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A Neglected Wycliffite Text

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Anne Hudson
Anne Hudson
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Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford
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Extract

Modern accounts of the Wycliffite movement and of the beliefs of its adherents have been based for the most part upon records compiled by opponents. Most obviously hostile are the episcopal registers and documents, though these have the advantage of being relatively prolific and almost always dated and localised; inevitably, secular records about the movement become more ample as Lollardy was identified with sedition. The surviving chronicles, such as those of Knighton or Walsingham, were largely written by members of those orders that Wyclif castigated throughout his teaching. The picture constructed from these records has sometimes been filled out with details from overtly hostile and polemical texts such as Netter's Doctrinale. Given such sources, it is hardly surprising that the accounts appear incomplete, even at times incoherent and contradictory. Episcopal registers, as has been suggested elsewhere, present only fragmentary records of the views they condemned; polemical authors, and even chroniclers, often wrote with hindsight, an advantage to their own argument, but a disqualification to their usefulness as historical sources. Particularly in the case of Lollardy, where increasing opposition from the ecclesiastical hierarchy was reinforced after about 1400 by suspicion of treason so amply confirmed in the Oldcastle revolt, late texts are peculiarly unreliable. McFarlane, in his posthumously published lectures, suggested that many aspects of the movement ‘are irremediably hidden from us’, unless ‘new material is found of a kind and quantity so far unsuspected’.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , July 1978 , pp. 257 - 279
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 See ‘The Examination of Lollards’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xlvi (1973), 145–59Google Scholar, especially 151–2; ‘The Debate on Bible Translation, Oxford 1401’, English Historical Review, xc (1975), 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 McFarlane, K. B., Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights, Oxford 1972, 141–2Google Scholar; the lectures as published date from 1966.

3 No mention of the text here discussed is found in Workman, H. B., John Wyclif, Oxford 1926Google Scholar, McFarlane, K. B., John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity, London 1952Google Scholar or Lambert, M., Medieval Heresy, London 1977, 217–71Google Scholar. The text was studied by Mrs. M. Aston for her article ‘Lollardy and the Reformation: Survival or Revival?’, History, xlix (1964), 156–7Google Scholar; I am much indebted to Mrs. Aston for telling me that she did not intend to publish further on the text and for discussing this paper with me.

4 All quotations from the Opus Arduum, unless otherwise stated, are from MS. Brno University Mk 28, here fol. 216; punctuation and capitalisation have been modernised, but the spelling of the MS. has not been normalised. I am grateful to the librarians of the various collections in which MSS. of the work have been preserved, and particularly to Dr. V. Dokoupil of Brno University Library.

5 Fols. 150, 181, 201.

6 Fol. 186; the question is part of a long comment on xiv.20.

7 Fols. 127, 164v; cf. also fols. 130v and a similar claim on fol. 141: ‘quamuis antichristi tortores nituntur claudere ora ewangelicorum eos incarcerando, tune dant eis maximam oportunitatem studendi et scribendi contra eum, cuius oppositum credunt ipsi’.

8 Fols. 161v, 174v;fols. 155v–156; the Flanders crusade fols. 132–3, 146, 154v, 160v, 178, 181, 188 etc.

9 Fols. 136v, 153, 157v, 161v 179, 181v; the significance of these passages will be discussed below.

10 See Aston, M., ‘Lollardy and Sedition, 1381–1431’, Past and Present, xvii (1960), 36 n. 1Google Scholar; for later use of the term by Wycliffites, where it is applied to Christ and his apostles see Selections from English Wycliffite Writings, Cambridge 1978, no. 17/151–2Google Scholar.

11 For descriptions of these MSS., and of others mentioned below in the same collections, see Dokoupil, V., Soupis rukopisū; Mikulovské Dietrichsteinshé knihovny, Soupisy rukopisných fondū. Universitní knihovny v Brně, ii, Prague 1958Google Scholar; Truhl´ř, J., Catalogus Codicum Manu Scriptorum Latinorum … in Bibliotheca Publica atque Universitatis Pragensis, Prague 1905–6Google Scholar; Podlaha, A., Soupis rukopisū knihovny Metropolitní Kapitoly Pražské, Prague 1910–22Google Scholar.

