¹ We now have Clnire Cross. ‘“Great Reasoners in Scripture”: the activities of women Lollards 1380-1530’, In Medieval Women, ed. Baker, Derek (Studies in Church History thereafore cited as S.C.H.): Subsidia I), Oxford 1978, 359–80Google Scholar , which appeared after my article was written. I wish to thank Anne Hudson for drawing my attention to this paper and lor her comments and suggestions.

² For comments on the role of women in earlier heretical movements see Lambert, M. D., Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus, London 1977, 76–7Google Scholar , 86, 90. 114-16, 158; Bolton, Brenda, ‘Mulieres Sanctae’, S.C.H., x (1973), 77–95Google Scholar , esp. 77, 80 : Koch, G., Frauenfrage und Ketzertum im Mittelalter: Die Frauenbewegung im Rahmen des Katharismus und des Waldensertums und ihre sozialen Wurzeln (12-14 Jahrhundert), Berlin 1962Google Scholar . For the role of women in seventeenth-century sects see Thomas, Keith, ‘Women and the Civil War Sects’, Past and Present, xiii (1958), 42–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ Chronicon Henrici Knighlon, ed. Lumby, J. R., Rolls Series (hereafter cited as R.S.), London 1889-1895, ii. 152Google Scholar : sec my ‘Lollardy and Literacy’, History. Ixii (1977), 360Google Scholar . In the heresy trials of Coventry and Lichlield in 1511-1 2, nearly one-third of the accused were women; John Fines, ‘Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Coventry and Lichlield, 1,311-12’, this journal., xiv (1963), 161. In the Norwich trials of 1428-31 the proportion was about half this; g out of 60 accused were women. A point to bear in mind when considering women heretics is the possibility that they received more lenient treatment before the law than men. This seems to be the case in the Norwich trials in respect not only of punishment, but also of procedure. Except in the case of Hawise Moon, who specifically requested an itemised point-by-point abjuration (which like that of her husband and other male heretics was recited by the accused or his spokesman), the female suspects were apparently expected to give only a general abjuration of the heresies imputed to them, after these had been read out by a court official. Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich, 1428-31, ed. Tanner, Norman (Camden Society, 4th Ser., xx, 1977)Google Scholar (cited hereafter as Norwich Heresy Trials), 24, 139, cf. 178-9. , Cross, art. cit., 379Google Scholar , suggests that the total ol Lollard women sentenced to burning (perhaps less than twelve) was disproportionately small considering the number who appear to have relapsed. On the relatively greater immunity ol women from the law in a later period see the remarks of Clark, Peter, ‘Popular Protest and Disturbance in Kent, 1558-1640’, Economic History Review, 2nd Ser., xxix (1976), 376–7Google Scholar.

⁴ Knighton, ed. , Lumby, ii. 186Google Scholar ; cf. 187 for the same emphasis on the Wycliffite address to “both men and women”. There was of course a natural tendency to exaggerate in reporting such events; cl. the description of the heretics of Perigueux about 1160 that ‘nobody is so stupid that if he joins them he will not become literate within eight days…’: Moore, R. I., The Birth of Popular Heresy, London 1975, 80Google Scholar.

⁵ ‘Ecce iam videmus tantam disseminacionem evangelii quod simplices viri et mulieres et in reputacione hominum laid ydiote scribunt et discunt evangelium et quantum possunt et sciunt docent et seminant verbum dei.’ Cambridge Univ. Lib., MS Ii. 3. 8 fo. 1491.; quoted by Owst, G. R., Preaching in Medieval England, Cambridge 1926, 5–6, 135Google Scholar.

⁶ Jack Upland, Friar Daw's Reply and Upland's Rejoinder, ed. Heyworth, P. L., Oxford 1968, 76Google Scholar . Cf. Pecock's remark about Lollard scripture-spouting ‘upon their high benches sitting'; The Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy, ed. Babington, C.. , R. S., London 1860, i. 129Google Scholar . On Lollard ‘rolls’ schedulae), the most ephemeral form of their literature which could, however, serve as compendia of doctrine see Hudson, Anne, ‘Some Aspects of Lollard Book Production’, S.C.H., ix (1972), 149–50Google Scholar . In his comment on this passage Heyworth (p. 141) notes the pedagogic metaphor but says that ‘the references to a lowe chair and rounde rollis probably imply that the women's instruction was not religious but amorous’. Traducers of heretics rarely missed an opportunity to cast a slur of sexual misbehaviour, and that there are such insinuations in these lines seems obvious. This need not, however, exclude a genuine pedagogic setting, and the charge makes more sense if we accept the presence of women in Lollard schools.

