Abstract
Both of these books make a valuable contribution to their shared field of study. While, as its author states at the outset, What Is a Lollard? is largely concerned with terminology, The Call to Read explores Reginald Pecock's response to the Lollard challenge of his time, and combined they have much to tell us about the forms and experience of dissent in late medieval England. The phenomenon of Lollard heresy and Pecock's writings were alike rooted in the conviction, shared by Wyclif's followers and their opponents, that theological issues belonged on the page as well as to oral statement. Beliefs might be contested as well as shared, but in both cases they were written as well as delivered by word of mouth. Later medieval English dissent and its refutation were fully paginated, and even if there were areas (maybe critical ones) that failed to transmit some of their secrets to later generations through the written record, the activities of hearing, reading, and voiced communication left plenty of evidence behind them.
Published Version
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