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What is a Lollard Dissent and Belief in Late Medieval
England Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs 1st
Edition Hornbeck Ii Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Hornbeck II, J. Patrick
ISBN(s): 9780199589043, 0199589046
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 7.24 MB
Year: 2010
Language: english
Title Pages
What is a Lollard?: Dissent and Belief in Late

Medieval England
J. Patrick Hornbeck II
Print publication date: 2010

Print ISBN-13: 9780199589043
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2010
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589043.001.0001
Title Pages
(p.i) What is a Lollard?
Oxford Theological Monographs
(p.iii) What is a Lollard?
(p.ii)
OXFORD THEOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS
THE SPECIFICATION OF HUMAN ACTIONS IN ST THOMAS

AQUINAS
Joseph Pilsner (2006)
THE WORLD VIEW OF PERSONALISM

Origins and Early Development
Jan Olof Bengtsson (2006)
THE EUSEBIANS
The Polemic of Athanasius of Alexandria and the Construction of the
‘Arian Controversy’
David M. Gwynn (2006)
CHRIST AS MEDIATOR
A study of the Theologies of Eusebius of Caesarea,
Marcellus of Ancyra, and Anthanasius of Alexandria
Jon M. Robertson (2007)
RIGHTEOUS JEHU AND HIS EVIL HEIRS

The Deuteronomist's Negative Perspective on Dynastic Succession
Page 1 of 3
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2021. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use.
Subscriber: University of Nottingham, Malaysia; date: 08 September 2021
Title Pages
David T. Lamb (2007)
SEXUAL AND MARITAL METAPHORS IN HOSEA, JEREMIAH,

ISAIAH, AND EZEKIEL
Sharon Moughtin‐Mumby (2008)
THE SOTERIOLOGY OF LEO THE GREAT

Bernard Green (2008)
ANTI‐ARMINIANS
The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I
Stephen Hampton (2008)
THE THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY OF AUGUSTINE'S DE

TRINITATE
Luigi Gioia (2008)
THE SONG OF SONGS AND THE EROS OF GOD

A Study in Biblical Intertextuality
Edmée Kingsmill (2009)
ROBERT SPAEMANN'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

Nature, Freedom, and the Critique of Modernity
Holger Zaborowski (2010)
OUT‐Of‐BODY AND NEAR‐DEATH EXPERIENCES

Brain‐State Phenomena or Glimpses of Immortality?
Michael N. Marsh (2010)
(p.iv)
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Preface

Medieval England

Print ISBN-13: 9780199589043
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589043.001.0001
(p.v) Preface
The question in the title of this book has been asked a great many times, by
historians and propagandists, theologians and polemicists, bishops, inquisitors,
and scholars of English literature. It is no exaggeration that much of the
contested historiography of the late Middle Ages and the early Reformation in
England rests on its answer. For the sixteenth‐century martyrologist John Foxe
just as for the twentieth‐century historian A. G. Dickens, the claim that lollards
and lollardy existed underground into the 1520s provided fodder for their
arguments about the causes and the reception of the Henrician Reformation. For
Dickens' near‐contemporaries Eamon Duffy and Richard Rex, the claim that
lollardy, if it were ever a coherent force to begin with, was spent by the early
sixteenth century served the opposite purpose: to prove that lollards have
received ‘disproportionate historiographical attention’ and that medieval
heretics exerted no discernible influence on the shape of the Reformation in
England.1
So this is a book, in large part, about terminology: about the words that
contemporaries and later historians have used to characterize, and to
categorize, those who dissented from the ecclesiastical norms of the late Middle
Ages. In addition to the historiographical extremes represented by Dickens and
Duffy, there are other terminological issues as well. Some scholars have
suggested that lollardy was less an organized movement of dissent than the
ecclesiopolitical construct of a Lancastrian government keen to consolidate its
hold on power; others have claimed that whatever the case, the extant sources
have permanently concealed from us the details of many putative heretics'
thought‐worlds.
Indeed, this is also a book about beliefs; it argues that the members of the
dissenting communities of fourteenth‐, fifteenth‐, and sixteenth‐century England
did not subscribe to a static set of theological ideas but, instead, departed from
Page 1 of 15
Preface
the consensus of the late medieval church in a host of diverse and evolving ways.
As I shall demonstrate, the beliefs of individual dissenters were conditioned by a
number of social, textual, and cultural factors, including the ideas they discussed
with other members of their local communities, the texts to which they had
access, and the influence of mainstream religion and spirituality. Careful
attention to these dynamics at the local level, as well (p.vi) as to the theological
content implicit in Wycliffite texts and ecclesiastical records, can disclose the
ways in which dissenting beliefs changed over time and varied from individual to
individual and community to community. The divergences in doctrine that I
document in the following pages show that late medieval dissenters were by no
means homogeneous.
The focus of these pages on dissenters' and heresy suspects' beliefs seeks to fill
a lacuna created by some recent trends in lollard studies. Since the revival in the
late 1970s of interest in Wycliffites, lollards, and the textual remains they left
behind—a revival almost single‐handedly pioneered by the rigorous textual
editor and Oxford professor Anne Hudson—literary scholars have taken a pre‐
eminent place in the study of lollardy. Hudson's seminal work The Premature
Reformation, to which any study of this sort must be hugely in debt, includes an
extensive discussion of lollard theology or, in Hudson's phrase, ‘ideology’. She
argues that:
the fractured and apparently random assertions found in vernacular

treatises, episcopal registers, and first‐person testimonies can be shown to
be a coherent and reasoned set of beliefs if they are to fit to the template
of Wyclif's teaching: the writings of the founder form a conceptual matrix
that can elaborate and explain the continuing ideology of the movement.2
Hudson's students have carried on her rigorous focus on Wycliffite texts, while
at the same time refining some of her methodological assumptions. In the field
of English literature, critical approaches to the study of premodern texts
continue to vie for influence with the more traditional techniques of textual
editing and analysis. Kantik Ghosh's monograph The Wycliffite Heresy has
uncovered the theoretical debates about biblical interpretation that, in his view,
account for the appeal of Wyclif's ideas within the University of Oxford.3
Katherine Little has argued that the Wycliffite controversy ‘should be
understood in terms of the history and the sources of the self’,4 And Jill Havens
has suggested that Hudson's metaphor of ‘the grey area’, in which texts neither
demonstrably Wycliffite nor demonstrably ‘orthodox’ can be situated, could
admit of further gradations.5 In historical studies, scholars have likewise begun
to explore the social and ideological differences which separated (p.vii) many
of Wyclif's putative followers from one another. Jeremy Catto, for instance, has
persuasively described the competing interests of several groups of Oxford
fellows who supported Wyclif, and A. K. McHardy and Maureen Jurkowski have
provided us with additional biographical details about early Wycliffites.6 At the
Page 2 of 15
Preface
same time as these scholars have concentrated on the personalities and

convictions of leading dissenters, Craig D'Alton and Ian Forrest have turned
traditional methodology on its head by focusing instead on those who
investigated heresy suspects.7 Finally, in philosophical and theological studies,
detailed analyses of Wyclif's works by such scholars as Ian Christopher Levy and
Stephen E. Lahey have revealed that the Oxford scholar, far from being ahead of
his time, was deeply enmeshed in the contemporary debates of the medieval
academy.8
As the burgeoning literature in the field suggests, the net result of Hudson's
efforts to make Wycliffite texts more widely available has been the creation of a
new interdisciplinary subfield, ‘Lollard studies’:
where scholars of history and literature have met, and drawn upon one
another's methods, in order to edit, study, and interpret a body of texts and
records which had previously, especially in English departments, received
little attention. The field is now firmly established as an important aspect
of the study of medieval England, and within the past ten years or so in
particular, Lollard studies have not only entered the mainstream, but come
to occupy a central place.9
Yet the growth of lollard studies and the claims of its practitioners have not gone
without question. As we have already seen, a number of historians have argued
that lollardy had little (if any) measurable impact on the late medieval church or
the Henrician Reformation. Among the most strident of these critics have been
the Cambridge scholars Rex, who published a slim monograph challenging many
of the assumptions of lollard studies in 2002, and Duffy, whose introduction to
the revised edition of his book, The Stripping of (p.viii) the Altars, approaches
the level of polemic.10 Other scholars have taken a more moderate approach,
suggesting that although lollardy deserves attention as a factor in the
ecclesiastical history of late medieval England, its coherence as an ideology and
its significance for both the medieval and Reformation periods have been
exaggerated.11
Through all this, studies of late medieval dissent have by and large moved away
from general and toward local approaches away from traditional historical
methods and toward more theoretically grounded analyses of the sources; and
away from questions about lollard belief and toward questions about lollard
texts, communities, and social practices. Each of these trends has produced
much illuminating work, but together they account for a certain lack of attention
in the most recent scholarly literature to the religious convictions of medieval
dissenters.
First, as in the field of Reformation studies, the recent historiography of lollardy

has been characterized by a progressively greater awareness of the substantial
Page 3 of 15
Preface
differences in social and economic standing, religious practices, and beliefs that
separated dissenters and dissenting communities from one another. Whereas
early historians often embraced the medieval chronicler Henry Knighton's claim
that lollards ‘had only one way of speaking and a remarkably consistent form of
doctrine’, scholars have now begun to investigate the social and theological fault
lines whose existence refutes any attempt to treat lollard groups as if they were
interchangeable.12 Among the first contributors to this trend was J. A. F.
Thomson, whose pioneering study The Later Lollards concluded that ‘one cannot
talk of a single Lollard creed but must always remember that beliefs varied, not
only from group to group, but even from individual to individual’.13 A survey of
recent work on communities, texts, and heresy suspects demonstrates that local
and microhistorical approaches have become largely de rigeur.14 Since 2003,
David Aers has analysed the eucharistic theologies of two early Wycliffites,
Walter Brut and William Thorpe; Robert Lutton has published a detailed study of
testamentary piety in the heresy‐prone Kentish village of Tenterden; Maureen
Jurkowski (p.ix) has continued her meticulous prosopographical research into
dissenters in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire and book producers in London;
and Jill Havens has examined the theological affiliations of a series of late
medieval texts linked to a single manuscript, Oxford, University College 97.15
The popularity of local studies can in part be explained by the influence of

critical approaches on the historiography of late medieval dissent. Whilst the
field of lollard studies has not yet been shaped by theoretical questions to the
same extent as the study of continental heresies such as ‘Catharism’ and
‘Waldensianism’, and of such similarly marginal movements as the beguines, a
growing number of scholars have begun to voice criticisms of the ways in which
lollard specialists have at times made uncritical use of their sources.16 In
particular, the charge has been made that the adversarial nature of suspect–
inquisitor discourse and the ways in which heterodox claims were recorded for
posterity work together to obscure dissenters' theological convictions and, to an
even greater extent, their spirituality.17 Scepticism has also been voiced about
the category of ‘Lollardy’ itself: is it the construct of late medieval propagandists
and their unwitting allies in the historical guild?18 Does the use of a single label
stereotype the beliefs and practices of a highly disparate cohort of individuals,
undercutting the very advances that local studies have begun to make? Or were
many heresy suspects sufficiently alike that it would be atomistic not to group
them into some overarching category? These questions will receive detailed
attention below.
(p.x) Finally, as theoretical approaches to the sources for lollard history have
challenged the viability of belief as an object of study, scholars have begun to
devote greater attention to the social practices and textual traditions of
dissenting communities.19 In this connection, recent work has analysed the
literary and political contexts of the Twelve Conclusions, a Wycliffite manifesto
of 1395; challenged the long‐held assumption that dissenting communities
Page 4 of 15
Preface
provided an alternative outlet for women's spirituality; considered Wycliffite

depictions of labourers; examined the social and economic standing of lollard
families within their local communities; and discussed the persistence of
dissenting ideas among the gentry in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries.20 This list could be continued at some length, but it is important to
note that it reflects a broader trend in heresy studies, namely the dichotomy
between, on the one hand, treating religious dissent as a phenomenon whose
causes are mostly social and economic and, on the other, approaching the
subject as primarily an intellectual and theological one.21 In the case of lollardy,
recent developments have provided a series of usually implicit reasons to
prioritize social factors. Many early studies of English heresy contained such
flawed accounts of lollard ideas, at least according to contemporary standards,
because they were too closely bound up with confessional agendas. The
theoretical critiques I have alluded to suggest that the authentic beliefs of
heresy suspects are highly difficult to retrieve from the extant sources. And
because so many previous studies of late medieval dissent focused almost
exclusively on lollards' beliefs, there has recently been much more work to be
done on social and textual, rather than theological, questions.
The cumulative result of these trends has been a rapid advance in our
knowledge of the historical and literary contexts within which lollards moved.
Nevertheless, these trends have left a gap in our understanding of dissenters'
(p.xi) beliefs and the theological dynamics that led to their formation. It is
noteworthy that Hudson's Premature Reformation, written two decades ago last
year, remains the most recent attempt to provide a comprehensive survey of
lollard doctrine. In the wake of that magisterial study, lollard belief has been
addressed largely in microhistorical terms, and investigations into the theologies
of individual heresy suspects and texts have frequently turned up results at
variance with Hudson's portrait of a largely coherent body of doctrines. As local
studies have accumulated, no attempt has yet been made to assemble them into
an account of lollard belief that describes and seeks to explain local variations
among the data.
That is the task that this book seeks to undertake: to discuss the ways in which
the beliefs of dissenters in late medieval England varied and shifted over time,
and then to consider the complicated, intricate, and interdependent
relationships between beliefs, texts, and social circumstances that produced a
host of different varieties of dissent. I have chosen as the chronological
endpoints for this study two dates which, whilst somewhat arbitrary,
nevertheless point to important moments in the religious history of late medieval
England. I begin in 1381, the year in which Wyclif went into exile from Oxford on
account of his ideas about the eucharist, and I conclude in 1521, the year in
which Martin Luther's books were first burned in England at the behest of
Henry VIII's government.22 The choice of such a substantial period of time
makes it foolhardy to attempt to study all the issues of religious interest to late
Page 5 of 15
Preface
medieval Christians; it also makes it impossible to study the many interesting

and under‐explored resonances between English and continental forms of
dissent. In the hope that detailed ‘case studies’ may help to disclose more
general trends, I have accordingly chosen five clusters of doctrines for close
analysis.
A Note on The Use of Trial Records

Much of what follows relies upon careful readings of the various texts and trial
records which comprise the majority of the extant contemporary evidence for
the Wycliffite controversy and its aftermath. These texts fall into four general
categories, though the boundaries between them are somewhat more fluid than
has generally been acknowledged: Wyclif's own writings; the Latin and
vernacular texts of his academic followers and later dissenters; the theological
(p.xii) and polemical texts produced by anti‐Wycliffite churchmen and
ecclesiastical assemblies; and the records of the examinations, trials, and
punishments of heresy suspects. Each of these corpora of texts presents its own
set of interpretative difficulties, but none is for that reason to be rejected.
Indeed, even the most problematic sources can sometimes be mutually
illuminating if juxtaposed with one another.
In the first chapter of The Premature Reformation, Hudson has set out the
hermeneutical challenges which confront students of Wyclif's writings, the Latin
and vernacular texts of later authors, the detailed refutations of Wycliffite ideas
produced by the spokesmen of orthodoxy, and chronicles and synodal acta. There
is not space to rehearse her arguments here, but the records of the trials of
heresy suspects deserve further discussion as historical sources. After all, it is
primarily from such documents that we can glean detailed information about the
beliefs of the majority of dissenters who could not or did not commit their ideas
to writing. These records include material preserved in episcopal registers,
where most heresy business seems to have been recorded, as well as in separate
court books dedicated to heresy trials.23 Chance entries in visitation records,
consistory and archidiaconal court books, and the records of secular
administration also contain information about heresy proceedings, though in the
latter case, details about the beliefs that suspects were accused of holding are
especially rare.24 Taking all of these sources into account, the extant records
identify at least 659 individual heresy defendants; they include information
about the alleged religious convictions of at least 420 of them.
It is no coincidence that these records, the most crucial sources for the voice of
otherwise voiceless individuals, are also the sources whose value as historical
evidence has most often been called into question.25 Broadly speaking, three
sets of objections have been raised. First, the procedures that governed the trial
(p.xiii) and sentencing of heresy defendants tended to oversimplify their views.
As early as the 1420s, Archbishop Henry Chichele had commissioned his
theologians and canon lawyers to produce questionnaires to be administered to
Page 6 of 15
Preface
heresy suspects. Episcopal registers suggest that this practice was quickly taken
up by bishops like Thomas Polton of Worcester, Thomas Bekynton of Bath and
Wells, and William Aiscough of Salisbury.26 Questionnaires were still in use in
the sixteenth century; the registers of Archbishop Warham of Canterbury and |
Bishop Blythe of Coventry and Lichfield both contain similar, though less
extensive, sets of questions, and the constant repetition of many articles in
surviving abjurations likewise suggests that inquisitorial preconceptions shaped
the manner in which defendants' beliefs were recorded for posterity.27 At the
same time, the omission of subjects like christology and soteriology from the
extant questionnaires may have obscured some elements of dissenting theology,
since defendants would have been unlikely to profess controversial views unless
first asked about them.28 Indeed, the purpose of a late medieval heresy trial was
not to provide a suspect with the opportunity to expound her or his belief
system; it was instead to establish her or his guilt with respect to a specific set
of charges.29 Defendants may have had very little opportunity to explain
themselves, and thus, whilst they may have subscribed to many of the beliefs
they abjured, we cannot be certain of the relative theological emphases that they
may have placed on individual ideas.30
Second, even if a particular trial included an unusually frank exchange of views

