Reformational Farmers

At this point another, parallel movement, became essential in the development of the yeomanry as an influential class in England.  John Wycliffe was born in 1324 and was sent to school at Queen's College, Oxford, to prepare to be a cleric.  At this point the local classes of mendicant friars had become a nuisance at the university because of their laziness.  Occasionally fights would break out between the clerics and the scholars, with the clerics appealing to papal authority, and the scholars appealing to the local civil authority.  Wycliffe used his position at Oxford to write against the friars, and was so successful that he was promoted to a master of Baliol College.  Later Wycliffe was elected to the chair of divinity at Oxford, and continued to use his position to preach against the errors of the Roman Catholic church, especially the moral laxity of the priests and superstitutions of the church.  Because of his teaching the Archbishop of Canterbury deposed him of his office.

However, Wycliffe had friends in high places and the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, restored him to his position, where he continued his preaching.  He also began translating the Bible into English.  Those who read his works and followed his teachings were called the Lollards, which was originally used as a derogatory term.  The word lollard possibly comes from a Middle Dutch word meaning "mutterer."  They were mostly uneducated men, peasants and farmers, who distributed Wycliffe's  English Bible among the commoners.  The popularity of this translation became so widespread that the ecclesiastical government of England offered a death sentence for anyone possessing it.  Wycliffe was going to be tried for heresy, so he escaped to the country to hide.  His writings had become so popular at this point that "it was said if you met two persons upon the road, you might be sure that one was a Lollard" (John Foxe's Book of Martyrs).  The more active the bishops were in suppressing the Wycliffe Bible, the more intent commoners were on obtaining it.  When the Lollards were martyred many were burned with the scraps of Sciprture around their neck that were found on their person when arrested.

Wycliffe's translation of the Bible into the vernacular caused the most common people in England to become familiar with the words of Scripture, and by and large these were yeoman farmers.  In many cases these free landholders knew their Bibles better than the clerics who were in their charge, which led to the situation that the Puritan historian John Foxe proudly noted: "Great Britain has the honor of taking the lead, the first maintaining that freedom in religious controversy which astonished Europe, and demonstrated that political and religious liberty are equally the growth of that favored island."