The Lollards and John Wycliffe (Medieval Studies)

Introduction

Lollards, also known as Wycliffites, were members of a religious movement inspired by the Oxford don John Wyclif (b. c. 1330–d. 1384). Although Wyclif was never placed on trial during his lifetime, Gregory IX had declared him a heretic in 1377, and a series of condemnations beginning in 1381 labeled his views as heretical or erroneous, while heresy investigations pursued his followers for holding or teaching them. Although Wyclif was posthumously condemned at the Council of Constance in 1415, groups accused of holding views that resemble Wyclif’s appear to have persisted (certainly they were intermittently investigated by bishops) up until the English Reformation. Topics strongly disputed among scholars include (1) the extent to which lollards were organized as a movement or thought of themselves as a religious sect, (2) the conformity between their views and Wyclif’s, (3) their numbers and geographical spread, (4) the coherence of lollard thought between regions and over time, and (5) the degree to which lollards anticipated or “prepared the ground” for the English Reformation. Regardless, all concur that the written record of lollardy and its persecution is very extensive. Sources include contemporary and later narrative accounts (especially that of Knighton), condemnations and heresy trial records (including those of trials in Norwich, Kent, and Coventry), writings by Wyclif’s opponents (including Netter and Pecock), Wyclif’s own writings, and a great many manuscripts, most of their contents still unprinted, containing vernacular and a few Latin writings associated with the lollard movement. Although trial records and writings by opponents are preserved to a greater or lesser extent for every heretical group in Antiquity and the medieval period, the large number of books owned or written by Wyclif or his followers and still extant despite the movement’s persecution is very unusual, and still in need of much further study.

General Overviews

The studies listed here provide a starting point for further work. Hudson 1988 provides a comprehensive overview of all the sources for the study of lollardy. Catto 1992 surveys the early development of the movement at Oxford. Ghosh 2002 analyzes Wyclif’s and Wycliffite biblical interpretation. McSheffrey 2005 considers what trial records can reveal about the religious practice of later lollards. Forrest 2005 explains how heresy was investigated in medieval England. Lahey 2009 introduces Wyclif and his intellectual context. Hornbeck 2010 attempts to define and chart the development of key tenets of lollard belief.

Catto, Jeremy I. “Wyclif and Wycliffism at Oxford 1356–1430.” In The History of the University of Oxford. Vol. 2, Late Medieval Oxford. Edited by J. I. Catto and Ralph Evans, 175–261. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
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A detailed account of the careers of Wyclif and his associates and followers at Oxford during the period in which Wyclif’s ideas, and the university’s resistance toward outside interference in its internal affairs, have left the greatest bulk of written records.
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Forrest, Ian. The Detection of Heresy in Late Medieval England. Oxford Historical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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Examines the development, circulation, and implementation of legislation designed to address heresy in late medieval England. The most thorough modern account of how inquisitorial procedures developed elsewhere in Europe were adapted to the situation in England, and of how the English church and secular hierarchy attempted to respond to the threat of heresy as they perceived it.
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Ghosh, Kantik. The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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Examines arguments about scriptural hermeneutics both in Latin and English from the 1370s to 1420s, ranging from Wyclif’s On the Truth of Holy Scripture and the English Wycliffite Sermons to the writings of Wyclif’s opponents William Woodford, Nicholas Love, and Thomas Netter.
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Hornbeck, Patrick. What Is a Lollard? Dissent and Belief in Late Medieval England. Oxford Theological Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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Addresses, in turn, lollard attitudes to salvation, the Eucharist, celibacy and marriage, priesthood, and the papacy, comparing the evidence provided by heresy trials with attitudes evident in Wyclif’s and lollard writings. Contends that doctrinal variation should provoke sustained analysis of the social aspects and development of dissenting thought in England, rather than being seen as a reason to dismiss it from attention.
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Hudson, Anne. The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
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The most detailed and influential study of the movement, and the first broad survey of the writings and books of Wyclif’s followers. Argues that Wycliffism was a coherent movement whose tenets remained remarkably consistent as they were disseminated from academic circles to lay readers, from the late 14th century through to the English Reformation.
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Lahey, Stephen E. John Wyclif. Great Medieval Thinkers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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A highly accessible introduction to Wyclif’s life, thought, and writings.
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McSheffrey, Shannon. “Heresy, Orthodoxy, and English Vernacular Religion 1480–1525.” Past and Present 186.1 (February 2005): 47–80.
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Examines the religious practice and reading of later lollard communities, as revealed by trial records. Shows that the many overlaps and interchanges between lollard and mainstream reading and practice complicate any simple, oppositional understanding of the relationship between “heresy” and “orthodoxy.”
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Collected Studies

Collected articles in the following volumes gather the most important contributions to our knowledge of Wyclif and Wycliffism made by authors who have devoted the bulk of their scholarly energies to this topic, in many cases updating the evidence or arguments of the original published versions to reflect new findings. Aston 1984 is the first book-length work containing studies that emphasize writings by lollards alongside trial records and writings by opponents. Hudson 1985 contains studies that emphasize lollard book production and circulation. Aston 1993 includes some of Aston’s most seminal articles on the history of lollardy, in newly revised form. Wilks 2000, a posthumous collection edited by Anne Hudson, includes a range of Wilks’s most widely cited essays. Hudson 2008 gathers research on the production, circulation, and reception of Wyclif’s writings.

Aston, Margaret. Lollards and Reformers: Images and Literacy in Late Medieval Religion. London: Hambledon, 1984.
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Important essays include “Lollardy and Sedition,” “Lollard Women Priests?,” “Lollards and Images,” and “Lollardy and Literacy.”
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Aston, Margaret. Faith and Fire: Popular and Unpopular Religion, 1350–1600. London: Hambledon, 1993.
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Important essays include “Wycliffe and the Vernacular,” “Bishops and Heresy,” and “‘Caim’s Castles’: Poverty, Politics, and Disendowment.”
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Hudson, Anne. Lollards and Their Books. London: Hambledon, 1985.
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Important essays include “The Debate on Bible Translation,” “John Purvey: A Reconsideration of the Evidence,” “Lollardy, the English Heresy,” and “A Lollard Sect Vocabulary?”
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Hudson, Anne. Studies in the Transmission of Wyclif’s Writings. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Variorum, 2008.
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Important essays include “Poor Preachers, Poor Men: Views of Poverty,” “From Oxford to Prague,” and “Which Wyche?”
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Wilks, Michael. Wyclif: Political Ideas and Practice. Edited by Anne Hudson. Oxford: Oxbow, 2000.
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Important essays include “The Early Oxford Wyclif,” “Reformatio Regni: Wyclif and Hus,” “Predestination, Property, and Power,” and “Wyclif and the Great Persecution.”
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Essay Collections

The volumes listed here have contributed substantially to our knowledge of a particular aspect or theme in the study of lollardy. In each case, key contributions are listed by author and short title only. Aston and Richmond 1997 was the product of a conference reconsidering the role of the gentry in lollardy. Barr and Hutchinson 2005 is a Festschrift for Anne Hudson, including sections on sources; Wyclif’s influence; controversies involving education, theology, and politics; and the contexts of vernacular Wycliffism, as well as a bibliography of Hudson’s writings to 2005. Clark, et al. 2009 is a Festschrift for Margaret Aston, including studies of books, persons, and images as well as a bibliography of Aston’s writings to 2009. Hudson and Wilks 1987 is a wide-ranging collection focusing on controversy at or involving Oxford in the 14th and 15th centuries. Kenny 1986 is the product of an Oxford conference on Wyclif, his context, and his influence. Levy 2006 is an especially important, recent collection providing new studies that revise our understanding of Wyclif’s thought and context, and an excellent introductory bibliography. Somerset, et al. 2003 focuses on the influence of vernacular Wycliffism.

Aston, Margaret, and Colin Richmond, eds. Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997.
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See especially Hudson, “Hermofrodrita or Ambidexter: Wycliffite Views on Clerks,” and McHardy, “De Heretico Comburendo, 1401.”
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Barr, Helen, and Ann M. Hutchinson, eds. Text and Controversy from Wyclif to Bale: Essays in Honour of Anne Hudson. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005.
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See especially Jurkowski, “Lollard Book Producers in London in 1414,” Ghosh, “Bishop Reginald Pecock and the Idea of ‘Lollardy,’” Havens, “Shading the Grey Area,” and Fiona Somerset, “Wycliffite Spirituality.”
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Clark, Linda, Maureen Jurkowski, and Colin Richmond, eds. Image, Text, and Church 1380–1600: Essays for Margaret Aston. Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 2009.
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See especially Hudson, “Wyclif’s Books,” Catto, “Shaping the Mixed Life: Thomas Arundel’s Reformation,” and Jurkowski, “The Career of Robert Herlaston, Lollard Preacher.”
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Hudson, Anne, and Michael Wilks, eds. From Ockham to Wyclif. Studies in Church History, Subsidia 5. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.
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See especially Kenny, “Realism and Determinism,” Leff, “The Place of Metaphysics in Wyclif’s Theology,” Phillips, “John Wyclif and the Optics of the Eucharist,” Evans, “Wyclif on Literal and Metaphorical,” and von Nolcken, “Wyclif, Another Kind of Saint.”
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Kenny, Anthony, ed. Wyclif in His Times. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986.
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See especially Keen, “Wyclif, the Bible, and Transubstantiation,” Hudson, “Wycliffism at Oxford,” Hudson, “Wycliffism and the English Language,” and Leff, “Wyclif and Huss.”
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Levy, Ian C., ed. A Companion to John Wyclif. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2006.
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See especially Penn, “Wyclif and the Sacraments,” Levy, “Wyclif and the Christian Life,” and Bose, “Opponents.”
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Somerset, Fiona, Jill Havens, and Derrick Pitard, eds. Lollards and Their Influence in Late Medieval England. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell and Brewer, 2003.
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See especially Jurkowski, “Lollardy in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire,” Aston, “Lollards and the Cross,” Bose, “Reginald Pecock’s Vernacular Voice,” Hanna, “English Biblical Texts before Lollardy and Their Fate,” and the topical summaries at the end of Pitard, “A Selected Bibliography for Lollard Studies.”
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Bibliographies

Talbert and Thomson 1970 first attempted to provide a bibliography of lollard writings: the authors’ effort was plagued by difficulties with how to define and how to locate what should count as lollard writings or books that continue to trouble the field. Hudson 1985 provides a comprehensive overhaul that is now in need of further updating. Thomson 1983 lists and describes Wyclif’s works: this volume also needs revision in the light of more recent discoveries. Derrick Pitard’s Lollard Society Bibliographies provides an inclusive, frequently updated bibliography of primary and secondary sources for the study of lollardy, especially useful for its links to open-access digital books.