12 See Bartoš, F. M., ‘A Delegate of the Hussite Church to Constantinople in 1451–1452’, Byzantinoslavica, xxiv (1963), 287–92Google Scholar and xxv (1964), 69–74; also my paper ‘A Lollard Compilation in England and Bohemia’, Journal of Theological Studies, NS xxv (1974), 132–40Google Scholar.

13 For the rest of the colophon in this MS. see below, 270.

14 Die Handschriften der Badischen Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe iv: Die Karlsruher Handschriften, i, Wiesbaden 1970, no. 346Google Scholar; also Kaminsky, H. et al. , ‘Master Nicholas of Dresden, The Old Color and the New’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, NS lv (1965), 33Google Scholar.

15 See the catalogue by Cenci, C., Manoscritti francescani della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, i, Florence 1971, no. 212Google Scholar; the text ends incomplete on fol. 90v in chapter xiii.

16 For instance in Brno Mk 62 the Opus Arduum is accompanied by Wyclif's Dialogus, De Eundacione Sectarian, De Perfectione Statuum and an extract from De Ecclesia; Karlsruhe 346 contains various works by Nicholas of Dresden. Compare the usual addition of a paragraph on utraquism to the distinctio Eucharistia in the Floretum in Hussite copies mentioned in my paper referred to above (n. 12), 134.

17 Save in the lack from both MSS. of any commentary to chapter vii. 9–17, an omission noted in the Prague University Library MS., fol. 66 margin. All of the MSS. except those in Brno are listed by F. Stegmuller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, Madrid 1940–61, but divided under two entries, nos. 4870 and 5118; the reference under the former to Prague Metropolitan Chapter A. 108 should be deleted. Stegmuller under 4870 also listed a MS. from sale catalogue number 7 (no date) of Jacques Rosenthal, Karlstrasse 10, Munich; from the details there under no. 1008 it is not clear that the text was the Opus Arduum.

18 For the first see Ryba, B., ‘Strahovské Zjevenie, Česky husitský výklad na Apokalypsu…’, Strahovská knihovna i (1966), 7–29Google Scholar; for the second Molnar, A., ‘Apocalypse xii dans l'interpretation hussite’, Revue, d'kistoire et de philosophic religieuses, xlv (1965), 212–31Google Scholar.

19 The title of the work in Luther's edition was Commentarius in Apocalypsin ante Centum Annos editus; for some comments see Mrs. Aston's paper (n. 3 above), 156–7, and Molnar, art. cit., 214–15

20 The English origin is evident from, for instance, fols. 59–59v, 67v; on fol. 170 the marginal note selected the date 1357 from an error in the edition, and this is erroneously corrected at the end to 1338 (fol. 195v), but on fol. 170v the correct date 1390 appears (as also fol. 122v where the date appropriate to the beginning of the text, 1389, is given).

21 For instance Luther preserves a comment on vernacular books with only minor alteration at xii.4 (Luther edition fol. 110v), completely omitted in the Naples MS. and partially omitted in Prague University III.G. 17; all, however, have identical omissions at ii.17, vi.4, x.4, xi.2; the text of all three is identical in the section omitted in the two MSS. primarily used here (above, n. 17) and plainly derives from a Lollard exemplar.

22 See fol. 168, quoting Lyra on Judges ix; for Wyclif's allusion to this same definition see Benrath, G., Wyclifs Bibelkommentar, Berlin 1966, 304 n. 837CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Fols. 168v–71; the friars’ preaching of fables is seen as a n offence against the second commandment, indulgences against the fourth, die licentiousness of die priesdiood against the sixth, and, at great length, appropriations, ecclesiastical patronage and simony against the tenth. The connexion between plagues and commandments is made in a short paragraph often appended to the Floretum (e.g., MS. Harley 401, fol. 334v), but this discussion is much longer. For other discussions see Arnold, T., Select English Works of John Wyclif, Oxford 1869–71, iii. 82–92Google Scholar, the Wycliffite addition to The Lay Folks’ Catachism, ed. Simmons, T. F. and Nolloth, H. E., EETS 118 (1901), 33–59Google Scholar, and A. Kellogg, L. and Talbert, E. W., ‘The Wycliffite Pater Noster and Ten Commandments’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, xlii (1960), 363–77Google Scholar.

