Lollards
The name given to the followers of John Wyclif, an heretical body
numerous in England in the latter part of the fourteenth and the
first half of the fifteenth century. The name was derived by
contemporaries from lollium, a tare, but it has been used in
Flanders early in the fourteenth century in the sense of
"hypocrite," and the phrase "Lollardi seu Deum laudantes" (1309)
points to a derivation from lollen, to sing softly (cf. Eng.
lull). Others take it to mean "idlers" and connect it with to
loll. We first hear of it as referring to the Wycliffites in 1382,
when the Cistercian Henry Crumpe applied the nickname to them in
public at Oxford. It was used in episcopal documents in 1387 and
1389 and soon became habitual. An account of Wyclif's doctrines,
their intellectual parentage, and their development during his
lifetime will be given in his own biography. This article will
deal with the general causes which led to the spread of Lollardy,
with the doctrines for which the Lollards were individually and
collectively condemned by the authorities of the Church, and with
the history of the sect.
Causes of the Spread of Lollardy
Till the latter part of the fourteenth century England had been
remarkably free from heresy. The Manichean movements of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries which threatened the Church and
society in Southern Europe and had appeared sporadically in
Northern France and Flanders had made no impression on England.
The few heretics who were heard of were all foreigners and they
seem to have found no following in the country. Yet there was much
discontent. Popular protests against the wealth, the power, and
the pride of the clergy, secular and regular, were frequent, and
in times of disorder would express themselves in an extreme form.
Thus, during the revolution which overthrew Edward II in 1327,
mobs broke into the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds and attacked that of
St. Albans. As the century proceeded there were many signs of
national disorganization, and of religious and social discontent.
The war in France, in spite of the glories of Crecy and Poitiers,
was a curse to the victors as well as to the vanquished. The later
campaigns were mere ravaging expeditions and the men who inflicted
such untold miseries on the French, whether under the English
flag, or in the Free Companies, brought home an evil spirit of
disorder, while the military system helped to produce an "over-
mighty," greedy, and often anti-clerical nobility. In the lower
ranks of society there was a similar growth of an intemperate and
subversive independence. The emancipation of the peasant class had
proceeded normally till the Black Death threw into confusion the
relations between landlord and tenant. By giving the labourer an
enormous economic advantage in the depopulated country it led the
landlords to fall back upon their legal rights and the traditional
wages.
In the Church there was nearly as much disorder as in the State.
The pestilence had in many cases disorganized the parish clergy,
the old penitential system had broken down, while luxury, at least
among the few, was on the increase. Preachers, orthodox and
heretical, and poets as different in character as Langland, Gower,
and Chaucer are unanimous in the gloomy picture they give of the
condition of the clergy, secular and regular. However much may be
allowed for exaggeration, it is clear that reform was badly
needed, but unfortunately the French Avignon popes, even when they
were reformers, had little influence in England. Later on, the
Schism gave Englishmen a pope with whom their patriotism could
find no fault, but this advantage was dearly purchased at the cost
of weakening the spirit of authority in the Church.
It is to these social and religious distempers that we must look
for the causes of the Peasant Revolt and the Lollard movement.
Both were manifestations of the discredit of authority and
tradition. The revolt of 1381 is unique in English history for the
revolutionary and anarchic spirit which inspired it and which
indeed partially survived it, just as Lollardy is the only heresy
which flourished in medieval England. The disorganized state of
society and the violent anti-clericalism of the time would
probably have led to an attack on the dogmatic authority and the
sacramental system of the Church, even if Wyclif had not been
there to lead the movement.
The Beginnings of Lollardy
During the earlier part of his public career Wyclif had come
forward as an ally of the anti-clerical and anti-papal nobility,
and especially of John of Gaunt. He had asserted the right of
temporal lords to take the goods of an undeserving clergy and, as
a necessary consequence, he had attacked the power of
excommunication. He was popular with the people, and his
philosophical and theological teaching had given him much
influence at Oxford. His orthodoxy had been frequently impeached
and some of his conclusions condemned by Gregory XI, but he was
not yet the leader of an obviously heretical sect. But about 1380
he began to take up a position of more definite hostility to the
Church. He attacked the pope and the friars with unmeasured
violence, and it was probably about this time that he sent out
from Oxford the "poor priests" who were to carry his teaching to
the country folk and the provincial towns. The necessity of giving
them a definite gospel may well have led to a clearer expression
of his heretical teaching, and it was certainly at this date that
he began the attack on transubstantiation, and in this way
inaugurated the most characteristic article of the Lollard heresy.
