In Our Time - Wyclif and the Lollards

Episode Date: June 16, 2011

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss John Wyclif and the Lollards.John Wyclif was a medieval philosopher and theologian who in the fourteenth century instigated the first complete English translation of the Bible. One of the most important thinkers of the Middle Ages, he also led a movement of opposition to the Roman Church and its institutions which has come to be seen as a precursor to the Reformation. Wyclif disputed some of the key teachings of the Church, including the doctrine of transubstantiation. His followers, the Lollards, were later seen as dangerous heretics, and in the fifteenth century many of them were burnt at the stake. Today Lollardy is seen as the first significant movement of dissent against the Church in England.With:Sir Anthony KennyPhilosopher and former Master of Balliol College, OxfordAnne HudsonEmeritus Professor of Medieval English at the University of OxfordRob LuttonLecturer in Medieval History at the University of NottinghamProducer: Thomas Morris.

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, one of the oldest parts of Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archeryshire of Canterbury, was built in the 1440s and used as a prison. Known as Lollard's Tower,

it's named after a religious group whose members were hunted down, and many of them burnt at the stake in the 15th century. The Lollards were followers of John Wickliff, a philosopher and theologian who disputed many of the key traditional teachings of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. His ideas are condemned as a rhetorical and his supporters persecuted. Wickcliffe has been called the Morning Star of the Reformation for his early zeal to change the church, and although his movement ultimately failed, it profoundly influenced later reformers.

He also fully started the Bible translation movement. Wickcliffe's Bible, begun in the 1370s, is the first complete English version of the Scriptures. With me to discuss John Wickleff and the Lullards are Anne Hudson, Emeritus Professor of Medieval English at the University of Oxford, Rob Lutton, lecturer in medieval history at the University of Nottingham, and Sir Anthony Kenny, philosopher and former Master of Bailey in College Oxford, as indeed was John Wickliff 650 years ago. Anthony Kenny, what do we know of Wycliffe's early career?

We know that he was a Yorkshire, probably from the North riding, and he had a fairly conventional, Oxford career to begin with. Oxford was one of the two great medieval universities of Paris and Oxford, and it had already been home to two very distinguished philosophers earlier in the century, John Duns Scoters and William of Ockham. Wecliffe, as you say, was Master of Balliol in 13. But he didn't regard that as a particular prize to be coveted.

He got out of the place as quickly as he could for a more profitable living outside. He was by this time a clergyman. His early work was in philosophy. In Oxford, in those days you first had a course in arts subjects, which covered philosophical and other topics before you moved on to the more senior study of theology, or it might be law or medicine. And Wycliffe, like many other philosophers,

wrote a summary of his work on philosophy, Sumer deente, a collection of different treatises. Deente means on being. and that then as now was a great subject of concern to philosophers. There was nothing unorthodox or heretical about Wycliffe's teaching in philosophy, but there was something unusual about it, because by this time, by the mid-14th century, there was a very strong nominalist strain among the judges.

mean binominalism? Well, it's a theory of language about the meaning of particular terms. If you have a sentence such as Socrates is human, you've got the name Socrates there, and that obviously refers to the human being Socrates. But what about the word human in the predicate of the sentence? Does that stand for anything outside the mind in the way that Socrates did? Well, the nominalists said no, it's only really a sound or at most an idea in the mind. There is nothing extramental corresponding to human. And in your notes, you referred to the words dog and square as well as being just sounds.

Yes, that's true. And the Wickliff was unusual in being a realist. That's the opposite of a nominalist. he thought that there were real things, real universals, that were not just creatures of the human mind at all. And that was at that time quite unusual. What was even more unusual was that he drew political conclusions from realism. He said that the universals were more important than individuals

and that things that were held in common were more valuable than things belonging to individuals. Therefore, he derived communism from a theory of communism from his realism. There were, I think, only two masters of Balliol who have been communists. The first was John Wickcliffe. The second was my predecessor,

the Marxist historian Christopher Hill. Rob Luton, how much dissent against the Catholic Church had there been before Wickcliffe, by and large? In England, in terms of organised dissent and beliefs that were actually classified by the church as heretical and of course heresy is something that is pronounced upon someone and it's something that the church defines.

