¹ De Euch., p. 199,

² De Apos., p. 144.

³ The Times, 10 July 1984; The Guardian, 20 July and 27 Sept. 1984. There does seem tobe some sort of analogy here for, as I understand it, the bishop of Durham’s case for reinterpreting the doctrines of the resurrection and the virgin birth rests, as did Wyclif’s reinterpretation of the eucharist, on a fresh understanding of the figurative sense of scripture.

⁴ Selections from English Wyclifftte Writings, ed. A. Hudson (Cambridge 1978) p. 18. In The Image of Both Churches Bale took this earthquake as a leading illustration of that which occurred at the opening of the sixth seal in Rev. 6.12. Select Works of John Bale, ed. H. Christmas, PS (Cambridge, 1849), p. 326.

⁵ Trial, pp. 339, 374-7, 445, 447 and cf. below p. 327. Thomson, W. R., The Latin Writings of John Wyclif (Toronto 1983) pp. 70–80, 82–3 n. 22Google Scholar, dating the Trialogus late 1382 to early 1383, seems to take too little account of the place of these references near the end of the work, where Wyclif retraces some ground he had already covered earlier in Book iv (notably on the eucharist). His treatment and increasingly polemical tone towards the end, combined with the allusion (Trial, p. 374) to the friars’ poisonous activity generally ‘during 1382 recently and particularly in their earthquake council in London’, show clearly, I think, that Wyclif was already at work on and had completed a large part of the Trialogus before May 1382, though we may agree that the turn of 1382-3 saw its possible completion.

⁶ Polemical Works I Preface p. v, cf. p. vi and Introduction pp. iv-vi (rather more outspoken in the Vorwort p. x and Einleitung pp. v-vi of the 1883 Leipzig edition) on Buddensieg’s failed efforts to persuade the Delegates of the Oxford University Press to publish his work—a failure that was in marked contrast with the reception given to the publication of the English works, proposed in 1865 by W. W. Shirley, Regius professor of ecclesiastical history (who died aged 38 in 1866). Shirley, W. W., A Catalogue of the Original Works of John Wyclif (Oxford 1865) p. vGoogle Scholar; Select English Works of John Wyclif, ed. T. Arnold (Oxford 1860-71) I p. i. See also J. P. Whitney, ‘A note on the work of the Wyclif Society’, Essays in History presented to Reginald Lane Poole, ed. H. W. C. Davis (Oxford 1927) pp. 98-114. In 1884 appeared De Compositione Hominis, ed. R. Beer (London & Vienna).

⁷ Buddensieg, R., John Wyclif Patriot and Reformer: Life and Writings (London 1884)Google Scholar. The Preface p. 5 expresses the aim ‘to recall to the memory of England one of her greatest sons, and to press home the thought of how much she owes to the advocate of her political and religious freedom, the translator of her Bible, and the maker of her language’. The texts (all in English) in Book ii pp. 83-164 were taken from De Ventate Sacre Scripture, Trialogus, Wickliffe’s Wicket and Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe, D.D., edited by R. Vaughan (London 1845) for the Wyclif Society that had been founded in 1843 to reprint tracts and treatises of earlier reformers, puritans and nonconformists.

⁸ Buddensieg, John Wyclif, pp. 13, 51. For a cheerful endorsement of Wyclif’s vernacular influence see G. P.Krapp, The Rise of English Literary Prose (New York & London 1915) p. xi. ‘If English Prose must have a father, no one is so worthy of this title of respect as Wiclif’—to whom Chapter II of me book is devoted; see p. 43 and thereafter on how ‘Wiclif wrote abundantly in English. …’ See also Chambers, R. W., On the Continuity of English prose from Alfred to More and his School, EETS 186 (1932) pp. lvii, lxxxix, ciii, cvii, clxviiGoogle Scholar.

⁹ K. B. McFarlane, Jhon Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity (London 1952) p. 118; Selections p. 10.

¹⁰ Snappe’s Formulary, ed. H. E. Salter, OHS 80 (1924) p. 134; Wilks, M., ‘Misleading manuscripts: Wyclif and the non-wycliffite bible’, SCH 11 (1975) pp. 147–61Google Scholar; Hargreaves, H., ‘The Marginal Glosses to the Wycliffite New Testament’, Studia Neophilologica 33 (1961) pp. 293–4, 296–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, CHB II pp. 387-415; Fowler, D. C., ‘John Trevisa and the English Bible’, Modem Philology 58 (1960) pp. 81–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, , The Bible in Early English Literature (London 1977) pp. 154–9Google Scholar; Magrath, J. R., The Queen’s College I (Oxford 1921) pp. 105–29.Google Scholar

¹¹ Opera Minora p. 378; Opus Evang. Ill pp. 36-7, 115; Polemical Works I p. 126, cf. p. 168 and Trial, p. 240.

¹² English Wycliffite Sermons I, ed. A. Hudson, (Oxford 1983) p. 159 n. 3; cf. pp. 9-13, 50.

¹³ It was of course a misfortune that the publication of English Wycliffite texts, including The English Works of Wyclif Hitherto Unprinted, ed. F. D. Matthew, EETS 74 (1880), antedated the Wyclif Society—but not the printing of the Trialogus, which may have been a specially important source. Shirley (Catalogue pp. viii-ix) had already sounded a caution, stressing the very doubtful ascription of the vernacular tracts (‘mentioned in no catalogue earlier than that of Bale’) as compared with the Latin works. ‘I believe we shall never arrive at any satisfactory conclusion as to the genuineness of many of the English tracts, until some considerable portion of the confessedly genuine works has been printed, and opportunity given for a large and careful comparison’—an opportunity that has yet to be fully exploited.

¹⁴ Dahmus, J. H., The Prosecution of John Wyclyf (New Haven & London 1952) pp. 49–54Google Scholar (taking the number of points condemned as 19); 93-8; Workman, H. B., John Wyclif (Oxford 1926) I pp. 297–9, II pp. 266–8, 416–17Google Scholar; McFarlane, , John Wycliffe pp. 79–81, 106–7Google Scholar; Gwynn, A., The English Austin Friars in the Time of Wyclif (Oxford 1940) pp. 232–3, 249.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Chronicon Angliae, ed. E. M. Thompson, RS (London 1874) pp. 174-5, cf. 176-7,178; Historia Anglicana, ed. H. T. Riley, RS (London 1863-4) I pp. 346-53; Fasciculi Zizaniorum (henceforward FZ) ed. W. W. Shirley, RS (London 1858) pp. 275-6; cf. 309-10 for the order of 12 june 1372 for the 24 conclusions to be publicly condemned in Saint Mary’s church, Oxford, in both English and Latin, and forbidding their teaching in scholis aut extra. In this context it is worth considering the list of nine bishops who attended the Blackfriars Council (FZ p. 286; Workman, , John Wyclif II pp. 254–60Google Scholar; Dahmus, Prosecution, p. 92). Of these William Bottisham was suffragan to the bishop of Winchester and John Fordham, recently promoted to Durham may (Workman suggested) have participated as archdeacon of Canterbury: cf.Churchill, I.J., Canterbury Administration (London 1933) I p. 48Google Scholar. All the remaining seven came from the south of England and we can point to events in the dioceses of Exeter, Salisbury and Winchester, as well as London and Lincoln, that might have made the presence of five of these diocesans specially desirable. See McHardy, A. K., ‘Bishop Buckingham and the Lollards of Lincoln diocese’, SCH 9 (1972) p. 131Google Scholar and below pp. 293, 294, and nn. 20, 32.

¹⁶ Chronicon Angliae, pp. 115-16,189-90; cf. Historia Anglicana, Ipp. 324-5, 363. The Anonimalle Chronicle 1333 to 1381, ed. V. H. Galbraith (Manchester 1927) p. 103. Walsingham, who stresses Wyclif’s effect on simplices auditores… simplices auosdam Londoniensium cives… says Wyclif referred to William Rufus in support of his argument that king and lords could remove temporalities from sinful churchmen. For the use of this example in De Civili Dominio see Tatnall, E. C., ‘John Wyclif and Ecclesia Anglicana ’, JEH 20 (1969) p. 33Google Scholar. On Wyclif’s popular preaching see Hudson, A., ‘Lollardy: the English Heresy?’, SCH 18 (1982) p. 271Google Scholar; Holmes, G., The Good Parliament (Oxford 1975) pp. 166–7, 189–91, 197–8Google Scholar; McFarlane, John Wycliffe p. 70; Workman, , John Wyclif I pp. 278–89.Google Scholar

¹⁷ De Ver. Sac. Scrip, cap. 14 pp. 349-50; ‘Unde quia volui materiam communicaram clericis et laicis, collegi et communicavi triginta tres conclusiones illius materie in li[n]gwa duplici’: (cf. Trial, p. 341, ‘Dixi alias in lingua multiplied; Polemical Works I p. 168, ‘evangelium in lingwa triplici exaratum’); De Off. Reg. pp. 78-9; ‘Et patet sentencia quam dixi in xxxiii conclusione abbreviata’. For verbal parallels between the 33 conclusions and De Civ. Dom. see Opera Minora p. viii; Thomson, S. H., Three Unprinted Opuscula of John Wyclif, Speculum 3 (1928) p. 252CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for the text of the conclusions Opera Minora pp. 19-73. On the dating and relationship of these texts see Thomson, Latin Writings pp. 257-8, and see pp. 56, 60-61 for the dates of March-April 1378 for Chapter 14 of De Veritate Sacre Scripture and mid 1379 for De Officio Regis (which grew out of these arguments).