⁷ Hoccleve's Works. The Minor Poems, i. ed. Furnivall, F.J. (E.E.T.S., Extra Series 61, 1892) 13.Google Scholar

⁸ Norwich Heresy Trials, 41-51, at 47 ; Thomson, J. A. F., The Later Lollards, 1414-1530. Oxford 1965, 123ffGoogle Scholar . For these and other examples see Cross, ‘Great Reasoners in Scripture’.

⁹ , Pecock, Repressor, i. 123Google Scholar ; Green, V. H. H., Bishop Reginald Pecock, Cambridge 1945, 90Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Cross, Claire, Church and People, 1450-1660, Glasgow 1976, 34Google Scholar . 37 ; , Aston, ‘Lollardy and Literacy’, 355Google Scholar.

¹¹ See below notes 18 and 19 lor variants of his name. At his trial, where he is named Brut, the heretic made the most of his ‘British’ ancestry. Registrum Johannii Trefnant Episcopi Herefordensis (hereafter cited as Reg. Trefnant), ed. Capes, W. W. (Cant, and York Soc, xx, 1916), 285, 293–5.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid., 364, no. 30; cf. 279 where the first of the points of which Brut was defamed was his assertion ‘quod quilibet Christianus eciam mulier extra peccatum existens potest conticere corpus Christi ita bene sicut sacerdos’. On Brut's examination see McFarlane, K. B.. John Wyclijfe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity, London 1952, 135–8Google Scholar.

¹³ Reg. Trefnant, 345. On the ecclesiastical law providing that laymen, including women (in the absence of a man), could baptise in cases of necessity see Lyndwood, W., Provinciate, Oxford 1679, 241 fF.Google Scholar , Lib. Ill, tit. 24, esp. 241, n. b, Propter necessitatem, and 242, n. a, Foemina; also Councils and Synods, ed. Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R., Oxford 1964, 140, 896–7Google Scholar , cf. 182, 233, 368, 452, 634, 702-3. There were, of course, Lollards who objected to baptism as an unnecessary rite.

¹⁴ Reg. Trefnant, 345. Variants of this passage appear in B.L. MS Harl. 31: fo. 20IV ‘mulieres ymmo et virgines constanter predicaverunt verbum dei et multos ad fidem converterunt sacerdotibus tune non audentibus [audientibus, coiTectedl loqui verbum’; cf. fo. 2igr ‘multe mulieres constanter predicaverunt verbum quando sacerdotes et alii non audebant verbum loqui et patet de Magdalena et Martha…’ Brut cites St Paul in 1 Tim. ii. 11-12 (cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 34-5) saying that ‘docere mulieri non permittit neque dominari in virum’. But, comments Brut, Paul does not say ‘quod tamen non possunt docere neque in virum dominari’ (my italics).

¹⁵ Reg. Trefnant, 345-7.

¹⁶ In addition to the determinations considered below and William Woodford's reply to Brut (below, n. iS), the 37 condemned conclusions ol the heretic were registered at the end of a late fourteenth-century repertory ol canon law belonging to the abbey of Reading. B.L. MS Royal 10 D X, 10. 31ar-v

¹⁷ Brut's case occupies pp. 278-394 in the published register !fos 106v-128r). Much of the record consists of the defensive treatise Brut penned with his own hand after (he says) ‘I was required to write a reply in latin to all these matters’ (p. 28,5). Perhaps the authorities did not realise what they were letting themselves in for!

