Lollards & the
Reformation
Religion & Religious Change in England, c.1470-1558


More opinion than evidence.
Considerable overlap:
 Denial of transubstantiation – some Lollards
went further on this than English reformers
would do until the reign of Edward VI
 Intercession of saints
 Veneration of images, relics, pilgrimages
 Papal authority over the Church and
indulgences
 Auricular confession of sins.
 Sole and supreme authority of scripture in
doctrinal matters.


◦ 1) Lollardy prepare the ground for Reformation
◦ 2) A distraction (J.J. Scarisbrick).
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
Historiography:
Very little evidence for 1)
James Gairdner, Lollardy & the
Reformation in England:
◦ Reformation an act of state
◦ Lollards numerically insignificant.
◦ Little evidence of direct contact.

J.F. Davis:
◦ Reformation long-term process
◦ Beginning with Lollardy and spreading from those
roots into evangelism.
But what do you do with the overlap?
◦ Little evidence of encounters/exchange –
argument for ‘influence’ from silence.
◦ Europeancomparisons:
 Resemblances between Luther and the
Hussites (C14th heresy in Bohemia)
◦ Not influenced by, even opposed in
earliest years of Reformation.
◦ Calvin and Waldensianism
 But not grounded in, or directly influenced by.
Two opinions:

A.G. Dickens:
◦ ‘springboard of critical dissent from which the
Protestant Reformation could overlap the walls of
orthodoxy’
◦ Some support from D. MacCulloch:
◦ Mapped Lollard centres (London, Kent, East
Anglia, Bristol, Thames Valley) onto Reformation
heartland.
◦ Similarities in areas untouched by either faith.
◦ Derek Plumb – Chilterns and the Thames Valley
suggests points of contact.


Divorced from universities.
Led by lay missionaries:

◦
◦
◦
◦
◦ Not longer assertive and strident:
 Essentially illicit book-running.
◦ John Stillman/Thomas Man (burned
1518):
 Rumour converted 6-700.
Insular – household faith for chosen.
Conventicles/ private devotions.
Not separate from Church.
Served as Churchwardens:
 Saunders family of Amersham had
control of the holy-water clerkship in
the 1520s.
 Essex Lollard, William Sweeting, holywater clerk of Boxford for 7 years.
◦ John Hacker:
 1520s, distribute texts London/Essex.
◦ Link communities:
 But no new ideas/ gathering crowds at
sermons.
 Wycliffe’s texts not well known.
Type of behaviour makes it difficult
to trace:
Capacity of Church to house
plethora of beliefs/positions.
 Defining heresy problematic:

◦ Reading rare – readers stood out.
◦ Conflate eccentricity with deviance.
Later Lollards:

How strong was Lollardy in the early part of the C16th?

1521, Bishop Longland of Lincoln undertook a major
inquest:
◦ Certainly activity against them – a reaction against Europe’s
Reformation?
 Or indication of how strong the memory of heresy was?
 Or, a sign of a Church continually protecting itself against error?
◦ 35 people burned before 1533.
◦ 1511, Archbishop Warham, concerted effort in several diocese
 10 burnings, 140 abjurations
◦ 400 individuals named
 6 burned
 50 abjured
 Sign knew what looking for/suspicious of an extensive network?
Some evidence of strength
EC16th:
Revival:

Increase in prosecutions and executions
in the first 30 years of the C16th:
◦ Diocese of Salisbury: 16 Lollard cases 1380-1480
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70 1502-24.
England: 1380-1480 25 burnings
1585-1536: 50 burnings.
◦ Problem: does that mean that there were more
Lollards?


Or that the Church authorities were more keen to find
the ones that did exist?
Heresy laws:
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Broader context – ‘Rise of the State’:
◦ Not growing/expanding in geographical sense.
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If ‘reviving’ doing so in older areas, not
new:
Lincolnshire particularly strong.
As was Berkshire, London, Colchester.
No challenge to the Church in Ireland,
Wales, Northern England or the West
Country.
◦

Other offenders took precedent
1547, anti-Lollardy legislation replaced.
Mary Tudor’s regime put Lollardy back on
the map, reinforced C15th laws and orders
for tracking down Lollards:
◦
◦ Penal policy/ law code expanding under the
Tudors.

