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The Social and Economic Spread of Rural Lollardy: A Reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Derek Plumb
Derek Plumb*
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
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Extract

The evidence given us by John Foxe in his Book of Martyrs provides more information about the social and theological standing of Lollards than we know about many later religious dissidents. Recent work has added to our knowledge. Geoffrey Dickens and Claire Cross have reconsidered the place of the Lollards in the development of the English Reformation, especially in theological matters. John Thomson drew our attention to the continuity shown in some areas. Claire Cross and Margaret Aston showed the importance of women Lollards. J.F. Davis has supported the idea of a continuous movement, and stressed the involvement of the remaining Lollard brotherhoods in the Reformation proper. Margaret Aston saw the reformers using Lollard texts to settle the Reformation into a tradition. And John Fines found one group of Lollards definitely not of a low or ‘middling sort’. But despite this attention on the part of historians, we still know little of the people labelled Lollards. How did they react to developments locally and nationally? Did they assimilate into their local communities despite their beliefs? What social and economic standing did they have? Was contemporary abuse, which dismissed them as ‘lowly sorts’, justified?

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 23: Voluntary Religion , 1986 , pp. 111 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1986

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