LOLLARDS. - I. IN THE LOW COUNTRIES AND IN GERMANY. - Lollards was the name given to the members of a religious confraternity that arose at the beginning of the 14th century in Antwerp on the occasion of a plague, during which they cared for the sick and buried the dead. The name derives from the German lullen, einlullen, "to sing softly, in a low voice," and was applied to them because of the psalmody with which they accompanied funeral processions; for this reason they were also called Deum laudantes. They were also called "Brothers of St. Alexis" after their patron, or cellite brothers, from the cellae, grottoes or tombs where they buried the deceased. Because of their poor state of life and the penitential habit they wore, they resembled the Beguines or Beghards, with whom they were not infrequently confused (cf. G. L. Mosheim, De berghardis, Leipzig 1790). Among the vagabond students of the 14th century in Germany there were also some Lollards (cf. L. Spätling, De Apostolicis, Munich 1947, p. 163). They were sometimes suspected of heresy and therefore persecuted; but they were finally tolerated by Gregory XI in 1374. The "Brothers of the Common Life" resembled the Lollards, despised by the world, as Thomas à Kempis and John Busch testify (Chronicon Windeshenense, ed. K. Grube, III, Halle 1886, ch. 41).
II. IN ENGLAND
The first preachers or "poor priests" sent by Wycliffe to preach his false doctrines were called Lollards. Their existence is attested for the first time in 1387 by the bishop of Worcester (v., nomine seu ritu lollardorum confederati), full text in D. Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae, III, London 1737, p. 202). In 1395, having become very powerful, they posted defamatory manifestos against the clergy on the doors of Westminster and St. Paul's in London. At the same time they had the reform of the Church proclaimed by the English Parliament. King Richard II Plantagenet, who until then had attempted to paralyze the clergy's action against the Lollards, ordered the Lollard preachers to be imprisoned and, if necessary, burned before the people. In 1399 Henry V of Lancaster still showed himself opposed to the Lollards. The archbishop of Canterbury persecuted them with zeal and purged the University of Oxford of their heretical tendencies. After the solemn condemnation of Wycliffe's errors at the Council of Constance (1414-18), zeal against the Lollards in England revived. Despite this, in 1428 the Lollards were still numerous and their writings spread widely.
The errors of the Lollards set out in the Repressor of Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, are the same as Wycliffe's, except for the last point concerning the condemnation of war and of the death penalty. Officially the Church's battle against the Lollards lasted until the reign of Henry VIII.
III. THE LOLLARDS AND THE PROTESTANT "REFORMATION"
The question has been raised whether the Lollard movement prepared the "reformation" of the 16th century. Neither in Germany nor in England did the Lollards cause the Lutheran or Anglican "reformation", since they had almost disappeared when the "reformation" began. Nevertheless there are incontestable analogies between the doctrines of the Lollards and those of the reformers, particularly on the following points: subordination of spiritual authority to civil authority; struggle against ecclesiastical possessions; the need for a popular translation of the Bible and for reading it outside the control of the hierarchy. It can be said that, with the bitter struggle against the existing order in the Church of that time, the l. of England prepared the ground for the Anglican "reformation."