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The Lollards: Dawning star of the Reformation? |
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Acquiring history
The new Protestant faith was competing with the established Catholic Church, which had had no rival in the Western world. Imbuing this new faith with a history of heroic actions, under persecution from what was now the common enemy of Protestantism and Lollardy, would bestow legitimacy and most importantly, history, upon this new radical faith. Claiming that the Lollards were their predecessors strengthened the Protestant faith, by portraying the Reformation as the culmination of centuries of campaigning, and not just the whim of a lusty monarch. According to historian Margaret Aston:
“It was likely that the new reformers would be interested in the views of their protesting predecessors, both for the chance of adding vernacular arguments to their own armoury, and to show that they themselves were not the founders of a new tradition”
St Peter's Square, Rome
© Courtesy of Ian Britton, freefoto.com |
This process of taking ownership of the Lollards can be charted by the publication of Lollard texts after the Reformation: tracts, pamphlets and accounts of Lollards on trial were republished in the 1530s. These new editions were often accompanied by a moralising note or intro explicitly identifying the work as belonging to the true predecessor of Protestantism.
So were the Lollards really the originators of modern day Protestantism, or were their stories and tales hijacked and romanticised to give a new religion a sense of history? By appropriating the legend of Lud’s Church, the ability to prove or disprove a connection is rendered impossible by the lack of primary evidence. For many new causes, this is the beauty of aligning themselves with events and peoples long gone. All causes need an emotional hook to gain support from the masses, so perhaps this is what the Protestants were doing when they aligned themselves with the legend of the Church of Lud, with its heroic men, and “sylph-like” young girl? Therefore should we recognise this appropriation as an example of 16th Century PR and advertising? Whatever the answer, the nature of discussing events over 500 years-old, means the debate is sure to continue.
Your comments
1 Mark Leech from Newcastle-under-Lyme - 13 January 2004
"The story about the Lollards is not the only one about Lud's Church. In the anonymous 14th century poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", much of which is very clearly set in the real northwest of England, the route to the mysterious "Chapel" in which Gawain confronts the supernatural Green Knight in fulfilment of his oath is described in great detail. The path leads straight to Lud's Church. The description of the "Chapel" itself is also reminiscent of the mouth of Lud's Church. Could it be that the Lollard myth and this story about Sir Gawain are linked?
"
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