ending need to serve God as best as she can. As evidence, many conclusions can be drawn from these documents to help understand many aspects of the late middle ages, but I think that the most important point they demonstrate is the presence of much religious zeal in the time of papal opposition. The unorganized Catholic Church did not cause all the laity to fret over religious insecurity, rather individuals rose to the occasion of reform. These documents are examples of how the movement of lay piety became increasingly intolerant of ecclesiastical wealth. Most importantly these documents reveal the need of the laity to return to the basic teachings of Jesus Christ. I intend to demonstrate how each document represents differently the rejection of worldly wealth and express the need for reform in a time of dissent and great change.
             John Wyclif is the author of "Concerning the Pope". He was an Oxford scholar and a priest whose ideas of reform stemmed from his intolerance of sinful ecclesiastics who in his opinion did not deserve to hold office. He was of the belief that "lay rulers could rightfully deprive sinful clerics of their ecclesiastical holdings" (Andrea p. 395). Wyclif became immensely unpopular with Pope Gregory XI and in 1377 he ordered his arrest and examination. Wyclif was never condemned due to conveniently having enough friends in high places, he continued to write and preach of reform, and died of natural causes in 1384. Wycliff was particularly enraged by the corruption of the office of the pope and the further insult to the Catholic religion known as the Great Schism. His work "Concerning the Pope" is a good example of the importance Wyclif attached to the rejection of worldly wealth in hopes to live life in the imitation of Christ and his distaste for the corruption of the papal office. In this document he expresses the need for reform by lamenting about the pope and makes man...