The followers of Peter Waldo, who lived in the twelfth century, made no effort to set up a new religion in Europe. They objected, however, to certain practices of the Church, such as masses for the dead and the adoration of saints. They also condemned the luxury of the clergy and urged that Christians should live like the Apostles, charitable and poor. To the Waldenses the Bible was a sufficient guide to the religious life, and so they translated parts of the scriptures and allowed everyone to preach, without distinction of age, or rank, or sex. The Waldenses spread through many European countries, but being poor and lowly men they did not exert much influence as reformers. The sect survived severe persecution and now forms a branch of the Protestant Church in Italy.
JOHN WYCLIFFE, 1320-1384 A.D.
Beliefs very similar to those of the Waldenses were entertained by John Wycliffe, (or Wyclif) master of an Oxford college and a popular preacher. He, too, appealed from the authority of the Church to the authority of the Bible. With the assistance of two friends Wycliffe produced the first English translation of the Scriptures. Manuscript copies of the work had a large circulation, until the government suppressed it. Wycliffe was not molested in life, but the Council of Constance denounced his teaching and ordered that his bones should be dug up, burned, and cast into a stream.
[Illustration: JOHN WYCLIFFE
After an old print.]
THE LOLLARDS
Wycliffe had organized bands of "poor priests" to spread the simple truths of the Bible through all England. They went out, staff in hand and clad in long, russet gowns, and preached to the common people in the English language, wherever an audience could be found. The Lollards, as Wycliffe's followers were known, not only attacked many beliefs and practices of the Church, but also demanded social reforms. For instance, they declared that all wars were sinful and were but plundering and murdering the poor to win glory for kings. The Lollards had to endure much persecution for heresy. Nevertheless their work lived on and sowed in England and Scotland the seeds of the Reformation.
JOHN HUSS, 1373(?)-1415 A.D.
The doctrines of Wycliffe found favor with Anne of Bohemia, wife of King Richard II, [11] and through her they reached that country. Here they attracted the attention of John Huss, (or Hus) a distinguished scholar in the university of Prague. Wycliffe's writings confirmed Huss in his criticism of many doctrines of the Church. He attacked the clergy in sermons and pamphlets and also objected to the supremacy of the pope. The sentence of excommunication pronounced against him did not shake his reforming zeal. Finally Huss was cited to appear before the Council of Constance, then in session. Relying on the safe conduct given him by the German emperor, Huss appeared before the council, only to be declared guilty of teaching "many things evil, scandalous, seditious, and dangerously heretical." The emperor then violated the safe conduct—no promise made to a heretic was considered binding—and allowed Huss to be burnt outside the walls of Constance. Thus perished the man who, more than all others, is regarded as the forerunner of Luther and the Reformation.
THE HUSSITE WARS
The flames which burned Huss set all Bohemia afire. The Bohemians, a Slavic people, regarded him as a national hero and made his martyrdom an excuse for rebelling against the Holy Roman Empire. The Hussite wars, which followed, thus formed a political rather than a religious struggle. The Bohemians did not gain freedom, and their country still remains a Hapsburg possession. But the sense of nationalism is not extinct there, and Bohemia may some day become an independent state.