Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/110



CHAPTER V.

WYCLIF'S EARLY DAYS.

HE evidence in regard to Wyclifs birthplace is extremely meagre, and, such as it is, it must be taken in connection with the other and better ascertained facts of his biography. Sundry considerations tend to show that he was a member of the family of Wycliffes who lived on their own land at the village from which they took their name; but it so happens that John Wyclif, though he wrote a great deal, made no reference to his earliest home or to his parentage. Thomas Walsingham, a contemporary chronicler, says that he came from the North; but

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