The Church had held sway over medieval society for centuries, but it began to lose its grip in the fourteenth century. It was not only that it could not explain nor prevent the calamities that swept through the century, it was enduring its own calamities. The Church was at its strongest in the thirteenth century, but within a few years of entering the fourteenth it entered a series of crises that would all but destroy …showed first 75 words of 1025 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1025 total…to all intents and purposes, in chaos (and the pestilence had struck the Church as badly as secular society). People began to look elsewhere for spiritual comfort ... As there were tremendous and violent social revolts in Europe post the Black Death, so there were some extremely strong and extremely dangerous heresies. the one I want to discuss here, again because it has such a bearing on THE CRUCIBLE, is the English Lollard movement. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**