¹ Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, ed. Babington, Churchill (London, 1865) 1:5. Here Higden is clearly interested in the stories we tell about the past, since the Latin is “historia.” Nevertheless, the process of learning who we are from stories about the past is essentially the same as that involved in learning from another kind of story.Google Scholar

I would like to thank David Aers, Sarah Beckwith, Leigh DeNeef, Stanley Fish, and Heather Hirschfeld for their helpful comments on this essay.Google Scholar

² (Notre Dame, 1984), 216.Google Scholar

³ In Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), Charles Taylor examines the history of the Western self. Following the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Taylor claims that “we grasp ourselves as narrative” (47). See chap. 2. In chap. 7 on Augustine, he explores the Christianization of the self.Google Scholar

⁴ Any investigation of Wycliffism must start with Anne Hudson's The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History (Oxford, 1988). Hudson discusses the doctrinal importance of limiting texts to Scripture, whereas I am more interested in the effect on the narratives. Hudson writes that Wycliffites, in contrast to John Wyclif, insisted on Scripture as the sole authority for the Church: sola scriptura “is probably a reasonable summary of many of his followers’ attitudes” (228). Like Hudson, Paul de Vooght argues that Wyclif did not advocate scriptura sola; rather, that he was close to his contemporaries in recognizing the authority of both Scripture and traditional interpretations (Les sources de la doctrine chrétienne [Bruges, 1954], 168–200). In contrast, Michael Hurley argues that Wyclif's position can, in fact, be described as advocating scriptura sola (‘“Scriptura sola’: Wyclif and His Critics,” Traditio 16 [1960]: 275–352). For the background to Wyclif's thinking, see Oberman, Heiko, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), chap. 11. For a discussion of Wyclif's and Wycliffite hermeneutics, see Ghosh, Kantik, “‘Authority’ and ‘Interpretation’ in Wycliffite, Anti-Wycliffite, and Related Texts: C.1375-C.1430” (Ph. D. diss., Cambridge University, 1995), chaps. 1 and 4, respectively.Google Scholar

⁵ English Wycliffite Sermons (hereafter EWS), ed. Gradon, Pamela and Hudson, Anne, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1983–96), 94/1–8. Hereafter all references to the sermons will appear in the text. I follow the system of reference established by Pamela Gradon and Anne Hudson in their edition: sermon number / line numbers, unless referring to the introductions. These references will appear as volume number: page numbers.Google Scholar

Wycliffite Sermon Cycle Google Scholar

⁶ The sermons appear in five sets: the Sunday Gospel Sermons, the Commune Sanctorum, the Proprium Sanctorum, the Ferial Gospels, and the Sunday Epistle Sermons. Hudson offers a terminus ante quem for four of the five sets: 1389 for sets 4 and 5, 1394 for 1, and 1399 for 3 (EWS, 4:15–16). The “most likely time of origin for the whole seems to be the late 1380s or 1390s, after the Despenser Crusade but before the enactment of De heretico comburendo in 1401” (EWS, 4:19). H. Leith Spencer discusses the importance of the EWS and their derivatives in her important study of preaching, English Preaching in the Late Middle Ages (Oxford, 1993), esp. 278–311. Her work on the manuscripts suggests that these sermons were quite influential, particularly in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. See also Hudson's introduction to EWS, 1:98–123.Google Scholar

⁷ Here Hudson questions whether “the complete cycle remained unused, a monument to the ideal of Lollard evangelism but not to its practice” (Premature Reformation, 517).Google Scholar

⁸ The sermons for saints’ days are very limited in number. Only two other sermon cycles in the vernacular even come close to providing this many sermons: Mirk's Festial (with 90 sermons) and the Northern Homily Cycle (with 117 items). Both of these cycles privilege some occasions over others; the emphasis is not on covering as many Sundays or feast days as possible (Hudson, , EWS, 1:45). Yet, in both these cases, individual or groups of sermons appear in other collections, whereas the Wycliffite sermons always appear in sets (1:45–46). The Wycliffite cycle survives in thirty-one manuscripts (1:9), a survival rate comparable with John Mirk's Festial (Spencer, , English Preaching, 311, n. 123).Google Scholar