Wycliffism was now no longer a question of scholastic disputation
or even of violent anti-clericalism; it had become propagandist
and heretical, and the authorities both of Church and State were
able for the first time to make a successful assault upon it. In
1382 a council in London presided over by Archbishop Courtenay
condemned twenty-four of Wyclif's "Conclusions": ten of them as
heresies, fourteen as "errors."
Though little was done against Wyclif himself, a determined effort
was made to purge the university. Oxford, jealous as ever of its
privileges, resisted, but ultimately the leading Wycliffites,
Hereford, Repingdon, and Ashton, had to appear before the
archbishop. The two latter made full abjurations, but their
subsequent careers were very different. Repingdon became in course
of time Abbot of Leicester, Bishop of Lincoln, and a cardinal,
while Ashton returned to his heretical ways and to the preaching
of Lollardy. Nicholas Hereford must have been a man of an uncommon
spirit, for at Oxford he had been much more extreme than Wyclif,
justifying apparently even the murder of Archbishop Sudbury by the
rebels, yet he went off to Rome to appeal to the pope against
Courtenay, was there imprisoned, found himself at liberty again
owing to a popular rising, returned to England and preached
Lollardy in the West, but finally abjured and died a Carthusian.
Though the Wycliffite hold upon Oxford was broken by these
measures, the energy of the Lollard preachers, the extraordinary
literary activity of Wyclif himself in his last years, and the
disturbed conditions of the time, all led to a great extension of
the movement. Its chief centres were London, Oxford, Leicester,
and Coventry, and in the Dioceses of Hereford and Worcester.
Lollard Doctrines
In the fourteenth century the word "Lollard" was used in a very
extended sense. Anti-clerical knights of the shire who wished to
disendow the Church, riotous tenants of an unpopular abbey,
parishioners who refused to pay their tithes, would often be
called Lollards as well as fanatics like Swynderby, the ex-hermit
of Leicester, apocalyptic visionaries like the Welshmen, Walter
Brute, and what we may call the normal Wycliffite who denied the
authority of the Church and attacked the doctrine of the Holy
Eucharist. Never was Lollardy so widespread as in its early days;
the Leicester chronicles wrote that every second man was a
Lollard. But this very extension of the name makes it difficult to
give a precise account of the doctrines connected with it, even in
their more extreme form. Probably the best summary of Lollardy, at
least in its earlier stages, is to be found in the twelve
"Conclusions" which were presented to Parliament and affixed to
the doors of Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's in 1395. They
complain of the corruptions by appropriations etc. from Rome, "a
step-mother;" they attack the celibacy of the clergy and the
religious orders, the "feigned miracle of the sacrament," the
"feigned power of absolution," and "feigned indulgences;" they
call the sacramentals jugglery, and declare that pilgrimages are
"not far removed from idolatry." Prayers for the dead should not
be a reason for almsgiving, and beneficed clergymen should not
hold secular offices. There is no allusion in these conclusions to
Wyclif's doctrine that "dominion is founded on grace," yet most of
the early Lollards taught in some form or another that the
validity of the sacraments was affected by the sinfulness of the
minister.