between defendant and inquisitor, the extant records are often at a remove of
several degrees from the original event. As Peter Biller and Leonard Boyle have
shown with regard to the abjurations of ‘Cathar’ heretics in medieval
Languedoc, a registrar or scribe would usually have transformed a defendant's
English words into a series of Latin articles and then would often have used
those articles to compose a vernacular abjuration for the defendant to sign.31 In
addition, the episcopal registers and heresy court books extant (p.xiv) today
are not always the original records of the trials they document; a scribe's notes
would often have been recopied into a more elegant form, and it is unclear when
that process resulted in a summary rather than a verbatim transcript of the
original material.32 The consequences for both the accuracy and the
comprehensiveness of the records are self‐evident.
Third, there is the possibility that heresy defendants may sometimes have
dissembled when asked about their beliefs. The experience of inquisitors in the
Languedoc is again relevant here; in the early fourteenth century, the Dominican
friar Bernard Gui wrote in his Practica inquisitionis hereticae pravitatis that
heresy suspects were wont not only to lie but also to agree among one another
on a set of stories to be told to the church's representatives.33 An anonymous
text, Sixteen Points on which the Bishops Accuse Lollards, suggests that English
heresy defendants may have done the same; it provides a set of ready‐made
responses to questions about the eucharist, the papacy, and other doctrines
often asked of suspected heretics.34 If lollards advised one another how to
Page 7 of 15
Preface
respond to their inquisitors, then it cannot be taken for granted that their
answers reflect their authentic religious beliefs.
Objections like these and others deserve serious attention, for they cast
substantial doubt on the use of trial records as evidence for dissenters' beliefs.
Nevertheless, the limitations of the sources have often been exaggerated, and
since the extant court records are usually the only available sources for the
religious convictions of English heresy suspects, it is essential for scholars to
consider carefully to what extent they are untrustworthy. Far from being the
formulaic products of church authorities committed to achieving convictions at
any cost, the records instead reveal a surprising number of details about
dissenting belief and practice, details that in many cases medieval churchmen
never intended to bequeath to posterity.35
To illustrate what I mean, I wish to focus briefly on one of the two extant court
books dedicated to heresy proceedings.36 In 1428, Bishop Alnwick of Norwich
tried the first of between 80 and 120 suspects to appear before him over the
four‐year period to 1431. The proceedings of these trials do not (p.xv) appear,
however, in his register, which contains only a single heresy case from the same
period; they are instead preserved in a separate, but now damaged, court book,
London, Westminster Diocesan Archives B.2, and in Foxe's transcriptions of
those other portions of the court book which are no longer extant. According to
Norman Tanner, the manuscript contains not the original minutes of the trials
but, rather, copies of the original documents which were likely made by
Alnwick's registrar, John Excestr, who attended almost all of the trials and seems
to have presided at least once.37 In the trial of William Masse of Earsham, who
first appeared before the bishop on 14 March 1430, there is something of an
anomaly: one of the eight articles Masse was accused of believing has been
struck through in the same ink in which the rest of the court book was written.38
This erasure might seem unremarkable, but it raises a host of questions. That
the article, which accused Masse of denying the doctrine of transubstantiation,
had mistakenly been included in the original record is easy enough to account
for: some thirty‐four other defendants who appeared before Alnwick had been
charged with the same heresy, and Excestr might have inadvertently included it
in his list of the charges against Masse. But that he then erased it is harder to
explain. If medieval inquisitors and their scribes were as keen to stereotype
heresy defendants as some critics have suggested, then Excestr would have no
reason to regret, much less to correct, his error. Likewise, there would have
been little propaganda value in ensuring that the record of Masse's trial was
accurate; the extant court book, like all bishops' registers and other trial
records, had not been prepared for public consumption but for the internal use
of the bishop and his colleagues. And from a legal point of view, the specific
heresies that Masse abjured were irrelevant. If he had later been tried again,
then conviction of any heresy would have constituted relapse.39 Thus, the most
Page 8 of 15
Preface
likely explanation for the erasure is that Excestr, as a conscientious scribe, was
genuinely concerned for the accuracy of his record.
It would, of course, be ludicrous to propose that just because John Excestr

erased one sentence in the record of the trial of an obscure Norwich heretic,
historians should throw caution to the wind and return to their former naïveté
about the sources. Nevertheless, Excestr's probity cannot be ignored, and other
pieces of evidence can be brought together to rehabilitate the reputations of late
medieval inquisitors. One of the other curious features of Excestr's court book is
the way in which it seamlessly elides the boundaries between Latin and
vernacular discourse. In recording the trial of John Burell, (p.xvi) for instance,
Excestr notes that the defendant ‘dicit…quod quidam sutor, famulus Thome
Mone, docuit [Burell] quod nullus homo tenetur ieiunare diebus
Quadragesimalibus nec sextis feriis nec vigiliis apostolorum, quia talia ieiunia
nunquam erant instituta ex precepto divino sed tantum ex ordinacione
presbiterorum, for every Fryday is fre day’.40
I have quoted this passage in the original languages in order to highlight the fact
that Excestr, like the scribes of many medieval common law courts, slides
without comment from the formal Latin of his notarial voice into a vernacular
idiom which, we must assume, represents something of Burell's actual speech.41
Steven Justice has advanced the audacious suggestion that Excestr was bored
and recorded Burell's and other English phrases because ‘he thought they were
just interesting’.42 That may be the case; or perhaps the phrase amused Bishop
Alnwick, who ordered that it be written down; or perhaps Excestr himself
thought it worthy of recording for later use. We shall never know. But whatever
the reason, the evidentiary value of interjections such as this cannot be
exaggerated, as they provide fleeting glances into what was actually said in the
ecclesiastical courtrooms of the late Middle Ages.43
In a paradox common to many medieval and early modern texts, it is precisely

where trial records are least interested in recording the minutiae of lollard belief
that they tend to disclose the greatest detail.44 In other dioceses as well, many
defendants' own words are preserved not in their abjurations, which
ecclesiastical officials usually prepared for them, but instead in the surviving
depositions of witnesses: thus, for instance, the Coventry tailor Roger
Landesdale's vernacular explication of the eucharist as a memorial of Jesus'
death appears not in his abjuration but rather in the testimony of Thomas
Abell.45 The dissenters' passwords, ‘May we all drinke of a cuppe’ and ‘God kepe
you and God blesse you’, were likewise disclosed in Landesdale's own
testimony.46 In this respect, some sets of records reveal a greater volume of
detail than others.
Page 9 of 15
Preface
(p.xvii) At the same time, the appearance of radical and otherwise unexpected
articles in a number of documents suggests both that late medieval inquisitors
were not so narrow minded as to inquire into only those beliefs covered by their
questionnaires and that heresy suspects must often be regarded, in Jurkowski's
phrase, as religiously ‘self‐confident’ individuals.47 Margery Baxter of Martham,
tried before Bishop Alnwick in 1428, famously admitted that she had prayed to
the Wycliffite preacher William White, who, she said, ‘is a great saint in heaven
and a most holy teacher ordained and sent by God’.48 The following year, William
Colyn of South Creake was accused of having said that he would rather touch a
woman's privy parts than the sacrament of the altar.49 Idiosyncratic ideas can
readily be found in other records as well. Even when defendants abjured only
those beliefs normally associated with lollardy, many inquisitors seem to have
taken care to ensure that their abjurations were accurate. Most registers and
court books preserve an individual abjuration for each defendant. Though they
follow a standard form and include many of the same articles, these abjurations
seem to have been customized for each case. To choose a random example, of
the seven defendants who abjured before Archbishop Warham in the month of
August, 1511, six confessed to heresies concerning pilgrimages, five to
impugning the veneration of images, three to denying the efficacy of confession,
and one to refusing to offer prayers to the saints.50
Taken together, all these considerations suggest that whilst the lists of beliefs
preserved in defendants' abjurations and witnesses' depositions are incomplete,
they are nonetheless not normally fabricated. An even more compelling reason
to accept that the extant records reflect at least some measure of their subjects'
beliefs lies in the harsher realities of the situation. It is inconceivable,
particularly during the tenure of a relatively humanitarian archbishop like
Warham, that a defendant would maintain a dissenting opinion to which she or
he was not wholly committed, knowing that the possible consequences might
include her or his death at the stake.51 This line of reasoning is admittedly less
certain in the case of relapsed heretics, who might have chosen to scandalize
their audiences knowing that their fates had already been sealed, but the
likelihood that any suspect would approach her or his trial in such a mindset is
nevertheless not great.
(p.xviii) In this book, therefore, I will treat the records of heresy trials as
limited but nonetheless viable sources for the religious convictions of late
medieval dissenters. Their greatest limitation is one of perspective; since
bishops and their officials were primarily concerned to identify those doctrines
which differentiated dissenters from their so‐called ‘orthodox’ contemporaries,
abjurations and depositions tend to focus on the ways in which lollards opposed
the beliefs and practices of the institutional church. They suggest that lollard
culture was overwhelmingly negative, interested more in rejecting mainstream
religion than in constructing a more attractive alternative. It may perhaps have
been, but Wyclif's treatises and the writings of his followers reveal, as we shall
Page 10 of 15
Preface
see, that Wycliffism and lollardy were theologically constructive as well as

destructive. By juxtaposing the records of heresy trials with texts from the
dissenters themselves, we will be able both to explore the theological
assumptions that underpinned the beliefs which dissenters abjured and to
identify those places where the apparent unanimity of the trial records may
conceal the diversity of beliefs to be found in lollard texts. But before anything
else, we must confront the central terminological question: what, after all, is a
lollard?
Bronx, New York
Notes:
(1) Richard Rex, The Lollards (London, 2002), 143; see also Eamon Duffy, The
Stripping of the Altars: Traditional religion in England c. 1400–c. 1580, 2nd edn
(New Haven, Conn., 2005).
(2) Steven Justice, ‘Inquisition, speech, and writing: A case from late‐medieval
Norwich’, Representations, 48 (1994), 1–29 at 18.
(3) Kantik Ghosh, The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the interpretation of texts
(Cambridge, 2002).
(4) Katherine Little, Confession and Resistance: Defining the self in late medieval
England (South Bend, Ind., 2006), 1.
(5) Jill C. Havens, ‘Shading the grey area: Determining heresy in Middle English
texts’ in Text and Controversy, 337–52.
(6) Jeremy Catto, ‘Fellows and helpers: The religious identity of the followers of
Wyclif’ in The Medieval Church: Universities, heresy, and the religious life:
Essays in honour of Gordon Leff (Studies in Church History, Subsidia 11,
Woodbridge, 1999), 141–61; A. K. McHardy, ‘Bishop Buckingham and the
Lollards of Lincoln diocese’, Studies in Church History, 9 (1972), 131–45;
Maureen Jurkowski, ‘Heresy and factionalism at Merton College in the early
fifteenth century’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 48 (1997), 658–81.
(7) Craig D'Alton, ‘The suppression of heresy in early Henrician England’ (Ph.D.
thesis, University of Melbourne, 1999); Ian Forrest, The Detection of Heresy in
Late Medieval England (Oxford, 2005).
(8) Ian Levy, John Wyclif: Scriptural logic, real presence, and the parameters of
orthodoxy (Milwaukee, Wis., 2003); Stephen E. Lahey, Philosophy and Politics in
the Thought of John Wyclif (Cambridge, 2003).
(9) Fiona Somerset, ‘Introduction’ in Influence, 9–16 at 9.
Page 11 of 15
Preface
(10) See n. 1 above.
(11) R. N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Oxford,

1989), 329–32.
(12) Henry Knighton, Knighton's Chronicle, ed. and trans. G. H. Martin (Oxford,
1995), 302: ‘unum modum statim loquelae et formam concordem suae doctrinae
mirabiliter habuerunt’.
(13) J. A. F. Thomson, The Later Lollards: 1414–1520 (Oxford, 1965), 239; see
also Richard Davies, ‘Lollardy and locality’, Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society, 6th ser., 1 (1991), 191–212 at 194.
(14) One important exception is Shannon McSheffrey's detailed article ‘Heresy,

orthodoxy, and English vernacular religion, 1480–1525’, Past and Present, 186
(2005), 47–80, which (like this book) argues that lollardy was far less
ideologically circumscribed than Hudson and others have suggested: see
especially 73–5.
(15) David Aers, Sanctifying Signs: Making Christian tradition in late medieval
England (Notre Dame, Ind., 2004), ch. 4; Robert Lutton, Lollardy and Orthodox
Religion in Pre‐Reformation England (Woodbridge, 2006); Maureen Jurkowski,
‘Lollardy in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire: The two Thomas Compworths’
in Influence, 73–95, and ‘Lollard book producers in London in 1414’ in Text and
Controversy, 201–26; Havens, ‘Shading the grey area’, 339.
(16) For the influence of critical theory on Cathar studies see, among many other
works, John H. Arnold, Inquisition and Power: Catharism and the confessing
subject in medieval Languedoc (Philadelphia, 2001); Mark Gregory Pegg, The
Corruption of Angels: The Great Inquisition of 1245–1246 (Princeton, NJ, 2001);
and James B. Given, Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, discipline, and
resistance in Languedoc (Ithaca, NY, 1997). For an interesting survey of
historiographical challenges in beguine studies, see Jennifer Deane, ‘“Beguines”
reconsidered: Historiographical problems and new directions’, <http://
monasticmatrix.org/MatrixTextLibrary/3461Text.html> (accessed 29 January
2009). Arnold's article ‘Lollard trials and inquisitorial discourse’ in Christopher
Given‐Wilson (ed.), Fourteenth Century England II (Woodbridge, 2002), 81–94,
discusses the ways in which students of English and continental heresies can
learn from each other's methods.
(17) Among others, see Coventry, 15; Paul Strohm, England's Empty Throne:
Usurpation and the language of legitimation, 1399–1422 (New Haven, Conn.,
1998), 35, 47; and Peter Biller, ‘“Deep Is the Heart of Man, and Inscrutable”:
Signs of heresy in medieval Languedoc’ in Text and Controversy, 267–80.
(18) Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England, 335.
Page 12 of 15
Preface
(19) The importance of religious practice over against doctrine was emphasized
by Jeremy Catto, ‘Religious change under Henry V’ in G. L. Harriss (ed.), Henry
V: The practice of kingship (Oxford, 1985), 97–115.
(20) Wendy Scase, ‘The audience and framers of the Twelve Conclusions of the
Lollards’ in Text and Controversy, 283–302; Shannon McSheffrey, Gender and
Heresy: Women and men in Lollard communities, 1420–1530 (Philadelphia,
1995); Helen Barr, ‘Wycliffite representations of the third estate’ in Influence,
197–216; and Andrew Hope, ‘The lady and the bailiff: Lollardy among the gentry
in Yorkist and early Tudor England’ in Margaret Aston and Colin Richmond
(eds.), Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages (Sutton, 1997), 250–77.
To this list can now be added Maureen Jurkowski, ‘Lollardy and social status in
East Anglia’, Speculum 82 (2007), 120–52.
(21) The contrast between these two approaches is described well by Brian
Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written language and models of
interpretation in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Princeton, NJ, 1983), 93.
(22) On the circumstances which impelled the English government to burn

Luther's books, see D'Alton, ‘The suppression of heresy in early Henrician
England’, 102–3.
(23) For further details about episcopal registers and their contents, see David
Smith's invaluable Guide to Bishops' Registers of England and Wales (London,
1981) and its supplement (London, 2004); for church courts and their
proceedings, see the first chapter of Richard M. Wunderli, London Church
Courts and Society on the Eve of the Reformation (Cambridge, Mass., 1981).
(24) As a result, this study relies only occasionally on material preserved in the
records of the courts of King's Bench and Chancery. Though it might seem that
indictments and significations of excommunication should provide fertile soil for
analyses of dissenting belief, hardly any such records contain sufficient detail for
defendants to emerge as individuals.
(25) By, among others, Derek J. Plumb, ‘John Foxe and the later Lollards of the
Thames Valley’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1987), 12–13; Charles
Kightly, ‘The early Lollards: A survey of popular Lollard activity in England,
1382–1428’ (Ph.D. thesis, York University, 1975), 576; Paul Strohm,
‘Counterfeiters, Lollards, and Lancastrian unease’ in Wendy Scase, Rita
Copeland, and David Lawton (eds.), New Medieval Literatures, vol. i (Oxford,
1997), 31–58; Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England, 335;
Coventry, 14.
(26) Anne Hudson, ‘The examination of Lollards’, repr. in Books, 124–40 at 126–
7.
Page 13 of 15
Preface
(27) Coventry, 161–5; Kent, 2–3.
(28) On the discursive differences between self‐generated and inquisitorially

prompted statements, see L. B. Brown and J. P. Forgan, ‘The structure of
religion: A multi‐dimensional scaling of informal elements’, Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion, 19 (1980), 423–31 at 424–5.
(29) For an especially pessimistic account of the violations of the church's own
procedures that may have occurred in some medieval heresy trials, see H. A.
Kelly, ‘Lollard inquisitions: Due and undue process’ in A. Ferreiro (ed.), The
Devil, Heresy, and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 1998), 279–303 at
299–301.
(30) I owe this distinction to Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and tradition, 2nd
edn (London, 2001), 95.
(31) For Biller, see n. 17 above; Leonard E. Boyle, ‘Montaillou revisited:

Mentalité and methodology’ in J. Raftis (ed.), Pathways to Medieval Peasants
(Toronto, 1981), 119–40.
(32) For one such instance, see Norwich, 2.
(33) Bernard Gui, Practica inquisitionis hereticae pravitatis in Heresies of the

High Middle Ages, ed. and trans. Walter L. Wakefield and Austin P. Evans (New
York, 1991), 375–86 at 377.
(34) Selections, no. 2.
(35) R. N. Swanson, ‘Literacy, heresy, history, and orthodoxy: Perspectives and

permutations for the later Middle Ages’ in Peter Biller and Anne Hudson (eds.),
Heresy and Literacy, 1000–1530 (Cambridge, 1996), 279–93. The traditional
account of the late medieval inquisition as a bloodthirsty and selfish organization
can be found in Henry Charles Lea, A History of the Inquisition in the Middle
Ages, 3 vols. (London, 1888), i.233.
(36) The other court book exclusively concerned with heresy is the so‐called
‘Lichfield Court Book’, now available in print as Coventry.
(37) Norwich, 4.
(38) London, Westminster Diocesan Archives MS B.2, 250.
(39) Lea, A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, iii.202.
(40) London, Westminster Diocesan Archives MS B.2, 234, emphasis mine.
(41) Likewise, there are no visual clues in the manuscript; the English words
appear in exactly the same handwriting and style as the Latin.
Page 14 of 15
Preface
(42) Justice, ‘Inquisition, speech, and writing’, 8.
(43) R. N. Swanson, ‘ “…Et examinatus dicit…”: Oral and personal history in the
records of English Ecclesiastical Courts’ in Michael Goodich (ed.), Voices from
the Bench: The narratives of lesser folk in medieval trials (New York, 2005), 203–
25 at 203–5.
(44) This is a point made to great effect by René Girard in the opening chapter of
The Scapegoat, trans. Yvonne Freccero (London, 1986), 5–8, and also by Strohm,
England's Empty Throne, xiii, and Arnold, Inquisition and Power, 152.
(45) Coventry, 183.
(46) Coventry, 117.
(47) Jurkowski, ‘Lollardy and social status’, 150.
(48) Norwich, 47: ‘est magnus sanctus in celo et sanctissimus doctor ordinatus
et missus a Deo’.
(49) Norwich, 91.
(50) Kent, 79–91.
(51) Norman Tanner, ‘Penances imposed on Kentish Lollards by Archbishop

Warham, 1511–12’ in Lollardy and Gentry, 229–49 at 234, 242–3.
Page 15 of 15
Acknowledgements

