During the fourteenth century in England there began a movement referred to as Lollardy. Throughout history, Lollardy has been viewed as a precursor to the Protestant Reformation. There has been a long ongoing debate among scholars trying to identify the extent of Lollard beliefs among the English. Attempting to identify who was a Lollard has often led historians to look at the trial records of those accused of being Lollards. One aspect overlooked in these studies is the role civic authorities, like the mayor of a town, played in the heresy trials of suspected Lollards. Contrary to existing beliefs that the Lollards were marginalized figures, the mayors' willingness to defend them against Church prosecution implies that either Lollard sympathies were more widespread than previously noted or Lollards were being inaccurately identified in the court records. This contradicts scholars' previous view that English religious views were clearly divided between Lollards and non-Lollards, providing depth and additional support to very recent work emphasizing the complexity of religious identity during the period immediately preceding the Reformation.

La thèse présente l'étude et l'édition critique du manuscrit Bodley 806, contenant un cycle complet de sermons dominicaux de la fin du quatorzième-début du quinzième siècle. Sont d'abord présentés les contextes historique et idéologique de l'époque, partie à laquelle s'ensuit une présentation de la nature même de l'édition, ainsi que l'argumentation de la position prise par le scribe du manuscrit Bodley 806 telle qu'elle transparaît à travers le texte qu'il compile. La quatrième partie de l'étude qui accompagne l'édition critique détaille les caractéristiques physiques, l'histoire du manuscrit, ainsi que sa structure et sa langue. Le cinquième chapitre présente les éléments qui étayent les thèses selon lesquelles le texte contenu dans le manuscrit a été compilé par une seule et même personne et que ce dernier en a influencé d'autres (sans qu'il soit pour autant leur source directe). La dernière partie de l'étude est consacrée aux conclusions générales et aux principes éditoriaux appliqués à l'édition. A la partie introductive succède l'édition du texte, où chaque sermon est accompagné de son apparat critique et ses notes explicatives. En annexe de cette édition se trouvent également un glossaire et trois indexes : l'un de citations bibliques, un autre de citations non-bibliques et le dernier de noms propres. / The thesis presents a study and a critical edition of manuscript Bodley 806 which contains a complete cycle of Sunday sermons from the late fourteenth-early fifteenth century. The study begins by laying out the historical and ideological scenes of the time in order to focus, in the second chapter, on the nature of the edition and the peculiarities it presents, along with the position of the compiler (such as it can be deduced from the text he is compiling). The fourth part of the study presents a complete physical description of the manuscript, its history as well as its structure and language, while the fifth focuses on those elements supporting the theory according to which the manuscript was compiled by a single person and that its text has influenced other texts from other manuscripts (although Bodley 806 is not their ultimate source). The last part of the study presents the general conclusions drawn after the establishment and study of the text, as well as the editorial procedures and principles applied to the text. After the study follows the critical edition of the text contained in manuscript Bodley 806 along with its critical apparatus and explanatory notes after each sermon, as well as a glossary and three indices: one of biblical quotations, one of non-biblical ones and one of proper names.

In this dissertation, I examine the various ways in which medieval authors used the term "lollard" to mean something other than "Wycliffite." In the case of William Langland's Piers Plowman, I trace the usage of the lollard-trope through the C-text and link it to Langland's dependence on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Regarding Chaucer's Parson's Tale, I establish the orthodoxy of the tale's speaker by comparing his tale to contemporaneous texts of varying orthodoxy, and I link the Parson's being referred to as a "lollard" to the eschatological message of his tale. In the chapter on The Book of Margery Kempe, I examine that the overemphasis on Margery's potential Wycliffism causes everyone in The Book to overlook her heretical views on universal salvation. Finally, in comparing some of John Lydgate's minor poems with the macaronic sermons of Oxford, MS Bodley 649, I establish the orthodox character of late-medieval English anti-Wycliffism that these disparate works share. In all, this dissertation points up the eschatological character of the lollard-trope and looks at the various ends to which medieval authors deployed it.