This refusal to distinguish the official from the personal
character of the priesthood has reappeared at different epochs in
the history of the Church. It is to be found, for instance, among
the popular supporters of ecclesiastical reform in the time of
Pope St. Gregory VII. Reforming councils forbade the faithful to
accept the ministrations of the unreformed clergy, but the
reforming mobs of Milan and Flanders went much further and treated
with contumely both the priests and their sacraments. Wyclif gave
some kind of philosophic basis to this point of view in his
doctrine of "dominion," though he applied it more to the property
and authority of the clergy than to their sacramental powers. To
make the validity of baptism or the consecration of the Holy
Eucharist depend on the virtue of the priest could only be a
stepping-stone to a complete denial of the sacramental system, and
this stage had been reached in these conclusions of 1395. Thus the
doctrine of transubstantiation became the usual test in trials for
Lollardy, and the crucial question was usually, "Do you believe
that the substance of the bread remains after consecration?" The
heretics were often ready to accept the vaguer expressions of the
orthodox doctrine, but at times they would declare quite frankly
that "the sacrament is but a mouthful of bread." Pilgrimages and
other pious practices of Catholics often came in for very violent
abuse, and Our Lady of Walsingham was known among them as the
"Witch of Walsingham."
There is at least one striking omission in the "Conclusions" of
1395. Nothing is said of the Bible as the sole rule of faith, yet
this doctrine was probably the most original which the movement
produced. As the chief opponents of Lollardy in the fifteenth
century, Thomas of Walden and Richard Pecock both pointed out that
the belief in the sufficiency of Scripture lay at the basis of
Wycliffite teaching, for it provided an alternative to the
authority of the Church. It occupied, however, a less important
position among the earlier than among the later Lollards, for
there was at first much confusion of mind on the whole question of
authority. Even the most orthodox must have been puzzled at the
time of the Schism, as many were later by the struggle between
pope and councils. The unorthodox were still more uncertain, and
this may partly account for the frequent recantations of those who
were summoned by the bishops. In the fifteenth century the
Lollards became a more compact body with more definite negations,
a change which can be explained by mere lapse of time which
confirms a man in his beliefs and by the more energetic repression
exercised by the ecclesiastical authorities. The breach with the
tradition of the Church had now become unmistakable and the
Lollard of the second generation looked for support to his own
reading and interpretation of the Bible. Wyclif had already felt
the necessity of this. He had dwelt in the strongest on the
sufficiency of Scripture, and had maintained that it was the
ultimate authority even in matters of civil law and politics.
Whatever may have been his share in the work of translating it
into English, there is no doubt that he urged all classes to read
such translations, and that he did so, partly at any rate, in
order to strengthen them in opposition to the Church authorities.
Even the pope, he maintained, should not be obeyed unless his
commands were warranted by Scripture.
As the Lollards in the course of the fifteenth century became less
and less of a learned body we find an increasing tendency to take
the Bible in its most literal sense and to draw from it practical
conclusions out of all harmony with contemporary life. Objections
were made for instance to the Christian Sunday or to the eating of
pork. Thus, Pecock urged the claims of reason and common sense
against such narrow interpretations, much as Hooker did in a later
age against the Puritans. Meanwhile the church authorities had
limited the use of translations to those who had the bishop's
license, and the possession of portions of the English Bible,
generally with Wycliffite prefaces, by unauthorized persons was
one of the accepted evidences of Lollardy. It would be
interesting, did space permit, to compare the Lollard doctrines
with earlier medieval heresies and with the various forms of
sixteenth-century Protestantism; it must, at least, be pointed out
that there are few signs of any constructive system about
Lollardy, little beyond the belief that the Bible will afford a
rule of faith and practice. Much emphasis was laid on preaching as
compared with liturgy, and there is evident an inclination towards
the supremacy of the State in the externals of religion.
Outline of the History of the Lollards
The troubled days of Richard II at the close of the fourteenth
century had encouraged the spread of Lollardy, and the accession
of the House of Lancaster in 1399 was followed by an attempt to
reform and restore constitutional authority in Church and State.
It was a task which proved in the long run beyond the strength of
the dynasty, yet something was done to remedy the worst disorders
of the previous reign. In order to put down religious opposition
the State came, in 1401, to the support of the Church by the Act
"De H�retico Comburendo", i.e. on the burning of heretics. This
Act recited in its preamble that it was directed against a certain
new sect "who thought damnably of the sacraments and usurped the
office of preaching." It empowered the bishops to arrest,
imprison, and examine offenders and to hand over to the secular
authorities such as had relapsed or refused to abjure. The
condemned were to be burnt "in an high place" before the people.