¹⁸ Both texts are in B.L. MS Harl. 31; fos 194v-196v ‘Utrum liceat mulieribus docere viros publice congregatos’; fos 196v-205r ‘Utrum mulieribus sint ministri ydonei ad conriciendum eukaristie sacramentum’; fos 216r-218r ‘Utrum quilibet laicus iustus sit sacerdos nove legis’; fos 218r-223r ‘Utrum mulieres conficiunt vel conficere possum ut veri sacerdotes eukaristie sacramentum’. There is another copy of the latter pair of determinations in B.L. MS Royal 7 B III, fos. ir-4v (to which Anne Hudson kindly drew my attention). Bale, followed by Tanner, suggested as the author of the former pair the Carmelite Walter Hunt (d. 1478), who has to be dismissed on grounds of date. Bale, John, Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytannie Calalogus, Basle 1557–1559. i. 615–16Google Scholar ; Tanner, Thomas, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibemica, London 1748, 423Google Scholar . Another suggested candidate, William Woodford (various of whose works are in MS Harl. 31), is rejected for stylistic reasons by Catto, J. I., ‘William Woodford, O.F.M. (c. 1330-c. 1397)’, (unpublished Oxford D.Phil, thesis 1969), 314Google Scholar . Woodford certainly participated in the refutation of Brut. He refers himself to his discussion of tithes, offerings and clerical temporalities in the ‘letter’ or ‘history’ which he sent to the bishop of Hereford against the book of ‘Walter Britte’. Gratius, O., Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum & Fugiendarum, ed. Brown, E., London 1609, 220Google Scholar , 222 (referring also to a ‘certain determination'); Little, A. G., The Grey Friars in Oxford, (Oxford Hist. Soc, xx, 1891), 248Google Scholar.

¹⁹ There arc references to ‘Walterus Bryth’ in MS Harl. 31, lbs. 20IV, 202r, and twice on I'o. 204V; cf. lbs 2 191’, 2221-v for allusions to Lollards. For parallels with the record in the bishop's register cf. Reg. Trefnant, 345-7, and MS Harl. 31, tos 201v-202r, 220r-v. The links between the two manuscript disputes, not only in argument, but in some passages of close verbal similarity (see below notes 34, 36 and 39) are such that 1 think one must postulate, it not common authorship, shared debate.

²⁰ See Reg. Trefnant, 359-60 for the list ol those present at the trial in October 1393, described by , McFarlane, John Wycliffe, 137Google Scholar , as ‘an absurdly large body of doctors’. Cf. ibid., 135 and idem , Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights, Oxford 1972, 170Google Scholar for the suggestion (also made by Foxe) that Brut was a graduate ol Oxford. Trefnant was a learned man himself; see Emden, A. B., Biog. Reg. of the Univ. of Oxford. Oxford 1957-1959, iii 1900–2Google Scholar . The large number of academics at the trial opens wide the possibilities ot authorship, which include Nicholas Hereford, whose presence here may be presumed to have contributed to the attack on him as a turncoat (Reg. Trefnant. 3940). This question must therefore remain open; what is more important is that we can pinpoint the context ol the debate. Since it is impossible here to give more than a summary I have given more attention to the heretical arguments, as being the more novel.

²¹ Reg. Trefnant, 368-76 and 376-94 (an editorial error makes this section, wrongly, a reply to Swinderby). On Colville and Necton see Emden, A. B., Biog. Reg. of the Univ. of Cambridge, Cambridge 1963, 151, 419Google Scholar.

²² Reg. Trefnant, 382-3; also below p. 453.

²³ , Emden, Biog. Reg. Cambridge, 186Google Scholar ; Crompton, James, ‘Lollard doctrine with special reference to the controversy over image worship and pilgrimages’, (unpublished Oxford B. Litt. thesis 1950), 167ffGoogle Scholar . Foxe suggests, needlessly, that Brut's articles were ‘sent to the university of Cambridge to be confuted’; Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, J., London 1853-1868, iii. 187Google Scholar.

²⁴ MS Harl. 31, lo. 2O4r, ‘tu non vis admittere nisi scripturam sacram vel racionem naturalem…’; d. lo. 219r, ‘hac regula est lollardorum hoc non habetur ex sacra scriptura neque ex racione naturali ergo hoc non est ponendum’. Cf. Brut's protestations that he will freely submit to corrections ‘ex auctoritate scripture sacre aut probabili racione in scriptura sacra lundata…’ Reg. Trefnant, 285-6, 358.