Hudson, Anne. “Contributions to a History of Wycliffite Writings” In Lollards and Their Books. Edited by Anne Hudson, 1–12. London: Hambledon, 1985.
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Surveys research on Wyclif and his followers up to 1985; corrects and updates Talbert and Thomson. Also see “Additions and Modifications to a Bibliography of English Wycliffite Writings” by Hudson (pp. 249–252.)
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Pitard, Derrick. The Lollard Society: Bibliographies.
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An index of primary and secondary sources about lollardy and later medieval religious culture in England.
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Talbert, Ernest W., and S. Harrison Thomson. “Wyclyf and His Followers.” In A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500. Vol. 2. Edited by J. Burke Severs, 354–380. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1970.
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The first printed bibliography of lollard writings: many corrections were made by Hudson in a review and then an update, both of which are included in Hudson 1985 (cited under Collected Studies).
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Thomson, Williel R. The Latin Writings of John Wyclif. Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1983.
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The fullest index of Wyclif’s works, printed and unprinted, and of their extant manuscripts.
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Primary Sources

The archive of manuscripts containing items somehow affiliated with lollardy is vast, and many important texts compiled, interpolated, or authored by lollard writers remain unprinted. What is more, our sense of what ought to be considered a lollard text, and on what grounds, is under active development and even dispute. At an earlier stage, claims that sounded proto-protestant, or that closely resembled positions sought out in heresy trials, were seen as reliable signs of lollardy even in anonymous writings. More recently, attention has shifted toward resemblances with Wyclif’s writings, or between putatively lollard items, in terms of vocabulary, idiom, sources quoted, claims, topics addressed, and other intrinsic criteria. Because only items available in print (or at the very least in a readily available thesis edition) are included here, this list is somewhat skewed. Polemical items thickly clustered in a small number of manuscripts that caught the attention of 19th-century scholars such as Thomas Arnold and Frederick Matthew are heavily represented. (These and other 19th-century editions should be used with caution.) Also heavily represented are versions of the Wycliffite Bible, together with its glosses and prologues: while vast, this corpus has found many willing editors. The Glossed Gospels, the Floretum and a complete version of its redacted and translated Middle English version the Rosarium, the interpolated versions of Rolle’s English Psalter, the Latin Opus Arduum, the sermon cycle in Sidney Sussex 74, and many other important texts remain unavailable (although editions of some are under way). Meanwhile, other items such as the Pore Caitif and the longest of the commandments commentaries in English are available only in thesis editions (see Jefferson 1995 in Modern Anthologies and Brady 1954 in Dubious Cases).

Writings by Wyclif

Many of Wyclif’s writings were printed by the Wyclif Society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A few newer editions have been added since. For further details of manuscripts that have subsequently been discovered, and about works that remain unprinted, see Thomson’s Latin Writings (Thomson 1983, cited in Bibliographies). Given the difficulty of Wyclif’s writings for neophytes, students should first consult recent translations with commentary that will enable them to begin understanding Wyclif’s idiom. They should also consult Levy, Companion, and Lahey, John Wyclif. For those ready to plunge into the original versions, Wyclif’s late Trialogus, and his Sermons in The Latin Works, are good starting points (see Latin).

Translations

Wyclif 1992 provides a good starting point for those interested in Wyclif’s polemical views; Wyclif 2001, for those interested in his understanding of scripture; and Wyclif 1985, for his metaphysical position.

Wyclif, John. On Universals (Tractatus de Universalibus). Translated by Anthony Kenny, introduction by P. V. Spade. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
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Spade’s introduction explains the philosophical problems raised by the theory of universals, and how Wyclif’s realism is related to his theories about the Eucharist.
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Wyclif, John. On Simony. Translated by Terence A. McVeigh. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992.
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McVeigh gives a good introduction to the polemical issues Wyclif is tackling in this short work.
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Wyclif, John. John Wyclif’s On the Truth of Holy Scripture. Translated with introduction and notes by Ian C. Levy. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2001.
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A translation of the parts of Wyclif’s De Veritate Sacre Scripture that address the nature of scripture and scriptural hermeneutics. Wyclif’s characteristic digressions are removed to produce a pared-down version publishable in a single volume. Includes an introduction that places the text within the context of Wyclif’s thought.
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Latin

For those ready to tackle Wyclif’s works in Latin, the late Trialogus (Wyclif 1869) provides an overview of his mature views, in what Wyclif hoped would be an accessible and engaging form. The Wyclif Society editions of the Latin Works, though some have nagging textual problems and most have poor indexes, include compilations of his sermons (Loserth, 1887–1990) and his shorter polemical works (Buddensieg, 1881–1883) that provide an entry to his pastoral and polemical writings (see Wyclif 1883–1922). Wyclif’s early postilla on the Bible has not been edited, but substantial excerpts appear in Benrath 1966. De Officio Pastorali, though omitted from the Wyclif Society edition, is an intriguing short work on the duties of preachers (Wyclif 1863). The Tractatus de Universalibus (Mueller 1985) is the best annotated of Wyclif’s philosophical writings, and so an excellent starting point.

Benrath, Gustav A. Wyclifs Bibelkommentar. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1966.
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Contains extensive excerpts from Wyclif’s postilla on the Bible.
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Mueller, Ivan J., ed. Tractatus de Universalibus. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
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Some of Wyclif’s early philosophical writings remain unedited: this one has appeared in a critical edition, and more are in preparation. The Latin text on which Kenny’s translation is based.
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Wyclif, John. Tractatus de Officio Pastorali. Edited by G. V. Lechler. Leipzig: Edelmann, 1863.
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A short work on pastoral care and its neglect.
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Wyclif, John. Trialogus, cum Supplemento Trialogi. Edited by G. V. Lechler. Oxford: Clarendon, 1869.
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One of Wyclif’s final works, this lengthy dialogue among three personifications, together with its strongly antifraternal supplement, lay out many of Wyclif’s beliefs.
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Wyclif, John. The Latin Works. 36 vols. London: Wyclif Society, 1883–1922.
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The bulk of Wyclif’s works available in print were edited for this series, often from a small group of the manuscripts now known. Reprinted in 1966.
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Anthologies

Hudson 1978 is the anthology that provides the best starting point for learning about lollard writings, and it contains excellent notes. Many of its contents are excerpted, so students will want to move on to read texts as a whole, either in Arnold 1871 or Matthew 1880. These volumes have their limitations: most of the texts included were prepared using only one or two manuscripts and contain errors, and their introductory material and notes and commentary are by now largely of historiographical interest, as evidence of 19th-century views on Wyclif and lollardy. Barr 1993 includes lollard poetry that draws on Piers Plowman. Dove 2011 is a compilation of prologues and other short texts that accompany, or advocate for, the Bible translation.

Arnold, T., ed. Select English Works of John Wyclif. Vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon, 1871.
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Pastoral and polemical writings, most not available in print anywhere else. Arnold’s attributions of these works to Wyclif are no longer accepted. There is some question about whether some of the contents, selected by Arnold because they appear in manuscripts containing other lollard writings, may have pre-lollard origins—though certainly their inclusion in these manuscripts suggests they were of interest to lollards.
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Barr, Helen, ed. The Piers Plowman Tradition. London: Dent, 1993.
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Includes four poems: two, Piers the Ploughman’s Crede and Mum and the Sothsegger, have plausibly been linked with lollardy.
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Dove, Mary, ed. The Earliest Advocates of the English Bible: The Texts of the Medieval Debate. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2011.
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Includes biblical prologues and prefaces, and the contents of a manuscript anthology of twelve items composed, or reworked from earlier sources, to advocate for biblical translation. The contents are important not merely for their contributions to the debate over biblical translation but also for their ideas about translation, biblical interpretation, lay access to learning, and the perceived status of the vernacular.
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Hudson, Anne, ed. Selections from English Wycliffite Writings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
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Includes excerpts, and a few complete short works, from a wide selection of lollard writings, from trial testimony to biblical commentary to polemical declarations. The contents are organized under topic headings: there are also helpful introductions to individual items, excellent notes, and a glossary.
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Matthew, F. D., ed. The English Works of Wyclif. 2d ed. Early English Text Society Series 74. London: Trübner, 1880.
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This is still the only printed edition of most of the contents, so it remains invaluable despite its limitations. Matthew’s attributions of these works to Wyclif are no longer accepted, and doubts have been raised about whether some of the contents are lollard at all. The account of Wyclif’s life in the introduction is outdated.
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Narrative Accounts

Each of the works listed here incorporates documentation of the lollard movement and its prosecution in all the forms available to its author or authors, shaping these records into an overall narrative. Knighton 1995 is an account written soon after the events described by an author who seems to have had extremely good sources. There are other early chronicles that describe events connected with lollardy, but none as closely or as fully. The Fasciculi Zizianorum (Shirley 1858) was compiled in the 1430s by Carmelites. Foxe’s huge Actes and Monuments (Foxe 2011) was put together in the tumultuous mid-16th century.

