John Wycliffe and his translation of the Bible

Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of John Wycliffe. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395. In the early Middle Ages, most Western Christian people encountered the Bible only in the form of oral versions of scriptures, verses and homilies in Latin. Though relatively few people could read at this time, Wycliffe’s idea was to translate the Bible into the vernacular.

Long thought to be the work of Wycliffe himself, it is now generally believed that the Wycliffite translations were the work of several hands.

Although unauthorized, the work was popular. Wycliffite Bible texts are the most common manuscript literature in Middle English. Over 250 manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible survive.

Surviving copies of the Wycliffite Bible fall into two broad textual families, an "early" version and a later version. A wide variety of Middle English dialects are represented. The second, revised group of texts is much larger than the first. Some manuscripts contain parts of the Bible in the earlier version, and other parts in the later version.

The Wars of the Roses: roots & procedures

After the death of Edward III in 1377 his grandson, Richard II, son of the Edward the Black Prince, succeeded him.

Disaster struck in 1399 Henry of Lancaster took the crown. For the next few decades Henry’s heirs ruled England in relative peace, until the early 1450’s when Richard, Duke of York, a descendant of Edward III started making trouble.

The current king of England, Henry VI was a weak and ill man, he had no children at the time so the Duke York was considered next in line for the throne.

In 1453, York’s relatives by marriage, the Nevilles, found themselves in a deadly feud with their northern neighbours the Percy family.

The Wars’ opening battle took place on May 22, 1455 at the fortified town of St Albans.

Henry VII was crowned king and married Edward IV's daughter, Elizabeth of York a move that was to end the Wars of the Roses.

The structure of the 15th century society in Britain: nobility, gentlemen, freemen, merchants

Society was still based upon rank. At the top were dukes, earls and other lords, although there were far fewer as a result of war. Below these great lords were knights. Most knights, even by Edward I's time, were no longer heavily armed fighters on horses. They were "gentlemen farmers" or "landed gentry" who had increased the size of their landholdings, and improved their farming methods. This class had grown in numbers. Edward I had ordered that all those with an income of £20

a year must be made knights. This meant that even some of the yeoman farmers became part of the "landed gentry", while

many "esquires", who had served knights in earlier times, now became knights themselves. The word "esquire" became common in written addresses, and is only now slowly beginning to be used less.

Next to the gentlemen were the ordinary freemen of the towns. By the end of the Middle Ages, it was possible for a serf from the countryside to work for seven years in a town craft guild, and to become a "freeman" of the town where he lived. The freemen controlled the life of a town. Towns offered to poor men the chance to become rich and successful through trade.