Medieval England

Print ISBN-13: 9780199589043
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589043.001.0001
(p.xix) Acknowledgements
This book began life as a doctoral thesis in the Faculty of Theology of the
University of Oxford, where it was supervised by Professor Diarmaid
MacCulloch; he has kindly reprised that role in shepherding the manuscript
through to publication. My interest in lollardy dates back somewhat further, to
my undergraduate years at Georgetown University, when in back‐to‐back
semesters I often heard the word come from the mouths of two ferociously gifted
teachers, Scott Pilarz, S.J., and Penn Szittya.
More recently, I am grateful to the many individuals, libraries, and institutions

without whom the research and writing of this study could not have taken place.
Foremost among them is Mishtooni Bose, whom I thank not only for her keen
questions and sharp‐eyed editorial work but also for her friendship. Andrew
Cole, Alastair Minnis, Paul Strohm, Steven Justice, Shannon Gayk, R. N.
Swanson, Jeremy Catto, and an anonymous reader for the Oxford University
Press all read chapters or sections of this work; it is the better for their
suggestions and criticisms, though any infelicities of phrase or thought which
remain are mine alone. I am also grateful for conversations with and advice from
Anne Hudson, Fiona Somerset, Helen Barr, Ian Levy, Stephen Lahey, Jill Havens,
and Ian Forrest. Audiences at seminars and colloquia in Oxford, Cambridge,
London, and New York; at the international medieval conferences in Kalamazoo
and Leeds; and at two meetings of the Lollard Society helped me to distil my
thinking and clarify my arguments at crucial junctures.
Many librarians and keepers of record offices have been willing to respond to
detailed questions and requests for access to primary documents. In addition to
the kind‐hearted staff of Duke Humfrey's Library, I am thankful to the library of
Merton College, Oxford; the library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge;
Cambridge University Library; the Guildhall Library, London; the Westminster
Diocesan Archives; the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone; Canterbury
Page 1 of 2
Acknowledgements
Cathedral Archives; the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives; the Worcester Record
Office; the Hereford Archive Service; the Hampshire Record Office; the Lichfield
Record Office; and the Devon Record Office. For permission to quote from
manuscripts in their possession I have to thank the Master and Fellows of
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; the Diocese of Lincoln and Lincolnshire
Archives; Guildhall Library, City of London Corporation; Wiltshire and Swindon
Archives; Hampshire Record Office; and the Westminster Diocesan Archives.
Sections of two chapters appeared as articles in the Journal of Ecclesiastical
History and the Revue d'histoire (p.xx) ecclésiastique; I thank their editors and
editorial boards for helpful suggestions and Cambridge University Press for
permission to republish the material in Chapter 4. For funding, I am grateful to
the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation; Christ Church, Oxford; the Faculty of Theology
of the University of Oxford; and the Timothy S. Healy Scholarship Trust.
A beloved friend and department chair of mine frequently quips that ‘theology is
a team sport’, and I am thankful for the support, questions, and welcomes of so
many colleagues at Fordham University where the bulk of the work of preparing
this monograph has taken place. In particular, I am grateful to Terry Tilley, Larry
Welborn, Elizabeth Johnson, Maureen Tilley, Maryanne Kowaleski, and Brennan
O'Donnell. Joyce O'Leary, Anne‐Marie Sweeney, and my research assistant
Jennifer Illig all deserve recognition for helping to create and maintain an
environment in which research can thrive, and thrive humanely.
The greatest debts, as always, are personal. Lewis Allan helped me maintain
sanity and perspective as the thesis out of which this book came reached
fruition. My parents, Susann and Patrick Hornbeck, have consistently,
generously, and selflessly provided their love and their support from the very
first day; this book could not have been written without their sacrifices. Finally,
about halfway between defending my doctoral thesis and submitting the
manuscript of this study I received a gift I could never have expected or
deserved. Anthony Keen's fingerprints are not obvious on every page of this text,
but the questions he has asked and the love he has shared have made this a
better book and me a better person.
Page 2 of 2
List of Abbreviations

Medieval England

Print ISBN-13: 9780199589043
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589043.001.0001
(p.xxiii) List of Abbreviations

A&M John Foxe, The…Ecclesiasticall History Contaynyng the Actes
and Monuments (London, 1570)
Arnold Thomas Arnold (ed.), Select English Works of John Wycliffe, 3
vols. (Oxford, 1869–71)
Books Anne Hudson, Lollards and Their Books (London, 1985)
Companion Ian Christopher Levy (ed.), A Companion to John Wyclif:
Late medieval theologian (Leiden, 2006)
Coventry Shannon McSheffrey and Norman Tanner (eds. and trans.),
Lollards of Coventry, 1486–1522 (Camden Fifth Series 23, 2003)
EETS Early English Text Society
EWS Anne Hudson and Pamela Gradon (eds.), English Wycliffite
Sermons, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1983–97)
FZ W. W. Shirley (ed.), Fasciculi zizaniorum (Rolls Series, 1858)
Influence Fiona Somerset, Jill C. Havens, and Derrick Pitard (eds.),
Lollards and Their Influence in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge,
2003)
Kent Norman Tanner (ed.), Kent Heresy Proceedings, 1511–12 (Kent
Records 26, 1997)
Lollards and Reformers Margaret Aston, Lollards and Reformers:
Images and literacy in late medieval religion (London, 1984)
Lollardy and Gentry Margaret Aston and Colin Richmond (eds.),
Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages (Sutton, 1997)
Matthew F. D. Matthew (ed.), The English Works of Wyclif Hitherto
Unprinted, rev. edn (EETS o.s. 74, 1902)
Norwich Norman P. Tanner (ed.), Heresy Trials in the Diocese of
Norwich, 1428–1431 (London, 1977)
Page 1 of 2
List of Abbreviations
Ockham to Wyclif Anne Hudson and Michael Wilks (eds.), From

Ockham to Wyclif (Studies in Church History, Subsidia 5, Oxford,
1987)
OED Oxford English Dictionary
PR Anne Hudson, The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite texts and
Lollard history (Oxford, 1988)
(p.xxiv) Selections Anne Hudson (ed.), Selections from English
Wycliffite Writings, rev. edn (Toronto, 1997)
Tanner, Decrees Norman Tanner (ed.), Decrees of the Ecumenical
Councils, 2 vols. (Washington, 1990)
Text and Controversy Helen Barr and Ann M. Hutchinson (eds.), Text
and Controversy from Wyclif to Bale: Essays in honour of Anne
Hudson (Turnhout, 2005)
Thomson, Later Lollards J. A. F. Thomson, The Later Lollards: 1414–
1520 (Oxford, 1965)
Titus Anne Hudson (ed.), Tractatus de oblacione iugis sacrificii, in The
Works of a Lollard Preacher (EETS o.s. 317, 2001)
Wilkins David Wilkins (ed.), Concilia Magnae Brittaniae et Hiberniae,
4 vols. (1737, repr. Brussels, 1964)
Wilks, Wyclif Michael Wilks, Wyclif: Political ideas and practice, ed.
Anne Hudson (Oxford, 2000)
Page 2 of 2
Notes to the Reader

Medieval England

Print ISBN-13: 9780199589043
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589043.001.0001
(p.xxv) Notes to the Reader

Quotations and Proper Names
All English quotations in the text and footnotes appear as in their original
sources, except where I have removed superfluous medieval punctuation or
substituted the word and for the ampersand. Quotations from other languages
have been translated and the original text given in the notes. As far as possible, I
have rendered place names in their modern forms. Unless otherwise noted,
transcriptions and translations are my own.
The Works of John Wyclif

Wyclif's works are cited only by their title; full bibliographical and editorial
details can be found in the Bibliography.
Bishops' Registers
Bishops' registers are cited only by the name of the see and the bishop
concerned: thus John Trefnant's Hereford register is ‘Hereford reg. Trefnant.’
The Bibliography provides full bibliographical details and indicates whether a
particular register is being cited from the original manuscript(s) or from a
printed edition. (p.xxvi)
Page 1 of 1
Introduction: Family Resemblances

Medieval England

Print ISBN-13: 9780199589043
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589043.001.0001

J. Patrick Hornbeck II (Contributor Webpage)
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589043.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords

The etymology of the term lollard remains a source of dispute among scholars:
was it coined in the heat of the academic controversies in the University of
Oxford in which John Wyclif and his followers played such a prominent role, or
was it a pre‐existing term of abuse only retroactively applied to Wycliffites and
their supporters? Examining the ways in which discourses about lollardy have
inadvertently shaped our assumptions and research agendas, this chapter
proposes a new model for thinking about the category ‘lollardy’, a model that
draws not only on the traditional disciplines of literary, historical, and
theological studies but also on those of psychology and biology. This model has
the potential not to solve the mystery of which inhabitants of late medieval
England were and were not lollards but, rather, to help students of lollardy ask
more helpful questions of the sources.
Keywords: Lollard, Wyclif, family resemblance, development of doctrine, dissenter, categorization,

classification
When, as a 17‐year‐old, I applied for undergraduate admission to Georgetown

University, in Washington, D.C., I discovered that all first‐year students were,
and still are, required to take an introductory course in theology. The
requirement reflects the curricular breadth that has for many centuries been the
hallmark of Jesuit education, ever since the publication in 1599 of the Ratio
studiorum for the Collegio Romano.1 But more interesting was the way the
course appeared in the catalogue: Theology‐001, ‘The Problem of God.’
Page 1 of 25
What was the problem with God, I asked? The title of the course was wonderfully
ambiguous, and the professors who taught it responded accordingly: some
discussed the classic philosophical and theological debates about the existence
and the attributes of God; some assigned readings that emphasized the problems
modern scholars have identified with traditional constructions of God; some
lectured on the state of belief and non‐belief in the contemporary world; and so
forth. In the face of such curricular diversity, it came to seem to us
undergraduates that the ‘problem’ at stake was less about God than about the
multifaceted and multi‐method enterprise of theology. Why did so many scholars
commit their lives and their careers to the study of something whose very
definition remained so elusive?
And therein lies the parallel between the study of theology writ large and the
particular set of historical and theological issues with which this book is
concerned. In the nearly five hundred years since the start of the Henrician
Reformation and the writing of the first pre‐histories of that event by English
evangelical propagandists, the definition of the phenomenon that scholars so
commonly refer to as lollardy remains unclear. First, as I briefly indicated in the
Preface, there are the natural frictions between disciplines; whilst for many
years lollardy was the province of theologians and ecclesiastical historians, not
to mention polemicists on both sides of the Reformation divide, in recent years it
has been studied much more frequently in faculties of English literature.
Second, there have been challenges to the very existence of lollardy as a (p.2)
discrete phenomenon; in the past two decades in particular, and largely in
response to earlier, exaggerated accounts of the role that lollardy played in
shaping the English Reformation, it has in some circles been quite common to
argue that ‘lollardy’, in scare‐quotes, is primarily the construction of medieval
and Reformation propagandists and later historians. There may well have been
individuals in late medieval England who resisted the theology and the practice
of institutional Roman Christianity, the argument goes, but to call them lollards,
particularly Lollards with an upper‐case L, is to attribute to them far more
coherence and significance than they deserve.
The most serious and complex difficulties, however, revolve around questions of
terminology. What, after all, is a lollard? The term's etymology remains a source
of dispute among scholars: was it coined in the heat of the academic
controversies in the University of Oxford in which John Wyclif and his followers
played such a prominent role, or was it a pre‐existing term of abuse only
retroactively applied to Wycliffites and their supporters?2 Its affiliations remain
equally problematic: it has often been paired with Wycliffite, with many scholars
accustomed, like Anne Hudson, to speaking in one breath of ‘the academic
disciples of Wyclif and the later, provincial Lollard[s]’.3 Recent years have seen
the appearance of a number of studies which address the language that might
best be used to describe the individuals and groups of religious dissenters whose
beliefs are chronicled in these pages. They are too numerous to list here, but the
Page 2 of 25
collective work of such scholars as Shannon McSheffrey, Andrew Cole, Kathryn

Kerby‐Fulton, Margaret Aston, and others has urged us to revise the commonplace
equation of the term ‘lollard’ with the term ‘Wycliffite’; and, perhaps even more
importantly, to resist thinking of all religious dissenters in late medieval England
as automatically connected with Wyclif and the communities that sprung up in
his wake.4
This chapter aims not to resolve forever these and other terminological
questions but, instead, to propose a new model for thinking about the category
‘lollardy’, a model that draws not only on the traditional disciplines (p.3) of
literary, historical, and theological studies but also on those of psychology and
biology. This model, inspired largely by the twentieth‐century philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein's theory of family resemblance, has the potential not to
solve the mystery of which inhabitants of late medieval England were and were
not lollards but, rather, to help students of lollardy ask more helpful questions of
the sources. Its implications for future studies are potentially significant.
Trends in Recent Scholarship

Let us begin with the trial of Thomas Denys, who was burned at the stake at the
behest of the Bishop of Winchester. At the time of his trial, Denys was living in
New Malden, a hamlet some two miles east of Kingston‐upon‐Thames, in what is
now the south‐west part of Greater London. Denys was brought before Dr John
Dowman, the bishop's vicar in spirituals, and questioned about his religious
beliefs and his involvement in dissenting communities. The record of his trial,
preserved in the bishop's register, reveals that Denys' theological views had
previously landed him in legal trouble; some years earlier, he admitted, he had
been living in Waltham Abbey, Essex, to the north‐east of London, where he had
been ‘detected and taken by thofficers of the bisshop of London than being [his]
ordinary, for and upon certain and diuerse pointes and articules of heresye and
erroneouse opinions contrary to the determination of holy church’.5 Denys
admitted that he had learned these heresies from one Richard Hortop of
Waltham, who later moved to Turnmill Street, near the City of London. Denys
had done public penance by bearing a faggot of wood both at Paul's Cross and in
his home town, as the register records, ‘under maner and forme wonte to be
used in such matiers’.6
But what did Denys believe? The records of his first trial have been lost, and the
records of his second provide less information on this point than we might wish
to have. This may well be because Denys was being tried as a relapsed heretic,
and hence the authorities simply needed to show that he had reverted to any one
of his former beliefs in order to secure a conviction. But there are some
tantalizing hints. Denys confessed that he had taught:
that the sacrament of thaltar in fourme of brede was not the veray body of
criste, but a commemoration of cristis passion, and cristes body in a figure
Page 3 of 25
and not the veray body; (p.4) that oblation doen by man or woman to
thimages in the church was but Idolatrie and nothing worth for they were
but stokes and stones made by mannys hande; [and] that preestes might
not assoile oon man for offenses doen to a noder man, but that oon man
shuld aske a noder forgivenes for the said trespass soe doon and not to be
assoiled therof of a prist.7
Denys also admitted that he had taught these points in conventicles with other
local dissenters and that he had been a purveyor of dissenting texts. As we
might expect, Denys was duly handed over to the secular arm and burned in
Kingston, where three of his associates were also tried and given penances for
their crimes.
Read through the lens of the traditional historiography, Denys and his fellows
seem to have been model Wycliffites or lollards. On the one hand, the beliefs for
which they were punished can be found in the classic statements of Wycliffite
doctrine, namely in texts like the long cycle of English Wycliffite sermons, the
Twelve Conclusions posted by Wycliffite sympathizers on the doors of Parliament
in 1395, and later writings such as the Apology for Lollard Doctrines. On the
other hand, they also seem to be engaging in classically Wycliffite textual
practices. We learn from the trial records that they circulated and read to one
another from dissenting texts as well as from the vernacular Scriptures, and we
even find that these texts facilitated the conversion of new dissenters. When
Denys and his associate Philip Braban wished to induct one of their neighbours
into their belief system, they brought him books and encouraged him to read and
copy them.8
But the difficulty with this portrait of Denys and company as model Wycliffites is
that Denys was burned in the year 1512. Even taking into account his claim that
he had first learned his dissenting beliefs ‘about xxti yeres now last passed’,
more than a century separates the activities of John Wyclif and his early Oxford
followers from those of Denys and his teacher.9 And neither Denys nor any of the
other defendants arrested in Bishop Richard Fox's investigations in Winchester
referred to themselves as ‘Wycliffites’ or ‘lollards’, or cited Wyclif by name, with
(as we shall shortly see) one possible exception; the same can be said of the
defendants caught up in the roughly contemporary heresy trials of Archbishop
William Warham in Canterbury. Likewise, only one of the forty‐nine individuals
summoned before Bishop Geoffrey Blythe of Coventry and Lichfield in 1511 and
1512 mentioned Wyclif, and that reference is ambiguous at best.10
(p.5) So was Thomas Denys a lollard? Was he a Wycliffite? And what do we

even mean when we ask such questions?
Whether or not the Irish Cistercian monk Henry Crumpe was the first to use the
term ‘lollard’, as the anonymous compiler of the collection Fasciculi zizaniorum
Page 4 of 25
seems to suggest, that label has dominated the historiography of late medieval
dissent in England.11 Its use reflects a set of assumptions about the coherence of
dissenting belief and practice that was nearly universal among medieval
churchmen and early historians: namely, that heretics believed the same sorts of
things and expressed their convictions in highly consistent ways. In the late
medieval and early modern periods, not only the opponents but also the
publicists of Wyclif and his followers subscribed to Knighton's view that all
‘lollards’ used a distinctive vocabulary and propounded the same theological
views. Thus, for instance, John Foxe concluded his account of the several dozen
heresy suspects tried in Norwich diocese in the 1420s and 1430s with the claim
that there was ‘such society and agreement of doctrine to be amongst them, that
in their assertions and articles there was almost no difference’.12 As Steven
Justice has put it, ‘for Foxe and Reformation historiography, all the truly faithful
were truly one, and all fourteenth‐ and fifteenth‐century dissenters were
inspired by Wyclif; the same assumptions made all dissenting writing Wycliffite,
and indeed Wyclif's.13
The assumption of coherence between Wyclif's views and those of later

dissenters remained influential until the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, when many scholars began to distinguish between the Oxford thinker
and those who came after him. The German historian Gotthard Lechler, for
instance, described an ‘inner circle’ of Wyclif's closest followers and an ‘outer
circle’ of those who may have been inspired by his reforming ideas but
nevertheless did not endorse all of them.14 This division became more
pronounced in later work on the subject; Ezra Kempton Maxfield, writing in
1924, was following the terminological fashion of his day when he suggested
that not all ‘Wyclifian’ ideas were carried over into the theologies of ‘later
Lollardry’.15 Often, lollardy was seen as the intellectually vacuous (p.6) cousin
of Wycliffism; K. B. McFarlane, for instance, was perhaps the most influential
exponent of the often‐repeated view that Wyclif's ideas had been dumbed down
as they moved from theologically aware, Latin, scholastic discourse into a
vernacular idiom.16
Nevertheless, the suggestion that medieval heretics be separated into

theologically aware, Latinate ‘Wycliffites’ and somewhat less sophisticated,
vernacular ‘lollards’ was never unanimously embraced, and it was dealt,
historiographically speaking, a crushing blow in the opening pages of Hudson's
Premature Reformation. There, Hudson argued that no distinction in meaning
between the terms ‘Wycliffite’ and ‘lollard’ can be traced in the medieval
sources, apart from the fact ‘that Lollard was the clearer mark of opprobrium:
the name was intensely disliked by those to whom it was early applied, though it
later became a badge proudly worn’.17 She concluded that the two words must
therefore be used synonymously, since ‘no useful distinction can be drawn
between the academic disciples of Wyclif and the later, provincial Lollard,
limited in his apprehensions to English, as has recently been fashionable’ and
Page 5 of 25
since ‘Wyclif must be regarded as the progenitor of views that, even a century
after his death, are argued by the Lollards.’18
But is this fair? Hudson was right to point to the theological sophistication of the
vernacular views McFarlane and others had dismissed, but in some instances
her case seems to have been put too strongly. First, as the work of Jeremy Catto
has demonstrated, ideological and political fissures existed even among Wyclif's
early followers in Oxford. The reforming fellows of The Queen's College, for
instance, distanced themselves from some of Wyclif's ideas whilst nevertheless
sponsoring, in part, the English translation of the Bible, whereas the more
radical group of Wycliffite fellows at Merton College ‘continued to maintain and
develop Wyclif's more controversial teaching and to propagate it through the
work of itinerant preachers’.19 Second, Paul Strohm has demonstrated that royal
and ecclesiastical authorities had every incentive to exaggerate the coherence of
lollardy as a means of bolstering their own claims to power. On his account, the
fledgling Lancastrian dynasty used anti‐heresy proceedings to demonstrate the
virtues of Christian kingship. Strohm concluded that Lancastrian propagandists
accordingly magnified the threat posed by heresy to the kingdom: ‘so crucial
was the Lollard heresy (p.7) to the establishment of Lancastrian orthodoxy and
legitimacy that, had it not existed, they would have had to devise something in
its stead’.20
Third, even if an absolute binary between academic Wycliffites and vernacular