⁹ Hudson, , EWS, 1:8.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Hudson writes, “it would seem that the author(s), like the immediately intended audience, were in orders” (EWS, 1:29). The first editor, Thomas Arnold, considered the sermons to be authored by John Wyclif himself. For a discussion of authorship, see Hudson, , EWS, 4:20–37. Hudson writes, “the citation of Wyclif consists of parallels to the ideas in the English sermons, and not to direct sources for the precise wording” (EWS, 4:2, her emphasis). Her notes on the sermons in volumes 4 and 5 contain the references to Wyclif's sermons that are parallel.Google Scholar

¹¹ Although I realize that sermons are oral performances, my focus is on what they reveal about biblical interpretation. It would be hard to say whether any of the sermons in the EWS were preached, although they certainly provided material for other sermon compilations. Part of the difficulty is that sermon collections are hard to distinguish from other kinds of religious writings, such as pastoral manuals or scriptural commentaries; all of these writings were meant to benefit the preacher and the private reader. See Spencer's discussion of sermons, English Preaching, chap. 2.Google Scholar

¹² Although the Wycliffites used many of Wyclif's sermons in shaping their own, Wycliffite sermons differ in two important ways: the inclusion of polemic against the established church and the alteration and reduction of biblical exegesis. Wyclif's biblical exegesis has received quite a bit of scholarly attention. See Minnis, A. J., “‘Authorial Intention’ and ‘Literal Sense’ in the Exegetical Theories of Richard Fitzralph and John Wyclif: An Essay in the Medieval History of Biblical Hermeneutics,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 75 section c, no. 1 (1975): 1–30; Oberman, , The Harvest, chap. 1; and de Vooght, , Les sources, 168–200. For a discussion of the “literal sense” that Wyclif inherited, see de Lubac, Henri, L'exégèse médiéval: les quatre sens de l’écriture, 4 vols. (Paris, 1959); particularly relevant are the pages on Aquinas, II.2.285–302, and Nicholas of Lyre, II.2.344–67; Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1952); and Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c. 1100-c. 1375: The Commentary Tradition, ed. Minnis, A. J. and Scott, A. B. (Oxford, 1988). Wycliffite exegesis has received less scholarly attention. But see Ghosh, , “‘Authority’ and ‘Interpretation,’” chap. 4; Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 247–64; and Spencer, , English Preaching, 191–95.Google Scholar

¹³ Both Christina von Nolcken and Anne Hudson have also explored the Wycliffites’ rhetorical emphasis on the group, although their explorations concentrate on vocabulary rather than the exposition of biblical narratives. See von Nolcken's, “A ‘Certain Sameness’ and Our Response to It in English Wycliffite Texts,” Literature and Religion in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Newhauser, Richard G. and Alford, John A. (Binghamton, N.Y., 1995), 191–208 and Hudson's “A Lollard Sect Vocabulary?” Lollards and Their Books (London, 1985), 165–80.Google Scholar

¹⁴ I am less interested in what the sermon writers claim about their methods of interpretation than in what they actually do. For a discussion of the sermons’ theory of interpretation, see Ghosh, , “‘Authority’ and ‘Interpretation,’” chap. 4.Google Scholar

