The lineage
Movements
The currents through which the recovery flowed — communities, renewals, and reform efforts that carried the gospel forward.
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The Lollards
Followers of John Wycliffe who circulated the English Bible and challenged transubstantiation, clerical wealth, and papal authority — driven underground but never extinguished, surfacing again at the English Reformation.
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The Hussites
Bohemian followers of Jan Hus who, after his martyrdom at Constance, defended communion in both kinds, vernacular preaching, and the supreme authority of Scripture — a century before Wittenberg.
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Christian Humanism
Ad fontes — back to the sources. Scholars like Erasmus, Reuchlin, and Lefèvre returned to Greek and Hebrew texts of Scripture, providing the philological tools the Reformers would use.