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Lollardy and Locality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Richard G. Davies
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Extract

There can now be no doubt of the intellectual substance and cohesion of early Wyclifitism as expressed in the writings of educated clerks in immediate contact with the man himself. Most would accept, too, that this coherence was successfully transferred from Latin to English. However, although these Wyclifite scholars recognised the need for a corpus of literature to cater for a non-academic audience and provide the basis in ideas for a sustained movement, they had difficulty in supplying it. This might seem to offer easy comfort to those who are already doubtful whether people called Lollards could or did grasp Wyclifitism; whether they just amputated the bits they liked, debased or perverted them, or really did not take anything on board at all. Even some less cynical would agree that the Church itself played a large part in shaping Lollardy's ideas and characteristics: such is so often the way in the birth of protest movements. Indeed, to some hardliners ‘Lollardy’ seems little more than a scare-story invented by the Church in order to damn a large but motley crew of critics and dissenters. Or, if not the Church, then those historians in whom hope triumphs over experience.

Type
Christian Life in the Later Middle Ages
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 1 , December 1991 , pp. 191 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1991

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References

1 This comment reflects, of course, the seminal work of Professor Ann Hudson, particularly in the field of Wyclifite literature; elections from English Wydiffite Writings (Cambridge, 1978), esp. 8–13Google Scholar; Lollards and their Books (collected papers, 1985); The Premature Reformation (Oxford, 1988), esp. chapters 5–8Google ScholarPubMed. I make no apology for frequent reference to these now standard works.

2 Hudson, , Premature Reformation, esp. 103–10, 200–27, 385–9Google Scholar, where a more optimistic conclusion is, of course, formed.

3 The presumed gulf between Wyclif and the Lollards, in terms both of intellect and social motivation, was argued most influentially, and to an extreme, by McFarlane, K. B., John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity (1952)Google Scholar. Thomson, J. A. F., The Later Lollards, 1414–1520 (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar, a perceptive pioneering study, shared the same presumptions. See Hampshire, A. P and Beckford, J. M., ‘Religious sects and the concept of deviance’, British J. of Sociology 34 (1983), 208–29CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed on the interaction of orthodoxy and new deviance.

4 For particularly sharp recent scepticism, see Swanson, R.N., Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 1989), 329–47Google Scholar; Loades, D., ‘Anabaptism and English sectarianism in the mid-sixteenth century’, in Baker, D. (ed.), Studies in Church History: Subsidia 2 (Oxford, 1979), 63–4Google Scholar. This view tends to come from historians who emphasise the criterion of shared ideas as proof of cohesion and identity. For these, one basic objection is that the Wyclifites/Lollards had exclusive copyright at the time to very few opinions and seem at odds amongst themselves. This is perhaps a misleading premise. See Thomson, J. A. F, ‘Orthodox religion and the origins of Lollardy’, History 74 (1989), 39–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Hudson, Premature Reformation, ch. 9, ‘The context of vernacular Wycliffism’.

5 E.g., Snow, D. A and Machalek, R., ‘On the presumed fragility of unconventional beliefs’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 21 (1983), 15–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Davis, J. F, ‘Lollardy and the Reformation in England’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 78 (1982), 217–36Google Scholar; idem., Heresy and Reformation in the South East of England, 1520–1559 (1983); Dickens, A. G, ‘Heresy and the Origins of English Protestantism’, in Bromley, J. S. and Kossmann, E. H. (eds.), Britain and the Netherlands II (Groningen, 1964), 47–66Google Scholar; idem., Lollards and Protestants in the diocese of York (1959), chs. 2, 3. See also Aston, M., ‘Lollardy and the Reformation: survival or revival’, History 49 (1964), 149–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reprinted in Lollards and Reformers (1984)).

7 For an example from very reputable hands, Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich, ed. Tanner, N. P. (Camden Fourth Series, xx, 1977), 11Google Scholar.

8 See Hudson, A., ‘The examination of Lollards’, in Lollards and their Books, 125–40Google Scholar for the formulation of a set list of questions; Tanner, , Norwich Heresy Trials, 19–21Google Scholar discusses the effect on responses in 1428–31. Cf. Brown, L.B. and Forgan, J. P. in J. Sc. St. R. (see note 5) 19 (1980), 423–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the differences between spontaneous and prompted statements of religious beliefs.

