Religions Reviewed

In her description of the antagonism between 15th-century Lollards and the English ecclesiastical establishment, Rebecca Krug emphasizes the issue of “priviness,” or secrecy. She observes:
“Clerical writers [who opposed lay study of the Bible] … described the scriptures as “secreta” and “arcane” but demanded that lay believers attend services regularly and openly; the Lollards insisted that access to the scriptures should be unrestricted and claimed the right to study them in private.”
This evocative summary has a rhetorical elegance and balance that masks some important asymmetries between Lollardy and the established Church. At the same time, there really is a sense in which the two stand in mirrored reversal of each other with respect to secrecy and privity.
 
The institutional Church was an unavoidable public presence in contrast with Lollardy; yet it was the Church that championed various forms of “priviness” as divinely ordained. A closer look at issues of privity among Wycliffites and Lollards shows that the “right to study…in private” to which they necessarily cleaved was more a defensive posture than an active ideal for them. Early Wycliffites were often very public, and their publicity—rather than any concealment—was what led to official repression. Later Wycliffite heretics still championed accessibility and openness with respect to the rights of individuals to study scripture and consider theology, even though their beleaguered circumstances often forced them to conceal their loyalties and activities.  The Church establishment could not avoid taking a public posture, while at the same time it increasingly advanced the propriety of secrets with respect to scripture, confession, and other sacraments.  These mutually-reversed conflicts of mode and message were the principle symmetries that governed the 15th century relations between orthodox and heterodox Christianity in England.