¹⁸ English Wycliffite Sermons I p. 348. For the possibility that seven of Wyclif’s Sermones Quadraginta (Sermones IV nos. 59, 55-7, 62, 60, 23) forming a Sunday series from 19 Oct. to 30 Nov. 1376, may have been part of these London addresses see Mallard, W., ‘Dating the Sermones Quadraginta of John Wyclif’, Medievalia et Humanistica, 17 (1966) pp. 98–101Google Scholar; Benrath, G. A., Wyclifs Bibelkommentar (Berlin 1966) pp. 380–2, 386CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In addition to a reference to London (Sermones IV p. 460), these sermons include various observations on the abuses of temporal possessions, business fraud (p. 484) and debt (p. 198), and some remarks about funeral pomp and Christian knighthood (pp. 433-4) which, on 26 October, only three weeks after the solemn burial at Canterbury of the Black Prince (who had lain in state at Westminster since June), would have been extraordinarily pointed.

¹⁹ The Rule of Crysten Religioun, ed. W. C. Greet, EETS 171 (1927) p. 21, cf. p. 99. (Pecock commends the ability he has found among gentil men of the laity to understand high matters, even when given little help on ‘the terms or words’. Pecock himself invented words, some of which seem to have remained solely his vintage; e.g. endal, endalli, menal, menali, knouingal, knoual; see entries under these headings in Middle English Dictionary, ed. H. Kurath and S. M. Kuhn (Ann Arbor 1954-). He also englished theological terminology, for example rememoratijf signes for signa recordativa.

²⁰ Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich, 1428-31, ed. N. P. Tanner, Cser 4 series 20 (1977) pp. 111, 121. To refer to the eucharistie bread as ‘Christ in a cake’ was not at all disrespectful in itself; see Legends of the Holy Rood. ed. R. Morris, EETS 46 (1871) p. 211 cf. p. 220, and for a discussion (citing this) of how me sacrament of the altar was ‘often spoken of as a kind of banquet which had its beginning on Christmas Day’, Kolve, V. A., The Play Called Corpus Christi (Stanford 1966) p. 165Google Scholar. There is an interesting precedent for later eucharistie heresy in the diocese of Exeter, where in March 1355 Bishop Grandisson tried to bring to book Ralph Tremur, sometime (1331-4) rector of Warleggan in Cornwall. Tremur was an MA, described as skilled in grammar and four languages (Latin, French, English and Cornish/Breton), and had licences to study 1331-4. He was accused of asserting ‘that die bread and wine were not substantially transformed (suhstancialiter non transiré) into the flesh and blood of our lord Jesus Christ by the consecration of the words’. He attached this denial (as did Wycliffites) to the adoration of the host, reportedly saying ‘you are absurdly worshipping the work of your hands, for what does a priest do except gape and blow on a little bread?’. Tremur, who challenged the law as well as doctrine, was said to have stolen a pyx from church, taken it home, and thrown the sacrament into the fire. Grandisson, inspired to flights of rhetoric in his worry over this case and believing that Tremur had been spreading his views into other dioceses, wrote anxiously to the bishop of London about these events, as well as ordering denunciation of the offender in the vernacular in every parish of the diocese of Exeter. Tremur had taught his erroneous theology in the vernacular and led simple and unlearned people into error, ‘quosdam simplices et indoctos et theologie veritatis ignaros vel ad heresim pronos obtinuit sibi in errore tam execrabili secrecius adherere’. But there is no suggestion that he committed his suspect views to writing. It was his speech and all too fluent preaching that caused his bishop such anguish: (O detestahilis lingua… verborum loauacitate…garrulas et disertus). Despite these efforts Tremur seems to have evaded arrest and nothing is known of him after this. Nothing seems to be known of Tremur’s university career either, but his case should not be forgotten when considering later Oxford evangelists, specially the Cornishmen Lawrence Bedeman (below p. 293): for (a) Grandisson’s counter-action must have made Tremur’s case notorious in Exeter diocese (b) the rectory of Lifton, Devon, which Bedeman held from 1383 to his death in 1423, had been served in 1329 by Tremur’s uncle. The Register of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1327-1369) ed. F. C. Hingeston-Randolph (Exeter 1894-9) II pp. 1147-9, 1179-81; cf. pp. 621-2, 627, 660, 715; III pp. lxxiii-lxxvi, 1285, 1303; Manning, B. L., The People’s Faith in the Time of Wyclif (Cambridge 1919) p. 70Google Scholar. Emden, (O), III pp. 1895-6 mentions only John Tremur, Ralph’s uncle, though both were described as MA.

²¹ ‘Christianity in the fourteenth century was still an oral religion’; Manning, People’s Faith p. 1 — above all, one might add, in the expectations clerks had of lay learning, which meant that ‘preaching was considered the fundamental didactic tool for reaching a wide audience’; Haines, R. M., ‘Education in English ecclesiastical legislation of the later Middle Ages’: SCH 7 (1971) pp. 161–75Google Scholar (cited at p. 173); Gillespie, V., ‘ Doctrina and Predicado: The Design and Function of Some Pastoral Manuals’, Leeds Studies in English, new series 11 (1980) pp. 36–50.Google Scholar

²² See Hudson, ‘English Heresy?’ p. 265 for the argument that ‘it was only very slowly that the authorities of the established church came to see that the vernacular lay at the root of the trouble’. I am here suggesting that this statement might be qualified by distinguishing between awareness of new dangers in the spoken vernacular, and awareness that the written vernacular was being put to new uses. The former seems to have become clear by 1381-2; the latter not until later. However, the inspection and certifying in 1384 by Cambridge scholars of the Speculum Vite (an English poem, composed after 1349, derived from the French Somme le Roi) shows that already there were fears that a vernacular work of religious instruction might endanger the faith of the minus literati. Doyle, A. I., ‘A Survey of the origins and circulation of theological writings in English in the 14th, 15th, and early 16th centuries with special consideration of the part of the clergy therein’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis Cambridge 1953) pp. 82–3Google Scholar; Aston, M., Thomas Arundel (Oxford 1967) pp. 322–3Google Scholar; A Myrrour to Leuide Men and Wymmen. A Prose version of the Speculum Vitae, ed. V. Nelson (Heidelberg 1981) pp. 9-10,24-5.

²³ Chronicon Angiiae, pp. 174, 176, 178; Leff, G., Heresyin the Later Middle Ages (Manchester 1967) II p. 560Google Scholar; Thomson, S. H., ‘The Philosophical Basis of Wyclif’s Theology’, Journal of Religion 11 (1931) p. 109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ Chronicon Henrici Knighton, ed. J. R. Lumby, RS (London 1889-95) II pp. 204-5; CPR 1385-1389 (London 1900) pp. 427, 430, 448, 536, 550 (the commissions differ in the authors specified, some including Purvey, others naming only Wyclif and Hereford); Hudson, ‘English Heresy?’ p. 270.

²⁵ The 4th of the twelve conclusions of 1395 cited the Doctor Evangelicus in the Trialogus on the ‘feigned miracle of the sacrament of bread’ for his authority (given in Latin) quod panis materialis est habitudinaliter corpus Christi (Selections p. 25). This seems to be a reading of, rather than a quotation from the Trialogus pp. 267, 272 (where one notices the lack of the trouble some words panis materialis on which see below). Several of the other conclusions (though this was the only reference to this authority) could be related to the Trialogus, for the first three and the ninth all dealt with points raised there, and the remarks on general versus special prayer in Bk iv cap. 38 are treated by Netter together with conclusion 7; Doctrinale Antiquitatum Fidei Catholicae Ecclesiae, ed. B.Blanciotti (Venice 1757-9) 11 cap. 107 cols. 677-8, 680 (citing Trialogus p. 381), 681. The batteries directed against the Trialogus from the summer of 1395 undoubtedly owed much to this vernacular publicity, and the royal orders of 18 July to the chancellor and university of Oxford to have the book searched for heresy, specifically mentioned the king’s discovery that it contained heresy on the sacrament, the publication of which would spread unsound doctrine among the people. CCR 1392-1396 (London 1925) pp. 437-8.

