LOLLARDS

A cla of persons in Germany and the Netherlands who profe ed, in the 14th century, to undertake spiritual offices in behalf of the sick and dead, and succeeded in attracting the attention and love of the ma of the people when they were in a great measure alienated from the secular and regular clergy by their general Indifference and neglect. The origin of the name has been much disputed; but the inquiries of Mosheim seem to lead to the result that it is compounded of the German words lallen (identical with the lallare of the Romans and the lull of our own language, signifying to sing in a murmuring strain) and hard, a common affix, as in the somewhat similar word beghard. A Lollard, therefore, meant one in the habit of singing to the praise of God, or funeral dirges and the like, as was the custom of the early profe ors of this holy manner of life. The Lollards, however, were accused — probably through the envy and spite of the mendicant friars and others wnose neglected duties they so zealously performed— of holding many heretical opinions. It is not impo ible that there might have been some degree of enthusiasm mixed up with so ardent and unworldly a devotion;.but the charges of violent reforming views, still more those of practical vice, appear to rest upon no authentic grounds. In proce of time the term was applied by the partizans of the church to the heretics and schismatics of the day generally; and the followers of Wicliffe in England are frequently stigmatized under the name of Lollards. (See Gieseler's Text-book, transl., vol. iii. pp.99. 128.) [s. 694]