Published in 1893 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons of New York and London, John Wyclif: Last of the Schoolmen and First of the English Reformers was Lewis Sergeant’s invitation to readers to meet the extraordinary fourteenth-century Oxford scholar whose fearless challenges to church privilege foreshadowed the Reformation. Sergeant casts Wyclif first as a brilliant academic at the heart of Europe’s medieval intellectual ferment where mendicant friars amassed wealth and the papacy reached into every corner of Christendom, and then as a daring polemicist who insisted that Scripture alone must govern Christian life. It was Wyclif’s groundbreaking translation of the Bible into vernacular English around 1380 that stripped the clergy of their scriptural monopoly and lit a fire of conscience among laypeople. From his alliances with John of Gaunt to the dramatic “Conference at Bruges” and his formal condemnation at Oxford in 1382, Sergeant tells a swift, fifteen-chapter tale of ideas too powerful to be contained, concluding with the headless rebellions of Lollardy and the long echo of Wyclif’s teachings in England’s religious evolution.
Condition:
This particular copy wears a sumptuous full tree-calf binding stamped in gilt with the crest of Bedford Modern School and dated Midsummer 1895, a prize for Divinity signed by Head Master R.B. Poole. The flame-figured covers are framed by delicate gilt borders, echoed on the spine’s raised bands and burgundy label, while the marbled endpapers and edges still glow in deep greens and golds. Aside from gentle rubbing at the corners, small headcap chips, and light foxing to the marbled liners, the binding remains snug and the gilt tooling crisp. Inside, the text leaves are clean and unmarked, with only the faintest toning at the margins.
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Important Info About Antique & Vintage
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Details
Written In English
6.5" H x 4.5" W x 1" D
Published in 1893 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons of New York and London, John Wyclif: Last of the Schoolmen and First of the English Reformers was Lewis Sergeant’s invitation to readers to meet the extraordinary fourteenth-century Oxford scholar whose fearless challenges to church privilege foreshadowed the Reformation. Sergeant casts Wyclif first as a brilliant academic at the heart of Europe’s medieval intellectual ferment where mendicant friars amassed wealth and the papacy reached into every corner of Christendom, and then as a daring polemicist who insisted that Scripture alone must govern Christian life. It was Wyclif’s groundbreaking translation of the Bible into vernacular English around 1380 that stripped the clergy of their scriptural monopoly and lit a fire of conscience among laypeople. From his alliances with John of Gaunt to the dramatic “Conference at Bruges” and his formal condemnation at Oxford in 1382, Sergeant tells a swift, fifteen-chapter tale of ideas too powerful to be contained, concluding with the headless rebellions of Lollardy and the long echo of Wyclif’s teachings in England’s religious evolution.
Condition:
This particular copy wears a sumptuous full tree-calf binding stamped in gilt with the crest of Bedford Modern School and dated Midsummer 1895, a prize for Divinity signed by Head Master R.B. Poole. The flame-figured covers are framed by delicate gilt borders, echoed on the spine’s raised bands and burgundy label, while the marbled endpapers and edges still glow in deep greens and golds. Aside from gentle rubbing at the corners, small headcap chips, and light foxing to the marbled liners, the binding remains snug and the gilt tooling crisp. Inside, the text leaves are clean and unmarked, with only the faintest toning at the margins.
Important Info About Antique & Vintage
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