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Simple Readers (Mis)Reading Profound Matter in English: The Lollard Heresy of Reading and its Effects on English Vernacular Theological Writing in the Late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries by Nicole Alexandra Beare Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia December 2012 © Copyright by Nicole Alexandra Beare, 2012 DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH The undersigned hereby certify that they have read and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate Studies for acceptance a thesis entitled “Simple Readers (Mis)Reading Profound Matter in English: The Lollard Heresy of Reading and its Effects on English Vernacular Theological Writing in the Late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries” by Nicole Alexandra Beare in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Dated: December 5, 2012 External Examiner: ________________________________ Research Supervisor: ________________________________ Examining Committee: ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ Departmental Representative: ________________________________ ii DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY DATE: December 5, 2012 AUTHOR: Nicole Alexandra Beare TITLE: Simple Readers (Mis)Reading Profound Matter in English: The Lollard Heresy of Reading and its Effects on English Vernacular Theological Writing in the Late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries DEPARTMENT OR SCHOOL: Department of English DEGREE: PhD CONVOCATION: May YEAR: 2013 Permission is herewith granted to Dalhousie University to circulate and to have copied for non-commercial purposes, at its discretion, the above title upon the request of individuals or institutions. I understand that my thesis will be electronically available to the public. The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the thesis nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author’s written permission. The author attests that permission has been obtained for the use of any copyrighted material appearing in the thesis (other than the brief excerpts requiring only proper acknowledgement in scholarly writing), and that all such use is clearly acknowledged. ________________________________ Signature of Author iii Table of Contents Abstract v List of Abbreviations Used vi Acknowledgements vii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: “Contruued Þoru Mannes Wit”: False Rhymes, Sinful Tales, Plain Speech, Misreading, and the Emerging Emphasis on Didactic Secular Writing in the Vernacular 25 Chapter 3: “For Holy Churche hoteth alle manere peple/Vnder obedience to be, and buxum to þe lawe”: Langland’s Self-censoring in the C-text and Misreadings of Piers Plowman 66 Chapter 4: “Bi Ensaumple of Him”: The Testimony of William Thorpe as a Lollard Reader’s Guide to Remaining Firm During an Ecclesiastical Examination 112 Chapter 5: “Þe Mylke of Lyзte Doctryne”: Nicholas Love’s The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ as an Orthodox Reader’s Guide to Church Teaching 150 Chapter 6: A Sympyl Creatur and Hir Boke: The Book of Margery Kempe as a Record of an Orthodox (Mis)Reading of Nicholas Love’s The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ 182 Chapter 7: Conclusion 213 Appendix: Notes 234 Bibliography 253 iv Abstract This thesis argues that both Lollard efforts to disseminate heterodox opinions in simple terms for simple readers and the Church’s reactionary and ineffective endeavours to combat this heresy with legislation and writing of its own constrained fifteenth-century vernacular theological writing. First, I summarise the current debate about the restrictive aims and effects of legislative efforts to eliminate the Lollard heresy, and I outline the historical context leading up to and following Archbishop Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409. The subsequent chapters trace the effects of ecclesiastical restrictions over time on vernacular theological writing. In Chapter 2, I explore the use of literary devices in two Lollard dialogues, and I argue that in the years preceding the Constitutions Lollard writers exhibited a readiness to employ literary tools as a means to persuade effectively. In Chapter 3, I argue that many of Langland’s major C revisions to Piers Plowman, undertaken in the aftermath of ecclesiastical restrictions, represent a response to Lollard- inspired rebel misreadings of the poem and sacrifice instances of bold poetic imagery as they endeavour to clarify doctrinal positions. In Chapter 4, I argue that Thorpe’s foregrounding of the generic conventions of hagiography in his Testimony reflects the pre-Constitutions readiness of Lollard writers to use literary tools to persuade simple readers. In Chapter 5, I