Wyclif John (c.1330–84), English theologian and religious reformer. He worked for most of his life in Oxford as a secular clerk, teaching philosophy and later theology and writing extensively in both fields. The mode of thought expressed in his surviving works is one of extreme realism, and in this his thought fostered the split of Bohemian, later Hussite, philosophy from that of the German masters teaching in Prague. His philosophical summa was most influential for his teaching on universals, but also dealt extensively with the question of determinism; these issues underlay his later handling of the questions of the Eucharist and of the identity of the church respectively. His influence on English philosophy was severely curtailed by the growing hostility of the church to his ideas, the condemnation of many of his tenets, the persecution of his followers, and the destruction of his writings. A.Hu.