The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, Series Number 45)

Kantik Ghosh argues that one of the main reasons for Lollardy's sensational resonance for its times, and for its immediate posterity, was its exposure of fundamental problems in late medieval academic engagement with the Bible, its authority and its polemical uses. Examining Latin and English sources, Ghosh shows how the same debates over biblical hermeneutics and associated methodologies were from the 1380s onwards conducted both within and outside the traditional university framework, and how by eliding boundaries between Latinate biblical speculation and vernacular religiosity Lollardy changed the cultural and political positioning of both. Covering a wide range of texts - scholastic and extramural, in Latin and in English, written over half a century from Wyclif to Thomas Netter - Ghosh concludes that by the first decades of the fifteenth century Lollardy had partly won the day. Whatever its fate as a religious movement, it had successfully changed the intellectual landscape of England. Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Series-title......Page 6 Title......Page 7 Copyright......Page 8 Dedication......Page 9 Contents......Page 11 Acknowledgements......Page 13 Abbreviations......Page 15 Introduction......Page 17 1 John Wyclif and the truth of sacred scripture......Page 38 JUDGES 9......Page 41 ‘IMPROPER’ LANGUAGE......Page 44 PARABLES......Page 48 THE FOUR SENSES OF SCRIPTURE......Page 51 INTENTIO AUCTORIS......Page 58 CONTEXT......Page 61 'LOGIC' AND 'REASON'......Page 63 TEXTUAL CRITICISM......Page 70 'FIDES EST SUMMA THEOLOGIA'......Page 76 CONCLUSION......Page 77 2 William Woodford's anti-Wycliffite hermeneutics......Page 83 3 Vernacular translations of the Bible and ‘authority’......Page 102 4 The English Wycliffite sermons: ‘thinking in alternatives’?......Page 128 5 Nicholas Love and the Lollards......Page 163 6 Thomas Netter and John Wyclif: hermeneutic confrères?......Page 190 Afterword: Lollardy and late-medieval intellectuality......Page 225 Introduction......Page 233 1 John Wyclif and the truth of sacred scripture......Page 239 2 William Woodford’s anti-Wycliffite hermeneutics......Page 246 3 Vernacular translations of the Bible and 'authority'......Page 253 4 The English Wycliffite sermons: ‘thinking in alternatives’?......Page 258 5 Nicholas Love and the Lollards......Page 263 6 Thomas Netter and John Wyclif: hermeneutic confrères?......Page 270 Afterword: Lollardy and late-medieval intellectuality......Page 275 Cambridge......Page 279 New York......Page 280 Vienna......Page 281 Other primary sources......Page 282 SECONDARY SOURCES......Page 284 Index of names and titles......Page 307 General index......Page 310 "Kantik Ghosh argues that one of the main reasons for Lollardy's sensational resonance for its times, and for its immediate posterity, was its exposure of fundamental problems in late-medieval academic engagement with the Bible, its authority and its polemical uses. Examining Latin and English sources, Ghosh shows how the same debates over biblical hermeneutics and associated methodologies were from the 1380s onwards conducted both within and outside the traditional university framework, and how, by eliding boundaries between Latinate biblical speculation and vernacular religiosity, Lollardy changed the cultural and political positioning of both. Covering a wide range of texts - scholastic and extramural, in Latin and in English, written over half a century from Wyclif to Thomas Netter - Ghosh concludes that by the first decades of the fifteenth century Lollardy had partly won the day. Whatever its fate as a religious movement, it had successfully changed the intellectual landscape of England."--Jacket This is a study of the Wycliffite heresy, otherwise known as Lollardy, which flourished in England in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Kantik Ghosh examines major texts by John Wyclif, William Woodford, Nicolas Love, Thomas Netter as well as the anonymous authors of the English Wycliffite Sermons, along with a wide range of scholastic, homiletic and meditative texts in Latin and English. Whatever the ultimate fate of Lollardy as a religious movement, he reveals that the debates it initiated successfully changed the intellectual landscape of England. De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae constitutes Wyclif's most extended theoretical engagement with the nature of biblical meaning and the interpretative problems posed by biblical language. Kantik Ghosh. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 263-289) And Index.