John Wycliffe transubstantiation, monasticism, and the very existence of the Papacy. Beginning in the 16th century, the Lollard movement was regarded as the precursor to the Protestant Reformation. Wycliffe was accordingly characterised as the evening star of scholasticism and as the morning star of the English Reformation. Wycliffe's writings in Latin greatly influenced the philosophy and teaching of the Czech reformer Jan Hus ( 1369–1415), whose execution in 1415 sparked a revolt and led to the Hussite Wars of 1419–1434. Wycliffe was born in the village of Hipswell near Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, in the mid-1320s. His family
John Wycliffe into sin and that it ought therefore to give up all its property and that the clergy should live in complete poverty. The tendency of the high offices of state to be held by clerics was resented by many of the nobles. John of Gaunt, who had his own reasons for opposing the wealth and power of the clergy, possibly used a naive Wycliffe as his tool. Wycliffe was summoned before William Courtenay, Bishop of London, on 19 February 1377. The exact charges are not known, as the matter did not get as far as a definite examination. Lechler suggests