24 The section is completely omitted from Luther's edition and from die abbreviated Prague University Library MS. III.G. 17 (the Naples MS. has broken off before this point), but there is no reason to suppose that it was not a part of the original text: the vocabulary is the same, and the debate follows on from earlier discussion of the temporal claims of the clergy. The section is the last of four questions discussed, the first concerning vocal praise in heaven, the second on images and the third on how God can inflict perpetual pain in hell.

25 A full investigation of the text's sources cannot be undertaken here; the comments that follow concern the writer's major declared debts and possible influence from Wyclif.

26 For the more accurate references of the Floretum see ‘A Lollard Compilation and the Dissemination of Wycliffite Thought’, Journal of Theological Studies, NS xxiii (1972), 65–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Canon law is used at one point, in typical Wycliffite fashion, to show how-it refutes the views of die friars on die Eucharist (fol. 162v).

27 The works quoted are Grosseteste's commentary on the De Celesti Hierarchia (fol. 126v) and the De Mystica Theologia (fol. 129) of pseudo-Dionysius, and the Dicta (fol. 150v). Hussite writings and transcripts usually cite Grosseteste as Lincolniensis, but the insular origin of the present text is shown in the use of his personal name as well (fol. 140).

28 The incipit is given as ‘Status predicatorum’; such a text is not included amongst the works of Kilwardby by Glorieux, P., La Faculté des Arts et ses maitres au xiiie siecle, Paris 1971, no. 411Google Scholar.

29 See Workman, John Wyclif, i. 342.

30 Fols. 147v, 162, 171v, 180.

31 Fol. 147v; for Lollard sanctification see Arnold, op. cit., iii. 459/1, 467/17, and the mention of ‘sanctus Ricardus qui gessit hoc negocium quod ego nunc habeo contra fratres’ in Nicholas Hereford's Ascension Day sermon in 1382, reported in MS. Bodley 240, fol. 848v.

32 For the influence of Joachim in fourteenth-century England see Bloomfield, M. W., Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth-century Apocalypse, New Brunswick 1961, 157–60Google Scholar, and Reeves, M. E., The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford 1969, 81–8Google Scholar; for his influence on English Apocalypse commentaries see Smalley, B., ‘John Russel O.F.M.’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, xxiii (1956), 277–320Google Scholar, and ‘Flaccianus De Visionibus Sibyllae’, Mélanges offerts à Étienne Gilson, Toronto and Paris 1959, 552–4Google Scholar.

33 See Douie, D. L., The Nature and the Effect of the Heresy of the Fraticelli, Manchester 1932, 81–119Google Scholar, and Manselli, R., La ‘Lectura super Apocalipsim’ di Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, Rome 1955Google Scholar. Bale owned a copy of the Apocalypse commentary before 1553 (see McCusker, H., ‘Books and Manuscripts formerly in the possession of John Bale’, The Library, 4th series xvi (1935), 159 no. 249Google Scholar).

34 For Wyclif's view of Ockham see De Veritate Sacre Scripture, i. 346/21–354/12 (all references are to the editions of the Wyclif Society unless otherwise stated), De Ordinatione Fratrum (Polemical Works, i), 92/2, 94/13 and 95/15.

35 The two texts were printed by Brown, E., Appendix ad Fasciculum Rerum Expetendarum…ii, London 1690, 494–508Google Scholar; for these and other works see Bignami-Odier, J., Études sur Jean de Roquetaillade, Paris 1952Google Scholar, and Reeves, op. rit., 225–8, 321–5.

36 De Ordinatione Fratrum 92/4. The Collectiones Sacrae Scripturae (Opera Omnia, Constance 1632, 462)Google Scholar is quoted in die Floretum under edificacio and in the Lanteme of Light, ed. Swinburn, L. M., EETS 151 (1917), p.38/3–14Google Scholar. For Netter's assertion see Doctrinale Fidei Catholicae…, ed. Blanciotti, B., Venice 1757–9, iv. 3Google Scholar, 22 (references to Netter are by book and chapter).

37 Benrath, op. cit, g; see MSS. Bodley 716, fols. 162–162v and Magdalen College Oxford 55, fol. 241v.

38 Perhaps the most interesting case is the parallel with De Solutione Sathanae, a work of Wyclif's last years; despite a review of some of the same topics, there is no close parallel of exegesis.

