John Wycliffe

=== Views on the papacy ===
Rudolph Buddensieg finds two distinct aspects in Wycliffe's work. The first, from 1366 to 1378, reflects a political struggle with Rome, while 1378 to 1384 is more a religious struggle. In each Wycliffe has two approaches: he attacks both the Papacy and its institutions, and also Roman Catholic doctrine.<ref name="Rudolph">{{ cite web |last=Wycliffe |first=John |date=26 October 1883 |title=John Wiclif's Polemical works in Latin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-Ik0jPJfawIC&q=john+wycliffe |access-date=26 October 2019 |publisher=Wyclif society |via=Google Books }}</ref>

Wycliffe's influence was never greater than at the moment when pope and [[Antipope Clement VII|antipope]] sent their ambassadors to England to gain recognition for themselves. In 1378, in the ambassadors' presence, he delivered an opinion before Parliament that showed, in an important ecclesiastical political question (the matter of the [[right of asylum]] in [[Westminster Abbey]]), a position that was to the liking of the State. He argued that criminals who had taken sanctuary in churches might lawfully be dragged out of sanctuary.<ref name=Kiefer/>

The books and tracts of Wycliffe's last six years include continual attacks upon the papacy and the entire hierarchy of his times. Each year they focus more and more, and at the last, the pope and the [[Antichrist]] seem to him practically equivalent concepts. Yet there are passages which are moderate in tone: [[Gotthard Victor Lechler|G. V. Lechler]] identifies three stages in Wycliffe's relations with the papacy. The first step, which carried him to the outbreak of the [[Schism (religion)|schism]], involves moderate recognition of the [[Primacy of the Roman Pontiff|papal primacy]]; the second, which carried him to 1381, is marked by an estrangement from the papacy; and the third shows him in sharp contest.