English theologian and scholar at Oxford (c. 1330-1384), often called the "Morning Star of the Reformation" for anticipating its key doctrines by 130+ years. Wycliffe's teachings include: Scripture as the supreme authority above popes and councils; the church as the invisible body of the elect rather than the hierarchical institution; rejection of transubstantiation; rejection of the pope's temporal claims; belief that every Christian should be able to read the Bible in his own language. He and his followers (the Lollards) produced the first complete English Bible — hand-copied, smuggled, illegal — from the Latin Vulgate in the 1380s.
Wycliffe died peacefully in 1384, but his enemies were not satisfied. The Council of Constance in 1415 declared him a heretic, ordered his books burned, and decreed that his bones be exhumed, burned, and the ashes scattered. The order was carried out in 1428 — his remains dug up, burned, and thrown into the River Swift at Lutterworth. The chronicler Thomas Fuller wrote: "The Swift conveyed his ashes into Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; and they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." Wycliffe's most enduring monument is the millions of Bibles translated into tribal languages by Wycliffe Bible Translators — founded 1942, now the world's largest Bible translation organization, serving the same plowboy Wycliffe wanted to reach. His last written words: "I believe in the end the truth will conquer."