9 “Thorpe's memoir’ is at present only printed in Pollard, A. W., Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse (Westminster, 1903), 97–174Google Scholar, from a sixteenth-century manuscript. Professor Hudson promises a modern edition from superior texts, and defends the authenticity of the source in ‘William Thorpe and the question of authority’, in Evans, G. R. (ed.), Church Authority: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (Oxford, 1988), 127–37Google Scholar.

10 See Stark, R. and Bainbridge, W. S., ‘Networks of Faith: inter-personal bonds and recruitment to cults and sects’, American Journal of Sociology, 85 (ii) (1980), 1376–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Snow, D. A.., ‘Social networks and social movements’, American Sociological Review 45 (1980), 787–801CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and note 14 below. As well as many useful local studies of Lollard groups, perceptive recent over-views have come from Hudson, Premature Reformation, ch. 3, ‘Lollard Society’; Hope, A., ‘Lollardy? the stone the builders rejected’, in Lake, P. and Dowling, M. (eds.), Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth Century England (1987), 1–36Google Scholar; Lambert, M. D, Medieval Heresy (1977), 234–71Google Scholar. These leave far behind the unsubtle socio-economic determinism of some earlier commentators, such as those who eagerly canonised the tentative suggestions made in Davis, J. F., ‘Lollard survival and the textile industry in the South-East of England’, in Baker, D. (ed.), Studies in Church History 3 (1965), 191–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Geremek, B., ‘Mouvements hérétiques et déracinement social au bas Moyen Age’, Annales E.S.C. 37 (i) (1982), 186–92Google Scholar(and previously in The Church in a Changing Society (Uppsala, 1978), 85–9)Google Scholar is a powerful and provocative evaluation of this timeworn theme.

12 Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 61, 75–9, 87–92Google Scholar; idem., ‘Wycliffism in Oxford’, in A. Kenny (ed.), Wyclif in his Times (Oxford, 1986), 75–7; McFarlane, , John Wycliffe, 141–7Google Scholar; idem., Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights (Oxford, 1972), 192–6; Baines, A. H. J. and Foxall, S. A. P., The Life and Times of Thomas Harding (Chesham, 1982), 8–16Google Scholar.

13 Amongst the considerable literature on the diffusion of ideas and their acceptance along and within social networks, three essays might be singled out as particularly relevant here: Becker, M., ‘Sociometric location and innovativeness’, American Sociological Review 35 (1970), esp. 268–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; G. Weimann, ‘On the importance of marginality’, ibid. 47 (1982), 764–73; especially Granovetter, M. S., ‘The strength of weak ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78 (1973), 1360–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 A long-running debate: see note 9 and, e.g., Review of Religious Research 26 (1984), 146–57, 27 (1985), 32–48, 29 (1987–8), 44–56Google Scholar.

15 ‘Thorpe's memoir’ (see note 9), esp. 113–7. His account of his own conversion deserves much closer attention, and reads fascinatingly in the context of work such as the much-discussed conversion model of Lofland, j. and Stark, R., ‘becoming a World-saver; a theory of conversion to a deviant perspective’, Am. Social. R. 30 (1965), 862–75CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

16 For the Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire families, see Foxe, J., Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, J. 4 (1877), 208–45Google Scholar and below notes 27, 56, 58; also PRO CP40/946/93, 381, 085/115/10, 13 (for the Scriveners); for ‘little Mother Agnes’, see below note 81.

17 Lambeth Palace Library: Reg[ister of William] Wareham [Archbishop of Canterbury] II, fos. 174V, 175V, I76r–7v.

18 Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 134–6Google Scholar cites the best-known cases.

19 E.g., Joan Austy in London, Joan Smith and Joan Washingby in Coventry (see note 23).

20 Foxe 4, 221; Lichfield Joint Record Office: Ms. B/C/13, Court Book of Bishop Geoffrey Blythe, fos. I7r–v; Bishop Fitzjames's Court-book (see note 23) fo. 123, for Robert Bennett's wife being said to be quite unreceptive to his beliefs, and fo. 124 for Alice Wilkins' self-excusal.

21 Aston, M., ‘Lollard Women Priests?’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31 (1980), 441–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reprinted in Lollards and Reformers, 49–69); Cross, C., ‘“Great Reasoners in Scripture”: the activities of women Lollards, 1380–1530’, in Baker, D. (ed.), Medieval Women (Oxford, 1978), 359–80Google Scholar; characteristic caution by R. N. Swanson (note 4), 344–5. Well-known examples include Margery Baxter of Martham, and Mone, Hawisia of Loddon (Norwich Heresy Trials 41–51, 138–44)Google Scholar, Alice Rowley of Coventry (see note 22, fo. 16), Alice Collins of Ginge, , ‘a famous woman among them’ (Foxe 4, 238)Google Scholar.

