"I believe in the end, truth will conquer."
Attributed to John Wycliffe (c. 1328 to 1384)
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The story
John Wycliffe was an Oxford scholar in the 1300s who believed ordinary people should be able to read the Bible for themselves. At the time, Scripture in England was kept in Latin, out of reach for almost everyone.
Wycliffe and his followers set out to change that. The handwritten English Bibles that came out of his movement, now called the Wycliffe Bible, were copied and passed hand to hand at real risk. He was condemned by church authorities, and his followers were hunted.
He died in 1384, but they weren't finished with him. Decades later his writings were declared heretical, and in 1428 his remains were dug up, burned, and his ashes thrown into the River Swift.
It didn't work. People later said the river carried his ashes to the sea, the way his teaching spread to the world. Within a few generations the Bible in English was everywhere. He's remembered as the "Morning Star of the Reformation."
Why we wear it
Some days it looks like the truth is losing: at work, in the news, in your own family. Wycliffe lived his whole life on the losing side and never saw the win. He believed it was coming anyway. Wear this for the long game.
About the band
- Durable silicone wristband
- Quote wraps around the band, with the Fossil Words ammonite seal in the middle
- Images are design previews. The finished band may differ slightly.
Fossil Words digs up words etched in the stone of time: words that lived in the actions of the people who spoke them.