Foxe, John. The Acts and Monuments Online (TAMO). Sheffield, UK: University of Sheffield, HRI Online, 2011.
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The fullest version of Foxe’s huge history of the persecution of Christian martyrs throughout Western history. For the section that covers the late 14th through early 16th centuries, Foxe compiles all records known to him, ranging from trial records to legislation, to lollard writings. Foxe is our only source for some trial records but should be read with an eye to his overall agenda.
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Knighton, Henry. Knighton’s Chronicle 1337–1396. Edited by Geoffrey H. Martin. Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995.
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The final section of Knighton’s Chronicle, covering 1377–1396, is a firsthand account of the early years of Wycliffism by an Augustinian canon well informed about the movement’s early development and prosecution.
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Shirley, W. W., ed. Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico. Rolls Series 5. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858.
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An account, heavily interspersed with documentary sources, of Wyclif and Wycliffism from the 1370s onward. Compiled by Carmelites in the 1430s; was formerly attributed to Thomas Netter. This edition does not include the full text.
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Legal Records

Not all the extant legal records of heresy trials have been printed, and some early editions of bishops’ registers are not adequate to modern scholarly expectations. Tanner 1977, Tanner 1997, and McSheffrey and Tanner 2003, which are critical editions, are the best starting point for a new student, incorporating analysis and some translation. Brief selections from heresy trials also appear in Selections from English Wycliffite Writings (Hudson 1978, cited under Anthologies). Among the extant bishops’ registers, the contents of the Trefnant (see Capes 1916) and the Chichele (see Jacob 1938–1947) registers are most crucial.

Capes, W. W., ed. Registrum Johannis Trefnant Episcopi Herefordensis. London: Canterbury and York Society, 1916.
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Includes records of the trials of the early lollards Brut and Swinderby, together with Brut’s lengthy written defense. The adequacy of this edition has been questioned by Anne Hudson, in “The Problems of Scribes” (see Hudson 2005, cited in Individual Lollards).
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Jacob, E. F., ed. The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1414–1443. 4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1938–1947.
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The major documentary source for Chichele’s tenure as archbishop: includes legislation concerning lollardy and some records of heresy trials.
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McSheffrey, Shannon, and Norman Tanner, eds. Lollards of Coventry 1486–1522. Camden 5th series 23. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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An edition of records from the Lichfield Court Book relevant to lollard activity in Coventry, together with an excellent introduction and a series of tables. The centerpiece of the evidence are the trial records associated with a “crackdown” on lollard activity by Geoffrey Blyth, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, in 1511–1512 in Coventry.
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Tanner, Norman P., ed. Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich, 1428–31. Camden 4th series 20. London: Royal Historical Society, 1977.
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Edited from a manuscript in the archives of the diocese of Westminster, this is the fullest record of heresy trials during the 15th century.
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Tanner, Norman P., ed. Kent Heresy Proceedings 1511–12. Kent Records 26. Edited by A. P. Detsicas. Maidstone, UK: Kent Archaeological Society, 1997.
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Records of heresy trials in Kent, taken from the register of Archbishop Warham.
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Opponents

Writers who oppose Wyclif or lollardy give us insight into the reception of Wycliffism among hostile audiences. Few of these writings are available in print, and they are not always the ones that we most want. Netter 1967 is the most comprehensive, though readers should be wary of accepting the author’s tendentious view of Wyclif and Wycliffism as straight fact. Maidstone (see Edden 1987) is perhaps the earliest opponent with printed works, but Ashwardby’s antifraternal views seem to draw more on Richard Fitzralph than on Wyclif. Woodford wrote many works against Wyclif, most unprinted; included here is his reply to the antifraternal Upland Series questions (Doyle 1983, and see Heyworth 1968, cited under Medieval Compilations). Butler’s and Palmer’s determinations in Deanesly 1920 oppose biblical translation. Pecock 1860 presents arguments in favor of images. The sermons in Horner 2006 are highly topical and frequently complain about lollardy, but not with any deep engagement.

Deanesly, Margaret. The Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1920.
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Contains the only edition of two Latin texts opposing biblical translation: William Butler, “Determination against Biblical Translation, 1401,” and Thomas Palmer, “De translatione sacrae scripturae in linguam Anglicanam.”
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Doyle, Eric. “William Woodford, O.F.M. (c. 1330–1400): His Life and Works, Together with a Study and Edition of his ‘Responsiones contra Wiclevum et Lollardos.’” Franciscan Studies 43 (1983): 17–187.
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The “Responsiones” are Woodford’s reply to the questions posed by Jack Upland in the Upland Series (see Heyworth 1968, cited under Medieval Compilations). One of the intriguing things about the text is the question of why Woodford bothered to address these questions at all: clearly they must have had some currency in university circles.
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Dymmok, Roger. Liber contra Duodecim Errores et Hereses Lollardorum. Edited by H. S. Cronin. London: Wyclif Society, 1922.
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Dymmok’s response to the “Twelve Conclusions,” composed within months after they were posted on the doors of Westminster and St. Paul’s in February 1395.
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Edden, Valerie, ed. “The Debate between Maidstone and Ashwardby.” Carmelus 34 (1987): 113–134.
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An edition of the Carmelite Richard Maidstone’s Determinacio, his Latin refutation of conclusions he drew from antifraternal sermons preached in St. Mary’s Church by John Ashwardby in the mid-1380s.
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Horner, Patrick, ed. A Macaronic Sermon Collection from Late Medieval England, MS Bodley 649. Studies and Texts 153. Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 2006.
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An edition and translation of a set of heavily macaronic sermons written early in the 15th century that often pause to criticize lollards and comment on current events.
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Netter, Thomas, of Walden. Doctrinale Antiquitatum Fidei Ecclesiae Catholicae. 3 vols. Edited by B. Blanciotti. Farnborough, UK: Gregg, 1967.
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Netter, the Carmelite Prior Provincial from 1414 to 1430, was present at the trials of several Wycliffites and the Council of Constance when a number of Wyclif’s writings were condemned. He wrote this treatise as an extended condemnation of Wyclif’s heresy. Originally published 1757–1759 in Venice.
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Pecock, Reginald. Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy. Edited by C. Babington. Rolls Series 19. London: Longman, Green, 1860.
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Bishop of St. Asaph’s, Pecock wrote several English treatises in which he reports that he developed a comprehensive program of lay education, as an alternative to that offered by lollards. This work, written about 1449, contains his most detailed treatment of images.
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Bible

The Forshall and Madden 1850 edition of the Bible (reprinted in 1982) is still the only edition to include both an earlier version of the first, more Latinate translation, and a later version in more idiomatic prose, of the Wycliffite Bible. A new critical edition is needed that more fully accounts for the manuscript evidence since discovered and for the full range of glossing and apparatus found in the manuscripts. Lindberg’s editions of a copy of the Earlier Version (Lindberg 1973) and of the Later Version (Lindberg 1999–2004) do not yet fulfill this need.

Forshall, J., and F. Madden, eds. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English Versions, made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his Followers. 4 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1850.
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This remains the only fully collated edition of the Bible translation, though the editors knew of only about 75 percent of the manuscripts we know of today and did not include all the manuscript glosses available to them. It includes what they label as an “Earlier Version” and a “Later Version,” printed as parallel texts. Reprinted in 1982.
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Lindberg, Conrad, ed. The Earlier Version of the Wycliffite Bible . . . Edited from MS Christ Church 145. Stockholm Studies in English 29, 81, 87. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1973.
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An edition of one manuscript labeled by Forshall and Madden as a copy of the “Earlier Version,” collated with Forshall and Madden’s edition.
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Lindberg, Conrad, ed. King Henry’s Bible: MS Bodley 277: The Revised Version of the Wyclif Bible. Stockholm Studies in English 89, 94, 98, 100. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1999–2004.
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A manuscript of Forshall and Madden’s “Later Version” is a diplomatic edition based on Bodley MS 277, collated with Forshall and Madden’s 1850 edition.
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Medieval Compilations

The Rosarium (see Nolcken 1979) is best consulted as a reference work on individual topics: it was never designed for consecutive reading, and nor were the English Wycliffite Sermons (see Hudson and Gradon 1983–1996), which seem to have been collaboratively written to provide material for preaching on every possible occasion during the liturgical year, because many contain recommendations for a variety of possible expansions. However, the Lollard Sermons (Cigman 1989) look more like writing designed to be read (or preached) for pleasure: they contain many self-consciously literary conceits. The Upland Series (Heyworth 1968) is satirical and most pleasurable to read for those who understand the views being exchanged and the jokes: the appendix comparing parallel passages (p. 173) in Heyworth 1968 is essential to such enjoyment.

Cigman, Gloria, ed. Lollard Sermons. Early English Text Society o.s. 294. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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A set of sermons extant in two manuscripts. Although some reviewers have cast doubt on their affiliation with lollardy, the only area where their views diverge significantly from those of some early lollard writings is oral confession. However, this is not the only lollard text to give some qualified support for oral confession as a means of pastoral instruction, at least when administered by a virtuous priest rather than a corrupt one. What is more, the cycle makes quite extensive use of the Rosarium.
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Heyworth, P. L., ed. Jack Upland, Friar Daw’s Reply, and Upland’s Rejoiner. London: Oxford University Press, 1968.
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Jack Upland poses a long series of questions in prose about the orders of friars and their activities, designed to highlight fraternal corruption. A poetic response by Friar Daw, and a further response to Friar Daw known as Upland’s Rejoinder, follow after Jack Upland.
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Hudson, Anne, and Pamela Gradon, eds. English Wycliffite Sermons. 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983–1996.
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An edition of the 294 sermons that make up this vast sermon cycle, as well as “Of Ministris” and “Vae Octuplex,” which frequently appear with parts of the cycle in manuscripts. Volume 1 includes the sermons on the Sunday gospels and the Sunday epistles and a lengthy introduction. Volume 2 includes the sermons on the common and proper of saints, while Volume 3 includes the ferial gospel sermons. Volumes 4 and 5 contain notes and commentary.
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Nolcken, Christina von, ed. The Middle English Translation of the Rosarium Theologie. Heidelberg, West Germany: Carl Winter, 1979.
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A translation of the Latin Rosarium, itself a redacted version of the Floretum. All versions are alphabetical lists derived from a variety of sources, in which the various meanings of a series of key terms are distinguished, then elucidated through extensive quotation from biblical, patristic, canon law, and more recent sources. Wyclif is quoted extensively throughout.
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Modern Anthologies

The “Testimony of William Thorpe” (Hudson 1993) is an excellent introduction to lollard views. The Four Wycliffite Dialogues (Somerset 2009) similarly make an effort to introduce lollard arguments to new audiences. Jefferson 1995 provides much insight into the circulation of lollard writings in manuscripts, and the commandments commentaries Jefferson edits are a good starting point for understanding lollard pastoral concerns. “The Two Ways” (Clanvowe 1975) provides insight into lollard devotional writing. The Three Treatises (Todd 1851) and Sermon of William Taylor (Hudson 1993) are more polemical in intent. The long sermons in The Works of a Lollard Preacher (Hudson 2001) each provide very full discussions of the single topics they treat, including much discussion of academic terminology: in the process they give us insight into a very unusual relationship between a preacher and a lay congregation.