¹⁵ For a discussion on preaching the pastoralia, see Spencer, , English Preaching, chap. 5.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Mirk, John, Festial, ed. Erbe, Theodor (EETS, e.s. 96, 1905) and Middle English Sermons , ed. Ross, Woodburn O. (EETS, 209, 1960). Hereafter references to these works will occur within the text.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Spencer, , English Preaching, 312.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Thirty of the seventy-four sermons are in honor of particular saints, a further seven are for feasts honoring the Virgin Mary. Compare to the Wycliffite cycle, which has a total of 37 sermons for the proper of the saints out of 294 in all.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Mirk's influence is later than that of the EWS — the second half of the fifteenth century and the early sixteenth (Spencer, , English Preaching, 311). His Festial survives in 26 MSS from the early fifteenth century and another 22 from the mid- to late-fifteenth century (311, n. 123). See also Fletcher, Alan J., “John Mirk and the Lollards,” Medium Aevum 56 (1987): 217–24.Google Scholar

²⁰ Spencer, , English Preaching, 269–320.Google Scholar

²¹ The MES are particularly relevant to a discussion of the EWS because some of the sermons were derived from the EWS and revised to reflect more orthodox teachings and sentiments (Spencer, , English Preaching, 286). Sermons 18–21 and 44–46 derive from the EWS (308–11); therefore, I have not used these in my discussion. The editor of the MES, Ross, finds internal evidence to suggest six groupings, members of groups each having been composed by the same author. Although the sermons were written by various authors, they were not working in conjunction, as is most likely the case with the Wycliffite sermon cycle. See the introduction, xix–xxvi in MES. Google Scholar

²² Spencer, , English Preaching, 309.Google Scholar

²³ Spencer writes, “Lent was the obvious, and recommended season for teaching” and “there are a couple of English compilations whose compilers evidently thought it worthwhile to provide daily sermons” (English Preaching, 25–26, 30). Mirk's cycle contains five sermons for Lent, numbered 19–23; sermon 19 does not indicate the Sunday in Lent for which it was composed. The MES contains two different groups and a few additional single sermons: sermons 12–14, 16b, 27–30, 38, 42, 47.Google Scholar

²⁴ In fact, the Wycliffite cycle contains sermons for each day during Lent (contained in vol. 3) as well as for the Sundays.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Spencer's chap. 6 on “Sermon Form” for a discussion of the two kinds of sermons: “I shall call sermons which are based upon and expound an entire gospel or epistle reading ‘ancient’ and sermons which start from a short scriptural phrase which is divided into heads ‘modern’ ” (English Preaching, 231). In Rhetoric in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1974), James J. Murphy describes the homily method (Spencer's “ancient” form) as untheoretical, even hostile to rhetorical form (299). Although Murphy's understanding of form is based in Greek and Roman rhetoric, he later demonstrates that there is a rhetoric to Scripture, one which homilies are intended to follow.Google Scholar

²⁶ Spencer, , English Preaching, 228. It is important to keep in mind that the form of the sermons was dictated not only by the composers’ desire to follow certain models (either apostolic or university-based) but also by the perceived wishes of the audience. Spencer writes that “simple homilies may have been easier to construct, but, unless one were an Augustine or Gregory, they might be fearfully dull” (242). With its divisions made apparent to the listener, its rhymes and alliteration, and its exempla, the modern form could satisfy a variety of tastes.Google Scholar

²⁷ Quoted in Owst, G. R., Preaching in Medieval England: An Introduction to the Sermon Manuscripts of the Period c. 1350–1450 (Cambridge, 1926), 323. The artes praedicandi are full of examples of what to preach to whom. Gregory's Cura pastoralis (influential in the artes tradition) lists 36 pairs of opposite “characters” (i.e., e.g., men and women, rich and poor, with examples of what to preach to an audience containing both [Murphy, , Rhetoric, 294–96]).Google Scholar

²⁸ These sermons do not offer their audience the kind of extended allegorical analysis found in texts for clerics (such as the Glossa Ordinaria). In my discussion of allegory in medieval biblical exegesis I rely on the following studies: Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible ; Minnis, A. J. and Scott, A. B., eds., Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism; Minnis, , ‘“Authorial Intention’ and ‘Literal Sense’”; de Lubac, Henri, L'exégèse médiéval (see nn. 4 and 12); and Aers, David, Piers Plowman and Christian Allegory (London, 1975).Google Scholar

