John Wyclif and the Eucharistic Words of Institution: Context and Aftermath

In matters of eucharistic theology, John Wyclif (d. 1384) is best known for his rejection of the scholastic doctrine of transubstantiation. There were many reasons why Wyclif came to regard this doctrine as fundamentally untenable, such as the impossibility of substantial annihilation and the illogicality of accidents existing apart from subjects, but chief among them was his deep dissatisfaction with the prevailing interpretation of Christ's words, “Hoc est corpus meum,” the words of institution required to confect the sacrament in the Mass. Wyclif insisted that getting this proposition right was essential for a correct understanding of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. This article presents Wyclif's position on this matter within the context of later medieval scholastic discussions in an effort to lend clarity to his larger understanding of eucharistic presence. The article will then trace the reception of Wyclif's ideas to Bohemia at the turn of the fifteenth century, with special attention given to the Prague master Jakoubek of Stříbro. One finds that Wyclif, and then later Jakoubek, developed new and effective means of conceptualizing the conversion of the eucharistic elements, thereby expanding the ways in which one can affirm Christ's presence in the consecrated host and the salvific effects of that presence for faithful communicants.

A Puzzling Silence: James 2:24 Before the Reformation

Since the Reformation, James 2:24, ‘justified by works and not by faith alone’, has been the source of special controversy within an already contested epistle. But in the patristic and medieval period it was almost entirely unemployed and ignored, despite the widespread use, both approvingly and critically, of the expression sola fide. This article offers a pre-Reformation reception history of James 2:24. It begins with Origen and Augustine’s broader interpretation of James 2, then turns to the key pre-Reformation references to James: the earliest references (fifth–seventh century), Bede the Venerable (eighth), the Glossa Ordinaria (twelfth), Nicholas of Gorran (thirteenth), John Wyclif and Ps-Jan Hus (fourteenth), and Dionysius the Carthusian (fifteenth). Surprisingly, James 2:24 is at times explicitly harmonized with the expression sola fide, and only rarely used to critique it, because most read the Vulgate’s language in James 2:24 (non ex fide tantum) to refer solely to the need for later good works. At the same time, ‘justified by works’ was generally interpreted as referring to a confirmation or manifestation of justification until the scholastic period, when we find the earliest instances of interpreting ‘justified by works’ as a further justification. These results provide a theologically rich historical perspective on the reception of James 2:24 with respect to the development of sola fide and the scholastic interpretation of ‘justified by works’ as a subsequent increase in justification.

Adam Easton and the Lutterworth Wall Paintings Revisited

In his monograph on Easton, Andrew Lee proposed that a previously unidentified contemporary portrait of the cardinal may be preserved in the form of an image added to an existing morality wall painting in the parish church of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. This proposal not only suggests the existence of a second representation of this important historical f igure, but makes this wall painting a public visual expression of the ongoing animosity between Easton and the reformer John Wyclif, the incumbent at Lutterworth. This chapter reviews the conservation history and uncovering of the painting, its probable dating, its visual conventions and its iconographic content. This examination of the evidence makes Lee’s suggestion untenable; however, careful examination of the image of the cardinal shows that it was most probably once part of a scene of the Mass of St Gregory, a late medieval devotional theme exemplifying the doctrine of Transubstantiation. The Lutterworth mural thus represents the trenchant restatement in Wyclif’s former parish of the orthodox position which Adam Easton so vigorously defended.

Epilogue

This chapter argues that an attunement to extrasemantic experiences of language that is understood in terms of noise lays epistemologies and literacies that effloresced in myriad forms in late medieval England. It reviews impulses to experience and express language as noise, which were a means of cultivating direct access to knowledge through affective and sensory experience. It also reviews the ideas of John Wyclif and his followers that overlapped with the avenues of thought, feeling, and sensation. The chapter investigates how Wyclif and his followers are known for their desire to limit clerical authority by encouraging a deep personal relationship to the biblical word in a way that scholars have suggested was a precursor to the Reformation. It examines the world of echo that emphasized the material qualities of the voice in opposition to the Wycliffite ideal of bodily transcendence.

Logic and Mathematics

Chaucer is known as a philosophical poet. He translated Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy from Latin to English. Do his works reveal familiarity with what went on in philosophy at Oxford and Cambridge universities in the fourteenth century? The chapter summarizes typical features of the work of the so-called ‘Oxford Calculators’ (also known as the ‘Merton School’) and contemporary philosophers at the University of Paris (who, together, may be called the fourteenth-century ‘moderni’) and contrasts these features with the work of John Wyclif, which became influential later in the fourteenth century. Among the features considered are disputations on sophismata, use of the logica moderna and technical measure languages, demonstrative reasoning, and optimism about the capabilities of scientific disciplines. Resonating more with Wycliffites are negative images of clerics.

Wycliffite Bibles and the Limits of Orthodoxy

The first translation of the entire Bible into Middle English had originated among the followers of John Wyclif, an Oxford theologian whose followers incurred the wrath of Church and state. This chapter explores surviving manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible to unfold a gradual move away from the Bible’s heterodox origins and into the realm of licit Church worship. The materiality of the Wycliffite Bible further leads to nunneries and chapels, with evidence for the cohabitation of Latin and English in the liturgy performed there.