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
John Wycliffe where twelve young men were preparing for the priesthood. In December 1365 Islip appointed Wycliffe as warden but when Islip died the following year his successor, Simon Langham, a man of monastic training, turned the leadership of the college over to a monk. In 1367 Wycliffe appealed to Rome. In 1371 Wycliffe's appeal was decided and the outcome was unfavourable to him. The incident was typical of the ongoing rivalry between monks and secular clergy at Oxford at this time. In 1368, he gave up his living at Fillingham and took over the rectory of Ludgershall, Buckinghamshire, not far from