There's very little, it seems, of course, there's a great deal more dissent on the continent before, Wycliffe. What we do find is that some of that continental descent, a very significant part of which isn't really Christian at all, it's dualists, the Cathar heresy, there are some attempts to import those ideas into England, but they're dealt with fairly rapidly and brutally,

something happens in the late 12th century where a group of Iran and Cathars are. Cathars were horribly dealt with, yes, more or less, they tried to extend, terminate them. Yes, absolutely. And I dealt with very brutally around 1166 and King Henry II, this group of Catholics, who seem to have come as missionaries to England. So in the English story, whereas, is Whitcliffe, nothing comes out of nothing, what's he drawing from? Is it drawing from continental authors? Well, there are only really instances of continental heresy being detected in England in the 13th and earlier 14th centuries. There are isolated instances of skepticism and unbelief of individuals who are detected by the church and declared heretics before Wycliffe and the Lollards.

But Wickcliffe is thinking and writing in a time by the late 14th century when there's a whole ferment of ideas and complaints and criticisms directed towards the church and about the church, but not just about the church, about society as a whole. and there's a whole background to this, not least the Avignon Papacy, the move of the papacy to Avignon in France, which causes all sorts of people, not just academics, to ask questions about the nature of authority within the church. There's rapid social change taking place after the black death in the middle of the 14th century,

which is causing traditional ways of thinking about society to be challenged and questioned. and so there are people like William Langland who's a poet who writes his great dream vision poem Pierce Plowman and the first version of which he's writing in the late 1360s who's thinking about the problems he sees around him and he's trying to make sense of how one can act as a Christian

within this rapidly changing scene and his conclusions are not that far removed from some of those that Wickliff draws himself not least in terms of criticising the wealth of the church, but also very importantly, this idea that the individual should reflect upon how they should live as a Christian and how they should

achieve their salvation. Anthony Kennedy mentioned the word communism in his introductory remarks. So we have that and we have Wickley being a very, very radical figure, even at a time of ferment. Yet at the same time,

it's curious that he's a friend of the mightiest in the land, John of Gaunt, who is as power. powerful as anybody is. How did that connection occur? Well I mean it's clear that Wickleff like many Oxford academics has

contact with people in government he knows people in London he's not an isolated figure although he is an intellectual he's not thinking in a bubble as it and writing in a bubble as it were but it seems that he's picked up he begins to be seen as useful

to John of Gaunt why? Around 1371 because he is seen as someone who can theorise anti-clerical ideas which are to do with excluding clerics, churchmen from the role of government as administrators and also are to do with

putting greater pressure upon English church to contribute more to the war effort and the 100 years war provides a background to this. The war with France resumes in 1369 there's an anti-clerical move within Parliament in 1371. Wickcliffe, it seems, was present at that Parliament and would have approved that the arguments that are put in favour of the Labour House seizing church wealth for the common good. So, in summarise, as religion is the parallel politics of the time,

John Agon sees Wickcliffe as his wedge into an argument that the church must contribute it far more to the state, i.e. to him. and to the war effort which he and his fellow nobles are deeply engaged in. Yes, absolutely. And it quickly gives them justification through his own works. And Hudson, he made a cause scandal with his views on the church. What was he arguing? He was arguing that the church as it existed at the end of the 14th century

was not a true reflection of the church as it could be traced in the Bible, in the Gospels and in the epistles and acts. For a number of reasons, he wasn't, I think, in any way a fundamentalist, but the discrepancy between the material wealth of the church of his time, of their power politically over secular parts of the realm, and, of course, as Rob has already mentioned, the fact that the papacy at this date was based in Avignon meant that all taxes which were paid from England to the Pope