39 Apart from the abbreviated versions mentioned, only one MS. (Prague Metropolitan Chapter A. 117, fol. 69v) does not entirely confirm the reading: in the text it has the name ‘Wilhelmus’ but the margin has a rubricated ‘Wycleff’. The scribe of Brno Mk 28 and correctors of Prague University V.E.3 and of Karlsruhe 346 wrongly anticipated Wyclif's name in the first part of the sentence as the expansion of ‘W.’.

40 There are a number of similar passages, for instance fol. 185: ‘et alter angelus quilibet zelator et predicator ewangelice ueritatis desiderans iudicium extremum in quo manifestabitur omnibus ueritas doctrine sue contra antichristum’.

41 The date of the by-name's origin is unclear. It was certainly well established by 1395 when it was used to refer to the author of the Trialogus in the Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards (see English Historical Review, xxii (1907), 297Google Scholar); similarly it is the regular appellation in the Floretum which must antedate 1396. Knighton in his Chronicon, written c. 1390–95, described the Wycliffites as doctores Evangelicae, ed. Lumby, J. R., Rolls Series 1889–95, ii. 186Google Scholar, presupposing the name for Wyclif. It is regularly used in MSS. of Wyclif's works, whether of English origin (as Trinity College Dublin 0.1.23) or Hussite (as Vienna 4343, 4505).

42 Thus ix.4 (fol. 163v): ‘dicentem uocem scilicet vj oangelo cuicumque predicatori ewangelico qui habebat tubam, id est doctrinam ewangelicam contra antichristum declarandam quia non solum Iohannes sed omnes precones Christi preteriti temporis premouerunt nos qui sumus tempore antichristi quid facturi sumus contra eum, solue quattuor angelos, id est, tu predicator… predica ut sibi caueant electi ne decipiantur ab eis per antichristum’.

43 See Šmahel, F., ‘“Doctor evangelicus super omnes evangelistas”: Wyclif's Fortune in Hussite Bohemia’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xliii (1970), 25Google Scholar and n. 3.

44 For the terminology see Journal of Theological Studies, NS xxii (1971), 457–8Google Scholar; with the fidelis predicator compare Knighton, ii. 179 ‘trewe prechoures’ and 188 ‘falsos fratres vocantes, seipsos veros praedicatores et evangelicos’; for other elements of this vocabulary compare Pecock, Represser of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy, ed. Babington, C., Rolls Series 1860, i. 36Google Scholar, 53 and Netter, vi. 33.

45 For the discussion of this question see my paper cited above (n. 1). The defence of vernacular scriptures was not at this dale the prerogative of the Lollards, and the author of the Opus Arduum seems to have been ahead of his time in identifying the opposition with the friars. There are, as will be discussed below, other topics on which the author seems to have been very perceptive in his understanding of incipient difficulties.

46 Knighton, ii. 313; it should be noted that these MSS. cannot have contained the Wycliffite Bible, since this would not have been described as ‘de…aliis episcopis et doctoribus’. Knighton dates the confiscation as 1392, but Courtenay's register shows this to be incorrect: see Dahmus, J. H., The Metropolitan Visitations of William Courtenay, Illinois 1950, 164–7Google Scholar.

47 See ‘A Lollard Sermon-Cycle and its Implications’, Medium Aevum, xl (1971), 142–56Google Scholar; the case there made could now be much more strongly supported.

48 As for instance in the concluding section of his prologue, where the author compares his own position with that of the original recipient of the vision (fol. 127), or in the last verses of the final chapter (fols. 215v–216) where he recommends his work.

49 Knighton, ii. 186–7: ‘acsi essent de uno gignasio educati et doctrinati ac etiam de unius magistri schola simul referti et nutriti’, their master forming them ‘eadem identitate spiritus sui… et conformitate unius loquelae’.

50 See Workman, op. cit., especially i. 329–32; Deanesly, M., The Lollard Bible, Cambridge 1920, especially 252ffGoogle Scholar. The Two Ways has been edited by Scattergood, V. J., The Works of John Clanvowe, Cambridge 1975, 57–80Google Scholar; see the comments of McFarlane, Lollard Knights, 199–206.

51 The story concerns the release of two falsi monetarii from sentence of death following prayers on their behalf to the Virgin Mary; the date is ‘in festo sancti Hugonis’, presumably the translation of St. Hugh as the greater saint on 6 October; see Breviarium ad Usum insignis ecdesiae Sarum, ed. Procter, F. and Wordsworth, C., Cambridge 1879–86, iii. 890Google Scholar.

