John Wyclif (1320-1384) was a priest and a professor at Oxford University. He believed in predestination, which is the belief that whether you end up in heaven or hell after you die is predetermined. You have no real effect over where you end up after you die because you don’t have free will and therefor can’t really choose whether to do good or bad. He also believed that if someone was in a state of sin, they lost the right to all of their property because everything belongs to God and if you disobey God, then you lose the right to use the things God has gifted you with. He also wanted the supremacy of the state and wanted the state to be able to take all the property from the clergy.
The Great Western Schism
The Great Western Schism happened entirely in Western culture. After Gregory XI’s death, while the next Pope was being elected, a Roman mob formed outside, demanding a Roman pope, or at the very least not a French pope. The cardinals elected Pope Urban IV, an Italian, to be the new pope. Urban IV began to act erratically sometime after his election as pope, denouncing church officials and even physically attacking one. People started to think he may have gone insane. The cardinals claimed that the election of Urban IV as pope was illegitimate because the decision was made under duress. They choose a new pope, Clement VII, but Urban IV declined to step down. Clement went to Avignone, where he began acting as pope.
Now there were two people acting as the pope, each with their own cardinals. Countries became divided on who they wanted to follow as the true pope. The church decided to have a council on what to do about this problem. They declared that neither of the two popes were the true pope and elected a new pope, making the problem even worse. Now there were three people acting as pope.
The three acting popes eventually said they would step down if the council came up with a solution. The council decided that they will have Martin V become the true pope, thus the Great Western Schism was resolved.