Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-02T07:38:48.361Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

II - Lollard literature

from 13 - Compilations for preaching and Lollard literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Nigel J. Morgan
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Rodney M. Thomson
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
Get access

Summary

Lollardy, the English heresy that took its spring from the ideas of John Wyclif (c.1330–84), was defined by its books and their contents. The first condemnation of Wyclif himself, a bull sent out in 1377 by Pope Gregory XI, cited a list of nineteen errors quoted from his De civili dominio; these derived from the reading by the English Benedictine, Adam Easton, of a copy of book i which he had requested should be sent to him in Avignon. Already in 1382, the year in which the English ecclesiastical authorities finally censured twenty-four opinions deriving from Wyclif’s works (though not naming their author), a call was issued for the confiscation of written materials, and especially of bills issued by Wyclif’s Oxford disciples and disseminated through London and other parts of the country. From then on, and particularly after archbishop Arundel’s Constitutions of 1407, Lollards were often recognized from their books. An extreme case was that of John Claydon, a prominent London skinner, who, to judge by the long process against him, was burned at the stake in 1415 primarily because of his agreement with fourteen errors found in a copy of the Lanterne of Lizt which, notwithstanding his illiteracy, he had commissioned and had had read to him frequently. Claydon had been under suspicion before, but the story is illuminating: it shows not only how the authorities found written materials useful in their pursuit of heretics, but also the value set on books by the heretics themselves and one mode of their use.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aston, M. 1984Lollards and images’, in her Lollards and reformers: images and literacy in late medieval religion, London.Google Scholar
Catto, J. I. 1987Some English manuscripts of Wyclif’s Latin works’, Studies in Church History Subsidia, 5.Google Scholar
Doyle, A. I. 1983English Books in and out of court from Edward III to Henry VII’, in English court culture in the later middle ages, eds. Scattergood, V. J. and Sherborne, J. W., London.Google Scholar
English Wycliffite sermons I, ed. Hudson, A. 1983, Oxford.Google Scholar
Fasciculi Zizaniorum magistri Johannis Wyclif cum tritico, ed. Shirley, W. W. 1858, Rolls Series.Google Scholar
Hanna, R. 1990Two Lollard codices and Lollard book production’, Studies in Bibliography, 43.Google Scholar
Harvey, M. 1998Adam Easton and the condemnation of John Wyclif, 1377’, English Historical Review, 113.Google Scholar
Henry, Knighton: Chronicle 1337–1396, ed. and tr. Martin, G. H. 1995, Oxford Medieval Texts.Google Scholar
Hudson, A. 1985a Lollards and their books, London.Google Scholar
Hudson, A. 1988b The premature Reformation: Wycliffite texts and Lollard history, Oxford.Google Scholar
Hudson, A. 1989Lollard book production’, Griffiths, J. and Pearsall, D. A., Book production and publishing in Britain 1375–1475, Cambridge 1989.Google Scholar
Hudson, A. 1995Trial and error: Wyclif’s works in Cambridge, Trinity College ms b 16. 2’, in Beadle, and Piper, .Google Scholar
Hudson, A. 1997From Oxford to Prague: the writings of John Wyclif and his English followers in Bohemia’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 75.Google Scholar
John, Foxe: The acts and monuments, eds. Cattley, S. R. and Pratt, J. 1853–70, London.Google Scholar
Jurkowski, M. 1997, ‘Heresy and factionalism at Merton College in the early fifteenth century’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, H. G. 1936Heresy and the lay power under Richard II’, English Historical Review, 51.Google Scholar
Summerson, H. 1997An English Bible and other books belonging to Henry IV’, Bulletin of the John Rylands (University) Library, 79.Google Scholar
The register of Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, 4 vols., ed. Jacob, E. F. 1938–47, Oxford.Google Scholar
Thomas, Gascoigne: Loci e libro veritatum, ed. Rogers, J. E. Thorold 1881, Oxford.Google Scholar
Thomson, W. R. 1983 The Latin writings of John Wyclyf, Toronto.Google Scholar
Von Nolcken, C. 1986An unremarked group of Wycliffite sermons in Latin’, Modern Philology, 83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×