lollards is not viable, it remains clear that earlier and later dissenters operated
in different intellectual and social milieux. The style of argumentation that
characterizes Wyclif's writings would not have been comprehensible to most
laypeople.21 At the same time, although such projects as the English sermon‐
cycle, the preachers' encyclopaedias the Rosarium and Floretum, and other
vernacular products of Wycliffite scriptoria conveyed the substance of many of
Wyclif's ideas in less erudite terms, few such works were produced or recopied
after the opening decades of the fifteenth century. As a result, many later
dissenters and groups of dissenters found themselves without authoritative
guidance as they formulated or reformulated their views on such crucial issues
as the eucharist and the papacy. The consequence, as we shall see in the
following pages, was that some communities of dissenters formulated
idiosyncratic views on particular doctrines. And finally, a number of studies have
shown that few dissenters would have identified themselves primarily in terms of
their religious convictions: as Catto has put it, ‘Lollard consciousness must have
had to compete with the neighbourhood loyalties of parish and town, often
reinforced by membership of religious guilds or among more prosperous citizens
by inclusion among town officers or commissions of government.’22 Indeed,
Derek Plumb and Richard Davies have shown that, in the early sixteenth century
at least, a number of dissenters came from the higher social classes of their
towns or villages, and a number of those tried for heresy throughout our period
Page 6 of 25
regularly attended mass with their neighbours or were in minor or even major
orders.23
The uncritical use of a single label to encompass the whole range of late
medieval dissenters, their texts, and their beliefs thus entails a host of
methodological problems. Insufficiently qualified, the use of a blanket term like
‘lollardy’ for all inhabitants of the religious margins of late medieval England
seems to imply the existence of an organized, centrally governed group of
dissenters. But if to retain the conventional use of the categories ‘lollard’ and
‘Wycliffite’ is to engage in serious oversimplification, to jettison those terms is
(p.8) equally unpalatable. In the first place, even if the composition,
distribution, and reproduction of Wycliffite texts began to decline in the early
fifteenth century, more than three hundred sermons and at least fifty other
tracts remain extant. Many of these texts do articulate theological views which
cohere not only with one another but also with Wyclif's treatises, and copies of
some of them continued to be read as late as the early sixteenth century.
Perhaps more significantly, there seem to be few viable alternative
terminologies. In his recent study The Detection of Heresy in Late Medieval
England, as well as in the doctoral thesis out of which that monograph came, Ian
Forrest prefers not to speak of ‘lollards’ or ‘Wycliffites’, instead calling the
subjects of his enquiry ‘heretics’ or ‘heresy suspects’.24 This is, on one level, a
very sensible move: by focusing on a particular spiritual crime with a precise
legal definition, Forrest has avoided many of the terminological ambiguities
which have bedevilled the study of late medieval dissenters and their associates.
But was the group of individuals who in one way or another rejected the
authority of the institutional church contiguous with the group of those actually
brought to trial? For the purposes of this study, speaking simply of ‘heretics’ or
‘heresy suspects’ may be too narrow.
Writing only about ‘dissenters’, on the other hand, is perhaps too broad. Kathryn
Kerby‐Fulton's recent volume Books under Suspicion sharply, and rightly,
challenges the tradition of thinking of religious dissent in late medieval England
solely in terms of ‘lollardy’ or ‘Wycliffism’. She argues, instead, that English
dissenters may have been influenced by ideas whose roots can be traced back to
Joachim of Fiore and Joachite thought; or to the so‐called ‘Heresy of the Free
Spirit’; and so forth.25 And so, if terms like ‘lollard’ and ‘Wycliffite’ oversimplify
the complex reality of late medieval religion, then there may be an equal, if not a
greater, risk in referring to all the men and women we shall encounter in the
following pages merely as ‘dissenters’.
There is another wrinkle to all this, as well, for in many places there is nearly as
much evidence for the continuities between groups of English dissenters as for
the discontinuities between them. First, even though the majority of trial records
show that dissenters did not think of themselves as Wycliffites or lollards, they
did think of themselves as part of a group outside the religious mainstream.
Page 7 of 25
They were acutely aware of which of their neighbours were and were not of their
number; William Lodge of Coventry testified in 1511, for instance, that he had
once entered the brewer Thomas Banbrooke's house and found the tailor Roger
Landesdale expounding the (p.9) Scriptures to his fellow townsman Richard
Bradeley and Bradeley's wife Thomasina. ‘Immediately Landesdale became
silent’, he reported, but ‘Bradeley's wife said to Landesdale, “Do not fear, I trust
he is a son of grace.” ’26 Lodge's counterparts elsewhere were equally sensitive
to the importance of maintaining both literal and discursive distance from non‐
members of their group. According to the register of Archbishop William
Warham, at Christmas 1510, a group of Kentish dissenters from the villages of
Benenden, Boxley, and Maidstone met at Edward Walker's home in Maidstone,
where:
the wife of the same Walker commyned, herd, assentid and affirmed
without contradiccion ayenst the blessed sacrament of the aulter … And as
they were so commynyng … the wif of yat said Walker said, ‘Sires, it is not
good that ye talke moche here of thies maters for the jaylors will take hede
of you yf ye come huder. And also beware for som folks will comyn hider
anon.’ And thereupon furthwith came yn the jaylors wif and they cessed of
their communicacion.27
Characteristic lollard descriptors such as ‘known man’ and ‘son of grace’ do not
appear in Warham's register, but utterances like Mrs Walker's confirm that
Kentish dissenters, like their fellows in Coventry, identified themselves as
members of a group from whose discussions outsiders must be excluded.28
If dissenters shared something of a common literature and an in‐group identity,

then it may not wholly be coincidental that heterodoxy was concentrated in a
relatively small number of localities during the period between Wyclif's death
and the outbreak of the Henrician Reformation. As Lutton and others have
shown, heretical beliefs were often transmitted through the ties of kinship, and
it was thus that dissenting communities in Coventry and Kent could trace their
roots to at least the 1480s.29 The heresy‐prone Kentish village of Tenterden had
deeper roots still; it was home in the 1420s to William White, the roaming
evangelist whose converts included many of the Norwich dissenters tried in
1428–31.30 Further instances of geographical continuity can be found in the
communities of Amersham, Norwich, and Steeple (p.10) Bumstead, to name
but the most prominent.31 At the same time, contemporary sources disclose a
number of connections between dissenters in disparate regions. Joan Warde alias
Wasshingburn, burned in Coventry in 1512, admitted during her trial that she
and her husband, having first learned their heresies in their native Coventry,
lived with other dissenters in Northampton, London, and Maidstone, where she
had abjured and been branded with the letter H on each cheek.32 Thomas Acton
of Coventry admitted to having provided lodgings to an anonymous ‘knowen
man’ during his six‐night stay in the city; this wandering dissenter and others
Page 8 of 25
like him may have linked Acton and his Coventry fellows with communities
elsewhere.33 And John Jonson, who abjured on 16 January 1512, was perhaps
Coventry's best travelled heretic, having lived in Gloucester, Maxstoke Priory,
Bristol, Taunton, Brittany, Bordeaux, and London, in at least two of which cities
he dwelt with local dissenters.34 These and other continuities, both
chronological and geographical, suggest that whilst lollardy may never have
been a centralized phenomenon, some heterodox communities were
nevertheless connected both with one another and with their past.
A New Methodology
Whilst these data provide a counterweight to arguments against the coherence
of lollardy, they are by no means conclusive.35 Instead, they point to the need for
a terminological via media, a way of speaking and writing about lollardy that
takes into account both the similarities and divergences among (p.11)
individuals, texts, and communities. The method of squaring this particular
circle that I will be employing here has its roots in the thought of Ludwig
Wittgenstein, and in particular in Wittgenstein's theory of ‘family resemblance’.
Seeking to justify why languages frequently use single categories, such as
‘game’, to describe such disparate phenomena as board games, card games, ball
games, and the Olympic Games, Wittgenstein argued that though there may be
nothing common to all these activities, they nevertheless participate in ‘a
complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss‐crossing’. He called
this network one of ‘ “family‐resemblances,” for the various resemblances
between members of a family…overlap and criss‐cross in the same way’.36 In
Wittgenstein's terms, then, closely related phenomena might be thought of as
members of the same nuclear family, whereas less intimately connected
individuals would be second and third cousins.37
Since his Philosophical Investigations first appeared in 1953, Wittgenstein's

theory of family resemblance has successfully been applied in many of the
natural and social sciences. In one sense, Wittgenstein had formulated in the
language of analytic philosophy insights which had independently been
developed by psychologists and taxonomers. His work appeared nearly
contemporaneously with the research of the Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky,
who demonstrated that children form mental schemes of classification not in
terms of formal logic but, rather, in terms of resemblance. ‘Classes can be
composed by means of what Vygotsky calls complex thinking: specifically, in a
“chain complex” the definitive attribute keeps changing from one link to the
next; there is no consistency in the type of bonds, and the variable meaning is
carried over from one item in a class to the next with “no central significance,”
no “nucleus.” ’38 Likewise, the eighteenth‐century French botanist Michel
Adanson had proposed a similar method of classification for plants. In certain
cases, Adanson argued, individuals can be grouped together even if each
individual lacks one or more of the characteristic features of the class.
Adanson's ideas were brought together with Wittgenstein's by Morton Beckner,
Page 9 of 25
an American (p.12) philosopher and biologist, who formulated a definition of

what he called a ‘polytypic’ class:
A class is ordinarily defined by reference to a set of properties which are

both necessary and sufficient (by stipulation) for membership in the class.
It is possible, however, to define a group K in terms of a set G of properties
f1, f2,…, fn in a different manner. Suppose we have an aggregation of
individuals (we shall not as yet call them a class) such that:
1) Each one possesses a large (but unspecified) number of the

properties in G.
2) Each f in G is possessed by large numbers of these individuals and
3) No f in G is possessed by every individual in the aggregate.
By the terms of (3), no f is necessary for membership in this aggregate; and

nothing has been said to either warrant or rule out the possibility that
some f in G is sufficient for membership in the aggregate.39
For Beckner, a polytypic or ‘polythetic’ class, as later taxonomists would call it,
includes a set of individuals related in various ways to one another rather than
to a centrally posited ideal type. Thus, in a set of four individuals, one might
possess the predicates ABC, another BCD, another ABD, and the last ACD, such
that there is no predicate common to every member, though each individual
shares some of its predicates with others. Beckner's definition remains current
in taxonomy, where today it provides natural scientists with a classificatory tool
capable of taking into account the genetic, physiological, and behavioural
variations commonly found in nature among individuals who would otherwise be
identical.40
Wittgenstein's scheme has proven helpful in the humanities as well. One of the
more complex and contentious debates of the past half‐century in the field of
religious studies has revolved around the definition of the term religion. What
does and what does not ‘count’ as a religion proved to be an intractable question
so long as the assumption remained that religion should be defined like other
terms. Robert McDermott, and later Ninian Smart, proposed instead that the
term ‘religion’ operates as a family‐resemblance phenomenon.41 Smart noted
that defining religion in terms of resemblances (p.13) rather than a static
essence has at least two advantages: it obviates the need for proposed
definitions to apply to all religious phenomena, past, present, and future; and it
enables disparate phenomena to be studied under the same intellectual
umbrella.42 The philosopher of religion John Hick has likewise employed a
family‐resemblance definition of religion in his groundbreaking study of religious
pluralism, An Interpretation of Religion.43 Likewise, in the context of religious
history, Daniel Boyarin has recently used a family‐resemblance model to
describe the nascent groups of Christians and Jews whose emergence he
Page 10 of 25
examines in his book Border Lines. For Boyarin, family‐resemblance

classification provides the basis for a richly textured description of religious life
in the first century. He writes:
While, as I have said, there is one (analytic) feature that could be said to be
common to all groups that we might want to call (anachronistically)
‘Christian,’ namely some form of discipleship to Jesus, this feature hardly
captures enough richness and depth to produce an interesting category, for
in so many other vitally important ways, groups that follow Jesus and
groups that ignore him are similar to each other, or put another way,
groups that ignore (or reject) Jesus may have some highly salient other
religious features (for instance, Logos theology) that binds them to Jesus
groups and disconnects them from other non‐Jesus Jews.44
Boyarin has also borrowed from analytic philosophy the concept of ‘membership
gradience’; that is, the idea that certain individuals within a particular web of
family resemblances can be closer to or farther away from the cluster of
individuals which most clearly exemplify the category in question. ‘Just as
certain entities can be more or less tall or red, I wish to suggest they can be
more or less Christian (or Jewish) as well.’45
The notion of family resemblance, as originally articulated by Wittgenstein and

refined in later reflections on religion and its history, offers an illuminating tool
for the analysis of religious dissent in late medieval England. In the first place, it
removes the need for scholars to agonize over both the formulation and the
application of essentialist definitions. Indeed, studies of lollardy have often been
handicapped by attempts to reduce the heresy to a set of theological
propositions.46 If a subject believed five key propositions, then she or he was a
lollard; if not, then not.
(p.14) Not only does this approach ignore the human and textual components
of dissent, but it also entails the side‐effect of imposing an unhelpfully polarizing
distinction between lollard and non‐lollard ideas on a much more complex
reality. It requires scholars to debate whether a particular individual, group, or
text is or is not lollard, when in fact many individuals should be situated within a
more complex matrix of social, textual, and theological interactions.47 Second,
family‐resemblance definitions admit of gradation, making it easier for students
of lollardy to analyse individuals' beliefs, the level of their commitment to those
beliefs, and the level of their involvement in both dissenting and mainstream
communities in terms of sliding scales. Finally, Wittgenstein's concept facilitates
the identification and analysis of subgroups and individual strands of thought
within the broader category of lollard dissent. As we shall see, dissenters within
the same community or even the same biological family often shared some
beliefs but not others; differences in theological emphasis appear across
Page 11 of 25
geographical and chronological divides; and some dissenters combined standard

lollard tenets with more idiosyncratic views.
To see how a model based on Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblance might

work in practice, let us return to the case of Thomas Denys and attempt to
situate him within three distinct, but interrelated, sets of resemblances: those
dealing with his theological opinions, those dealing with the texts with which he
interacted, and those dealing with the communities of which he was a part.
First, Denys' beliefs. What is particularly striking about the three articles to
which he confessed at his second trial is that the first of them reflects what we
might call a figurative or commemorative theology of the eucharist. Such views
about the sacrament were soon to become familiar enough to the theologians
and inquisitors of continental Europe in the theologies of reformers like Ulrich
Zwingli, but they are relatively uncommon among the records of medieval
English heresy trials. As I will argue at greater length in Chapter 3, Wyclif had
quite clearly affirmed the presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of
bread and wine, despite the fact he had rejected the doctrine of
transubstantiation. Indeed, Wyclif wrote in his De eucharistia confessio that
Christ's presence in the eucharist is more real than his presence in the other
sacraments; the mistake the institutional church has made is to describe the
mode of Christ's presence in philosophically untenable terms.48
(p.15) It was Wyclif's doctrine of Christ's spiritual presence that dominated

discussions of the sacrament among his early followers; most of the long
Wycliffite cycle of 294 vernacular sermons, for instance, describe the
consecrated host simultaneously as bread and God's body. But from around the
turn of the fifteenth century, a small but important minority of dissenting writers
and heresy suspects began to describe the eucharist in commemorative terms
instead. Their views are most clearly and eloquently to be found in the
vernacular tract Wycklyffes Wycket, a text for which there is no medieval
manuscript evidence but which was probably composed in the first quarter of
the fifteenth century. There, the author writes that the host is not the body of
Christ, ‘but the lyckenes’ of Christ's body and ‘the figure or mynde of Christes
bodye in earth’. It is, he concludes, ‘but a sygne or mynde of a thyng passed or a
thynge to come’.49
Views such as these can be found in the records of very few heresy trials before
the second half of the fifteenth century. And where they do appear, they seem to
have been concentrated in particular geographical areas. No fewer than 236
heresy trials between the time of Wyclif's death and the arrival of Luther's ideas
in England involved contested questions about the eucharist. Of those, however,
only slightly more than twenty involved commemorative or figurative theologies
of the sacrament, and of those, more than two‐thirds were trials held in the
1490s, 1500s, and 1510s in the dioceses of Salisbury and Winchester, which are
Page 12 of 25
adjacent to one another. So Thomas Denys' beliefs about the eucharist, which
might seem idiosyncratic in the broader sweep of late medieval English heresy
prosecutions, may make more sense in a narrower historical context. What
Denys believed was not far removed from what other defendants of his
generation and in nearby localities believed. And in terms of family resemblance,
therefore, it becomes possible to imagine a cluster of dissenters who, regardless
of their relationship to the academic Wycliffites of the late fourteenth century,
seem to be quite closely bound up with one another.
Turning to our second type of family resemblance, namely the sorts of texts to
which dissenters had access, adds a new dimension to these considerations.
Unfortunately, Bishop Fox's register does not preserve in detail a list of the
books which Denys allegedly distributed to his neighbours. But there is one
tantalizing clue to the contents of Denys' personal library. In the record of his
trial, we learn that Denys confessed that he had ‘brought unto [a fellow
dissenter] diuerse bokes of heresie and specially a boke of heresy called wiclif,
exhorting him to loke vpon it and folowe and beleve the contentes therof’.50 (p.
16) It is also unfortunate that we know with certainty nothing else about what
this ‘boke…called wiclif’ might have been, but it stands to reason that it may
have been a copy of Wycklyffes Wycket. On the one hand, we know that the
Wycket was circulating among nearby dissenting communities in the early
sixteenth century. Among other cases, it was mentioned as a gift from one
dissenter to another in a Salisbury diocese case of 1508, and it was also part of
the library of Richard Colins, a leading dissenter who was investigated by Bishop
John Longland of Lincoln in the early 1520s.51 On the other hand, if Denys
owned and valued a copy of the Wycket, then the tract's teachings on the
eucharist might explain why Denys and those he converted all propounded
figurative theologies of the sacrament.
So theology and textuality create two interlocking circles of family resemblance,

