The name of John Wyclif is surrounded by mythology. The ideas associated with his name had a huge influence and their effects were felt in the sequence of events which eventually led to the Reformation. This major biography offers fresh insights into Wyclif the man, his preoccupations and his achievements. The author follows Wyclif through his childhood and university days at Oxford to his life as a writer, preacher and lecturer, and - in his later years - a campaigner against the abuse of power and privilege. She looks at what other people have said about Wyclif, his exile in his parish and the significant contributions he made towards the publication of the Bible in English and the road to Reformation.

Overview: This work draws on recent scholarship situating John Wyclif in his fourteenth-century milieu to present a survey of his thought and writings as a coherent theological position arising from Oxford's "Golden Age" of theology. It takes into account both Wyclif's earlier, philosophical works and his later works, including sermons and Scripture commentary. Wyclif's belief that Scripture is the eternal and perfect divine word, the paradigm of human discourse and the definitive embodiment of truth in creation is central to an understanding of the ties he believes relate theoretical and practical philosophy to theology. This connection links Wyclif's interest in the propositional structure of reality to his realism, his hermeneutic program, and to his agenda for reform of the Church.

Satterlee explores the life of fourteenth-century theologian John Wyclif.

John Wyclif is known for translating the Vulgate Bible into English, and for arguing for the royal divestment of the church, the reduction of papal power and the elimination of the friars and against the doctrine of transubstantiation. His thought catalyzed the Lollard movement in England and provided an ideology for the Hussite revolution in Bohemia. Wyclif's Trialogus discusses divine power and knowledge, creation, virtues and vices, the Incarnation, redemption and the sacraments. It consists of a three-way conversation, which Wyclif wrote to familiarize priests and layfolk with the complex issues underlying Christian doctrine, and begins with formal philosophical theology, which moves into moral theology, concluding with a searing critique of the fourteenth-century ecclesiastical status quo. Stephen Lahey provides a complete English translation of all four books, and the 'Supplement to the Trialogue', which will be a valuable resource for scholars and students currently relying on selective translated extracts.

This book reconstructs John Wyclif's whole discourse on dominion in community by rereading his notorious works, and restores his fame and integrity as a serious and original thinker, 'Christ's lawyer, ' and the law giver of the English nation at the dawn of Reformation.