could be seen as financing French power and the other... Our mortal enemy at the time. Our mortal enemy at the time. And this comes out too, I think, in the way in which Wycliffe was used by particularly John of Gaunt and the King's Council. First of all, participating in an embassy to try to get papal taxation in England reduced. But then, more strikingly, in 1378,

there was a notorious case where the sanctuary at Westminster Abbey was used by a couple of men holding a whole. for whom they hoped to get a considerable ransom. They'd been imprisoned, escaped from prison, took refuge in Westminster Abbey, and the keeper of the Tower of London pursued them with his staff. In the course of the muddle in Westminster Abbey, one of the two who had taken refuge was killed,

along with another supporter. And this, of course, was a major scandal in that with bloodshed in the abbey, the whole abbey would have to be reconsecrated before it could be used again. And the idea of it being a sanctuary had been broached, which was quite an important idea. An important point.

Wickcliffe himself was in no way obviously connected with the actual scandal, but he was used by the secular. powers and particularly by John of Gaunt to prepare a brief to defend the invasion of sanctuary and that was used at the Parliament in Gloucester later that year.

They moved Parliament to Gloucester because they were worried about the unrest in London. That seems to be the most likely explanation, yes indeed. Matters were complicated by the fact that John of Gaunt was not greatly loved in England generally or it often in London. Can you explain to this as exactly what his position was? Well, he was the

power behind the throne, as it were, this is the period when Richard II was a very young boy and then in his teens and therefore the council was particularly important

and Gaunt was the effective uncle, as it were, there were others, but Gaunt was the one who had the power. Before we move on, can I just get this clear? Because it's absolutely fascinating. Do you think that Wycliffe is being

used by John of Gaunt for John of Gaunt's purposes, which he clearly is to some extent, but do you think he's also being used to follow through ideas that he himself, Avoniscio, on his own initiative as well, holds? You mean that John of Gaunt holds? No, the Wickleve himself.

Is he being just, is he being just used, or is it something he himself also believes in? I think it's something that he himself also believes in. His theory of dominion, what we would, I think, most reasonably render as authority, does depend upon the wielder of that authority being in a state of grace, about which certainly Wycliffe admitted that only God could know. but a lot of people could guess who was not in a state of grace and Wycliffe argued indeed that a large number of the clerical hierarchy

including often the Pope were not in a state of grace so we're talking out of Nick Kenny about crossing over from as you were court politics national into church politics they're all part of to remember that the church politics are very very important And so when he criticises the idea of the Eucharist, which seems now, to many people, very arcane, he's heading right for the heart of the matter, isn't it? Could you explain why that is?

That's quite right. I think the Wycliffe's separation from the regular teaching of the church took place in several stages. And the early stages, when he's really arguing against papal taxation and saying that the... the English should not be paying taxes to the Pope. Pretty well everyone in England is on his side.

Then he begins to attack the richer clergy in England itself, saying that if they're not in a state of grace, they aren't really... What does he mean by a state of grace? It means living in sin. Yes. If you have committed a serious sin, then you are not in a state of grace. So he just took it for granted that most of them have committed serious sins. Yes.

And as Anne said, though none of us knows who is eventually going to end up in heaven, because you don't know who is going to repent or who's going to fall into sin, he said you can have a pretty good guess as who's not in a state of grace at the moment. And the nobility, they like this because they too thought there were some pretty wicked clergyman and that they could probably use those clerics money a good deal better than the clerics could. But then also he begins to be a bit critical of rich nobleman too. But he still has allies, the Franciscan and other friars, who lived by begging and were very keen on poverty as an essential part of the Christian message.

But then he takes a step too far for everybody, that is by questioning the church's teaching on the Eucharist, on the memorial of Christ's last supper when he took bread into his hands and said, This is my body. This is my body and blood which I've given for you. Yes, this is the mass, as it was known in the Middle Ages and is today, and it was very much the centre of Christian devotion.