but we can also situate Thomas Denys in relation to his fellow dissenters in
terms of what Anne Hudson has called ‘Lollard society’. Whom did he know; who
taught him; and whom did he teach in turn? Here, Bishop Fox's register is less
helpful, but there are still some important clues to follow up. Two names
particularly stand out: those of Richard Hortop, whom Denys confessed had
taught him heresy some twenty years previously, and of Lewis John, whom the
register identifies as Denys' co‐religionist ‘nowe of late of heresy abiured’.52
About Hortop, unfortunately, we know no more than that he had been living in
Waltham Abbey in the early years of the 1490s and sometime thereafter moved
to London.
Lewis John, on the other hand, is much more interesting. He was apprehended
not in Fox's investigations in Winchester diocese, but rather as part of Bishop
Richard Fitzjames' near‐contemporary series of prosecutions in London. In 1511,
he and a group of some ten defendants, including his wife Joan John, were said
Page 13 of 25
to have ‘denied the carnall and corporall presence of Christes body and bloud in
the Sacrament of the altar’ and to have ‘read and [used] certeine English
bookes…as the four Euangelistes, Wickleffes Wicket, a booke of the x
commaundementes of almightie God, the Reuelation of S. John, the Epistles of
Paul and James, with other like’.53 It is also likely that the Lewis John of Fox's
and Fitzjames' investigations is the same man who, then residing in Reading,
was reported in 1508 to have been the teacher of another heresy suspect,
Edward Parker.54
The group of dissenters in Reading of which John and Parker were members can
be traced both backward and forward in time. Entries in the Bishop of
Salisbury's register indicate that another prominent member of that community
was John Stilman, an enthusiastic disseminator of dissenting views (p.17) who
continued to be an active preacher in London until he was apprehended in 1518.
At his trial, Stilman acknowledged that his teachers were one Stephen Moone
and one Richard Smart, the latter of whom had been burned in Salisbury in
1503. Assuming that Moone and Smart had converts other than Stilman, here
we have at least two decades of dissenting activity in and around Reading.55
But yet none of this evidence points to a firm connection between Thomas
Denys, or his teachers, and the early group of scholars and others who gathered
around John Wyclif and his academic disciples in Oxford. This is not, however, to
say that there were no such connections, and indeed, where the records permit,
it is sometimes possible to trace the genealogies of some dissenting groups, say
those in the Kentish Weald, over the span of a century. But, in this case, we
would have to make the argument from silence. All that can be said with
certainty is that Thomas Denys was a local leader of a dissenting community
centred on the town of Kingston and some nearby villages; that this community
subscribed to a theology of the eucharist which distinguished it from other
dissenting communities elsewhere in the country; that their beliefs about the
eucharist may have been derived from their reading of a text like Wycklyffes
Wycket; and that the community of which Denys was a leader was linked,
through various personal connections, to dissenting communities in London,
Reading, and Essex.
So to return to the problem of terminology: does any of this make Denys a

lollard, or a Wycliffite? What the process of situating him in our three‐
dimensional matrix of belief, text, and social circumstance has shown is why
those ‘yes/no’ questions are problematic. There are ways in which Denys
resembles some individuals whom we are prepared, on independent grounds, to
call Wycliffites, but there are ways in which he fails to resemble them. The
insight to be gained from Wittgenstein's theory is that we should leave the
question there, with relational, or family‐resemblance, models of lollardy and
Wycliffism, rather than essentialist ones. In the end, the historical record will
always remain ambiguous. It cannot be determined if Denys and his fellow
Page 14 of 25
dissenters thought of themselves as lollards or Wycliffites, and there is not much

to indicate that their inquisitors thought of them as such.
There is, of course, some space here to introduce a further distinction between
‘lollard’ and ‘Wycliffite’. In applying these labels, we may be on safer ground
with ‘Wycliffite’, since it is possible to compare a defendant's or a text's opinions
with what Wyclif believed about a particular topic; or to show that a (p.18)
particular individual professed allegiance to Wyclif; or studied with Wyclif or
with one of Wyclif's early followers. But as Hudson and others have pointed out,
the term ‘lollard’ functions very differently; it is a subjective term, used by
dissenters against their clerical opponents and by clerical opponents against
dissenters. Its semantic range is so wide as to render it highly problematic as an
essentialist category.
Lollardy and the Development of Doctrine

This discussion of terminological and methodological issues has taken us
somewhat afield from the other concerns of this book: namely, to study the ways
in which lollard attitudes toward several key religious issues varied
geographically as well as chronologically during the years separating Wyclif's
exile from Oxford from the arrival of Lutheran ideas in England. Just as with the
case of Thomas Denys, in the pages that follow I will bring the theoretical
models generated by Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblance to bear on the
sources for lollard views on salvation, the eucharist, marriage and sexuality, the
priesthood, and the papacy. In doing so, I hope to draw attention to some of the
advantages of this approach for historians as well as theologians.
I have already alluded several times to the much‐contested place of lollardy in

the debate on the English Reformation, and indeed, from the sixteenth century
up to the beginning of the twenty‐first, much scholarly energy has been
expended in attempts either to demonstrate that lollards played a part in the
genesis and reception of the English Reformation, or else to show that not only
did lollards play no such role, there were hardly any individuals or communities
worthy of the name by the time Henry VIII ascended the throne. The difficulty
with both approaches is that they persist in treating late medieval dissenters as
a kind of historiographical football, less important in their own right than for the
contributions they made, or did not make, to later events. Yet it was precisely
those later events, Henry's Reformation and its successors, that since the time of
Foxe have conditioned our understanding of late medieval heresy. It has been
convenient, although for different reasons, for the various parties to this debate
to work with an essentialist definition of lollardy. For a historian like Dickens,
being able to lump together the many different strands of reformism which
continued to trouble the English church at the beginning of the sixteenth
century was integral to his argument for what he saw as the acceptance of the
Reformation at the popular level. For revisionists like Duffy and Rex, the
expectation that if there were lollards at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
Page 15 of 25
they would have to look like a (p.19) recognizably discrete group supports the
claim that lollardy contributed little to the events of the 1520s and beyond.
Unfortunately, however, to approach the data in either mindset is anachronistic
at best. Lollardy was a theologically and socially diverse family of phenomena
that contributed in varied ways to the already highly complex religious
landscape of late medieval England. Nevertheless, doctrinal variations within
and among lollard communities were not entirely random, and in what follows I
shall note the social and textual factors that facilitated the development and
persistence of individual strands of belief.
At the same time, the results of this study may also, in theological terms,
suggest one way of filling a gap in contemporary theories of the development of
doctrine. Christian theologians and historians of Christianity have long been
aware of variations in belief and practice among individuals and communities; it
should go without saying that, historically, many such divergences have been
condemned as heresies. Nevertheless, as early as the fifth century, Christian
thinkers began to reflect upon the possibility that the doctrines of the
institutional church might evolve as believers come gradually to penetrate
deeper into the mystery of God. The fifth‐century writer Vincent of Lérins, more
famous for his maxim that a particular teaching is orthodox if it can be shown to
have been held ‘always, everywhere, and by everyone’ (semper, ubique, et ab
omnibus), also taught that there can be progress or development (profectus) in
theology. According to Vincent, so long as a development takes place in the same
sense (in eodem sensu eademque sententia) as the church's original teaching,
then it is legitimate.56 Partly on account of Vincent's association with the so‐
called ‘Semi‐Pelagian’ faction whose ideas about salvation were condemned at
the Council of Orange in 529, his ideas received little attention in the medieval
and early modern church.57 As a result, and despite interest in the subject from
several earlier thinkers, it was not until the mid‐nineteenth century that the
concept of the development of doctrine came into its own.58 The modern study of
doctrinal development begins with John Henry Newman, (p.20) whose Essay on
the Development of Christian Doctrine remains a milestone in the history of
Christianity's self‐understanding.
According to Newman, the original deposit of revelation already contains within

itself the seeds of all later growth. ‘This process will not be a development’, he
wrote, ‘unless the assemblage of aspects, which constitute its ultimate shape,
really belong to the idea from the very start.’59 Like Vincent before him,
Newman recognized that to discern what does and what does not belong to the
original idea of Christianity is hardly straightforward. Accordingly, he proposed
seven ‘tests’ or ‘notes’ to distinguish true developments from false ones. On his
account, a development is true ‘if it retains one and the same type, the same
principles, the same organization; if its beginnings anticipate its subsequent
Page 16 of 25
phases, and its later phenomena protect and subserve its earlier; if it has a
power of assimilation and revival, and a vigorous action from first to last’.60
It has been remarked that Newman designed his tests in such a way as to lend
credibility to his decision in 1845 to leave the Church of England and convert to
Roman Catholicism.61 Whatever his motives may have been, his theory of
development poses at least two substantial problems. First, Newman's notion of
doctrinal development as the gradually fuller explication of primordial revelation
hardly coheres with the actual history of Christian theology. Even if it were the
case in Newman's time that doctrines developed in such an orderly way, and
there is little reason to suggest that they did, the theological vicissitudes of the
post‐Reformation period contradict Newman's scheme. For instance, Clement
XI's 1731 bull Unigenitus and, later, the Second Vatican Council both abandoned
earlier interpretations of the ancient formula extra ecclesiam nulla salus in
acknowledging the possibility of grace and salvation outside Christianity.62
For this reason, theologians since Newman have been quick to call into question
the English cardinal's account of doctrinal development, and they (p.21) have
also challenged his claim that doctrinal change should be managed exclusively
by the magisterium of popes, bishops, and councils.63 They have been less
attentive, however, to a second implication of Newman's Essay, one that bears
directly on the study of heresy. For Newman, heresies are ‘false developments’
that do not follow from the original deposit of revelation. In a memorable
passage, he describes the life cycle of heresies thus:
The course of heresies is always short; it is an intermediate state between

life and death, or what is like death; or, if it does not result in death, it is
resolved into some new, perhaps opposite, course of error, which lays no
claim to be connected with it. And in this way indeed, but in this way only,
an heretical principle will continue in life many years, first running one
way, then another.64
Whereas Newman depicts true doctrine as a stream which gradually becomes

broader and deeper as it flows outward, heresies are stagnant offshoots
connected to one another only by virtue of their shared torpor. Thus, for
instance, in his work The Arians of the Fourth Century, Newman takes it as
axiomatic that Arius and his followers all subscribed to the same set of
conclusions.65 Individual heretics, for Newman, are for theological purposes
indistinguishable.
It should be clear that what is absent from Newman's Essay is any suggestion
that the doctrines of dissenting movements develop like the teachings of the
institutional church, and that assumption has prevailed in subsequent studies of
the development of doctrine. Writers from the Catholic Modernist Alfred Loisy to
the liberal Anglican Maurice Wiles have continued to analyse the history of
Page 17 of 25
doctrine in terms of distinguishing true or authentic developments from false or

heretical ones.66 At the turn of the twentieth century, Loisy, for instance,
borrowed Newman's terminology in arguing that heresy ‘is often born from
stagnation, i.e. of an ill‐judged conservatism’.67 One consequence of this
tendency has been that whilst theologians have frequently studied the
interdependencies of heresy and orthodoxy as a means of illuminating how and
why orthodox doctrines have developed as they have, few (p.22) have
considered what happens to unorthodox ideas once they have been rejected.68
Theologians and historians, as well as their colleagues in the sociology of

religion, would as a result be well served to consider whether a process parallel
to the development of doctrine takes place within groups which have separated
themselves from the religious mainstream. If it is worth contemplating ‘the
development of heresy’, then additional questions suggest themselves. What
factors provoke change in the beliefs and practices of dissenting movements?
How do religious and cultural changes, as well as continuities, outside such
communities affect the changes and continuities within? Through what internal
structures of authority, if any, are developments mediated? And to what extent
are the answers to these questions about the development of heresy similar to
the answers that theologians and sociologists have already given about the
development of doctrine in so‐called ‘orthodox’ contexts? It is beyond the scope
of this book to offer systematic answers to any of these questions, but the
historical data I will be presenting suggest a number of preliminary responses
and directions for future research, points to which I will return in the
Conclusion.
Plan of the Argument

Each of the five subsequent chapters of this book focuses on a cluster of
theological ideas, using the techniques suggested by Wittgenstein's model of
family resemblance to examine the ways in which Wyclif's writings, Wycliffite
texts, anti‐lollard polemics, and the records of heresy trials can together disclose
variations in the religious beliefs of late medieval dissenters. The clusters of
doctrines I have chosen for close analysis have in common two virtues: first, that
of appearing with some frequency in the extant sources and, second, that of not
already having been studied exhaustively in other works.69 In general, each
chapter is organized chronologically: first I describe Wyclif's views on the topic
at hand; then I turn to the strands of his thought that can be discerned in
Wycliffite and lollard texts, as well as in the writings (p.23) of anti‐Wycliffite
authors; and finally I consider the data from heresy trials. Where the sources
cannot be placed in definite chronological relationships to one another, I have
organized the discussion topically.
Chapter 2 traces Wycliffite beliefs about salvation, starting with an analysis of

Wyclif's doctrines of grace and predestination. Rather than espousing the view
that God has arbitrarily elected those who will be saved and condemned those
Page 18 of 25
who will be punished, as medieval polemicists and later scholars alike have
argued, Wyclif and many Wycliffite writers instead ascribed to good deeds an
essential role in the process of salvation. A majority of lay heresy suspects
agreed, and only a few defendants endorsed predestinarian views after the turn
of the sixteenth century. This trend suggests that many dissenters were hesitant
to abandon the dominant religious world view of the Middle Ages.
Ecclesiastically sponsored sermons, poems, plays, and other texts often
privileged the need to perform good works over and above the operation of
grace, and whilst lollard dissenters were not enthusiastic about such practices
as indulgences and bequests for soul‐masses, the underlying logic of their
soteriologies was strikingly similar.
Whereas many lollards never questioned a works‐oriented approach to the

doctrine of salvation, the dissenting views on the eucharist that I study in
Chapter 3 reveal more substantial divergences from orthodoxy. The mass was at
the heart of late medieval religious practice and, as we have seen, it was Wyclif's
decision to reject the doctrine of transubstantiation that led in 1381 to his exile
from Oxford. Scholars have long known that Wyclif believed that Christ is
spiritually present in the consecrated elements, and it has been held that, in the
hands of later dissenters, his theology of remanence slowly evolved into a
figurative interpretation of the sacrament. Instead, Wycliffite tracts and court
records reveal that figurative and remanence theologies were both current in the
early fifteenth century, and the patterns of their dissemination reveal the roles
that family and civic ties played in the formation of heterodox beliefs. Figurative
theologies of the eucharist were especially prevalent among the communities of
Coventry and Lichfield, Salisbury, and Winchester dioceses, and it was in these
regions of England that texts articulating such views circulated most widely.
Wycliffites often believed that, in adopting theological positions contrary to

those of the established church, they were in fact embracing the plain meaning
of the Bible and the teachings of the earliest apostles. The fundamentally
conservative impetus of much dissenting thought can perhaps best be seen in
the areas of lay marriage and clerical celibacy. In Chapter 4, I examine lollard
attitudes to marriage and sexuality. After surveying the development of the
medieval church's doctrine of marriage, I argue that Wyclif's views were
conservative but ultimately pragmatic. Though chaste (p.24) marriage was his
ideal, Wyclif acknowledged that not all have the capacity to abstain from sexual
intercourse. In any case, marriage should not be governed by church courts; it is
the mutual consent of the partners and not the approval of the priest that
creates a marriage. Later writers tended to articulate somewhat more
pessimistic views, conceiving of marriage primarily as a remedy for lust. At the
same time, Wyclif's grudging acceptance of some married clergymen was taken
in the opposite direction by many of those who came after him, who insisted that
all clerics should marry in order not to succumb to the temptations which might
arise from a lukewarm commitment to chastity. The views articulated in
Page 19 of 25
dissenting texts as well as trial records thus call into doubt the traditional view
that lollardy was an innovative movement where issues of gender and sexuality
were concerned.
Whether married or otherwise, clergymen played an indispensable role in the

practice of late medieval Christianity. In Chapter 5, I study lollard ideas about
the sacrament of orders, including the ways in which and the persons to whom it
is to be administered; the duties of curates; the financing of the clergy; and the
papacy. Both Wyclif and the majority of lay heresy suspects envisioned the
retention and purification of the clerical estate. Quite contrary to the stereotype
that lollards were radical reformers, Wycliffite theologies of the priesthood
tended to be conservative ones: dissenters urged priests to follow more closely
the example of the apostles and to repudiate the wealth of the church.
Nevertheless, even though many dissenters advocated the total disendowment of
the church, Wycliffite writers and heresy defendants were hardly of one mind in
proposing alternative structures for its financing and governance. In Chapter 6, I
demonstrate that a similar approach characterized Wyclif's and many Wycliffites'
attitudes toward the pope: they criticized the abuses of the medieval papacy but
did not demand its abolition as an institution. Instead, they argued that the
papacy, like the clergy as a whole, should be brought back, forcibly if needs be,
to an ideal standard of behaviour.
Notes:
(1) On the Ratio, see most recently the collection of essays edited by the late
Vincent Duminuco, The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum: 400th anniversary perspectives
(New York, 2000).
(2) For one recent discussion of the etymology and history of the term, see
Wendy Scase, ‘ “Heu! quanta desolatio Angliae praestatur”: A Wycliffite libel and
the naming of heretics, Oxford 1382’ in Fiona Somerset, Jill C. Havens, and
Derrick Pitard (eds.), Lollards and Their Influence in Late Medieval England
(Woodbridge, 2003), 19–36.
(3) PR, 2.
(4) In particular, I am thinking of McSheffrey's ‘Heresy, orthodoxy’; Cole's

Literature and Heresy in the Age of Chaucer (Cambridge, 2008); Kerby‐Fulton's
Books under Suspicion (South Bend, Ind., 2006); and Aston's ‘Were the Lollards
a sect?’ in The Medieval Church: Universities, heresy, and the religious life:
Essays in honour of Gordon Leff (Studies in Church History, Subsidia 11,
Woodbridge, 1999), 163–91.
(5) Winchester reg. Fox, iii, fol. 69r.
(6) Ibid., Fox, iii, fol. 69r.
Page 20 of 25
(7) Winchester reg., Fox, iii, fos. 69r–69v.
(8) Ibid., iii, fol. 69v.
(9) Ibid., iii, fol. 69r.
(10) For the reference to Wyclif, in the trial of Thomas Abell, see Coventry, 182.
(11) FZ, 311–12.
(12) A&M, 661. Here and throughout this volume, I follow the practice
recommended by Thomas Freeman of citing from the original editions of Foxe's
Actes and Monuments rather than the nineteenth‐century editions that distort
Foxe's work (‘Texts, lies, and microfilm: Reading and misreading Foxe's “Book of
Martyrs” ’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 30 (1999), 23–46).
(13) Steven Justice, ‘Lollardy’ in David Wallace (ed.), The Cambridge History of
Medieval Literature (Cambridge, 1999), 662–89 at 683.
(14) Gotthard Victor Lechler, John Wycliffe and His English Precursors, trans. P.
Lorimer (London, 1884), 439.
(15) Ezra Kempton Maxfield, ‘Chaucer and religious reform’, PMLA, 39 (1924),
64–74 at 67, 68.
(16) K. B. McFarlane, John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity

