English Reformation was not, by itself, a Reformation. However, the political break with Rome was inseparable from the success of Protestantism. English Catholicism was strong and popular in the early 1500s, and while there were those who held Protestant sympathies, they would have remained a religious minority if political events had not intervened. An earlier reform movement that anticipated some Protestant teachings but remained outside the religious mainstream was Lollardy. Derived from the writings of John Wycliffe, a 14th-century theologian and Bible translator, Lollardy stressed the primacy of Scripture and emphasised the preaching of the word over the sacrament of the altar,
John Wycliffe influential part. From 1380 onwards, Wycliffe devoted himself to writings that argued his rejection of transubstantiation, and strongly criticised the friars who supported it. John Wycliffe had come to regard the scriptures as the only reliable guide to the truth about God, and maintained that all Christians should rely on the Bible rather than on the teachings of popes and clerics. He said that there was no scriptural justification for the papacy. Theologically, his preaching expressed a strong belief in predestination that enabled him to declare an "invisible church of the elect", made up of those predestined to be saved,