I deduce from these premisses as a simple counsel of my own that the Pope should surrender all temporal authority to the civil power and advise his clergy to do the same." The boldness of his words sprang perhaps from a knowledge that his end was near.

The terrible strain on energies enfeebled by age and study had at last brought its inevitable result, and a stroke of paralysis while Wyclif was hearing mass in his parish church of Lutterworth was followed on the next day by his death.
[Sidenote: The Lollard movement] The persecution of Courtenay deprived the religious reform of its more learned adherents and of the support of the Universities.

Wyclif's death robbed it of its head at a moment when little had been done save a work of destruction.

From that moment Lollardism ceased to be in any sense an organized movement and crumbled into a general spirit of revolt.

All the religious and social discontent of the times floated instinctively to this new centre.