THE century and a half following the completion of Wycliffe's Bible about 1382 were years of remarkable progress in England in many spheres of life. The explorations of John and Sebastian Cabot, following Columbus' discovery of America, are indicative of the progressive thought of this period. Trade and communications abroad were increasing rapidly, and prosperity at home was at a high level.
While the followers of Wycliffe, known as Lollards, persisted during the early part of this period, they were subjected to much persecution and worked under great difficulty. The relations of church and state were not settled, and while the question of national, as opposed to papal, supremacy did not come to a head until 1534, it was becoming progressively more acute. In the church abuses continued. The lives of the clerics, whether bishop or priest, in many cases did not measure up to the Christian standard. Far from being learned men, the parish priests were often as ignorant as their flocks. Bishop Hooper of Gloucester found in his diocese as late as the sixteenth century that out of three hundred and eleven clergy, one hundred and sixty-eight were unable to repeat the Ten Commandments, thirty-one were ignorant as to who gave them, and forty of them were not able to repeat the Lord's Prayer.
The Renaissance had made great headway, and as the revival of learning, especially the study of Greek and Hebrew, gained force on the Continent, there was increasing contact of scholarship between England and Western Europe. One factor in this was, of course, the invention of printing. Thus between 1480 and 1520 printed editions of the Greek Lexicon (1480), Hebrew Bible (1488), Hebrew Lexicon (1506). Greek New Testament (1516), "Polyglot Bible" in several languages (1517), and versions of the Scriptures in German. Italian, French, Dutch, and others were made available to English scholars. To this period belong Erasmus, Colet, More, and Columbus.
