Reginald Pecock and the Religious Education of the Laity in Fifteenth-Century England

2009 ◽  
Vol 107 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-73
Author(s):  
Kirsty Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Religious Education ◽  
Reginald Pecock

scholarly journals Pecock’s Mismigrations across the Religious Field

2019 ◽  
Vol 99 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 371-386
Author(s):  
Ian Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Reginald Pecock

Abstract In mid-fifteenth-century England, the anti-Lollard Bishop of Chichester Reginald Pecock managed to get himself convicted for heresy in the very act of trying to teach orthodox doctrine to the laity. His remarkable array of interlocking treatises recodified the entirety of Christian doctrine and catechetics in a sprawling multitextual summa that endeavoured to forge its own new communities of interpretation. Pecock’s textual mismigrations reveal much about the perils of social change and stasis that they attempt to address through the intent to reform. Although the laity of this time was successful in procuring more challenging devotional and theological materials, Pecock’s bid to bestow on them a newly enhanced theological and philosophical role was a step too far. So what can be extrapolated from his failure? What do his frustrated texts tell us about the dynamics, permeability, and (non-)negotiability of religious boundaries in mid-fifteenth-century England?

Answering “the Known Men”: Bishop Reginald Pecock and Mr. Richard Hooker

1980 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-146
Author(s):  
Charles W. Brockwell
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
Legal Instrument ◽  
Reginald Pecock ◽  
Established Church

There are both striking similarities and significant differences between the Lollards of the fifteenth century and the radical Puritans of the sixteenth. Both rejected the authority of the established church in England, and both suffered for such boldness. With the passage of De heretico comburendo in 1401 the so-called Wycliffites were liable to inquisitorial proceedings and punishments. Lollards were now felons as well as heretics. In 1406, by means of a supplement to the 1401 legislation, the laymen in Parliament at last took heed of the warning from the churchmen that confiscation of church possessions threatened all lordship, secular as well as spiritual. Under a constitution drafted at the Oxford Assembly from November to December, 1407 and republished at St. Paul's in 1409, any preacher other than a priest in his own parish was required to obtain a license from the ordinary or the archbishop in order to preach. Arundel further decreed that such preachers were to speak only on the subjects set forth in Peckham's constitution, Ignorantia sacerdotum. As the chief legal instrument of this English Inquisition, De heretico comburendo remained in effect until set aside by Henry VIII. It was later revived by Mary, and finally repealed by Elizabeth.

The Historical Career of Bishop Reginald Pecock, D.D.: The Poore Scoleris Myrrour or a Case Study In Famous Obscurity

1981 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-209
Author(s):  
Charles W. Brockwell
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Reginald Pecock ◽  
The Church

Reginald Pecock, D.D., thirty-second bishop of Chichester (1450–1458/59), had a meteoric career as a historic personage. He made a bright, unexpected appearance out of an obscure background. He shone brightly, first as a curiosity in his world and then as a seeming threat to it. Colliding with the power realities of his time, his career was shattered and his reputation permanently blackened by the Paul's Cross bonfire that reduced some fourteen of his books to powdery ash. This once proud figure (the obvious pun on his name was apt and widely used by his enemies) was now quite pathetic. He was required to suffer the humiliation of standing before 20,000 people to confess his errors and to assist in piling upon the fire the material expressions of his lifetime of thinking and of defending the Church. When those flames subsided, Reginald Pecock returned to the obscurity from which he had emerged, and there he died. Thus, for this the most famous lord spiritual of the Lancastrian regime; author of the most ambitious theological program of the fifteenth century in England; the first bishop of the English Church to be formally convicted of heresy–for this man we have no certain knowledge of the date of his birth or the date of his death, the place of his origin or the site of his burial.

Reginald Pecock and Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine

1973 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 118-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Levine
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Major Step ◽  
The Past ◽  
Reginald Pecock ◽  
The Many

The story of the exposure of the Donation of Constantine is a familiar one. In the middle of the fifteenth century, it will be recalled, two different men, writing independently of each other in England and in Italy, demonstrated conclusively that the document was a forgery. Others had long suspected it and, on one occasion at least, carefully examined and rejected it. But it was left to Reginald Pecock and Lorenzo Valla to complete the criticism. When they were finished it was difficult, if not impossible, to continue to believe in either the document or the event. In this way, European historiography took a major step forward and the Renaissance relieved itself of one of the many legends that cluttered its understanding of the past.

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