¹ Reginald Pecock was born in Wales sometime during the first half of the 1390s. He was a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford for about ten years from the mid-1410s to the mid-14205. His ecclesiastical appointments were: rector of St. Michael's Gloucester (1424–31); rector of St. Michael Riola and master of Whittington College, London (1431–44); bishop of St. Asaph (1444–50); bishop of Chichester (1450–58/59). He lived the last year or so of his life under house arrest at Thorney Abbey, Cambridgeshire, and died in 1460 or 1461. He was allowed to incept for the Doctor's degree in theology from Oxford, without performing regency, sometime before 1444.

“He was the 32nd or 34th Bishop of Chichester, depending on whether one includes in the list of Bishops Richard le Scrope (1385) and Thomas Browns (1429) who were both appointed to the see, but never exercised the functions of the office.” Letter from Ms. Alison McCann, Assistant Archivist, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester, England (26 May 1976). The Record Office accepts the data found in LeNeve, John, Fasti Ecclesiae Angltcanae, 1300–1541, 7. Chichester Diocese, comp. Joyce M. Horn (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1964)Google Scholar and Hennessy, George, comp., Chichester Diocese Clergy Lists (London: St. Peters, 1900).Google Scholar

For the American reader the most readily available modern brief essay on Pecock's biography is to be found in Patrouch, Joseph F. Jr., Reginald Pecock “Twayne's English Authors Series, 106” (New York: Twayne, 1970) 17–46.Google Scholar

The figure of 20,000 people at Paul's Cross is given by Thomas Gascoigne who was not present at the abjuration (Rogers, James E. Thorold, ed., Loci Libro Veritatum, Passages Selected from Gascoigne's Theological Dictionary Illustrating the Condition of Church and State 1403–1458 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1881] 212–18Google Scholar). Yet even when we allow for Gascoigne's secondhand report and the general unreliability of medieval statistics, it is not hard to believe that half of London would have turned out on a Sunday afternoon to see a bishop abjure or burn. After all such a thing had never happened before.

² Pecock probably wrote more than fifty books and treatises. Only six of them, plus a summary of one of his sermons, have survived. Also John Foxe printed a few pages, mostly from the Book of Faith in his Commentarli. In their probable chronological order the surviving works are: The Reule of Crysten Religioun, ed. Greet, W. C. (Early English Text Society, O.S., 171; London: Milford, Oxford University, 1927)Google Scholar; The Donet, ed. Hitchcock, E. V. (Early English Text Society, o.s., 156; London: Milford, Oxford University, 1921)Google Scholar; Poore Mennis Myrrour, an extract of Part I of The Donet, collated and published in the same volume as The Donet; “Abbrevatio Reginaldi Pecok,” printed in the second volume of The Repressor; The Folewer to the Donet, ed. Hitchcock, E. V. (Early English Text Society, o.s., 164; London: Milford, Oxford University, 1924)Google Scholar; The Repressor of Over Much Slaming of the Clergy, ed. Babington, Churchill (Rolls Series, no. 19, 2 vols.; London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1860)Google Scholar; The Book of Faith, ed. Morison, J. L. (Glasgow: Maclehose & Sons, 1909).Google Scholar The fragment in Foxe is a summary rather than a transcript (“Collectanea Quaedam ex Reginaldi Pecoki,” in Commentarli Rerum in Ecclesia Gestarum [Strasbourg: Rihelius, 1553] 200–205). Thomas Kelly thought it possible that fols. 27b–28b of British Library MS. Roy. 17 A.xxvi were part of the bishop's lost Book of Faith, Hope and Charity. Under wartime conditions Kelly did not have access to the manuscript, otherwise he would have seen that the fragment he refers to is an integral part of a larger work, a handbook for parish priests. There is nothing extraordinary about the work. It does not have any characteristic Pecock ideas and expressions. Both his editors and other writers generally date the bishop's surviving works between 1443 and 1456. Kelly, however, believed that the earliest of them. The Reule, was in circulation by 1433. See “Reginald Pecock: A Contribution to his Biography” (unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Manchester, 1945) 42–43, 129–30.Google Scholar

³ Patrouch, Pecock, 143.

⁴ Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century (2d rev. ed.; New York: Ungar, 1959) 2. 180.Google Scholar

⁵ Munz, Peter, The Place of Hooker in the History of Thought (New York: Greenwood, 1970) 41.Google Scholar

⁶ Ibid., 41–45.

⁷ “Reynold Pecock, Bishop of Chichester,” Proceedings of the British Academy 37 (1951) 124.Google Scholar This essay was reprinted in Jacob's, Essays in Later Medieval History (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1968) 1–34.Google Scholar

⁸ Tremlow, J. A., ed., Calendar of Papal Registers, Calixtus III (12 vols.; London: Public Record Office, 1893–1933) 11.Google Scholar 76–78, 178; Loci, 35, 42.