argue that Love’s Church-sanctioned Mirror represented an orthodox tool in the war on heresy, but it failed to curb lay misinterpretation of theological issues. In Chapter 6, I argue that The Book of Margery Kempe serves as a reader’s response to Love’s Mirror and, therefore, demonstrates the ways in which Love’s orthodox text could be misread by orthodox readers. I conclude the thesis by considering the Lollard Lanterne of Liзt and Pecock’s orthodox vernacular theology. I argue that these works show that after the Constitutions both heterodox and orthodox writers demonstrated an increased urgency to tailor their writing for simple readers and that this tailoring meant, for both sides, an eschewing of literary features. I assert that the Church’s aggressive response to these works further constrained vernacular theological writing by suppressing its writers, readers, and circulation. v List of Abbreviations Used De haeretico De haeretico comburendo The Folewer The Folewer to the Donet Meditationes Meditationes vitae Christi Le Mirouer des simples ames Le Mirouer des simples ames aneanties qui seulement demourant en vouloir et en desir d’amour The Mirror The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ The Mirror of Simple Souls The Mirror of Simple Souls Who Are Annihilated and Remain Only in the Will and Desire of Love The Repressor The Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy Reule The Reule of Crysten Religioun The Testimony The Testimony of William Thorpe vi Acknowledgements A number of people deserve thanks for their contributions to this thesis. Dr. Melissa Furrow, my supervisor, provided excellent guidance, advice, and encouragement during the development of this project. Dr. Kathy Cawsey and Dr. Elizabeth Edwards, my readers, challenged me to further develop my arguments and offered helpful suggestions about the direction of the thesis. Dr. Andrew Taylor, my external examiner, asked thought-provoking questions and made helpful suggestions during my defence. Dr. Bruce Greenfield and Dr. Trevor Ross offered fresh perspectives from which to view some of the strands of my overarching argument. Mary Beth MacIsaac and Carole Poirier provided clerical support and much encouragement during the writing of this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Mary Arseneau, Dr. Madeline Bassnett, Dr. Lyn Bennett, Dr. David Carlson, Dr. Joseph Ricciardi, Dr. Paul Socken, and Dr. David Staines for encouragement and advice throughout my graduate studies. My fellow graduate students in the English Department at Dalhousie were very supportive. I owe special thanks to Patricia Cove, Lynne Evans, Susanne Marshall, Heather Meek, and Bronwyn Rodd for inspiration and comic relief. I very much appreciated their advice, encouragement, and sense of fun. I would like to thank my mother, Dr. Sophie Beare, and my brother, Brian Beare, for their support and good cheer throughout the course of this project. Many thanks are also due to Dr. John Dickenson and Mrs. Bonnie Dickenson for their loving encouragement. I would like to thank Stephanie and Maria Dickenson (and Henry) for their therapeutic humour. Sadly, my father, Roger Beare, and my grandmother, Dorothy Beare, died during the early stages of my Doctoral programme. This project could not have been completed without their enduring love and support. I would like to thank Rosie and Duchess for many thought-provoking walks. Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my partner, Colin Hluchaniuk, whose patience and love made the completion of this thesis possible. Thank you for never losing sight of the finish line even when I did. My programme was generously supported by grants from the Dalhousie Faculty of Graduate Studies, the Izaak Walton Killam Trust, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. vii Chapter 1: Introduction Untrained Lay Readers, the Censorship of Vernacular Theological Writing in Late Medieval England, and Archbishop Thomas Arundel’s 1409 Constitutions “And Y, britheren, myyte not speke to you as to spiritual men, but as to fleischli men;/as to litle children in Crist, Y yaf to you mylk drynke, not mete; for ye myyten not yit, nether ye moun now, for yit ye ben fleischli” (The Wycliffite Bible, 1 Corinthians 3: 1-2) Eamon Duffy has observed that “the crucial factor in the growth of a well- instructed laity in fifteenth-century England was the spread of literacy down the social scale” (68). Along with increasing literacy among laypeople, the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in England witnessed the proliferation of written materials in the vernacular about religious subjects that were previously available only in Latin and, therefore, to educated readers. The emergence of this new class of untrained readers created anxiety among orthodox