December 28, 1384 - John Wycliffe Suffers Stroke

John Wycliffe was one of the first to translate a portion of the Bible into English in 1382. On December 28, 1384, while performing mass at St. Mary’s Parish Church in Lutterworth, England, Wycliffe had a stroke, and he died three days later. However, the controversy of his work did not end with his death. Roughly thirty years later, Pope Martin V was so furious with Wycliffe for allowing the Bible to be in the hands of non-priests that he declared Wycliffe a heretic, had his body exhumed, and asked that his bones be burned and the ashes scattered into the Swift River. Pictured is a monument to Wycliffe at St. Mary’s.