“The Lollard Revolt in Coventry in 1431”
Maureen Jurkowski

It is a commonplace of late medieval English historiography that the Lollard heresy lost all its influential supporters after the debacle of the Oldcastle revolt in 1414.  Yet, new information presented in this paper will show that in Coventry, one of England’s largest cities in the middle ages, this was clearly not the case.  Sympathy for the heretical sect, which advocated church reform led by secular elites and was founded upon doctrines developed by the Oxford theologian John Wyclif, was consistent from the beginning of the fifteenth century up to 1431, when a Lollard revolt was brutally suppressed by government troops.

Throughout this rather neglected period in the history of Coventry, support for the sect was buttressed, if not led, by prominent members of Coventry’s merchant community.  Drawing upon a variety of unpublished archival sources, this paper will trace the history of this support and present new findings on the course of the 1431 rebellion and the circumstances that led up to it.  It will identify and discuss the lives, careers and networks of associates of the main protagonists of the Lollard movement over this period, and evaluate possible reasons for the heresy’s appeal to them.  Economic conditions and other circumstances, such as the agitation of itinerant preachers and political strife produced by unlicensed fraternities, will be considered.  The paper will elucidate an important political episode in the histories of both the city of Coventry and the Lollard heresy, and, at the same time, explore the dynamics of late medieval religious heresy.