1173. _a loller_, a term of reproach, equivalent to a canting fellow. Tyrwhitt aptly cites a passage from a treatise of the period, referring to the Harleian Catalogue, no. 1666:--'Now in Engelond it is a comun protectioun ayens persecutioun, if a man is customable to swere nedeles and fals and unavised, by the bones, nailes, and sides, and other membres of Christ. And to absteyne fro othes nedeles and unleful, and repreve sinne by way of charite, is mater and cause now, why Prelates and sum Lordes sclaundren men, and clepen hem _Lollardes_, Eretikes,' &c. The reader will not clearly understand this word till he distinguishes between the Latin _lollardus_ and the English _loller_, two words of different origin which were _purposely_ confounded in the time of Wyclif. The Latin _Lollardus_ had been in use before Wyclif. Ducange quotes from Johannes Hocsemius, who says, under the date 1309---'Eodem anno quidam hypocritae gyrovagi, qui _Lollardi_, sive Deum laudantes, vocabantur, per Hannoniam et Brabantiam quasdam mulieres nobiles deceperunt.' He adds that Trithemius says in his Chronicle, under the year 1315--'ita appellatos a Gualtero _Lolhard_, Germano quodam.' Kilian, in his Dictionary of Mid. Dutch, says--'_Lollaerd_, mussitator, mussitabundus'; i. e. a mumbler of prayers. This gives two etymologies for _Lollardus_. Being thus already in use as a term of reproach, it was applied to the followers of Wyclif, as we learn from Thomas Walsingham, who says, under the year 1377--'Hi uocabantur a uulgo _Lollardi_, incedentes nudis pedibus'; and again--'_Lollardi_ sequaces Joannis Wiclif.' But the Old English _loller_ (from the verb to _loll_) meant simply a lounger, an idle vagabond, as is abundantly clear from a notable passage in Piers the Plowman, C-text (ed. Skeat), x. 188-218; where William tells us plainly-- [167] 'Now kyndeliche, by crist · beþ suche callyd _lolleres_, As by englisch of oure eldres · of olde menne techynge. He that _lolleþ_ is lame · oþer his leg out of ioynte,' &c. Here were already two (if not three) words confused, but this was not all. By a bad pun, the Latin _lolium_, tares, was connected with _Lollard_, so that we find in Political Poems, i. 232, the following-- 'Lollardi sunt zizania, Spinae, uepres, ac _lollia_, Quae uastant hortum uineae.' This obviously led to allusions to the Parable of the Tares, and fully accounts for the punning allusion to _cockle_, i. e. tares, in l. 1183. Mr. Jephson observes that _lolium_ is used in the Vulgate Version, Matt. xii. 25; but this is a mistake, as the word there used is _zizania_. Gower, Prol. to Conf. Amant., ed. Pauli, i. 15, speaks of-- 'This newe secte of _lollardie_, And also many an heresie.' Also in book v., id. ii. 187,-- 'Be war that thou be nought oppressed With anticristes _lollardie_,' &c. See Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. iii. 355-358; Wordsworth's Eccl. Biography, i. 331, note.