The only complete Bible then in use was the Latin version. The people could not read a line of it, and many priests were almost as ignorant of its contents. To carry on the revival which he had begun, Wycliffe now began to translate the entire Scriptures into English, 1378. When the great work was finished it was copied and circulated by the "Poor Priests." But the cost of such a book in manuscript--for the printing press had not yet come into existence--was so high that only the rich could buy the complete volume. Many, however, who had no money would give a load of farm produce for a few favorite chapters. In this way Wycliffe's Bible was spread throughout the country among all classes. Later, when persecution began, men hid these precious copies and read them with locked doors at night, or met in the forests to hear them expounded by preachers who went about at the peril of their lives. These things led Wycliffe's enemies to complain "that common men and women who could read were better acquainted with the Scriptures than the most learned and intelligent of the clergy." 255. The Lollards; Wycliffe's Remains burned. The followers of Wycliffe were nicknamed Lollards, a word of uncertain meaning but apparantly used as an expression of contempt. From having been religious reformers denouncing the wealth and greed of a corrupt Church, they seem, in some cases, to have degenerated into socialists or communists. This latter class demanded, like John Ball (S250), --who may have been one of their number,--that all property should be equally divided, and that all rank should be abolished. This fact should be borne in mind with reference to the subsequent efforts made by the government to suppress the movement. In the eyes of the Church, the Lollards were heretics; in the judgment of many moderate men, they were destructionists and anarchists, as unreasonable and as dangerous as the "dynamiters" of to-day. More than forty years after Wycliffe's death (1384), a decree of the Church council of Constance[1] ordered the reformer's body to be dug up and burned (1428). But his influence had not only permeated England, but had passed to the Continent, and was preparing the way for that greater movement which Luther was to inaugurate in the sixteenth century. [1] Constance, in southern Germany. This council (1415) sentenced John Huss and Jerome of Prague, both of whom may be considered Wycliffites, to the stake. Tradition says that the ashes of his corpse were thrown into the brook flowing near the parsonage of Lutterworth, the object being to utterly destroy and obliterate the remains of the arch-heretic. Fuller says: "This brook did conveeey his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow sea, and that into the wide ocean. And so the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all the world over."[2]