²⁶ FZ pp. 114, 318; McFarlane, John Wycliffe, pp. 98, no. According to the Fasciculi, the duke’s message to Wyclif after the sentence of the chancellor of Oxford was quod de cetero non loquerelur de isla materia —the emphasis being on making his views known by speech, just as the Oxford sentence stressed public teaching.

²⁷ FZ pp. 104-6. The date of these lectures is controversial, but the summer of 1380 seems to fit best—the De Eucharistia probably being the outcome of them. Thomson, Latin Writings, pp. 67-70; Matthew, F. D., ‘The Date of Wyclif’s Attack on Transubstantiation’, EHR 5 (1890) pp. 328–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gwynn, Austin Friars pp. 258-9; B. L. anning,’Wyclif’, in CMH 7 (1932) pp. 492, 501; Workman, cf., John Wyclif II pp. 140 ff, 408–9.Google Scholar

²⁸ Gwynn, Austin Friars pp. 239, 254-5.

²⁹ Wyclif used a variety of analogies to emphasise the offensiveness of the doctrine ‘quod sacramentum non sit nisi accidens abiectum’; De Euch. p. 114; cf. p. 129 ‘Non enim pinsavit Deus unam pastam monstruosam accidencium per se existencium …’; p. 186, making the host a bundle of accidents makes it more abject in nature ‘quam aliqua vilis substancia corporea assignanda’; p. 284 comparing the host with manna. The language of De Apostasia becomes more extreme and specific; see pp. 106,121,127,205,235; cf. 80, 81,95, 107-8, 129, 242, 245; Trial p. 269. For shocked reactions see FZ pp. 108, 158; Eulogium Historiarum, ed. F. S. Haydon, RS (London 1858-63) 111 p. 350; Netter, Doctrinale II, cols. 383, 386 cap. 63; col. 278 cap. 44; for William Woodford on this ‘horrible’ conclusion see Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum & Fugiendarum, ed. O. Gratius rev. E. Brown (London 1690) I p. 200; cf. p. 193 on Wycliffe’s ‘great temerity’ in not only challenging the doctrine that the accidents remained without substance, but in asserting that this was heresy.

³⁰ FZ pp. 109-13; note the phrases ‘et tarn in ista universitate quam extra publiée dogmatizam’ (110); ‘in scholis vel extra scholis in hac universitate’ (112). See also n. 15 above. Gwynn, Austin Friars p. 260 suggests that Wyclif’s lecturing in the house of the Austins at the time of this announcement is an indication of their support up to this time.

³¹ FZ pp. 296-7 (Brackley being a living appropriated to Repton’s own Augustinian house at Leicester; McFarlane, John IVycliffe, pp. 102-3); see also pp. 299-300, 306-7 and Historia Anglicana II p. 60 for Repton’s Corpus Christi day sermon at Saint Frideswide’s (5 June 1382) in which he defended Wyclif’s eucharistie teaching, while indicating the need to keep his lips sealed over this until the clergy became more enlightened—words which might seem to echo Wyclif’s (below p. 317).

³² Wykeham’s Register, ed. T. F. Kirby, Hampshire Record Society (1896-9) II pp. 337-8, 342-3 (the orders were dated at Southwark on 21 May, at the conclusion of the first critical meering of the Blackfriars Council). For Alington see below n. 102. On Bedeman see The Register of Thomas de Brantyngham, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1370-1394), ed. F.C. Hingeston-Randolph (Exeter 1901-6) I pp. 158, 480-1; Registram Collegii Exoniensis, ed. C. W.Boase, OHS 27 (1894) pp. lxv-lxvii; Emden (O) III p. 1772; Workman, John Wyclif II pp. 139, 252, 287; McFarlane, John Wycliffe pp. 102, 109, 112; DNB. Brantingham’s (undated) commission of enquiry was prompted by the Blackfriars decision which (in the formulaic words of his letter) had brought Bedeman’s preaching to the bishop’s attention. Workman and Emden place this preaching tour after the Winchester proceedings, but it would makejust as good sense to place it before, given the fact that Bedeman made his submission to the bishop of Winchester and the lack of any secure evidence that he actually went to the west country between May and October 1382. (Wykeham’s 1382 letter calls him ‘Lawrence Bedeman of Cornwall’).

³³ FZ pp. 273-4; the names of Wyclif’s alleged comitiva being Nicholas Hereford, John Aston and Lawrence Bedeman, who appear together in this connection in 1382 (see previous note and fZ, p. 310); Dobson, R. B., The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (London 1970) pp. 372–8Google Scholar. Of course we cannot rule out the possibility that Ball, in the hopes of a temporary reprieve through ecclesiastical intervention, did claim a Wycliffite association—a claim that would have gained credibility in a context of rumours of eucharistie deviation.

³⁴ Eulogium Historiarum III pp. 350-1; Catto, J. I., ‘An alleged Great Council of 1374’, EHR 82 (1967) pp. 764–71, at p. 766CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England, II (London 1982) p. 158 n. 5Google Scholar. The chronicler refers to the refutation of Wyclif by the Franciscan regent John Tissington (see below p. 309). Another Franciscan who wrote at length against Wyclif on the eucharist was William Woodford (n. 59 below).

³⁵ Chronicon Angliae pp. 281-3; cf. Historia Anglicana I pp. 450-1; ‘crucem lapideam, in qua per ordinem tota series hujus rei sculpteretur’. The suggestion seems to be that Sir Lawrence imitated priestly fraction in his domestic celebration; perhaps too (though Walsingham does not say so) the significance of Easter Eve was that this was a supper. It should be noted also that the penance was to be performed at the cross on Fridays (cf. Workman, John Wyclif II p. 255 who misreads this as ‘six market days’). It seems more likely that Saint Martin was thinking in terms of the Last Supper than the Passover, as Workman suggested, and there is no reason to identify this Sir Lawrence with the man of the same name who appears in the London domus conversorum at this rime. Gransden, Historical Writing II p. 132 regards this tale as an example of Walsingham treating Lollardy (sic) ‘With apparent humour’. If the John de la Mare (MP for Wilts, in the Good Parliament) who served on local commissions in Wiltshire with Saint Martin, was related to Thomas de la Mare, abbot of Saint Albans (whose family the DNB reports as connected with the earl of Salisbury) we could postulate a source for this story.

³⁶ CCR 1377-1381 (London 1914) pp. 350, 356; CPR 1377-1381 (London 1895) pp. 38, 47, 473, 510, 512, 568; CFR 1377-1383 (London 1926) pp. 143, 220; CFR 1383-1391 (London 1929) pp. 127-8, 133-4, 143; CCR 1385-1389 (London 1921) p. 137. Members of Parliament (House of Commons 1878), vol. 62 pt. i p. 205, cf. pp. 168, 185, 187. See also Kightly, C., The Early Lollards. A Survey of Popular Lollard Activity in England, 1382-1428 (unpublished D.Phil, thesis York 1975) pp. 311–13Google Scholar on this incident and Sir Lawrence’s career, including the facts that he was born in 1319 and fought at Crécy.

³⁷ Knighton II pp. 162-3; Workman, , John Wyclif II pp. 266–7, 272Google Scholar and on Kenningham pp. 120-2; Gwynn, Austin Friars pp. 228-31; Emden (O) II p. 1077 under Kynyngham. Kenningham became confessor to John of Gaunt before 28 May 1392 (FZ pp. 3, 357) though it is not clear when. If he already held this position he might be presumed to have had some part in the duke’s cooling relations with the Wycliffites. See De Apos. pp. 60-1 for an attack on friars who, as confessors of kings and lords, failed to teach truth about the eucharist.

³⁸ Knighton II pp. 163-4; Workman, , John Wyclif II pp. 272–3Google Scholar (on the grants given to this Irish knight).

³⁹ Wilkins III pp. 160-1; FZ pp. 289-90, 318-19 ff. Hereford and Repton both incepted as doctors of theology this year. Aston was MA and Emden says probably mistakenly called bachelor of theology in Courtenay’s register. Emden (O) I p. 67, II p. 913, III p. 1566.

