Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of John Wycliffe.They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395. These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and chief cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the …

Proto-Protestantism, also called pre-Protestantism, refers to individuals and movements that propagated ideas similar to Protestantism before 1517, which historians usually regard as the starting year for the Reformation era. The relationship between medieval sects and Protestantism is an issue that has been debated by historians.

Arnoldists were a Proto-Protestant Christian movement in the 12th century, named after Arnold of Brescia, an advocate of ecclesiastical reform who criticized the great wealth and possessions of the Roman Catholic Church, while preaching against infant baptism and the Eucharist. His disciples were also called "Publicans" or "Poplecans", a name probably deriving from …

Pope Lucius III (c. 1097 – 25 November 1185), born Ubaldo Allucingoli, reigned from 1 September 1181 to his death in 1185.Born of an aristocratic family of Lucca, prior to being elected pope, he had a long career as a papal diplomat.His papacy was marked by conflicts with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, his exile from Rome and the initial preparations for the Third …

The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (French: Croisade des albigeois; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown and promptly took on a political aspect. It resulted in the significant reduction of practicing Cathars …

The Friends of God (German: Gottesfreunde; or gotesvriunde) was a medieval mystical group of both ecclesiastical and lay persons within the Catholic Church (though it nearly became a separate sect) and a center of German mysticism.It was founded between 1339 and 1343 during the Avignon Papacy of the Western Schism, a time of great turmoil for the Catholic Church.

Anti-Protestantism dates back to before the Protestant Reformation itself, as various pre-Protestant groups such as Arnoldists, Waldensians, Hussites and Lollards were persecuted in Roman Catholic Europe.

Most modern knowledge of the medieval history of the Waldensians originates almost exclusively from the records and writings of the Roman Catholic Church, the same body that was condemning them as heretics.: 66 Because of "the documentary scarcity and unconnectedness from which we must draw the description of Waldensian beliefs",: 87 much of what is known about the early …

Lollardy was a religion of vernacular scripture. Lollards opposed many practices of the Catholic church. Anne Hudson has written that a form of sola scriptura underpinned Wycliffe's beliefs, but distinguished it from the more radical ideology that anything not permitted by scripture is forbidden. Instead, Hudson notes that Wycliffe's sola scriptura held the Bible to be "the only …

Menno Simons (1496 – 31 January 1561) was a Roman Catholic priest from the Friesland region of the Low Countries who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church and became an influential Anabaptist religious leader. Simons was a contemporary of the Protestant Reformers and it is from his name that his followers became known as Mennonites. "Menno Simons" …