Lollard Communities

1. Lollard Communities Religion & Religious Change in England c.1470-1558

2. Last time: assessed role of criticism in the Church. • This time: look at Lollards – often seen as the precursor or foundation for Reform. • Danger of teleology – projecting backwards and find an explanation. • Certainly contingencies – and huge criticisms – which shared with Reformers. • Next week – assess impact of Lollardy in C15th/C16th on Protestants. • Here, outline doctrines, spread of movement and contextualise place of Lollardyin late medieval Catholicism. • Sect or spectrum? Recap:

3. Legacy & Myth:

4. Bishop’s Bridge, Norwich: Lollard Tower, Exeter: Legacy & Myth:

5. What’s in a word? • Dutch lollaerd (someone who mutters, a mumbler). • Latin lolium, tares (mingled with the wheat): • Matthew 13. • Franciscan, Lolhard, a convert to the Waldensians and a prominent preacher in Guienne (then under English control). He was burned at Cologne in the 1370s; • Middle-Englishloller- vagabond, idle. ‘Lollard’:

6. Philosophy & Theology: • Realists: • things existed because they shared in an underlying reality, an ideal model of a thing, of which all particular examples were approximations. • Nominalist: • Denied the reality of universals/ ideals • There were only things which man perceived through the senses from their ‘accidents’. • For realists all tables are imperfect copies of a great eternal table, for nominalists all table are different. Wycliff– realist: • Universals existed in God’s mind. • Real things were mere substances of God’s ideal – shared in the eternity of that idea. • Known to mankind only through their perception in the senses. • What we see, hear, smell, touch only ‘real’ in the sense that they were manifestations of a perfect reality beyond the senses. • Illuminations of God to man was the basis of all human knowledge. John Wycliff (d.1381):

7. Scripture: • De veritatesacraescripturae‘logic of Holy Scripture’ (1378) • saw it as endorsing the realist philosophy which he embraced. • Pure expression of God’s mind to the human race – therefore valued over tradition. • As ideal of law (written down) took precedent over custom, so scripture (law of God) should have precedent over tradition. • Nothing ‘true’ unless in the Bible. • Lordship in Grace: • Problem re: ownership of property. • ‘Just’ = that which agreed with God’s will. • ‘render each their due’: • Reward virtuous; retribution for evil. • THIS world shadow perfect ideal (of God). • Church could not reward the sinful: • Owning property distracted from spiritual duties. • Undermined the entire legal code of the Church (canon law). • Ideal of clergy = poverty, as under the Old Law. • Predestination: • God had pre-decided who to elect to salvation – an orthodoxy of Catholicism. • Difference not of kind but degree – emphasis which Wycliffe placed on it. • Ramifications for the definition of ‘Church’ • Not all Christians on earth gathered together. • God’s love for the Elect unchanging – must be Elect on earth, too. • How could the Catholic Church be ‘True’ if made up of reprobates? • How could it makes moral decisions if there was no way of knowing if ecclesia ‘Elect’? • Papacy not look very pious (Great Schism): • Authority should be based on spirituality, not tradition. • Importance of sacraments reduced: • Signs, not vehicles for grace. • Only predestined could receive grace – to suggest otherwise a contradiction of God’s will. • Penance/confession not required. • Eucharist: • Denial of transubstantiation. • No presence of Christ in bread – only in those who were Elect. • Affront to the powers of the meditative priesthood – sacramental power to channel God’s grace – and the devotional framework which had developed around the Host. • Masses for the dead etc redundant. • As was much of the material fabric of late medieval Catholicism. Doctrines:

8. Implies solidity, organisation and purpose: • Certainly evidence of sharing materials and contacts. • More of a network than a sect: • Not a separate Church. • Networks dependent upon pre-existing patronage and kin relationships, rather than developing ones. • Not gathered Churches: • Wary of looking forward to the Reformation: • Hutterites or Huguenots, who displayed a more coherent and shared identity. • Those churches kept records, organised funds, schools. • The Lollards did not. • Nor did they possess a distinctive ministry. • Theory not really allow Lollards to be a ‘movement’. • Notion that the most just people the most Christian. • Decidedly anti-hierarchical or institutional stance. • If it was not a ‘movement’, certainly had significant ramifications. • Conventicles: • Gather to discuss, learn and study scripture. A Movement?

