Middle English Literature

Censorship
Beginning in the 1370s and 1380s, debate about writing, translating, and
reading in the vernacular grew more intense because of the dissemination of
written religious texts and ideas to audiences outside direct Church control.
Writings in English posed a particular threat to Church authorities who
were concerned about the heresies promulgated by those who followed
the ideas of John Wyclif and others (see “Lollardy Trials,” p. 59, and “Plays
and Representations,” p. 262). Lollards insisted that God’s word should be
available in the most accessible language and that the choice of language
did not affect the meaning.
Thomas Arundel (d. 1414) was bishop of Ely (1374–88), archbishop
of York (1388–96), and archbishop of Canterbury (1396–7, 1399–1414).
He was also Chancellor of England during the Ricardian and Lancastrian
eras. Exiled by Richard II in 1397, he returned with Henry Bolingbroke
in 1399 to depose the king (see “Usurpation,” p. 69). Composed at Oxford
in 1407, his Constitutions refocused the force of the earlier De heretico
comburendo (1401), and their publication in 1409 coincides with the Lollard
Disendowment Bill. Because of the Constitutions, Church authorities sub-
sequently examined books and individuals, trying and condemning both.
It has been argued that the Constitutions also had a less direct but wider
ranging restrictive effect on fifteenth-century vernacular writers, copiers,
and readers in general.
Primary documents and further reading
“Constitutiones domini Thomae Arundel, Cantuariensis archiepiscopi.” Concilia
Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, ab anno MCCCL ad annum MDXLV. Vol. 3.
(1737) London, 314–19.
Hudson, A. (ed.) (1978) Selections from English Wycliffite Writings. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
—— (1985) “Lollardy: The English Heresy?” In A. Hudson (ed.) Lollards and
Their Books. London: Hambledon, 141–63.
—— (1988) The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.

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Watson, N. (1995) “Censorship and Cultural Change in Late-medieval England:
Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Debate, and Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409.”
Speculum 70: 822–64.
Wogan-Browne, J., N. Watson, A. Taylor, and R. Evans (eds.) (1999) The Idea
of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
“The Cruel Constitution of Thomas Arundel, Archbishop, against the Gospellers, or Followers
of God’s Truth.” Trans. John Foxe. In The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, 1563. Vol. 3.
New York: AMS Press (1965), 243–7.
Language: Latin
Date: 1409
We will and command, ordain and decree that no manner of person, secular
or regular, being authorized to preach by the laws now prescribed or licensed
by special privilege, shall take upon him the office of preaching the word of
God or by any means preach unto the clergy or laity, whether within the
church or without, in English, except he first present himself and be examined
by the ordinary of the place where he preacheth and, so being found a fit
person as well in manners as knowledge, he shall be sent by the said ordinary
to some one church or more, as shall be thought expedient by the said
ordinary, according to the quality of the person. Nor any person aforesaid
shall presume to preach except first he give faithful signification in due form
of his sending and authority, that is, that he that is authorized do come in
form appointed him in that behalf and that those that affirm they come by
special privilege do show their privilege unto the parson or vicar of the place
where they preach. And those that pretend themselves to be sent by the
ordinary of the place shall likewise show the ordinary’s letters made unto
him for that purpose under his great seal. Let us always understand, the
curate (having the perpetuity) to be sent of right unto the people of his
own cure, but if any person aforesaid shall be forbidden by the ordinary of
the place or any other superior to preach by reason of his errors or heresies
which before, peradventure, he hath preached and taught, that then and
from thenceforth he abstain from preaching within our province until he
have purged himself and be lawfully admitted again to preach by the just
arbitrement of him that suspended and forbade him and shall always, after
that, carry with him to all places wheresoever he shall preach the letters
testimonial of him that restored him.
Moreover, the parish priests or vicars temporal, not having perpetuities
nor being sent in form aforesaid, shall simply preach in the churches where
they have charge only those things which are expressly contained in the
Censorship
243

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244
Textualities
provincial constitution set forth by John, our predecessor,
1
of good mem-
ory, to help the ignorance of the priests, which beginneth, “Ignorantia