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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
One of the questions that appeared in the theologians’ list of questions to be asked of suspected Lollards was ‘An reges et domini temporales existentes in peccato mortali eo ipso cadunt ab omni iure et titulo ad illa regna vel dominia.’ This question appears between one that enquires whether anyone may preach without authority from the pope or a bishop, and another that seeks to know whether the suspect considers that the laity may freely ad suum arbitrium correct and judge delinquent lords. At the same position in the longer list put together by a jurist appears a somewhat different question: ‘an domini temporales possunt ad arbitrium suum auferre bona temporalia ab ecclesia et a viris ecclesiasticis.’ Wyclif’s followers would have returned a positive answer to both questions, though the enthusiasm of their reply would have been the more audible for the second. Throughout the history of the movement Lollards were notable for the stridency of their objections to clerical prerogatives, and, especially in the view of their opponents, for their sympathy towards the secular rulers. Individual heretics and isolated texts applied Wyclif’s views of dominion to kings and secular lords, but the theory was undoubtedly primarily used against ecclesiastics. Academic debate of Wyclif’s theory of dominion was early, and the issue formed the heart of Gregory XI’s condemnation in 1377. But the question does not seem to have figured largely in the disputations that followed Wyclif’s departure from Oxford in 1381.
1 For the lists see Hudson, A., ‘The Examination of Lollards’, BIHR, 46 (1973), pp. 155, 153, reprinted in Lollards and their Books (London, 1985), pp. 135, 133Google Scholar. I should like to record my gratitude to Dr Alison McHardy for her kindness in reading a draft of this paper and advising me on it; its faults should not be attributed to her.
2 For the issues see Hudson, A, The Premature Reformation (Oxford, 1988), pp. 359–62 and 334–46Google Scholar respectively.
3 See Walsingham’s, Historia Anglicana, ed. Riley, H. T., RS (1863-4), 1, pp. 346–56Google Scholar; for the issue see Leff, G., Heresy in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester, 1967), 2, pp. 546–9Google Scholar and Kenny, A, Wyclif (Oxford, 1985), pp. 42–55.Google Scholar
4 See Thomson, W. R., The Latin Writings of John Wyclyf (Toronto, 1983), nos 53Google Scholar, 3s, 50, 427, 414, 394, 413, 388, 431, 204, 410, 395 and GSpur.2. For a description of the manuscript see Trahlar, J., Catalogus Codicum Manu Scriptorum Latinorum … Universitatis Pragensis Asservantur (Prague, 1905–6), 2, pp. 74–5Google Scholar. The present text is listed by Thomson, p. 307, as GDub.16.
5 See Thomson, index; the lists of contents in both these manuscripts in Tabulae Codicum Manu Scriptorum… in Bibliotheca Palatina Vindobonensi Asservatorum (Vienna, 1869), 3, pp. 119–21Google Scholar are superseded by Thomson’s.
6 For the Opus Arduum see Hudson, A., ‘A Neglected Wycliffite Text’, JEH, 29 (1978), pp. 257–79Google Scholar, reprinted in Lollards and their Books, pp. 43-65.
7 The basic source for information on the subject is Schramm, P. E., Wickham Legg, tr. L. G., A History of the English Coronation (Oxford, 1937), esp. appendix, pp. 233–40Google Scholar, and the same author’s article ‘Ordines-Studien III: die Krönung in England vom 10. Jahrhundert bis zur Neuzeit’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung in Verbindung mil dem Reichsinslitut für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde, 15 (1938), neue folge 1.2, pp. 305-91. Brückmann, J., ‘The Ordines of the Third Recension of the Medieval English Coronation Order’, in Sandquist, T. A. and Powicke, M. R., eds, Essays in Medieval History presented to Bertie Wilkinson (Toronto, 1969), pp. 99–115Google Scholar, has useful further material and bibliography, but the edition promised at n. 8 seems never to have appeared. Sutton, A. F. and Hammond, P. W., The Coronation of Richard III: the Extant Documents (Gloucester and New York, 1983), esp. pp. 200–12Google Scholar has valuable information, albeit relating primarily to a ceremony later than that involved here.
8 See Legg, L.G.Wickham, English Coronation Records (London, 1901), pp. 81–112Google Scholar , at p. 98.
9 Ordines Coronalionis Imperialis, ed. Elze, R., MGH.F, ns 9 (1960), no. XX.25Google Scholar;see also Loserth, J., ‘Die böhmische Krönungsordnung bis auf Karl IV’, Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 54 (1876), pp. 11–36Google Scholar. The reason for the similarity in this, and in the next point, seems to lie in the debt of both English and imperial ceremonies to the Ordo Romanus; see Richardson, H. G., ‘The Coronation in Medieval England’, Tradilio 16 (1960), pp. 111–202Google Scholar, esp. pp. 136ff. and 174-80.
