i wasn’t really watching closely enough to make this an actual real REW, but tonight’s ep of robin h. featured LOLLARDRY! (or at least wycliffism)
UPDATE: didn’t think properly about this last night — robin is set in the reign of king richard (and john?), c.200 years before wycliffe’s translation of the bible into english: the plot point was that such translation was HERESY, which it was in john’s reign: in 1199 pope innocent iiI forbade unauthorised versions in the wake of the cathar and waldensian movements (which lollardry is loosely linked with); prior to this translation hadn’t been considered problematic — the venerable bede made a partial translation, and there’s also the wessex gospels, from c.990
(as before i end up deflated w/robin: there’s SO much comic-book potential for interesting stuff that they just blat past and forget — it’s not that they’re not “attempting stuff”, and i don’t really mind anachronism* if it had some energy, it’s just so muddled and timid… if they could blast back through the residue of 19th-century romanticised hood and start over (with all the same characters if you like)
*little john: “translating the bible? that’s heresy!”
tuck: “not heresy, john! progress!!”
what we really need is a historical series about the simons de montfort, father and son: crusader dad exterminated albigensians and had his head knocked off by a trebucket missile in southern france; baronial rebel son — present as a little boy when dad died, married to king john’s daughter- raised europe’s first elected parliament against king john’s son, henry iii, and died at the battle of evesham