²⁹ This is the view of sin found in confessors’ manuals. Sins exist independently of the sinner and enter the sinner as a “materialization of the devil” (LeGoff, Jacques, “Trades and Professions as Represented in Confessors’ Manuals,” Time, Work, and Culture , trans. Gold-hammer, Arthur [Chicago, 1980], 113). See also Bloomfield, Morton, The Seven Deadly Sins (East Lansing, Mich., 1952).Google Scholar

³⁰ The Lenten sermons of the MES are also full of direct appeals to the audience to confess (38, 42, 47).Google Scholar

³¹ In the sermon for Christmas contained in the MES, the writer warns his listener that men live in spiritual drunkenness. The drinks are the deadly sins and the cure is vomiting, figured as confession.Google Scholar

³² Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, Norman P. (London, 1990) 1:245.Google Scholar

³³ Ghosh's claim — that the EWS attempt to “localize and fix Christ's metaphorical meanings” (135) — is true of all sermons. How could it not be when one considers the importance of Christ to any definition of the church? Google Scholar

³⁴ Christ appears very seldom as a character in the biblical narratives of the Festial probably as a result of the cursoriness with which Mirk treats many of the gospel pericopes; those discussed here are rarely more than a few lines in length. One of the more interesting appearances of Christ is in an exemplum strikingly at odds with gospel accounts of his life. In this narrative, St. Dominic has a vision of Christ as he prepares to shoot the world with spears in punishment for its sins; fortunately, Mary intercedes. See Festial, 73–74.Google Scholar

³⁵ Perhaps this relation of material and spiritual food grows out of the commentary in the Glossa Ordinaria in which the boy who offers the loaves and fishes is Moses. That they are not enough to feed the people signifies the insufficiency of the letter and the bodily senses: “Quasi legis littera, vel corporei sensus quid prosunt ad multitudinem in te creditorum: qui spiritualia alimenta sunt petituri quae omnem litteram omnemque corporeum sensum superant. [So to speak, the letter of the law, or the bodily senses, what do they profit the multitude of those who believe in you, who are asking for spiritual food, which surpasses every letter and every bodily sense]?” (Gloss on John 6.9, “Sed haec quid sunt inter” in Biblia latina cum glossa ordinaria: Facsimile Reprint of the Editio Princeps, Adolph Rusch of Strassburg 1480/81 [Turnhout, 1992] 4:238, here as elsewhere my translation).Google Scholar

³⁶ Scanlon, Larry, Narrative, Authority, and Power: The Medieval Exemplum and the Chaucerian Tradition (Cambridge, 1994), 34–35. I am less interested in examining what defines a narrative as an exemplum, primarily because the writers, or copiers, of these sermon cycles have indicated the presence of non-scriptural material by notes in the margins. Therefore, I have considered as exemplum those narratives whose appearance is marked in the margins with “narracio” (in the sermons of the Festial and of the MES) or “fabula” (in the sermons of the MES). Google Scholar

³⁷ Scanlon argues that the exemplum offered the laity access to the language of the religious authority while simultaneously reserving that authority to the church: “on the one hand, the exemplum comes close to taking the Lord's name in vain, offering Christianity's central tenet as fodder for folk magic…. On the other, this apparent desacralization is understood at every point as demonstrating Christianity's inexorable authority” (Narrative, Power, and Authority, 79).Google Scholar

³⁸ In the Festial the narrative appears in sermons for both the first and the second Sunday in Lent (sermons 20 and 21). In the MES, the narrative appears in the sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent (sermon 38).Google Scholar