Clanvowe, John. The Works of Sir John Clanvowe. Edited by V. J. Scattergood. Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 1975.
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In addition to “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale,” an early poem in the Chaucer tradition, includes “The Two Ways,” a devotional manual in which the description of how to travel along the narrow, difficult path toward salvation by maintaining one’s resolve to keep the commandments resembles that in other, more overtly polemical lollard writings.
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Hudson, Anne, ed. Two Wycliffite Texts. Early English Text Society 301. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
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Includes the “Sermon of William Taylor” and the “Testimony of William Thorpe.” The latter provides an extended narrative of Thorpe’s inquisition by Archbishop Arundel that includes Thorpe’s own account of what beliefs are central for him and then his rebuttal of the views put to him in a list by the archbishop.
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Hudson, Anne, ed. The Works of a Lollard Preacher. Early English Text Society 317. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
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This volume contains three anonymously authored texts: a sermon on disendowment of the clergy titled “Omnis plantacio,” its shorter redaction “Fundamentum aliud nemo potest ponere,” and a work on the Eucharist, “De Oblacione iugis sacrificii.” “Omnis plantacio” and “Fundamentum aliud” are printed as parallel text to facilitate comparison.
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Jefferson, Judith Anne. “An Edition of the Ten Commandments Commentary in BL Harley 2398 and the Related Version in Trinity College Dublin 245, York Minster XVI.L.12 and Harvard English 738 Together with Discussion of Related Commentaries.” 2 vols. PhD diss., University of Bristol, 1995.
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Edits two versions of a very long commentary on the Ten Commandments that draws extensively on Wyclif’s writings as it elaborates how Christians should live. Excellent notes explain the sources of both versions. The parallel-text edition and notes appear in Volume 2. Volume 1 is devoted to an extended introduction. This unpublished description supersedes all earlier work on Middle English prose commandments commentaries.
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Somerset, Fiona, ed. Four Wycliffite Dialogues. Early English Text Society 333. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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Includes four previously unpublished dialogues that provide an introduction to a range of lollard views. The “Dialogue between Jon and Richard” questions the legitimacy of the mendicant orders. The “Dialogue between a Friar and a Secular” covers a range of topics current in university debates. The “Dialogue between Reson and Gabbyng” is a free translation and adaptation of the first twelve chapters of Wyclif’s Dialogus. The “Dialogue between a Clerk and a Knight” disputes the proper scope of papal as opposed to regal or imperial power.
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Todd, James H., ed. Three Treatises by John Wycklyffe, Now Printed from a Manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. Dublin, Ireland: Hodges and Smith, 1851.
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Includes three texts edited from Trinity College, Dublin MS 245. The third, “Of Antichrist and his Meynee,” has not subsequently been reedited.
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Individual Works

Each of the works listed here was considered interesting enough by its editor to be printed as a single item—but for widely varying reasons. The Opus Arduum (Bostick 1998) is a substantial Latin text, very much neglected in the scholarship, that provides rare insight into lollard apocalypticism and its reception on the continent. The two sermons (Forde 1989, Wenzel 1998) bring opposed fascinations: Hereford’s, because even in this limited notarial report it is so strongly and obviously polemical; Lychlade’s, because it is not polemical at all, even though its author had links with Wyclif. The Thirty-Seven Conclusions (Compston 1911, Forshall 1851) show us how steeped in canon law some early lollard writers were, even though we know frustratingly little about their dating or the circumstances of their production, either in Latin or English. The Apology for Lollard Doctrines (Todd 1842) is, similarly, a kind of compendium of lollard polemical views. Both Richard Wyche’s letter (Matthew 1890) and the Lanterne of Liȝt (Swinburn 1917) were copied and circulated in the first decade of the 15th century, and each provides insight into the mentality of lollard communities pursued as heretics.

Bostick, Curtis V. The Anti-Christ and the Lollards: Apocalypticism in Late Medieval and Reformation England. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 70. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1998.
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Contains substantial transcriptions and translations from the Opus Arduum, an early lollard commentary in Latin on the Book of Revelation. The author is unknown, but he tells his readers that he wrote the commentary while in prison in 1390. Only Continental copies of this important text remain, and the only other extended treatment of its importance is an essay by Anne Hudson (collected in Lollards and Their Books).
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Compston, H. F. B., ed. “The Thirty-Seven Conclusions of the Lollards.” English Historical Review 26.104 (1911): 738–749.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/XXVI.CIV.738Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A shorter version in Latin of the thirty-seven conclusions defended at length and pursued further through a series of corollaries in the Thirty-Seven Conclusions, edited by Forshall and originally titled Remonstrance against Romish Corruptions. Compston’s article also compares the two versions. (The title Thirty-Seven Conclusions is now preferred, for both versions.)
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Forde, Simon, ed. “Nicholas Hereford’s Ascension Day Sermon, 1382.” Mediaeval Studies 51.1 (1989): 205–241.
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We do not have the text of Hereford’s sermon, apparently given in English, but only detailed Latin notes taken by an observer: Forde edits these here. Apparently, Hereford’s sermon was an uncompromising attack on friars and possessioners. It was preached in defiance of efforts to quell dissenting thought at Oxford that had been ongoing since the initial condemnations issued by the Blackfriars Council in 1381.
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Forshall, Josiah, ed. Thirty-Seven Conclusions Remonstrance against Romish Corruptions in the Church. London: Longman, Brown, 1851.
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Poses and defends at length thirty-seven conclusions on topics central to the lollard reformist platform. It seems likely that this version extends and develops a shorter version like that edited by Compston, because in this version, corollaries extend and develop the arguments from their initial positions. (The title Thirty-Seven Conclusions is now preferred, for both versions.) Noteworthy for its very extensive engagement with canon law.
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Matthew, F. D., ed. “The Trial of Richard Wyche.” English Historical Review 5.19 (1890): 530–544.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/V.XIX.530Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Not a trial record, as Matthew’s title suggests, but Wyche’s own narrative account of his sufferings during his imprisonment and examination for heresy in 1402. The account is couched in the form of a letter addressed to Wyche’s friends and spiritual followers and is clearly influenced by Paul’s epistles. Wyche was eventually released but was later found to have relapsed and was burned to death in 1439.
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Swinburn, L. M., ed. The Lanterne of Liȝt. Early English Text Society o.s. 151. London: K. Paul, 1917.
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An edition based on one of the two manuscripts of this sprawling but comprehensive early-15th-century lollard introduction to the basics of religion (e.g., seven sins, seven virtues, commandments, and gospel precepts), interspersed with passages of lyrical polemical exegesis. Distinctive for its frequent quotation in Latin from a wide range of sources: the Latin is almost invariably translated in full, but few lollard writings incorporate their sources this extensively.
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Todd, James H., ed. An Apology for Lollard Doctrines Attributed to Wicliffe. Camden Society, Old (First) Series 20. London: Camden Society, 1842.
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The only edition of a text from Trinity College, Dublin MS 245 (C.5.6). Poses and defends thirty propositions having to do with the authority of the pope, the proper activities of priests, the legitimacy of religious orders, how best to follow Christ’s commandments and counsels, and similar topics of common interest in lollard polemical and devotional writings. Todd gives a fairly detailed summary of the contents in his introduction.
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Wenzel, Siegfried, ed. “Robert Lychlade’s Oxford Sermon of 1395.” Traditio 53 (1998): 203–230.
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Lychlade, an Oxford academic linked with Wyclif, was expelled from Oxford the same year that he preached this sermon.
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Dubious Cases

Doubt has been cast on the ideological positioning of nearly all vernacular lollard writings, and many scholars place items whose affiliation they consider uncertain in an undifferentiated “gray area” somewhere between the black-and-white poles of heresy and orthodoxy. Admitting to uncertainty and allowing evidence to present surprises are important stages in any research that aims to make discoveries rather than merely confirm assumptions. However, the “gray area” should be a starting point for analysis, rather than an end point: it is nearly always possible to describe more closely what it is about a work that seems lollard or not, and why. Thus, the Pore Caitif (Brady 1954) contains some sections in some of its copies that looked lollard to Brady and that have subsequently been found in other lollard writings: only more detailed textual analysis may be able to determine whether these are interpolations, or part of the text’s earliest version. The Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge (Davidson 1993) seemed self-evidently lollard to earlier critics because of its proto-protestant antitheatricality, but recent research is less swift to assume lollard views resembled those of later protestants. However, the Tretise’s reasons for rejecting the public performance of biblical scenes may have roots closer to the heart of medieval lollard belief. Book to a Mother (McCarthy 1981) was firmly dissociated from lollardy by its student editor—but perhaps erroneously, as newer work is beginning to suggest. The version of the Ancrene Riwle in MS Pepys 2498 (Zettersten 1976) has been linked with lollardy because it contains anticlerical complaint, but perhaps groundlessly if Hanna is correct about its dating. The Lay Folk’s Catechism (Simmons and Nolloth 1901) may have been interpolated by lollard writers, but probably not in the version its editors suggest may be lollard: better understanding of how mainstream pastoral teaching developed makes this conclusion seem more obvious.

