The Wycliffite Heresy. Authority and the Interpretation of Texts. By Kantik Ghosh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 298. $65.

This excellent book makes an original contribution to the study of attitudes to the Bible and its authority on the part of Wyclif, his followers, and their opponents. It is a close reading of some works of Wyclif himself and then of some works of William Woodford, one of his earliest and most interesting opponents, followed by studies of the translation of the Bible and how it was justified and opposed, of the hermeneutics of the Lollard sermons, of Nicholas Love's work as an alternative way of presenting the Bible to lay people, and finally of Thomas Netter's Doctrinale, arguing that his hermeneutics were deeply affected by his opponents. The conclusion is that Wyclif and his followers radically altered the way that scholars and polemical writers could discuss Biblical authority in England.

Margaret Harvey
University of Durham