History of the English People, Volume II: The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400Green, John Richard
History
History of the English People, Volume II: The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400
Green, John Richard
Great Britain -- History
"Lollard," a word which probably means "idle babbler," was the nickname of
scorn with which the orthodox Churchmen chose to insult their assailants.
But this rapid increase changed their scorn into vigorous action. In 1382
Courtenay, who had now become Archbishop, summoned a council at Blackfriars
and formally submitted twenty-four propositions drawn from Wyclif's works.
An earthquake in the midst of the proceedings terrified every prelate but
the resolute Primate; the expulsion of ill humours from the earth, he said,
was of good omen for the expulsion of ill humours from the Church; and the
condemnation was pronounced. Then the Archbishop turned fiercely upon
Oxford as the fount and centre of the new heresies. In an English sermon at
St. Frideswide's Nicholas Herford had asserted the truth of Wyclif's
doctrines, and Courtenay ordered the Chancellor to silence him and his
adherents on pain of being himself treated as a heretic. The Chancellor
fell back on the liberties of the University, and appointed as preacher
another Wyclifite, Repyngdon, who did not hesitate to style the Lollards
"holy priests," and to affirm that they were protected by John of Gaunt.
Party spirit meanwhile ran high among the students. The bulk of them sided
with the Lollard leaders, and a Carmelite, Peter Stokes, who had procured
the Archbishop's letters, cowered panic stricken in his chamber while the
Chancellor, protected by an escort of a hundred townsmen, listened
approvingly to Repyngdon's defiance. "I dare go no further," wrote the poor
Friar to the Archbishop, "for fear of death"; but he mustered courage at
last to descend into the schools where Repyngdon was now maintaining that
the clerical order was "better when it was but nine years old than now that
it has grown to a thousand years and more." The appearance however of
scholars in arms again drove Stokes to fly in despair to Lambeth, while a
new heretic in open Congregation maintained Wyclif's denial of
Transubstantiation. "There is no idolatry," cried William James, "save in
the Sacrament of the Altar." "You speak like a wise man," replied the
Chancellor, Robert Rygge. Courtenay however was not the man to bear
defiance tamely, and his summons to Lambeth wrested a submission from Rygge
which was only accepted on his pledge to suppress the Lollardism of the
University. "I dare not publish them, on fear of death," exclaimed the
Chancellor when Courtenay handed him his letters of condemnation. "Then is
your University an open _fautor_ of heretics," retorted the Primate, "if it
suffers not the Catholic truth to be proclaimed within its bounds." The
royal Council supported the Archbishop's injunction, but the publication of
the decrees at once set Oxford on fire. The scholars threatened death
against the friars, "crying that they wished to destroy the University."
The masters suspended Henry Crump from teaching as a troubler of the public
peace for calling the Lollards "heretics." The Crown however at last
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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