(London, 1952); and Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights (Oxford, 1972).
(17) PR, 3.
(18) Ibid., 2.
(19) Catto, ‘Fellows and helpers’, 152–3.
(20) Strohm, England's Empty Throne, 209–10. Maurice Wiles and other scholars
of the Arian movement have demonstrated that Athanasius of Alexandria
adopted a similar strategy in ‘grouping all opponents of Nicene orthodoxy under
the single title of “Arian” ’ (Archetypal Heresy : Arianism through the centuries
(Oxford, 1996), 27).
(21) On this point, see Fiona Somerset, Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in
Late Medieval England (Cambridge, 1998).
(22) Catto, ‘Fellows and helpers’, 144.
(23) Derek J. Plumb, ‘A gathered church? Lollards and their society’ in Margaret
Spufford (ed.), The World of Rural Dissenters (Cambridge, 1995), 132–63;
Davies, ‘Lollardy and locality’.
Page 21 of 25
(24) Ian James Forrest, ‘Ecclesiastical justice and the detection of heresy in
England, 1380–1430’ (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 2003), 2–7.
(25) Kerby‐Fulton, passim.
(26) Coventry, 201.
(27) Kent, 55. ‘The jaylors’ likely refers to local officers of the law who might
notice the presence of individuals from outside the village.
(28) Hudson has argued that these epithets, current as late as the 1520s, served
as a sort of shorthand to identify members of the sect to one another (PR, 143).
See also her article ‘A Lollard sect vocabulary?’ repr. in Books, 181–92; and Matti
Peikola, Congregation of the Elect: Patterns of self‐fashioning in English Lollard
writings (Turku, 2000).
(29) This point is best made in Lutton's new book Lollardy and Orthodox
Religion, 19–26; see also his earlier article ‘Godparenthood, kinship, and piety in
Tenterden, England, 1449–1537’ in I. Davis, M. Muller, and S. Rees Jones (eds.),
Love, Marriage, and Family Ties in the Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2003), 217–34,
for the intriguing suggestion that ties of godparenthood should also be
considered in this connection.
(30) Thomson, Later Lollards, 173; Kent, xxi.
(31) D'Alton, ‘The suppression of heresy in early Henrician England’, 199; Derek
Plumb, ‘The social and economic spread of rural Lollardy: A reappraisal’ in W. J.
Sheils and Diana Wood (eds.), Voluntary Religion (Studies in Church History 23,
Oxford, 1986), 111–29; R. A. Houlbrooke, ‘Persecution of heresy and
Protestantism in the diocese of Norwich under Henry VIII’, Norfolk Archaeology,
35 (1972), 308–26; and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI
and the Protestant Reformation (London, 1999), 112–14. However, it is essential
to bear in mind D. M. Palliser's warning that ‘geographical determinism’ cannot
fully describe the reception of reforming ideas (‘Popular reactions to the
Reformation during the years of uncertainty, 1530–70’ in Christopher Haigh
(ed.), The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge, 1987), 94–113 at 104).
(32) Coventry, 239.
(33) Ibid., 150.
(34) Ibid., 111–13.
(35) They also provide a reason not to embrace too hastily the recent practice of
some writers in the fields of Cathar and Waldensian studies of pluralizing the
subject of enquiry: Catharisms, Waldensianisms, lollardies. The suggestion is not
Page 22 of 25
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
hastily decamped, robbing and plundering what they could find in
the vicinity of that city. They committed all the mischief they were
able in every village and hamlet through which they passed, pillaging
such of the Turcomans as fell in their way, and prepared to follow
Kalander into Persia. Murád Páshá no sooner received this
intelligence than he made all haste to intercept them if possible.
Following this impulse, he left his heavy baggage and camp in the
plains of Sivás, under the charge of the defterdár, Bákí Páshá, and
marched off with about two thousand or more spáhís, under the
command of the ághá of the janissaries, besides some few others,
making all the haste he was able. Each person carried with him
seven days’ provision, a small coverlet in the form of a canopy, or at
least to be used as such, and a carpet to sleep on when necessary.
This precipitate movement took place on the evening of the 17th of
Jemadi II., and was continued, without the least intermission, for the
space of six days and seven nights. His excellency, Murád Páshá, in
his ninetieth year, fell sick on this hurried march, and was sometimes
obliged to descend from his horse, when he lay on the ground,
having the appearance of a corpse. These fits of sickness, however,
were not of any continuance: in a short time he was again enabled
to mount and continue his journey. On the seventh day, the
expedition reached Karah Hisár, where they made enquiry respecting
the rebels they were in search of, and were informed that the rebel
force had lodged in that place on the preceding night; but that they
had set out by daybreak for the narrow pass called the valley or
hollow of Karah Hasan, where they, it would appear, had halted. Two
thousand men, under the command of Píáleh Páshá, formerly of
Bassora, were instantly dispatched to the hiding-place of the rebels.
Murád, with the remainder of his veterans, followed close upon
them, and arrived, though not first, at the valley or hollow where the
rebels were hid. On the morning of the 23d of Jemadi, as these
rebels, no way anticipating a visit from Murád Páshá, were saddling
and loading their beasts of burden, they were suddenly, as if by a
thunderbolt from heaven, put into the utmost consternation by
perceiving Píáleh and his men come within their hiding-place; and
who, like a flash of lightning, and before giving them time to enquire
what had come over them, fell upon them at once. The resistance of
the rebels was not of long continuance. Those of their foot-soldiers
that were fortunate enough to escape the sword, fled out of the
hollow, and made to the mountains: and their horsemen, though
they, at one time, made an attempt to maintain their ground, fled
also in the utmost confusion. Orders had been previously given (i.e.
before the engagement), that none of the Moslems should lose any
time in gathering up the spoil until the rebels had been completely
vanquished. These orders, however, were neglected by some. The
soldiers who were in front, seeing the property of the rebels lying
scattered around them, were overcome by the temptation: they
forgot their duty by beginning to appropriate to themselves the
spoils which the rebels in their panic had abandoned. The result
was, that the rebels found time to rally again; and, perceiving how
their pursuers were employed, returned to a renewal of the combat
with a spirit and vigour far superior to that which they had shown at
the commencement. The struggle now became hot and doubtful.
The governor of Adnah, Mustafa Páshá, and one or two Chorbájís
fell in the contest: the advanced troops gave way, and began to
retreat, but were stopped by Khalíl Aghá, ághá of the janissaries,
who had hurriedly stepped forward with the men under him, and
prevented their flight. At this instant, and not before, did the
commander-in-chief make his appearance; who, with the
reinforcement which he brought with him, completely turned the
fate of the day. The rebels finding themselves utterly unable to resist
the force which was now brought to bear upon them, fell into
confusion, and again retreated. The Moslems followed hard upon
them, and drove them entirely out of the valley or hollow where the
engagement had hitherto been carried on. The rebels, however, on
getting into the plains called Kilwerat, again contrived to rally, and
returned to the charge; but were soon totally broken, and forced to
betake themselves to their usual expedient—flight. All those who
had escaped the vengeance of the sword of the orthodox Muselmans
followed the example of Kalander Oghlí. The whole of their baggage,
of whatever kind it was, fell into the hands of the victors: very many
of their men on foot were seized and brought back into the presence
of Murád, who had, on account of the ill state of his health,
remained on the field of battle, and who ordered them all to be
executed without commiseration as they were brought before him.
The dead bodies of the rebels were put into heaps in the field, and
towers were made of their heads.
After these things, information was sent to Sivás of this new victory
which the orthodox Moslems had gained in the valley of Karah
Hasan; and orders, at the same time, were sent to the royal camp to
advance to the place where the commanding general then was.
These orders having been duly obeyed, the victorious and gallant
serdár was again, on the 25th of Jemadi I., in motion, and on the 3d
of Jemadi II. encamped at a place called Sadáklú, within a stage of
Beybúrd; where, after a day or two’s rest, he was joined by Bákí
Páshá and the troops under his command. At the expiration of these
days he removed his camp to the valley of Sinvar, in the vicinity of
Beybúrd, where he was joined by such of his troops as had not
before returned from the pursuit of the rebels. The heads of the
prisoners they had brought along with them were severed from their
bodies, and made into heaps like mountains. Robes of honour were
conferred on the gallant chiefs who had been active on this
occasion, and presents were made to the heroic troops.
About the middle of the month last mentioned, the válí of Diárbeker,
Nesúh Páshá, with vezír-like pomp, sound of music, and martial
display joined the royal camp. One thousand musketeers wearing
fine scarlet robes; five hundred foot-guards wearing yellow
regimentals; and five hundred more wearing black caps; and five
thousand cavalry, was the display which Nesúh made on this
occasion. But of what use was all this display? He and they ought to
have come earlier, and to have been on the field of battle, to share
in the dangers and the glory of the combat. After making the
splendid display above alluded to, he advanced towards the
commanding general, and, when within bow-shot of him, descended
from his horse, proceeded on foot till he approached the general,
who, by this time, had come four paces to meet him, when he fell
on his knees and kissed the general’s foot. The general, in return,
showed him the respect due to his station, kissed his hand, and
conducted him into his pavilion, telling him in a friendly manner that
he was welcome, and calling him son. Nesúh Páshá bowed his head
to the ground, and made this reply: “My noble lord will pardon me.
My fault in not having arrived at an earlier period, and taking a share
in the late important events, is great.” “What,” said the general, “was
the reason that you have been so tardy? You have a most splendid
army, thank God. You heard that the troops under my command
amount to no more than the number that wintered with me at
Aleppo. The distance between Diárbeker and Aleppo is not very
great: but in reality you were near. If your not coming to my
assistance was intended as a mark of disrespect to me, it was not
disrespect to me, let me tell you, but disrespect for the emperor. If it
had so happened that we had been discomfited, were you in
circumstances to have advanced and met Kalander Oghlí? What do
you think would be the judicial sentence of a judge on hearing of a
Moslem army being too weak to act against a foe, whilst a powerful
Moslem army was at no great distance from it and did not come to
its aid?” Nesúh was absolutely unable to make any reply to these
pointed interrogatories, and held down his head. “Son,” said the
general again, “son, what means this multitude of men? They are
now unnecessary. Sixteen thousand men have been found sufficient
to overcome Jánbulát Oghlí, and his followers have been all
dispersed, or have been made to flee. You are already acquainted
with the history of Kalander Oghlí. It was by no means the wish of
the emperor that even one of these segbáns (foot-guards or
soldiers), now with you, should ever have been in Anatolia; so that
when you return to your government or province you must certainly
disband them. If you be obstinate and disobey, remember the
emperor has long hands (meaning great power). If one of those
instruments of power, such as you have seen, be sent to execute
you, you need not be much surprised?” In this way Murád Páshá
conversed with Nesúh, and exhorted him; and afterwards made him
a present of two robes of honour. In the afternoon of the same day,
Nesúh Páshá returned to Murád’s pavilion, bringing along with him
some very splendid and valuable presents for him, dined with him,
and continued in his company till the night was so far advanced that
he required torches when he returned to his own tent. On the 27th
of Jemadi II., Zulfekár Páshá, governor of Caramania, returned to
the royal camp with his troops: so also did Etmekjí Zádeh, válí of
Romeili, with his provincial troops, and brought along with him the
money destined for the army; having marched by the way of Ancora.
Though both of these officers had incurred the displeasure of the
commanding general for the tardiness they had discovered, yet
when he reflected on his own splendid achievements, he forgave
them most freely. It is impossible to relate all the great and
important services rendered by this celebrated, heroic, prudent, and
skilful, though aged commander. Suffice it to say, that he took ample
vengeance on the rebels, and cleared, in a great measure, the
countries they infested of their presence and influence. When an
account of the success he had obtained over Kalander Oghlí was
sent to his majesty, his majesty, with feelings of the purest kindness,
called the messenger into his presence, asked him most particularly
as to the state of the war and the success of his general, showed
peculiar marks of respect to the messenger himself ordered two
suits of garments and a richly ornamented sword to be sent to
Murád Páshá, and at the same time a robe of honour for each of the
grandees in Murád’s army, besides some letters expressive of his
best wishes for them all. Murád Páshá, not long afterwards, had it in
his power to announce to the government of Constantinople his
success against the brother of Túyel, whom he completely defeated.
The commander-in-chief, Murád Páshá, is recalled to court.

Notwithstanding the grace and favour which his excellency, Murád
Páshá, had shown to Etmekjí Zádeh, who had failed to arrive with
his Romeilian troops in sufficient time to assist against the two rebel
chiefs so frequently mentioned, viz. Kalander Oghlí and Túyel; and
notwithstanding that, instead of meeting with merited reproach for
his tardiness, he was honoured with special marks of kindness, yet
Etmekjí Zádeh, from an idea that he was not altogether safe from
the influence of any evil designs which Murád Páshá might harbour
against him, wrote to his friends at Constantinople in the most
pressing manner to use their influence to have him recalled.
Accordingly, on the 7th of Rajab, the commander-in-chief received a
royal mandate, desiring him to confer the government of Romeili on
whom he would, but by all means to send back the emperor’s
defterdár, Etmekjí Zádeh Ahmed Páshá, to Constantinople. The royal
firmán commanded farther, that Murád Páshá should march his army
to Erzerúm, there winter, and in the spring march against the
Persians. Such was the import of the royal firmán.
The enlightened and skilful general answered as follows: “Sire, you
have been pleased to recall Ahmed Páshá, the válí of Romeili. His
coming or not coming to the assistance of the orthodox army was of
no importance; nor can his staying here yield them any advantage.
As to your slave (Murád himself), you have ordered him to go into
winter-quarters at Erzerúm. Is the province of Anatolia become so
completely defended and guarded as to render it safe for me to
winter in Erzerúm, and in the spring to open a campaign against
Persia? Should the rebels who may still exist assemble themselves
together, are the vezírs of your august court competent to quell or
disperse them? In this affair let the gracious will of the emperor be
done. The time for distributing the troops into winter-quarters is at
hand. A kíleh (a certain measure) of barley sells at five ducats, and
the wakáyet (about 2-1/4 lbs.) of bread has risen to a ghorúsh (a
dollar).” So much for the sentiments of Murád to his sovereign.
Immediately on sending the above he commenced making
arrangements for obeying the imperial firmán; but when his
multitudinous troops assembled together, they declared it
impracticable to do so, because of the dearth which prevailed in
Erzerúm. “The emperor,” said they, “is not acquainted with the state
and circumstances of that province: he listens only to the voice of
those flatterers who surround him: they, as well as the káímakám,
have no wish to see the noble general-in-chief return to
Constantinople. They have the whole management of affairs in their
own hands, and they see well, that should the grand vezír (Murád
Páshá) return, the impracticability of the plans they have
recommended would be made to appear. We have been now
(continued the military) two years in the war, and have achieved
several important victories. We shall now return home.” The general,
after having given utterance to these unceremonious sentiments,
called the cazí of the camp, and caused him to write out a statement
of the prices of provisions, and gave a copy of it, as well as a
statement of their own sentiments, to the kapújís who had conveyed
the imperial firmán, and forthwith sent them back to the grand
sultán. On the following day his excellency, the commander-in-chief,
appointed Hasan Páshá, beglerbeg of Erzerúm, and a number of
begs, with Chukál Oghlí Hasan Aghá, and about thirty chorbájís, to
accompany the imperial messengers. Karah Hisár, in the east, he
conferred on Turkijeh Bilmaz, and the province of Wán on Tekelí
Mohammed Páshá: Zulfekár Páshá was sent back to his own
government in Caramania, and Etmekjí Zádeh and the Romeilian
troops he dismissed to European Turkey. He also allowed Nesúh
Páshá to return to his own government at Diárbeker, and he himself,
about the 15th of Rajab, went to Tokat. He had been scarcely two
days at Tokat, when just as he was in the act of paying his troops,
he received another imperial firmán which was expressed in these
terms: “At whatever station our imperial firmán reaches you, there
winter.” This was brief enough; but the commanding general, by
private letters which he had received by the same conveyance which
brought him the above short firmán, was let into the secret. These
letters assured him that several of the influential and ruling party at
court were altogether averse to his returning to Constantinople; that
one of these, Kapúdán Háfiz Ahmed Páshá, was the emperor’s
favourite; that he, as also the káímakám, Mustafa Páshá, the
reverend mufti, Mohammed Effendí, his old enemy, and Mustafa,
ághá of the palace, had, by leaguing together, represented to his
majesty that the rebellion in Anatolia had been altogether crushed,
and that instead of recalling Murád Páshá, he ought to be sent
against the sháh of Persia.
When his excellency, Murád Páshá, was thus informed how matters
stood, he answered the royal firmán in the following terms: “Sire,
you have been pleased to order me to winter at Erzerúm and in the
spring to march against the Persians. What is to be done? It is the
will of my sovereign. Your slave is now a weak old man of ninety
years of age; but I trust I shall fall a martyr in the field of battle.
When I march against the sháh of Persia, the armed rebels, who
now lurk in their hiding-places, will then find an opportunity of again
becoming troublesome. They are waiting for a chance of this kind,
especially Meseli Chávush, Aydin, and Yúsuf of Sarúkhán, besides
several others of the same description. Should what I have now
hinted be realized, and they again commence the work of violence
and mischief, will you not, in that case, have to send hither from
Romeili another commander-in-chief? Leave us, if you please, where
we are. The master of the work knows his own duty best. Do not
you follow the counsels of those sycophants who surround you.
Permit us to eradicate the enemies amongst ourselves first, and then
we shall direct our movements against the kingdom of Persia.” This
answer was sent back to the emperor by means of the persons who
had brought him the royal firmán, whilst he himself made
preparations for returning to Constantinople.
On the 9th of Ramazán he arrived at Scutari, and on the following
day, with a splendid retinue and four hundred standards taken from
the rebels, each of which bore, in bright letters, the names of the
rebel-chiefs under whom it had been carried, he passed over to the
metropolis, dressed himself in a double suit of fine robes, put a
turban ornamented with feathers on his head, and went into the
emperor’s presence to do obeisance before him. The emperor was in
a short time convinced of the worth and dignity of his general’s
talents and general conduct, and immediately ordered splendid
robes, such as were suitable to the imperial grandeur to confer, to
be given to Murád Páshá. The public in general, poets and
historians, spoke of him in the most laudatory manner.
It is not to be concealed that, from the day the celebrated Murád
Páshá passed over to Scutari, as commander-in-chief of the eastern
forces, the services which he had rendered to his sovereign and
country were immense. Thirty thousand, at least, of those rebels
who had served under Jánbulát Oghlí, Kalander Oghlí, and Túyel,
including those who had been murdered by the peasantry, perished
by his means. What may have been the number of those who
perished otherwise, is not known. In villages, and in small towns,
sometimes from a hundred to a thousand, and even as many as
three thousand of the rebels who had fortified themselves within
them, were all slain with the sword. Forty-eight principal rebel chiefs
and twenty-five thousand rebels are said to have perished in flight.
In the Register of Tokat it is inserted, that by far the greater part of
these numbers, whose heads had been made to roll on the ground
in front of the serdár’s pavilion, had been rooted out by Murád
Páshá’s troops. To these now mentioned may be added about thirty
thousand more who had been seized alive and executed, and the
number of rebels who perished in this war could not have been less
than 100,000 souls.
The enemies of the grand vezír and commander-in-chief, Murád
Páshá, when they saw the honours which had been heaped upon
him, were not only exceedingly grieved, but their hatred and
malignity increased and led them, moreover, to employ villainous
means to ruin him. They insinuated, for instance, that Murád had
seized on all Jánbulát Oghlí’s treasures and effects which had
remained with his wife and children at Aleppo; and for the truth of
this charge they appealed to some of Jánbulát Oghlí’s sons, whom
Murád Páshá had sent to the royal haram. They, of course, were his
enemies, and had the hardihood to assert that the treasurer, Bákí
Páshá, had spent six whole months in selling and disposing of their
father’s property. This was a vile exaggeration. It happened,
however, that one day, when Bákí Páshá was sitting in the diván, the
ághá of the janissaries received a royal firmán ordering him to
convey Bákí Páshá to the Seven Towers. The ághá, without Murád
Páshá’s knowing any thing of the matter, proceeded to the diván,
seized on Bákí Páshá, and conveyed him in a boat to the prison
above-mentioned. This took place on a Tuesday; and after the vezírs
had entered into the royal audience he addressed them thus: “I
have ordered Bákí Páshá to the Seven Towers; let Ahmed Páshá (i.
e. Etmekjí Zádeh) be reinstated into the office of lord high treasurer,
and let Bákí Páshá be examined with respect to Jánbúlát Oghlí’s
property, that we may know what he has done with it: also let the
strictest enquiry be made of Murád Páshá.” “Why,” replied Murád
Páshá, “having been anxious to preserve the most valuable and most
precious of Jánbúlát Oghlí’s effects for your royal majesty, I
prevented them from being sold; and brought them along with me,
to be delivered over to your royal majesty. Let Bákí Páshá answer for
the rest.” The new lord high-treasurer, Ahmed Páshá, on examining
his predecessor in office with regard to this matter, was undauntedly
informed that he (i. e. Bákí Páshá), with the exception of the articles
which Murád Páshá had claimed for his royal majesty, had disposed
of the rest for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the war. No
more was said about it; and Bákí Páshá, after having lain forty days
in the Seven Towers, was set at liberty. He passed the winter at
Constantinople, and was employed in making arrangements for
commencing a new campaign in the spring.
The lord high-admiral, Háfiz Páshá, after having cruized along the
shores of Romeili, sailed to the port of Alexandria, took in the taxes
which had been gathered in Egypt, and returned to Istámbol. The
government of Syria was conferred on him, and the admiralship on
Khalíl Aghá, ághá of the janissaries. The ágháship of the janissaries
was conferred on Mohammed Aghá, Spáhí Zádeh, of the artillery
department.
Concerning Mohammed Páshá in Egypt.

