John Wyclif (c. 1320–84), a leading philosopher at Oxford University, offended the church by supporting the government’s right to seize the property of corrupt clergymen. His views were condemned by the pope in 1377, but influential friends protected him. Wyclif began to extend his anti-clerical views and to attack central doctrines of the medieval church, in particular transubstantiation. He wrote: ‘no man is so rude a scholar but that he may learn the words of the Gospel.