This Act was probably due to the authoritative Archbishop Arundel,
but it was merely the application to England of the common law of
Christendom. Its passing was immediately followed by the burning
of the first victim, William Sawtrey, a London priest. He had
previously abjured but had relapsed, and he now refused to declare
his belief in transubstantiation or to recognize the authority of
the Church.
No fresh execution occurred till 1410, and the Act was mercifully
carried out by the bishops. Great pains were taken to sift the
evidence when a man denied his heresy; the relapsed were nearly
always allowed the benefit of a fresh abjuration, and as a matter
of fact the burnings were few and the recantations many. Eleven
heretics were recorded to have been burnt from 1401 to the
accession of Henry VII in 1485. Others, it is true, were executed
as traitors for being implicated in overt acts of rebellion. Yet
the activity of the Lollards during the first thirty years of the
fifteenth century was great and their influence spread into parts
of the country which had at first been unaffected. Thus the
eastern counties became, and were long to remain, an important
Lollard centre. Meanwhile the ecclesiastical authorities continued
the work of repression. In 1407 a synod at Oxford under Arundel's
presidency passed a number of constitutions to regulate preaching,
the translation and use of the Scriptures, and the theological
education at schools and the university. A body of Oxford censors
condemned in 1410 no less than 267 propositions collected out of
Wyclif's writings, and finally the Council of Constance, in 1415,
solemnly declared him to have been a heretic. These different
measures seem to have been successful at least as far as the
clergy were concerned, and Lollardy came to be more and more a lay
movement, often connected with political discontent.
Its leader during the reign of Henry V was Sir John Oldcastle,
commonly known as Lord Cobham, from his marriage to a Cobham
hieress. His Lollardy had long been notorious, but his position
and wealth protected him and he was not proceeded against till
1413. After many delays he was arrested, tried, and sentenced as a
heretic, but he escaped from the Tower and organized a rising
outside London early in 1414. The young king suppressed the
movement in person, but Oldcastle again escaped. He remained in
hiding but seems to have inspired a number of sporadic
disturbances, especially during Henry's absence in France. He was
finally captured on the west border, condemned by Parliament, and
executed in 1417. His personality and activity made a great
impression on his contemporaries and his poorer followers put a
fanatic trust in him. He certainly produced an exaggerated opinion
of the numbers and ubiquity of the Lollards, for Thomas of Walden,
who wrote about this time, expected that they would get the upper
hand and be in a position to persecute the Catholics. This unquiet
condition lasted during the earlier part of the reign of Henry VI.
There were many racantations though few executions, and in 1429
Convocation lamented that heresy was on the increase throughout
the southern province. In 1413 there was even a small rising of
heretics at Abingdon. Yet from this date Lollardy began to decline
and when, about 1445, Richard Pecock wrote his unfortunate
"Repressor of overmuch blaming the Clergy," they were far less of
a menace to Church or State than they had been in Walden's day.
They diminished in numbers and importance, but the records of the
bishops' courts show that they still survived in their old
centres: London, Coventry, Leicester, and the eastern counties.
They were mostly small artisans. William Wych, a priest, was
indeed executed, in 1440, but he was an old man and belonged to
the first generation of Lollards.
The increase in the number of citations for heresy under Henry VII
was probably due more to the renewed activity of the bishops in a
time of peace than to a revival of Lollardy. There was such a
revival, however, under Henry VIII, for two heretics were burnt on
one day, in 1511, and ten years later there were many prosecutions
in the home counties and some executions. But though Lollardy thus
remained alive, "conquered but not extinguished," as Erasmus
expressed it in 1523, until the New Learning was brought into the
country from Germany, it was a movement which for at least half a
century had exercised little or no influence on English thought.
The days of its popularity were long passed and even its
martyrdoms attracted but little attention. The little stream of
English heresy cannot be said to have added much to the Protestant
flood which rolled in from the Continent. It did, however, bear
witness to the existence of a spirit of discontent, and may have
prepared the ground for religious revolt near London and in the
eastern counties, though there is no evidence that any of the more
prominent early reformers were Lollards before they were
Protestants.
F.F. Urquhart
Transcribed by Tim Drake
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.
Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.
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