Lollard Survival and the Textile Industry in the South-east of England1

J. F. Davis

doi:10.1017/S0424208400004538

Lollard Survival and the Textile Industry in the South-east of England1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016

J. F. Davis

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J. F. Davis*: Affiliation:
University of Leeds

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There is nothing new in the observation that cloth workers are frequently to be found in heterodox movements. The participation of weavers and other textile artisans in popular heresy on the continent has been amply demonstrated, extending from the popular response to Gregory VII’s denunciation of simony and married clergy, and the first stirrings of the heresy of the Free Spirit in the Rhineland, to Flagellants, Taborites, Storchites, and the militant Anabaptism of the sixteenth century. In England, Professor Dickens has noted the local Lollard tradition existing in the textile villages of south-west Kent where Edward III had settled John Kemp and his Flemish artisans in 1331, Cranbrook, Tenterden, and Benenden becoming notable centres of dyed broadcloth manufacture. In explaining the connection between textiles and the survival of Lollardy, Professor Dickens has stressed the mobility of the textile worker, while centres of rural industry had a relatively independent status in the medieval scene, which may well have led to relatively in dependent thinking. Regular mobility is best typified by the middleman who usually operated on a fairly local level, regional self-sufficiency in wool supply not really being broken down until the mid-sixteenth century.

Type: Research Article
Information: Studies in Church History , Volume 3: Papers read at the third winter and summer meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society , 1966 , pp. 191 - 201

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0424208400004538 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1966

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Footnotes

This communication owes much to the guidance and advice of the Revd Dr T. M. Parker at the time of its first writing, and subsequently, to the kind suggestions of Professor A. G. Dickens and Mr G. C. F. Forster.

References

^{Page 191 of note 2} N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, 1957, 34,153,148, 220, 252, and 281.

^{Page 191 of note 3} A. G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509-1558, 1959, 8.

^{Page 191 of note 4} P. J. Bowden, The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, 1962, 57.

^{Page 192 of note 1} Hoskins, W. G., ‘English Provincial Towns in the Early Sixteenth Century’, TRHS, Fifth Series, VI, 1956, 14 Google Scholar.

^{Page 192 of note 2} Joan Thirsk, ‘Industries in the Countryside,’ in Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England, ed. F. J. Fisher, 1961, 76, 81.

^{Page 192 of note 3} Jacob, E. F., Register of Henry Chichele, Canterbury and York Society, IV, 1945, 298 Google Scholar.

^{Page 192 of note 4} Westminster Cathedral, MS B. 2., ff. 205-362. Some of these trials are printed and discussed by Welch, E., ‘Some Suffolk Lollards,’ Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, XXIX, pt. 2, 1962, 156 Google Scholar.

^{Page 193 of note 1} Foxe, John, The Acts and Monuments, ed. Cattley, S.R., London 1837, III, 588 Google Scholar.

^{Page 193 of note 2} Library, Lambeth, Register of Archbishop Warham, III, ff. 159r-175v Google Scholar.

^{Page 193 of note 3} Lambeth Library, Register of Archbishop Cranmer, fol. 68^r.

^{Page 193 of note 4} A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation, 1964, 30.

^{Page 193 of note 5} Figures taken from: J. F. Davis, unprinted Birmingham B. A. Thesis, 1961, ‘Lollardy in the S. E. of England, 1414-1534.’

^{Page 194 of note 1} P. J. Bowden, op. cit., 79-80.

^{Page 194 of note 2} A. G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants, 48.

^{Page 194 of note 3} Reid, E. J. B., ‘Lollards at Colchester in 1414,’ EHR, XXIX, 1914, 102-3CrossRef Google Scholar.

^{Page 194 of note 4} Memorials of London and London Life, ed. H. T. Riley, 1868, 631.

^{Page 194 of note 5} Institutes of the Laws of England, ed. Coke, E., pt. 3, London 1669, 41 Google Scholar.

^{Page 194 of note 6} E. F. Jacob, ed. cit., IV, 132.

^{Page 195 of note 1} Foxe, J., op. cit., III, 585 Google Scholar.

^{Page 195 of note 2} Thomson, J. A. F., ‘A Lollard Rising in Kent: 1431 or 1438?’, BIHR, XXXVII, no. 95, 1964, 100 Google Scholar. Cal. of Close Rolls (1435-41), 197-8.

^{Page 195 of note 3} Fines, J., ‘An incident of the Reformation in Shropshire,’ Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society, LVII, pt. 2 (1962-3) 167 Google Scholar; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ed. J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, R. H. Brodie, 1862-1932, VI, pt. 2, no 4030 (hereafter L & P.).

^{Page 196 of note 1} West Suffolk Record Office, MS E. 14/1, fol. 12^v.

^{Page 196 of note 2} A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation, 70.

^{Page 196 of note 3} L. & P., IV, pt. 2, no. 4282.

^{Page 196 of note 4} J. Foxe, op. cit., 1st. ed, 478.

^{Page 196 of note 5} Dr E. Wangermann has pointed out the same sort of sociological connection existing between the popular radicalism of the Enlightenment and both cobblers and tailors. See E. Wangermann, From Joseph II to the Jacobin Trials, 1959, 14-19.

^{Page 197 of note 1} K. B. McFailane, John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Non-conformity, 1952, 183.

^{Page 197 of note 2} For a possible reference to Whyte’s career at Oxford, see Emden, A.B., Biographical Register of the University of Oxford, III, 1957-59, 2043 Google Scholar.

^{Page 197 of note 3} For further details of these and other early Wycliffites, see the convocation trials of Archbishop Chichele, E. F. Jacob, ed. cit., III & IV.

^{Page 197 of note 4} A. B. Emden, An Oxford Hall in Medieval times, 1927, 125.

^{Page 197 of note 5} Register of John Beckington, ed. Maxwell Lyte, H. C. and Dawes, M. C. B., Somerset Record Soc. XLIX, 1934, 458 Google Scholar.

^{Page 198 of note 1} Lincoln Diocesan Records, Register of Bishop Chedworth, fols. 57^r59^v.

^{Page 198 of note 2} Lipson, E., Economic History of England, 1927-31, I, 469–506 Google Scholar.

^{Page 198 of note 3} VCH, Kent, ed. W. Page, III, 1932, 406.

^{Page 199 of note 1} Lambeth, Warham, II, fol. 169^r.

^{Page 199 of note 2} VCH, Surrey, ed. H. E. Malden, II 1905, 19.

^{Page 199 of note 3} McClenaghan, B., The Springs of Lavenham, 15, 54–57 Google Scholar.

^{Page 199 of note 4} P.R.O., c. 85, f. 141 (6).

^{Page 200 of note 1} Foxe, J., op. cit., VI, 717 Google Scholar.

^{Page 200 of note 2} J. Foxe, op. cit, 1st ed., 1065.

^{Page 200 of note 3} Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, III, 1863, 100-7.

^{Page 200 of note 4} L. Dow, ‘Mural inscriptions in a house at Woolpit,’ ibid., XXIX, pt. 2, 1962, 214.

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