Great Western Schism Research Paper

For some time the papacy’s home was in France “for nearly seventy years, while still claiming to be bishops of Rome, the popes would generally remain in Avignon”. This contributed to the Great Western Schism, which was a political fight between Italy and France. Both of these countries wanted the pope to live in their own country to skew the power of the papacy in favor of their country and its goals. The election of Urban the VI was the tipping point, he seemed at first a good choice but soon neither the Italian nor the French cardinals wanted him to be in the office they elected him to. In order to replace him, they said they elected him under coercion. Urban made his own court of cardinals while the ones who had elected him decided to …show more content…
He had a superior ability to argue logically and after he became graduate, he acquired a job from the king of England to argue against the overdue taxes, which were due to Rome. He won the favor of the king with his ideas like the ones he said in “his work [that he] denied the validity of clerical ownership of land and property as well as the papal jurisdiction in temporal affairs.” He also taught at Oxford as well as having a parish. As his ideas were attacked, he grew more aggressive and became more outspoken with his ideas. He preached against any ceremony not mentioned in the Bible, “he dismissed the whole structure of rituals, ceremonies, and rites that pervaded the church on the grounds that they were not only false, but they interfered with the true worship of God.” In 1381, there was a revolt among the peasants and his opposition took the opportunity to blame him for the incident because the peasants that rose up used his ideology. Oxford kicked out Wycliffe with all of his followers and they barred his teachings. He moved into his parish, were he later died of a stroke in 1384 before he could finish his work, which included the first English translation of the Bible. Wycliffe was buried on consecrated ground, but in 1415 thirty-one years after his death, he was put on trial as a heretic and found guilty; his books at Oxford …show more content…
He also had the title of “John, the son of Augustine”, because of how he uses Augustine’s quotes throughout his writings. His main ideas were that God has divinely inspired the Bible for all his people to read and interpret, and the Bible contains the truth in all matters. Wycliffe wrote in the book The Truth of Holy Scripture that the Holy Spirit is the source of all inspiration and since the Holy Spirit is one with Jesus the Bible is divinely inspired. “The Bible- Gods law- is true because the revelation in Christ is true.” One of Wycliffe’s ideas is that all Christians are predestined by God to be part of the Church and they may, or may not be clergy, but they are all able to read and interpret Scripture. Anyone who is predestined can do it if they understand the logic of Scripture and they humbly seek the meaning of the Scriptures doing so prayerfully while comparing Scripture to Scripture and using a reliable text. Wycliffe believed that the Bible is the source of all truth, such as philosophy, math, and art and all are easily seen or hidden through allegory in the Bible that is the “divine encyclopedia.” Another idea that Wycliffe promoted was the use of allegory for teaching Scripture in a way that would be able to mesh any to Scripture in the Old Testament or the New Testament with the rest of the Bible and with the