Heretical Sects in Pre-Reformation England
Greg Walker reassesses the evidence for believing that Lollard 'known men' and other evangelicals acted as the underground army that undermined the medieval Catholicism of Henry VIII's church.
Religious dissent in the pre-Reformation period has long fascinated historians. But the precise nature and significance of such behaviour is difficult to judge. Historians are prone to see cohesion and organisation at work. A.G. Dickens spoke of a Lollard 'underground resistance', and Susan Brigden and others have described an 'under-world of heretical brethren'. Yet how helpful is it to think of the Lollards and those affected by Luther's ideas as movements or secret organisations, implying a covert struggle between two distinct groups; us (the church) and them (the heretics) – or vice-versa depending on one's sympathies?
The idea itself is not new. Thomas More wrote in the 1520s of 'the brethren and sisters of the false fraternity of heresy'. But his attitude appears inconsistent. While on the one hand he argued that heretics did not all believe the same things – indeed he went so far as to suggest that almost no two could be found believing the same way – he nonetheless felt able to talk of them as a single brotherhood or fraternity. Is this plausible?
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