²⁵ References to Aristotle's Politics in the context of women's deficiency of reason and unsuiiability lor the rule of bodies (and therefore, much more so, of souls) appear in MS Had. 31, lbs 200r, 218r. Cf. The Politics of Aristotle, trans. Barker, Ernest, Oxford 1946, 35–6Google Scholar . 75-6; Aquinas, St Thomas, In Libros Potiticorum Aristotelis Expositio, ed. Spiazzi, R. M., Turin and Rome 1951, 49Google Scholar , para. 159, 72, para 218, 99-100, paras. 301, 303. For a summary ot the biblical and other grounds for this traditional theory of female subjection see Bailey, D. S., The Man-Woman Relation in Christian Thought, London 1959, 15-16, 62-4, 157, 293–6Google Scholar.

²⁶ MS Harl. 31, fos 194v-196r, citing Judges iv. 4IV; 2 Kings xxii. 14ff; Acts xxi. 8-9; 1 Cor. xi. 5 (‘every woman that prayeth or prophesieth…’); 1 Cor. xiv. 5 (‘I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied…’), and 1 Peter iv. 10 (‘minister the same gift! one to another…’). In reply to these claims it was stated that there were three cases in which women could publicly teach (which explained these examples): i. by special privilege, as in the example of Huldah; ii. to bring ignominy on effeminate men, as in the example of Deborah; iii. when there was a shortage of preachers and teachers (as in the New Testament examples). MS Harl. 31, lbs 196r, 221r.

²⁷ Ibid., 10. 199r, where Brut's casuistry on 1 Tim. ii (see note 14 above) is dealt with. CEt nota quod non dicit statuo quasi ex suo statuto primitus emanasse sed dicit non permitto simple sicut nee Christus hoc permisit…') The case against Brut cited this passage against him, reversing the argument. If women were priests they would be allowed to preach, which (as 1 Tim. ii showed) is heretical. Ibid., to. 218r.

²⁸ Ibid., fo. 196v; ‘omnis sanctus est sacerdos'; ‘omnis mulier electa bona est sancta ergo omnis talis est sacerdos’; ‘magis dignus bonus laicus et mulier bona malo presbitero ergo magis aptus ad opus dignum conhciendi. Conficere autem corpus dominicum est opus dignissimum ergo ad illud est laicus bonus et mulier bona magis apta’. The Lollard arguments on this point—against which a large part of the reply was addressed—are summarised fos 196v-197r. For some of Brut's arguments against the ministry ol evil priests see Reg. Trefnant, 349.

²⁹ ‘magis vult Ispiritus sanctus operari per bonum laicum et pro illo et per mulierem sanctam quam per malum presbiterum’; ‘si ergo mulier habeat bonitatem viteetordinetur cur non potest consecrare’. MS Harl. 31, fos ig6v-197r.

³⁰ Reg. Trejhant, 330; cf. , Foxe, Acts and Monti., iii. 168. 179Google Scholar . As reported in Reg. Trefnant, 345-6. Brut's claims lor the female ininistrant mentioned all the sacraments except confirmation. Cf. also 324-36 lor his discussion ot the related questions of the power to bind and loose, confession and baptism, and 362-3, nos. 9. 16 and 19 of the charges against him. The counter-arguments are to be found in MS Harl. 31. lbs 20 IV IK, and 219r H. and Reg. Trefnant, 370-1, 384-5.

³¹ For Wycliffe's arguments on these lines see below p. 460.

³² MS Harl. 31, fos 201v, 202r. Cf. Reg. Trefnant, 345-7, where this proviso is mentioned four times. One might reflect that it could make little difference to a heretical ministry which would ipso facto exclude those competent in the church.

³³ MS Harl. 31, fo. 197r. On the development of the female diaconate in the East during the patristic age see , Bailey, Man-Woman Relation, 66–9.Google Scholar

³⁴ MS Harl. 31, Ib. 204V ‘miror ergo quod ipse credit pro se valere hoc lactum quod a deo ct tota ccclesia dei aduullatum est et reprobatum’; cl. Co. 222V and B.L. MS Royal 7 B III, Ib. 41’ lor (he similar conclusion in the other disputation; ‘miror ergo quomodo lollardi hanc historiam pro se audent allegare per quain oppositum propositi illorum a dco et universali ecdesia rleclaratur’. Brut's case on this matter (Reg. Trefnant, 346) is summarised in MS Hail. 31, lbs 202r, 220r, no. 12. Cl’. below p. 460 for WyclifTe on Pope Joan, whose imaginary ninth-century reign was finally disposed of by Dollinger, J. J. I. von, Die Papst-Fabeln des MMelalters, Stuttgart 1890, 1–53Google Scholar . In the story the choice of a woman was explained by her great intellectual capacity, but after two years’ reign she gave birth while processing to the Lateran.