⁹ Lori, 5, 26–30, 217–18.

¹⁰ Riley, Henry T., ed., Chronica Monasteri! S. Albani (Rolls Series, no. 28; 7 vols.; London: Longmans, 1863–76) 6/1. 287–88.Google Scholar

¹¹ Davies, John S., ed., An English Chronicle from 1377 to 1461 (London: Camden Society, 1856) 75–77Google Scholar; Gairdner, James, ed., Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles (Westminster: Camden Society, 1880) 167Google Scholar; Kingsford, Charles L., ed., Chronicles of London (Oxford: Clarendon, 1905) 168.Google Scholar In view of the opposition of Pecock to friars, including William Goddard the Franciscan provincial, the “Chronicle from the Register of the Grey Friars of London” is surprisingly terse concerning the bishop's fall. Although he was “a-peched of dyuers poynttes of eryses” we are not told what any of the points were (Brewer, John S., ed., Monumenta Franciscana [Rolls Series, no. 4; 2 vols.; London: Longmans, 1858–82] 2. 174–75).Google Scholar

¹² See “Excerpts from John Bury's Answer to Pecock's Repressor, entitled Gladius Salomonis" in Repressor, 2. 573–74.

¹³ Riley, ed., Chronica, 6/1. 283. John Milverton (d. 1487) was the English provincial of the Carmelite order from 1456–65 and 1469–82. None of the four works which he wrote has survived, but one of them was Ad papum Pium II super articulis, examinatione, disputatione, ac tandem revocatione R. Pecock.

¹⁴ Hall, Anthony, ed., Commentarli de Scriptoribus Britannicis (2 vols.; Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1709) 1. chap. 566, pp. 458–59Google Scholar; Hearne, Thomas, ed., De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea (6 vols.; Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1715) 2. 409–10.Google Scholar

¹⁵ lllustrium majoris Britanniae scriptorum summariu (2 vols, in 1; Basle: Oporinum, 1557–59) 594–95.

¹⁶ Stephen R. Cattley, ed., (8 vols.; London, 1837) 3. 724–34.

¹⁷ Harpsfleld, Nicholas, Historia Anglicana Ecclesiastica in quindecim centuris distributa (ed. Gibbons, Richard, S. J.; Douai: Wyon, 1662) 719–20.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Pits, John, Relationum Historicarum de Rebus Anglicis. Tom. I in quatuor Partes completens (Paris: Thierry & Cramorsy, 1619).Google Scholar This work is commonly referred to as De illustribus Angliae Scriptoribus, which is the running title of the second principal part, edited by William Bishop, bishop of Clarendon.

¹⁹ Robert Fabyan, The Chronicle (2 vols.; London: Kyngston, 1559) 2. 463; Hall, Edward, Chronicle (London, 1809) 237Google Scholar; Holinshed, Raphaell, Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (6 vols.; London: Johnson, 1808) 3. 245Google Scholar; John Stow, The Chronicles of England (London, 1580) 682.

²⁰ Godwin, Francis, A Catalogue of the Bishops of England since the first planting of the Christian Religion in this Island; with a briefe history of their lives (London, 1601) 389Google Scholar; De Praesulibus Angliae Commentarius (London, 1616) 559–60Google Scholar, 662. Fuller, Thomas, The History of the Worthies of England, ed. Nuttal, P. Austin (3 vols.; new edition; London: Tegg, 1840) 3. 492.Google ScholarTwyne, Brian, Antiquitatis Academiae Oxoniensis (Oxford: Barnes, 1608)Google Scholar lib. 3. 151.

²¹ Raynaldus, Odoricus. Annales Ecclesiastici, ed. Mansi, G. D. and Georgius, D. (36 vols.; Lucca, 1738–1759) 29. 138Google Scholar, 190–92. Index Librorum Prohibitorum et Expurgandorum (Madrid, 1667).Google Scholar

²² Robert Parsons [pseud. Nicholas Dolman], A Treatise of Three Conversions of England from Paganism to Christian Religion (2 vols.; N. p. 1603–1604) 2/3. chap. 6, nos. 21–22, pp. 264–66. Wood, Anthony à, The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford (trans. Gutch, John; 2 vols.; Oxford, 1792) 1. 603–11.Google Scholar

²³ See the discussion of sources used by Pecock's commentators in Kelly, “Pecock,” xi-xiv.