22 Lichfield JRO, Ms. B/C/13, fo. 16. The Coventry group is discussed by Thomson, , Later Lollards, 104–5, 108–16Google Scholar; Fines, J., ‘Heresy trials in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, 1511–12’, J. Ecc. H. 14 (1963), 160–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 In London alone, for example, Joan, wife of Thomas Austy, was the widow of john Redman; and the widow of Nicholas Saunders married (?William) Tilsworth: Trinity College, Dublin, Ms. D.3.4, Archbishop Ussher's transcripts of the Courtbook of Richard Fitzjames, bishop of London, fos. 123, 124V (folio numbers of the transcripts). I am grateful to Prof. J. A. F. Thomson for photocopies. Joan Smith is an example from Coventry; Ms. B/C/13 fo.4.

24 Ms. B/C/13 fo. 19.

25 Foxe 4, 221–2, 223, 225, 228. The difficulty is that his late father was (according to Robert's brother, Richard) ‘a better man than he was taken for’ and named as suspect by more than one witness, their mother was a reluctant church-goer, and one of their sisters was already married to a Lollard. Robert was probably not the innocent he pretended to be.

26 Foxe 4, 225, 227, 230–1; Hampshire CRO, Winchester: Reg. R. Fox IV fos. 18–19. This latter contains much hitherto under-discussed material about his Lollard contacts in Uxbridge and Walton-on-Thames. There is again some suspicion that Ashford was already more integrated than he made out (Foxe 4, 224–5, 230–2). For the Mordens, see note 58.

21 Especially three publications of the Buckinghamshire Record Society: The Courts of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham, 1483–1523, ed. Elvey, E. M. (19, 1975)Google Scholar; Subsidy Roll for the County of Buckingham Anno 1524, ed. Chibnall, A. C. and Woodman, A. Vere (8, 1950)Google Scholar; The Certificate of Musters for Buckinghamshire in 1522, ed. Chibnall, A. C. (17, 1973)Google Scholar; Bucks CRO, Aylesbury: Mss. We 2 etc., enrolled wills of the archdeaconry of Buckingham; the court rolls of Chesham and adjacent manors (in the possession of the Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society). Some tentative use of the material is made by Plumb, D., ‘The social and economic spread of rural Lollardy: a reappraisal’ in Wood, D. (ed.), Voluntary Religion (Studies in Church History, 23, 1986), 111–29Google Scholar.

28 There appear to be significant contacts with servants and employees in all groups, save possibly Kent, outweighing references to silence and care in their presence. The circumstantial evidence from Bucks, suggests that this sort of relationship might have been much more common than the evidence usually admits. Likewise, Isabel Tracher, a prosperous yeoman's wife from Chesham Bois, deliberately put her daughter into Alice Harding's service in order to further her Lollard education (Foxe 4, 227–8). Perhaps this too was a common practice.

29 Foxe 4, 231–2. Thomas Rowland reported her words: ‘ye may see how Thomas Houre and others who laboured to have heretics detected before bishop Smith were brought to beggary; you may take example of them’. Houre confirmed his fate.

30 See, e.g., PRO, Calendar of Ancient Deeds IV, 338 (A8636), 422 (A9419) and the references in note 84 below.

31 See Aston, M., ‘Lollardy and Sedition, 1381–1431’, Past & Present 30 (1965), 3–7Google Scholar (Lollards and Reformers, 1–5). The possibility of a connection between Wyclifite ideas and the 1381 revolt has recently been raised again by Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 66–9Google Scholar, but not convincingly.

32 See, however, for firmly contrary views, McFarlane, K. B., John Wycliffe, 183Google Scholar; Lambert, M. D., Medieval Heresy, 253Google Scholar; R. N. Swanson (note 4), 342; Thomas, , Later Lollards, 5Google Scholar. Catto, J. I., ‘Religious change under Henry V’, in Harriss, G.L. (ed.), Henry V: the Practice of Kingship (Oxford, 1985), 97–115Google Scholar, argued a much subtler line, that Henry V did take Lollardy seriously (at least at the élite level) and opposed it with positive orthodox reforms. Pugh, T. B., Henry V and the Southampton Plot (Gloucester, 1988), p. 51Google Scholar, as ever dismissive of Henry V's achievements, remarked that he ‘was never in danger of overthrow by a small force of ill-equipped lower-class Lollards’.

