He protested against a perceived paganizing of the papacy, superstitious and magical uses of the sacraments, the authority of ecclesiastical tradition, and the tendency in later scholastic theology to lay greater stress, in a doctrine of justification, upon the instrumentality of the human will than on the work of Christ for man's salvation.

A desire to know more about humanism sent him to Rome, where in 1470 he was the intimate friend of Italian scholars and under the protection of Cardinals Bessarion and Francesco della Rovere (general of the Franciscan order and afterwards Pope Sixtus IV).

From Rome, Wessel returned to Paris and speedily became a famous teacher, gathering round him a band of enthusiastic young students, among whom was Reuchlin.

As old age approached, he grew to dislike the theological strife of scholasticism and turned away from that university discipline, non studia sacrarum literarum sed studiorum commixtae corruptiones.

To his friends, disciples and admirers, he imparted his rhetorical spirituality, a zeal for higher learning and the deep devotional spirit which characterized his own life.

He was buried in the middle of the choir of the church of the Olde Convent, which stood on what is now called the Rode Weeshuistraat but at the time was known as the Straat van de Geestelijke Maagden, whose director he had been.

[5] The founders of the Protestant University of Groningen in 1614 considered Wessel Gansfort one of their intellectual predecessors, together with Rudolph Agricola (1444–85) and Regnerus Praedinius (1510–59).

Early editions of works by Gansfort (e.g. Zwolle 1522, Basel 1523, Groningen 1614, Marburg 1617) on their title page call him the learned light of the world (Lux mundi).