²⁴ Wharton, Henry, A treatise proving Scripture to be the rule of faith, writ by Reginald Pecock about the year 1450 (London, 1688)Google Scholar ix, xiii, xv-xxxi. See also Wharton's Appendix to Cave, William, Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria (London, 1688) 125–28.Google Scholar Thomas Tanner said that Richard James (1592–1638) gave a full description of The Donet and The Folewer to the Donet in Collectanea, xiv. 49. But Collectanea was an unpublished manuscript. See Tanner, , Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica (London, 1748) 584.Google Scholar

²⁵ Wharton, Henry, Auctarium Historiae Dogmaticae Jacobi Usserii Armachani Scriptum et Sacris Vernaculis (London, 1689) 444–45.Google Scholar

²⁶ Wharton, A treatise proving Scripture, xi, xxxiv, xl.

²⁷ Collier, Jeremy, An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, chiefly of England (2 vols.; London, 1708) 1. 674–76.Google Scholar

²⁸ Hearne, Thomas, ed., Walteri Hemingford, Canonici de Gisseburne Histoha de Rebus Gestis Edvardi I. Edvardi 11, & Edvardi III (2 vols.; Oxford, 1731)Google Scholar 1. cli-cliii; 2. 480–550. See Kelly's comment in “Pecock,” xv.

²⁹ Oudin, Casimir, Commentarius de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis (Lipsiae, 1722) 3. 2587ff.Google Scholar; Fabricius, Johann, Bibliotheca Latina Mediae et lnfimae Aetatis (6 vols.; Hamburg, 1734–46) 5. 657–58Google Scholar; 6. 172–73; Buddeus, Johann F., Allegemeines Historisches Lexicon (3 vols.; Leipzig, 1730–32) 3. 269.Google Scholar See Kelly, “Pecock,” xv.

³⁰ Tanner, Bibliotheca, 583–84.

³¹ Lewis, John, The Life of the Learned and Right Reverend Reynold Pecock, S. T. P. (Oxford, new ed., 1820)Google Scholar vii.

³² Ibid., 180.

³³ Ibid., 141, 211. Note Lewis's use of Wharton's phrase. Three of Lewis's four reasons for Pecock's fall come from Wharton as well.

³⁴ Ibid., 218.

³⁵ Lewis did not have access to all of Pecock's surviving works. Daniel Waterland described for him the contents of Repressor. Neither did Lewis see The Reule, though he thought that he had (see Babington, “Introduction,” Repressor, lxi-lxii, lxx).

³⁶ Works, (6 vols.; 3d ed.; Oxford, 1856) 6. 259.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid., 6. 253.

³⁸ Ibid., 6. 427. Italics in original.

³⁹ A View of the Stale of Europe during the Middle Ages (2 vols.; London: Murray, 1818) 2. 537.Google Scholar This is the earliest reference I have found to the similarity between Pecock and Hooker.

⁴⁰ [George Stokes], The Lollards; or Some Account of the Witnesses for the Truth in England Between the Years 1400 and 1546 (London, [1820]) 33–34.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Anonymous, Writings of the Reverend and Learned John Wickliff, D.D. (London, 1831) 203.Google Scholar

⁴² The History of the Church of England to the Revolution, 1688 (1st American ed. from the 3d English ed.; Philadelphia: Campbell, 1843) 37–38.Google Scholar For biography Short depended exclusively on the Lewis volume.

⁴³ Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (12 vols.; London, 1860–76) 5. 178.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ibid., 5. 295, 297–98.

⁴⁵ Ibid., 5. 298, 300–302, 304–5, 307. Both Hook and Pecock are now honored within Chichester Cathedral. Hook, dean from 1859 to 1875, is remembered with a cenotaph, by Sir Gilbert Scott, in the south aisle of the choir. When the protective sandbags were removed after World War II it was discovered that the German bombings of 1943 had nevertheless ruined the north wall windows. They were filled in 1949 with glass by Christopher Webb. The new windows depict certain prominent figures connected with the cathedral, and Bishop Pecock is among them. He is shown standing and holding a scroll which bears the titles Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy and Book of Faith. The subscription reads: “Reginald Pecock/Bp. of Chichester 1450—1459/First considerable philosopher/to write in English.”

⁴⁶ “Introduction,” Loci, lxxvi, lxxxvi, lviii-lix.

⁴⁷ Thomas, David R., A History of the Diocese of St. Asaph, General, Cathedral, and Parochial (London, 1874) 71–72.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Stephens, William R. W., Memorials of the South Saxon See and Cathedral Church of Chichester (London, 1876) 151–63.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Gairdner, James and Spedding, James, Studies in English History (Edinburgh: Douglas, 1881) 29–30Google Scholar, 32, 42–44, 52–54.

⁵⁰ Lollardy and the Reformation in England (4 vols; London: Macmillan, 1908–13) 1. 211.Google Scholar Gairdner does not provide a reference so that we might know just what the “trifle” too much was. But on the page preceding he had quoted the bishop to the effect that in matters of natural law the judgment of reason is superior to what is written in Scripture (Repressor, l.v [26–27]).

