84 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



Ancient Bibles and glosses were collated to ensure a correct 

 text ; all aids were consulted to obtain the exact sense of 

 that text ; then came the task of translating that sense into 

 English, and finally, to use his own words, the translator 

 sought "to have many good fellows and cunning at the 

 correcting of the translation." About one hundred and fifty 

 manuscript copies of the Purvey version of the WyclifEe 

 Bible, it is said, are still known to exist, some of them written 

 and illuminated in the most beautiful style in vogue in the 

 fourteenth century, when calligraphy was at its best. 



Volumes for and against Wycliffe have been written. 

 But as we eschew controversy, only a few incidents of his 

 life to illustrate his Bible translations are relevant to our 

 purpose. Early manhood found Wycliffe master of Balliol 

 College, and professor of divinity at Oxford ; a popular 

 preacher at Eondon ; the personal friend of John of Gaunt, 

 Duke of Lancaster, and a favorite with the English court 

 party. He was a good scholar, and in scholastic fashion 

 wrote in Eatin, volumes and tracts concerning logic, 

 metaphysics and philosophy, numerous enough to fill a good- 

 sized book shelf. In 1374, when he was about fifty years 

 old, he was presented with what one of his friends calls " the 

 valuable living of Eutterworth in the county of Eeicester." 

 Of that he was never deprived, and his final stroke of 

 paralysis came when he was hearing mass in his own church. 

 Following the example of Dante in Italy, Wycliffe and Eang- 

 land in England attacked the arrogance, riches and faults of 

 the higher clergy. That brought him reproof, and at length 

 Urban VI sent out five bulls against him, authorizing his 

 imprisonment. Gaunt and his friends shielded him from 

 prison, though he was deposed from the University of 

 Oxford. He then attacked some of the doctrines of the 

 church with much vehemence, and organized a band of " poor 

 priests," who, on a scanty subsistence, preached his doctrines 

 with such zeal that an old chronicler says : "At one time it 

 seemed as if every other man to be met with was a Eollard." 

 Wycliffe and his followers were what Bishop Pecock, who 



