"A Norwich Heresy Trial, 1428-1431".

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suppression.”  Several bishops and archbishops have also used this document to let people know about the past and to try and discourage others of following the Lollard persuasion. This document provides great insight on the ideas and beliefs of people in the 15th century and the followers of the Lollard movement.

        The content involved in the document provides us with the standard understandings of the Lollard movement. It is assumed that Mr. John Reve was a follower of John Wyclif. Wyclif did not only coordinate an intellectual movement, but a popular movement in creating the Lollards. The Lollards were based in England and felt that indulgences were wrong and they denied pilgrimage. They were interested in getting religious writings to everyone, which in turn built up this popular movement. The document begins with a general opening of who is speaking, and the circumstance as to why this person is here. The next large section involves the beliefs and opinions that John Reve had. This section is up for debate about the reliability of the writer. This was written by a church appointed cleric, who has been referred to as John Excestr, which questions if this clerk actually wrote down what Reve had said, or if it had been tampered with in the benefit of the church. The final section involves Reve stating his apologies to Christ for his errors and explaining that he will contribute his life to stopping other heretics by exposing them instantly and turning them in. The content involved explains the mindset of the public, however many questions have to still be raised about the dependability.

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        This document has been proclaimed very important by numerous historians, but why a lot of people ask. This document includes the general beliefs of the Lollards, which is a subject that has become very interesting over the past couple of decades. The ideas expressed in John Reve’s testimony explain many views on the Lollards overall beliefs. One of the most interesting would be the verse “Also that confession ought not to be made to any priest, but only to God, for no priest has the power to forgive a man of sin.” The reason for the interest is how at the end of the document, Reve explains to the people around him, which would be priests, bishops and numerous others included in the congregation, that he is confessing his sins and apologizing for what he had done. This opens up another area of discussion about the past, how they try to “get out of” situations in the form of bargaining. This document also provides the reader with an insight towards not only the Lollards beliefs, but what the church believed to be heretical and what the punishments involved for someone who was believed to be a heretic. A final insight towards this document, no matter how vague it might be, is the stages of arrest that took place when someone was assumed to be a heretic. Although this was not used in this document, the collection that this section belonged to included some of the detainment stages.

        After much in depth looking, a book by Margaret Aston provided some insight to what she saw in the collection. Aston had quite a bit to say about the flaws that she saw in the rewriting by Tanner; however she did shed some light on the importance of him

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editing this collection. Many of her flaws that she saw included how Tanner laid the document out. “The rearrangement of material also sometimes screens from view gaps in the manuscript that may well indicate missing portions of the proceedings.” Aston also pointed out that there was lacks in two ways, “the textual and the contextual – which do not necessarily point to the same totality.” Nonetheless, Aston still gives credit where it is due. She applauds Tanners ability to take this difficult document and edit it for the use of many other historians. Aston uses this article to complete the understanding of Lollards, much like Tanner indicates in his introduction. Aston does however do a great job in connecting many ideas of the Lollards to other documents of the same type. Aston concludes this section with a line that can relate to every document that stands the test of numerous edits, “popular theology cannot stand much refinement.”