Books-for-Laymen: The Demise of a Commonplace
Ann Eljenholm Nichols
The exact relationship between Lollardy and the sixteenth-century Reformation long has eluded students of English history. Recent detailed studies Lollard texts have underlined a continuity belief polemic. 1 One significant difference, however, is way in which reformers two periods used commonplace saying that images are “laymen's books.” Lollards, even those who were most outspoken critics images, Gregory Great's metaphor to support their positions. In I 530s similar ways, but by 1540s they had rejected it altogether. reformers, did more than merely reject as an authority. Instead dismissing old justification false sophism, continental done 1520s, appropriated laymen's-book for own polemic, turning against iconophiles. Furthermore, developed new provided positive alternative illiterate, arguing simple unlearned read not from book art rather natural world around them.
Church History