10 See Liber Regalis.p. 99 and Schramm, P. E., ‘Die Krönung im Deutschland bis zum Beginn des Salischen Hauses’, ZSRG.K, 24 (1935), pp. 184–332, at p. 319.Google Scholar
11 For the imperial oath see MGH (n. 9 above), XX2,8; for the precise form of the English oath see below.
12 The first is PRO Close Roll, 1 Ric. II, mem.45, printed by Legg, Wickham, Records, pp. 131–50Google Scholar; the summary in CCR 1377-81 (1914), pp. 1-5, is not detailed enough for the present purpose; for the other two, see Historia Anglicana, I, pp. 332-8 (also in Chronicon Angliae, ed. Thompson, E. M., RS (1874), pp. 156–62), and The Anonimalle Chronicle 1333 to 1381, ed. Galbraith, V. H. (Manchester, 1927), pp. 107–14Google Scholar. See the comments of Wilkinson, L. B., ‘Notes on the Coronation Records of the Fourteenth Century’, EHR, 70 (1955), pp. 581–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 Legg, Wickham, Records, p. 147, and also Missale ad Usum Ecclesie Westmonasteriensis, ed. Legg, J. Wickham, HBS, 5 (1893), 2, cols 683–708.Google Scholar
14 See Foedera, 3, 3rd edn (1740), pp. 163-4; Johannis de Trokelowe… Chronica el Annales, ed. Riley, H. T., RS (1866), pp. 292–6; Chronicon Adae de Usk, ed. Thompson, E. M., 2nd edn (London, 1904), p. 34.Google Scholar
15 Annales Henrici IV, p. 294, after the question concerning Henry’s willingness to observe the laws, custom and liberties granted to the clergy and people by the most glorious king Edward, ‘Interroganda edam sunt et alia, quae reperies in hoc quaternione ante articulos depositos contra Regem Ricardum’; these articles are in Annales Ricardi II, pp. 259-77.
16 See Hist. Angl, 1, pp. 334-5, 336 (Chron. Angl, pp. 158, 160). The text in the Anonimalle Chronicle does not include the arch bishop’s words in full at these points (pp. 111, 113); the account is in French with Latin words given for the liturgical material.
17 Processus, ed. Legg, Wickham, p. 147; Hist. Angl, 1, p. 333 (Chron. Angl., p. 156).Google Scholar
18 Anon. Chron., pp. 109-10; see Legg, Wickham, ed., Missale, 2, pp. 684–6.Google Scholar
19 Bracton, , De Legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae, ed. Woodbine, G. E. and Thorne, S. E. (Cambridge, Mass., 1968-77), 2, p. 304.Google Scholar
20 Decrelum, C.23 q.5 c.20 (col. 936).
21 De civili dominio, ed. Poole, R. L. and Loserth, J., WS (1885-1904), 1, p. 271Google Scholar, line 6 and 4, p. 458, line 17 (the first sentence in the latter is misquoted, apparently by accidental omission of several words). See also 2, p. 79, line 17, and p. 109, line 24.
22 De ecclesia, ed. Loserth, J., WS (1886), pp. 13Google Scholar, line 27-14, line 16; see BL MS Royal 10 E.ii, fol. 219r.
23 A text fairly widely disseminated in the fifteenth century describes ‘The maner and the forme of the Coronacioun of kyngis and Quenes in Engelonde’, but this, though it gives the order of the ceremonial, does not include the wording of the archbishop quoted here. The text is printed by Arthur, H., ‘On a MS Collection of Ordinances of Chivalry in the Fifteenth Century’, Archaeologia, 57 (1900), pp. 29—70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 47-55, esp. pp. S1-2; for other manu scripts of the text see Lester, G. A., Sir John Paston’s ‘Grete Boke’: a Descriptive Catalogue, with an Introduction, of British Library MS Lansdoume 285 (Woodbridge, 1984), pp. 20—29, 71.Google Scholar
24 For evidence that a date as late as 1409 is possible for advocacy of Wycliffite causes in Oxford see The Premature Reformation, pp. 82-103.
25 Found in BL MS Additional 24202, fols 1r-13v.
26 See Post, Gaines, ‘Bracton on Kingship’, Tulane Law Review, 42 (1968), pp. 519–54Google Scholar, with references to earlier literature.
27 See Wilks, Michael, The Problem of Sovereignty in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1963), esp. pp. 217, n. 1Google Scholar, 236-7, 338, 425. For aspects more particularly relating to England, see Riesenberg, P. N., Inalienability of Sovereignty in Medieval Political Thought (New York, 1956), pp. 118–23, 126–8Google Scholar, and Kantorowicz, E. H., ‘Inalienability: a note on canonical practice and the English Coronation Oath in the thirteenth century’, Speculum, 29 (1954), pp. 488–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29 Quoted from Alvarus’s Speculum regum in Wilks, The Problem, p. 425.
30 The text is based on Vienna MS 3932 (X), corrected against and collated with Vienna MS 3928 (V) and Prague University Library X.E.9 (P). Though X needs emendation, in the final section it is the only copy to give the necessary readings without correction (see notes 17-18 to the text), and hence seems to be closer than the other two copies to the original. Minor variations in word order are not recorded.
31 mortale] om. P
32 precipere] precipue X
33 preceptum] om. P
34 regaliter] regulariter XPV
35 sancte] sicut, margin sanete V, sic P
36 uiduas] uiduam X
37 ceterumque] ceterosque P
38 ad beatitudinem… subtraccione] om. P
39 faciant] faciat P
40 regem] regularem X
41 per] et per X
42 secundum] sed secundum X
43 temporali] temporali in regno temporali P
44 essent] esset P
45 23] 21 P; Decretum, C.23 q.5 c.20 (col. 936).
46 sic] si X
47 ergo… laicos] margin different hand V, ergo non potest preter licenciam potestatis temporalis punire laycos P
48 ergo… clericos] margin different hand V, om. P
49 tanquam] om. P
50 per censuras] pretensuras P
51 sic] si X
52 sic … peccantes] om. P
53 iste… sic] om. XV
