Tudor period an undertone of anti-clericalism that indicated a rightness for reform. A second, less powerful influence was the intellectual impact of certain English reformers, such as the long-term impact of John Wycliffe (1328–1384) and his “Lollardy” reform movement, together with a stream of Reformation treatises and pamphlets from Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other reformers on the continent. The interpretation by Geoffrey Elton in 1960 is representative of the orthodox interpretation. He argues that: Social historians after 1960 began in-depth investigations of English religion at the local level, and discovered the orthodox interpretation was quite mistaken. The Lollardy movement had largely
History of Protestantism History of Protestantism Protestantism originated from work of several theologians starting in the 12th century, although there could have been earlier cases of which there is no surviving evidence. Any prominent dissent was subject to persecution by the Roman Catholic Church, and thus attempts to change anything in the Catholic Church were kept isolated or effectively eradicated up to the 16th century. One of the early Protestant Reformers was John Wycliffe, an English theologian and early proponent of reform in the 14th century. His followers, known as Lollards, spread throughout England but soon were persecuted by both the Catholic Church