There once were these people called Lollards
Who for their faith they were collared
And burned at the stake —
A pretty tough break —
Wycliffe was the leader they followed
Church history lesson —
So — I was going for my evening walk listening to a podcast called In Our Time: History put out by the BBC. I can’t tell you precisely which episode I was listening to because I’ve been binging on them. You know — so much history to learn, so little time.
I’m pretty sure it was the episode on Margery Kempe and English Mysticism. Yes, I’m about 99.5% sure of that.
Well, they talk in British accents — most of them anyway. There’s an occasional Scot, and I’m pretty sure that, on the episode I was listening to last night, one woman had a German accent, but that’s beside the point.
Most of the guests are Brits — and I could listen to them all day. Love the accent.
And I understand what they’re saying 99.5% of the time.
But on this one particular episode, I thought they were talking about La-la-dee <— the phonetic spelling of what I heard. I made a note on my phone to look it up because I wanted to know more.
When all you’ve got is the auditory version of a word, spoken with a British accent to boot, looking information up can prove difficult, but I finally found the Lollards.
And I was like, WHY HAVEN’T I HEARD ABOUT THIS BEFORE???
Sad but true — I probably have but didn’t pay attention.
John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English back in 1382. Then the Lollards tacked a petition to Parliament on the door of Westminster Hall in 1395 — and when I read that, I thought, Wasn’t it Martin Luther that did something like that?
And it was. Martin Luther also translated the Bible into the vernacular. He nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints’ Chapel in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517.
Hmmm… I wonder where he got the idea.
I need to go back and study the two.
Or look for a podcast about them.
But the Lollards were considered heretics and many were martyred — hence this post — the Daily Prompt was “martyr“.
