Lollards, a name given to the followers of Wyclif. Lollardus was a Latinised form of the old Dutch lollaerd, literally 'a singer of psalms,' a term which had been applied to a sect in Brabant akin to the Fraticelli and Beghards; but in English usage it was confounded with the native word loller, 'a lazy fellow.' Wyclif's Bible had supplied England with the phraseology and the seminal ideas of a popular theology, and his peripatetic 'poor priests' preached evangelical religion fearlessly throughout the land. Oxford University was a stronghold of the new doctrines, which were most widely spread in the district between the Thames and the Trent. The Lollards' petition to parliament in 1395 contained the famous twelve Conclusions against temporal possessions of the church; the ordination of unfit priests, the celibacy of the clergy, and all vows of chastity; exorcism, and blessing of inanimate objects; transubstantiation, the holding of secular offices by priests, prayers for the dead, pilgrimages, image-worship, compulsory auricular confession, war, capital punishment, and such trades as fostered luxury, like those of the goldsmith and the armourer. Many also objected to oaths, denied the necessity of baptism for salvation, and held marriage a mere civil contract. The corruptness and ignorance of the preaching friars made the progress of the new doctrines the easier, and ere long they had obtained enormous influence. There is no doubt that Lollardism prepared the soil for the Peasant revolt of 1381. Its popularity was imperilled by the extravagance of its devotees, and its adherents fell off rapidly under Henry IV., being vigorously persecuted by Archbishop Arundel. The statute, De Hæretico Comburendo, was passed, and William Sawtre, a Norfolk priest, was burned in 1401, John Budby in 1410. Yet the Lollards remained numerous enough to be formidable at the accession of Henry V. Its most prominent supporter at that period was the martyr Sir John Oldcastle (q.v.), of Cobham, on whom many mocking ballads were written, and whose name was travestied for nearly two centuries after as a fat, dissolute old knight, his mouth full of Scripture phrases : he was the prototype of Falstaff. Early in 1414 occurred the obscure attempted rising near London, which sent forty Lollards to their doom and proved the death-blow of the cause, but it was not till four years later that Oldecastle himself was captured and put to death. During the early years of Henry VI. the Lollards were sharply persecuted in London and the eastern counties, and some individuals were burned at London and Norwich. But ere long the government ceased to be strong enough for anything beyond self-preservation, though it need not be supposed, because the persecution ceased, that the opinions had died out. After the accession of Henry VII. the persecution was renewed, and henceforward the Lollards appear as a secret brotherhood, called the 'known-men' or 'just-fast' men, marrying only among themselves, and instructed by itinerant readers in conventicles. Amersham, Colchester, and Newbury are noted as strongholds. From the time of Henry VIII. Lollardy becomes merged in the rising Protestantism, but it is worth noting that most of the Marian martyrs came from Lollard districts, and that much of their spirit and teaching reappears strongly in Puritanism. Lollardism made its way into Scotland in the 15th century, and became especially strong in the south-western counties, in later times the stronghold of the Covenant. In 1494 thirty persons belonging to the district of Kyle in Ayrshire were tried before James IV. in person, and dismissed with a caution to adhere to the doctrines of the church. Piers Plowman reflects closely the religious unrest of its time; but the same is by no means true of Chaucer, whose Parson, when he objects to profane swearing, is denounced as a Lollard.
An interesting account of Lollard principles may be gathered from Reginald Pecock's Repressor of Over-much Blaming of the Clergy (ed. by Churchill Babington, Rolls series, 1860), written about 1450. Here the writer assails the three erroneous 'trowings' maintained by Lollardists, or Biblemen, as he styles them. These were (1) that Christian men owe allegiance to nothing but the law of God as stated in Holy Scripture; (2) that any Christian is capable of grasping its plain meaning, if meek and willing to understand; (3) that no one who has so grasped the meaning of Scripture need listen to any clerk's interpretation from Scripture or reason, especially the latter. In the Lollardist assertion that there was no need of human learning to open up Scripture, they but anticipated a delusion not unknown among 19th-century evangelicals. Their claim that none but those enlightened by grace could understand Scripture opened a wider door for self-delusion and error.
See Shirley's Fasciculus Zizaniorum (Rolls series, 1858); two papers by James Gairdner in Studies in English History (1881); and the article WYCLIFFE.