After the murder of Ibrahím Páshá in Egypt, in the year 1012, the
disturbance in that country became every day more and more
serious and alarming; but by the prudent and efficient measures
employed by Gúrjí Mohammed Páshá, who, in 1016, was sent thither
to quell the tumults which had been raised there, they were to a
considerable extent allayed. He slew a vast number of the
insurgents; whilst, at the same time, he brought the others for the
most part, under subjection, at least to all appearance. But
Mohammed Páshá having been succeeded in office by Hasan Páshá,
from Yemen, a man of extraordinary mildness, the insurgents,
subdued though not crushed, were again emboldened to rise in
rebellion, and to commit outrages more terrible than they had
formerly been guilty of.
The origin of the evil just now alluded to seems to have been this.
The válís or governors who had been sent to Egypt, made it a first
principle to press heavy upon the inspectors of taxes, by forcing
them to advance large sums of money, taking from some ten
thousand, from others twenty thousand, and from others forty
thousand ducats, according to circumstances, and only on payment
of these enormous sums were they confirmed in their office. These
inspectors and those others employed in raising the taxes or revenue
were, from this circumstance, necessarily constrained to lay such
heavy duties upon the inhabitants, to enable them to meet the
demands of the válí, as were far beyond what was necessary, or
they were well able to pay. The inspectors and revenue officers too,
in order to meet their own extravagance and dissipation, made the
burdens of the people still more intolerable and grievous. In short, to
so high a pitch did they carry this system of taxation, that the
wretched inhabitants, not any longer able to endure it, rose in
rebellion, and determined, at all hazards, to resist an oppression
which they evidently foresaw would utterly ruin them.
This was the state in which the country was involved when
Mohammed Páshá entered upon the government of Egypt. He, very
properly, set himself, at once, to correct abuses and to punish
offenders. The money which came into the hands of the collectors,
and which usually amounted to more than one hundred thousand
ducats per annum, he, by a wise regulation, prevented from being
subject to any deductions whatever. He also made a new regulation,
by which the tax-gatherers were, in future, to be guided. Without
the consent and approbation of the diván of Mesir, they were to
impose no tax whatever, nor to advance, unnecessarily, money to
the inspectors. In the third place, he confirmed in their situations
those inspectors and tax-gatherers who had acted with moderation;
but such of these classes as had been convicted of extortions and
injustice, he caused to be seized: some of them he dismissed with
contempt and ignominy, and others he sent out of the world
altogether.
By these methods he soon established confidence in his
administration, and all classes of the people seemed satisfied with
the arrangements which he adopted. The want of confidence, and
unhappy tumults, which the injustice and oppression to which we
have adverted had occasioned in Egypt, were happily, by his means,
removed. In short, to so great a degree were peace and security
every where established, that the weakest and most timorous could
travel to and from Grand Cairo with the greatest safety. By his
wisdom and prudence he gained the concurrence and good will of
the chief men among the people, as well as of the officers belonging
to the Chávushes, cavalry and janissaries, as well as of the city-
guards or militia. And, in order to do away with all grounds of
discontent and opposition, he called a general meeting, at which the
whole of the nobles, princes, inspectors, revenue-officers, and six
companies of feudatory troops were present; to whom, in the most
earnest manner, he expressed himself thus: “His majesty is by no
means disposed to permit tyranny and oppression to exist anywhere
within his dominions. Ever since the moment that I, his servant,
came into possession of this government, to which I was preferred,
it has been my study, in obedience to his will, to remove oppression,
tyranny, and injustice; and to afford peace, safety, and happiness to
the people in the different departments in Egypt. This is in
accordance with the express wish of his majesty, who is every way
opposed to injustice and oppression, as well as to every kind of
invasion of the rights and privileges of the people. In confirmation of
this, I need only repeat to you his own words.” Here he produced
the emperor’s commission, which he caused to be read aloud, and
which ran thus: “Behold, we have relieved you from those burdens
which the governors, revenue-officers, and other functionaries, have
been in the habit of imposing on you; it is, therefore, the duty of the
people to break off all friendly intercourse with those persons who
have been convicted of such base practices.” The whole of the
assembled multitude, on hearing the emperor’s sentiments read to
them, expressed, in return, their best wishes for his well-being.
Those in this assembly who had been in the habit of acting corruptly
were, for their own sakes, silent and assumed the appearance of
being content; but it was only because they were unable to effect
any opposition. Such, however, was the general impression made on
this occasion on the mind of the people, particularly by the mildness
and meekness manifested by the vezír, that they remained, for a
time, afterwards quiet; but the peace was not of long duration. The
mercenary tribe who had been deprived of the power of exercising
tyranny and injustice on the people, collected together, and falling
on those persons who had succeeded them in the revenue
department, slew them without mercy. Determined on further
resistance to the new arrangements, they entered into a sort of
confederacy, whereby they bound themselves not to desist from
their demands until they had obtained acquiescence in them.
Information of these things having been communicated to the vezír,
he instantly called together his great men, and represented to them
the state of matters with respect to those desperadoes who had just
been guilty of shedding innocent blood, and now had formed
themselves into a confederacy in opposition to the will of the
emperor. Therefore, said he, let the whole of them be collected into
the maidán or square, in order that the thing may be properly
investigated. This was accordingly done. On the same occasion, also,
the various troops were brought into the maidán and formed into
companies in front of the fortress immediately opposite to the
refractory multitude. The Páshá intimated to the latter that
whosoever among them wished to be obedient to the emperor,
should pass over to the side where his military stood, and join
himself to one or other of his divisions or companies. The
confederates cried out, that they were not rebels: that they
deprecated the idea of being unfaithful to the emperor. “Our wages,”
continued they, “not having been sufficient to maintain our
existence, we could not have lived, unless we had imposed extra
contributions on the people: our actual poverty was the cause.” The
Páshá, not satisfied with these declarations (altogether foreign to the
purpose for which they had been assembled), and wishing to find
out the secret of their confederacy, as well as a confession of their
guilt, thought that if he permitted them, now that they were fully in
his power, to retire to their own homes, he could not so easily,
afterwards, effect his purpose, nor secure the ringleaders amongst
them; he therefore told them, that though he should keep them all
night standing on their feet where they were, he would not let them
move a step till they delivered up to him their ringleaders. He then
ordered the guns on the batteries to be directed against them, and
assured them that their destruction was inevitable if they did not
instantly comply with his wishes. This method of dealing had the
desired effect. After hearing the Páshá’s speech, wherein he
pointedly informed them that unless they gave up the principal
ringleaders, and especially those amongst them who had been guilty
of the late murders, the cannon and musketry would open a fire
upon them without delay; and seeing preparations for carrying his
threat into effect, and that it only awaited the páshá’s command,
their danger became too apparent to admit of disguise. They were
astonished by the situation in which they were placed, and delivered
over a certain number from amongst them to the páshá, and
afterwards retired, but full of rage and fury.
After these different commotions and disturbances, and during this
present year, a certain number of Egyptian troops were ordered to
be sent to the aid of his excellency, the commander-in-chief, Murád
Páshá, in Anatolia. Mohammed Páshá, on receiving the above
firmán, selected the number required from among the most
turbulent and disorderly of the tribe of tax-gatherers20 we have been
speaking of, and sent them off under the command of Kansú Beg.
During the whole of the struggle carried on with Kalandar Oghlí they
manifested the utmost bravery, and were present in almost every
engagement till the end of the war, or at least till the rebels were all
dispersed. At this period they presented themselves before the
commanding-general, and demanded, as the reward of their
services, the office of collecting the revenues of Egypt. Murád,
anxious to satisfy them, gave them a document by which he put
them in possession of the places they wanted, but with no
enlargement of powers or authority beyond what were customary
from ancient times. On the return of these military tax-gatherers to
Egypt they presented the document which Murád Páshá had given to
them to Mohammed Páshá, who told them they should be rewarded
for their services according to circumstances. “Such of them,” he
said, “as had no experience or skill, could not expect the favour they
wished. Besides,” continued he, “your wishes are directly opposed to
the declared will of the emperor, who, by his firmán, has abolished
the practice altogether.” When these ignorant and insolent fellows
found themselves thus thwarted in their views and purposes they
became exceedingly enraged, began to form plots amongst
themselves, and communicated their wicked designs to all the
discontented paupers and robbers throughout the country. They
craftily enticed the discontented about Aradel, always famous for
disloyalty, to join them; they likewise gained over some Kurds and
some wretched labourers by promises of money. All these
malcontents found means, some way or other, to assemble together
at a place called Khánegáh, within two stages of Cairo.
The páshá, hearing of their movements, and being fully aware of the
object they had in view, ordered Khoaja Mustafa Beg to advance
with a number of troops of various kinds to oppose them. Yúsuf Beg
commanded his advance-guard, and Kansú Beg, collector of the
revenue, with all those under him, joined the expedition. Mustafa
Beg pitched his camp in the plains of Adeleya, not far from Cairo.
The malcontents by this time had themselves properly and regularly
organized, and had appointed themselves leaders. No sooner did
they hear of an army being sent against them, and of the place
where it was encamped, than they, towards evening, sent two
hundred horsemen to reconnoiter the camp of Mustafa. Mustafa
conjectured this party had the intention of attacking him by night,
and not having sufficient force to sustain an attack, he sent word
immediately to Egypt, which however did not reach that city till
about the fifth hour of the night, when the several public criers
announced the danger which threatened Mustafa, calling, at the
same time, on every one, on pain of punishment, to rally round their
commanders. So promptly was this announcement attended to, that
before daylight every military man in Egypt was on his way to
Adeleya. On reaching Adeleya they perceived the danger which had
been announced in Egypt was by no means an imaginary one. The
royalists, in the circumstances in which they found themselves at this
juncture of events, thought it would be most advisable to send the
six-fingered sheikh, Mohammed Effendí, to speak to the insurgents
about the unreasonableness of their conduct; but the rebels turned
a deaf ear to all his exhortations and expostulations. They were too
sensible of their advantages, and too ardent in pursuit of them, to
attend to the worthy priest. He tendered them many good advices,
and made them many fine promises, provided they would follow his
counsels; but they still remained obstinate, and prepared for battle.
The commander, after this fruitless negotiation, removed with his
troops to Berkat a l’haj, where he remained till the following day,
when he marched against the insurgents. They, in their turn,
advanced towards him, and soon both armies stood facing each
other. By this time, however, the royalists were greatly increased in
numbers by detachments which had joined them from other places;
and when the insurgents found themselves opposed by an army far
superior to every thing they had anticipated, their courage failed
them. They now began mutually to accuse each other for the steps
they had taken, each one blaming his neighbour; and at length
several of them came to the commander, craving forgiveness. In the
most abject manner, they dismounted from their horses, and threw
themselves on the ground, supplicating for mercy at his hands. The
commander, Mustafa Beg, said he had it not in his power to grant it
them, as he should be obliged to carry them all, bound in chains, to
Mohammed Páshá, whose province it was both to forgive and set
them at liberty, as he pleased. Those who thus submitted, however,
met with clemency, and were incorporated with one or other of the
military bodies brought against them; but such as remained
obstinate, and chose rather to try their strength than submit, met
with the fate they deserved: their dead bodies were made into
heaps on the field of battle. About forty of them escaped into the
desert, but of their life or death nothing more was ever heard.
Mustafa Beg now returned to Cairo, bringing with him about forty or
fifty of the principal leaders in chains, and presented them before
the válí, Mohammed Páshá, as trophies of his victory. Mustafa was
highly honoured on account of his success against the insurgents,
and the heads of those whom he brought bound in chains were
ordered to be cut off on the spot. About as many as were thus put
to death were killed by Mustafa himself before he left the scene of
action. About three hundred of the insurgents were shipped off at
Suez, and sent into Arabia, and the rest of them were, through the
intervention of the great men of Egypt, pardoned, and set at liberty,
after having promised in the presence of their intercessors every
thing that was required of them.
After succeeding in crushing the insurgents, as above described, and
establishing good order everywhere, Mohammed Páshá extended his
prudent and capacious mind to every department of government, as
well as to other objects of utility. One of his measures was,
regulating the coin of Egypt, which had been very much worn and
obliterated, and which of course had caused much confusion, and
even deception in buying and selling. Another was, rectifying the
abuses and unlawful practices carried on between the farmers and
the tax-gatherers, which had occasioned, not unfrequently, a
deficiency in the public granaries and magazines. A third was—The
janissaries and other troops in Egypt having no barracks, and being
besides unmarried, he erected, within the fortress, suitable odás for
them to live in. By this means the garrison or fortress was always
furnished with troops, whilst the inhabitants, at the same time, were
screened from the violence of the soldiery. A fourth was—He took
charge of the golden and silver girdles or hoops which had been
made for defending the pillars of Mecca, and the cistern of pure
gold, all which had been sent to Egypt from Constantinople, and
forwarded them with proper artists to the place of their destination.
These artists not only performed that work without either fee or
reward, but rendered several other important services to that holy
place. For instance, they enlarged and renewed the pulpit, which
was formerly too narrow; they renewed the portico which runs along
the cistern; they beautified and adorned the pillars in the centre of
that noble edifice, and also its walls; the metaf (or the place round
which pilgrims walked in procession) was rendered smooth and
equal; they repaired or built anew the court, and carried away the
whole of the rubbish and dirt which had for years been accumulating
in the vicinity of the sacred temple; they also caused the beds or
canals of the waters of Mecca and Arfat to be repaired. A fifth was—
The repairs of the wells of Azlam, a place which was about half-way
between Mecca and Cairo, where the pilgrims and the well-furnished
caravans of Egypt used to meet, which were in a great measure
rendered useless by the rebellious Arabs. It would appear that the
válí of Egypt, Sheríf Páshá, had, in 1004, opened these wells,
commonly called the wells of Ibrahím Páshá, and to prevent their
being rendered useless by the Arabs, he built a fortress in their
neighbourhood, and placed some few troops in it. This, of course,
proved a source of great comfort to pilgrims and other travellers,
inasmuch as it served as a place of refreshment and repose. A very
heavy rain afterwards demolished this fortress, and the Arabs, to the
annoyance of pilgrims, rendered the wells useless. The vezír, whose
good deeds we are here recording, rebuilt the demolished fortress,
put a garrison in it, and repaired the wells. The sixth was—A work
similar to the one we have last mentioned, which he caused to be
constructed at Adjerú, between Cairo and Akba. A seventh was—The
erection of shops in the vicinity of the great temple in Cairo. The
eighth was—The erection of a khánegáh (an edifice for religious
purposes), and also of eleemosinary places for sheíkhs, dervishes,
and others. On the annual commemoration of Mohammed’s nativity
he distributed numerous presents amongst those who read on that
occasion. A ninth was—The erection of new houses near the odás
which had been built for the janissaries; a huge wall or mass of rock,
forty cubits broad and sixty long, having fallen down by accident, the
space which these ruins had occupied he caused to be cleared away,
erected new houses on it, and filled them with families. A tenth was
—The rebuilding of the redoubt or fortress between Cairo and Shám.
This building having been demolished by heavy rains, and having
also become the haunt of worthless Arabs, he ordered it to be
rebuilt, and supplied it with water. An eleventh was—The rebuilding
of the fortress or redoubt of Yúnus, which was in a similar condition
to the one last mentioned. He also placed a number of paid soldiers
in it, and ordered a mosque and a bath to be erected in it. A twelfth
was—The rebuilding of the fortress of Beít Khaberín, between Gaza
and Balad al Khalíl-rahman; on which also he ordered a mosque and
a bath to be erected, and an aqueduct to be constructed. The
painted tiles in the dome erected by Sultán Soleímán Khán having
become mutilated and loose, he replaced them with new tiles.
This wonderful man, after having governed Egypt for four years and
five months, was recalled to Constantinople. Whether at Cairo or
journeying, he was in the habit of visiting holy and consecrated
places, and of offering up prayers for the emperor; thus gaining to
himself advantages in both worlds. After his return to
Constantinople, Jouher Khán Sultána, daughter of the grand sultán,
thought him worthy of her affections, and the result was that he
became the emperor’s son-in-law.
The articles of the treaty of peace between Turkey and Austria,
which may be called the treaty of Sidova, was finally ratified and
signed by the Ottoman emperor on the 1st of Rajab in this year.
A great earthquake.
The fortress or city of Nova, situate on the sea-coast, belonging to
the dominions of the archduke (of Austria), was visited by a
tremendous earthquake, which almost entirely overthrew it. Forty-
four yúks,21 the average of the receipt of its custom-house, were
expended in erecting a new one. A magazine of salt, which stood on
the shore, and near the custom-house, and which brought a revenue
of four or five yúks per annum, sustained considerable injury by the
shock, inasmuch as it caused the sea to retire to the distance of
about a bow-shot.
A Spanish fleet of about thirty ships approached within three miles
of this city, either about the time of the earthquake, or some time
either after or before it, with hostile intentions. The governor of that
sanják happened to be at that very time engaged in the war in
Transylvania; but the defterdár of Bosnia hastened to the aid of
Nova, and commenced firing its cannon, when the Spaniards
disgracefully retired.
EVENTS of the Year 1018, H.
The grand vezír and commander-in-chief, Murád Páshá, is again sent

