Carthusian Monks and Lollard Knights: Religious Attitude at the Court of Richard II

Carthusian Monks and Lollard Knights: Religious Attitude at the Court of Richard II J. Anthony Tuck University ofDurham 0m knowledge of th, existence of a group of Lollatd sym­ pathizers at the court of Richard II comes from two contemporary chron­ iclers, Henry Knighton and Thomas Walsingham. Walsingham main­ tained that Sir William Neville, Sir Lewis Clifford, SirJohn Clanvowe, Sir Richard Sturry, Sir Thomas Latimer, and "the most foolish ofall," SirJohn Montague, followed the teachings ofWycliffe and the Lollard preachers. 1 Montague, Walsingham adds, removed the images which his forebears had placed in the chapel of his manor of Shenley and harbored Lollard preachers, including Nicholas Hereford,2 while Sturry was supposedly interviewed about his Lollard beliefs by the king in 1395 and ordered to take an oath to abjure them. 3 Henry Knighton named Latimer, Clifford, and Sturry as Lollard sympathizers, together with Sir John Peachey, Sir John Trussell, and Sir Reginald Hilton. He adds, significantly, that these men were pious but credulous and believed the "false teachers" they listened to.4 In modern times both W. T. Waugh and K. B. Mcfarlane have investi­ gated the allegations of these chroniclers. Waugh was inclined to acquit the knights of the charges made against them. "Except perhaps for Lati­ mer," he said, the chroniclers "were mistaken in ascribing to the knights 1 Thomas Walsingham, HistoriaAng/icana, ed. H. T. Riley, Rolls Series, vol. 2 (London, 1864), pp. 159-60; Ypodigma Neustriae a Thoma Walsingham, ed. H. T. Riley, Rolls Series (London, 1876), p. 348. 2 Walsingham, Historia Ang/icana pp. 159-60. 3 Thomas Walsingham, Anna/es Ricardi Secundi, ed. H. T. Riley, Rolls Series (London, 1866), p. 183. 4 Henry Knighton, Chronicon Henn'ci Knighton, ed. J. R. Lumby, Rolls Series, vol. 2 (London, 1895), p. 181. 149 RECONSTRUCTING CHAUCER any persistent desire for a reform of the church in practice, organisation and doctrine on the lines advocated by the Lollards."5 Mcfarlane, however, came to a different conclusion.6 His investigations convinced him that the chroniclers were right and that "the apostles of heresy really did enjoy for something likethirtyyearsthe support and protection of agroupof devout and influential laymen," several of whom enjoyed long and successful careers in the service of Richard II. Mcfarlane also suggested that these knights formed a cohesive group at Richard's court, united not just by an interest in a particular, and perhaps unorthodox, approach to religion but also by an interest in secular literature. More recently Michael Wilks has argued that Lollardy was actually a court-centered movement and was as much aristocratic as popular in character. Wycliffe's preaching, he sug­ gests, was addressed to the "lords of England, whocould make sure that the clergy was being reformed."7 Thus powerful arguments have been deployed in favor of the view that Lollardy enjoyed the support of an influential group of laymen at Richard's court, but despite this it is still necessary to approach the problem of the religious beliefs of the "Lollard knights" with great caution. Latimer is the only one of the knights accused of Lollard sympathies by the chroniclers against whom the evidence is at all explicit. In 1388 he was summoned before the council to answer a charge of possessing heretical books, and his manorBraybrooke, inNorthamptonshire,remained a center ofheresy well into the fifteenth century. Indeed, in 1407 two Czechs, Mikulac Faulfis and Jiri of Knehice, visited Braybrooke looking for Wycliffite writings.8 There is some evidence that Sir William Neville protected Nicholas Hereford and sought to mitigate the rigors of his imprisonment in Nottingham Castle in 1387 .9 But none of the "Lollard knights" appear to have shared the pacifist views of some of the early Lollard preachers or their belief that crusades and pilgrimages were valueless. If the attribution of the Opus arduum to Nicholas Hereford is correct, he condemned the bishop of Norwich's crusade in 1383 with the same vehemence as his fellow Lollard preachers 'W. T. Waugh, "The Lollard Knights," Scottish HistoricalReview 9 (1913-14):55-92. 6 K. B. Mcfarlane, Lancastrian Kings and Lo/lard Knights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), especially p. 143. 7 MichaelWilks, "Royal Priesthood: the Origins ofLollardy...