1533, power of Bishops to initiate heresy
trials was replaced by secular indictments.
1539 – heresy defined by statute for the
first time
Concern about the Mass and contestation surrounding
it.
Explains enquiries into Lollard heresy in Norfolk and
York during 1555.
As difficult for us as it was contemporaries to
distinguish between old heresies and new.
1559 – legal provision against the Lollards
went for good:
◦
◦
Was that because they had disappeared; or, because
the concern was now with via media
Or with those who did not support the Elizabethan
Reformation?
Pre-Reformation revival?

Lollards at Protestant sermons:

◦ East Anglia: Lollards inspired byThomas
Rose, evangelical curate of Hadleigh,
burnt down images at the Church of
Dovercourt.

◦ Early Tudor, very strong for Lollards;
later Tudor, very strong for
Protestantism.
◦ Medway Valley Protestant heartland,
had produced Lollards 1511-12
◦ Bishop of Rochester – vehemently
against Luther.
◦ No mention of Lollards in works.
◦ 10 executions 1504-35 – some
evangelicals, others sceptics, but no
evidence of Lollards.
Books:
◦ Means of dissemination for both faiths
– contact inevitable.
◦ Robert Barnes sold Bibles to Lollards in
Essex during 1526.
◦ London Lollard John Tewkesbury burned
in 1532 for possession of works by
Tyndale/ Luther.

Geography:
◦ Counties overlap – East Anglia.
◦ But how ‘strong’ was Lollardy?
◦ BUT: areas without Lollardy became
very Protestant – Doncaster, Cambridge,
Halifax.
Case study – Kent:

Too many exceptions for the
‘seedbed’ to really hold?
Overlap with Protestantism:
• Reformation amongst ‘the people’ was largely an urban phenomenon:
 Support of local politicians, attracted preachers.
 Later Lollardy a rural tradtion.
◦ Most prominent Protestants drawn from the ranks of clerics:
 Orthodox, not heterodox, backgrounds.
 What really separated reformers from previous English dissent.
• Question is not why Lollards became Protestants but why Catholics did?
◦ Reformation sprang not from heresy, but from the most orthodox of the orthodox
 Transference of zeal.
◦ Many came to Reform via Erasmus – Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, John Frith
◦ Religious Orders – many of the most ardent Reformers former monks.
 John Bale, former Carmelite.
 24 Protestant Bishops in 1550s, 16 had been members of religious Orders.
• Cambridge University the seed bed of thought in England:
 Lollardy based at Oxford
 Cambridge had prided itself on opposing Wycliffe.
Different ‘types’ of people:
Not preach Wycliff to the
letter.
 Emphasis on negation:

◦ Lordship in Grace absent.
◦ Salvation in sermons orthodox.
◦ Attacks on clergy – simony,
nepotism, greed.
◦ Against cult of
saints/transubstantiation/confe
ssion.

Where is the positive?
◦ Essentially an attack on
traditional religion.

Positive suggestions
conventional:
◦ Follow Christ, avoid sin,
perform works of mercy.

Predestination:

Does a ‘seedbed’ need a
coherent doctrine?
◦ Case that Wycliff may have
influenced Prots.
◦ But Lollards often semi-Pelagian
(trusting in human capacity).
◦ Not a list or creed like
Protestants.
◦ ‘Influence’ therefore more
indirect than direct – not a case
of transference.
Beliefs & Attitudes:

If historical points of contact between Lollards and Protestants can be seen as dubious,
historiographical links were far more established:
◦ May have been more important.

Problem: where was your Church before Luther?
◦ 1500 years since Christ, all heresy? Why would God allow that?
◦ Novelty a problem for reform – smacked of schism/heresy.

Lollards a way of getting around this:
◦ One of many groups of medieval heretics whose history was re-written to overstate similarities with
Protestants.
◦ John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments (1563), from conversion of Constantine in C4th to mid sixteenth,
tracing unbroken line of men and women persecuted by Catholic Church as ‘Antichrist’
 Visible Church of Christ in minority throughout history until Reformation, but present nonetheless.
 Not direct links between persons:
◦ Did not need to be
◦ That former witnesses to the Truth existed was enough.

