The direct result of this investigation is not known, but it is impossible to disconnect from it the promulgation by Pope Alexander V., on the 20th of December 1409, of a bull which ordered the abjuration of all Wycliffite heresies and the surrender of all his books, while at the same time - a measure specially levelled at the pulpit of Bethlehem chapel - all preaching was prohibited except in localities which had been by long usage set apart for that use.
In fact in the Northern Midlands, and in the North even before the middle of the r4th century, the book of Psalms had been twice rendered into English, and before the end of the same century, probably before the great Wycliffite versions had spread over the country, the whole of the New Testament had been translated by different hands into one or other of the dialects of this part of the country.
Several revisions of the text exist, the later of which present such striking agreement with the later Wycliffite version that we shall not be far wrong if we assume that they were made use of to a considerable extent by the revisers of this version.
For it is a well-known fact Wycliffite that Wycliffe proclaimed the Bible, not the Church or Catholic tradition, as a man's supreme spiritual authority, and that he sought in consequence by every means in his power to spread the knowledge of it among the people.
The editors of the Wycliffite versions say in the Preface, pp. xv.