Brady, M. T. “The Pore Caitif, Edited from Harley 2336 with Introduction and Notes.” PhD diss., Fordham University, 1954.
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Rather than a treatise with fixed content, the Pore Caitif is a loose compilation of a series of short religious writings that draw on a range of sources, beginning with more basic instruction and moving on to more advanced, meditative writings. The number and order of the items included vary between manuscripts and so does the content of each item. Thus, it is difficult to determine what exactly the text’s affiliations with lollardy may be, and what their origin. This thesis edition lays the groundwork for further study of the variation between the versions.
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Davidson, Clifford, ed. A Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge: A Middle English Treatise on the Playing of Miracles. Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series 19. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 1993.
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This work, as we have it, was composed in two parts, and perhaps by two authors: its preoccupation with dramatic representation is not one found elsewhere among lollard writings, but its concerns with biblical interpretation and lay access are more broadly typical of lollardy.
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McCarthy, A. J., ed. Book to a Mother. Salzburg Studies in English Literature 92. Salzburg, Austria: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1981.
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Though the editor denies this work is in any way associated with lollardy and dates it before the movement, recent research has questioned both claims.
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Simmons, T. F., and S. Nolloth, eds. The Lay Folk’s Catechism. Early English Text Society o.s. 118. London: K. Paul, Trench, and Trubner, 1901.
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Two English translations of Pecham’s 1281 syllabus for basic instruction for the laity are included in addition to the Latin original: one from the register of William Thoresby, one a later southern version interpolated with commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, Ave Maria, Creed, five wits, etc. However, these additions reflect changes in the content of basic instruction that can be found in mainstream as well as lollard pastoralia.
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Zettersten, Arne, ed. The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle Edited from Magdalene College, Cambridge MS. Pepys 2498. Early English Text Society 274. London: Oxford University Press, 1976.
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A 14th-century version of the Ancrene Riwle that has clearly been through several stages of revision, ones that are not entirely ideologically compatible with one another. Some have suggested that all or some of the layers of revision are lollard, but since Hanna’s as-yet-undisputed claim (in London Literature) that the manuscript predates lollardy, there has been greater uncertainty on this question.
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Wyclif’s Thought and Influence

In the role assigned to him by John Bale and John Foxe as the “morning star” of the Reformation, Wyclif acquired a reputation among protestant historiographers as a kind of proto-protestant. Modifications of this view have been slow in coming, given the difficulties of reading Wyclif’s writings, whose idiom is very much a product of late scholasticism. However, a number of recent studies have revised or complicated our understanding both of what it was Wyclif did claim, and the academic context for his claims, in which they often turn out to be more moderate than they at first appeared. Thus, Robson 1961 explains what earlier and contemporary thinkers Wyclif was engaging. Spade 2005 revises our understanding of Wyclif’s realism. Levy 2003, Levy 2005, and Lahey 2003 attempt to integrate Wyclif’s positions with his intellectual and religious milieu, revealing in the process that Wyclif’s views have often been caricatured. Catto 1985 shows that Wyclif’s views on the Eucharist protest current practice at least as much as doctrine. See the works collected in Hudson 1985, Hudson 2008, and Wilks 2000 in Collected Studies, and in Hudson and Wilks 1987, Kenny 1986, and especially Levy 2006 in Essay Collections.

Catto, Jeremy. “John Wyclif and the Cult of the Eucharist.” In The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley. Edited by Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood, 269–286. Studies in Church History, Subsidia 4. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985.
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Looks beyond doctrinal and even philosophical conflicts over the Eucharist to address the ways in which Wyclif’s views on the Eucharist were a visceral response to aspects of contemporary religious practice.
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Lahey, Stephen. Philosophy and Politics in the Thought of John Wyclif. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511496547Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that Wyclif’s metaphysics serves as the intellectual foundation for his political thought. Lahey centers his analysis on Wyclif’s concept of dominium, loosely equivalent to lordship or possession, illustrating the close ties among Tractatus de Universalibus, De Civili Dominio, and De Dominio Divino.
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Levy, Ian C. John Wyclif: Scriptural Logic, Real Presence, and the Parameters of Orthodoxy. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2003.
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An appraisal of John Wyclif’s theology within the context of some larger medieval developments of scholasticism, none of which can be isolated from one another. Focuses on Wyclif’s eucharistic theology and its intersection with his understanding of Scripture, identifying two central points about Wyclif: his sense of commitment to the larger continuum of Catholic tradition, and his placement of Christ, the Incarnate Word, at the heart of that tradition.
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Levy, Ian C. “Grace and Freedom in the Soteriology of John Wyclif.” Traditio 60 (2005): 279–337.
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An important reconsideration of Wyclif’s soteriology, or theory of salvation. Finds that Wyclif’s writings do not, as often supposed, reveal to a strictly determinist predestinarian soteriology. Instead, Wyclif is firmly convinced that while God knows who will be saved, still, human free will is not determined by that knowledge, and God extends grace and the possibility of salvation to all.
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Robson, J. A. Wyclif and the Oxford Schools: The Relation of the “Summa de Ente” to Scholastic Debates at Oxford in the Later Fourteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1961.
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An important early study of Wyclif’s philosophy in its intellectual historical context. Even if our understanding of some aspects of Wyclif’s thought has changed, this study identifies and surveys many of his key precursors and interlocutors.
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Spade, Paul V. “The Problem of Universals and Wyclif’s Alleged ‘Ultrarealism.’” Vivarium 43.1 (2005): 111–123.
DOI: 10.1163/1568534054068429Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that Wyclif’s realism, while vocal and insistent, is quite moderate, less extreme for example than that of Walter Burley (as Wyclif observes). Describes two common medieval notions of a universal. On neither approach does Wyclif’s theory postulate nonstandard entities besides those recognized by more usual versions of realism. Nor does Wyclif appear to assign novel roles to the entities he does recognize as universal.
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Debate over Lollardy’s Significance and Impact

Many studies of Wyclif and of lollardy, and of religion in England more generally, contest the movement’s significance and impact: the studies listed here are commonly cited in this debate and will help the reader to understand its development over time. Dickens 1959 makes a strong case for continuity between lollardy and protestantism. Thomson 1965 argues that variation between beliefs reported in different series of heresy trials reveals that lollardy lost coherence over time. McNiven 1987 claims that the persecution of lollardy in the early 15th century had more to do with secular politics than with religious difference. Duffy 2005 portrays lollardy as a strident and short-lived protest movement that had little to no impact on the vibrancy and continuity of “traditional religion” in England. Rex 2002 follows suit, in a short overview. Kerby-Fulton 2006 argues that greater attention should be paid to other kinds of revelatory writing and religious dissent within England, whose importance the emphasis on lollardy has obscured.

Dickens, A. G. Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509–1558. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959.
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Important early study of northern lollardy: argues for continuity between lollardy and protestantism.
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Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580. 2d ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
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This second edition of Duffy’s monumental account of English religious belief and practice before and after the English Reformation includes a new preface, in which Duffy defends his decision not to include lollard religion in his account.
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Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn. Books under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
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Seeks to uncover a far wider range of writings that asserted their own truth based on revelation in England and in Europe more broadly, suggesting that excessive attention to Wyclif and his followers has obscured this broader history and its influence on Middle English writings.
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McNiven, Peter. Heresy and Politics in the Reign of Henry IV: The Burning of John Badby. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1987.
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Centered on the case of John Badby, a Worcester artisan burned for eucharistic heresy in 1410, this is an influential account of how the prosecution of heretics in the early 15th century had centrally to do with secular politics, rather than only its ostensibly therapeutic aims of correcting doctrine and extirpating sin.
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Rex, Richard. The Lollards. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
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Briefly introduces the medieval English church, Wyclif’s views, the tenets of early lollardy and their spread, evidence for later lollardy, and contrasts between lollardy and protestantism. Disagrees strongly with Dickens 1959.
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Thomson, J. A. F. The Later Lollards, 1414–1520. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
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The first comprehensive study of the records of heresy trials in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Argues based on this evidence that the social base for lollardy shifted from intellectuals to artisans, and that variation in belief and practice reveals a movement in decline.
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Lollard Belief and Practice

What it was that lollards believed and what they did were questions that closely occupied those who investigated them for heresy. However, especially since Hudson’s seminal Premature Reformation (Hudson 1988 cited in General Overviews) made them better known, scholars have looked to lollards’ own writings, as well as the records of their trials for heresy, in their attempts to answer them. Aers 2004 surveys late medieval English eucharistic theologies, placing Wycliffite views in a broader context. Aers 2009 similarly surveys late medieval English soteriologies. Aers and Staley 1996 examines how late medieval English writers presented Christ as a model. Aston 1988 surveys attitudes to images; Little 2006, attitudes to confession.

Aers, David. Sanctifying Signs: Making Christian Tradition in Late Medieval England. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004.
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Examines the place of sanctification and signs in works by William Langland, John Wyclif, Walter Brut, and William Thorpe. Argues that in this milieu eucharistic theology exhibits variety in doctrine and in deployment of the common resources of the Christian tradition, rather than a simple opposition between clearly and narrowly defined heretical and orthodox positions.
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Aers, David. Salvation and Sin: Augustine, Langland, and Fourteenth-Century Theology. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009.
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Reconsiders the soteriology (theory of salvation) of a range of 14th- and early-15th-century English writers, in the light of a new account of Augustine’s soteriology. Ockham, Bradwardine, William Langland, and Julian of Norwich are the central subjects of its subsequent chapters, but Aers makes reference to Wyclif and Wycliffite thinkers at various points throughout.
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Aers, David, and Lynn Staley. The Powers of the Holy: Religion, Politics, and Gender in Late Medieval English Culture. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.
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The introduction claims that Wycliffite writers focus on Christ’s active ministry, rather than on Christ’s passion. The second chapter considers “The Humanity of Christ: Representations in Wycliffite Texts and Piers Plowman.”
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Aston, Margaret. England’s Iconoclasts. Vol. 1, Laws against Images. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
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A wide-ranging study of English attitudes to images in the late medieval and early modern periods. Centered on the 16th century but addresses a range of important, unprinted manuscript sources that discuss images and are associated with lollardy.
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Little, Katherine C. Confession and Resistance: Defining the Self in Late Medieval England. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
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Considers how Wycliffite and mainstream literary representations of confessional practice might be interpreted as responses to a kind of crisis in the history of subjectivity, occasioned by new possibilities for representing the self.
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Regional Studies

With few exceptions, most studies of lollardy have privileged the region from which the author’s evidence is predominantly drawn. In recent years such bias has been seen as a virtue rather than a potential limitation, as scholars have given greater attention to how regional studies might contribute to our understanding of geographical variation within lollardy. Such variation might be not only doctrinal: the social background of adherents, their relationships with the broader community, the extent of their persecution, their spheres of influence, their religious practice, etc., might also differ and might complicate our understanding of the movement in useful ways. Davies 1991 calls for more regionally focused studies. Burgess 2003 suggests that Bristol was not a lollard center, as previously supposed. Both Lutton 2006 and Jurkowski 2007 discover that a local account of lollardy that examines a wide range of records rather than only heresy trials reveals wider social involvement in lollardy than Thomson’s early researches had suggested (see Thomson 1965 under Debate over Lollardy’s Significance and Impact).