33 McFarlane, , ut supra, 160–85Google Scholar remains the standard account, for all his contempt for the insurgents. See also Thomson, , Later Lollards, 5–19Google Scholar and Powell, E., Kingship, Law and Society (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar, ch. 6, ‘The Lollard Revolt’ and pp. 132–3.

34 McFarlane, Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights, esp, ch.6; cf. M. Granovetter (note 13), esp. 1373–7.

35 For Repingdon's, curious will, see Register of Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, ed. Jacob, E. F. II (Canterbury and York Society, 1937), 285–7Google Scholar.

36 See, e.g., Swanson (note 4), 342; McFarlane, , John Wycliffe, 183–5Google Scholar.

37 Lambeth Palace: Reg. Wareham fos. 166, 167r–v, 168–9V, 171V–2. Cf. the banishment for life from the entire Lincoln diocese of John Qwyrk ‘on pain of relapse’; Lincoln DRO, Reg. John Chedworth fo. 60.

38 Lichfield Ms. B/C/13 fo. 16, B/A/1/14 (i) [Register of Bishop Blyth] fo. 100.

39 Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 449–50Google Scholar makes the point.

40 This, of course, is not to deny the quality and quantity of the sermon literature produced; see Hudson, A. (ed.), English Wycliffite Sermons (Oxford 1983–)Google Scholar, a four-volume project.

41 Note the premise in the title of Aston, M., ‘William White's Lollard followers’, Catholic Historical Review 68 (1982), 469–97Google Scholar(Lollards and Reformers, 71–100; for Pert and Pye see p. 82 n.43). For the supposed strength of dissent in the diocese as early as 1407, see Bodleian Library, Oxford: Ms. Arch. Seld. B.23 (Letterbook of William Swan) fos. 112V–3, 113V–4.

42 Roger Laudesdale, Alice Rowley and Bartholomew Shugborough in particular, to give continuity and cohesion.

43 This assertion rests on the premise that the marginal suspects and those only being wooed by group members can be identified and winnowed out from the true believers. For the i486 teachers, see Lichfield JRO: Reg. John Hales fo. 166r–v.

44 LichfieldJRO, Ms. B/C/13 fo. 20.

45 E.G., ibid. fo. 18v, the case of Thomas Wrixham, who had lived for a long time in Coventry but not established firm roots. For all the local Lollards' efforts, he was still on the brink when the persecution came. Nonetheless, he had to abjure (Reg. Blythe fo. 99). Roger Dod of Burford seems a similar case (Foxe 4, 237–8)

46 See note 39.

47 Lincoln DRO: Reg. Chedworth fos. 57V–8V. Willis is discussed perceptively in Thomson, , Later Lollards, esp. 68—71Google Scholar, although his influence in the Chilterns is perhaps over-stated.

48 Reg. Chedworth fos. 60, 62r–v, 64V.

49 Foxe 4, 210–14, 226, 228, 230, 234; Bishop Fitzjames's Courtbook (see note 23) fo. 124V.

50 Aston, M., ‘Iconoclasm at Rickmansworth, 1522’, J. Ecc. H. 40 (1989), 543–6Google Scholar.

51 I.E., in London, Colchester and the upper Thames Valley rather than in the Chilterns. For him, see Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 464–5, 474–8Google Scholar; Davis, J. F., Heresy and Reformation, 57–8Google Scholar.

52 E.G., Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation (2nd edn., 1989), 48–60Google Scholar; idem., Lollards and Protestants, chapters 2, 3.

53 Lambeth: Reg. Wareham fos. 175V–6, 179, 180.

54 It was mentioned by Joan Washingby, formerly and afterwards of Coventry, who had migrated there with her husband and been convicted in it; Lichfield JRO, Ms. B/C/13 fo. 16. John Brown of Ashford said in 1511 that he had abjured in Maidstone twelve years earlier; Reg. Wareham fo. 179V.

55 Bishop Blythe's courtbook and general register at Lichfield provide an interesting contrast in choice and emphasis of material relating to the same persecution.