9. Lollard Sermons: Wycliffe Bible: Texts:

10. Inherited heresies: • Disbelief in transubstantiation. • Rejection of the need for baptism and confession • Denial of the value of pilgrimage, prayers to saints, or the honouring of their images. • Attack oaths, fasting, prayers for the dead as unscriptural • Papal pardons redundant • Biblical certainties: • Anticipate Protestants? • Reading scripture: • Coming together to read, study, reflect. • Well-guarded locations. • ‘Known men’ and ‘known women’ – those who truly knew and followed His law. • Key texts: • New Testament • Gospels • Epistles (especially the letter of James) • Revelation • Danger of overstating coherence: • No single Lollard creed. • Variation between conventicles. • Based on charismatic preachers. • Regional variation rested upon the predispositions of a handful of men. • Evidence – most of what we know about ‘beliefs’ from trial records. • Not written down/schematic, but taken under duress and often in response to questions. • Not always clear. • Unified in a rejection of a mediatory priesthood: • Need to obtain knowledge of God based on scripture. • ‘Holy’ men: • Wycliff (even if not read his works). • Sir John Oldcastle • William Taylor • William Emayn of Bristol. • Key: drawing on the community’s past history. Beliefs:

11. Odd that Wycliffe’s ideas did spread: • Theological disputes rarely escaped universities. • Sermons in Latin. • Why? • Ramifications for power of the church. • Wycliffe’s energy. • ‘Man of the people’? (majority of writings in Latin). • Which people and to what end? • Deeply entrenched in: • Kent • Essex • Berkshire • South Buckinghamshire • Oxfordshire. • How did it spread? • Preaching: • Revolutionary in context of sacerdotal priesthood. • Established structures of Church key to spread. • Clerics – therefore authority. • Divide ‘orth/heterodox’ thin in the early stages. • Close knit communities • Conventicles • Impressive scale of literature: • 250 bible manuscripts: • Only 20 complete. • All ‘Lollard’? • Wary of assuming reading primary means. • Projecting the Reformation backwards. • Group reading – empowering in an age of mass illicteracy. • Very few arrested owned books. • Those that did v. basic – 10 Commandments. Dispersion & Scope:

12. Patronage: • ‘Lollard Knights’ at the court of Richard II: • Sirs: Thomas Latimer, Richard Sturry, John Cheyne, Lewis Clifford, William Neville, John Montague. • Heresy at the centre of power. • Latimer – promote in Leceistershire/ Northamptonshire. • Maintain Lollard clerics on his lands. • Sturry – forced to forswear Lollardy in 1390. • Not overstate coherence: • Closely knit body of men. • But very varied values. • All active in mainstream piety alongside Lollardy. • Devotions to the Virgin Mary. • Wills & traditional devotions. • Several died on pilgrimage. • Gentry support in some regions: • Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire. • Could cause conflict • Northampton (1393). • Mayor John Fox vs Richard Stormesworth. • Social distribution: • Not a disproportionate appeal to the gentry. • Most to lose. • Often to most extensive patrons of activities which Lollards condemned. • Not a religion of the dispossessed. • Attracted ‘middling sort’ – those with a stake in society: • 51 Lollards investigated at Norfolk: • 26 craftsmen, 1 wealthy, 4 priests • Stress on literacy. • These ‘middling sort’ were precisely the sorts of people interested in new avenues of (orthodox) lay piety. • Apocalyptic fervour: • No real social protest. Dispersion & Scope:

14. Was it radically apart from LMC? • Points of contact with ‘orthodox’ devotions important: • Poor Caitif (c.1400) – devotional treatise of orthodox nature • 6 of 23 manuscripts in which survives contain Lollard works too. • Actually written from Wycliffitesermons, perhaps by an orthodox Catholic with access to a range of materials. • Not heretical – divisions often very narrow. • Lollard Bibles often found in orthodox hands. • Church contained abroad basis of opinions. • Binary models of ‘orthodox’ / ‘heresy’ too rigid. • Two sides of the same coin? • Did Lollardy penetrate the mainstream? • Desire to read religious literature and scripture. • More austere of the newer religious Orders (eg. the Cartesians) points of contact with Lollardy. • Devotional literature C15th. • Nicholas Hereford– retired to the Cartesian Charterhouse in Coventry in 1417. • ‘Lollard’ is often so unspecific in the documents • Any unconventional piety. • All heretics, dissenters lumped under the term. • But the extremely orthodox might be too. • Pious distaste of swearing might be conflated with Lollardy’s dislike of oaths Lay piety: a spectrum?

