Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/267

Rh had long proved an obstacle to its real work of guiding the spirits of men.

Since almost every particular in Wycliffe's life has been made the subject of eager controversy, it is perhaps desirable that we should preface our account of his doctrine of dominion by a short sketch of his history as far as the time when he framed and published that doctrine. For the place of his birth we are dependent upon two notices of John Leland; one of which states that he drew his origin from the house of Wycliffe, settled in the village of Wycliffe-upon-Tees, the other that he was born at Ipreswel, now known as Hipswell, in the immediate neighbourhood of Richmond in Yorkshire. The date we can only conjecture; but as he died in 1384, it is natural to fix it somewhere about the year 1320. The well-ascertained connexion which subsisted between the family of Wycliffe and Balliol College, no doubt determined his enrolment at that foundation when he entered the university of Oxford; but considerable obscurity hangs over the details of his subsequent career. A confusion of dates has given rise to the common belief that he was at first a member of the Queen's College, and a confusion with a namesake has set him down as steward of Merton College.