¹⁵ MS Harl. 31, lbs 198r-v 219V, 222V. This last point was supported by reference to Albeit the Great's De Animalibus. Cl. Albertus Magnus de animalibus libri xxvi, ed. Stadler, Hermann (Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophic des Mittelalters, vols. xv-xvi, Munster 1916-1921). 1226Google Scholar , lib. XVIII, tract. 2, cap. 3. The same work (cf. 573, lib. VIII, tract. 1, cap. 1) was also cited by Brut's opponent (MS Harl. 31, fo. 2i9r) on woman's contentiousness and instability. For a view of woman's superiority as having conceived God. see Power, Eileen, ‘The Position oI Women’, in The Legacy oj the Middle Ages, ed. Crump, C. G. and Jacob, E. F., Oxford 1951, 402Google Scholar.

³⁶ I have here conHated the parallel passages in MS Hari. 31, fos 202r-v, and 220V, both of which, pursuing their case through distinctions of posse (logicum, politicum, phisicum and iuridicum). listed these extravagances to demonstrate the extremity of the heretical error, alike concluding that ‘talis predicatoris lingua meretur amputari’.

³⁷ Ibid., Ib. 196r. alter elucidating the circumstances in which women were allowed to leach (e.g. abbesses those subject to them in the cloister, and housewives other women and children). The main biblical passages were 1 Cor. xiv. 34-5 and 1 Tim. ii. 11-12.

³⁸ Woman's menstrual impurity disqualified her from a ministry which required physical purity under the new law as under the old (citing Leviticus xxi on the physical requirements for priests); on this taboo see Morris, Joan. Against Nature and God, London 1973, 105–12Google Scholar . MS Harl. 31, Cos 199V, 2 19r.

³⁹ Ibid., lbs 199v-200r ‘Non est verisimile quod ecclesia dei a Christo usque modo totum genus mulierum exclusissimum a sacerdocio et suscepcione ordinum et a tarn nobili actu sine precepto Christi ergo cum per ecclesiam omnes mulieres ab huiusmodi excluduntur videtur quod hoc ecclesia faciat ex precepto divino’; cf. fo. 2 igr (= MS Royal 7 B III. lo. 2v) ‘Non est verisimile quod a principio mundi tarn in veteri lege quam nova totum genus mulierum fuisset exclusum a sacerdocio sine auctoritate dei vel racione naturali. Sed a principio mundi usque modo totum genus mulierum a sacerdocio fuerat exclusum ergo hoc factum est auctoritate dei vel auctoritate racionis naturalis et sive unum sive aliud detur hoc factum est auctoritate dei ergo auctoritate dei mulieres a sacerdocio sunt excluse’. (The transcriber seems to have omitted a word after ‘huiusmodi’ in the former passage).

⁴⁰ It is implied, therefore, that he omitted the words of institution, ‘Hoc est enim corpus meum’. Fasciculi Zizaniorum, ed. Shirley, W. W., R.S., London 1858, 422–4Google Scholar ; , Tanner, Norwich Heresy Trials, 33Google Scholar , n. 14 identifies the place as probably Burgh Apton, Norfolk. The wording of Article xii, which White denied, is close to Wycliffe; see below, pp. 460-1.

⁴¹ Norwich Heresy Trials, 4g (cf. 42). 17 (cf. 52), 60-1, 67, 140, 142. 147.

⁴² One example is the assertion abjured in 1499 byjohn Whitehorne, rector of Letcombe Basset (Berks.), that Christ at his ascension ‘left his power with his Apostles and from them the same power remaineth with every good true Christian man and woman living virtuously as the Apostles did, so that priests and bishops have no more authority than another layman that followeth the teaching and good conversation of the Apostles’. Jenkins, Claude, ‘Cardinal Morton's Register’, in Tudor Studies presented…to A. F. Pollard, ed. Seton-Watson, R. W., London 1924, 48Google Scholar ; , Thomson, Later Lollards, 80, 82, 85–6Google Scholar.

