Past event
Inaugural Lecture by Professor Ian Johnson Reginald Pecock: the greatest of failures?
In 1457, Reginald Pecock, Bishop of Chichester who was born circa 1390 and died around 1460, in the very act of trying to teach orthodox doctrine to the laity and win back dissenters to mainstream piety, managed to get himself convicted for heresy. Fortunately for him, he did not go to the stake, for he recanted in front of a crowd of 20,000 at Paul's Cross in London.
Not so fortunately, his works were consigned to the fire and, before long, miserably incarcerated in Thorney Abbey without anything to read or write either with or upon, he was dead. How this most acrobatic of own-goals came about makes for a fascinating and sorry tale — a tale of extraordinary ambition, invention and misunderstanding.
In this lecture, Ian Johnson, Professor of Medieval Literature in the School of English and a member of the Institute of Mediaeval Studies, will discuss not only how Reginald pushed his luck by going too far but also how his unfulfilled ambitions are nevertheless valuable and significant in themselves.