The Church, Wyclif, and the Lollards

The Late Medieval ChurchStrengths and

Weaknesses

John Wyclif & FriendsOxford, Gaunt

Lollardy to 1414Beliefs/GrievancesSupport of Wide Social

StrataStrong Government

ReactionJohn Oldcastle

The Later LollardsGoing UndergroundLocations & Networks

Case Study: BristolFrom the 1380s to the

1480s

St. Mary’s Lutterworth, Leicestershire

The Late Medieval ChurchStrengths

Making Sense of MadnessLiturgical CalendarEducation & CatechesisSaints, Pilgrimage, & MoralsOrder and SacramentsBuilding Program of 15th Cent.

WeaknessesReputation for Wealth, GreedLand, Plate, FinanceOverly-allied with CrownMonopoly of Divine Power

Relations with the PapacyGreat Schism (1378-1417)Potential for Alienation

Chaucer’s Parson

Wyclif and Friends

John Wyclif (b. c.1320s, d. 1384)Educated at Oxford, 1350sServed as Clergyman, 1360sVolatile Teaching & Preaching, 1370sPapal Censure for Doctrines, ‘77

Oxford & LondonTaught Many; Large CirclesCondemned, Oxford (Eucharist), ‘81No Direct Connection to ‘81 RevoltTheoretical Critique of Power, tho’

John of GauntProtected Wyclif in ‘76/7; turned in ’81

Later Years, ‘81-4Retired to Write Further

Wyclif, anon., n.d.

Lollardy to 1414Beliefs

Not Cohesive/Uniform Across GroupsBible Reading > Ceremonies, Rites, ImagesPersonal Relationship (qua Mystics)

Grievances (Anticlericalism)Church’s Language, Wealth, Greed

Support of Wide Social StrataOxford, Paris, Prague Scholars“Lollard Knights” at Richard II’s CourtYeomanry, ArtisansUrbanites, Merchants, Gentry“Known Men”; “Poor Preachers”

MediaEnglish Bibles, Sermons, Compilations

Wyclif N.T., Glasgow MS Hunter 191; late 14th Century; Gospel of John

ReactionStrong Church and State

Lollardy Linked to Sedition“Roots of the Tree

Upward”Dangerous Doctrines

Eucharist and PredestinationThomas Arundel, Abp. Canterbury

“Hammer of the Lollards”De haeretico comburendo, 1401

John Oldcastle, Lord CobhamHoldings in Kent, E. Anglia, WestSupported Lollard PreachingHeresy Conviction, 1413Rebellion w/ Lollards, January 1414Hunted Down, Burnt, 1417

Oldcastle’s End, via John Foxe

The Later LollardsGoing Underground

Post-Oldcastle, Lost RespectabilityLittle Noble Support“Middle Class”

MovementPrivate Conventicles / MeetingsPeripatetic Preachers; On the MoveManuscript Circulation / Book TradeDisparate Cells, but Ideologically Linked

Locations & NetworksKent, E. Anglia, Leicester, CoventryLondon: Perennial Hotbed of RadicalismWest Country: Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Bath & Wells DioceseMerchant Networks, Trade Routes

London, Braun & Hogenberg

Case Study: Bristol in the 15th CenturyEarly Links

Nicholas of Hereford (English Bible)John Aston (Preacher)William Swinderby (Preacher)John Purvey (Wyclif’s Secretary)

Overlapping Episcopal JurisdictionsLack of Uniform Enforcement

Non-resident, Resident ClergyBishops often in LondonSympathetic Preachers

NeighborhoodsRedcliffe, St. Thomas, Holy Cross of the Temple

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William Emayn’s Abjuration, 1429In primis every praier should be maad immediatly to God and not to Seints right as the child that had wast his faderis good

come immediatly to his fader and asked mercy and his fader forgaf hym his trespas.Item hit is not lawful to a man spirituel to charge or to compelle ony man to swere on a bookItem confession is but a counsail: right as Peter cried God mercy and David and Magdalene and here synne was forgif, so

should we do and non otherwise.Item the pope in dedly sinne is Antecrist and not the viker of Crist: for Crist saith he that is not with me is ayenst me.Item every prest is bound under the payne of dedly synne to prech Word of God openly.Item it is ayenst Goddes lawe to ony man or woman that is foole to entre into ony hous of religion: for thoo places be the

dennes of foxes and of briddes nestes.Item freres shuld not begge but wercke as Poule dede with there handes for thair liflode for they be the childre of sathan.Item hit is not lawful to ony prest which ministreth the sacrament or singeth for a soule in church collage or the other place

to take ony salary for his labour. Item the hed of the church is Crist, and thoo that be most vertuous in lyvying be most highest in the church, and thoo that

be in dedly synne be out of the church of Goddes ordinance and on the sinagog of Sathanas.Item to images shulde no maner worship be do neither genufleccions ner insensingne non othre thing of worship.Item hit is dampnable to goo on pilgrimage to ony sepulture reliquys of Seintes: for a pilgrimage shulde be do to pouer

men.Item hit is dampnable to offer to ony ymage.Item hit is not lawful to the king lordes spirituel and temporel be callyng to hem the comones to kepe and execute such

ordinances and statutes but they be founded and grounded in Cristes gospel: and the writers of such statutes be like to scribes and pharisees to whom Crist saide Ve vobis scribis et phariseis, Woo to you scribis and pharisues.

Item hit is not lawful neither to spiritual lordes as the pope, archbushops, busshops, abbotes and al other of the prelacie, ne to lordes temporal as the king, princes or ony other of the temporalte to occupie temporal goodes if thay be in dedly synne: for than they be not lordes ne owners of the same goodes.

Item the opinions that Sir John Oldecastel, called the lord Cobham, Maister John Wyclif, Maister William Taillour, Sir William Sawtry, Sir John Beverley and Sir James ------ which persones for their errours and heresies that they pertinatlich defended were convicted and demed for heretikes, and so take to seculer pouer and punished to the deth, were holy men and thair doctrine and opinions were trewe and catholik, and therfor thay be worshipped in heven as holy martirs.

Item Maister John Wyclif was holier and now is more in blisse and hier in heven glorified than Seint Thomas of Canterbury the glorious Martir.

The Register of John Stafford, Bishop of Bath and Wells (Somerset Record Society, 1915), no. 263.