probably at Hipswell near Richmond, in Yorkshire, 1324; d. at Lutterworth, Leicestershire, 31 Dec., 1384. His family is said to have come from Wycliffe, on the Tees, in the same county. The traditional date of his birth is given as 1324, but some authorities put it earlier. Hardly anything is known of his early life, and his career at Oxford is obscured by the presence of at least one man of the same name and probably of more. It is certain, however, that he was educated at Balliol College and that in 1361 he must have resigned the mastership on receiving the living of Fillingham. This he exchanged a few years later for that of Ludgershall. It must not be supposed, however, that he gave up his university career, for livings were often given to learned men to enable them to continue their studies or their teaching. Wyclif himself, for instance, received a two years' license for non- residence, in 1368, on account of his studies. Meanwhile, in 1365, a man of his name, and usually identified with the future "reformer", had been appointed warden of the new Canterbury Hall by Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, only to be turned out two years later in favor of a monk by the new archbishop. The dispossessed warden with the fellows, appealed to Rome, but failed in their appeal. A number of Wyclif's recent biographers have sought to identify this warden with another ecclesiastic, a friend of Islip's and probably a fellow of Merton; but it seems dangerous, in spite of much plausibility in this new identification, to reject the direct statements of contemporary writers, controversialists though they be, and possibly of a reference in one of Wyclif's own writings. Soon after these events, probably in 1372, Wyclif received the Degree of Doctor of Theology. He was by this time a man of repute in the university, and it is strange that his doctorate should have been so long delayed. The explanation may possibly be found in the fact that Balliol w...
