John Wycliffe

=== Death and posthumous declaration of heresy ===
[[File:Portrait of John Wycliffe.jpg|left|thumb|Portrait of John Wycliffe by [[Bernard Picart]], showing the burning of his works (1714)]]

In the years before his death in 1384 he increasingly argued for Scriptures as the authoritative centre of Christianity, that the claims of the papacy were unhistorical, that monasticism was irredeemably corrupt, and that the moral unworthiness of priests [[Donatism|invalidated their office and sacraments]].<ref>{{ citation |last=Herring |first=George |title=Introduction To The History of Christianity |page=230 |year=2006 |place=New York |publisher=New York University Press}}.</ref>

Wycliffe returned to [[Lutterworth]]. From there he sent out tracts against the monks and Pope [[Urban VI]]. Urban VI, contrary to Wycliffe's hopes, had not turned out to be a reforming pope. The literary achievements of Wycliffe's last days, such as the ''Trialogus'', stand at the peak of the knowledge of his day. His last work, the ''Opus evangelicum'', the last part of which he named in characteristic fashion "Of Antichrist", remained uncompleted. While he was saying Mass in the parish church on [[Holy Innocents' Day]], 28 December 1384, he suffered a stroke, and died a few days later.{{clarify|date=August 2021}}

The Anti-Wycliffite Statute of 1401 extended persecution to Wycliffe's remaining followers. The "Constitutions of Oxford" of 1408 aimed to reclaim authority in all ecclesiastical matters, and specifically named John Wycliffe as it banned certain writings, and decreed that new translation efforts of Scripture into English needed to be authorized.{{clarify|date=August 2021}}

[[Image:Wycliffe bones Foxe.jpg|thumb|Burning Wycliffe's bones, from ''[[Foxe's Book of Martyrs]]'' (1563)]]

The [[Council of Constance]] declared Wycliffe a heretic on 4 May 1415, and banned his writings. The Council decreed that Wycliffe's works should be [[Book burning|burned]] and his bodily remains removed from consecrated church ground, following the customary logic that heretics had put themselves outside the church. This order, confirmed by [[Pope Martin V]], was eventually carried out in 1428.<ref name=Conti/> Wycliffe's corpse, or a neighbour's,<ref>{{cite journal |title=John Wycliffe |journal=The Catholic Layman |date=1856 |volume=5 |issue=59 |pages=121–123 |jstor=30066639 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30066639 |access-date=21 September 2023 |issn=0791-5640}}</ref>{{rp|121}} was exhumed; on the orders of the bishop the remains were burned and the ashes drowned in the [[River Swift]], which flows through Lutterworth.<ref>This may have been to prevent the development of a saint or relic cult around Wycliff: some local Lollards believed a miraculous spring had sprung where his bones were buried.{{cite book |last1=Marshall |first1=Peter |title=Heretics and believers: a history of the English Reformation |date=2018 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven London |isbn=9780300234589 |edition=First published in paperback}}{{rp|116}}</ref>

None of Wycliffe's contemporaries left a complete picture of his person, his life, and his activities. Paintings representing Wycliffe are from a later period. In ''[[The Testimony of William Thorpe]]'' (1407) (possibly apocryphal), Wycliffe appears wasted and physically weak. Thorpe says Wycliffe was of unblemished walk{{clarify|date=December 2015}} in life, and regarded affectionately by people of rank, who often consorted with him, took down his sayings, and clung to him. "I indeed clove to none closer than to him, the wisest and most blessed of all men whom I have ever found."