Lollards important for Protestants:
◦ Protestants re-print Lollard texts with glosses and edits to make look more ‘Protestant’ than actually
were
◦ Reinvent history – Sir John Oldcastle becomes a great hero/martyr, opposing the Catholic Church as a
precursor for the break with Rome.
John Foxe, The Actes &
Monuments (1563)

Highlights the complexity of assessing Lollardy on the
eve of the Reformation:
◦ 2 sets of trials:
 1) Bishop John Hales 1486
 2) Bishops Geoffrey Blyth 1511-1512

Many of the issues raised in this and the previous
lecture:
 Complex relationship between heterodox and orthodox
 Definition of ‘Lollardy’.
 Complexity of Lollard belief and practice.

Gets us to think about ‘the big story’.
Lollards in Coventry:
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3rd or 4th largest city in medieval England:

Little or no Lollardy discovered 1430-80:
◦ A hub of commerce in the midlands.
◦ Especially textile manufacture.
◦ Episcopal seat.
◦ 1486 – several Lollards prosecuted.
◦ Heresies against:
 The Eucharist
 Veneration of Saints
 Vilification of a local shrine – the Virgin in the Tower.

Lollards not dissuaded:
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◦
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Those who abjured in 1486 still active in 1511.
1511-12 – 7 executed, 64 brought before Bishop Blyth, 110 implicated.
Most abjured at the 2nd or 3rd asking.
Still active in 1520
Connections to Lollards in Birmingham, Bristol, Leicester, London.
Lollards in Coventry:
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
Lollard groups were not all the same.
3 aspects made Coventry’s Lollards unusual:
◦ 1) Community practised its faith in 3 segregated groups:
 Married couples
 Men
 Women
◦ 2) Women played a more significant role here than elsewhere:
 Particularly because of the presence of elite woman, Alice Rowley,
converting and maintaining female conventicles.
 Latterly widowed, considerable freedom.
◦ 3) Elite women participated, but men of the same social standing
did not (as far as we can tell).
Lollards in Coventry:
Became a Lollard in 1491 under
Alice Rowley’s instruction.
 Forced from Coventry by William
Rowley – afraid – who disapproved
of his wife’s activities.
 Used Lollard networks in
Northampton, where she stayed
with a leather-dresser for 5 months.
 Then to London where she lived
with a bedder, Mr. Blackbury, whose
wife was a Lollard.

◦ There – through Lollard connections
– she married Thomas Wasshingbury,
heretical shoemaker.
◦ Moved to Maidstone, where they
were both arrested 1495.
 Although they abjured, they were
branded with the letter ‘h’ on their
jaws.
 Made to perform public penance in
Maidstone, Canterbury, and London.
Joan Warde:

Husband later executed, and Joan
returned to Coventry after 1495:
◦ Resumed contact Alice Rowley
◦ Became a prominent member of the
community and a teacher.
◦ Appeared before the Bishops several
times 1511 and 1512.
◦ Because of the very visible marking on
her jaw, easy for Bishop Blythe to begin
to trace her previous abjurations.
◦ Always claimed to be contrite, never
denied her errors.
◦ Made to carry faggots through the
street and was burned – punishment for
relapsed heretic.

Key: changing status of her faith,
and her status within the
community:
◦ A woman of low social background –
unlike Alice Rowley – able to gain power
and influence through heresy
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
Leading figures in the male conventicles,
and the community as a whole.
Gatherings often held at Landesdale’s
house:

◦ Shoemaker
◦ Lived in Coventry 18 years.
◦ A leader but spoke a lot and appeared
numerous times as a witness at the trials of
others.
◦ 63
◦ Tailor
◦ Taught the heresy by Roger Brown during
the 1480s.
◦ Taught many through public reading.

Silkby – Blythe referred to as ‘one of the
chief heretikes here’.
 Bishop Blythe understood as separatist
community: to admit a conversation with
Silksby was essentially to confess to Lollardy.
 Librarian and trader of books.
 Teacher, visited heretical priests in
Leicestershire to learn more.
 House a sort of mini-library, centre-point of
activity.
 Despite this, tried to impose secrecy:
◦ Passwords.
◦ Tried to prevent others from hearing him
by reading in a room with the door shut.
◦ Long ‘walks in the park’ to discuss Lollard
doctrine.

Main point of contact with those outside of
Coventry.

