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Wyclif's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English, that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wyclif. They appeared over a period from approximately 1380 to 1390. These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and chief cause of the Lollard movement, a pre- Reformation movement that rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Long thought to be the work of Wyclif himself, it is now generally believed that the Wycliffite translations were the work of several hands. Nicholas of Hereford is known to have translated a part of the text; John Purvey and perhaps John Trevisa are names that have been mentioned as possible authors. The translators worked from the Vulgate, the Latin Bible that was the standard Biblical text of Western Christianity.

The work was immensely popular, even though being found in possession of a Bible in English was an offence that could possibly lead to death by being burnt alive. Wycliffite Bible texts are the most common manuscriptA manuscript ( Latin manu scriptus written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. Manuscripts in history Before the invention of the printing press, all wri literature in Middle English. Over 250 manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible survive; its nearest competitor is the essay on the Ayenbite of Inwit (the "Prick of Conscience") that survives in 117 copies.

Surviving copies of the Wycliffite Bible fall into two broad textual families, an "early" version and a later version. Both versions are flawed from a slavish regard to the word order and syntax of the Latin originals; the later versions give some indication of being revised in the direction of idiomAn idiom is an expression whose meaning is not compositional — that is, whose meaning does not follow from the meaning of the individual words of which it is composed. For example, the English phrase to kick the bucket means to die''. A listener knowing tatic English. A wide variety of Middle English dialectA dialect is a variant, or variety, of a language spoken in a certain geographical area. The number of speakers, and the area itself, can be of arbitrary size. It follows that a dialect for a larger area can contain plenty of (sub-) dialects, which in turs 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; this suggests that the early version may have been meant as a rough draft that was meant to be recast into the somewhat better English of the second version. The second version, though somewhat improved, still retained a number of infelicities of style, as in its version of GenesisThis article is about Genesis the first book of the Hebrew Bible. See Genesis (disambiguation) for other usages of the word. Genesis ( Greek: , having the meanings of "birth", "creation", "cause", "beginning", "source" and "origin"; translated from Hebrew 1:3

Vulgate: ---- Dixitque Deus: Fiat lux, et facta est lux

Early Wyclif: And God said: Be made light, and made is light

Later Wyclif: And God said: Light be made; and light was made

King James:- And God said: Let there be light; and there was light

The familiar verse of Alternate uses, see Number 16 Centuries: 1st century BC 1st century 2nd century Decades: 30s BC 20s BC 10s BC 0s BC 0s 10s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s Years: 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Events A Roman army commanded by Germanicus manages a victory at Idistav is rendered in the later Wyclif version as:

For God louede so the world that he 3af his oon bigetun sone, that ech man that beliueth in him perische not, but haue euerlastynge lijf.

The Wycliffite Bible, and its popularity, caused the kingdom of EnglandEngland is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the four " Home Nations" which make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). Occupying the south-eastern portion of the island of Great Britain, England and the establishedEstablishment of religion refers to investing political power in a particular religious faith or body. Thus, an established religion is one which citizens of a nation are compelled to support, profess faith in, or follow. Although nowadays associated prim Roman Catholic Church to undertake a drastic campaign to suppress it. In response to its circulation, Archbishop Thomas ArundelThomas Arundel ( 1353- 1413) was Archbishop of Canterbury in 1397 and from 1399 until his death, an outspoken opponent of the Lollards. A younger son of Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel, he held the title of Archbishop of York from 1388 before being's 1409 Constitutions of Oxford , and the statute De haeretico comburendo , placed England under some of the severest religious censorship regimes in Europe at that time.