In 1380 Wyclif took the momentous step of beginning to attack Transubstantiation.

Though his opinions on church endowments must by this time have been well known in and out of Oxford, Wyclif cannot with certainty be connected with public affairs till 1374.



 In that year his name appears second, after a bishop, on a commission which the English Government sent to Bruges to discuss with the representatives of Gregory XI, and, if possible settle, a number of points in dispute between the king and the pope.



 The conference came to no very satisfactory conclusion, but it appears to mark the beginning of the alliance between Wyclif and the anti-clerical oligarchic party headed by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the king's brother. [Note: John of Gaunt was the king's son, not his brother.] This party profited by Edward III's premature senility to misgovern in their own interests, and found in the Oxford doctor, with his theories of the subjection of church property to the civil prince, a useful ally in their attacks on the Church.



 Wyclif must frequently have preached in London at this time, "barking against the Church", and he refers to himself as "peculiaris regis clericus". The Good Parliament, however, with the help of the Black Prince, was able, in 1376, to drive John of Gaunt and his friends from power.



A year later the death of the prince gave Lancaster his opportunity, and the anti-clericals had once more the control of the Government. Under these circumstances the attempt of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London to bring Wyclif to book was not likely to succeed. He appeared at St. Paul's escorted by his powerful friends, and the proceedings soon degenerated into a quarrel between Lancaster and the Bishop of London.



The Londoners took their bishop's side, but the council broke up in confusion. The papal authority was next invoked against Wyclif, and a series of Bulls were issued from Rome.


 Nothing much came of them, however; Oxford, on the whole, took Wyclif's part, and a council of doctors declared that the propositions attributed to him, though ill-sounding, were not erroneous.


 When Wyclif appeared, early in 1378, at Lambeth, both the Princess of Wales and the London crowd interposed in his favor.


The summons, however, led to the formulation of eighteen articles which give a fair account of Wyclif's teaching at this period.


But before his next summons in 1381 his heresies, or heretical tendencies, had developed rapidly.


 The Great Schism may partially account for this and also the fact that Wyclif was now becoming the leader of a party.

It was about this time that he began to send out his "poor priests", men who, except quite at the beginning, were usually laymen, and to lay much more stress on the Bible and on preaching.


 In 1380 Wyclif took the momentous step of beginning to attack Transubstantiation.


It was at Oxford that he did so, calling the Host merely "an effectual sign". This open denial of a doctrine which came home to every Christian, and the reaction which followed the Peasant Revolt, lost Wyclif much of his popularity.



 In 1381 an Oxford council of doctors condemned his teaching on the Blessed Eucharist and a year later an ecclesiastical court at Blackfriars gave sentence against a series of twenty-four Wyclifite propositions.


The Government was now against him. Westminster and Canterbury combined to put pressure on the still reluctant university authorities.



A number of prominent Wyclifites were forced to make retractations (cf. LOLLARDS), but nothing seems to have been demanded from the leader of the movement except a promise not to preach. He retired to Lutterworth and, though he continued to write voluminously both in Latin and English, remained there undisturbed till his death.



 He was probably cited to Rome but he was too infirm to obey. Indeed he was probably paralyzed during the last two years of his life. A second stroke came in 1384 while he was hearing Mass in his church, and three days later he died. He was buried at Lutterworth, but the Council of Constance in 1415 ordered his remains to be taken up and cast out. This was done in 1428.