⁴⁰ The English versions of these addresses (both of which bear the marks of being copies) survive in Knighton II pp. 170-2, and MS Bodley 647 fol. 70^r-v (the latter being a Wycliffite collection). Comparison of the two suggests Knighton’s general accuracy, though loyalty to his house caused him to omit Repton’s name from the former document. It is to be noted that Aston (not the other two) ‘was required specially to say what I felt of this proposirion Material bread remains in the sacrament after the consecration ‘. The Latin text in FZ pp. 3 29-30 reads in the main as a faithful version of the English, but there is one interesting and critical difference. In Bodley 647 after Aston’s protestation ‘that the matter and the speculation thereof passes in height my understanding’, we have ‘and therefore as mickle as holy church tells openly for to believe in this matter I believe’. Knighton here omits ‘as holy church’ and FZ has ‘et ideo quantum de illa scriptum sacra docet expresse credendum est, credo’ (my italics). In the context of the preceding and succeeding allusions to holy writ, which is indicated as having priority over the determinations of the church, it seems probable that the Latin here represents the correct version. See Appendix below, also FZ pp. 331-3 for the ‘confession’ Aston submitted to Courtenay six months later, which, while yielding, quoted scripture at the archbishop and cited no authority later than Bede in support of church teaching on the sacrament (and did not mention transubstantiation).

⁴¹ MS Bodley 647 fol. 70^v. FZ pp. 329-30 says the archbishop had placed Aston in secular custody, and that the accused presented his appeal as ‘confessio pauperis incarcerati’; Dahmus, Prosecution p. 117. Aston may have been imprisoned for some months after 20 June (McFarlane, John Wycliffe p. in), and it is possible (see Appendix n. 3) that Hereford and Repton were on remand 19-20 June.

⁴² FZ p. 331; Dahmus, Prosecution pp. 117-18.

⁴³ Wilkins III pp. 163-4; McFarlane, Jhon Wycliffe p. 111; Workman, John Wyclifll p. 284. The following November (FZ, pp. 331-2) Aston admitted to the archbishop that he had replied with disrespect, using words both ‘offensive to your ears’ and foolish in themselves.

⁴⁴ MS Bodley 647 fol. 70^v (Appendix, p. 330). Compare William Thorpe’s reply, below n. 99.

⁴⁵ De Euch. pp. 47-9; ‘debemus enim loqui palam populo sentencias scripture necessárias ad salutem … novella ecclesia ponit transsubstanciacionem panis et vini in corpus Christi et sanguinem; hoc autem non posuit ecclesia primitiva… Hic videtur michi quod ecclesia primitiva illud non posuit, sed ecclesia novella, ut quidam infideliter et infundabiliter sompniantes baptizarunt terminum et fantasiarunt multa false ad onus ecclesie… Cum enim transsubstanciari sit terminus magistralis, licet fideli trahere eius significacionem ad quemcunque sensum katholicum parricularem et sic videtur ambigue et incomplete innuere fidem ecclesie de Euckaristia’; p. 218 “… multitudo talium terminorum introducta sine auctoritate scripture multum alteravit et perturbavit ecclesiam’; p. 229 ‘Cum ergo lex scripture tradidit nobis de eukaristia sufficiens ad credendum, videtur quod sit presumptuosa stulticia preter eius fundacionem superaddere novitates’. See also pp. 223, 273, 283, 285-7, 293 and 324 for the apology at the end of the book for the scholastic treatment necessary to show the errors of eucharistie doctrine. Cf. De Apos. p. 113; ‘Et quantum ad materias scolastice practicandas, videtur michi quod standum est in declaracione fidei scripture cum sua logica’. For the phrase ‘infundabiles novitates’ see Trial, p. 350. The sixth of the 24 conclusions condemned in 1382 was the pertinacious assertion ‘non esse fundatum in evangelio quod Chrisrus missam ordinavit’. Netter, Doctrinale, 11, caps. 74-5, col. 447 on, considers Wyclif’s objections to the terms ‘accident’, ‘subject’, ‘transubstantiation’ and ‘panis materialis’ as not to be found in scripture. On Berengar of Tour’s influence on the development of eucharistie terminology see Macy, G., The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period (Oxford 1984) pp. 40, 52–3.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ FZ, p. 117; De Apos. p. 220.

⁴⁷ Twenty-Six Political and other Poems, ed. J. Kail, EETS 124 (1904) pp. 104-5 from ‘Of the sacrament of the Altere’ in MS Digby 102. The next stanzas include; ‘Under dyverce spices [species] only tokenynges,/Though the spices fro hym be went’, and ‘He dwelleth under ayther spys’ which, together with the lines ‘In byleve of holychirche, who wyl hym yoken,/Agen this, non argument may make’, seem to reflect the development of vernacular discussion on the eucharist by the early fifteenth century.

⁴⁸ The Lay Folks Mass Book, ed. T. F. Simmons, EETS 71 (1879) p. 118; Jacob’s Well, 1 ed. A. Brandeis, EETS 115 (1900) pp. 19, 59, 156.

⁴⁹ Netter, Doctrinale II cap. 44 col. 277 (after citing Augustine): ‘Vere infra eundem ambitum fidei periti spiriruales dicunrur intelligere: caereri populares solum simplicirer credere’; Haines, R. M., ‘Church, society and politics in the early fifteenth century as viewed from an English pulpit’, SCH 12 (1975) p. 154 n. 78Google Scholar, and on those addressed pp. 144, 153 n. 75. See also the reproof of lay meddling in eucharistie theology in a sermon written between c.1378 and C.1417 in Middle English Sermons, ed. W. O. Ross, EETS 209 (1940) pp. 127-8 (‘the argumentes and the skill that may be of the Sacramente,… longeth not to the … to the that arte a lewd man … it is inowyth to the to beleven as holychurche techeth the and lat the clerkes alone with the argumentes’); J. Coleman, English Literature in History 1350-1400 (London 1981) pp. 206-8. Hoccleve’s rebuke of Oldcasde on this matter was significantly succinct: ‘Thow errest foule eeke in the sacrament/Of the Auter, but how in special/For to declare it needith nat at al;/It knowen is in many a Regioun’: Hoccleve’s Works: The Minor Poems, ed. F.J. Furnivall and I. Gollancz, rev. J. Mitchell and A. I. Doyle, EETS extra series 61 and 73 (1970) p. 11. On the limitations of lay understanding of the mass see Manning, People’s Faith, pp. 4-16 (also p. 69 on difficulties of belief); A Hudson and H. L. Spencer, ‘Old Author, New Work: The Sermons of MS Longleat 4’, Med A 53 (1984) p. 227; also, for the assumptions governing an earlier period, M. Richter, ‘A socio-linguistic approach to the latin middle ages’, SCH 11 (1975) pp. 69-82.

⁵⁰ The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, Pt. I ed. C. Horstman, EETS 98 (1892) pp. 24-5 (from prayers at the elevation); The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed. H. N. MacCracken, EETS extra series 107 (1911) pp. 99, 101; Twenty-Six Poems, p. 40; Lay Folks Mass Book, pp. 40-1, 130; Kolve, Corpus Christi, pp. 71, 81.

⁵¹ Deanesly, M., The Lollard Bible and other Medieval Biblical Versions (Cambridge 1920) pp. 421, 425, 428, 429Google Scholar; Hudson, A., ‘The Debate on Bible Translation, Oxford 1401’, EHR 90 (1975) pp. 1, 15–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hudson, ‘English Heresy?’, pp. 273-4. Though the problems of translating the Bible were distinct from those of englishing theology, there was a clear connection in the minds of objectors between the translation of ‘holy writ… holy doctors, and… philosophy’, as expressed in Trevisa’s Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk upon translation; Fowler, Bible in Early English Literature p. 159.

⁵² MED, accident 2 (a) and Co); forme 14b; on species (‘spices’) see above n. 47. (The MED fascicle containing qualite, quantite and quidite, though published, had unfortunately not crossed the Atlantic when I was writing this paper). The entries under ‘subget’ so far collected for the MED reflect the overwhelmingly Wycliffite context for this theological eucharistie usage. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Pardoner’s Tale, C 538-9; ‘Thise cookes, how they stampe, and streyne, and grynde,/And turnen substaunce into accident’; On the Properties of Things. John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (Oxford 1975) I p. 548; ‘Cene Day is day of reconciliacioun, of transubstanciacioun, of consecracioun …’ For the philosophical terms fourme accidental, fourme substaneyal, accident, qualite, subiecte and substaunce see 1 p. 554, II pp. 1268, 1355. Cf. the English tract on confession in English Works on Wyclif, p. 345; ‘And thus power that prestis han standeth not in transubstansinge of the oste, ne in makyng of accidends for to stonde bi hemsilf. Coleman, English Literature in History p. 212.

