Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/135

 Wykclyffe, Richard de Assewelle, John Bridde, and Hugh de Feltone."

It is particularly unfortunate that so much obscurity rests upon the details of Wyclifs career at Oxford, since, as Mr. Brodrick observes in his short history of the University, "the biography of this remarkable man, if authentic materials for it existed, would cover almost the whole academic history of Oxford during the latter part of the fourteenth century." There is an entry of one John Wyclif in the books of Merton College as a fellow in 1356; but it is highly improbable that this was our Wyclif. There is apparently nothing authentic to support the identification, and the presumption in favour of concluding that the Reformer was a fellow of Balliol in the year just named is decidedly strong. So far as precise records go, all that we can say is that he was Master of that college in April and in July, 1361. He may have held the office for one or more years, since there is no record of a predecessor after William of Kingston, who followed Robert of Derby, Master at the end of 1356. As no precise dates seemed to have been preserved between the two just mentioned, but only the facts that Robert of Derby was Master in 1356 and that Wyclif succeeded William of Kingston, it is just conceivable that Wyclif may have been Master for as long a time as four years. At any rate he accepted, in 1361, the college living of Fillingham, in the archdeaconry of Stow, in the diocese of Lincoln, being instituted as rector on the 16th of May.