52 ‘Wi.’ is found in Prague Metropolitan Chapter A. 163, ‘Wij.’ in the same library A. 117; the four that lack the name are Metropolitan Chapter B.48/1, B.82/2, Prague University Library III.G.17 and Luther's edition; the Naples text is defective by this stage.

53 For the second set of Brut's answers see Registrum Johannis Trefhant, ed. Capes, W. W., Canterbury and York Society (1916), 285–358Google Scholar; for Thorpe's examination see the modernised edition by Pollard, A. W., Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, London 1903, 101–67Google Scholar. Thorpe's references could all have come from a single roll which, from other trial evidence, Lollards often carried to counter attacks on their beliefs.

54 For literary works undertaken in prison compare the familiar instances of Charles of Orleans or Sir Thomas Malory; in both these cases their offences were completely unconnected with anything they wrote or would have need of in their writing.

55 In MSS. Vienna 4526, 4925 and Naples; all are late medieval hands.

56 Bartoš, F. M., ‘Lollardský a Husitský Vyklad Apokalypsy’, Reformačni Sborní, vi (1937), 112–14Google Scholar.

57 For the various sources concerning this episode in Wyche's career, see Snape, M. G., ‘Some Evidence of Lollard Activity in the Diocese of Durham in the early fifteenth century’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th series xxxix (1961), 355–61Google Scholar.

58 See Calendar of Close Rolls, 1435–41 (1937), 385–6Google Scholar.

59 For instance Tanner, T., Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica sive De Scriptoribus, London 1748, 609Google Scholar.

60 A Short-Title Catalogue… 1475–1640, ed. Pollard, A. W. and Redgrave, G. R., London 1926Google Scholar (hereafter cited as STC), lists the first edition as no. 1297 ([1548?]); no. 1299 printed by Wyer is certainly of 1550. For the earlier datings see Fairfield, L. P., ‘John Bale and the Development of Protestant Hagiography in England’, in this Journal, xxiv (1973), 149 n. 4Google Scholar.

61 Mrs. Aston, History, xlix (1964), 157 n. 32Google Scholar, connects this with the explanation of Apocalypse xiii. 18 given by Bale (pt. ii, sig. K.7): Bale states that one interpretation of the number 666 ‘was found out by a certaine vnnamed disciple of John Wyckleffe1. Mrs. Aston takes both to refer to the Opus Arduum. But, in fact, the interpretation bears no resemblance to either Luther's printed commentary on the verse (fol. 124), or to the full Opus Arduum (fols. 181v–182).

62 STC, 1295, another edition 1296; fols. 181–181v; the appended note indicates, though not with particular reference to the Apocalypse commentary, that Purvey wrote ‘adversus Satane synagogam’ and that he identified this with the Church of Rome—not an unusual view amongst the Lollards. Bale added a muddled and partially incorrect sentence about Purvey's later history.

63 Op. cit., 541–3. Purvey does not appear in Bale's Index Britanniae Scriptorum, ed. R. L. Poole and M. Bateson, Oxford 1902. Bale's brief biography of Purvey inserted into a blank space in MS. e Musaeo 86, f. 62 (the MS. of Fasciculi Zizaniorum) provides no help about his writings. Bale's own annotated copy of his Summarium is now Edinburgh University Library MS. Laing 651, but unfortunately contains no comments on the Purvey entry.

64 See Bale's reference to Netter, Catalogus, i. 542; for Netter's observation see Doctrinale, vi. 117.

65 Knighton, op. cit., ii. 178–80; McFarlane, Lollard Knights, 149 n. 3 notes that Knighton ‘grouped too many incidents in which Wycliffe, Swinderby, and other Lollards were concerned within a single year for the accuracy of his dating to be accepted’. The events of 1401 are recorded in Fasciculi Zizaniorum, ed. Shirley, W. W., Rolls Series (1858), 400–407Google Scholar.

66 Doctrinale, ii. 70, 73; vi. 13, 17. For discussion of some works attributed to Purvey, see my paper cited in n. 1 above and Selections from English Wycliffite Writings, Cambridge 1978Google Scholar, introductory notes to nos. 2, 3, 6, 24 and 27. I hope to publish elsewhere a full study of Purvey's career and possible writings.