⁵³ Wilkins, III p. 258; Reg. Arundel (Lambeth) II fol. 182^v. This abjuration, before bishop, clergy and people, was followed the next day by an oath not to preach his conclusions or hear confessions without licence. McFarlane, john Wycliffe p. 151.

⁵⁴ Reg. Arundel 11 fol. 180^v; Wilkins, 111 p. 254 and following, cited at 258. See pp. 354-5 for Oldcastle’s trial at which his statement ‘that the most worschipfull sacrament of the auter is Cristes body in forme of bred’ was insufficient, and he was required to give his opinion on the statement ‘that after the sacramental wordes ben sayde by a prest in hys masse the material bred that was bifore is turned in to Cristis verray body and the material wyn that was byfore is turned in to Cristis verray blode and so ther leeveth in the auter no material brede ne material wyn wych wer ther by fore the seyng of the sacramental wordes’. Reg. Arundel II fol. 144^r.

⁵⁵ Wilkins, III pp. 159-60; FZ pp. 309-11. However, I would not like to rest too much on this phrase, which also appears in the 1377 papal bulls to Oxford [sive terminorum curiosa implicatione nitantur defendere; Chronicon Angliae p. 175; Dahmus, Prosecution p. 47) and may already have been a stock formula for academic equivocation. Cf.Wilks, M., ‘The Early Oxford Wyclif. Papalist or Nominalist?’, SCH 5 (1969), p. 87, n. 4Google Scholar on the prejorative meaning of sophism.

⁵⁶ Wilkins, III pp. 316-17, constitutions 3, 4, 5 and 8. The need to discriminate between different sorts of hearers (especially the different levels of lay and clerical learning), treated in constitution 3, had long been stressed in ecclesiastical legislation and we can see Wyclif taking account of it (below pp. 318, 320). Haines, ‘Education’ pp. 161-2,169. On the blameworthy sense at this period of the words ‘curiosity’ and ‘curious’ as implying an inquisitive desire to know things one had no right to learn see MEDcurious i(d) and curiousite 2(a), 3(a); Hudson and Spencer, ‘Old Author, New Work’ p. 232, cf 223. Lollards definitely became associated with curiosity of this kind; see Hoccleve’s complaint (Minor Poems p. 13) about those who ask, ‘ “Why stant this word heere?”, and “why this word there?”/“Why spake god thus, and seith thus elles where?” ‘. See Haines, ‘Church, society and politics’ p. 153 n. 75 on ‘isti laici qui nesciunt litteras volunt se smater de profundissima clerimonia’, moving high matters and posing the most difficult questions to any clerk; Smalley, B., Studies in Medieval Thought and Learning (London 1981) p. 403.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Reule pp. 71-99, caps. 8-13 of treatise 1, cited at 95-6. The difficulties of the church’s eucharistie doctrine were fully treated by Aquinas in the Stimma Contra Gentiles Bk IV, caps. 61-9, see in particular cap. 62.

⁵⁸ Love, N., The Mirrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ, ed. Powell, L. F. (Oxford 1908) pp. 205–11, 301–24Google Scholar, quoted at 207-8, 301, 303, 306-7, 319-21. For the presentation of this work to Archbishop Arundel and his inspection and approval of it in 1410 see Salter, E., Nicholas Love’s ‘Mirrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ’, Analecta Cartusiana 10 (1974) pp. 1–2Google Scholar; Doyle, ‘A Survey’, pp. 140-1; idem, , ‘Reflections on Some Manuscripts of Nicholas Love’s Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ’, Leeds Studies in English, new series 14 (1983) pp. 82–93Google Scholar. Doyle suggests that the work may have been circulating some while before it was approved by Arundel, and the fact that the archbishop was in 1409 given fraternity of Mountgrace might indicate his knowledge of or support for the project. By no means all the manuscripts (on which see Salter) include the treatise on the sacrament; a note in one (Salter p. 14) shows the kind of annoyance Love’s harping on the miraculous had for those of Lollard persuasion.

⁵⁹ For these and other replies to Wyclif see Gynn, Austin Friars, pp. 225-7, 260-1; Ker, N. R., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, II (Oxford 1977) pp. 686–7Google Scholar. Woodford’s comprehen sive 72 questiones De sacramento altaris (of 1383-4) referred to doubts about Christ’s presence in the divided portions of the host as ‘heresis vulgi et simplicium’; Bodley MS 703 fol. 107’. For the Confessio see FZ pp. 115-32; Thomson, Latin Writings pp. 69-71 (note the unusual number of English manuscripts of this text). It seems to have escaped notice and is of some interest (both for the development of this topic and the growing resistance to Wyclif’s views), that the whole text of the Confessio corresponds, word for word, with large sections of Chapter 16 of De Apostasia (see pp. 213/2-16, 219/32-221/13, 222/40-229/37, 230/21-231/9). This may originally have been the concluding chapter of De Apostasia, for the editor suggests (p. xxxv) diat Chapter 17, now the last, may have been tacked on as a supplement or appendix (compare the supplement added to the Trialogus, which likewise included repetition and vituperation against the friars). De Apostasia is the middle book of a fairly self-contained trilogy, standing between De Simonia, of about early 1380, and De Blasphemia, of mid-1381: it probably dates from late 1380 to early 1381. Both Wyclif’s action in publishing an abstract of this book, and the volley of replies to his so-called Confessio—a reaction much more considerable than anything provoked by the long treatments of De Eucharistia and De Apostasia—suggests the impact of events that took place during the later months of 1380 and early 1381. We may reasonably postulate that Wyclif was stung into reformulating or reiterating (a favourite vice!) his view of the eucharist by the judgement of Chancellor Barton’s council, perhaps adding another chapter to De Apostasia at the same time.

⁶⁰ FZ pp. 133-80, at pp. 143-5, 151, 178 ‘Dicitur enim quod in multis locis huius regni populus abstinet ab eucharistia in paschate’; cf above p. 294 see also De Euch. p. 123, contrasting the consecrated host with holy bread, and De Bias. pp. 89-90, where Wyclif’s remarks about Barton’s council are related to the Easter sacrament and beliefs about ille panis consecratus, 173 (‘non tamen vulgariter, et coram laicis, conceditur communiter videri aut sentiri [corpus Christi], nisi cum hac determinatione, in forma et specie panis; ne populus pronus ad idolatriam, nesciens disringuere inter sensibile in se, et sensibile in alio, credat speciem panis, aut aliud quod immediate et in se sentitur, esse corpus Chrissti; et sic, ut dictum est, turpiter paganizent’). The scripture scrutatores (p. 144) presumably alludes to well-used biblical words; see John 5:39 and Acts 17:11. For Netter see above n. 45. Tissington’s Confessio is dated 1381 in MS Bodley 703 fol. 65^v. On Tissington see Emden (O) III pp. 1870-80.

⁶¹ FZ pp. 181-238, cited at p. 197 on predicalio identica and predicatici tropologica velfigurativa (‘Ubi pane ponit quod ibi videtur, scilicet formam pañis, non esse aliud quod ibi intelligitur, scilicet verum corpus panis’). This central question of the different scriptural forms of speech is discussed by Wyclif in the eucharistie context in various places (stressing the distinctions between predicatio ydemptica and predicado tropica, or between predicado farmalis, essentialis et habitudinalis). De Euch. pp. 38-41, 200, 225, 230-1, 303-4; De Apos. pp. 51, 71-2, 104-6; Trial. pp. 201-2, 266 ff;see English Wyclifftte Sermons, p. 347; Selections, ed. Hudson, pp. 114, 193-4; Netter, Doctrinale II cap. 20 col. 143 (calling Wyclif iste magnus Doctor signorum), cap. 86 col. 515 (referring to this English sermon). On Winterton see Gwynn, Austin Friars pp. 225-6, 234-5, 260-1, 270 (giving the summer of 1381 as the date the Absolutio was published); Emden (O) III p. 2062.

