What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 19 May 2022.

Viklefova was built in 1930.

It’s named after John Wycliffe (1320-1384-ish), an English theologian, and one of the first to translate the Bible into Middle English, though historians say he may not have done much of the translation himself.

Wycliffe also wrote that papal claims of temporal power had no foundation in the Bible, and that the Bible, not the Pope, set the standard for Christian belief and practice.

He believed that anyone who wanted to read the Bible should be able to, hence the translation. He was also of the opinion that the Church should be poor and not flaunt its wealth so much.

In 1407, England’s parliament banned English-language Bibles, and Wycliffe’s followers were imprisoned. Pope Alexander V issued an edict against Bible’s that weren’t in Latin, and Wycliffe’s works were burned.

This served to inspire a rector at Charles University, who was dissatisfied with the privileges of the clergy, and who wanted the Bible to be translated into Czech. This rector was one Jan Hus.

In the same year that Jan Hus was executed (1415), Wycliffe was declared a heretic and all his writings were banned.

Secret shame: it wasn’t until writing this that I realised ‘Wycliffe’ isn’t pronounced ‘why-cliff’.