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| Courtesy Wikipedia |
Lollardy was the form of protestantism that arose in England in the 14th century. It was the idea that people should take their belief directly from scripture and gave rise to the first translation of the bible into English. It was central to the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 and is summed up in the Lollard John Ball's sermon:
"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty."
Lollardy was popular in the fifteenth century but was brutally suppressed. It has become usual for historians to dismiss Lollardy as of no consequence but several features of British history are inexplicable without it. Most importantly the Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England are direct results of Lollardy. Had the population not been already primed with protestantism they would not have accepted the new protestant church with enthusiasm. Protestants who died at the stake for their beliefs in the religious turmoil of the 16th century did not die for Henry VIII or for the state, they died because deep seated protestant beliefs were embedded in England before Henry. An excerpt of an article based on church records is appended below that shows that those who died at the stake in the early 16th century were Lollards.
The lack of any documentary connection between Lollardy, in say 1420, and the Reformation Parliament of 1529 that began the move to a Church of England is due to the suppression and destruction of written records, it does not mean Lollardy was not the root of the English Church. There is some evidence for the survival of Lollardy, for instance Thomas Cromwell was in contact with Thames Valley Lollards.
In 1529, at the birth of the English Church there were plenty of people whose grandparents had openly been Lollards or killed for being Lollards, we do not need a documentary record to see the connection between Lollardy and English protestantism. Indeed, those who dismiss such a connection are trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Calvinists, Lutherians, and Catholics would have it otherwise but the Church of England was the English church.
Lollard sentiments did not end in the sixteenth century but continued in the seventeenth in the form of Levelling. The Levellers were the political movement of the rank and file of Cromwell's New Model Army during the Civil War (1642–1651). Levellers were of the Lollard belief that scripture should be the source of religious inspiration and that men were equal under God and believed all men should have equal representation in Parliament. The Putney Debates contain political sentiments that are directly related to those of John Ball and Levelling was seventeenth century Lollardy, for instance Rainborough says:
"For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government;.."
It is often forgotten that the Civil War was about Levelling, Levelling was what everyone was fighting about. The beliefs of the Levellers changed the climate of political opinion in seventeenth century England. This new climate of opinion gave rise to the 1688 constitution and the modern political era.
As an Englishman I can testify that until the middle of the last century the ordinary English were Levellers. The creepy histories of the English written by upper class or parvenu authors miss this essential element of Englishness entirely. When I was a boy in Sussex the working class Englishmen would swear with every other word, often believed in God but on their own terms and considered the upper and middle classes to be c**ts. These were dangerous people and they have been written out of histories and expunged from our new media consciousness.
We must look forward to a new England now and turn the New English towards those ancient Levelling ideals of the free and independent Englishman.
See The 400th Anniversary of the King James' Bible.
23/11/10
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