Book Two, Ongoing

I know it's all the rage to grumble about reader's reports, but I have to admit that one of my readers made a good point: the chapter that started off as this article really needed to be two chapters.  Having taken out my figurative axe and split the chapter in half, though, I was left with two poor things  not long enough to be chapters.  Ergo, I've been updating the Lollards.  Or, rather, nuancing them.  The Victorians were obsessed with Wycliffe (er, Wyclif, Wickliffe, Wiclif...) and  his followers, whom they regarded as the authentically native English origins of the Reformation.  (That is: look, we got there before the Germans!)  Ah, but which Victorians? The original version mostly talks about evangelicals--mostly Nonconformists--who were the great Wycliffe enthusiasts, but has little to say about the people who yelled "ack!" every time his name came up in polite company.  Because, after all, if one is of a rather Higher churchmanship, then Wycliffe and his notions about church property and hierarchy do not, perhaps, inspire overwhelming joy (as the Yonge quotation I offered a few days ago suggests).  So I'm talking about a couple of additional texts which both adhere to the "Wycliffe did the Reformation first" line, and suggest that this might not have been such a glorious thing. 

And so onward...