concerns about present conditions and the urgency for
change expressed in his homiletic writings. The laws
are of three distinct types: short codes addressing such
specifi c issues as the need to christianize the Danelaw,
protect the clergy and the church, and reinforce a hier-
archical social order consistent with the past; drafts of
legislation for Æthelred and Cnut; and a comprehensive,
formal code for Cnut. Through these legal writings
Wulfstan used his infl uence to press for social, moral,
religious, and political reforms extending even to the
obligations of the king.
Beginning about 1005 a remarkable interchange oc-
curred between Wulfstan and his talented contemporary
Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham. Wulfstan requested from
Ælfric two pastoral letters in Latin treating duties of
the secular clergy. Shortly thereafter he asked Ælfric to
translate the letters into OE. Although the versions that
survive today bear evidence of Wulfstan’s revisions, they
are important because they strongly infl uenced his own
prescriptions for the secular clergy, the Canons of Edgar,
as well as the code he drafted for Æthelred at Enham
in 1008. These and other letters by Ælfric formed part
of a group of canonistic materials including Frankish
capitularies and Wulfstan’s translation of Amalarius’s
De regula canonicorum, materials that underlie one of
Wulfetan’s sermons on baptism, his Institutes of Pol-
ity, and certain legal codes, in addition to the Canons
of Edgar.
Because they provide yet another strong example of
his reforming philosophy, Wulfstan’s own canonistic
works command interest. The Canons of Edgar, so-
called because they hark back to better times during the
reign of Edgar, provide instruction on proper conduct
and training for the secular clergy and detailed instruc-
tions on their duties, including how to conduct the mass.
The Institutes of Polity form a treatise on the organiza-
tion of society, an early example of estates literature that
attempts to defi ne the duties of each class. His lengthy
discussion of the bishop’s role provides insight into the
career Wulfstan fashioned fot himself. Wulfstan also
translated prose portions of the Benedictine offi ce into
OE, presumably to help the secular clergy with their
devotions.
The effectiveness of Wulfstan’s writing owes much
to his rhythmic style, distinctive vocabulary, and use
of rhetorical fi gures. He usually wrote with two-stress,
alliterating, sometimes rhyming phrases syntactically
independent of one another, which he could use to build
toward a powerful climax. His stylistic touches include
a large stock of intensifying words, repeated phrases,
and forceful compounds. Figures of sound as taught by
medieval manuals of rhetoric appear prominently in his
work. All of these tools Wulfstan used in his attempts
to restore England to the order and piety it had enjoyed
before the Viking depredations.
See also Ælfric; CnutFurther Reading
Primary Sources
Bethurum, Dorothy, ed. The Homilies of Wulfstan, Oxford:
Clarendon, 1957.
Fowler, Roger, ed. Wulfstan’s Canons of Edgar. EETS o,s. 266.
London: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Jost, Karl, ed. Die “Institutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiasti-
cal”: Ein Werk Erzbisch of Wulfstans von York. Schweitzer
anglistische Arbeiten 47. Bern: Francke, 1959.
Ure, James M., ed. The Benedictine Offi ce: An Old English Text.
Edinburgh University Publications in Language and Literature- Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1957.
Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. Sermo Lupi ad Anglos. 3d ed. New York:
Methuen, 1966.
Secondary Sources
Bethurum, Dorothy. “Archbishop Wulfstan’s Commonplace
Book.” PMLA 57 (1942): 916–29.
Bethurum, Dorothy. “Wulfstan.” In Continuations and Begin-
nings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. Eric G. Stanley.
London: Nelson, 1966, pp. 210–46.
Gatch, Milton McC. Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon
England: Ælfric and Wulfstan, Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1977.
Ker, N.R. “The Handwriting of Archbishop Wulfstan.” In England
before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to
Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, pp. 315–31.
Richards, Mary P. “The Manuscript Contexts of the Old English
Laws: Tradition and Innovation.” In Studies in Earlier Old
English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach. Albany: SUNY Press,
1986, pp. 171–92.
Stafford, Pauline. “The Laws of Cnut and the History of Anglo-
Saxon Royal Promises.” ASE 10 (1981): 173–90.
Whitelock, Dorothy. “Wulfstan’s Authorship of Cnut’s Laws.”
EHR70 (1955): 72–85.
Wormald, Patrick, “Æthelred the Lawmaker.” In Ethelred the
Unready, ed. David Hill. BAR Brit. Ser. 59. Oxford: BAR,
1978, pp. 47–80.
Mary P. Richards
WYCLIF, JOHN (ca. 1330–1384)
The most distinguished English philosopher and theolo-
gian of the later 14th century and a signifi cant infl uence
on the emergence of the heretical Lollard movement.
His popular fame as a church reformer, however, is
largely unjustifi ed and only dates from the Reforma-
tion period.
Wyclif was probably born in Yorkshire. For most of
his adult life he was a scholar and teacher at Oxford,
and only in his last decade did he make any impression
on a wider stage, fi rst as a royal servant and then as the
inspiration of heresy. He fi rst appears in the records as
a fellow of Merton College in 1356, as master of Balliol
College in 1360, and later as warden of Canterbury Hall,
an appointment that involved him in a struggle with the
regular clergy. He proceeded from Arts to Theology inWULFSTAN OF YORK