Burgess, Clive. “A Hotbed of Heresy? Fifteenth-Century Bristol and Lollardy Reconsidered.” In Authority and Subversion. Edited by Linda Clark, 43–62. The Fifteenth Century 3. Woodbridge, NY: Boydell, 2003.
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Reconsiders Bristol’s reputation as a major center for early lollardy.
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Davies, Richard G. “Lollardy and Locality.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 1 (1991): 191–212.
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Calls for research on lollardy that is alert to variations in circumstance between regions.
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Jurkowski, Maureen. “Lollardy and Social Status in East Anglia.” Speculum 82.1 (January 2007): 120–152.
DOI: 10.1017/S0038713400005625Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of lollardy in East Anglia, and in eastern England more broadly, showing that research that draws broadly on historical administrative documents rather than mainly on trial records reveals a wider spectrum of social involvement in lollardy: specifically, that many of those linked with lollardy were not artisans, but members of upwardly mobile local elites.
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Lutton, Rob. Lollardy and Orthodox Religion in Pre-Reformation England: Reconstructing Piety. London: Royal Historical Society, 2006.
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Examines the pious practices and dispositions of families and individuals in Tenterden in Kent, in relation to the orthodox institutions of parish, chapel, and guild, and to the beliefs and activities of Wycliffite heretics. Demonstrates (arguing against Duffy 2005, cited under Debate over Lollardy’s Significance and Impact) that late medieval piety was increasingly diverse, and that the parish community was far from stable or unified.
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Individual Lollards

Anonymity is preferred by most lollard writers and book owners: except where they were tried for heresy, we only very rarely know the names of individuals associated with lollardy. Yet trial abjurations (which usually followed a set formula) and even depositions (where witnesses respond to questions according to an agenda set by the inquisitor) often reveal to us less information about an individual’s beliefs and actions than we would like. The studies below examine limitations of the evidence provided in the official record, or bring to bear other newly discovered legal records. In these ways they enable us to understand lollardy better through new insight into the lives of individual lollards. Hudson 1994 and Hudson 2005 shed new light on Walter Brut. Jurkowski 1995 presents new evidence about John Purvey, to whom an earlier generation had attributed a wide range of vernacular writings: perhaps he did write some of them after all. Jurkowski 2002 presents new documentation of the career of William Thorpe.

Hudson, Anne. “Laicus Litteratus: The Paradox of Lollardy.” In Heresy and Literacy, 1000–1500. Edited by Anne Hudson and Peter Biller, 222–236. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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Examines Walter Brut, an early lollard who disclaimed any university education, but who was highly literate in Latin and capable of composing a lengthy treatise in his own defense. Here, Brut is a test case for the difficulties involved in discerning the social status and education (whether academic or extramural) of individual lollards.
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Hudson, Anne. “The Problems of Scribes: The Trial Records of William Swinderby and Walter Brut.” Nottingham Mediaeval Studies 49.1 (2005): 80–104.
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Reveals the shortcomings of the printed edition of Brut’s and Swinderby’s trial records in the Trefnant Register. Gives a speculative reconstruction of the ordering and chronology of the original sheets copied by the scribe, as well as what may have been missing from that set of copied documents.
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Jurkowski, Maureen. “New Light on John Purvey.” English Historical Review 110.439 (November 1995): 1180–1191.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/CX.439.1180Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Presents an edition of a previously unknown list of John Purvey’s books. Speculates on the content and scope of the volumes briefly described, based on similar known books. Comments on the implications of the list for our understanding of Purvey’s learning and literate activities.
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Jurkowski, Maureen. “The Arrest of William Thorpe in Shrewsbury and the Anti-Lollard Statute of 1406.” Historical Research 75.189 (2002): 273–295.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2281.00151Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Describes and comments on the implications of newly discovered documentation of the arrest of William Thorpe in Shrewsbury. That Thorpe was apprehended for heresy in the middle of this decade offers corroboration that the Testimony of William Thorpe, Thorpe’s own lengthy narrative of his examination for heresy by Archbishop Arundel, may have some basis in fact.
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McFarlane, K. B. Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972.
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“Lollard Knights,” one of two essays in this volume, is the first attempt at a prosopographical study of individual lollards. It traces the lives, writings, and associations of a group of high-ranking men who were linked with lollardy by contemporary chroniclers.
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Lollard Opponents

Opponents of Wyclif or of lollardy certainly do not have a sympathetic understanding of what they oppose. However, they often devote a surprising level of effort to investigating it, and sometimes they write about what they dislike in extraordinary detail. Their writings, and records that reveal to us their actions, give us much insight into how the movement was perceived. Harvey 1998 gives the back story to the earliest condemnations of Wyclif in 1377. Dahmus 1966 provides insight into William Courtenay’s opposition to Wyclif culminating in 1381. Ghosh 2002 explains how William Woodford, Nicholas Love, and Thomas Netter opposed Wyclif’s views on biblical interpretation from the late 14th to the early 15th centuries. Lahey 2005 examines the scholastic background to the views of Wyclif’s mid-15th-century opponent Reginald Pecock, while Campbell 2010 contextualizes his pastoral aims.

Campbell, Kirsty. The Call to Read: Reginald Pecock’s Books and Textual Communities. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.
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Analyzes Reginald Pecock’s books—or those that survived burnings—as a comprehensive program for educating the laity that responded to many such previous attempts, most centrally that of the lollards, and to the pressures of its own 15th-century milieu.
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Dahmus, Joseph H. William Courtenay: Archbishop of Canterbury 1381–1396. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1966.
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Well-written, accessible biography of William Courtenay, detailing his opposition to Wyclif and Wycliffism, first as bishop of London and then as archbishop of Canterbury.
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Ghosh, Kantik. The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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Presents helpful accounts of the writings of Wyclif’s opponents William Woodford, Nicholas Love, and Thomas Netter.
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Harvey, Margaret M. “Adam Easton and the Condemnation of John Wyclif.” English Historical Review 113.451 (April 1998): 321–335.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/CXIII.451.321Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces Easton’s involvement in Wyclif’s condemnation by Gregory IX in 1377: examines the content of Easton’s Defensorium, which engages at length with Wyclif’s De Civili Dominio, showing that it is an important source for analyzing Easton’s understanding of Wyclif’s thought. Includes an edition of Wyclif’s 1377 condemnation from the register of Simon Sudbury.
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Lahey, Stephen E. “Reginald Pecock on the Authority of Reason, Scripture, and Tradition.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 56.2 (April 2005): 235–260.
DOI: 10.1017/S002204690500326XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analyzes the scholastic background to Pecock’s valuation of reason over ecclesiastical authority, as well as his understanding of the relationship between reason and faith. Shows that Pecock relies closely on Aquinas and Scotus. Explains how Pecock’s understanding of reason produces his account of the authority of scripture and of church tradition.
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Lollardy and Women

The first studies of women in lollard communities examined references to women who were learned or who celebrated the mass, beliefs perhaps associated with the idea of a priesthood of all believers (see, e.g., Cross 1978). McSheffrey 1995 shows that cases where lollard women attained prominence within the movement were rare: in general, lollards held highly traditional attitudes to the role of women. McSheffrey’s book has quelled efforts to cast lollards as precursors to modern-day feminists, and no study has yet attempted to revise her overall findings. Nevertheless, as Krug 2002 explores, there is certainly much to be learned from the ways that women were active in lollardy, and from the ways lollards and their opponents talked about women.

Cross, Claire. “‘Great Reasoners in Scripture’: The Activities of Women Lollards 1380–1530.” In Medieval Women. Edited by Derek Baker, 359–380. Studies in Church History, Subsidia 1. Oxford: Blackwell, 1978.
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Surveys records of women’s active involvement in lollard literacy.
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Krug, Rebecca. Reading Families: Women’s Literate Practice in Late Medieval England. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.
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Chapter 3 examines lollard women in Norwich around 1430, focusing on records of women’s participation in textual culture from the Norwich heresy trials. Krug argues that within this group, how these women thought about themselves as readers was closely bound to their religious identity and position within their community.
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McSheffrey, Shannon. Gender and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities 1420–1530. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
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The first wide-ranging survey of trial records associated with heresy across the 15th and early 16th centuries since Thomson’s. Argues that except in highly unusual cases, women did not take leading roles in lollard communities. Lollards on the whole had conservative attitudes to gender roles, and the unit within lollard communities was typically the traditional household.
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Lollard Book Production and Circulation

Except in the case of Wyclif’s writings, we only rarely know the authors of writings that are linked with the lollard movement. We know where and when they were written even more rarely. However, much can be learned about how lollards (and others) made and used their books, by examining the relationships between books, how they were produced and circulated, and the ways they were read. Among other kinds of evidence, such research examines the makeup, layout, textual affiliations, dialect, and scribal hands of extant manuscripts that contain writings linked with lollardy. This area of study has been a burgeoning focus of attention in recent years, especially though not only among students of Anne Hudson, who has been a leader in this field. The development of this field mirrors a broader increase in interest in paleographical and codicological study in the field of Middle English as a whole. Hudson 1981 and Hudson 1992 describe aspects of lollard textuality that fundamentally condition the study of their writings. Hanna 1996 discusses how some books containing lollard writings were compiled and produced. Havens 2004 and Havens 2005 explain coherence within and relationships among some lollard compilations. Scase 1992 shows how some books containing lollard items were circulated among readers. Peikola 2005–2006 and Dove 2007 revisit the textual history of the Wycliffite Bible.