³⁹ The parallels with Margery Kempe's experience are startling. Her rereading and rewriting of this exemplum shows how the interpretation of exemplum can work for and against church authority. In the exemplum, Jesus wants the woman to confess (to her priest). But one can imagine a lay reaction, such as Margery's, that if Jesus were to appear at one's bedside and insist upon the importance of confession, why not confess to him instead of the priest? Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The Ten Commandments were supposed to be preached to the laity at regular intervals. Both the Ignorantia sacerdotum (1281) under Archbishop Pecham and the Lay Folks’ Catechism (1357) under Archbishop Thoresby included instruction on the Ten Commandments. Mirk's Festial and the MES contain sermons which detail them. There are also (purportedly) Wycliffite tracts explaining the Pater Noster, such as the tract included in English Works of Wyclif Hitherto Unprinted, ed. Matthew, F. D. (EETS 74, 1880, repr. Millwood, N.Y., 1973), 197–202. These works suggest that the Ten Commandments were not only a Reformation preoccupation, as John Bossy states in Christianity in the West, 1400–1700 (Oxford, 1985), 38. The omission of certain elements in these sermons, such as references to the Pater Noster and the Ave, seems to be peculiar to these sermons, since Wycliffites did take up Thoresby's requirements as useful for their position.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See similarly sermons 2, 21, and 46 in the Sunday Gospel sermons.Google Scholar

⁴² There are exceptions. In sermon 16, the sermon writer follows the traditional interpretation of the three dead bodies Jesus raised as different states of sin. However, instead of detailing what kind of sins they might be, the writer states, “ϸus names of offisys, and namus of vertewes also, ben chawnged by ypocrisye, and cursyd men rewlen ϸe world” (16/82–84). In other words, the names of virtues have changed, so that we are no longer able to discuss what these sins might be.Google Scholar

⁴³ The Lenten epistle sermons are more concerned with instruction. The sermon for the first Sunday lists the 28 conditions for achieving grace. The sermons for the second and third Sundays deal with sins, and the sermon for the fourth Sunday deals with interpretation.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The sins named in the Sunday epistle sermons for Lent are lechery, pride, worldly covetousness, and cheating in one sermon and fornication, avarice, filthy speech, pride, envy, and wrath in another (E17 and El8). This variability continues throughout the epistle sermons. For example, the sins named in the sermon on the Ninth Sunday after Trinity are coveting evil things, idolatry, fornication, tempting God, and “grucchyng” against God (E39).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Almost every one of the 55 sermons on the Sunday epistles discusses the virtue of charity.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See sermon 122 (8 virtues connected to the Beatitudes), 46 and E4 (which share the same three virtues: belief, hope, and charity), and E5 (3 virtues: righteousness, meekness, and patience).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ References to the occasion of the sermon occur in the Sunday gospel sermons only in sermons 26 and 28 (on Advent), 38 (Sexagesima), and 54 (Trinity). Although the references to the season are missing, “the lection's meaning dominates the major part of most of the sermons.” For Hudson, this tie means that “[e]ach sermon is indissolubly tied to the occasion on which the biblical passage would have been read” (EWS, 1:8). This is true, but the connection extends only to the pericope, not to the occasion itself.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Lollard Sermons, ed. Cigman, Gloria (EETS 294, 1989).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See also the following sermons: Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem, when he casts the buyers and the sellers out of the temple because they are “ϸe most cause of synne” and “not to destruyƷen hem in her personys, but to take fro hem cause of her synne” (10/39,43–44); sermon 14 on the healing of the ten lepers, in which the writer discusses the problem of absolution of sin rather than the sin and its confession; sermon 19 on the healing of the man with palsy (also an occasion to defend the Wycliffite attack on absolution); sermon 16 on Jesus’ raising of the dead, which turns into a discussion of the sins of the clergy; and sermon 28 on John the Baptist, which contains the direction to “towche manye synnes that reignen among men, and specially synne of clerkys, ϸat lyuen in lustis of foode and in lustis of atyr contrarye to Iohn Baptist” (28/66–68).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Traditionally, this parable has been interpreted to represent the founding of the church. See Wailes's, Stephen L. Medieval Allegories of Jesus’ Parables (Berkeley, 1987). The following explanation is paraphrased from his account (153–59). Starting with Origen, who was then followed by Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Gregory, this parable figured the founding of the church. In this way, the figuration of the bridal feast differs from that of the Great Supper (Luke 14:16–24), traditionally interpreted as the day of judgment. The different groups invited in the parable represent the Jews and Gentiles called to Christianity. The garment represents Christian “precepts and works, the vestment of the new man,” according to Jerome, or caritas according to Augustine. The man is tied by his hands and feet in punishment for those sins that he committed in his life.Google Scholar

