The Premature Reformation (Anne Hudson)

Hudson's Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History traces the origin and development of the Lollard movement; her reliance on the Lollards' own writings permits her to assemble a different, fuller account than had previously been accepted.

Earlier Lollard histories treated the Lollards as a disorganized, short-lived movement, only indirectly connected to John Wyclif and often more politically than theologically motivated; after Oldcastle's rebellion was suppressed, the Lollards scattered and ceased to be a significant feature of English popular religion.

Hudson disputes this view. Instead, she traces a clear line of intellectual descent from Wyclif to Tyndale, the pre-schism Tudor Protestant. Wyclif and his Oxford disciples presented a coherent ideology of ecclesiastical and political reform, and laid the groundwork for the educational program that would make that reform possible. The Lollards embraced that ideology and spread it through their book-centered community of "schools" in private homes. While there was a certain amount of drift in emphases as the popular movement attenuated farther from its academic roots, the Lollards of the 1500s still upheld distinctively Wycliffite beliefs, injecting into early English Protestantism elements not found in the Lutheran movement of the continent. For this reason, Hudson uses Lollard and Wycliffite as interchangeable terms -- heretofore an unacceptable practice.

For Wyclif and his followers, sola Scriptura was axiomatic, though later Lollards differed on the degree of its application: some thought extra-biblical tradition merely inessential, while others forbade it entirely. The preaching and study of the Bible, often manifesting in copious memorization, was essential. Other distinctive doctrines were rejections of orthodoxy (i.e. Papist), notably the necessity of confession with a priest and christening, the literal presence in transubstantiation, the selling of pardons and indulgences, the veneration of images, and the piety of pilgrimages. The Wycliffites also rejected the authority of the pope and denounced the endowment of churches and monasteries: the priests of God ought rather to live in holy poverty on the alms of their parishioners or else by the labor of their hands. Relative to secular government, Wyclif called upon the king to divest the church of its lands and riches, and stated that earthly rulers had the duty to punish churchmen (even the pope) for immorality. However, the Lollards also took a dim view of war as a means of accomplishing good: while accepting certain military actions in the Old Testament as valid, almost any offensive military action was considered unjustified.

In addition to this historical survey, based on analysis of Wycliffite documents, Hudson also offers an analysis of contemporary responses to Lollard ideas, as recorded in literature. Chaucer, while not a Wycliffite himself, has sympathy with a characteristically Lollard notion: that priests should be models of virtue for their flocks. Moreover, he surrounds his model priest, the Parson, with suggestions of Lollardy. While the "Parson's Tale" cements the Parson's orthodoxy (it is a confessional manual), that Chaucer indicates the degree to which reformist ideas and practice had become identified with heresy. Similarly, Piers Plowman advocates many Wycliffite reform positions (ecclesiastical divestment, for one) though remains firmly orthodox on important matters such as communion and confession. PP's audience, however, incorporated the poem into their own language of reform, and as their positions were marked as heretical, the poem too became less orthodox. Gower underwent a similar transformation, as his Vox Clamantis is sharply critical of church practices, while the prologue to his Confessio Amantis castigates the Lollards even in their knowledge of the Bible.