John Wycliffe (1984)

Movie
German title	John Wycliffe
Original title	John Wycliffe
Country of production	England
original language	English
Publishing year	1984
length	75 minutes
Age rating	FSK 6
Rod
Director	Tony Tew
production	Ken Curtis
occupation
Peter Howell : Dr. John Wycliffe Michael Bertenshaw : John Purvey James Downie : Boy Barrie Cookson : Dr. Nicholas Hereford Jeremy Roberts : Throckmorton Peter J. Cassell : Batka Mel Churcher : Wycliffe's niece Noel Howlett : Archbishop Sudbury Robert James : Bishop Courtenay Malcolm Terris : Sheriff Martin Matthews : inmate Sebastian Abineri : farmer or husband Anna Lindup : Farmer or wife Keith Buckley : John of Gaunt Colin Russell : Squire Newberry Christopher Reeks : Priest Suzanne Church : Beth Derek Ware : Farmer Forbes Collins : Farmer Iain Cuthbertson : Chancellor Rigg Bunny Reed : Forrest John Moreno : Benedictine monk

John Wycliffe (also: John Wycliffe - The Morning Star and John Wycliff - A Life for the Bible ) is a 1984 English feature film in which Peter Howell plays the pre-Reformer John Wycliffe .

action

The English clergyman John Wycliffe begins to formulate preformational thoughts. Despite the non-existent printing press, his writings spread as copies. His followers, called Lollards , bring them to the people. Some of the peasants refer to him and begin to oppose the authorities. The English peasant uprising breaks out. But Wycliffe declares that he is not responsible for the behavior of the farmers. He begins translating the Bible into the vernacular English. But soon afterwards he died of a stroke at an advanced age. The Council of Constance declared him a heretic 30 years after his death. His bones are taken from his grave and burned to ashes. The ashes are poured into a nearby river.

Historical inaccuracies

• The Oxford University tower, as seen in the film, wasn't built until the 16th century.
• It is debatable whether Wycliffe had a beard. The pictures of him, in which he is shown with a beard, were taken much later. (However, you have to depict it in some way.)
• Regarding the scene in which the parents come to Wycliffe and tell him of their suffering, that their child died unbaptized, it should be emphasized that the sacrament of baptism was a sacrament for Wycliffe. He did not want to change anything in the traditional church teaching. This scene is at least misleading.
• A meeting between Wycliffe and John Ball is historically extremely controversial.
• John of Gaunt storms to Wycliffe and complains about his doctrine of the sacrament. It is true that he complained. However, Wycliffe says in the film that the doctrine of the Lord's Supper is something "new". That is misleading. The doctrine of the Lord's Supper had been a dogma since 1215 . So the teaching was not "new". It is correct that before this time there were no dogmatic ideas about the doctrine of the Lord's Supper.
• A student goes back to Bohemia with the writings of Wycliff . The scene is so made up. Nevertheless, his writings were actually brought to Prague by students “among other things” , where they were then taken up by Jan Hus .
• Wycliffe explains his plan to translate the Bible. Wycliffe explains that the Bible was written in the Greek vernacular of the time and Jerome translated the Bible into Vulgar Latin . The film suggests here that Wycliffe translated the Bible from the original Greek text. This is wrong. He translated from the Vulgate .
• The scene in which the tomb of Wycliffe is to be opened takes place in the wrong place, because the scene obviously does not take place in the churchyard or in a church with an associated church tomb. But it is correct that the grave of Wycliffe was in a "parish church" and not in the wilderness as in the film.
• The exhumation took place on an evening in winter and not in broad daylight in summer time, as can be seen in the film.
• The claim in the final scene that the teachings of Wycliff spread like his scattered ashes all over the world is not correct. A real connection between Präreformation and Reformation was the science of history not deliver. The Reformation was only able to assert itself with Martin Luther . Luther's teachings were similar to Wycliffe's, but they were not absolutely identical.

literature

• Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages. John Wyclif and his century . List-Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-471-79010-1 .

Web links

• John Wycliffe in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages , page 217 ff.
2. ↑ cf. Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages , page 273.
3. ↑ cf. Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages , page 238 ff.
4. ↑ cf. Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages , page 273
5. ↑ cf. Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages , page 208
6. ↑ cf. Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages , page 207 (below)
7. ↑ cf. Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages , page 296
8. ↑ cf. Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages , page 289 and 294
9. ↑ cf. Manfred Vasold: Spring in the Middle Ages , page 294