⁵¹ For the text of the decree, see Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 1:245.Google Scholar

⁵² I have chosen the Glossa as a representation of normative exegetical practices; the Glossa was a quarry of traditional interpretations for sermon writers (and other authors). Also, glosses from the Glossa can be found in Wycliffite translations of the New Testament (Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 236 and 243). Also the Glossed Gospels, another Wycliffite project, “were evidently inspired by a desire to make available in the vernacular a bulk of traditional exegesis”; however, this text was not used by sermon writers (248 and 256).Google Scholar

⁵³ Glosses on Luke 6:41–42: “Quid autem vides festucam” and “Ipocrita” (Glossa, 4:163).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ The sins that are named in the Glossa — anger, pride, envy — are sins that both accuser and accused might share. That is not to say that the apparatus for dealing with sin, the penitential manuals, did not recognize that sins might also grow out of certain social positions. In fact, penitential manuals are very concerned with identifying sins with particular people in particular social positions, such as lords, clerks, and women.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ In the Glossa, this narrative is also read as a figure of conversion; the woman represents the church and the daughter the sinners or the not yet converted: “Rogat pro filia, id est, pro populo suo nondum credente vt ipsi a fraude dyaboli absoluantur. Vel filia est anima vel consciencia cuiuslibet intra ecclesiam dyabolo mancipata, pro qua mater ecclesia rogat, vel ipse homo pro fedata consciencia. [She pleads for the daughter, that is, for her people who do not yet believe, so that these same are absolved of the error of the devil. Or the daughter is the soul or conscience of anyone transferred from the devil into the church, for whom the mother Church pleads, or a man who pleads for his filthy conscience]” (gloss on Matt. 15:22, “Clamavit,” Glossa, 4:53).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ The association between sin and external organizations (such as the priests) is also made clear in the Epistle sermon for Easter Sunday. It begins with what seems to be the same kind of exhortation to confession used in the Lenten sermons of the Festial and the MES: “Poul seith to this spiritual wyt ‘clense ye owt the oolde sowrdow.’ Sowrdow is vnderstonden here synne that men ben fowlude with” (E22/13–15). This cleansing, however, does not take place through confession but “by lore and figure of Godis lawe.” And, this cleansing is what the sects as a whole (and not the individuals within them) should undergo to purge themselves of the sins of pride, covetousness, and fleshly sins (including sodomy).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ The devil (fiend) is also associated with covetousness in sermon 15 on the pericope Nemo potest duobus dominis seruire. The two masters are God and the devil, and the devil is covetousness.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ In the Glossa the commentary on the demons’ movement is seen as historical: “Exiuit dyabolus a iudaeis, quando legem et cultum unius dei populus iste suscepit: et transiuit ad gentes quae erant a pinguedine spiritus sancti et dilectione proximi aridae et steriles. In quibus iam non inuenit requiem, quia iam a cordibus gentium suscepta fide christi expellitur, quando dicit. Repetam iudaeos quos ante dimisi. Et inuenit scopis mundatam illam plebem, id est, superfluis obseruationibus pharisaeorum et cerimoniis legis, quae iam nichil valent, post aduentum christi. Et vt firmius possideat, assumit vniversitatem daemonum. Et modo deteriores israelitae sunt, blasphemantes christum in suis conuenticulis quam olim fuissent in aegytpo ante perceptam legem, quia maior infidelitas est venientem non suscipere, quam venturum non credere. [The devil went out of the Jews when this people received the law and cult of one God and went over to the nations who were dry and sterile, deprived of the richness of the Holy Spirit and of love of neighbor. In these people he does not find rest, because now he is expelled from the hearts of the nations, who received the faith of Christ, when he says: I shall return to the Jews whom I once rejected. And he finds that people cleansed with brooms, that is, from the superfluous observances of the Pharisees and the ceremonies of the law, which are now worth nothing, after the advent of Christ. And, in order to take firmer possession, Christ takes over the world of the demons. And now the Israelites are worse, blaspheming Christ in their conventicles, than they once were in Egypt before receiving the law, because it is a greater infidelity not to accept him when he comes than not to believe he is to come]” (gloss on Luke 11:24, “Exierit,” Glossa, 4:182). The demons return to those who have been baptized: “Revertar ad illius conscientiam vnde in baptismo eiectus fueram, et pristinam possessionem consueto dominio michi subiiciam. [I shall return to the conscience of him from whom I was ejected in baptism, and I shall subject this pristine possession to my accustomed rule]” (Glossa, 4:183). The seven spirits that the demon brings with him are “plenitudinem omnium viciorum [all the sins].” And these spirits are worse than the the first, because they are hypocrites: “non solum mali sunt, sed etiam speciem bonitatis affectatis virtutibus per hypocrisim ostentare nituntur [these are not only bad, but also strive to display the appearance of good, affecting virtue through hypocrisy]” (Glossa, 4:183).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ In The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven, 1974), Hans Frei argues that the “realistic or history-like element is a feature, as obvious as it is important, of many of the biblical narratives” (10). Once the meaning is detached from the specific narrative, the narrative loses its narrative shape (12). The Wycliffites seem to have lost the narrative shape of many of the biblical passages in their zeal to appropriate them as polemic.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ The collective terms are meant to create a sense of community among Wycliffite listeners and readers, a community of “initiates” (see von Nolcken, , “A ‘Certain Sameness’” and Hudson, , “A Lollard Sect Vocabulary?”).Google Scholar