56 See, for example, Subsidy Roll, 1524 (note 27), 12–13 (Amersham), 15–16 (Chesham), and similar material in the Certificates of Musters for 1522 and references in note 69 below. For the Durdaunts, see also PRO E179/141/115 and 131, STAC 2/32/106 (where Thomas was lord of the manor of Denham, like his ancestors before him).

57 Sir John Cheyne of Drayton Beauchamp (c. 1390–1468), heir male of his more notorious namesake of Beckford (d. 1414), and his brother, Thomas, were both imprisoned for involvement in the Oldcastle Rising (as was their father, Roger) and again in 1431 after ‘Perkins' Revolt’, although this latter arrest may well have been really a manoeuvre by their enemies in a serious local feud. I am completing a study of the family.

58 Foxe 4, 225, 230–1; Winchester DRO: Reg. R. Fox IV, fos. 18–19. The Mordens appear in the court-rolls for Ashley Green and Blackwell Hall manors (Bucks. Archaeol. Soc, Box C2, items 49/184, 186, 188, 197), the Chesham Courtbook, 1461–1552 fos. 2iv, 22, 26v (also held by the Society), and the cartulary of Great Missenden Abbey which held lands there (BL Sloane 747 fos. 30r–v, 31V–2). See PRO E150/17/5 for the inquisition post mortem on James Morden, who was burned on 15 02 1522. John Morden's widow, Marion, made a blandly orthodox will on 13 May 1521, but was denounced as a heretic after her death, an example of a very common problem of evidence in this field; Elvey (see note 27), 327–8.

39 See, e.g., PRO E101/107/27 (leading horseowners in Amersham, 1513) and compare with the records of the 1511 and 1521 persecutions and with the Certificates of Musters for 1522 for the town (pp. 230–5). The same situation appears in Hughenden, but not in Chesham.

60 Richard Saunders, who abjured in 1511, was assessed at a massive £300 in goods in Amersham, in 1522 (Musters, 231)Google Scholar, five times anyone else. He was not self-made: his father, William (d. 1488), had occupied the front pew in the church and been buried on that spot; PRO, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 14 Milles.

61 Higgs, L. M. A., ‘Lay piety in the borough of Colchester, 1485–1558’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, U. of Michigan, 1983, 291–7Google Scholar.

62 Lichfield JRO, Ms. B/C/13 fos. 5, 18v; this is only the hearsay evidence of John Atkins and Thomas Wrixham, uncertain hangers-on to the Lollard group and dealing in gossip, but there are other indications that these two (related) families were indeed sympathetic. See Luxton, I., ‘The Lichfield Court Book: a postscript’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 44 (1971), 120–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 From a big literature, particularly helpful here are Jacob, E. F., ‘Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester’, PBA 37 (1951), 1–34Google Scholar (reprinted in his Essays in Later Medieval History (Manchester, 1968), 1–34); Haines, R. M., ‘Reginald Pecock’, in Sheils, W. J. (ed.), Persecution and Toleration (Studies in Church History 21, 1984), 125–37Google Scholar; Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 55–8, 189–91, 441–3Google Scholar.

64 See e.g., Moore, R. I., The Origins of European Dissent (revised edn., Oxford, 1985), 267–8Google Scholar.

65 See, e.g., the Amersham churchwardens' accounts for 1539–41, (badly) printed in Records of Bucks 7 (1897), 43–51Google Scholar; PRO E150/52/1, E179/78/125, P.C.C. 15 Coode (all for Thomas Saunders, son of Richard); Garrett-Pegge, J. W., ‘Richard Bowie's Book’, Records of Bucks 9 (1904–1909), 329–48, 393–414Google Scholar, for the sensitive re-seating project in Chesham church in 1606, with descendants of Lollard suspects doing well. For the Durdaunts, see note 56 above and P.C.C. F.22 Dyngeley.

66 PRO, SP1/136/ no. 27 pp. 34–5 (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S.et al., 13 (ii) no. 253 p. 101))Google Scholar.

67 Hill, C., ‘From Lollards to Levellers’, latest version in his Collected Papers Volume II: Religion and Politics in lyth Century England (Brighton, 1986), 89–116Google Scholar; Summers, W. H., The Lollards of the Chiltern Hills (1906), 83–4, 106–8Google Scholar; idem., Our Lollard Ancestors (1904), 113–5.