Dove, Mary. The First English Bible: The Text and Context of the Wycliffite Versions. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 66. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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The most complete study of the debate over authorship, the process of composition, and the prologues, glosses, and textual versions of the Wycliffite Bible. Contains a newly updated list of the Bible’s extant manuscripts, together with brief descriptions.
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Hanna, Ralph, III. Pursuing History: Middle English Texts and Their Manuscripts. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.
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“The Origins and Production of Westminster School MS. 3” discusses the manuscript’s textual affiliations and production. “Two Lollard Codices and Lollard Book Production” discusses Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 296 and its “partial twin,” Dublin, Trinity College MS 244, claiming that they provide evidence of booklets being shared within a religious community.
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Havens, Jill C. “A Narrative of Faith: Middle English Devotional Anthologies and Religious Practice.” Journal of the Early Book Society 7 (Summer 2004): 67–84.
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Rather than imposing an a priori set of assumptions about the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of texts in anthologies, Havens argues here that many devotional anthologies are most productively analyzed as exemplary narratives of a reader’s developing faith, and traces such narratives through a range of examples.
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Havens, Jill C. “Shading the Grey Area: Determining Heresy in Middle English Texts.” In Text and Controversy from Wyclif to Bale: Essays in Honour of Anne Hudson. Edited by Helen Barr and Ann M. Hutchinson, 337–352. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005.
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Attending to textual and scribal relationships and to what Hudson has called a “Lollard sect vocabulary,” maps out a group of indeterminate texts connected to Oxford, University College MS 97 to “disentangle” their religious affiliations and provide a clearer picture of the “grey area” between the poles of orthodox and heterodox belief.
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Hudson, Anne. “Some Problems of Identity and Identifications in Wycliffite Writings.” In Middle English Prose: Essays on Bibliographical Problems. Edited by A. S. G. Edwards and Derek Pearsall, 81–90. New York: Garland, 1981.
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Surveys bibliographical problems that emerge in classifying anonymous religious prose writings, given the frequency with which compilers of manuscripts redact or combine them in varying forms and the difficulty of discerning their ideological stance. Suggests that tracing and indexing sources quoted may help.
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Hudson, Anne. “The Variable Text.” In Crux and Controversy in Middle English Textual Criticism. Edited by A. J. Minnis, 49–60. Woodbridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 1992.
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Beginning with a discussion of the frequency with which medieval texts have been passed down in competing versions, Hudson goes on to discuss the nature of the fluctuations among versions of the Glossed Gospels and revisions to Rolle’s Commentary on the English Psalter, including borrowings they make from other texts.
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Peikola, Matti. “‘First is Writen a Clause of the Bigynnynge Therof’: The Table of Lections in Manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible.” Boletín Millares Carlo 24–25 (2005–2006): 343–378.
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Surveys variation in the form and content of tables of lections (i.e., calendars listing the liturgical readings for occasions across the year) in Bible manuscripts. Considers how the tables would have been useful to readers. Argues that the structural and textual development of the tables testifies to a gradual loss of Wycliffite ideological control over the production of copies of the Bible.
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Scase, Wendy. “Reginald Pecock, John Carpenter and John Colop’s ‘Common-Profit’ Books: Aspects of Book Ownership and Circulation in Fifteenth-Century London.” Medium Aevum 61.2 (1992): 261–274.
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Examines informal book circulation schemes for vernacular devotional manuscripts among Londoners. Scase picks up traces of these in books owned by the Colop and Carpenter families and Reginald Pecock.
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Lollard Writings

Items included here focus on elucidating the content, textual affiliations, or reception of individual texts associated with lollardy. Hargreaves 1979 investigates how the Glossed Gospels were composed, Nissé 1997 examines how the Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge interprets the Bible, and Spencer 1986 describes and traces the reception of a lollard sermon cycle. Sometimes in the process the authors also reevaluate a text’s association with lollardy—Hanna 2005 on the basis of manuscript dating, Hudson 1985 and Hudson 1988 on the basis of comparison with lollard writings on the same topic, and Watson 2003 on the basis of expository style and doctrinal claims. Although these studies use many of the same methods as those listed in Lollard Book Production and Circulation, the central focus among articles listed here is a text, rather than one or more manuscripts. The field very much needs studies that develop our understanding of the content of lollard writings, case by case and in their relation to one another, especially because many lollard writings remain unprinted and even some of those available in print are little read. As our understanding develops, so will our sense of what is typical among lollard writings.

Hanna, Ralph. London Literature, 1300–1380. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511483318Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chapter 4 considers Pepys 2498, a manuscript containing what critics have in the past thought to be a lollard interpolation of the Ancrene Riwle. Hanna argues that the manuscript is too early for this version to be associated with lollardy.
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Hargreaves, Henry. “Popularising Biblical Scholarship: The Role of the Wycliffite Glossed Gospels.” In The Bible and Medieval Culture. Edited by W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst, 171–189. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1979.
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Starts with Hudson’s argument that the English Wycliffite Sermons’ composition was tightly controlled, comparing this to what we know of how the Bible was translated. Suggests that the Glossed Gospels were also composed in a well-organized process, despite the variations among the versions that remain.
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Hudson, Anne. “A New Look at the Lay Folk’s Catechism.” Viator 16.1 (1985): 243–258.
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Discusses two manuscripts in the Bodleian Library: Douce 273, and a companion volume now split between Eng.th.e.181 (see Hudson 1988) and Douce 274. Compares their contents to a Lambeth manuscript, identified as lollard in the 1901 Early English Text Series volume of “The Lay Folk’s Catechism” by Simmons and Nolloth (see Simmons and Nolloth 1901, cited under Dubious Cases). Hudson argues that the Lambeth manuscript should not be considered lollard, and that the Bodleian volumes, while they contain some questionable material, seem to be more confused than consistently heterodox.
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Hudson, Anne. “The Lay Folk’s Catechism: A Postscript.” Viator 19.1 (1988): 307–310.
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Hudson wrote this postscript to account for her discovery of the manuscript that is now known as Bodleian MS Eng.th.e.181.
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Nissé, Ruth. “Reversing Discipline: The Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge, Lollard Exegesis, and the Failure of Representation.” Yearbook of Langland Studies 11 (1997): 163–194.
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A closely attentive reading of the Tretise, a two-part work whose lollard affiliations have been doubted. Argues that its concerns over biblical hermeneutics are very much like those of other lollard writings, and that the difficulty of resolving these concerns may be one reason why the work’s lollardy has seemed muted or dubious to some readers.
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Spencer, Helen L. “The Fortunes of a Lollard Sermon Cycle in the Later Fifteenth Century.” Mediaeval Studies 48.1 (1986): 352–396.
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Examines the lollard sermon cycle preserved in Sidney Sussex 74 and Bodley 95. Also discusses the affiliations of the contents of these manuscripts with other sermons and how the Bodley 95 version, while unlikely to have been copied from it, has toned down or otherwise altered what appears in the earlier Sidney Sussex version.
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Watson, Nicholas. “Vernacular Apocalyptic: On The Lanterne of Liȝt.” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 47 (2003): 115–127.
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A closely attentive reading of the lollard manual of religious instruction The Lanterne of Liȝt. Argues on the basis of the work’s exegetical methods and its theory of salvation (both of which Watson thinks are atypical of lollardy: arguably, more recent work on Wyclif and on lollard writings may suggest otherwise) that the Lanterne is better labeled as “reformist” rather than “lollard.”
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Sources of Lollard Writings

Lollard writings make extensive use of mainstream sources, sometimes adapting them or responding to them, sometimes interpolating their own concerns directly into an otherwise unaltered text. Studies listed here attempt to elucidate these relationships between lollardy and mainstream religion, by examining specific cases or genres. Brady 1988 traces the sources of the Pore Caitif; Raschko 2009, the reception of A Schort Reule of Lif; and Nolcken 1988, how Piers the Plowman’s Crede adapts Piers Plowman. Lewis 2009 investigates relationships between commentaries on the Pater Noster, while Peikola 2000 undertakes a similar investigation for commentaries on the Ave Maria. Szittya 1986 provides a wide-ranging investigation of the origins and development of antifraternal writings; Watson 2009 advocates for more investigation of the Anglo-Norman sources behind later medieval English religious writings.

Brady, M. Theresa. “Lollard Sources of the Pore Caitif.” Traditio 44 (1988): 389–418.
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Traces the use and influence of passages in the Pore Caitif apparently taken from the Glossed Gospels, the Early Version of the Bible translation, a translation of the De salutaribus documentis, and possibly the Floretum.
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Lewis, Anna. “Textual Borrowings, Theological Mobility, and the Lollard Pater Noster Commentary.” Philological Quarterly 88.1–2 (Winter–Spring 2009): 1–23.
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Discusses one of the three so-called lollard commentaries on the Pater Noster to show that while it contains some lollard complaints, it is also linguistically and topically indebted to orthodox commentary traditions.
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Nolcken, Christina von. “Piers Plowman, the Wycliffites, and Pierce the Plowman’s Creed.” Yearbook of Langland Studies 2.1 (1988): 71–102.
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Analyzes how Pierce the Plowman’s Creed differs from Piers Plowman, and thus how it helps us understand how Wycliffite writings differ from Langland’s poem more broadly. Urges scholars to understand the lollard poem on its own terms, rather than dismiss it as merely a debasement or sentimentalization of Piers Plowman.
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Peikola, Matti. “‘And After All, My Aue-Maria Almost to the Ende’: Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede and Lollard Expositions of the Ave Maria.” English Studies 4 (2000): 273–292.
DOI: 10.1076/0013-838X(200007)81:4;1-F;FT273Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Shows how the phrase “almost to an ende” in the Crede is linked with lollard concern over the adding of nonbiblical words to the prayer in commentaries on the Ave Maria. Examines textual variation among the manuscript copies of the Ave Maria commentaries.
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Raschko, Mary. “Common Ground for Contrasting Ideologies: The Texts and Contexts of A Schort Reule of Lif.” Viator 40.1 (2009): 387–410.
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Traces textual variation among the extant copies of the Schort Reule (reedited in an appendix) and surveys the manuscript settings in which they appear, in order to show that the degree to which the text is altered to remove lollard statements only rarely matches up neatly with what can be discerned about the affiliation with lollardy of the manuscript as a whole.
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Szittya, Penn R. The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
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Traces the history of antifraternalism and its reception in late medieval England from conflicts in mid-13th-century Paris through to Fitzralph, Wyclif, Chaucer’s “Summoner’s Tale,” and Piers Plowman. Particularly valuable for its account of English manuscripts in which antifraternal materials were redacted and circulated.
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Watson, Nicholas. “Lollardy: The Anglo-Norman Heresy?” In Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England, c. 1100–c. 1500. Edited by Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, 334–346. Woodbridge, UK: York Medieval, 2009.
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Invites broader consideration of the Anglo-Norman origins of many Middle English religious writings, focusing on how one of the short treatises in favor of vernacular biblical translation in Cambridge University Library MS Ii.6.26 makes use of the second prologue to Robert of Gretham’s Miroir. Given this and many similar examples listed more briefly here, Watson asks for further consideration of how later medieval English religious controversies descend from the translation of Anglo-Norman texts and practices.
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Vernacular Writing, Lay Education, and Censorship

