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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Reginald Pecock and Vernacular Theology in Pre-Reformation England Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9qb9f48f Author Smith, Jennifer Anh-Thu Tran Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Reginald Pecock and Vernacular Theology in Pre-Reformation England A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in English by Jennifer Anh-Thư Tran Smith 2012 © Copyright by Jennifer Anh-Thư Tran Smith 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Reginald Pecock and Vernacular Theology in Pre-Reformation England by Jennifer Anh-Thư Tran Smith Doctor of Philosophy in English University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor Henry Ansgar Kelly, Chair My dissertation, Reginald Pecock and Vernacular Theology in Pre-Reformation England, is about the adaptation of inaccessible Latin forms of discourse into texts intended primarily for an English reading lay population in Late Medieval England. It focuses on the surviving pedagogical and polemical texts written by Reginald Pecock in the middle of the fifteenth century: The Reule of Crysten Religioun, The Donet, The Folewer to the Donet, The Poore Mennis Myrrour, The Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy, and The Book of Faith. Pecock is significant for many reasons, both historical and linguistic. He was the most prolific English theologian of the fifteenth-century, writing in English at a time when doing so was fraught with political and religious implications. He was also the only sitting bishop to be convicted of heresy before the Reformation. Despite Pecock’s importance to ii fifteenth-century history and literature, however, his writings have often been maligned and misunderstood, in large part because his style and language are famously difficult to follow. The project that I have undertaken attempts to close the conceptual gaps that make Pecock so difficult an encounter and to provide the critical tools and analysis that will open up his work to wider scholarly engagement. On that account, my dissertation provides both thorough literary analyses coupled with the linguistic and historical background that has heretofore been absent in Pecock studies. The first half of the dissertation is dedicated to the language and style of Pecock’s works. It includes a systematic survey of Pecock’s entire extant lexicon gathered from five source texts and the implications of Pecock’s many new word formations, their etymologies and their types. It is the first such survey and the results have been very fruitful: Pecock’s entire vocabulary numbers over 7,000 unique items and he forms 715 new lexical items. The second half of the dissertation is the first systematic analysis of Pecock’s pedagogical system, one which he terms the “Four Tables of God’s Law” and saw as a better teaching alternative than the Ten Commandments. It compares Pecock’s techniques to his contemporaries, both orthodox and heretical, lay and religious. Fundamentally, the project moves from specific issues dealing with Pecock’s language use and progressively broadens in scope and analysis to situate Pecock and his writings at the transition between the Medieval and Early Modern eras. The underlying organization of my approach is structurally cumulative: from individual words to sentences, from sentences to the argumentative units that they contain, from those argumentative units to the genres in which they operate, and finally, how all of those elements together relate to the curriculum of the layman. It is a forward- iii looking and increasingly open research program that aspires to show the relevance of Pecock as an educator, writer, and theologian within the broader story of the reform movements in England that brought with them an increase in vernacular instruction. iv The dissertation of Jennifer Anh-Thư Tran Smith is approved. Patrick Geary Donka Minkova-Stockwell Henry Ansgar Kelly, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 v For my parents. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ............................................................................................. II TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................. VII LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................... IX LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................... XI ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES .................................................................................................. XII ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................................... XIV VITA ................................................................................................................................................. XVIII PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS .................................................................................. XVIII INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ XVIII AUTHOR’S NOTE ................................................................................................................................................................ 1 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................................................. 3 EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES ..................................................................................................................................................... 9 INTENDED USE ................................................................................................................................................................... 9 PART I. REGINALD PECOCK, BISHOP .......................................................................................... 11 1 PERCEPTIONS OF PECOCK ............................................................................................................. 12 1.1 BIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................................................... 12 1.2 WRITINGS ............................................................................................................................................................... 14 1.3 INTERPRETING PATRONAGE ............................................................................................................................. 17 1.4 PREACHING CONTROVERSY ............................................................................................................................... 18 1.5 RECANTATION ...................................................................................................................................................... 25 1.6 PARTICIPANTS ....................................................................................................................................................... 27 1.7 THE QUESTION OF VERNACULAR TRANSLATION ......................................................................................... 53 PART II. PECOCK AND THE TRIVIUM ......................................................................................... 62 2 GRAMMAR AND PECOCK’S LANGUAGE ........................................................................................... 63 2.1 THE ENGLISHING OF PECOCK’S ENGLISH ...................................................................................................... 63 2.2 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................................... 69 2.3 WORD FORMATION .............................................................................................................................................. 76 2.4 ETYMOLOGY ....................................................................................................................................................... 113 2.5 TAUTOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................................ 115 2.6 PECOCK COMPARED TO CHAUCER AND OTHER WRITERS IN ENGLISH .................................................. 120 2.7 VERNACULARITY AND HERESY ....................................................................................................................... 131 3 LOGIC AND PECOCK’S STYLE ......................................................................................................... 136 3.1 THE SYLLOGISM .................................................................................................................................................. 136 3.2 SYLLOGISTIC SENTENCE ................................................................................................................................... 144 3.3 REASON AS NATURAL LAW ............................................................................................................................... 145 vii PART III. PECOCK’S PEDAGOGY .................................................................................................. 151 4 A NEW CATECHESIS ...................................................................................................................... 152 4.1 PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES FOR THE “LAY PARTY” ................................................................................ 152 4.2 GOD’S MORAL LAW ........................................................................................................................................... 171 5 COMPLICATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF A NEW CATECHESIS .................................................... 186 5.1 CONSISTENCY OF THE FOUR TABLES ............................................................................................................. 186 5.2 CONSISTENCY OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS ............................................................................................ 191 5.3 HIERARCHICAL CHRONOLOGY OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE ............................................................................... 196 5.4 LOVE OF GOD AND NEIGHBOR ...................................................................................................................... 201 5.5 LOVE OF THYSELF .............................................................................................................................................. 206 EPILOGUE ........................................................................................................................................... 208 RHETORIC, SYLLOGISMS, AND SOPHISTRY ............................................................................................................... 208 APPENDIX ......................................................................................................................................... 213 APPENDIX A. ATTESTATIONS OF PECOCK'S WRITINGS ....................................................................... 214 ENGLISH .......................................................................................................................................................................... 214 LATIN ............................................................................................................................................................................... 215 NO MENTION OF LANGUAGE .................................................................................................................................... 216 APPENDIX B. COLLECTANEA EX REGINALDI PECOK EPISCOPI CICESTRENSIS ......................... 218 APPENDIX C. SELECTED WORDS FROM PECOCK’S LEXICON ............................................................. 222 APPENDIX D. MANUSCRIPTS .............................................................................................................. 295 MORGAN MS 519, THE REULE OF CRYSTEN RELIGIOUN ..................................................................................... 295 BODLEIAN LIBRARY, BODL. 916, THE DONET ........................................................................................................ 297 BRITISH LIBRARY, ADDITIONAL 37788, THE POORE MENNIS MIRROUR ........................................................... 298 BRITISH LIBRARY, ROYAL 17.D.9, THE FOLEWER TO THE DONET ..................................................................... 298 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY KK.4.26, THE REPRESSOR OF OVER MUCH BLAMING OF THE CLERGY ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 299 CAMBRIDGE, TRINITY COLLEGE B.14.45, THE BOOK OF FAITH .......................................................................... 300 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................... 304 PRIMARY SOURCES ........................................................................................................................................................ 304 SECONDARY SOURCES .................................................................................................................................................. 314 viii
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