The Lollards - first English challenge to orthodoxy

This is the third of a series of articles describing formative movements and ideas in the history of the church. These were the crises of thought and conviction which brought us to where we are.

By 1372 when he had taken his Doctors' degree Wycliffe had probably been at Oxford for some 27 years and was an experienced lecturer and an author of papers on Biblical studies and philosophy. Moreover he excelled in the medieval academic discipline of disputation involving the advancing and demolition of hypotheses. As an intellectual instrument Wycliffe was honed to perfection - as speaker, writer, thinker and dialectician. By now one of the dominant figures in the university he was considered by others as well as by himself to be suitable for preferment. In this he was disappointed and his attention was increasingly turned to critical analyses of the received doctrines and practices of the medieval church. Because the beliefs of the church constituted the intellectual landscape of the age his views had social and political repercussions.

It is cardinal to an understanding of Wycliffe's teaching to appreciate his emphasis on the authority of the bible. It was to be regarded as the sole fount of doctrine and the rule by which opinions were measured. He commended knowledge of scripture in both Latin and the vernacular. The so-called Wycliffe Bible was probably his inspiration rather than translation. Nevertheless it was meant to offer to literate men a direct access to what Wycliffe regarded as the foremost means of grace. Wycliffe's thinking ranged widely. One central theme in his teaching concerned the eucharist. He believed in the real presence of Christ at the consecration but rejected the notion that the consecrated elements were physically changed. This is a position held by many contemporary believers. It is now, as the reformer made it then, a point of sharp division. The examination and trials of Lollards frequently highlighted the view of the Eucharist held by the suspected heretics.

Auricular confession to a priest, held to be at least an annual necessity was considered by Wycliffe to be a matter of choice and not an obligation. He particularly opposed the requirement for priestly absolution as a determinant of divine forgiveness. Only God, Wycliffe argued, could forgive sin. The current practice of 'pardons' being sold was repugnant to him. Any ecclesiastical absolution not requiring repentance was anathema.

Pilgrimage, Wycliffe suggested, ought more profitably be made to the poor and sick than to some distant shrine to do homage to the likeness or relics of some saint. He conceded that images had a value as 'books' for the illiterate but recognised they could easily lead to idolatrous worship.

Wycliffe recognised the need for an institutional church but saw it as a fact to be held lightly because the true and actual church he considered to consist of all those predestined to salvation. It followed that authority within the church could be exercised only by those who were themselves in a state of grace. His treatises De Dominio Divino and De Civili Dominio had forcibly made this point with regard not only to bishops and priests but also to those who held office in the state. When he went on to publish De Potestate Papae he expressed the view that even the Pontiff lacked legitimacy unless he too was in a state of grace. Consequently obedience to the pope was due only if the pope closely followed Christ and the first apostles.

Disendowment Wycliffe prescribed as the only effective cure for a church corrupted by power and riches. Monastic endowments had earlier been suggested as items for confiscation in the reign of Edward III although no action had been taken. Now Wycliffe advanced the idea that all clergy should be limited to what was necessary for their immediate needs. Wycliffe's teaching vindicated intellectually the reservations of many on the enormous wealth of the medieval church. This had accrued from the gifts and bequests of the faithful over many generations. This wealth included vast holdings of lands by monasteries and by bishops, all of it being regarded as inalienable. The peasant engaged in the daily struggle for sustenance and the prince or magnate seeking to share the burden of funding a foreign war both looked with longing on the wealth of the great monastic houses and princely bishops. Wycliffe thought that the royal power should be used to take the endowments of the institutional church. These he regarded as being in starkest contrast to the Gospel account of Christ's poverty and his teaching on the dangers of wealth to the soul. Royal intervention to curtail other church privileges was advocated. Right of sanctuary in church premises and the exemption of clerks from trial in the king's courts were both attacked. Papal interference in the making and application of law Wycliffe regarded as unacceptable. He thought that scripture should be the basis of all law though he was perceptive enough to realise that this would not meet all cases.

