The Council of Constance was perhaps the most dramatic of all the ecumenical councils of the Church. Called under stress by an anti-pope whom it proceeded to depose, it was the scene of the fire that burned John Hus and the arena for the debate of the most potent political theories of the time. It was fitting that it should be an occasion for the condemnation of the works of John Wyclif, the firebrand heretic of the preceding century.

Consideration of Wyclif's condemnation at Constance is usually overshadowed by the condemnation of John Hus, of which process the action concerning Wyclif was a part. However, for the purposes of this paper, the focus will be placed on the total condemnation process of the two men specifically insofar as it concerns Wyclif. When this is done, an interesting succession of events at the Council emerges from the general mass of its records.

Wyclif, of course, had died as the result of a stroke in 1384. He had at that time already been condemned as heretical by Pope Gregory XI, who in 1377 had extracted nineteen erroneous conclusions from Wyclif's treatise De Civili Dominio, I. There would seem to have been little point in raising him for new condemnation at Constance if there had not been some contemporary representation of his ideas. This was seen in John Hus.

Thus the story of Wyclif at Constance begins with the early arrival of Hus at the Council. Hus was convinced of his own innocence of heresy, but realized that he might be in some danger.