Wycliffe did not indulge in mere denunciation. His invectives were with a view to the work of reformation. Accordingly, at the time when he published the fifty charges against the friars he was actively training, organising, and sending out agents—“poor priests” to instruct the people in the knowledge of the Gospel, and by so doing undo the works of the friars, and promote evangelical religion and social virtue. At first these itinerant preachers were employed in some places, as in the immense diocese of Lincoln, under episcopal sanction.[22] But so effectively and extensively did they propagate the evangelical doctrines of Wycliffe, that in Archbishop Courtenay‘s mandate to the Bishop of London in 1382, they are denounced as “unauthorised itinerant preachers, who set forth erroneous, yea, heretical, assertions in public sermons, not only in churches, but also in public squares, and other profane places; and who do this under the guise of great holiness, but without having obtained any episcopal or papal authorisation.” It was against Wycliffe‘s “poor priests” or itinerant preachers that the first royal proclamation in 1382 (statute it cannot be called), at the instance of Courtenay, for the punishment of heresy in England, was issued. The unprecedented measures taken against the “poor priests” bear most significant testimony to the effect produced by their teachings throughout the kingdom. It would be interesting to know how far, if at all, Wesley‘s idea of itinerant preachers was founded on, or proceeded from, the idea and the experiment of Wycliffe. At any rate, these poor priests were not organised, nor was their action modelled, according to any of the guilds, fraternities, or orders that had been formed or that had been in operation before the time of Wycliffe. The idea was truly original, and “the simplicity of the institution was itself a stroke of consummate genius.”[23] Having acted out his own principles that the student who would attain to the knowledge of the meaning of Scripture must cultivate humility of disposition and holiness of life, putting away from him all prejudicate opinions, and all merely curious and speculative theories and casuistical principles of interpretation, Wycliffe opened and studied the Bible with the desire simply to know and to do the will of God. It is no wonder if, with these sentiments, Wycliffe in his later years, when engaged continually in reading, studying, expounding, and translating the Scriptures, should come to perceive the contrariety of the papal or mediæval doctrine concerning the Eucharist to the doctrine of Scripture.