⁶² McNulty, J., ‘William of Rymyngton, Prior of Salley Abbey, Chancellor of Oxford, 1372-3’, YAJ 30 (1930-1) pp. 231–47Google Scholar; Emden (O) III p. 1617; Workman, John Wyclif II pp. 122-3. These exchanges, of which only Wyclif’s side is in print, are to be found as follows: (1) Rimington’s 26 errors and 45 conclusions, MS Bodley 158 fols. 199^r-217^r (2) Wyclif’s reply to 44 conclusions (omitting no. 15), Opera Minora pp. 201-57 (the reference p. 230 to preaching in pugna nuper Flandrensium dates this to late 1382 or 1383—bearing in mind that the preaching—see also pp. 206,245-6—of the Despenser crusade antedated its inception by some months; M. Aston, The Impeachment of Bishop Despenser’, BIHR 38 (1965) pp. 127-8, 133-4; cf. Thomson, Latin Writings pp. 233-4, no. 384 (3) Rimington’s incomplete Dialogue, MS Bodley 158 fols. 188^r-197^r, datable to after 31 Dec. 1384 from the reference to die death of Wyclif fol. 188^r (‘quidam doctor modernorum errorum et heresium … mortuus est et eius doctrina pestifera in varus scriptis et in quibusdam ignotis in suis discipulis perseverat…). Rimington’s 26 heresies and errors, though covering the main matters dealt with in the 24 conclusions condemned at Blackfriars, are differently worded, less clearly organized, and have both omissions and additions (in particular more points relating to clerical temporalities and lay rights of correction). This raises the possibility that Rimington wrote before the council published its condemnation, since on the face of it, it seems unlikely he would have drawn up another parallel list once the 24 points were known.

⁶³ MS Bodley 158 fol. 199^r ‘Iste sunt in summa conclusiones heretice sue erronie que nuper traxerunt in errorem muitos simpliciter litteratos’; fol. 200^v incipit prologus in doctrinam simpliciter litteratorum contra hereses nuper in anglia exortas’; fol. 202^r ‘ad infeccionem simplicium’; fol. 216^v against those who ‘loquendi ecclesie et simpliciter litteratis sunt occasio et causa erroris’.

⁶⁴ MS Bodley 158 fol. 201^r ‘per quamdam epistolam maledictam presumpcionis et blasfemie plenam provocans dominos temporales et populos universos ad prosequendum ipsum summum ponrificcm tanquam prophanum apostatara et blasphemum’: margin, ‘nota pro epistola maledicta’. If, as seems possible, this refers to the ‘Letter to Pope Urban’ (Opera Minora pp. 1-2; FZ pp. 341-2) it supports the date of 1378 for this address; McFarlane. John Wycliffe p. 89; Workman, John Wycliffe p. 310, II p. 315; Dahmus, Prosecution pp. vi, 141-8; Thomson, Latin Writings pp. 259-61, no. 404. See above p. 287 for Wyclif’s tone towards the curia in 1378.

⁶⁵ MS Bodley 158 fol. 202^r ‘Talis doctrina pestifera verisimiliter fuit iam nuper movens communitatem ad insurgendum contra regem et proceres huius regni quod fatuitatis factum ad finalem destruccionem tam sacerdocii quam milicie in anglia cessisset’. This was the third sign of the effects of the sect, says Rimington, seemingly implying that the royal intervention in Oxford quarrels preceded the 1381 rising. His remarks about this might therefore be set beside the story in Eulogium Historiaram III pp. 348-9, which linked the chancellor’s citation before the council on 22 March 1378/9 with proceedings against Wyclif. Wilkins, 111 p. 137; Dahmus, Prosecution pp. 62-4; Workman, John Wyclif I pp. 305-6.

⁶⁶ Acts 4.13; ‘videntes autem Petri constantiam et Iohannis conperto quod homines essent sine litteris et idiotae admirabantur … Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgalam Versionem, ed. R. Weber (Stuttgart 1969) II p. 1703; Hargreaves, ‘Marginal Glosses’, p. 287. Opera Minora, p. 201 refers to sacerdotes fideles who, as evangelists, did not ‘scolasrice didicerunt’, and see pp. 202, 234-5, 245 for Wyclif’s references to sacerdotes simplices—a phrase which was of old usage (for instance in ecclesiastical legislation); Thomson, Latin Writings p. 233 remarks on his here defending sympathizers extra scholas.

⁶⁷ Leff, Heresy II p. 545. See also Leff, G., ‘Ockham and Wyclif on the Eucharist’, Reading Medieval Studies 2 (1976) pp. 1–13Google Scholar. Important here is Catto, J. I., ‘Wyclif and the Cult of the Eucharist’, in The Bible in the Medieval World, ed. Walsh, K. and Wood, D., SCH Subsidia 4 (Oxford 1985) pp. 269–86.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ ‘Nam populus et mille episcopi nec intelligunt accidens nec subiectum; quomodo igitur introduceretur preter fidem scripture tarn extranea et impossibilis novitas ad difficultandum fideles specialiter? cum illud accidens quod vocant panem sit infinitum imperfeccioris nature quam panis materialis’. De Apos. p. 60; see pp. 228-9, 230-r on accidents without subject and the devotion of the people.

⁶⁹ Netter, Doctrinale II cap. 44 col. 275 and after.

⁷⁰ De Apos. p. 121: ‘Sicut igitur deus mandat fidelibus quod vocent sacramentum altaris panem vere indubie. … Sed non erubesco ewangelium vocando hoc sacramentum panem, sicut spirirus sanctus vocat’; p. 113 ‘Et quantum ad materias scolastice practicandas, videtur michi quod standum est in declaracione fidei scripture cum sua logica’; p. 223 ‘Et, non obstante errore glosancium, ista fides mansit continue in ecclesia apud laycos’. Allusions to error starring in the second millennium are frequenr, see pp. 66,76,113-14,127,128,130,147,148, 160; also FZ p. 114; Netter, Doctrinale II cap. 18 cols. 127-8; Rogeri Dymmok Liber Contra XII Errores et Hereses Lollardorum, ed. H. S. Cronin (Wyclif Society 1922) p. 93.

⁷¹ For Wyclif’s recommendation of plain style see Hargreaves, H., ‘Wyclif’s Prose’, Essays and Studies (1966) p. 3Google Scholar; Auksi, P., ‘Wyclif’s Sermons and the Plain Style’. ARG 66 (1975) pp. 5–23Google Scholar; Sermones I p. xi and Praefatio; IV sermon 31, pp. 262-75 (p. 266 on the vainglory of the ‘subtle theologian’ seeking to distinguish his sowing of the word of God from that of the sacados ruralis… exiliter literatus; p. 271 on plain speech, plana locucio). It was a consistent part of Wyclif’s case that to call the eucharistie host bread would reduce the danger of idolatry, ‘per hoc quod nominatur panis foret populus pronior ex naturali ingenio ad cognoscendum quod non est corpus Christi’; De Euch. p. 143.

⁷² Trial, p. 247.

⁷³ DeEuch. p. 188. See iiso DeApos. pp. 149, 152,160.

⁷⁴ DeEuch. pp. 123-4.

⁷⁵ Sermones IV pp. 350-1; ‘Percipit aucem ex fide quod plenum corpus Christi sanguis et anima sit ex integro ad omnem punctum huius sacramenti, quod inter omnia misteria fidei videtur dificillium christiano concipere’. (See above p. 306 on Pecock and p. 281 n. 2 for De Após. on the difficulty of sacramental belief). This Easter sermon (no. 42 pp. 343-5 5), telling the congregation how the sacrament should be received, is conjecturally dated 18 April 1378 by Mallard, ‘Sermones Quadraginta ‘ pp. 94-5, 105, who points out diat Wyclif here questions the complete conversion of the substance of the bread.

⁷⁶ De Euch. pp. 301-2; see also De Apos. pp. 100, 109-10, 200, 224; Selections, ed. Hudson p. 17; Political Poems and Songs, ed. T. Wright, RS (London 1859-61) p. 247.

⁷⁷ DeEuch. p. it9, see also pp. 109-10.

⁷⁸ De Apos. p. 163; ‘et licet consecratores accidentis cognoscant quod populus adorat hoc sacramentum tanquam corpus Christi, quod dicunt esse ydolatriam, tamen reticent, timendo quod quereretur ab eis quid sit hoc sacramentum, et perciperetur eorum mendax versucia’; pp. 109, 122, 142,155 for cultores signorum; p. 209’nam cognoscere quidatatem parus est accio intellectus’. Compare Sermones IV p. 352 (n. 75 above) ‘nec est vis nobis quid sit sacramentum, sed est satis nobis noscere quale sit et propter quid’; this passage (pp. 352-3) is related to what Wyclif says at the beginning of De Eucharistia pp. 11-14, on what should be preached to the laity about the eucharist, including allusion to the objection (p. 13) ‘quod ista non sunt dicenda laycis qui nee ipsa concipiunt nee observant…’

⁷⁹ De Euch. p. 143; ‘Adversarii enim infideliter abscondunt naturalem quidditatem sacramenti sic quod populus non cognoscit distinccionem eius a corpore Christi, in tantum quod ista secta verecundatur detegere suam fictitiam’; see also pp. 112, 118; De Apos. pp. 230-1.