For senior churchmen holding offices of state Wycliffe held especial contempt. He called them Hermaphrodites. Quoting St. Matthew 23:5 Paul the scholar fulminated against the priests who neglected their preaching and pastoral duties to devote their talents to the royal service. Archbishop Sudbury, who was also chancellor, was one prominent example. Wycliffe's preaching against these 'Caesarean clergy' drew down upon him much episcopal wrath.

Monks and nuns he believed were offering to the founders of their orders, like Benedict or Dominic, the loyalty which was due to Christ alone. With the friars he had much more sympathy because of their preaching and teaching. But even scholarly friars attacked Wycliffe's own views especially on the eucharist he turned his critical attention to the mendicants with special intensity. His enmity was reciprocated, not least by the Carmelites.

It was evident that the reformer's views would attract the condemnations of the Pope and the English bishops. His tenets cut at the very grounds of clerical authority. If it was not necessary to have a priest to make 'God's body' or to hear confession and give absolution, if they any authority of Pope, bishop or priest depended on being in a state of grace as perceived by the individual, the whole edifice was shaken.

In a society in which state and church were so intertwined Wycliffe's views clearly had social and political implications. When he and his closest Oxford disciples worked to disseminate the reforming views outside academic circles the tocsin sounded. For the church Wycliffe and his followers were a present and gathering danger. Many of the factors in the Lollard revolt of the early fifteenth century are foreshadowed in his writings. He was the first English reformer and his followers, the Lollards, the first English adherents of the Reformation.

sounded in both episcopal and governmental circles.

While their Lollard doctrines were merely being urged in the Oxford schools there was a limited inclination for condemnation although the church authorities used Carmelite friars within the university to exercise a watching brief. But when Wycliffe and his academic acolytes made strenuous efforts to popularise their disturbing ideas especially among the knightly classes there was considerable disquiet.

Benedictine monks, inveterate enemies of Wycliffe, supplied Pope Gregory with selections from Wycliffe's works which they considered suspect. Bishop Brinton of Rochester, himself a Benedictine, was probably among them. In 1377 papal approval of Lollard doctrine was expressed and the following year Wycliffe appeared at an episcopal council and was rebuked for teachings deemed damaging to social order.

The Peasant's Revolt triggered reaction from church and crown. The rebellion had many causes, economic and political. Wycliffe's personal involvement is doubtful but his enemies correctly perceived that some of the rebels' complaints were highly consonant with Lollard opinions especially with regard to clerical evictions. To Wycliffe's foes the revolt provided critical ammunition in plenty. In his writings Wycliffe himself expressed horror for the murder of Archbishop Sudbury and for rebellion against the crown. Nevertheless his writings provided good pickings for those whose interests they threatened. The populist priests John Ball and Wat Tyler the leader and spokesman of the rebels.

In 1381 despite the great support Wycliffe enjoyed at Oxford a university commission found him guilty of doctrinal error and forbade him to continue teaching. He appealed in vain to King Richard II who retired from Oxford to Lutterworth. The following year Archbishop Courtenay stepped up the anti - Lollard campaign. A formidable 'packed' council was set up at Oxford to condemn heretical teaching. Wycliffe's enjoyment of John of Gaunt's royal patronage may account for the reluctance of authority to take more severe measures.

Enormous pressure was brought to bear upon Wycliffe's principal lieutenants. Cited before diocesan bishops for heresy some significant leaders abjured Lollard views. The real possibility of confinement and the certain denial of preferment were persuasive arguments. While Archbishop Courtenay masterminded the destruction of Lollard influence in Oxford his diocesan colleagues mounted an ongoing programme of heresy hunting which continued for decades. This was supplemented by the passing of the statute 'De Heretico Comburendo' in 1401. Dr. McHardy suggests that this legislation was drafted hurriedly with strong clerical support. For the first time in England those who expressed views differing from received teaching were liable to be burnt at the stake. Thus by a programme of anti Lollard propaganda reinforced by episcopal witch hunting and condemnation, Lollardy as a threat to church order and royal authority seemed to be crushed. With Wycliffe's death in 1384 and the subsequent submission of most of his Oxford supporters the movement lost its intellectual leadership. Yet two consequences, both with resonance in Kent, have yet to be mentioned.

