Identifying an Unknown Work by the Theologian and Philosopher John Wyclif (c. 1330-1384) in Oxford, Merton College MS 284

FAIN: FT-291782-23

Richard Jordan Lavender
Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN 47907-2040)

Research and writing an article that will establish the authorship by John Wyclif (1330 -1384) for a previously-unknown and unsigned early work.

A famous fourteenth-century handwritten book, Oxford, Merton College MS 284, contains unnoticed works by John Wyclif (~1330-1384), one of the most influential religious, political, and academic figures of the middle ages, as well as responses to Wyclif's views by one of his contemporaries. But Merton 284's connection to Wyclif has never been noticed. The result of this project will be an article in which I establish the connection of four texts in Merton 284 to Wyclif. Most significantly, I will show through rigorous textual analysis that one of these texts is a previously unknown work by Wyclif that sheds new light on his intellectual development.