⁸⁰ De Apos. pp. 57-8. See also p. 68; De Euck pp. 108, 119, and below n. 88. Wyclif’s complaints about episcopal and clerical ignorance of this matter reflect the theologians’ opposition to canon lawyers (such as Archbishop Courtenay) leading the church. H. A. Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan 1967) pp. 372, 376, 378–9, 390; The History of the University of Oxford, I ed. J. I. Catto (Oxford 1984), pp. 540-1, 544, 553, 555. 561, 574.

⁸¹ De Apos. pp. 108, 166, 192, 209, 233, 243; DeEuch. pp. 130, 231.

⁸² De Apos. pp. 52,63-4,65,120,143. See St John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa, PG 94, lib. iv col. 1150 and compare lib. iii col. 1002.

⁸³ Trial, p. 265; ‘ut intrans basilicam non infigit sensum suum in consideratione de quidditate ugni imaginis sive crucis, sed ipsum colit quantum suffecerit in signato’—following a reference to Grosseteste on the De Divinis Nominibus of pseudo Dionysius, on which see Thomson, S. H., The Writings of Robert Grosseteste (Cambridge 1940) p. 57.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ De Blas. p. 24; compare Opera Minora p. 212. See De Apos. p. 243 for a generalised analogy of an image, and De Euch. p. 137 for an analogy from nature—how awareness of the light of the stars disappears in the presence of the sun. See also FZ pp. 107-8, which comments on Wyclif’s use of the analogy of wood transformed into image, and his (frequent) comparison of the worship of crucifix and host; also n. 93 below.

⁸⁵ De Euch. pp. 304-5; ‘nunc loqui uno modo nunc alio secundum capacitatem auditorii, cui loquuntur, ut aliter loquendum est sophistis et aliter piis simplicibus. Ego autem elegi laicis loqui planius quod illud sacramentum figurat corpus Christi et conficitur, colitur et manducatur intencione memorandi et imitandi Christum’. See above nn. 75 and 78.

⁸⁶ It does not seem possible to date with any exactitude the moment when Wyclif went public over his eucharistie theory. One terminus post quem (which probably leaves a wide margin) is the Protestado (and related Libellus) which, in early 1378, is silent on this issue. In De Euch. which was most likely completed and published in mid- to late 1380, Wyclif (p. 183) makes clear that he had published his challenge; ‘ideo timendo istam persecucionem severam protestatus sum publice quod volo humiliter corrigi per quoscunque et specialiter per episcopos qui docuerint in ista materia veritatem. Sed volo querere signum, unde doctrine quam asserunt fideliter possum confidere’. Thomson. Latin Writings, pp. 67-9, no. 38, pp. 253-5, nos- 399-400; Gwynn, Austin Friars, p. 258.

⁸⁷ De Euch. pp. 5, 136 ff. ‘Unde videtur quod illi dogmatisantes qui deficienribus argumentis defamanl universitatem in vulgari propter dicta scolastica et sanctorum sentencias sint publiée puniendi; hoc autem optarem, cum ipsi sint manifeste heretici nisi probavcrint quod divulgant aut quod non accipiant dignitatem in Oxonia antequam docuerint heresim quam imponut’ (pp. 155-6); ‘sed pseudo Scarioris discipuli agitati a demonio meridiano publice in sermonibus incitant populum in vulgati, ut destruam tamquam hereticos simplices discipulos veritaris’ (p. 157); ‘Non ergo sequitun Si Thomas hoc asseruit, ergo hoc est populo predicandum ‘ (p. 158)—my italics. On the challenge to Aquinas see pp. 224, 286-7, 294 and De Apos. p. 78 where Wyclif, rejoicing in the views of those who believed ‘quod panis et vinum santificata sunt hoc sacramentum’ reports that they dared not speak their opinion for fear of impugning Saint Thomas and Minorite doctors. For a Dominican defence of Saint Thomas in this context see Rogeri Dymmok Liber, pp. 92-4, 110-11. See also De Apos. pp. 124-6, 168, 189 where Augustine is placed in apposition to Aquinas; the remarks of Manning in CMH VII pp. 501-2; Wilks, ‘Early Oxford Wyclif, pp. 84-5, and above n. 30. For the passage in Aquinas cited by Wyclif, De Buck pp. 137-8 see Scriptum super Libras Sententiarum, ed. P. Mandonnet (Paris 1929-47), 4 p. 436; 23-6; Lib IV Dist. xi q. 1 art. i.

⁸⁸ De Euch. p. 183 (preceding the sentence quoted in n. 86) in a passage where Wyclif is mainly attacking bishops for their ignorance of the quiddity of the host; ‘illi prelati religionum qui in suis capitulis accusant precipue fratres suos, quia predicant in patria quod sacramentum altaris nee est corpus Christi nee sanguis, sed efficax eius signum…’

⁸⁹ De Apos. pp. 253-4; ‘Sic igirur instruendus est populus quod sacramentum altaris est secundum suam naturam panis et vinum, sed secundum verbi dei miraculum est corpus Christi et sangwis. Et dicendum est scolasticis quod sacramentum, secundum quod panis aut vinum, subiectat naturaliter omnia illa accidencia que sentimus; sed secundum quod corpus Christi, confert graciam fidelibus ipsa dignis. Istam autem sentenciam propono publicare in populo’. See n. 59 above. The section on Eukaristia in the Latin Floretum (written before 1396) expounds the relationship of accidents and substance at length, with reference to Augustine (BL MS Harley 401 fol. 95^r-v); the English Rosarium by contrast, has nothing on this in its greatly abbreviated entry: a deliberate omission. The Middle English Translation of the Rosarium Theologie, ed. C. von Nolcken (Heidelberg 1979) pp. 71-2; 113-14.

⁹⁰ Trial, pp. 247-8. This comes in the part of the text that I would date before May 1382 (see above n. 5).

⁹¹ The Church, Politics and Patronage in the Fifteenth Century, ed. R. B. Dobson (Gloucester & New York 1984) p. 58.

⁹² Selections, ed. Hudson, pp. 17-18, 141-4; Knighton pp. 157-62; MS Bodley 647 fols. 63^v-64^v. The heading to this text in the manuscript has ‘Johannes Wycliff,’ followed by an erasure which seems under ultra violet light to have included ‘M … ewangel…’

⁹⁴ Selections p. 17 and above p. 318. Hudson, who (p. 141) aptly describes the two confessions as ‘an anthology of phrases that can be paralleled many times’ gives as the nearest approximation De Fide Sacramentorum, ed. S. H. Thomson, JTS 33 (1932) pp. 359—65; dated late 1381? by Thomson, Latin Writings p. 71 no. 40. This text, however, does not include the analogy of the wooden image, and though it would be unwise to make too much of this parallel, it is worth noticing, specially as Wyclif only seems to have begun to use it after writing De Eucharistia, though the point to which it applies is raised in all his eucharistie discussions.

⁹⁴ See above p. 304 and n. 54; Netter, Doctrinale II cap. 74 col. 448; ‘Sic item causatur terminum transubstantiationem terminum magistralem, et abjicit terminum funis materiais ea de causa

⁹⁵ Select English Works III p. 404; Politics and Patronage, ed. Dobson, pp. 58-9.

⁹⁶ Select English Works III p. 427, also pp. 412-13,416,422-3, and 410 (‘tho secounde blaspheme grounden dies freris, for thei feynen falsely beggynge in Crist’); cf. Trial, p. 341 (Alithia) ‘Videtur enim multis, quod Chrisms taliter mendicavit, et certum est quod super mendicatione hujusmodi fratrum religio est fundara’: De Off. Reg. p. 165 ‘Non enim est credendum vel obediendum nomini vel angelo nisi de quanto est fundabile ex scriptura’. A. Hudson, ‘A Lollard sect vocabulary?’, So meny people longages and tonges, ed. M. Benskin and M. L. Samuels (Edinburgh 1981) p. 22.

⁹⁷ Select English Works III p. 40s; see also 427, ‘… hardnesse and sofftenesse, freelnesse and towghnesse, with soche qualytees, may nowther qualite ne quantite sogetten; Trial, p. 259, ‘Sed talia accidentia, durities, mollifies fragilitas et tenacitas, nee possum per se nec in aliis accidenribus subjectari…’ (my italics). No other example of the verb subjecten has yet been found by the MED editors.

⁹⁸ Select English Works 111 p. 406; cf. II p. 422, and MED, perplex (which only gives one example). For an instance of Latin use see Polemical Works I p. 362, ‘quilibet viator foret dubius vel perplexus’. Of course where the new words remained close to the Latin they could have the advantage of acting as stepping-stones towards it, as pointed out by Rolle in the prologue to his Psalter, where he said he sought to use English ‘that is most like unto the Latin, so that they that knows not Latin, by the English may come to many Latin words’. Salter, Nicholas Love’s “Mirrour” p. 222.

