With an active presence in England extending well over a century (1377–1522), Lollard communities were followers of the fourteenth-century heresiarch and Oxford theologian John Wyclif (d. 1384) and promoted forms of religious life and approaches to biblical texts that set the movement at variance with orthodox teachings. Professor Somerset’s talk will address Lollard writings as a space wherein those notions of divine law promoted by the church establishment were appropriated and contested.

Professor Somerset teaches medieval English literature at the University of Connecticut and is quickly becoming the foremost specialist on Lollard texts and communities. A list of her monographs, essay collections, and editions of Middle English texts can be found on her faculty website. 

Professor Somerset will be offering a Graduate Seminar following the presentation. If you would like to attend, please send an email to the organizers of the event, Jan-Peer Hartmann or Joshua Easterling, as the texts to be discussed will be distributed to interested parties beforehand.
     

Contact:
jan-peer.hartmann@fu-berlin.de oder jeasterling@murraystate.edu