And the popular, well, the authoritative Catholic teachers, at this time was that at the words of consecration when the priest said, this is my body, the bread ceased to be bred and became instead the real body and blood of Christ. Now, this was called transubstantiation. Now, Wycliffe denied this. It doesn't mean that he denied that Christ was really present. What he denied was that the bread had gone, that the bread had been annihilated because philosophically he thought annihilation was impossible.

And God couldn't defy the laws of the universe he'd invented? Yes. And that was a point that Wycliffe insisted on against some of the Franciscan theologians who were willing to allow an enormous sort of arbitraryness into the divine will. Can we just spend one more moment on this? Because I think it's absolutely fascinating and key and quite hard to grasp nowadays.

By challenging this doctrine, he outraged everybody. He upset everybody, more than upset. They were after him. Why was it so, as it were, hardwired in? I'm awfully sorry about that. Why was it so important to people at the time? I think for two reasons.

it was of course very important to the clergy because it was the most important powers of the powers that a priest possessed was the power to turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. So the main raison d'être for the existence of the clergy, lower clergy as well as higher, friars as well as monks as well as parish priests,

would be taken away if the Eucharist was not what it was claimed to be. I think there was a certain degree of confusion in the opposition to Wycliffe, because Wycliffe was not denying that this was really the body of Christ in the way that, say, Calvin later would deny it. Wickliff's position was much more like that of Luther's. Luther said,

this is both bread and the body of Jesus. And Wycliffe's comparison was that of a written text like the Bible. It's the words that you read that's the most important thing, not the ink and the parchment. But there is ink and parchment there. In the same way there is bread and wine. And I think a further point which made this a very crucial item was that it's clear that Wickliff and his followers in Oxford

preached this new doctrine in English. It might have been allowable had the argument continued simply in academic Latin and within the universities and within the clergy. But once it is spread in English, anybody can begin to talk about it. I very much want to come back to that in a moment. And it distresses the laity then as well as the clergy.

because it's the heart of their devotional life as well as the most important task of the clergy. I want to come back to the English very much. But, Rob, in 1381, there's a major civil uprising, and rather unfortunately, is the peasants' revolt. How did this affect Wycliffe's standing? Because he is accused of being an inspirer. Yes. It clearly does have a significant effect.

I mean, interestingly thinking about the Eucharist, 1381 is a social and political revolt, but it's also religiously. charged and it seems no accident or it's probably no accident that the rebels converge on London on the day of the Feast of Corpus Christi Thursday to 13th of June in that year and of course the Eucharist is also a symbol

of the body politic and of community and it seems that the rebels are aware of this and are almost turning that on its head and asking questions about the nature of this broken body politic as they see it that their rulers have failed to rule properly and have oppressed them with unjust and burdensome taxation. I mean, there are a number of reasons why... But why do Wycliffe come out of this point?

Well, there are writers who write about 1381. They are writing with the benefit of hindsight after Wycliffe's ideas have been condemned some years later, but they draw a connection between Wycliffe and the rising, not least because of some of the actions of the rebels, in chopping off the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, in attacking monastic, and ecclesiastical estates.

The rebels also demand for all the wealth of the church to be taken and distributed to parishioners and that clergy in monastic orders should only have enough, you know, just what they need to live on and no more. John Ongon's great palace at the Savoy in the street is sacked? Yes, it is, but interestingly, they don't pillage it. We're told they don't pillage it. Yes.

He must have thought pretty a mess when he got back, even so. Because he was in the north at the time, wasn't it? But there is a direct connection drawn between John Ball, who's one of the leaders and inspirational figures, this radical priest and preacher who's been getting in trouble since the 1360s, who preaches this radical Christian egalitarianism, he's reported as beginning his sermons when Adam Delved and Eve Spann, who was then a gentleman,

and the chroniclers Walsingham and Knighton, claim that Ball was a disciple of Wycliffe. Knighton talks about Ball as being the John the Baptist that cleared the way or prepared the way for Wickcliffe's pernicious findings. And Wickleff himself, in one of his Latin works, a day blasphemia, interrupts his argument plainly when he's just got news about the Peasants' Revolt and writes with considerable regret and sympathy

with the rebels that it's not reasonable to expect people to act in a noble fashion when they are being so oppressed and when their opponents are so evidently wealthy so even though I don't think

there's any clear evidence that Wickcliffe was involved in inciting the rebellion let alone organising it he has got considerable sympathy with it he was done he'd been they'd been bulls coming from Rome in the 1370s.