1511 abjured:
◦ Continued his activities, but was arrested
again – with 7 others – in 1520.
◦ Fled Coventry, lived in Dumbleby for 2 years
under an alias, but was finally burned in 1522.
Key: Far more prominent roles in
organisation and instruction, and also with
the maintenance of networks.
◦ Men greater freedoms in late medieval
society than women, impact on how lived in
faith.
Roger Landesdale & Robert Silkby:
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Coventry Lollards accused elites of being ‘Lollards’.
Clearly discussed religion with them:
◦ Vicar, James Preston – borrowed a Lollard text from Alice Rowley
◦ Master Thomas Bayly borrowed books from Landesdale 6 years
previously:
 Lollards thought that Bayly was ‘one of us’.
◦ Wigstons & Pysfords implicated (2 most prominent men):
 Conversations, rumours, discussions.
 One had shown ‘very beautiful books of heresy’.

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Not prosecuted – why?
Boundaries of orthodox and heterodox are not hard and
fast:
◦ Suggest, perhaps, that Lollardy had as much in common with C15th
Catholicism than did against it.
◦ And WHO you were was significant in determining your religious
status.
Elite families:

Older scholarship – these
elites were unquestionably
‘Lollards’:
◦ Phrasing of wills distinctive:
 Indicative of personal
sentiment.
◦ That that sentiment appeared
to reject aspects of late
medieval Catholicism, or
anticipate Faith Alone:
 Case closed.

Not quite as easy as that:
◦ Certainly placed Christ at the
centre of their will
bequeathments.
 Could be taken as a sign that
rejected purgatory, rites etc.
 But many of these men left
endowments for chantries.
Elite families:

Richard Coke:
◦ Fairly standard will – full
trappings of medieval
Catholicism.
◦ Case for Lollardy – wills
homogenous, not an indicator
of religious belief.
◦ Owned vernacular books, left
money for an English bible in
the Church.
◦ DANGER: backwards projection.
◦ Owning bible, vernacular books
could be perfectly orthodox
devotion.
◦ Coupled will bequests to
religious orders, Masses for
soul, what is more likely?

How explain their interaction
with Lollardy?

◦ Or the accusations that they were ‘one of
us’?

Not same beliefs, but same
interests:
◦ A general questioning, curiosity, and thirst
for literature.

Difference = social status:
◦ ‘Middling sorts’: literacy and ownership of
books were signs of heresy.
◦ Elites: possession of devotional works in
the vernacular was an exploration of
orthodox piety.

Henry VIII’s government same
distinctions:
◦ 1543 Act for the Advancement of True
Religion forbade reading of scripture for
women (nobles accepted), artisans,
apprentices, journeymen, labourers
Elite families:

Key: many people straddled the
grey area between Orthodox and
heresy in C16th Coventry.
◦ Putting a label on difficult
◦ But not Lollards, or necessarily men
awaiting Faith Alone.
◦ Curious, vibrant late medieval Christians
associated with heretics, questioned
them and – CRUCIALLY – shopped them
to the Bishop.
◦ Many engaged in search for a more
personal Christianity – not have to be a
Lollard to do so.
Social background crucial to religious
experience:
◦ Women Lollards more space to act in
Coventry because of Alice Rowley
◦ Roles might otherwise not have.
◦ Belonging or religious conviction?
◦ That men and women did not practice
together shows how religious experience
was conditioned by context as much as it
was faith.
Often evoked as a sign that the
Reformation was not ‘top down’.
 But does Lollardy create a similar
problem?


◦ Is awarding a relative handful of
people such a considerable amount
of agency in preparing the soil for the
Reformation not the same as
awarding it to a handful of
politicians?

◦ But, small in number.
◦ Lollards may have believed in a
conspiracy of the clergy against
knowledge of God, but evidence not
bear out.
◦ Duffy and sustained catechetical
literature, prayer books, primers, satisfy
thirst for knowledge and instruction.
Integrated into the Church and the
communities in which they lived:
◦ ‘Broad house’, vibrant late-medieval
Catholicism often self-contradictory.
◦ Boundaries with those who were
orthodox often very thin.
Clear that there were people who
denied the mediatory role of the
priesthood/sacramental
system/vibrant ritual practice of
late medieval Catholicism:

Nevertheless, an emotional and
historiographical importance to
Protestantism:
◦ Historical link to protest
◦ Even where actual links – in terms of
people and places – lacking.
Concluding thoughts: