Great Expectations No.5 When Falstaff went Foxy:  

For John Oldcastle (Cobham) and the Lollard Revolt (1414) 

2024  

Wool  

Knitted by Janice Ely (my Mum) 

Not for Sale   

Sir John Oldcastle (Baron of Cobham) was an English Lollard leader who followed the teachings of John Wycliffe, a Catholic theologian who was dismissed from the University of Oxford in 1381 for criticism of the power and corruption within the Church. 

The Lollards' demands were primarily for the reform of Western Christianity.  They believed that all people should have free access to the Scriptures in their own language. The Lollards were responsible for the first translation of the Bible into English1382 - 1395. Wycliffe promoted a personal relationship with God and argued the authority of Scripture over the authority of the Church. Lollards denied any special status to the priesthood: they thought confession to a priest was unnecessary as priests did not have the ability to forgive sins. They opposed the acquisition of temporal wealth by Church leaders, as accumulating wealth led them away from religious concerns and towards greed.  

Lollards also had a tendency toward iconoclasm, an opposition to pilgrimages and saint worship and a denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Church powers hunted down the Lollards ruthlessly, and many of them were burned at the stake. Others recanted their doctrines when faced with torture and death. The survivors were driven underground.

Being a friend of Henry V, John Oldcastle long escaped prosecution for heresy. When convicted, he escaped from the Tower of London and then led a rebellion from Kent against the King in 1414. Eventually, he was captured and executed in London in 1417. He formed the basis for William Shakespeare's character John Falstaff . A second insurrection from Kent, involving several thousand Lollards was nipped in the bud in 1428.

The Roman Catholic Church used art as an anti-Lollard weapon. Lollards were represented as foxes dressed as monks or priests preaching to a flock of geese and other birds. These representations alluded to the story of the preaching fox found in popular medieval literature such as The History of Reynard the Fox. The fox lured the geese closer and closer with its eloquent words until it was able to snatch a victim to devour. The moral of the story being that foolish people are seduced by false teachers.

My Mum Knitted the Fox tail for this “Minument”. This was important to me as during the 80s and 90s she rebelled against the education system in Kent and its misunderstanding of dyslexia. Her determined efforts helped all three of her children improve their literacy and progress at school. She went on to train as a dyslexia tutor and then worked in schools, helping other children with literacy and numeracy difficulties.