This article is a speculation on the thoughts of Wyclif and his early Oxford followers. Wyclif’s reform ideas against the contemporary clerical abuses, culminating the denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation, the support for the royal intervention of church affairs gained support of the temporal rulers and expanded the influence widely at Oxford. His Oxford followers, known as academic Lollards were protagonists of early Wycliffism. Even after a series of condemnation on the ideas of Wyclif which began in 1377 till 1382 when Wyclif resigned from Oxford, his academic followers maintained their identity as church reformers constantly attacking the abuses of the church. But, Archbishop Thomas Arundel’s severe persecution on the Lollards confirmed by the establishment of the Constitutions in 1407 and 1409 proved a death blow to the academic Lollards. After the rising of sir John Oldcastle, a Lollard knight in 1412, the Oxford Lollards effectively faded out, and there was no more academic and upper class support for the Wycliffism. This broke the connection between academic and popular Lollards, and the so-called popular Lollard movement became more and more sectarian among a section of the artisan class with a considerable doctrinal divergence. The sudden fall of academic Lollard, most of whom recanted and restored their academic positions when facing condemnation tells that the academic Lollards were reform forces within the existing church and social hierarchy, and their reform ideas were principally results of academic speculations even though their assertions at times seemed beyond the acceptable boundary. That is one of the distinctive point with the popular Lollards who became anti-social, constantly denying the existing social order.

• 최종원(미들랜드 바이블 칼리지) | Choi, Jong-Won