Magisterial Authority, Heresy and Lay Questioning in Early Fifteenth-Century Oxford

Abstract

A group of Latin-English macaronic sermons from the early fifteenth century collected together in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 649 offers suggestive insights into contemporary perceptions of Oxford University and of the compromised authority of its theological magisterium in the aftermath of the Wycliffite controversies in which the university had been fundamentally implicated. This essay argues that the sermons, in the epistemic ambiguity and indecision which lie at their heart, are characteristic of English “orthodox” discourses at this time which sought to negotiate the troubled relationship between unregulated lay questioning and academic theological enterprise.

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