68 Courts of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham, ed. Elvey, , 208Google Scholar(Milsent, John, Churchwarden of Amersham, 1505), 289Google Scholar (Robert Andrew the same, 1520); Lincoln Record Society 61 (1967), ed. Bowker, M., 139Google Scholar (Thomas Copeland the same). Thomas Houre was holywater clerk in Amersham, but claimed to have been sacked through Lollard malice; and Henry Phip of Hughenden was keeper of the rood light in 1518 (Foxe 4, 231, 238). William Sweeting was holywater clerk in Colchester (see note 61). John Phipps and Henry Honor were wardens of the elite guild of St. Katherine's, Amersham, interesting in that neither of them lived there, whilst the guild attracted particular bequests from certain ‘Lollard’ testators (see note 59).

69 P.C.C. F. 28 Bodfeld (Richard Saunders), F. 29 Spert (Alice Saunders), F. 22 Dyngeley (Nicholas Durdaunt); Bucks CRO, Archdeaconry of Buckingham enrolled wills, We 2 fo. 3V (John Hill), fos. 30V, 92 (Katherine Bartlett), We 3 fo. 318 (John Fype), We 4 No. 5 (Emma Morden), We 7 no. 117 (Isabel Bartlett), We 154 no. 14 (Isabel Scrivener).

70 Foxe 4, 229.

71 Lincoln DRO: Reg. Chedworth fo. 62; Foxe 4, 225–6, 229–30, 236–7, 239. Robert's brother and father stood their ground in Little Missenden. He denounced them when no-one else did and after the hunt seemed to have overlooked them and moved out of the district.

72 Foxe 4, 237–8 (Dod); for Hacker, see note 51.

73 Foxe 4, 234–40; Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 463–5Google Scholar; see Wills and Administrations archdeaconry of Berkshire, 1508 to 1652, ed. Phillimore, W. P. W. (British Record Soc, 1893), 41Google Scholar, and Oxfordshire Probate Records, 1516–1732, ed. Cheyne, E. and Barratt, D. M. 1 (B.R.S., 1981), 41Google Scholar. A proper tracing of the family would be valuable.

74 A systematic collation of the evidence in Bishop Fitzjames's courtbook (see note 23) with the local evidence (especially that in Foxe (e.g., 4, 228 and BL Sloane 747, Missenden Abbey Cartulary) is required. For a John Tilsworth of Amersham as far back as 1393, see PRO E101/338/1 no. 9.

75 Foxe 4, 228.

76 Aston, M., ‘Devotional Literacy’ and ‘Lollardy and Literacy’, in Lollards and Reformers, 101–34, 193–218Google Scholar, and A. Hudson's studies (see note 1) now supersede all previous work.

77 See, e.g., the wedding guest list at the Durdaunts' wedding at Iver-by-Staines (Foxe 4, 228) and the background to the 1511 leadership.

78 Foxe 4, 228; Lichfield JRO: Ms. B/C/13 fos. 2V–3, 16.

79 Foxe 4, 227.

80 Foxe 4, 245 commented sadly on his motivation.

81 Reg. Blythe fo. 99V, B/C/13 fos. 10v–12, 16V–17.

82 Norwich Heresy Trials, 206–16. Drsuggests, TannerGoogle Scholar alternatively (p. 8) that there could have been a successful collective cover-up, based upon the quasi-autonomy of the village group.

83 Lincoln DRO: Reg. Chedworth fos.61v–4.

84 See note 30; also PRO Ci/100/38, 39, 43, 340/17, 218/30, 57/344; B.A.S. 618/40 (deed of 1506); Cal. Inquisitions Post Mortem, Henry VII 1 no. 544; Elvey (see note 27), 81, 88; see also H.M.C. 15th Report Appendix VII, 131, 132.

85 Aston, , ‘William White’, 95Google Scholar; Tanner, in Norwich Heresy Trials, 27–8Google Scholar; Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 137–9Google Scholar.

86 See note 53.

87 Davis, J. F., Heresy and Reformation, 55, 58Google Scholar for Stacey, (who is actually called a brickmaker by Foxe 4, 236)Google Scholar; for Saunders' citation as a dyer, PRO Ci/133/22–3; for Colchester see note 61. Probably, in the Norwich diocese group, Thomas Mone, William Baxter and Richard Fletcher are also examples of men whose given occupation misleadingly undervalues their status to the unwary (Norwich Heresy Trials, 41–51, 84–9.; 75–91).

88 Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 137–9Google Scholar.

89 Lincoln DRO: Reg. Chedworth fo.61.