other craftsmen ; while their teachers were mostly laymen like them- selves, with no commission from the church, who wandered from place to place and mingled their teaching with the exercise of their ordinary trade. A few of the Buckinghamshire heretics of 1464 confessed to having learned their views from the rector of Chesham Bois a former rector in all probability, as he was not brought to trial at this time ; possibly even the same Richard Monk who abjured in 1428. But more of them had been instructed by one John Wyllis, who was examined before the bishop at Wooburn on 13 August 1462.[1] This man had originally been a weaver of Bristol, and a disciple of a certain William Smith, burned after trial before the bishop of Worcester. Wyllis himself had taught in Bristol and London as well as in Lincoln diocese, and had already abjured, by his own confession, before the bishop of London. His condemnation therefore as a relapsed heretic was inevit- able ; but it is noteworthy that after his excommunication, when all hope was past, he again, it is stated, abjured his errors, and received absolution from the church that he might ' die a good Christian.' There are no signs at this time of anything like the formation of regular congregations such as Foxe speaks of as existing thirty or forty years later. It is well known indeed that the term ' Lollard ' or ' heretic ' was applied loosely to a great many people who agreed more in what they denied than in what they affirmed, and even here had often very little in common. The heresy of this period, like the Lollardy from which it was descended, was rather destructive than constructive ; it was in fact mainly revolt against ecclesiastical authority. Those who were examined before the bishop in 1464 confessed chiefly to a series of wild and self-contradictory criticisms of the Church, the sacraments, and the clergy. ' Bishops should go on foot, clothed in white, preaching to the people.' It was better to baptize children in a river or pond than in a church. It was enough for a man and woman to consent to live together ; the blessing of a priest could do them no good. Priests who are sinners cannot and ought not to preach. Singing, bell-ringing and the use of organs were to be blamed, not praised. Nearly all agreed in condemning all veneration of images or relics : most not only denied Transubstantiation but the Real Presence. One, a blacksmith of Henley, examined with the men of Wycombe, used language about the pope, the king, the sacraments, worthy of Bishop Bale [2] ; he said baptism was only a token and a sign, and that he could make as good a sacrament as the priest ; and yet confessed that he had been wont to undertake the cure of children suffering from the ' chynkow ' by means of charms, involving the repetition of a great many paters and aves. Of greater interest is a list of English books, presumably of a heretical nature,
- ↑ Linc. Epis. Reg. Memo. Chedworth, 57-63. All the details which follow are from the same source.
- ↑ He said that the pilgrims to Canterbury went to offer their souls to the devil : the Blessed Sacrament was a great devil of hell and a synagogue : the pope a ' grete best and a devyll of hell and a sinagoge ' : the king and all that maintain the church shall go to the devil.
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