Awards

• Winner of Winner, Margaret Wade Labarge Prize (Canadian Soci.

Overview

""Lollard"" is the name given to followers of John Wyclif, the English dissident theologian who was dismissed from Oxford University in 1381 for his arguments regarding the eucharist. A forceful and influential critic of the ecclesiastical status quo in the late fourteenth century, Wyclif's thought was condemned at the Council of Constance in 1415. While lollardy has attracted much attention in recent years, much of what we think we know about this English religious movement is based on records of heresy trials and anti-lollard chroniclers. In Feeling Like Saints, Fiona Somerset demonstrates that this approach has limitations. A better basis is the five hundred or so manuscript books from the period (1375-1530) containing materials translated, composed, or adapted by lollard writers themselves. These writings provide rich evidence for how lollard writers collaborated with one another and with their readers to produce a distinctive religious identity based around structures of feeling. Lollards wanted to feel like saints. From Wyclif they drew an extraordinarily rigorous ethic of mutual responsibility that disregarded both social status and personal risk. They recalled their commitment to this ethic by reading narratives of physical suffering and vindication, metaphorically martyring themselves by inviting scorn for their zeal, and enclosing themselves in the virtues rather than the religious cloister. Yet in many ways they were not that different from their contemporaries, especially those with similar impulses to exceptional holiness.

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9780801452819

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Reviews

Sumerset presents her case in assured style, but is far from dogmatic, instead setting out her contentions in order to engage in a dialogue with her readers and inviting their responses. Her book is thus both stimulating and enjoyable and will doubtless lead to further lively and productive debate. It should therefore be read not just by those interested specifically in the lollards, or in heresy, but by any scholar seeking to understand the wider complexities and interactions between later medieval religious ideologies and practices. -Katherine J. Lewis, Review of English Studies (November 2014) Feeling Like Saints is a major work of very considerable scholarship. Fiona Somerset has really interesting things to say about emotion, religious texts, and audience. It should be an important book not only for those who work on heresy, but for any scholar interested in the complexities and power of medieval religion. -John H. Arnold, Birkbeck College, University of London, author of Inquisition and Power: Catharism and the Confessing Subject in Medieval Languedoc Feeling Like Saints is a rich and impressive book. Fiona Somerset writes with precision and verve. Her new methods of identifying what constitutes lollard writing are advanced with intelligent reasoning and are on the whole persuasive. This book will stir up debate and is essential reading for scholars and graduate students interested in lollardy and its relation to mainstream religion in late medieval England. -Sarah McNamer, Georgetown University, author of Affective Meditation and the Invention of Medieval Compassion

Feeling Like Saints is a rich and impressive book. Fiona Somerset writes with precision and verve. Her new methods of identifying what constitutes lollard writing are advanced with intelligent reasoning and are on the whole persuasive. This book will stir up debate and is essential reading for scholars and graduate students interested in lollardy and its relation to mainstream religion in late medieval England. Sarah McNamer, Georgetown University, author of Affective Meditation and the Invention of Medieval Compassion

Author Information

Fiona Somerset is Professor of English at the University of Connecticut. She is the author of Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England and the coeditor of Lollards and Their Influence in Late Medieval England and The Vulgar Tongue: Medieval and Postmedieval Vernacularity.

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