WYCLIF
RULES FOR DECENT LIVING
Born in 1384, died in 1384; Master of Baliol College, Oxford, in 1360; then Rector of three parishes successively; a Royal Ambassador to confer with papal nuncios at Bruges in 1374; summoned before Convocation in 1373 because of his attacks on the clergy; threw off his allegiance to the Papacy and wrote ceaselessly against the Papal claim; made the first complete translation of the Bible into English about 1382; his bones exhumed and burned, and the ashes thrown into a river by order of the Synod of Constance in 1428.
If thou be a lord, look thou live a rightful life in thine own person, both anent God and man, keeping the bests of God, doing the works of mercy, ruling well thy five wits, and doing reason and equity and good conscience to all men. The second time, govern well thy wife, thy children, and thy homely men in God's law, and suffer no sin among them, neither in word nor in deed, upon thy might, that they may be ensample of holiness and righteousness to all other. For thou shalt be damned for their evil life and thine evil sufferance, but if thou amendest it upon thy might. The third time, govern well thy tenants, and maintain them in right and reason and be merciful to them in their rents and worldly merriments, and suffer not thy officers to do them wrong nor extortions, and chastise them in good manner that he rebel against God's bests and
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