But in 1382 at the Blackfriars Council, the earthquake council as it was called, because earthquakes in London at the time, went to everything else, he was, it seems to have been more important, seemed to have been a defining point in his life. He lived for only two years after it, and you tell us.

Well, the Blackfriars Council is a rather curious council in a way in that it was called by the new Archbrose, Bishop Courtney, who had been Bishop of London at the time of the Peasants' Revolt, which probably not insignificant. It condemned 24 conclusions drawn from Wycliffe writings, but he did not mention Wycliffe. The Council also required a number of Wycliffe followers to condemn the opinions as the Council had. and it was the beginning of the collapse of support for Wycliffe in Oxford

and in academic circles. Though having said that, sympathy with some of his views is traceable in Oxford right the way through to the 1420s. He'd been well protected. Oxford thought itself an independent university, so when he was attacked, even by the Pope there said, his arm mind, we're not letting him, we're not going to try him. John of Gaunt had protected him, but he seems to have been. been just about got away with this time and given a sort of house arrest in the country? Yes.

In the countryside, I mean. Unfortunately, the documentation of Gaunt's support is not as good as one would like, but Wickliff does refer to having had to promise that he would not mention in the vernacular the substance and accidents of the Eucharist. And it's thought that probably the fact that Wickliff was allowed to withdraw from Oxford to Lutterworth, which was the living he currently held, was a withdrawal which was negotiated with John of Gournd. And two years later he died.

And soon after he, though his period in Lutth was extraordinarily busy, writing more sermons, more exegesis, more theoretical works. And perhaps you think, Anthony Kenney, working on his translation, what we know, what we call his translation of the Bible. And let's get to that, because that's a great stem in his life, often overlooked by his political effect,

which the Morning Star was referring to the man who precursor of Luther and the whole reformist change of the Western world business. But he was determined to translate, to engineer the translation of the Bible to English. Can you tell us why he was and when he started and when it was completed? Well, the Wiclified Bible is, I think, one of the great literary mysteries of all time, really.

And I think nobody can say much with certainty about who was responsible for which bits of the translation. At the time of the Reformation, there were two equal and opposite legends about it. There was the Protestant legend, was that this Bible in Middle English, was the, work of Wycliffe alone unaided, the Horovic. That's what you get in Fox and Bail and people like that. On the other hand,

Thomas More followed in the 20th century by Cardinal Gasker and Hiller Bellow maintained that these Bibles, none of whom have Wickliff's name on them, were actually perfectly orthodox

Bibles made by non-heretical Christians at roughly the same time. And they argued from the absence of Wycliffe's name, from the fact that there is no heretically tendentious translation in it. There's nothing like Tyndall substituting the word congregation for church in his Bible. And also saying these manuscripts we have, they're not Samizdat. A lot of them are very beautiful things in royal libraries. and so on. Now, I think...

A great number of them remain, which is unusual. Nearly 300 for a medieval written text. Not, of course, most of them incomplete, of course. Yes, but still that many. Yes. Rare for that, for a medieval manuscript of any sort. But I think most people nowadays would reject either of these views, either that it was a Catholic Bible

or that it was Wycliffe's own work. My own accountant, I'm sure, Anne will want to dissent from a bit of this. I think that it went through several stages. Indeed, the undoubtedly Lollard author of the preface, which is attached to a number of the Bibles, says that it went through four stages. There was, first of all, the getting together the best texts of the Vulgate, the St. Jerome's Latin Bible, to translate.

