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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
That the ecclesia in antiquity met in private homes was well known to first- and second-generation English reformers who sought to reshape the late medieval established Church. In the wake of Catholic accusations of novelty – and thus illegitimacy – evangelicals developed a history of their movement that stretched back through the generations to the early Church itself, and none more successfully than John Foxe (d. 1587), author of Acts and Monuments and England’s major martyrologist. A crucial link in this historical chain would prove to be the Lollards, medieval English heretics whose ‘privy assemblies’ saw the reading of vernacular Scripture and its exposition, recitation of the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer, and even hints of liturgical activity, all in the private space of the home.
I would like to thank Alec Ryrie for his helpful comments on this essay.
1 For Foxe’s incorporation of Lollards as theological models and historical forebears, see Aston, Margaret, ‘John Wycliffe’s Reformation Reputation’, P&P, no. 30 (1965), 23–51; eadem, ‘Lollardy and the Reformation: Survival or Revival?’, History 49 (1964), 149–70 Google Scholar; Patrick, , ‘Truth and Legend: The Veracity of john Foxe’s Book of Martyrs ’, in idem, Elizabethans (London, 2003), 151–78 Google Scholar; Hudson, Anne, The Premature Reformation (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar, ch. 10.
2 Foxe was by no means the first reformer to make this connection; his mentor and fellow evangelical John Bale found affinity between his own beliefs and those of John Wyclif and his followers, and, even before Bale, William Tyndale had recognized their historical value.
3 Brigden, Susan, London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989), 93.Google Scholar
4 Foxe, John, The Unabridged Acts and Monuments Online or TAMO (1570 edn) (HRI Online Publications, Sheffield, 2011), 808, online at: <http://www.johnfoxe.org>.Google Scholar
5 Ibid. 984.
6 Ibid. 989.
7 Ibid. 999. See also Aston, Margaret, ‘Lollardy and Literacy’, in her Lollards and Reformers: Images and Literacy in Late Medieval England (London, 1984), 201 n. 37.Google Scholar
8 Foxe, TAMO (1570), 979.
9 Ibid. 995.
10 Ibid. 851.
11 Ibid. 992. This notion of a family activity is echoed in the narrative of John Barret, who was heard reciting the Epistle of James to his wife and maid: ibid. 991.
12 Ibid. 987. The content of his teaching is not given by Foxe.
13 Ibid. 1493.
14 Ibid. 655.
15 Ibid. 995.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid. 1158.
18 Foxe, TAMO (1583), 856.
19 In the exception, Foxe writes that one charge against Norwich Lollard Richard Belward was ‘that the sayd Richard kepeth scholes of lollardy in the English tounge, in the towne of Dychingham, and a certayne parchment maker bryngeth him all the bookes contayning that doctrine from London’. Belwards trial record is not extant, but we might surmise that Foxe was using this term verbatim from the text: TAMO (1570), 803.
20 Ibid. 987.
21 Ibid. 988.
22 Ibid. 991.
23 Ibid. 999.
24 Ibid.
25 For example, ibid. 986, 1001.
26 Ibid. 991, 996.
27 Ibid. 1158.
28 Ibid. 580. Swinderby and other Lollards would meet outdoors or in barns: see Walsham, Alexandra, The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2010), 234–6.Google Scholar
29 Foxe, TAMO (1570), 650.
30 Ibid. 779.
31 Ibid. 614.
32 Ibid. 807-8.
33 Ibid. 614.
34 Ibid. 996.
35 Ibid. 942.
36 McSheffrey, Shannon and Tanner, Norman, eds and transl., Lollards of Coventry, Camden 5th ser. 23 (London, 2003), 296.Google Scholar
37 Thomson, John A. F., ‘John Foxe and some Sources for Lollard History: Notes for a Critical Appraisal’, in Cuming, G. J., ed., SCH 2 (London, 1965), 251–7.Google Scholar
38 Foxe, TAMO (1570), 805.
39 Ibid. 966 and the TAMO commentary on this page; cf. London Metropolitan Archives, Diocese of London, A/A/005/MS09531/009, fol. 25r-v. We see the same adjustment in the testimony of Agnes Grebill from the Kent group: Foxe, TAMO (1570), 805; Norman Tanner, ed., Kent Heresy Proceedings, 1511-12, Records, Kent 26 (Maidstone, 1997), 18–21, at 20.Google Scholar
40 Foxe, TAMO (1570), 778. This is likely to be the ‘Sermon of the Horsedoun’: see Hudson, Anne, ed., Two Wycliffite Tcxts. The Sermon of William Taylor, 1406; The Testimony of William Thorpe, 1407, EETS 301 (Oxford, 1993), 133–6.Google Scholar
41 Evenden, Elizabeth and Freeman, Thomas S., Religion and the Book in Early Modem England. The Making of John Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ (Cambridge, 2011), 165.Google Scholar
42 Collinson, Patrick, ‘The English Conventicle’, in Sheik, W. J. and Wood, Diana, eds, Voluntary Religion, SCH 23 (Oxford, 1986), 223–59.Google Scholar
43 Ibid. 230.
44 I say ‘little to do with’ because, although Collinson argues that Lollards were only semi-separatist, due to their attendance at church, Foxe actually gives at least three examples of Lollards who refused to attend services: see ibid. 237-8. Foxe’s examples include Thomas Grove, Thomas Man and Isabel Tracher: TAMO (1583), 850, 851, 853.
45 Foxe, TAMO (1570), 966.
46 Ibid. 984.
47 Meeting in a butcher’s house, John Eaton and his wife complained about bells: ibid. 1158.
48 Ibid. 997.
49 Ibid. 967.
50 Ibid. 989.
51 Ibid. 1158.
52 Ibid. 808.