Who Was Walter Brut

OF all the early Lollard preachers who risked life and limb to spread Wycliffite doctrine, the most interesting, it can be argued, was Walter Brut. He was remarkable in a number of ways. Firstly, he was the only known early Lollard of Welsh descent. Secondly, he was a layman, and a highly literate one at that, although he does not appear to have practised a profession that necessitated the sort of education that he had evidently acquired; specifically, he possessed an extensive knowledge of the Bible, patristic authors, canon law and academic modes of argumentation.1 Indeed, an earlier tradition of scholarship maintained that he was also Walter Bryt, a Welsh astronomer, fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and author of the textbook Theorica planetarum,2 although it remains unclear whether Walter Brut and this astronomer were one and the same.3 Thirdly, he held some extraordinary opinions on the role of women in the Church, first highlighted by Margaret Aston in 1980.4 Not only were women entitled to preach, he wrote, but they could even administer the sacraments if necessary. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is these progressive views on women which have recently been subjected to considerable scrutiny by literary scholars,5 and excerpts from his writings have been edited for an anthology of medieval texts on women aimed at undergraduates.6 He also held pacifist views, denouncing war and capital punishment. Such views were common enough among the early Lollards—and even among some of the so-called 'Lollard knights'—but they are interesting in the context of what follows here.7

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