⁹⁹ Select English Works III pp. 426-7. (Compare the attacks on episcopal ignorance in De Euch. pp. 108, 182-3 and nn. 80, 88 above; on differing audiences above n. 85). For William Thorpe’s exact following of this advice in his examination in 1407 see Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. A. W. Pollard (Westminster 1903) pp. 129-33—where Thorpe shows himself well versed in Wyclif’s arguments. See p. 130; ‘And I said, “Sir, I know of no place in Holy Scripture, where this term, material bread, is written: and therefore. Sir, when I speak of this matter, I use not to speak of material bread” ‘ p. 132; ‘But, Sir, for as mickle as your asking passeth mine understanding, I dare neither deny it nor grant it, for it is a School matter, about which I busied me never for to know it; and therefore I commit this term accidens sine subjecto, to those Clerks which delight them so in curious and subtle sophistry…’

¹⁰⁰ FZ p. 182; Gwynn, Austin Friars p. 261; Robson, J. A., Wyclif and the Oxford Schools (Cambridge 1961) pp. 190–1.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Trial, p. 263; ‘Ideo misi alias satrapis in ista materia tres conclusiones, cum protestatione debita’, the three points being (1) heretics make the sacrament into accidents (2) this has spread the most abominable heresy in the church (3) in gospel faith the sacrament is ‘naturaliter verus parus, et sacramentaliter ac veraciter corpus Christi’. No known text seems exactly to fit this Trill. Thomson, Latin Writings p. 82 n. 22 suggests the ‘Epistola missa archiepiscopo Cantuariensi’ in Opera Minora pp. 3-6, but this must be dated at earliest to the early summer of 1383: see FZ pp. 125-6 (DeApos. 226-7) for the Confessio’s three points ‘in which we differ from the sects of signs’: closer, but still not an exact fit.

¹⁰² Trial, p. 375. ‘Quamvis autem pepigi extra scholam non usurum istis terminis “substantia panis materialis aut vini”, tamen fides necessitat concedete convertibile propositioni terminorum istorum’. See p. 374 for the reference to the Earthquake Council. Netter, Doctrinale II cap. 74 col. 451 cites these words to show Wyclif’s followers ‘quod magister illorum coactus authoriraris et rationis sponte poenituit sic dixisse’; Dahmus, Prosecution pp. 133, 157. Woodford summarized the modern eucharistie heresy of Wycliffites as ‘quod manent panis materialis et vinum, et panis sic materialis est corpus Christi et vinum sanguis Christi realiter et sacramentaliter sed non substantialiter et ydemptice’; MS Bodley 703 fol. 107^v. The last known date for Wyclif’s presence in Oxford is 22 October 1381 when he, together with Robert Alington and three others deposited a copy of Gratian’s Decretum in the Vaughan and Hussey chest as caution for a loan of £6 3s. 4d.; BL MS Royal 10 E II fol. 340^v.

¹⁰³ Polemical Works, II p. 556; see Luke 14; 13; Lewis, J., The History of the Life and Sufferings of… John Wiclif D.D. (Oxford 1820) p. 336.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Trial, p. 263, ‘non pertinet mihi discutere’ (cf. p. 409). This is an astonishing statement in view of the amount Wyclif found to say elsewhere on the mistakes of Innocent III, in promoting the mendicant orders (see Wilks, ‘Early Oxford Wyclif p. 97 n. 2), in altering confession, and—above all—in establishing false eucharistie doctrine. De Eucharistia and De Apostasia both contain numerous damaging references to Innocent’s role in defining the doctrine of the eucharist at the 4th Lateran Council of 1215 (in which the word ‘transubstantiate’ appears officially for the first time), Mansi, 22, cols. 981-2 and for his decretal Cum Marthe (Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. E. Friedberg (Leipzig, 1879-81), II cols. 636-9), which Wyclif saw as having determined that the sacrament was an accident without a subject. In De Blas. (p. 23) he wrote ‘As I’ve said elsewhere, what is the pretext for saying “If Innocent III says so, it must be true?”.’ The rare and innocuous mentions of this pope in the Trialogus and Opus Evangelicum seem to demand some other explanation than the fact (which in any case would not normally have restrained Wyclif) that he had received full treatment elsewhere. It seems more likely that this was one of the topics (or authorities) to which a ‘keep off’ notice had been attached. Cf. Opus Evan. II p. 446; ‘Ego autem cum sum magis suspectus de heresi, non audeo ita loqui…’

¹⁰⁵ Trial, p. 447 (from the Supplementum Trialogi). ‘Et hinc in omnibus verbis dictis vel scriptis correctioni vel correprioni sanctae matris ecclesiae et cujuscunque membri sui me humiliter subjicio, dum tamen quis loquitur tanquam membrum sanctae matris ecclesiae’. Of course Wyclif’s works are peppered with protestations of his readiness to be corrected, but they usually read rather in the nature of challenges to anyone who could to prove him wrong by scripture. (This one too is qualified, but more discreetly!) Compare Trial, pp. 60, 267; De Euch. pp. 127,183 (above n. 86), 271; Opera Minora, p. 354.

¹⁰⁶ Sermones III p. 471, from Pt. Ill, sermon 54, 20 Sunday after Trinity, on Eph. 5; 15 (‘See then that ye walk circumspectly’: for the English sermon for this day see Select English Works II, pp. 362-5). There are references to the Blackfriars Council pp. 467-8; on the dating see Sermones I pp. xxx-xxxi. See also the remark of William Woodford in De sacramento altaris on Wyclif’s position after leaving Oxford: ‘lam tarde, postquam recessit de universitate, scribens ad unum militem qui contra eum se posuit, timore ut credo ductus, dixit quod in sacramento est corpus Christi sub forma pañis, sed asserit se non explicasse an illa forma sit substancia panis materialis vel accidens sine subiecto sicut, inquit, dicunt herecici’; cited Robson, Oxford Schools (from BL MS Royal 7 B HI) p. 192 and comment p. 194.

¹ These texts are from Bodley MS 647 fol 70^r-v(B). (I have extended abbreviations, modernized u/v and introduced modern punctuation). The notes that follow indicate the more significant variants (ignoring minor verbal differences) in the other copies: Knighton’s Chronicle, from BL MS Cotton Tiberius CV11 fols 183^v-184^v(HK), compared with the copy in BL MS Cotton Claudius E III fols 275^v-276^r (HK2); (in the RS edition Chronicon Henrici Knighton, II pp. 170-2) and, for the Aston confession, Fasciculi Zizaniorum pp. 329-30 (FZ). The differences between these versions indicate some editing as well as scribal alterations, and it may be that the Latin version of the second is closer to the original than either English transcript, preserving as it does the (thrice repeated) stress on the teaching of holy scripture. B’s switching from chirche to kirke in (2) does not occur in HK, and though it would doubdess be rash to see here a clue to the language of Aston’s original, it is worth noting that MS Bodley 647 seems to belong linguistically to mid-Derbyshire. (I am grateful to Professor Angus McIntosh for his kind help and information on this point).

² HK substitutes andmyfelowepristus for and Philipp Repindon, presumably out of loyalty to the reputation of his house.

³ HK has unworthy in presence. This is the only evidence that Hereford and Repton were in custody at this time. See also n 21 below.

⁴ HK as to зoure understondyng outher ♭e peple.

⁵ and зitte we knowleche omitted in HK.

⁶ ♭o bred ♭at omitted in HK.

⁷ HK adds here so ♭at leves aftur pe consecraction of brede and wyne non o♭er substance ♭an ♭at ilk ♭at is Cristus flesshe and his blode.

⁸ HK ♭e hole body.

⁹ unworthely in HK.

¹⁰ word writte in HK is omitted in B; FZ has quicquid determinai sacra scriptum.

¹¹ kyrke in HK.

¹² HK unclear at this point but seems to have determynes of alle ♭is. HK2 is (very clearly) the same as B.

¹³ HK ♭auзt; FZ posui.

¹⁴ HK omits as holy kirke; FZ has quantum de illa sacra scriptum docet.

¹⁵ HK touchyng; FZ tangente.

¹⁶ erasure (? of nat) in B; nouзt in HK; non expressa in sacra scriptura in FZ.

¹⁷ kirke in HK.

¹⁸ This sentence has no equivalent in FZ.

¹⁹ beseke in HK; beseche in HK2.

²⁰ translated as christicolas in FZ.

²¹ The last sentence is omitted in HK. FZ adds (no equivalent in B or HK) Hec inquit est confessio pauperis incarcerati, gementis peccata sua et populum obcecatum.