There was then looking up commenting, to see what it meant, then you would get the, you would have a draft translation, and you would get the grammarians to help. And finally, you would turn it from a kind of simple word-for-word constru

into something that was flowing English. Now, I would date these four periods, first of all, in... I'm afraid you have to move on a little more... In the 15th, in the 1370s, I think.

think they did the collation of everything. I would put it in Queen's College, where you have Wicklick, Nicholas of Hereford, John Traviso there. Then I think that when Nicholas of Hereford left, Wycliffe and some others probably took a hand in the translation. I think the final stage is something that could have been begun by Wycliffe in exile. He no longer is there, but all he would need would be a manuscript of the draft version and he could anglicise it, but obviously this continued long after his death as well. Is there much dissent, Anne?

No, not a lot of dissent from that story, I think. The chief thing that I would want to emphasise is that it must have been a collaborative enterprise. The Bible itself is very long. The stages which Tony has outlined from the general prologue

can all be shown to have happened even if not consistently through the entire Bible, and it must have been a long and slow process. And it was finally, it came in the 1390s it came out. Its impact, Rob Luton, on people who supported Whitcliffe, who became known as the Lollards, which you think and it's from the Dutch term meaning mumbling.

There's no better suggestion yet made, I think. They took it on as first an insult, and like lots of people who were insulted, they took the name more as a badge of pride. can you tell us what they did and why I'm sorry we have to go a little bit fast now

in the next century they were persecuted so heavily and Wycliffe was dug up and more than 40 years after his death his bones were burnt and they turned on him after his death even more than his life sure I mean the Wiclify Bible

is absolutely central to Lollity that's clear and we know that Lollards, if we're going to call them that, I think, for the sake of convenience, by the 15th century are reading the scriptures in English in their homes.

They're getting together. You know, we find evidence of this in trial records and they're reading parts of the scriptures, often book, one of the four gospels. So the Gospel of Matthew, for example, is mentioned in a, you know, in trial records.

And they get together and they read the scriptures. And the wording of the trial records often says that they agree together against certain things, the abuses that they perceive as existing in the church. So they're using the Bible, if you like, as a mirror to hold up to the church and to say, well, you know, we don't find these things in scripture. And so it's providing a basis for their critique. But there's also a powerful element to the Wiccified Scriptures,

and that is that it offers the individual lay reader the ability to access the truth of Scripture for themselves. in one way, as later Bibles did increasingly, Tendorson, they're liberating people into thought. In another way, they're giving them access to political opinions on the basis that religion was part of politics. Yes. Is that what's happening?

So why were they turned against so toughly, and why were they pursued and persecuted and burnt at the stake in such numbers in the next century? Well, I mean, it takes some time for the machinery of, Crown and Church to actually get into action and work out an adequate way of dealing with heresy. And I think there is, in a sense, the Church and Crown are caught napping, and I think they do underestimate the degree to which Wycliffe's followers begin to lay down the basis of Wiglified thought around the countryside, mainly in the Midlands and in the West Country,

places like Bristol, Northampton, Lester are early centres of Wycliffeism. And the state and church have to work out how they deal with heresy and there's a lot of cooperation between them, but it does take some time for them to work out how to deal with it. They bring out a pamphlet on the burning of heretics and so on. Anthony. I think there are two different strands in the persecution of,

Wickliff and Wicklifites. There's the local English strand that you were mentioning, but of course Wickliff's influence went far beyond England, and in some ways it was most important in Bohemia. I think most of his Latin works survive in Bohemia and not in England. A large number of people. And the heresy of Jan Hus was more than just a theoretical heresy. I mean, you get real uprisings and overtoppings of government and so on

in Bohemia. And he declared himself to be, not a disciple, but influenced by, heavily influenced by Wycliffe. And so the emperor and the Pope are worried as well as just authorities in England. And in 1415,