⁴³ Ibid., 244-5 ; , Lambert, Medieval Heresy, 268–9Google Scholar . The Norwich heresy trials of 1428-31 illustrate the anti-sacramental aspect of Lollardy very clearly.

⁴⁴ Norwich Heresy Trials, 141, cf. 147.

⁴⁵ Johannis WycliJ Tractatus De Ecclesia, ed. Loserlh, J. (Wyrlif Soo, London. 1886), 37Google Scholar , cf. 2 Cf. the view of Burell, John ‘quod ecclesia catholica est anima cuiuslibei boni Christiani’ (Norwich Heresy Trials, 77)Google Scholar , or that of Wakeham, William. in Peasants, Knights and Heretics, ed. Hilton, R. H., Cambridge 1976, 287Google Scholar . The genuine historical case behind this redefinition of the Church was doubtless less important lor such Lollards than it was lor Wyclille. For a helpful discussion of the concept of priesthood in the early centuries of the Church (when laymen were seen as able to baptise and offer liturgical sacrifice in case ofnecessity), showing how the character indelebilis developed with sacramental doctrine, see Campenhausen, Hans von, Tradition and Life in the Church: Essays and Lectures in Church History, trans. Littledale, A. V., London 1968, 217–30Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Norwich Heresy Trials, 81, 115.

⁴⁷ Reg. Trefnant, 279, 284, 336-41, 364. While it is clear that Brut's view ol the mass denied a change in the substance of the bread, the opponents of his thesis about women devoted a lot of attention to showing that women could not convert the bread and wine into the body and blood ol Christ.

⁴⁸ For William White's denial of transubstantiation see Fasc. Ziz., ed. , Shirley, 418–19Google Scholar , 423. This was of course one of the common heresies of the Lollards.

⁴⁹ Rogeri Dymmok Liber, ed. Cronin, H. S. (Wyclif Soc. London. 1922), 89–90Google Scholar ; lor Wyclille's view of the eucharist in his Trialogus see Led, Gordon, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages, Manchester 1967, ii. 555Google Scholar ; Selections from English Wycliffite Writings, ed. Hudson, Anne, Cambridge 1978Google Scholar (cited hereafter as Hudson, Selections), 25 and notes p. 152; cf. 19, 22, 148 lor the much more restrained view advanced on this point in another Lollard text (though one wonders whether this is to be taken at lace value or whether it should be seen as a casuistical argument intended to help heretics under threat ot examination). It is worth noting that in the third ol the twelve conclusions (cf. also no. 11) priestly chastity was attacked on the grounds that the law of continence was invented ‘in prejudice of women’. William White, who married after his abjuration in 1422. was one who acted on this belief. (Fasc. Ziz., 420-1. 425-6). Another was William Ramsbury, on whom see below and , Lambert, Medieval Heresy, 239Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Rogeri Dymmok Liber, 63-4 (my italics), cf. 108-9. Dvmoke alludes to conclusion 2 on existing orders and conclusion 9 on the power to bind and loose. In view of the reports ol London events discussed below it is relevant to note that Dvmoke. an Oxford doctor of theology, was by 1396 regent of the Dominican convent of Blacklriars in London. Emden, Biog. Reg. Oxford, i. 617.

⁵¹ Knighton, ii. 316-17; lor a comment on the incident see Manning, B. L., The People's Faith in the Time oj Wyclif, Cambridge 1919, rep. 1975, 138Google Scholar . It seems From what Knighton says, that Braybrooke preached against these doings in St Paul's.

⁵² It was argued against Brut (MS Harl. 31, lbs iggr, 218r) that if a woman were to be priest she would be capable of the tonsure, which would be against 1 Cor. xi. 6 (‘…shame lor a woman to be shorn or shaven’). Brut himself, however, indicated rather that tonsure might be a ‘sign of Antichrist’, and contrary to the practice of the early Church. Reg. Trefnant, 341-4.

