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Lollards
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Fundamentally, Lollards were anticlerical, meaning that they disapproved of the allegedly corrupt nature of the Catholic Church and the belief in divine appointment of Church leaders. Believing the Roman Catholic Church to be perverted in many ways, the Lollards looked to Scripture as the basis for their religious ideas. To provide an authority for religion outside of the Church, Lollards began the movement towards a translation of the bible into the vernacular which enabled more of the English peasantry to read the Bible. Wycliffe himself translated many passages until his death in 1384.
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The Lollards were members of a widespread Christian movement in all England during the late 13th to the early 15th centuries. They were highly critical of the power and wealth of the Roman Church. The Lollards were joined by Wycliffe’s "poor priests," who were trained and organized to teach from his English translation of the Bible. They Biblically preached against the Sacraments of the Roman Church for salvation. They minimized clerical authority, and emphasized poverty, ethical purity, and a Christian devotional life. This revival spread rapidly during the decade following Wycliffe’s death in 1384.
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In 1409 Archbishop Arundel issued a series of constitutions against the Lollards, with the object of enforcing in detail the provisions of the statute of 1401: still the Lollards seem to have had some influence. In the Parliament of 1410 a petition was presented by the Commons, which... they afterwards asked to withdraw, praying for a modification of the statute of 1401, and asking that persons arrested under it should be admitted to bail. In the same Parliament the Lollard party submitted a wild proposal for the confiscation of the lands of bishops and ecclesiastical corporations, and the endowment out of them of new earls, knights, esquires, and hospitals. Whenever the Lollards had an opportunity of raising their voice publicly, they gave their enemies a handle against them by the extravagance of their political proposals.
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Outside of the Twelve Conclusions, the Lollards had many beliefs and traditions. Their scriptural focus led Lollards to refuse the taking of oaths. Lollards ... had a tradition of millenarianism. Some criticized the Church for not focusing enough on Revelation. Many Lollards believed they were near the end of days, and several Lollard writings claim the Pope to be the antichrist. In actuality, Lollards did not believe that any one Pope , as a human being, was the antichrist.
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The nature of the relationship between Wyclif and the Lollards is not easy to assess. One of the practical initiatives he suggested in his later writings was the training and commissioning of ‘poor preachers’, laymen whose task was to teach the Scriptures throughout the land. Wyclif’s expressed intention was not to start a new movement or to plant new churches, but simply to fill what he saw as a gap in the established churches. His preachers were to work alongside the parish priests, preaching, teaching and evangelising. Another initiative with important consequences was Wyclif’s determination to provide a bible in the English language for his preachers and their hearers. At least some of Wyclif’s own writings during the final period of his life were ... in the vernacular, rather than Latin, consistent with his concern that the discussion of theology should not be restricted to priests and academics.
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Both Wyclif and the Lollards were persecuted extensively for the publication of this controversial vernacular Bible. In 1415 the Council of Constance convened and an investigation of Wyclif’s writings led to the condemnation first of 45 theses, which included the 24 condemned by the Blackfriars council, then of 260 articles as either “heretical, seditious, erroneous, audacious, scandalous, or infamous,” and of almost all of them as “contrary to good morals and catholic truth.” Persuant upon this judgement Wyclif was declared a heretic, his writings were to be burned and his “bones to be dug up and cast out of consecrated ground, provided they could be distinguished from those of Christians buried near-by.” This order was issued in 1415, but because Wyclif’s old disciple, Philip Repingdon, was bishop of Lincoln at the time, nothing was done to carry out the sentence. There is... no record of any papal directive to that effect, which might account for Repingdon’s failure to act. In any event Pope Martin V issued an order in December, 1427, to Fleming, Repingdon’s successor. In the spring of 1428, 44 years after his death, Wyclif’s bones were dug up, burned, and the ashes thrown into the river Swift.
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Lollards