Jonty Claypole

So I think if you're in England, you're kind of thinking those guys over there are kind of losers.

Like we need to depend upon ourselves a bit more.

I mean, that's colloquial English, but I think there's probably a bit of despair at the internecine fighting.

And also within England, there's a really powerful reformist movement growing, which will become known as the Lollards.

And the ringleader or one of the chief ideologues of this is a man called Wycliffe, who is promoting.

He's a very powerful bishop.

He's in Oxford.

He's promoting reform of the church.

And John of Gaunt was very sympathetic to Wycliffe, as we suspect Chaucer was as well.

Chaucer's patron was John of Gaunt.

And if you look at both the general prologue and the Canterbury Tales in general, there is a huge amount of cynicism at the corruption of the church in England, you know,

All these jobs, everyone taking money off the poor working people.

And Chaucer becomes a literary hero to the Lollards, to this reforming movement.

Wycliffe is in fact dismissed for heresy in 1381 and dies a few years later.

But the movement that's built up around him gathers momentum.

And, you know, we all know about Martin Luther pinning his demands onto the church in the early 1500s.

In fact, in 1395, the Lollards nailed their 12 conclusions onto Parliament and Westminster Abbey in St.

Paul's, demanding for a reform of the church, demanding that the corruption of the church be tackled.

And so I think in that world...

It's starting to kind of raise questions about if we cannot trust the authorities, the ecclesiastical authorities who are the speakers of Latin, who are the disseminators of the Bible, if we cannot trust their character, then we need to have access to the Bible in our own way.