Wyclif and his followers were greatly concerned with what they saw as the inadequacies of pastoral instruction of the laity. In this they were far from alone: many later medieval writers complained about clerical corruption and laziness, or else sought to provide writings for priests to use in teaching their parishioners and for lay readers to use themselves. Nor were lollard writers alone in their use of the vernacular for pastoral instruction: preaching to the laity had to be in English, if it were to be comprehensible, and religious writings in English for readers unable to read Latin had increasingly been produced from the 13th century onward (let alone before the Conquest). Some studies such as Copeland 2001 and Minnis 2009 have attempted to describe features of vernacular translation and religious instruction that were distinctive to lollardy. Others have focused on commonalities: see Hanna 1990, Somerset 1998. What was new in the early 15th century was that biblical translation, the utility and benefits of which had been openly debated until the early 1400s, was after Arundel’s Constitutions of 1407–1409 officially suspect, ostensibly on the grounds of its difficulty. New translations would have to be submitted for approval, and according to a later commentator, not only translations of the whole Bible but translations of any part of it were included in this ruling (though it seems doubtful that it could have been enforced in any systematic way). Spencer 1993 suggests that sermon writing across the 15th century may have been affected. Watson 1995 suggests that the effect of this and other provisions of Arundel’s Constitutions was a wide-ranging censorship of vernacular religious writing in the 15th century. A wide range of subsequent studies have attempted to provide further evidence of this thesis, or else to dispute or refine it: see, for example, Somerset 2003 and Holsinger 2006.

Copeland, Rita. Pedagogy, Intellectuals, and Dissent in the Later Middle Ages: Lollardy and Ideas of Learning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511483264Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that lollard attitudes to lay education produced a leveling of traditional pedagogical hierarchies within the movement.
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Hanna, Ralph. “The Difficulty of Ricardian Prose Translation: The Case of the Lollards.” Modern Language Quarterly 51.3 (1990): 319–340.
DOI: 10.1215/00267929-51-3-319Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces worries about how difficult it is to provide an accurate, faithful translation in a range of late medieval English writers, lollard and otherwise.
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Holsinger, Bruce, ed. “Literary History and the Religious Turn.” English Language Notes 44.1 (Spring 2006): 1–4.
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This volume of English Language Notes contains a series of nine essays in a cluster titled “‘Vernacular Theology’ and Medieval Studies” that respond to Nicholas Watson’s influential 1995 essay (see Watson 1995) on “Censorship and Cultural Change.”
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Minnis, Alastair J. Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature: Valuing the Vernacular. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511575662Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A chapter on the examination for heresy of Walter Brut illustrates the subtlety of Brut’s theology and his argument for the vernacular and comments more broadly on the nature of Wyclif’s and Wycliffite interest in using English for the Bible translation.
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Somerset, Fiona. Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511583070Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Claims that what was unusual and controversial about the idioms and content of the kind of vernacular translation being done by Wycliffites and a few of their contemporaries in the late 14th and early 15th centuries was that it made concepts, methods of argumentation, and discursive modes previously available only to university-educated clerics in Latin more widely accessible to lay readers. Chapters address, in turn, Piers Plowman, the oeuvre of John Trevisa, the lollard “Twelve Conclusions” and Roger Dymmok’s reply, the Upland Series (redated in an appendix to c. 1380–1410), and the Testimony of William Thorpe.
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Somerset, Fiona. “Professionalizing Translation at the Turn of the Fifteenth Century: Ullerston’s Determinacio, Arundel’s Constitutiones.” In The Vulgar Tongue: Medieval and Postmedieval Vernacularity. Edited by Fiona Somerset and Nicholas Watson, 145–157. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.
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Reevaluates the conclusions of Nicholas Watson’s influential article “Censorship and Cultural Change,” contending that Arundel is responding to an academic debate between competing orthodoxies, rather than between heresy and orthodoxy, in which Ullerston is a participant. Also contends that the conclusions are far more concerned with regulating the institutions of late medieval education, especially in Oxford, than with the laity.
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Spencer, Helen Leith. English Preaching in the Late Middle Ages. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112037.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Provides an excellent introduction to the formats for late medieval preaching in England and the various written forms in which sermons of this period are preserved. Traces the regenerative and redactive tendencies of 15th-century vernacular sermon writing in particular, by examining how the most influential sermon collections of the 14th century were compiled and collected and rewritten—perhaps in response to censorship?—across this period.
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Watson, Nicholas. “Censorship and Cultural Change in Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409.” Speculum 70.4 (October 1995): 822–864.
DOI: 10.2307/2865345Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An influential article arguing that not only lollard writings and biblical translation but also a far wider range of religious writing in English in the 15th century were directly or indirectly affected by the prohibitions of Arundel’s 1407–1409 Constitutions.
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Lollardy and Middle English Literature

Especially since Anne Hudson’s Premature Reformation (Hudson 1988, cited in General Overviews) brought lollardy to wider attention among Middle English scholars, any number of studies have explored ways in which our understanding of more centrally canonical and commonly studied English writings may change when we consider them in relation to lollard writings. Not only the possibility that theological claims in mainstream writings may be in conversation with lollard claims, but aesthetics, macaronism, techniques of translation, social views, anticlericalism, and prose style, among an expanding range of topics, have come in for discussion. Gradon 1980, Lawton 1981, Cole 2003, and Holsinger 2005 trace relationships between Piers Plowman and its tradition and lollardy. Strohm 1995 considers Chaucer. Strohm 1998 and Cole 2008 trace influence across a broader range of 14th- and 15th-century writings, including those of Chaucer and Langland.

Cole, Andrew. Literature and Heresy in the Age of Chaucer. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511481420Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the origin of the term “lollard,” arguing that the Blackfriars’ Council in May 1382 was the point at which the church identified the local and mostly academic problem of Wycliffism as a popular heresy labeled as “lollardy.” Identifies formulations of the term in Langland as much more variable than this simple label implies. Then shows how this nuanced contemporary understanding of the term was taken up by Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Kempe.
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Cole, Andrew, ed. “Special Section: Langland and Lollardy.” Yearbook of Langland Studies 17.1 (2003): 3–105.
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This volume includes six essays devoted to the intersections between Langland and lollardy. Includes Cole, “Introduction: Langland and Lollardy,” Pearsall, “Langland and Lollardy: From B to C,” Somerset, “Expanding the Langlandian Canon: Radical Latin and the Stylistics of Reform,” and Hudson, “Langland and Lollardy?”
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Gradon, Pamela. “Langland and the Ideology of Dissent.” Proceedings of the British Academy 66 (1980): 179–205.
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Details differences between the dissenting views articulated at various points in Piers Plowman and those propounded in Wyclif’s or lollard writings.
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Holsinger, Bruce. “Lollard Ekphrasis: Situated Aesthetics and Literary History.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 35.1 (2005): 67–90.
DOI: 10.1215/10829636-35-1-67Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Responds to James Simpson’s Reform and Cultural Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), particularly Simpson’s “stated exclusion of Lollard writings from the domain of “literary history.” Holsinger argues that lollard writings participate in a “situated aesthetics” and uses Pierce the Plowman’s Crede as an example.
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Lawton, David. “Lollardy and the Piers Plowman Tradition.” Modern Language Review 76.4 (1981): 780–793.
DOI: 10.2307/3727188Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Outlines for the first time a canon of 15th-century poems strongly influenced by Piers Plowman, some of them linked with lollardy. Proposes that this lollard reception of Langland’s work suggests not that Langland had lollard sympathies (a possibility discredited by Gradon’s “Langland and the Ideology of Dissent”) but that lollards had “Langlandian sympathies.”
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Strohm, Paul. “Chaucer’s Lollard Joke: History and the Textual Unconscious.” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 17 (1995): 23–42.
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Argues that Chaucer’s “Pardoner’s Tale” makes, in its account of the work done by cooks, a rather serious joke about contemporary eucharistic polemic. Considers the implications of Chaucer’s inclusion of this “Lollard joke.”
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Strohm, Paul. England’s Empty Throne: Usurpation and the Language of Legitimation, 1399–1422. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
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Suggests that the Lancastrian regime manipulated public opinion about lollardy and presented its kings as defenders of orthodoxy—as one means to cement the legitimacy of Lancastrian rule. Suggests that it was opponents of lollardy, rather than lollards, who were preoccupied with the evidence of heresy that might be provided by views on the Eucharist.
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Lollard Discourse

Studies listed here investigate what is characterized as a distinctive idiom or use of language in Wyclif’s and lollard writings, and attempt to place that discourse within the context of its literary and intellectual milieu. Peikola 2000 surveys a range of lollard writings alongside mainstream Middle English writings, while Ghosh 2007 presents examples of characteristic Wyclifian and lollard discourse then elucidates their development from broader trends.

Ghosh, Kantik. “Logic and Lollardy.” Medium Aevum 76.2 (2007): 251–267.
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Places the emphasis on logic and argumentation in Wyclif’s and lollard writings in a broader European context of developments in the teaching of logic and its deployment in religious writing.
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Peikola, Matti. Congregation of the Elect: Patterns of Self-Fashioning in English Lollard Writings. Anglicana Turkuensia 21. Turku, Finland: University of Turku, 2000.
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Building on Hudson’s “Lollard Sect Vocabulary” article, uses tagging and digital searching of a wide range of lollard writings, compared with a “control group” of other Middle English writings, to develop an account of the terms lollard writers used to describe salient lollard characteristics and define themselves as a community.