Lollards

But Arundel could not prevent the writing and distribution of Lollard books and pamphlets. The Ploughman's Prayer, which appeared about this time, declared that true worship consists in three things—in loving God, and dreading God and trusting in God above all other things; and it showed how Lollards, pressed by persecution, became further separated from the religious life of the church. Notwithstanding the repression, Lollardy fastened in new parts of England, and Lollards abounded in Somerset, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Lincolnshire and Buckinghamshire.

The termination of the Great Schism and the condemnation of Huss by the Council of Constance led to still more vigorous pro ceedings against Lollard preachers and books. From this time Lollardy appears to be banished from the fields and streets, and takes refuge in houses and places of concealment. There was no more wayside preaching, but instead there were conventicula occulta in houses, in peasants' huts, in sawpits and in field ditches, where the Bible was read and exhortations were given, and so Lollardy continued. In 1428 Archbishop Chichele confessed that the Lollards seemed as numerous as ever, and that their literary and preaching work went on as vigorously as before. It was found also that many of the poorer parish priests, and a great many chaplains and curates, were in secret association with the Lollards, so that in many places processions were never made and worship on saints' days was abandoned. For the Lollards were hardened by persecution, and became fanatical in the statement of their doctrines.

Survivals.

The opinions of the later Lollards can best be gathered from the learned and unfortunate Pecock, who wrote his elaborate Repressor against the "Bible-men," as he calls them. He summed up their doctrines under 11 heads : they condemn the having and using images in the churches, the going on pilgrimages to the memorial or "mynde places" of the saints, the holding of landed possessions by the clergy, the various ranks of the hier archy, the framing of ecclesiastical laws and ordinances by papal and episcopal authority, the institution of religious orders, the costliness of ecclesiastical decorations, the ceremonies of the mass and the sacraments, the taking of oaths and the maintaining that war and capital punishment are lawful. When these points are compared with the Lollard Conclusions of 1395, it is plain that Lollardy had not greatly altered its opinions after 55 years of persecution. All the articles of Pecock's list, save that on capital punishment, are to be found in the Conclusions, and may be traced to Wycliffe himself. Pecock's idea was that all the statements which he was prepared to impugn came from three false opinions or "trowings," viz., that no governance or ordinance is to be

esteemed a law of God which is not founded on Scripture, that every humble-minded Christian man or woman is able without "fail and defaut" to find out the true sense of Scripture, and that having done so he ought to listen to no arguments to the contrary; he elsewhere adds a fourth (i. 102), that if a man be not only meek but also keep God's law he shall have a true understanding of Scripture, even though "no man ellis teche him saue God." These statements, especially the last, show the connection between the Lollards and mystics of the 14th century, such as Tauler and Ruysbroeck, who accepted the teachings of Nicholas of Basel, and formed themselves into the association known as the Friends of God.

The persecutions were continued down to the reign of Henry VIII., and when the writings of Luther began to appear in England the clergy were not so much afraid of Lutheranism as of the increased life they gave to surviving Wycliffite opinions. "It is," wrote Bishop Tunstall to Erasmus in 1523, "no question of pernicious novelty, it is only that new arms are being added to the great band of Wycliffite heretics." Lollardy, which continued down to the Reformation, did much to shape the movement in England. The subordination of clerical to lay jurisdiction, the reduction in ecclesiastical possessions, the insisting on a transla tion of the Bible which could be read by the "common" man were all inheritances bequeathed by the Lollards.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-FaSCiCUll Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico, ed. W. W. Shirley (Rolls Series, 1858) ; T. Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, vol. iii., ed. H. T. Riley (1869) ; the Chronicon Angliae, ed. E. Maunde Thompson (1874) ; H. Knighton, Chronicon, ed. J. R. Lumby (1895). See also D. Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, iii. (1773) ; T. Wright, Political Poems and Songs (2 vols., 1859) ; R. Pecock, Repressor of overmuch Blaming of the Clergy (2 vols., 186o) ; G. V. Lechler, Johann von Wiclif, (1873) ; J. Loserth, Hus and Wycliffe (Prague, 1884, Eng. trans., 5884) ; R. L. Poole, Wycliffe and Movements for Reform (1889) G. M. Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wycliffe (1898, 3rd ed., 1904) ; E. Powell and G. M. Trevelyan, The Peasants' Rising and the Lollards, a Collection of Unpublished Documents (1899) ; H S. Cronin, "The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards," in the Eng. Hist. Rev. (April 1907) ; J. Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation in England (1908) ; and publications of the Wiclif Society. (See article