⁵¹ “Bishop Pecock, His Character and Fortunes,” Dublin Review 24/47 n.s. (1875) 37, 50, 32, 55.

⁵² Lancaster and York: A Century of English History (A.D. 1399–1485) (Oxford: Clarendon, 1892) 202–7.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ “Introduction,” Repressor, xxix-xxx.

⁵⁵ Ibid., lix-lxi.

⁵⁶ Hoffman, A., Laut- und Formenlehre in Reginald Pecock's “Repressor” (Greifswald, 1900)Google Scholar; Schmidt, Frederik, Studies in the Language of Pecock (Upsala, 1900)Google Scholar; Zickner, Bruno, Syntax und Stil in R. Pecock's “Repressor” (Berlin, 1900).Google Scholar See also Park, Chang Seuk, “Reginald Pecock's Repressor: A Study in Form and Style” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio University, 1972).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ “Introduction,” Fol., vii. See n. 2 above for publication data on the editions of Pecock's books referred to in this and the following six notes.

⁵⁸ Hannick, Emmet A., Reginald Pecock: Churchman and Man of Letters, A Study in Fifteenth Century Prose Style (Catholic University of America, 1922).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ “Introductory Essay,” Book of Faith, 22–24, 86, 93–94. Wharton's 1688 edition of this work did not include the entire extant manuscript. In any case it had long been a rare book (Babington, Repressor, lxvii).

⁶⁰ The Reule ofCrysten Religioun by Reginald Pecock: The Original Manuscript … Now for the First Time Described (London: J. Pearson, 1911).Google Scholar This manuscript is in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City (MS 519).

⁶¹ “Introduction,” Donet, xxi-xxii. The Myrrour is merely a condensation of Part I of the Donet, prepared by Pecock as a budget edition for everyman (Poore Mennis Myrrour, Prologue).

⁶² “Introduction,” Folewer, vii, lxxi.

⁶³ “Introduction,” Reule ofCrysten Religioun, xiii-xiv.

⁶⁴ Ibid., xvii-xviii.

⁶⁵ Blackie, E. M., “Reginald Pecock,” English Historical Review 26 (1911) 448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid., 465, 468.

⁶⁷ Unpublished D. Phil, thesis (Oxford University, 1935) 208. The bishop was also the subject of the Oxford University Arnold Prize Essay for 1922. Jessie H. Flemming (Mrs. C. S. B. Buckland) wrote “Reginald Pecock: His Place in the History of English Thought.” This unpublished monograph was not written as part of a university degree program. Buckland was trained in research at the University of London by Professor A. F. Pollard (History, n.s. 7/28 [1923] 317). It is not cited either by Hurnard or Green. It was, how ever, used by Kelly ("Pecock,” vii). Searches at both Oxford and the University of London, in the spring of 1976, failed to uncover a copy of it.

⁶⁸ Hurnard, “Studies in Intellectual Life,” 206.

⁶⁹ Ibid., 321.

⁷⁰ Ibid., v, 301, 326. Hurnard's perceptive treatment of Bishop Pecock has not received the attention it deserves. So far as I can determine it has never before been cited in any subsequent study of him.

⁷¹ Nuttall, Geoffrey F., “Bishop Pecock and the Lollard Movement,” Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society 13 (1937–39) 82–86.Google Scholar

⁷² Kelly, “Pecock,” 159. See also ii, 153, 157–72, 189–90. 1 am grateful to Professor Joseph Patrouch, Jr. of the University of Dayton for a microfilm copy of the Kelly thesis. Inquiries of the library at the University of Manchester had failed to produce any record of it.

⁷³ (Cambridge, 1945) 1, 6.

⁷⁴ Ibid., 233, 235.

⁷⁵ Jacob, “Pecock,” 127, 143–46.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 152–53.

⁷⁷ Ibid., 125.

⁷⁸ Emerson, E. H., “Reginald Pecock: Christian Rationalist,” Speculum 31 (1956) 235–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁹ Ibid., 236, 241–42. See Morison in Book of Faith, 86.

⁸⁰ Ferguson, Arthur B., “Reginald Pecock and the Renaissance Sense of History,” Stud ies in the Renaissance, Xlll (ed. Shaaber, M. A.; New York: Renaissance Society of America, 1966) 148Google Scholar, 150–64. See also Ferguson's, Clio Unbound: Perception of the Social and Cultural Past in Renaissance England (Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2; Durham, N.C.: Duke University, 1979) 134–36.Google Scholar

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⁸⁷ The Rise of English Literary Prose (New York: Oxford University, 1915) 64–68Google Scholar, 71–73.

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⁹² Ibid., 208.

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¹⁰³ Book of Faith, 1.8 (205).