67 Some candidates, such as William Taylor and William White, seem not worth consideration since the evidence suggests that their involvement with the Lollard cause was later than the dates here in question.

68 Knighton, op. cit., ii. 180–83, 190–91, 313: for the date see above, n. 46. See further Crompton, J., ‘Leicestershire Lollards’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, xliv (1968–9), 19ffGoogle Scholar.

69 Trefnant register (above, n. 53), 231–78 and 278–359 respectively; for Swinderby's earlier career in Leicester see Knighton, ii. 189–97 and Crompton, loc. cit. It appears that Swinderby spent the years 1387–90 preaching on the Welsh marches, where he came into contact with Brut.

70 See the modernised edition noted above, n. 53, and Selections (above, n. 66) no. 4; the investigation by Braybrook is confirmed by John Lydford's book, ed. D. M. Owen, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, NS xx (1975), nos. 206 and 209.

71 References for James's career are collected in Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, Oxford 1957–9, ii. 1012–13Google Scholar. His name is not found in the college records between 1384 and 1391, but the material is not complete and die evidence is negative anyway. Netter, Doctrinale v. 26 has an undated story of James's blasphemous behaviour at mass.

72 See references in Emden, op. cit., ii. 913–15; Workman, ii. 131–7, 336–9, though some details in the latter need correction and attribution of English works, other than biblical translation, to Hereford is largely hypothetical.

73 Calendar of Close Rolls 1385–9 (1921), 208Google Scholar; the instrument for Hereford's arrest is printed in full by Logan, F. D., Excommunication and the Secular Arm in Medieval England, Toronto 1968, 193Google Scholar. See Lollard Knights, 198–9 for comments on the arrest and transfer by McFarlane.

74 Calendar of Patent Rolls 1391–6 (1905), 8Google Scholar; Hereford acted as one of the bishop's assessors in the trial of Walter Brut in October 1393 (Trefnant register, 359, 394–401).

75 Walsingham, , Historia Anglicana, ed. Riley, H. T., Rolls Series (1863–4), ii. 159–60Google Scholar; the story was copied into the notebook of the Carthusian William Mede; MS. Bodley 117, fols. 32–32v. In Ypodigma Neustriae, ed. Riley, H. T., Rolls Series (1876), 348Google Scholar Walsingham described Montague as, amongst the Lollard knights, ‘vesanior omnium’.

76 Knighton, ii. 174; the information comes after a general review of Hereford's career under the year 1382. Thorpe (edition cited above, n. 53) 165 states that Hereford was imprisoned by the archbishop of Canterbury, but does not give a date.

77 Lambeth register Courtenay fol. 34v has three marginal notes ‘Respice quaestiones dampnatas in quaterno de heresibus contentas’, ‘Respice litteras restitucionis domini Philipi Repyngdon in octauo folio quaterni de heresibus contentas’, ‘Respice litteras restitucionis magisti Johannis Ayshton in octauo folio quaterni de heresibus contentas’; there is no trace of any of these three amongst surviving material.

78 See references cited above, n. 72; McFarlane, Wydiffe, 112, 126.

79 Fol. 186, see also fol. 176. Though it is doubtful whether Workman's argument (ii. 314–15) that Wyclif retained a faint confidence in Urban vi can be accepted, it is certainly true that the polemic of Wyclif's last years was directed against die abuses of the office of papacy, and particularly against the offence of the existence of two popes, rather than against the individual failings of Urban (see Opus Evangelicum, ii. 169; Opera Minora 204, 252 (where ‘Urbanus noster’ is plainly ironic), 272).

80 Trefnant register, 394–6; an answer, written on behalf of Hereford by the Dominican Thomas Palmer, follows, 396–401. Despite the assertion of Deanesly, The Lollard Bible, 286 n. 5, there is no reason to attribute the letter to Walter Brut.

81 Calendar of Patent Rolls 1391–6 (1905), 8.

82 Bale, Catalogus, i. 502, lists six works, all without incipit, three of which must date from Hereford's Wycliffite period. None of them has the title of the other works for which the Opus Arduum author claims responsibility, though the ‘De apostasia fratrum a Christo’ clearly dealt with similar subject matter.

