‘Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy’s Wealth’: Pecock’s Exculpation of Ecclesiastical Endowment

The life and works of Reginald Pecock continue to fascinate, though they are a well-reaped field from which little new can be gleaned. Students of Pecock have naturally concentrated on the sensational and significant aspects of his career and writings: political historians on his trial and depositio...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Foss, David B. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 1987
In: Studies in church history
Year: 1987, Volume: 24, Pages: 155-160
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The life and works of Reginald Pecock continue to fascinate, though they are a well-reaped field from which little new can be gleaned. Students of Pecock have naturally concentrated on the sensational and significant aspects of his career and writings: political historians on his trial and deposition, and the political motivations which may have lain behind these; ecclesiastical historians, following Gascoigne, on his defence of the abuses of the late-medieval Church, especially of non-preaching and non-resident bishops. Historians of thought have seen a modern rationalist exalting thejudgement of reason above the dogmas of Faith and Scripture. Historians of doctrine have been concerned by his rewriting of the Apostles’ Creed, omitting the descent into hell. Biblical historians have questioned whether he used the later Lollard Bible, or undertook his own translation of the Vulgate. Protestant historians have with Foxe claimed as their own a bishop whose attack on the Lollards paradoxically demonstrated his close affinity with them; the less evangelically committed have praised a tolerant protagonist anxious to enter into dialogue with his opponents rather than to coerce them with ‘fire, sword or hangment’. Historiographers have welcomed a scholar possessed of a Renaissance sense of history. Linguistic historians have detailed his contribution to the development of the English language by his pioneering use of it as a vehicle for theological assertion.
ISSN:2059-0644
Contains:Enthalten in: Studies in church history
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0424208400008305