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Y304: The Church and Medieval Heresy c.1100–1437

Depth study: John Wycliffe and the Lollards to c.1420 — responses to Wycliffe’s writings and preaching

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Overview

Recall questions on responses to Wycliffe’s writings and preaching, Lollardy, the beliefs of Lollards, reasons for and the extent of support, nature, geography and social composition of the support, duration of the movement.

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What was Oldcastle's revolt, and what did it change?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was the Wycliffite Bible?

    Model answer

    A complete English translation of the Vulgate made by Wycliffe's followers, produced first in a stiff word-for-word version and then in a more idiomatic revision, and circulated in hundreds of manuscripts; their survival shows that English scripture was owned well beyond committed Lollard circles, which complicates any neat line between heresy and mainstream devotion.

  2. 2

    Summarise the main Lollard beliefs.

    Model answer

    Rejection of transubstantiation, hostility to images, pilgrimage and the cult of saints, denial that auricular confession to a priest was necessary, condemnation of clerical wealth, celibacy and endowment, and insistence on the vernacular Bible and on preaching.

  3. 3

    What were the Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards?

    Model answer

    A manifesto presented to parliament in 1395 and posted in Westminster, attacking the endowment of the Church, priestly celibacy, transubstantiation, blessings of objects, pilgrimage and images, prayers for the dead, war and needless luxury crafts.

  4. 4

    Where was Lollardy strongest?

    Model answer

    First at Oxford, then in London and its trades, in the Chilterns and Buckinghamshire, in Bristol and the west, in Coventry and the midlands, and in the Norwich diocese and Kent.

  5. 5

    How did Lollard groups actually operate?

    Model answer

    In small conventicles meeting in private houses, where a literate member read aloud from English scriptures and tracts, with texts circulated between groups and itinerant preachers linking them loosely together; cells of this kind survived quietly for more than a century after the movement lost its public voice.

  6. 6

    How did the English authorities escalate their response after 1400?

    Model answer

    The statute of 1401 authorised the burning of obstinate heretics and the first Lollard was burned that year; Arundel's Constitutions of 1409 banned unlicensed preaching and unauthorised English translation of scripture and censored Oxford, cutting the movement off from its academic source, criminalising the books it depended on and making vernacular theology itself suspect.

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