to the East.
We have already mentioned the return of Murád Páshá to
Constantinople, and the reception he there met with. Every
preparation for resuming warlike operations in the east was carried
on, during the winter months, with the utmost activity and vigour,
and early in the spring the pavilion of the commanding-general was
again erected in the plains of Scutari. Before this, however, it is to be
observed, that the commander-in-chief wrote to Meseli Chávush,
who had taken part in the late rebellion in Anatolia, but who had not
yet been subdued, to hold himself in readiness for acting under him
against the Persians, and desired him to join the royal camp along
with Zulfekár. In the communication he sent Meseli he promised,
though only with the view of getting him into his own hands, to
confer on him the government of Caramania, and that he would
bestow that of Anatolia on Zulfekár. In a private letter to Zulfekár,
however, he expressed himself thus: “I have employed every method
I could to get Meseli Chávush into my power, but have hitherto
failed. Having secured himself among inaccessible rocks, I did not
think it proper to risk troops in searching him out. Under the pretext
of esteem for him, a sanják in the interior has been conferred on
him, and I have written to him to join the army destined against
Persia, and have promised him the government of Caramania to
induce him to do so. Use what dissimulation you can, and perhaps
you may succeed in getting him into your power. The love of office
will induce him to come to you. Remove all his suspicions by
showing him every mark of respect; you will thus secure his
confidence, and incline him to come and join the grand army. You
are not to permit him to do this, however, but as soon as you have
him in your power, cut off his head and send it to Constantinople. If
you succeed in compassing his destruction, I promise to give you the
government of Anatolia, and also a vezírship, as a reward for your
services. You will, if you succeed, do the emperor a very important
service, who will, besides the honour which shall be conferred on
you, present your son, Mohammed Beg, with a province in the
interior. You will act, I have no doubt, like a man: I have committed
the whole affair to you.”
In a similar way to that in which he addressed Meseli he also wrote
to Yúsuf Páshá, who had been ketkhodá to Oveis Páshá of Aydin,
Sarúkhán, and Mantesha. This Yúsuf Páshá was at the head of a
body of rebels which amounted to four thousand armed men, beside
some cavalry. The letter which Murád Páshá sent to this rebel-chief
was couched in these terms: “My son, I have heard of some of your
virtues and high talents, which I esteem very much. Although you
have such a considerable number of men under you, yet no rumour
of any injustice practised by you is any where heard. The reverse of
injustice in you must be the case. Still, however innocent though you
appear to be, you are considered a rebel; free yourself, then, if you
are a man, from the odious imputation. You are a person every way
fit for taking part in the war against the Persians: it may even be
proper to give you the command of troops for this purpose. If you
show that you have regretted your former conduct, you may depend
on obtaining the emperor’s favour. Those men who have rebelled
against the benign Ottoman government have met with no pity.
Jánbulát Oghlí, Kalander Oghlí, and Karah Seyed, were the most
conspicuous of rebels; but what is become of them? Attend to my
counsel, and be my son here and hereafter (i.e. in both worlds). In
order to persuade you to do so, I swear, in the most solemn manner,
that you shall suffer no injury whatever from our most gracious
monarch. I, an old, frail man, am ordered to march against the
Persians, and I ask you to accompany me. You may, perhaps, chance
to acquire great wealth, and at all events you will be put in
possession of Magnesia: you will thus have an opportunity of
acquitting yourself in the eye of the emperor, and securing his
favour. If, in rejecting the counsel I have now tendered to you, you
decline going to the Persian war, then I am free of the oath I have
made to you. I need not say any thing more to you. You are safe if
you come to Scutari. There you can remain a few days and look
about you, when afterwards you shall have the honour, along with
me, of kissing the emperor’s hand. Come to what conclusion you
think best, but remember what will be the result if you now neglect
to follow my advice. Answer this letter at any rate.”
When this letter reached Yúsuf Páshá, he called his friends together
and read the contents of it in their hearing. “Why,” said his rebel-
associates, “whoever may be so foolish as to give credit to the vain
and deceitful words of this letter, will find, to his experience, that he
will have to part with his precious life. It is altogether preposterous
to put any faith in that old man’s oath. In answer to the question,
‘whether we shall be able to stand our own ground, should he, when
he finds us obstinate, come against us?’ we would shortly say,
‘Anatolia is a wide country, and we have no necessity to meet him;
let us go to some distance out of his way. The winter will soon
arrive, and he and his army will then be obliged to retire into winter-
quarters, when we may rest in safety.’” Others replied, “That a
decree affecting their life might, in the event of proving obstinate, be
issued against them, when the whole country would rise up to be
revenged on them. Better,” said they, “that we agree to follow the
advice given in the letter from the commanding-general, and return
to our obedience. Let us, however, use every precaution: he cannot
kill us before our time come. What a terrible rebel was Zulfekár
once, and he did not kill him! He called him his son. Turkijeh Bilmaz
Hasan and others after the days of Karah Yazijí (Scrivano) were not
trampled under foot and murdered. Was not Tekelí Mohammed
Páshá a notorious rebel? and when he fell into his hands he did not
murder him.” Such was the way these wise men reasoned among
themselves, and at last agreed to send the following answer: “You
have invited us to come to you, and we are no way disposed to
resist your will. Your oath has inspired us with confidence, and as
soon as your excellency arrives at Scutari we shall show you our
sincerity.” This answer was sent with the person who had brought
Murád Páshá’s communication to Yúsuf Páshá, as before mentioned.
We must now return to Murád’s own operations. After having
transported his troops and baggage to the Asiatic side, he took up
his lodgings in his own pavilion, which had been previously erected
for him. The emperor himself also visited the city of Scutari, and
took up his residence in the gardens of that city, whither his council
was summoned to attend. His vezír (Murád) told him it was not the
custom of his illustrious progenitors to do so: that Istámbol was the
place where a council should properly be held. “Gúrjí Mohammed
Páshá,” continued his vezír, “is káímakám, let him attend to the
affairs of the faithful. As soon as the lord high treasurer, Ahmed
Páshá, settles the pecuniary affairs of his department let him come
over, when I shall hand in to your majesty a report how matters
stand.” This advice of the vezír pleased his majesty, at least it
appeared to do so, for he did not urge the meeting of his council any
more. Not long afterwards, however, the emperor wrote to Murád to
hasten his departure for the Persian war, and to delay no longer.
Murád Páshá, on receiving this imperial notice, waited on his
majesty, and said, he had something particular to say to him. They
both retired into a private apartment, when the grand vezír
addressed him thus, premising, however, that what he had to say to
him must be kept a secret, which the other faithfully promised to
observe. “Be it known, therefore, to your majesty,” said the premier,
“that though we have been ostensibly engaged in preparing for the
Persian war, it has been, in fact, for a different object that we have
been so engaged. The notorious rebel, Meseli Chávush, is in
possession of six or seven fortresses or places of strength in the
mountainous part of Anatolia. It would not be safe to send an army
into the mountains after him, because by hurling down stones he
might destroy numbers of our orthodox believers”—here he related
the steps he had taken in writing to Meseli. The asylum of the world
appeared surprised, and asked him if he was capable of murdering a
person who, in the faith of his promises, put himself in his power?
His excellency, the grand vezír, replied: “If, in obedience to your
orders, we march against Persia, how will you act with the rebel-
chief of Aydin and Sarúkhán, Yúsuf Páshá?” “By God,” said his
majesty, “you have remarked well; that rebel had totally escaped my
memory; his case has not been attended to.” The grand vezír then
informed him of the steps he had pursued with regard to him, and of
the result, which we need not again repeat, and added: “if these two
notorious rebels are once in our power, the whole of the province of
Anatolia will not only be regained, but peace and tranquillity will also
be restored. Let your majesty keep what I have been saying to you a
perfect secret: let nothing of it transpire.” His majesty ejaculated a
short prayer, wished him God-speed, and dismissed him.
Yúsuf Páshá arrives at Scutari.

About a month after the grand vezír had the above interview with
the emperor, Yúsuf Páshá’s followers arrived at Scutari, and he
himself in three days after them, when he ordered them to erect
their tents. The grand vezír showed him every mark of esteem and
friendship, and permitted him, when he appeared in his presence, to
be seated at his side. “Be my son,” said the vezír, “here and
hereafter,” presented him with a double suit of robes, and ordered
robes to be given to a hundred of his men. A few days afterwards he
presented him to his majesty, to whom Yúsuf had brought some
very important and valuable presents; and on this occasion he was
honoured with another robe from his sovereign.
About this time, the grand vezír, Murád Páshá, received an answer to
his communication to Zulfekár, which informed him that Meseli
Chávush had arrived. The vezír wrote back to assure him that he
would not fail in his promises, and urged him to do the work
assigned him. Another month passed away, and Yúsuf Páshá
became impatient to be employed against the Persians, for whose
wealth and property he thirsted. The grand vezír, however, found
means to put him off from day to day, for Meseli was not yet
disposed of, and on this, in a great measure, his own fate depended.
In the mean time, in consequence of some representation made to
the emperor from some quarter or other, Murád Páshá was again
ordered to set out on his march to the frontiers of Persia, and that
too without delay, unless he wished another to supersede him in the
chief command. This order was peremptory; within the space of
three days he must be on his march. The grand vezír, on receiving
this intimation, again waited on his majesty and said to him, “Sire,
your slave explained to your majesty how matters stood, the last
time I had the honour of speaking with you: it certainly must have
escaped your blessed memory.” “No, by no means,” answered his
majesty, “I have perfect recollection of it; nor have I intimated a
syllable of it to any one.” “Why,” replied the vezír, “if you approved of
what I at that time proposed to your majesty, wherefore is it that
you have ordered me to march? We have Yúsuf Páshá in our power.
If we despatch him just now, Mesli Chávush will, when he hears of
it, make his escape from Zulfekár, and become more formidable than
ever: it will be no easy matter to get hold of him again. As soon as
we set out for the Persian campaign, he will come and attack
Scutari. Pay no regard, sire, to the speeches of your cazís, for they
are unacquainted with the state of matters; they will be brought to
understand things better afterwards. Leave me to act as I think
proper.” The emperor was again overcome by the reasoning of his
vezír, and left him to do as he thought best, and dismissed him.
Mesli Chávush and Yúsuf Páshá are murdered.

Mesli Chávush, who had joined Zulfekár, lived with the latter on
terms of apparent intimacy and friendship, but which, on the part of
Zulfekár, could not have been sincere, whatever he might have
manifested to the contrary. His apparent friendship had the effect he
wished, and that was to disarm Mesli of all fear and suspicion as to
his own safety.
One day he proposed that both should pay a visit in company to the
country or sanják which had been promised to Mesli, to which Mesli
agreed. On this journey they spent a month: they went from
Iconium to Larenda, and visited the fortresses of Mút, Mirah, Kúnis,
and Tumrak, each of which was so impregnably situated among
rocks, that an Osmánlí army would have found it next to impossible
to reduce it. Such were the places which Mesli commanded, and
which had rendered him formidable to the Osmánlí government.
After an excursion of one and twenty days of pleasure they returned
to Iconium, whence, in a day or two afterwards, they went to Miram,
having taken their respective followers and equipages along with
them. Here also they went about together in the greatest apparent
friendship, visited together the different spectacles which were to be
seen there, and went together to the different places of amusement.
Zulfekár was seeking all this while a fit opportunity for accomplishing
Murád Páshá’s wishes, and it was not long before such an
opportunity offered itself. Mesli was sitting one day with a turban or
tiara on his head, and like a prince was enjoying his pleasures,
without fear or suspicion of any thing, when some of the men of his
ostensible friend, who had been previously instructed how to act, fell
upon him and despatched him. One of these came secretly behind
him, and secured his head in a sort of noose with one hand, and
with the other stabbed him with his dagger. The rest of the
assassins, when they saw the struggle which ensued, came hastily
forward, and after strangling him, cut off his head. Whatever
valuables were found in his possession were seized by Murád’s
lieutenant, for the purpose of being afterwards confiscated. Zulfekár
Páshá and the defterdár of Caramania, Yúnus Effendí, went to take
an account of the property he possessed in the fortresses which he
had taken; and his head, under the charge of ten men, was sent off
to Scutari, to Murád Páshá. The men who had the charge of Mesli’s
head reached the place of their destination in five days, and
communicated secretly to the grand vezír the purport of their visit to
Scutari. He immediately waited on the emperor and communicated
to him the news of the fate of Mesli; and added, that the head of the
rebel Yúsuf Páshá would not be much longer on his shoulders. We
ought to have mentioned, however, that the head of Mesli was, after
having been fixed on the point of a spear and carried publicly
through the camp, placed before the grand vezír’s tent. When the
grand vezír announced to his majesty, that the head of a formidable
enemy had been brought into the camp, and as we have already
observed, that the head of Yúsuf Páshá would not remain long on
his shoulders, he started up from his sofa in surprise, and said “May
God, my dear father, reward you for your many services to me,” and
desired him to do as he thought fit.
On the following morning he sent a messenger to invite Yúsuf Páshá
to come and take a cup of coffee with him. The messenger, whilst on
his way, met Yúsuf Páshá, and delivering to him the invitation,
conducted him to the vezír’s tent. On going into the tent his
excellency addressed him in the most gracious and flattering terms,
calling him his son, and so forth. “How could I drink my coffee
without you, my son: you know how much I esteem you; come, let
us retire to the back part of the tent, where we shall not be
disturbed, and where we shall be at liberty to converse with more
freedom. God willing, you shall have permission tomorrow to march
against the Kizilbáshes.” After sitting down, and just as one of the
domestics was handing Yúsuf a cup of coffee, and before he had
time to lay hold of it, an officer announced to his lordship, Murád
Páshá, that Hasan Beg, beg of Avlonia, had arrived. His lordship
affected surprise, and said, it was a hard case to be so much
oppressed with business as to have no time to enjoy himself for a
few moments. “But there is no help for it,” said he; “I must step out
for a little, but do you, sir,” (addressing Yúsuf Páshá) “make yourself
comfortable.” The grand vezír no sooner went out of the tent, than
he desired three or four of his officers to enter the tent and take a
dish of coffee with his son Yúsuf Páshá. These men accomplished
the vezír’s wishes. As the unfortunate Yúsuf Páshá was in the act of
receiving a cup of coffee into his hand, he was tripped up by one of
these assassins, when the rest, pouncing upon him, cut off his head,
and placed it on a table. On the vezír’s re-entering, he ordered his
body to be thrown out, and sent word to the defterdár to seize on
the whole of his property. When some of the soldiery heard of the
fate of Yúsuf Páshá, they ran into his tent and seized on all the spoil
they could find in it. Yúsuf Páshá’s deputy and some of his principal
followers were also put to death, and the rest of his associates fled.
After these things, the grand vezír waited on his majesty and
informed him of what had taken place. “Let this suffice,” said the
vezír; “we need now proceed no farther. Even here, at Scutari, your
majesty has been avenged on two of your most formidable enemies,
to each of whom great forbearance has been shown. The province
of Anatolia will now enjoy peace and quietness, and now the war
with Persia may again be renewed.” The emperor bestowed great
praise on his vezír: the whole of the property that belonged to Yúsuf
Páshá’s followers, who had been put to death, was ordered to be
confiscated; the beasts of burden, and several packages of valuable
articles which had belonged to his lieutenant, or which were in his
possession, were all sent over to the tulip-garden in Constantinople.
The whole of the articles which had belonged to the rebels were
afterwards sold, and the price of them put into the imperial coffers.
The head of Mesli and the body of Yúsuf Páshá remained exposed
for two days in the Maidán. The sanják which had been promised to
Mesli was conferred on Mohammed Beg, son of Zulfekár.
Treachery in some of the grand vezír’s domestics discovered.

The grand vezír, Murád Páshá, had also premeditated the death of
the lord high treasurer, Ahmed Páshá, usually called Etmekjí Zádeh,
and, with this view, asked the emperor’s consent to assassinate him.
The emperor, though very reluctantly, yielded to the wish of his vezír,
who immediately gave directions to his domestics and officers how
to act in this matter when Ahmed Páshá, who was then expected
from Constantinople, should arrive. He placed a sentinel on the
shore, who, so soon as he saw Ahmed Páshá arrive, was to give him
notice: the executioners put themselves in readiness. It was not long
before the sentinel above-mentioned announced the approach of
Ahmed Páshá; and informed Murád, that at the moment he was
stepping on shore, a young man came sailing up to him in a boat,
and put a sealed note into his hand. Ahmed Páshá no sooner read
the contents of this note, the sentinel said, than he immediately
sailed back for Constantinople. This information necessarily
awakened surprise and doubt in the mind of the grand vezír, who
secretly set about employing persons to find out the boatman who
had been commissioned to convey the bearer of the note. The
boatman, on his discovery, related to the grand vezír all the
particulars as to the manner in which he had been hired, and the
trouble he had endured before he met with Ahmed Páshá at the pier.
The vezír asked him if he thought he should be able to recognize the
young man who had delivered the note to Ahmed Páshá, and whose
dress he had already described. He replied in the affirmative:
stating, that he, the young man, on delivering the note, had gone
directly towards the camp. The vezír immediately caused the
boatman to change his clothes, and despatched him, with some of
his officers, to the camp, to commence the search. The whole camp,
from tent to tent, was minutely examined for several days without
success, when a mere accident discovered the delinquent. Two of
the vezír’s domestics had fallen into a violent dispute, in which they
mutually accused each other of treachery to their master. The
treasurer, Hasan Aghá, overheard them, and resolved to chastise
them; when one of them whispered something into his ear. This
induced the treasurer to conduct him into the presence of the vezír,
when he confessed that he and four others of his fellow-domestics
had been in the practice of receiving daily a pecuniary remuneration
from Ahmed Páshá for giving him information of every thing they
knew relative to their master’s administration or conduct. The
boatman was again called and confronted with this person, and
immediately recognized him as being the very man who had given
the note to Ahmed Páshá. His four accomplices were instantly
executed, but he himself was not only pardoned, but rewarded with
a spahilik and a handsome sum of money, for having disclosed the
fact. He was, however, dismissed the vezír’s service.
The arrival of Yúsuf Páshá’s and Mesli Chávush’s wealth.—A display

of ill will and malevolence.

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the fractured and apparently random assertions found in vernacular

same time as these scholars have concentrated on the personalities and

First, as in the field of Reformation studies, the recent historiography of lollardy

The popularity of local studies can in part be explained by the influence of

provided an alternative outlet for women's spirituality; considered Wycliffite

medieval Christians; it also makes it impossible to study the many interesting

A Note on The Use of Trial Records

Second, even if a particular trial included an unusually frank exchange of views

It would, of course, be ludicrous to propose that just because John Excestr

In a paradox common to many medieval and early modern texts, it is precisely

see, that Wycliffism and lollardy were theologically constructive as well as

Bronx, New York

(9) Fiona Somerset, ‘Introduction’ in Influence, 9–16 at 9.

(10) See n. 1 above.

(11) R. N. Swanson, Church and Society in Late Medieval England (Oxford,