⁵³ For Ramsbury see Hudson, Anne, ‘A Lollard Mass’. J.F.S. N.S. xxiii (1972), 407–19Google Scholar . , Walsingham. Historia Anglicana, ed. Riley, H. T. (R.S., London 1863-1864), ii. 188Google Scholar , reports the incident—as Knighton does his—without names.

⁵⁴ The St Albans Chronicle 1406-1420, ed. Calbraith, V. H., Oxford 1937, 89Google Scholar ; , Walsingham. Historia Anglicana, ii. 307Google Scholar . Riley, though well aware of its derivative nature chose ‘inexplicably’—as Galbraith remarks—to base his text on Arundel MS vii in the College of Arms (compiled c. 1422-30). Two earlier and better texts which both have a clear ‘ut eciam liliam propriam sacerdotem constitueret’ where Riley prints ‘filium propriuiif, are Corpus Christi College MS 7, to. 84r, and MS 195, fo. 447V. (See Galbraith's edition, pp. x-xi, n 3, xxvi, lix, for these two manuscripts, the former of which contains probably the earliest version of this section of the short chronicle, the latter being apparently copied from it.)

⁵⁵ For the proceedings against Claydon see , Thomson, Later Lollards, 140–2Google Scholar . Claydon was imprisoned in Conway Castle in 1395, and the fact that his journey there was paid for by Robert Braybrooke, bishop ol London 1381-1404, suggests the possibility that action was taken against him at this time by the latter. No record of this, nor of any other heretical proceedings at this time, survives in Braybrooke's register, though we know from other sources that he took action about now against Thorpe, William; John Lydford's Booh, ed. Owen, Dorothy, London 1974, 11, 108–12Google Scholar . If Braybrooke's proceedings of this kind were recorded (as were, for instance, Bishop Alnwick's ot 1428-311 in a separate register, now lost, one can surmise that this might have covered the incident described by Knighton.

⁵⁶ Jack Upland, 99; cf. notes on pp. 160-1. On the dating ol this text cf. gff. esp. 1 7, and cf. , Hudson, Selections, 182Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Jack Upland, 172.

⁵⁸ For Lollard objections to church chanting and singing, including at ihe mass and other offices see English Works of Wyclif, ed. Matthew, F. D. (E.E.T.S., 74, 1880)Google Scholar , 16g, 191-2 (quotation at 191); Select English Works of John Wyclif, ed. Arnold, T.. Oxford 1869-1871, iii. 203, 228, 479–82Google Scholar ; , Hudson, Selections, 23, 86, 149, 181–2Google Scholar ; cf. also the arguments of Thorpe, William in Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. Pollard, A. W., Westminster 1903, 140–2Google Scholar ; , Thomson, Later Lollards, 250Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Haines, R. M., ‘“Wilde wittes and willulnes”: John Swetstock's attack on those “poyswunmongeres”, the Lollards’, S.C.H., viii (1972), 152Google Scholar ; ct. , Hudson, Selections, 125, 202Google Scholar . Cf. the case of John Yonge, a Bristol heretic who abjured in 1449, who claimed the right ol ‘free preaching except lor women; , Thomson, op. cit., 37Google Scholar . For other such remarks about keeping to the distaff see above p. 3 (Hocdeve) and Thomas, ‘Woman and…Sects’, 60-1, n 70.

⁶⁰ Thomas Netter of Walden, Doctrinale Anliquitatum Fidei Catholicae Ecclesiae, Venice 1757-1759Google Scholar . refers to this work of Purvey's, i, cols. 619, 637 (Bk. ii, caps. 70, 73), which h e says included the claim that women could preach at will. This text ‘apparently now lost) is discussed by Anne Hudson in a forthcoming article o n Purvey which I a m grateful to her for showing m e in typescript. See below pp. 459-60, nn. 69, 71, for Netter on Wycliffe's defence of women.

⁶¹ , Netter, Doctrinale, i. col. 638Google Scholar (Bk. ii, cap. 73). Once again (cf. above n 14 and p. 450) it was the teaching of men in public which was specially shocking, in view of the words of St Paul.

⁶² Ibid., i. col. 296 (Bk. ii. cap. 12), iii. col. 199 (De sacramentalibus, cap. 28); cf. iii. col. 371 (De sacramentalibus, cap. 58).

