Throughout History one of the worst things that a person could be accused of being was
a heretic or a religious criminal.
This would often result in a horrific execution, for example during the reign of Mary I, many
people were burned at the stake in public in front of huge crowds for being religious
criminals.
Some people who dared to question the church or do anything revolutionary were often treated
with immense contempt and suspicion, and one man who during his life escaped execution
was John Wycliffe.
He was an English scholar and reformer who translated the bible into common words and
English.
However later his followers were persecuted, and following his death his remains were dug
up and were then subjected to a posthumous execution.
But what is the story of this?
Join us today as we look at the execution of the remains of John Wycliffe, remember
to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
John Wycliffe was born in Yorkshire and he was educated at the University of Oxford.
He rose throughout the ranks at the university and later became a master of the college,
but he then resigned in 1361 to become a vicar.
There were petitions at the time to the Pope to provide for Wycliffe and to give him support
financially.
But on the 7th April 1374, the English King Edward III appointed Wycliffe to the rectory
of Lutterworth, and he received a royal commission to travel to Europe to settle differences
between England and Rome and he was considered a patriot and a key man for the King.
However he later launched attacks on the church and the beliefs and practices of the Church.
He attacked the idea of transubstantiation, that the bread and wine used in the Eucharist
was changed to the body and bloody of christ.
He then began to preach against this, and he launched attacks upon the Pope, the cardinals
and the clergy as well as monks and friars.
He has a restless mind that continued to launch tirades against the church, and he was well
read and could defeat many opponents opinions in arguments and debates.
Many scholars agree that Wycliffe despite this was a man of religion, but he believed
that the church should have been handled differently.
He sought a genuine desire to reform the church, and he believed that the Church was wrong.
He took on the Catholic Church, and he would do this in one of the most serious ways possible.
However from August 1380, Wycliffe whilst in his rooms at Queen’s college was working
on plans to translate the Bible.
He wanted to bring the word of the Bible to the people of England, as at the time they
could not read a word of Latin and relied on priests to talk them through the bible.
Wycliffe wanted to make the law of God available to everyone who could read, and this way of
preaching and belief led to Lollardism, and the creation of the Lollards, the followers
of Wycliffe.
However in 1381 came the Peasants’ Revolt, and this was in part sparked by Wycliffe’s
preaching.
He had an affinity with the poor in England, and although Wycliffe disapproved of the revolt,
some of his followers justified the killing of the Archbishop of Canterbury Simon Sudbury.
Many of his helpers were based with him at Oxford, but in November 1382, Wycliffe was
summoned to a synod at Oxford.
He was expected to face banishment or exile, but he didn’t receive much punishment.
Wycliffe wanted to replace the church hierarchy with poor priests who lived in poverty and
had not received formal consecration.
However in the years before his death, he argued for scripture as the centre of the
Christian church, saying that the scripture was the most important part of the church,
and was certainly more important than the Pope, monasteries and other aspects.
He made enemies of the monks, and he returned to Lutterworth and preached against the monks
and pope.
But he continued to work until his final days, but on the 28th December 1384 whilst he was
saying mass, he had a stroke and then died a few days later.
Following the stroke he never said another word, and his body was then buried in Lutterworth
Churchyard and it remained there at rest until 1428.
However then something bizarre and shocking would take place involving Wycliffe’s remains.
The council of Constance was called, and this declare d John Wycliffe a heretic on the 4th
May 1415, and all of his writings were then banned.
He was then in death exommunicated, but in the centuries later he would be an early advocate
of Protestantism, but he was too early and suffered persecution in his death.
The council of Constance went further and declared that all of John Wycliffe’s works
should be burned and that his remains which had been laid to rest for decades were to
be dug up and exhumed from consecrated holy ground.
They then said that his remains once removed should be destroyed.
It was in 1428 when this order was carried out after it was confirmed by Pope Martin
V. Inside the churchyard in Lutterworth, John Wycliffe’s body and remains were dug up,
and they were then burned in a fire in the churchyard.
Wycliffe corpse was burned in front of the crowd, and then when it was reduced to ashes
these were thrown into the River Swift which flows through the town of Lutterworth, near
to his burial site.
In the years following his brutal exhumation, John Wycliffe’s work was destroyed but during
the following century his ideas would be almost visionary.
He was a man who predicted that the Reformation would bring a huge amount of change, and later
the Bible would be translated into English during the reign of Henry VIII.
Other men sought to finish Wycliffe’s work and to ensure that his legacy remained in
religion and in reforming the church.
His posthumous execution in the churchyard in which he oversaw the local church was brutal
and was savage, and took place decades after his death, meaning that much of his remains
had decayed away in the years following.
He was a constant thorn in the side of the church, and for this the church would later
after his death have the final word on John Wycliffe’s heresy.
Thanks for watching
To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe
Thanks again for watching