Wiclif's writings mark an epoch in the development of the English language. Chaucer did much for it; but his poems could not influence the people in the same way that Wiclif's Bible did. Nothing else could have the same intimate relation with the spiritual life of the people as the Bible, a new book to most of them. No words could so firmly fix themselves in their memory as those in which their Saviour had taught them the meaning and the duties of their life. The first translation of the Bible was soon found to be very faulty. It was revised with great care by Wiclif himself, and more especially by his friend John Purveys. It was not complete in its new and greatly improved form till after Wiclif's death. The Lollards, as the followers of Wiclif were called, formed a strong party, and their fervour did not begin to die out till the end of Henry V.'s reign; but we cannot doubt that the movement would have had more permanent results, had it not been interrupted by the Peasants' Revolt. With the remainder of Richard II.'s reign we have nothing to do. We have only thought it right to trace briefly the movement amongst the working classes, which was the most important consequence of the Black Death. In Wiclif's teaching and in the Peasants' Revolt we see the two most striking events of this epoch. In a certain way they were the results of the French wars, whose course we have been following. These wars produced a general stir and ferment; they gave the people new ideas and new life. The men who had earned such distinction by their brave fighting at Cressy and Poitiers were not content to settle down on their return home to the old state of things. They wanted greater freedom, better wages, an improved manner of living; their minds were open to receive new teaching. The result was the increasing discontent with their position, which led to the Peasants' Revolt, and the eagerness with which Wiclif's teaching was received on all sides. But both Wiclif's teaching and the views expressed by the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt were premature. They were founded upon principles which could not at that time meet with general acceptance, and they were followed by a decided reaction. A period of darkness followed this great burst of intellectual life. In literature there were no worthy successors of Chaucer. The reforming views of Wiclif were slowly stamped out. The peasants failed in obtaining those results for which they had struggled. From the time of Chaucer till the days of the Reformation there is no great name in the history of English literature. It was not till then that intellectual life revived in England, and England took those great steps in advance which Wiclif had hoped she might take in his day. But we must not look upon the Reformation as in any way the result of Wiclif's teaching. By that time his ideas had faded away from men's remembrance, and the English Reformation received its impulse from Luther's teaching in Germany.