there was a general council at Constance whose main purpose was to put an end to the schism, which had led to there being two rival popes, and in the end three rival popes. They did put an end to the schism. They finally got a unanimous support for a single pope, but then the very next thing they did was to condemn the ideas of Wycliffe and in the end to burn Jan Hus. So that there's this international strain. The scare had been given more, I think,

by what happened in Bohemia than by what happened here. Yes, indeed. And it's notable that Jan Hus was condemned on the basis of the agreement with the heresies of Wycliffe. First of all, 45 and then 267 conclusions of Wickcliffe were condemned, and later the same day, Hus was condemned and burnt. Rob, I know you to come in, but can I ask you a question of what you're going to say anyway? Can you give us some idea of the actions that the law lords took in the 15th century, the rebellions they were involved in, as well as what you were going to say anyway? Yes, of course. Well, I was going to say that there is high-level support for Wiclified ideas,

particularly disendowment continues right through into the early 15th century. Taking money away from the rich monasteries and others. Yes, and that's still being pushed in Parliament by these figures who've been called Lollard Knights and other associates, even when the church is burning the first English heretics. First one's burnt in 1401 and then the first layman, John Badby, burnt in 1410. So there are audacious attempts to still keep pushing that agenda. But Oldcastle of Rebellion of 1414 is really a critical moment in terms of causing higher status backers of Wiclify ideas to run for cover. Old Castle is a career soldier who becomes he marries into title and money, becomes Lord Cobham.

He's a friend of the Prince of Wales, soon to be Henry V. and he's protected for some time but his involvement, his interest in Wiglefight ideas eventually means that he's brought before Arundel and investigated for heresy and convicted for heresy he escapes and then seems to lead this rebellion

which only seems to involve around 300 people it's discovered before it even happens they're waiting for them at St Charles's Fields outside London and when the rebels arrive from the early morning of 9th, 10th of January,

they're really walking straight into a trap. O'Castro actually isn't apprehended on that morning. He may not even have been there, but he does seem to have been behind, the orchestrating figure behind the rebellion. But there is a real crackdown around the country.

There are county commissions are issued. And it seems that, you know, these show that there is a wide network of supporters of old cars and wickfite ideas but at the same time there is a backlash I think amongst the population at large because they see this is a real threat

to the status quo over the next hundred or so years Antonina this is a large question what do you think was the key influence and consequence of Wickley's teachings well

there's a good deal of dispute about this I think that there was not a great direct influence of Wycliffe on the early reformers. I think that after the English Reformation had got well underway, Wycliffe was seen as a sort of admirable precursor. But there's quite a lot of difference between Lutheran and Calvinist ideas and Wycliffe's ideas. The anti-clericalism is, of course,

common to both. The emphasis on the, as it were, priesthood of the laity is there too. But Wicliff is not himself a supporter of Sola Scriptura, scripture alone. Scripture is very important, but the church can add things to it as long as it doesn't subtract from it. So things like infant baptism and so on which requested the Reformation, and I don't know whether by the Lollards, but they were not by Wycliffe himself. Would you like to add to that, what his main influence was? I think

Tony is right, but I would also look to the lower ranks of society that Lolladie had encouraged individual people to think about theology, to think about their religious practices,

and had fostered an independence of outlook, which could then be transferred, in the Reformation period to the new ideas which came from the continent. Where it differed is that Wycliffe would never

have said that the epistle of James was an epistle of straw. He thought good works were extremely important and the idea of Fidei Solor was not a Wicliff idea at all. My face alone, yes.

Finally, Rob. There are some striking continuity between the parts of the countryside where we find Lollody in the 15th and early 16th centuries and then where we see later more radical Protestant traditions so places like Kent and East Anglia, the Chilterns, where non-conformism and separatism then spring up in the late 16th and 3017th centuries.

Thank you very much, thank you. And Hudson, Statenny, Kenny and Rob Lutton. And next week we'll be talking about Malthusianism. Thanks for listening. We hope you've enjoyed. this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programs about history, science and philosophy at BBC.com.ukuk forward slash radio 4.