83 See Hargreaves, H., ‘The Wycliffite Versions ‘ in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ii. ed. Lampe, G. W. H., Cambridge 1969, 400Google Scholar.

84 See McFarlane, Lollard Knights, 194–5.

85 For instance the Twelve Conclusions, in E.H.R., xxii, which must antedate 1395 when they were affixed to various public places in London, On the Twenty-Five Articles, Arnold, iii. 454–96, from the reference to Urban vi dating from before his death in 1389, or Thirty-Seven Conclusions, ed. Forshall, J., London 1851Google Scholar, that probably date from before 1401.

86 See above, n. 26; for the Glossed Gospels see Hargreaves, art. cit., 407–9.

87 Printed by Arnold in vols. i–ii of his edition; see further the article cited above, n. 47.

88 The English Apocalypse commentary that has been regarded as Wycliffite derives from an Anglo-Norman original and owes nothing to the Opus Arduum. Two versions exist, one edited by E. Fridner (Lund Studies in English, xxix (1961)), and the other by W. Sauer (Heidelberg thesis, 1971).

89 See Selections from English Wycliffite Writings, nos. 3 and 27.

90 That this was not a forlorn hope in a lost cause is evident from many pieces of evidence, most notably from the fact that Arundel, in 1407, felt justified in infringing the jealously guarded privileges of the university of Oxford by imposing monthly inquisition by heads of halls into the views on Wycliffite matters held by students in their charge: Wilkins, D., Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hibemiae, London 1737, iii. 318–19Google Scholar.

91 See fols. 136v, 148, 162v; in the first is found the contention that the Wycliffites alone maintain the faith of Ego Berengarius.

92 See fols. 157, 165, 204; for the recurrence of disapproval of images in Lollard trials see Thomson, A. F., The Later Lollards 1414–1520, Oxford 2nd ed. 1967, passimGoogle Scholar.

93 For these arguments see above, 263.

94 The Church is defined (fol. 173V) as ‘numerus predestinatorum’, and there is a fuller statement of Wycliffite belief on the subject earlier (fol. 154); see also fols. 195, 212.

95 Fols. 180–180v.

96 See the earlier discussion of this point, and cf. fol. 168: ‘Sic veri predicatores ewangelici, quo magis fuerat indignacio antichristi contra eos, eo instancius laborant, scribendo, predicando, docendo ad ipsius destruccionem et omnium fautorum suorum’. The author also defends lay preaching, and objects to the episcopal insistence upon licenses for preachers (fols. 165v, 181v); the bishops, he asserts, send ‘ydiotas’, not ‘doctos in scripturis… ad predicandum’ (fol. 157).

97 See particularly fols. 132–3, 146v, 154v, 181, 188; for an account of events following the crusade see Aston, M., ‘The Impeachment of Bishop Despenser’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, xxxviii (1965), 12 7–48Google Scholar.

98 Knighton, ii. 178 mentions a sermon of Aston against the crusade in 1383. The way in which discussion of the crusade is worked into the commentary here throughout is in marked contrast to the obviously excrescent structures examined above, 5–6.

99 Fols. 158, 167v, 194v; the writer (fols. 141–141v) urges attempts to convert the persecutors, and recognises (fol. 157v) that persecution is not always the worst fate that can befall a group.

100 See fols. 161v 164, 171, 180v, 181v, 195; typical are the rather vague terms used in fol. 160: ‘sic nunc plures ewangelici a papa Romano et vicariis suis uariis generibus mortis occiduntur, et multo plures talium occisi erunt ab eis. Ista doctrina wlgata et constanter aduocata a predicatoribus ewangelicis, de quorum numero absit ut sim ultimus’; or fol. 171v: ‘non statim occidit quos persequitur, sed dednet eos in carceribus ut grauius puniantur’.

101 Richardson, H. G., ‘Heresy and the Lay Power under Richard II’, English Historical Review, li (1936), 1–28, esp. 20–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 Walsingham, ii. 189.

103 See the dates assigned by Talbert, E. W., ‘The Date of the Composition of the English Wycliffite Collection of Sermons’, Speculum, xii (1937), 464–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and later elaborated by Ransom, M. W., ‘The Chronology of Wyclif's English Sermons’, Washington State College Research Studies, xvi (1948), 67–114Google Scholar.