15. Heresy = sedition: • Religious iniquity lead to social/political iniquity. • Lollardy tainted by this. • Amplified by two cataclysmic events in British history: • 1) Peasants Revolt (Archbishop of Canterbury lynched). • 2) The Wars of the Roses (1399-85): • Ended with the reign of Henry VII & the beginning of the Tudor dynasty • Important for how the Tudors would remember Lollardy and how they would deal with heresy. • Peasants Revolt (1381): • Dissent accorded some role. • Clamp down on Wycliffe & followers. • Earlier historiography: • Lollardy some role (esp. deposing of Richard II in 1399). • Now, court of Richard II orthodox. • Richard III & Henry IV reject heresy, too. • Public way of proving orthodoxy. • Win over the support of the AB of Canterbury, Arundel. • Henry IV: • De haereticocomburendo(‘On The Burning of Heretics’) – 1401. • Reinforced existing sanctions. • More symbolic than sensational. • Undercut noble support. • Public trials: • John Bradby (1410). • William Sawtry • Way of shoring up support for monarchy – many of the kings in these years were o dubious legitimacy. • Role of politics and heresy converge in the case of Sir John Oldcastle. Lollards & Politics:

16. Sir John Oldcastle: • MP in 1407, Baron in 1409. • Bills for dis-endowment of clergy. • Childhood friend of Henry V • Long critic of episcopacy. • Archbishop Thomas Arundel: • Produced evidence of Oldcastle’s heretical convictions to discredit him (& protect the Church). • Compromising manuscripts (1413). • Arrested – King urged to recant but would not. • Condemned September. • Henry’s delay in sanctioning execution permitted Oldcastle time to escape (19th October). • Revolt, January 1414: • Oldcastle’s role – a reluctant figurehead on the run? • Far from the Peasant’s Revolt, or even the smaller rebellions of the Tudor period. • Few hundred Lollard devotees at best. • No clear purpose. • Lancastrian regime more in control of the events that the ‘rebels’ ever had been. • Lancastrian regime ‘spun’ the event: • Not a co-ordinated Lollard strike, but presented that way. • Acted to sustain support for the Church and the regime. • National Prayers, Thanksgiving Processions – sense of deliverance shored up the regime. • Paul Strohm, whole thing an invention by the regime – too far? • But clear that Lollardy not much of a political threat at this stage • Commissions of Oyer and Terminer set up in the wake of the ‘revolt’ produced few returns. • Oldcastle captured 1417. • Turning point for Lollardy: • Sedition frightened off men of influence. • Networks began to die out. • Arundel responded to Lollardy with programmes of devotional reading, preaching, clerical reform. • Evidence once again of orthodox Catholicism being vibrant and flexible enough to sustain itself. The Oldcastle Rising:

17. Treated more severely: • Sporadic prosecutions from Richard II’s reign. • Much more severe after Oldcastle – treasonable. • Now equated with disobedience to the law. • Sped up mechanisms of hunting out heretics. • Severe prosecution: • 80 offenders taken in the rising. • 69 condemned. • Popular resistance tainted: • Cade’s rebellion – labelled ‘Lollards’ to spped up prosecution. • Marjory Kempe(not a Lollard) aroused suspicion because of excessive devotions. • Deemed less dangerous by the reign of Henry V: • Bishop of Durham praised for handling of the situation at the opening of Parliament in 1420. • Many Lollards in prison, but little urge to prosecute them • Still there in 1425. • Channels of communication/ organisations shattered: • Pre-1414 elements eradicated. • More concerned with survival than enacting change. • Survival in smaller communities: • Often in touch for security reasons. • No leader, or over-arching organisation. • Sustained by family networks. • Regional flavours, characteristics. • A series of attitudes to the priesthood and scripture than a co-ordinated creed. Lollards after Oldcastle:

18. Foxe & Oldcastle: