In homes where there are no other books we find at least a Bible,
and the Bible stories are almost the first that we learn to know.
But in the fourteenth century there were no English Bibles. The
priests and clergy and a few great people perhaps had Latin
Bibles. And although Caedmon's songs had long been forgotten, at
different times some parts of the Bible had been translated into
English, so that the common people sometimes heard a Bible story.
But an English Bible as a whole did not exist; and if to-day it
is the commonest and cheapest book in all the land, it is to John
Wyclif in the first place that we owe it.
John Wyclif was born, it is thought, about 1324 in a little
Yorkshire village. Not much is known of his early days except
that he went to school and to Oxford University. In time he
became one of the most learned men of his day, and was made Head,
or Master, of Balliol College.
This is the first time in this book that we have heard of a
university. The monasteries had, until now, been the centers of
learning.
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