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STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER H. LEITH SPENCER. English Preaching in the Late Middle Ag�. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Pp. xvi, 542. $72.00. It is seldom that a study in medieval church history finds such a close resonance in the present.Helen Leith Spencer's fine study of late-medieval English preaching illustrates the enduring spirit of reform movements in the church and their limited dialectical repertoire.The hierarchy were committed to the dispensation of the magesterium through its priesthood, while the radicals wished to emancipate the logos from the exclusive control of the hierarchy. Vernacular preaching was viewed by conservative and radical alike as the modus vivendi for the renewal of the church.The great impetus for such cura animarum was canon 21, "Omnis utriusque sexus," from the Fourth Lateran Council. The English hierarchy with precious few exceptions, from Poore through Arundel, were agreed thatfrequenterprae­ dicent, to use Bishop Walter Cantilupe's expression, was the primary means to accomplish this catechetical program. The history of reform in the church has always turned on this struggle between those who long to return to the pristine days of the early church (the radical reformers) and those who see revelation progressively at work in history (the traditionalists).This split has been at the heart of church reform movements from the time Jerome translated the Bible into Latin through Vatican Council II.It is present today in the evangelical program of scriptural fundamentalists. Late-medieval England saw similar arguments between the Wycliffites and the hierarchy. The anonymous author of the first Lollard tract in Cam­ bridge University Library Ii.vi.26, urging the use of English, argued elo­ quently that, even though the laity learned to pray in Latin, their prayers were little efficacious, since they had no more understanding of what they said than would a beast: "]:>ou3 ]:>e child seie 'bed' and 'kese', 3it he vnder­ stant what he mene_l:, and woot what he axsi_l:,, but _l:,e lewed pepel, for seiynge her Paternoster and cred in Latyn, _l:,ei witton not what _l:,ei menen." Archbishop Arundel saw the issue as a hermeneutic and a political one and focused on the difficult problems of translating the latin Bible and other pastoralia into English. In the canon "Periculosa res est" of his Provincial Constitutions of 1407 he stated that: "it is a very jeopardous thing .. . to translate the text of the Holy Scripture from one tongue into another, because the same sense does not lightly abide throughout in the transla­ tions" (Spencer translation).Perhaps Arundel had Hereford's wooden trans­ lation ofthe Scriptures, and a host of other anonymous vernacular texts, in 258 REVIEWS mind as examples ofthe infelicity, inaccuracy, and literalness ofthose who tried to capture the nuances of the latin &ripture in English. A more subtle attack against the Lollards came from the learned bishop ofChiches­ ter Reginald Pecock, who condemned scriptural fundamentalism as a be­ trayal of the grand tradition of the church and a retreat from hard-won secular wisdom. Pecock argued vigorously that the Lollard intentions that "all opere bookis writun or in latyn or in pe comoun langage to be writun into waast ...and necessarie leernyng which pei my3ten and ou3ten haue bi studie aloone in pe bible or oonly in perofpe new testament" consti­ tuted a cultural blindness. Arundel's dispute with the proponents of vernacular preaching of the &ripture and the availability of the Bible in English-really a part ofthe larger argument concerning who controlled legitimate ecclesial authority and catechesis-frames the tensions which Spencer so ably presents in this learned volume. Spencer's chiefconcern, although it is with late-medieval English preaching, shows us the evolution of preaching in England from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries.One ofthe central concerns of her study oflate-medieval English preaching is to frame the dispute con­ cerning access to the &riptures between the established church and the growing threat of an emancipated and literate laity.In his well known Pupil/a ocu!i, John de Burgo indicated that there were really only three main qualities required for ordination: "sc.literatur su.fficiens, aetas legi­ tima, morum honesta." Since part ofthe Lollard...

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