A summary of Wycliffe’s theology and impact

Wycliffe challenged both the financial power of the church and its spiritual authority. In its place he held out the Holy Word of God.

In its proper place, tradition helped the Reformers to defend the true doctrine of the church.

The Reformation was not a fight over “Scripture or tradition,” but rather a fight for the proper place of each.

The Protestant challenge to the Papacy arises out of a cultural context of building ecclesiastical critique.

The Church’s view of Papal Primacy became a significant touchstone of reformation theologies.

Papal authority became a major point of contention in the European Reformations; we do well to seek an understanding of the papacy, then, if we want to understand the reformations themselves.

There are two pillars of late-medieval church dogma which significantly influenced the shape of the Protestant Reformation.

Understanding the doctrinal contributions of Johannes Duns Scotus and William Occam allows us to see that the seeds of Luther’s ideas preceded him

Thomism’s influence on the theological landscape of the time shaped the form of the Reformations of the 16th century.