John Wycliffe (or Jean Wyclif) teaches at Oxford University, where he has gained renown as a brilliant scholastic theologian and the most respected debater of his age.

Wycliffe had entered royal service in 1374, when, at fifty-six, he had been sent to Bruges to negotiate with papal representatives on the issue of tribute payments to Rome.

He had shortly become an important figure in the anticlerical party of John of Gaunt, attacking the rights claimed by the church and calling for a reformation of its wealth, corruption, and abuses.

Wycliffe views the king as the legitimate authority for church purification.

His views become more radicalized after the Great Papal Schism begins in 1378.

His De potestate papae ("On Papal Power"), published in this year, rejects the biblical basis of papal authority, insists on the primacy of Scripture, and advocates extensive theological reform.

His denial of transubstantiation and advocacy of a vernacular Bible bring him into further conflict with the church and cost him support.

The church in 1382 will condemn ten conclusions drawn from his writings, and his Oxford disciples will be forced to recant; but Wycliffe himself will be neither tried nor personally condemned.