John Wycliff (1320-1384)
At Oxford university, John Wycliff
by 1370 stirred up controversy in teaching the freedom of religious conscience
of the individual believer, who stood in faith directly before God. He
attacked a multitude of practices and features of the church--especially
its wealth.
Wycliff's followers, contemptuously
called "Lollards," from a Dutch word of derision meaning "mumblers" (originally
directed at the Beguines), preached reform in England. Also, Wycliff's
movement made much of the Bible available to the masses in its English
translation from the Vulgate. Wycliff's Lollard movement was eventually
suppressed--but so was the intellectual ferment of Oxford university where
his teachings had been widely accepted.
The Reform
Councils and the Council of Pisa (1409)
The institutional church was
trying to unify and reform itself--and at the same time bring independent
voices of reform under submission--through the conciliar movement, a series
of church councils called to unify the papacy and reform the church.
The Council of Pisa, in order
to end the embarrassment of having two contending popes claiming to be
the sole head of the Catholic church, deposed the two contenders, Gregory
XII and Benedict XIII. This reform was undertaken even by the cardinals
of both popes--who elected a new pope, Alexander V. But when the
two popes refused to step down, there were then three contending popes!
John Huss
(1374-1415)
 Wycliff's
teachings reached Bohemia after his death and were picked up by John Huss,
at the University of Prague, in the early 1400s. Huss translated Wycliff's
works into Czech and gave life to the reform ideals to the people. This
stirred fear in the hearts of church officialdom.
In 1414 Huss was called (under
the Emperor's promise of safe conduct) to the Council of Constance to explain
himself. But he was arrested by the Council and burned at the stake in
1415--sparking revolt in Bohemia.
Attempts to put down what
had become a popular national revolt failed; finally a compromise was reached
with the Hussites.
The Council
of Basel (1431-1449)
The council initially made progress
toward reconciliation with the Hussites. It defied a papal order to move
to Bologna, claiming superior authority to that of the pope (Eugenius IV:
1431-1447).
But its subsequent efforts
at reform of the ecclesiastical hierarchy caused it to overstep its true
power--and Eugenius used this to his own advantage. Also, the pressing
problems of the Turks and the need for closer relations with the Eastern
church, provided the occasion for the pope to split the council's power
bringing a portion of the council to Ferrara while the remainder carried
on in Basel. Its decision in 1439 to elect a pope in opposition to Eugenius
undermined most of the council's residual authority. In the meanwhile,
the papacy in Rome emerged as an ever-stricter defender of its ecclesiastical
authority.
Girolamo
Savonarola (1452-1498)
Savonarola was an apocalyptic
Dominican monk-preacher who was both a very popular figure among the poorer
classes of Florence and a thorn in the side of the Florentine aristocracy.
He led a grand effort to clean up the morals of Florentine society. But
the populace was turned against his influence and he was hanged in 1498. |
Miles
H. Hodges - 2006