⁶¹ In the gloss on Matt. 4:9, the three temptations are related to gluttony, avarice, and pride: “In his tribus notantur gula, auaricia, superbia” (Glossa, 4:14). These are connected to Adam's sins in the gloss on Matt. 4:10: “Nota dyabolum in his vinci in quibus adam vicit. Quem de gula tentauit: dum de ligno vetito gustare rogauit. De vana gloria: cum dixit: eritis sicut dii, de avaricia cum ait, scientes bonum et malum. [Note that the devil is conquered in these things in which he conquered Adam. He tempted him with gluttony while he asked him to taste of the forbidden tree. With vainglory when he said: you will be like gods. With avarice when he said: you will know good and evil]” (Glossa, 4:15).Google Scholar

⁶² The Glossa cites Bede on Jesus’ fasting in its gloss on Matt. 4:2: “Ieiunat vt tentetur, tentatur quia ieiunat, et exemplum ieiunandi, nobis dat, … et sic quandiu hic sumus semper peccata ploremus: quia hoc numero praesens vita ostenditur. [He fasts so that he is tempted, he is tempted because he fasts, and he gives us an example of fasting … and thus as long as we are here, always we cry for our sins: because the present life is shown by this number]” (Glossa, 4:13).Google Scholar

⁶³ In fact, the writer states that cleanliness comes from knowing God's law, in the sermon on James 1:22–27 (Estote factores verbi): “how ϸe religion of Christ schulde be clene kept of men withowton ordre of mannys fyndyng” (E27/1–2). The beginnings of a reading that privileges scripture can be found in the Glossa in the gloss on Matt. 4:4: “Non vtitur potestate: sed scriptuararum autoritate, docens nos magis doctrina quam miraculis pugnare. [He does not use power but the authority of the Scriptures, teaching us to fight with doctrine rather than miracles]” (4:14).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Hudson translates these lines as “And here men surpass the folly of the fiend, for the fiend would adduce scripture in the temptation of Christ to prove to him that it would be safe (to cast himself down from the temple); but antichrist does not deign to justify his power by God's law, but says that if men deny this power, they shall be excommunicated, slain and burnt” (4:288).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Of course, the vengeance could also be something more violent. In sermon 22, on the parable about debtors, the writer ends his discussion of mercy with a call for vengeance: “ϸus schulde ϸei warly fle to take ϸer owne veniaunse, but vengen iniurye of God and intenden amendement. Ϸus Crist, mekyst of alle, suffryde his owne iniurye in two temptacionys of ϸe fend, but in ϸe ϸridde he seyde ‘Go, Sathan!’, and repreuyde hym scharply by auctorite of God. Ϸus Moyses, myldeste man of alle, killide manye ϸowsande of his folc, for ϸei worschi-poden a calf as ϸei schulde worschipe God” (22/66–72). The picture of Moses as the “myldeste man of alle” seems particularly forced for this interpretation.