⁶³ Ibid., ii. col. 71 (De sacramentis, cap. 7) ‘ut tune tempore regis Richardi n fama personuit. & usque nunc durat’ cf. col. 185 (cap. 28) ‘…sectatores ejus (Wycliffe), ut publica lama canit, in hac civitate Londoniarum olim instituerunt juvenculam quamdam pro lestis diebus, & dominicis consecrare eis suam eucharistiam’.

⁶⁴ The period, location and trade (a tanner might well have been confused with a skinner) seem to point to Claydon, but Walsingham does not say the celebrations were in the vernacular.

⁶⁵ , Jenkins, ‘Cardinal Morton's Register’, 48.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ On the little we hear ol Lollard ritual see , Lambert, Medieval Heresy, 270Google Scholar ; , Thomson, Later Lollards, 115, 161, 246–7Google Scholar . If the catch-phrase ‘May we all drink of a cup’ found among early sixteenth-century Coventry Lollards was a password one can point to the parallel with Cathars; , Moore, Birth of Popular Heresy, 153Google Scholar . The questions about the eueharist framed c. 1428 for examining suspect Lollards, though pointing towards possible rejection of transubstantiation and orthodox consecration of the sacrament, did not envisage lay celebrants—which contrasts with the expectation of lay preaching and. correction ol clerical possessioners. Hudson, Anne. ‘The Examination of Lollards’, Bull. Inst. Hist. Research, xlvi (1973), 153Google Scholar , 155 and comments 150-2.

⁶⁷ Religious Dissent in the Middle Ages, ed. Russell, Jeffry. New York 1971, 45Google Scholar , cf. 63; Lambert, 76-7 and, on the effects of Donatist learnings among the Waldensians, 79-80, 163.

⁶⁸ Historia Anglicana, ii. 58; Workman, H. B., John Wyclif, Oxford 1926, ii. 416Google Scholar . For an attempt to escape Donatist heresy while arguing that Christians should not receive the sacraments or attend divine services administered by open simonists, lechers, or other ‘such vicious men’ (putting the stress on the public nature of the sin), see Remonstrance against Romish Corruptions in the Church, ed. Forshall, J., London 1851, 120–34Google Scholar (art. xxxv)—N.B. the mention of Donatists, 123.

⁶⁹ Joannis Wiclif Trialogus, ed. Lechler, G., Oxford 1869, 280–1Google Scholar ; cf. 38 for the author's characterisation of the speakers in the text. For Netter's linking of this passage in the Trialogus with the ‘profane priestess of the Lollard order’ see Doctrinale, ii. col. 185 (De sacramento eucharistiae, cap. 28).

⁷⁰ Johannis Wydif Tractatus de Potestale Pape, ed. Loserth, J.. London 1907, 307Google Scholar , 272. , Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages, ii. 531–3Google Scholar.

⁷¹ De Potestale Pape, 308. Cf. , Netter, Doctrinale, iii. col. 372Google Scholar (De sacramentalibus, cap. 58) where Wycliffe's ‘lemine ac alii irracionali’ has become ‘femine sive bruto’. According to Netter (col. 371) ‘ipse Wicleffus non erubuit libro suo de Papa pluries laborare pro femina, ut sit apta sacerdos ecclesie, episcopus, sive papa’. Cf. also cols. 376-7(1. Though Netter remarked on the ambiguity of Wycliffe's tortuous expressions, he does not seem to have made sufficient allowance for this in the deductions he drew from Chapter xi of De Potestate Pape.

⁷² De Potestate Pape, 308, 271-2—referring to 1 Cor. xi. The example of angels was also used in the refutation ol Brut's view of sacerdotal office (MS Harl. 31. fo. 216r-v).

⁷³ De Potestate Pape, 312-13, 315 (“Sicut enim omnis christianus et specialiter bonus presbiter est sacerdos…’).

⁷⁴ From De Eucharistia, quoted , Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages, ii. 520Google Scholar , n 2; cf. 519-20, 525-6 for references to this and other such views described (p. 520. cf. p. 525) as ‘the single most destructive and heretical feature of Wyclifs teaching’.

⁷⁵ For a suggestion of parallels between heresies of Waldensians and Lollards made by Palmer, Thomas see Reg. Trefnant, 400.Google Scholar