The Works of a Lollard Preacher: the Sermon Omnis plantacio, the Tract Fundamentum aliud nemo potest ponere and the Tract De oblacione iugis sacrificii (review)

Reviews 209 such as this without admitting at least some m o d e m resonances, yet Kleinberg's article is masterly in both its breadth and its generosity. H e manages to achieve an empathy with the theology-driven mentality of Christian leaders who are genuinely passionate about their responsibility to proselytize, while naturally recognizing the depth ofJewish suffering and the enormity of the injustices they often endured. This collection is uneven, perhaps, but these two articles alone more than justify its existence and do great honour to the man w h o inspired it. David Daintree Jane Franklin Hall University of Tasmania Hudson, Anne, ed., The Works of a Lollard Preacher: the Sermon Omnis plantacio, the Tract Fundamentum aliud nemo potest ponere and the Tract De oblacione iugis sacrificii, Oxford, Oxford University Press, for the Early English Text Society, 2001; cloth; pp. lxxiv, 397; 4 b/w plates; R R P US$72.00; ISBN 0197223206. The Wycliffite who, Professor Hudson argues, wrote all three texts edited in this volume, was a peripatetic preacher, politically aware, 'familiar with contemporary debate in Oxford' (p. liii) and prepared to disparage it. In the course of his tract on the Eucharist, De oblacione iugis sacrificii (1413), he mockingly says 'men be not 3it determened in Oxeford hou3 an accident schal be discriued or diffinid' (pp. 246/276-8). Hudson considers four possible contenders for authorship of the three texts, Peter Payne, William Taylor, John Purvey and Richard Wyche, but regretfully concludes that a persuasive case cannot be made for any of them. While w e should unquestionably like to know which Lollard preacher these are the works of (or three works of), the importance of this volume is that three major texts (some 60,000 words) have now been added to the reliably-edited portion of the Wycliffite canon. De oblacione iugis sacrificii exists in a single copy, but editing the sermon on clerical property Omnis plantacio (Matt. 15:13) [Egerton Sermon] and the related tract Fundamentum aliud nemo potest ponere (1 Cor. 3:11) [Lambeth Tract] must have been a nightmare. The clarity of the introduction to these texts and of the form in which they are presented was surely achieved at the cost of some dark moments. As Hudson says, she had previously (1992) 210 Reviews argued, in the context of a discussion of variable texts, that the Egerton Sermon (ca. 1409) preceded the Lambeth Tract, but here she dates the latter ca. 1401-7. She admits, however, that the question of precedence is still a matter of the balance of probabilities. Wherever possible, the two texts are presented in parallel on facing pages, having 'equal status as independent works' (p. xliv), but they are sufficiently different to require that they be lineated independently. Sometimes one text runs for several pages with no equivalent in the other; they are neither variant forms of one text nor two quite separate texts. Inevitably this makes it slightly difficult for the reader to find her way around at first, particularly in the apparatus and the notes, which are enormously knowledgable and very substantial. Understandably there is a very occasional error in numeration, in spite of highly scmpulous attention to detail. Given the length and complexity of the texts, a precis of their contents would have been helpful. As Hudson observes, the three texts all 'emphatically and even flamboyantly ' demonstrate Wycliffite sympathies (p. Iv): virulent anti-fratemalism, disaffection with the pope and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, belief in the absolute authority of scripture. They are not, however, characteristic of Wycliffite texts in their focus on a single issue. The Lambeth Tract concludes with a properlydocumented collection of 'autoritees of holy scripture and holy doctouris in Latyn a3ens ce seculer Iordeschip of prestis' (pp. 146-53); naturally this is not included in the Egerton Sermon, and overall there is a surprising shortage of references to canon law in these texts (which makes Purvey an unlikely author). Presumably the writer of the Lambeth Tract expects his readership to include other Wycliffite clerks, w h o will be able to make use of the authorities provided in their own preaching and writing, as well as 'symple men...