THE RELEASE OF THE FIRST COMPLETE TRANSLATION The release of the first complete translation of the Bible in English was a major accomplishment. Although Wycliffe did not live to see the final revision of the translation, the project that he had inspired had nevertheless born fruit. English speakers could now read the Bible in their own language, an unprecedented step toward making Scripture accessible to ordinary people. Finding a copy to read, however, would still prove to be difficult. Copies of the Bible continued to be challenging to produce, with each copy needing to be carefully handwritten, a process that was very costly. Furthermore, the Church—which should have begun to promote the English Bible—would ultimately ban the translation and view reading the Bible in English as “dangerous.”
After Wycliffe’s death, some of the scholars who had worked with him began the arduous task of making Wycliffe’s ideas, which were published predominantly in Latin, more accessible to the general populace. To do so, Wycliffe’s followers began to produce books such as training manuals and reference materials on doctrine, the Bible, or critiques of church teaching and practice. These works helped quickly spread Wycliffe’s ideas and the Word of God beyond the university environment. Those who gradually subscribed to these ideas came to be known as Lollards—a derogatory name that some believe originally meant “mumblers” or “mutterers.”
The Lollards spread these ideas throughout England through their preaching. They strongly emphasized the need to read the Bible, which they viewed as the true source of all Christian belief and practice. They were also very vocal in their criticism of the Catholic Church, and tended to be highly critical of ideas about doctrines related to the Eucharist, the practice of praying to saints, venerating images of saints (which they considered a kind of idolatry), and many other practices of the church at the time, which they considered completely unscriptural. While these ideas gained some traction among the English populace, they were hardly popular with leaders of the Catholic Church.
At roughly the same time, several revolts against the English government became associated with the Lollards. Even though it is difficult to say how much these rebels truly subscribed to Lollard beliefs, this association led both the Catholic Church and the English government to view “Lollardy” as a significant threat. Sadly, both the church and government exaggerated the connection between the rebels and Lollards as justification to persecute this group.
In 1401, less than twenty years after Wycliffe’s death, King Henry IV and the English government enacted a very strict censorship law that permitted the burning of Lollard books, as well as Lollards themselves if they refused to abandon their teachings. Six years later, Archbishop Thomas Arundel issued several formal decrees at the University of Oxford, where John Wycliffe had once taught, condemning Wycliffe and the Lollards as heretics and declaring their writings as heretical.
In 1415, a council of the Catholic Church officially declared John Wycliffe a heretic, banned all his writings, and ordered his body to be exhumed and burnt along with his writings. This decree was confirmed by Pope Martin V and carried out in England over ten years later. Although scholars debate the extent to which these laws technically restricted the translation of the Bible into English, they undeniably cast a long shadow over Wycliffe’s ideas and, even worse, the first complete English Bible. What should have been celebrated as a precious gift to English speakers—the English Bible—was instead viewed with great suspicion by church officials. The translation of the Bible was now severely limited, requiring a bishop’s permission. Possession and reading of English Bibles would come to be seen as “heretical.”
The first complete English Bible, which had taken so many so long to produce, was now off-limits, at least for common people. For the Lollards, who were forced into hiding by all the laws passed against them, reading of the English Bible would have to be done in secret. Individuals such as Wycliffe and his followers, who sought to align church teaching and practice with the Scripture, were condemned as heretics rather than commended.
These critiques of church doctrines were not actually new. Many before them had made the same points. However, instead of engaging with these critiques seriously and examining the Scriptures to judge the merits of these critiques, church leaders labeled the Lollards as heretics and banned their works. For the time being, Lollards and their ideas would have to be spread secretly, and general knowledge of the Scriptures would remain minimal in England. It would be over one hundred years before another man would make an English Bible available to English speakers.