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ The Glossa sees the lesson in terms of the failure of human reason, not the failure of a particular church: “sed nemo debet tentare deum quando habet ex humana ratione quid faciat…. Postquam deficit humana ratio: commendet se homo deo non tentando: sed devote confitendo [but no one should tempt God, when he knows from human reason what he might do…. After human reason fails man should commend himself to God, not tempting, but devoutly confessing]” (gloss on Matt. 4:5, “Mitte,” Glossa, 4:14).Google Scholar

⁶⁷ To what extent the Wycliffites were persecuted has not been answered satisfactorily. Michael Wilks argues that there is no historical evidence to support Wyclif's “steady flow of horror stories about the tribulations of the faithful and the way that their numbers were being cut down” (“Wyclif and the Great Persecution,” Prophecy and Eschatology, ed. Wilks, Michael [Oxford, 1994], 40). We could, however, interpret Wyclif's and the Wycliffites’ fear of persecution as an anticipation of what had already happened on the Continent.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ See also sermons 65, 71, and 96: “And so, as Crist in his Ʒougϸe was pursuwed of monye men to dispuyse hym and slee hym in his owne persone, so vnto ϸe day of doom, is he pursuwed in his membrus” (96/41–44).Google Scholar

⁶⁹ See Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 294–301.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ In the sermon on Christ's healing of a leper, the author suggests that “synful men schulden counsele wiϸ preestis and taken of hem medicyne to flee more synne” (34/37–39); however, counseling is not read as confession.Google Scholar

⁷¹ See also the sermon for the feast of St. Matthew: “we schal vndurstonde ϸat not eche confession is rownyng in an eere of a mannys owne synne, but grawntynge of trewϸe wiϸ grauntyng of God. And ϸws spekuϸ Crist ϸat is of more auctorite ϸan alle ϸes popis ϸat ordeynedon confession of rownyng” (101/10–14).Google Scholar

⁷² These formulas are part of the catechism that was supposed to be communicated in English to the laity at least four times per year according to the Lambeth Constitutions drawn up by John Pecham, archbishop of Canterbury (1281). In 1357, the archbishop of York, John Thoresby modified and expanded Pecham's program and disseminated it in Latin and an English-verse translation, the Lay Folks’ Catechism. Thoresby's text is intended as an outline of the requirements of belief: the 14 Articles, the commandments, sacraments, works of mercy, chief virtues, and chief vices. For a discussion of the pastoralia in preaching, see Spencer's English Preaching, chap. 5.Google Scholar

⁷³ Catherine Brown, D., Pastor and Laity in the Theology of Jean Gerson (Cambridge, 1987), 169. See also her discussion of Gerson on confession, 63–67.Google Scholar