be. And if both of them remain, then they differ as much as at first, and differ
consequently in number, and so are not, in the sense given, the same...
PSEUDIS. In the first place, you cannot escape from this expository syllogism:
First, This bread becomes corrupt, or is eaten by a mouse. Second, The same bread
is the body of Christ. Third, Therefore the body of Christ does thus become corrupt,
and is thus eaten; - and thus you are involved in inconsistency.
From: Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe, ed. Robert Vaughan. London: Blackburn and Pardon, 1845, pp. 150, 152.
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This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval
and Byzantine history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in
print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for
commercial use.
Paul Halsall November 1996
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
Jan Hus (About 1370–1415)
Jan Hus (huhs) was a priest in Bohemia, which today is in the Czech Republic.
He read Wycliffe’s writings and agreed with many of his ideas. Hus criticized
the vast wealth of the Church and spoke out against the pope’s authority. The
true head of the Church, he said, was Jesus Christ.
Hus wanted to purify the Church and return it to the people. He called for an
end to corruption among the clergy. He wanted both the Bible and the mass to
be offered in the common language of the people instead of in Latin. In 1414,
Hus was arrested and charged with heresy. In July 1415, he was burned at the
stake.
Like Wycliffe, Hus had a major influence on future reformers. Martin Luther
would later say that he and his supporters were “all Hussites without knowing
it.”
Modern History Sourcebook:
Jan Hus: Final Declaration of innocence, July 1, 1415
I, Jan Hus, in hope a priest of Jesus Christ, fearing to offend God, and fearing to fall
into perjury, do hereby profess my unwillingness to abjure all or any of the articles
produced against me by false witnesses. For God is my witness that I neither
preached, affirmed, nor defended them, though they say that I did. Moreover,
concerning the articles that they have extracted from my books, I say that I detest any
false interpretation which any of them bears. But inasmuch as I fear to offend against
the truth, or to gainsay the opinion of the doctors of the Church, I cannot abjure any
one of them. And if it were possible that my voice could now reach the whole world, as
at the Day of Judgment every lie and every sin that I have committed will be made
manifest, then would I gladly abjure before all the world every falsehood and error
which I either had thought of saying or actually said!
I say I write this of my own free will and choice.
Written with my own hand, on the first day of July.
Source:
From: Herbert B. Workman and R. Martin Pope, eds., The Letters of John Hus, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1904), pp. 275-276
Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text.
This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts
for introductory level classes in modern European and World history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying,
distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No
permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.
© Paul Halsall, July 1998
Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)
Catherine of Siena was a mystic—a person deeply devoted to religion and
who has spiritual experiences. Born in the Italian city of Siena, she began
having visions of Jesus when she was a child.
Catherine spent many long hours in prayer and wrote many letters about
spiritual life. She also involved herself in Church affairs. Her pleas helped to
convince Pope Gregory XI to move the papacy back to Rome from Avignon.
Later, she traveled to Rome to attempt to end the Great Schism.
In 1461, the Church declared Catherine a saint. Her example showed that
people could lead spiritual lives that went beyond the usual customs of the
Church. She and other mystics emphasized personal experience of God more
than formal observance of Church practices. This approach to faith helped
prepare people for the ideas of the Reformation.
Setting the world on fire: Inspiring
quotes from St. Catherine of Siena
For centuries, people have drawn inspiration from the words of St. Catherine of Siena,
the 14th century Dominican tertiary (third order) and Doctor of the Church who
worked tirelessly for its reform and to move the papacy back to the Vatican from
Avignon. She was an avid supporter of the Roman Catholic Church, in a time when
most of the outspoken words about the Church were negative.
From hundreds of letters and prayers, to her spiritual testament "The Dialogue"
(composed of four treatises), her writings are classics and have been translated from
Italian into many languages.
Perhaps her most famous quote is: ”Be who God meant you to be and you will set the
world on fire."
Draw your own inspiration from the following selection of quotes from her
writings:
From “The Dialogue:”
▪ "The soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish."
Dialogue 2
▪ "The human heart is always drawn by love." Dialogue 26
▪ "Love transforms one into what one loves." Dialogue 60
▪ "For you, high eternal Father, loved me without being loved by me." Dialogue 108
▪ "You are rewarded not according to your work or your time, but according to the measure of your
love." Dialogue 165
▪ "You, eternal Trinity, are a deep sea. The more I enter you, the more I discover, and the more I
discover, the more I seek you." Dialogue 167
From her letters:
▪ "Love does not stay idle." Letter T82
▪ "Reflect that God requires nothing else of us except that we show our neighbors the love we have for
God." Letter T89
▪ "Do not be satisfied with little things, because God wants great things!" Letter T127
▪ "Out of darkness is born the light." Letter T211
▪ "To the servant of God, every place is the right place, and every time is the right time." Letter T328
▪ "God is more ready to pardon that we have been to sin." Letter T343
▪ "Consider God's charity. Where else have we ever seen someone who has been offended voluntarily
paying out his life for those who have offended him?" Letter T345
▪ "Hope comes from love, because people always trust in those they love." Letter T352
▪ "You must believe in truth that whatever God gives or permits is for your salvation." Letter T354
▪ "There is nothing we can desire or want that we do not find in God." Letter T360
▪ "If you are what you should be, you will set all of Italy ablaze!" Letter T368
From her prayers:
▪ "Holy Spirit, come into my heart, and in your power draw it to you." Prayer 6
▪ "It is only through shadows that one comes to know the light." Prayer 24
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