JOHN WYCLIF ON WAR AND PEACE

John Wyclif (c. 1330-84) was the foremost English intellectual of the late fourteenth century and is remembered as both an ecclesiastical reformer and a heresiarch. But, against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War, Wyclif also devoted significant energy to analysing the problem of violence in society. The author here argues that Wyclif repudiated the concept of justified warfare in both theory and practice, and was thus the first true pacifist of the Middle Ages.