Edward III summoned parliament to discuss the Pope’s demands. After reading the Pope’s letter to the Parliament he demanded that they formulate an official response on behalf of the nation. After taking day to deliberate over the matter the parliament unanimously voted to refuse the Pope’s request. England would not be bullied by the Pope. The Parliament’s decision was greatly influenced by the teachings of Wycliffe. 

Wycliffe hated the wealthy pretentious of the clerics and he was not alone in his disdain. Many of the nobility and gentry of England felt that the church was too rich and opulent to be the body of Christ. 

Wycliffe expressed his views in a series of books which were originally written in university Latin and then translate into English. The books dealt with Papal corruption, transubstationation and other ecclesiastical claims. In his work Wycliffe upheld the authority of scripture, suggesting that the Word of God took precedence over the sacramental hierarchy of the church. Wycliffe saw no need for the elaborate machinery of the church which obtructed geuine communion between God and man. 

Wycliffe was perhaps the first cleric who boldly named the Pope as Antichrist. He also condemned the worship of saint as idolatry and dismissed the need for friars and monks as superfluous and repugnant. His most significant attack agains the church was renouncing transubstatiation which made him a heretic. Wycliffe’s work was the precursor to the Reformation.