Lollards

LOLLARDS, the name given to the English followers of John Wycliffe (q.v.) ; it is of uncertain origin; but the generally received explanation derives it from the verb lollen or lullen, to sing softly. The word is much older than its English use; there were Lollards in the Netherlands at the beginning of the i4th century, who were akin to the Fratricelli, Beghards and other sectaries of the recusant Franciscan type. The earliest official use of the name in England occurs in 1387 in a mandate of the bishop of Worcester against five "poor preachers," nomine seu ritu Lollardorum confoederatos. It is probable that the name was given to the followers of Wycliffe because they resembled those offshoots from the great Franciscan movement which had dis owned the pope's authority and set before themselves the ideal of Evangelical poverty.

The Dominium of the Poor.

In the i4th century it became manifest that the two different ideas of the place of the church in the world had become irreconcilable. The church chose to abide by the idea of Hildebrand and to reject that of Francis of Assisi; and the revolt of Ockham and the Franciscans, of the Beghards and other spiritual fraternities, of Wycliffe and the Lollards, were all protests against that decision. Gradually there came face to face a great political Christendom, whose rulers were statesmen, with aims and policy of a worldly type, and a religious Christen dom, full of the ideas of separation from the world by self-sacri fice and of participation in the benefits of Christ's work by an ascetic imitation. The war between the two ideals was fought out in almost every country in Europe in the i4th century. In Eng land Wycliffe's whole life was spent in the struggle, and he be queathed his work to the Lollards. The main practical thought with Wycliffe was that the church, if true to her divine mission, must aid men to live that life of evangelical poverty by which they could be separate from the world and imitate Christ, and if the church ceased to be true to her mission she ceased to be a church. Wycliffe was a metaphysician and a theologian, and had

to invent a metaphysical theory—the theory of enable him to transfer, in a way satisfactory to himself, the powers and privileges of the church to his company of poor Christians ; but his followers were content to allege that a church which held large landed possessions, collected tithes greedily and took money from starving peasants for baptizing, burying and praying, could not be the church of Christ and his apostles.

Lollardy was most flourishing and most dangerous to the ecclesiastical organization of England during the ten years after Wycliffe's death. It had spread so rapidly and grown so popular that a hostile chronicler could say that almost every second man was a Lollard. Wycliffe had organized in Lutterworth an associa tion for sending the gospel through all England, a company of poor preachers somewhat after the Wesleyan method of modern times, and, although proscribed, these "poor preachers" with portions of their master's translation of the Bible in their hand to guide them, preached all over England. In 1382, two years before the death of Wycliffe, the archbishop of Canterbury got the Lollard opinions condemned by convocation, and began the long conflict of the church with the followers of Wycliffe. His success was very limited. He could neither suppress Lollardy at Oxford, whence it spread rapidly among the clergy and ultimately reached Scotland, nor prevent the patronage of individual preachers by noblemen and gentlemen of Wycliffite sympathies. Merchants and burgesses supported the new movement with money, and when Richard II. issued an ordinance (July 1382) ordering every bishop to arrest all Lollards, the Commons compelled him to with draw it. Thus protected, the "poor preachers" won masses of the people to their opinions, and Leicester, London and the west of England became their headquarters.