While most of the dominant disciples had recanted, a handful of clerics who had embraced the reformers with more conviction, enthusiastically evangelised. One of these, William Swinderby, had probably been responsible for converting the man who became populist history's hero, Sir John Oldcastle, later Lord Cobham. This former royal squire who had achieved fame and royal approval as a soldier embraced Lollardy with a degree of enthusiasm which became apparent about 1410. He protected John Hus the Bohemian reformer and encouraged heretical preachers in Kent, London and Herefordshire. When he incurred episcopal disapproval he remained defiant, shutting the gates of his castle at Cooling against the archbishops' summons. His subsequent examination by the archbishop's council and the failure of his attempts to convince Henry V of the truth of his views led him to attempt an armed insurrection after he had escaped by night from the Tower of London. His rebellion was botched, brief and ill supported. Scores of his humbler followers died though Oldcastle himself survived in hiding for three more years.

Less immediate but more significant for the continued existence in early later of communities revealed by Archbishop Warham's proceedings against Kentish Lollards in 1511 and 1512. Their beliefs included a denial of transubstantiation and the value of confession and of the mediation of saints. William Carder of Tenterden burned while his fellow heretics were made to watch because he held that the bread of the altar was 'only bred'.

Edward Walker, the Maidstone cutler, went to the stake because his reading of a tract in English led him to deny the value of 'worshipping of saints'. Tenterden, Benenden, Staplehurst, Cranbrook, Canterbury, Bockley, Rolvenden and Goudhurst all contributed to the total of 53 persons brought to trial, most at Warham's palace at Knole. Such communities may have escaped the notice of protestant belief at the Reformation. Where Wycliffe's challenge was cerebral and Oldcastle's military, these artisans and yeomen in Kent and other counties were evidence of a less articulate but widespread discontent with Catholic teaching and practice.

It is necessary to distinguish Wycliffe's arguments from those of his less sophisticated followers who had neither the Latin nor the dialectic skill to penetrate their master's subtleties. This sometimes led to grotesque statements of belief but as Anne Hudson has well observed in her examination of vernacular Wycliffite writings there is substantial common ground between the Oxford ferment of the late 1300s and the tenets of humble lollards in the early 16th century. Wycliffe sparked dangerous aspirations of lay access to the divine which have become the stock in trade of most protestants. His acute mind exposed fault lines still unresolved in 2002. The extent to which the Lollard challenge prepared or hindered the way to the later acceptance of the break with Rome and the establishment of an autonomous national church has been much debated. The late great K.B. McFarlane concluded that Wycliffe did more than anyone 'to discredit moderate reform'. Margaret Aston's dictum that 'Lollards might not actually make protestants but they would sow fertile seeds of doubt' is more felicitous. It certainly seems true that continuing lollard communities in Kent helped the rapid and popular acceptance of the Reformation in the county.

What or who constitutes the church? How should we understand the eucharist? What gives authority validity? Should institutional or inward religion be foremost? Whether the archetretic of 1380 is still a heretic or is now to be seen as a prophet can still provoke controversy. Wycliffe's true stature has been obscured by two opposing tendencies. He has become the icon of evangelical hagiography and the bete noir of Anglo - Catholics. On McFarlane's observation there can be agreement. 'He was prepared to believe authority wrong'. Was that crime or achievement?

Philip Lawrence

John Wycliffe and English Non Conformity. K.B. McFarlane 1982

Lollards and Reformers. Margaret Aston 1984

The Premature Reformation. Anne Hudson 1988

Early Modern Kent. Ed. Michael Zell 2000

Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages. Ed. Aston and Richmond 1997

The Stripping of the Altars. E. Duffy 1992