Pecock’s mismigrations across the religious field : The dynamics and boundaries of the failure of a reforming bishop and his texts in mid-fifteenth-century England
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?
Citation
Johnson , I 2019 , ' Pecock’s mismigrations across the religious field : The dynamics and boundaries of the failure of a reforming bishop and his texts in mid-fifteenth-century England ' , Church History and Religious Culture , vol. 99 , no. 3-4 , pp. 371-386 . https://doi.org/10.1163/18712428-09903004
Publication
Church History and Religious Culture
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1871-241XType
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © Ian Johnson, 2019. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC 4.0 License.
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