In this three-part series, "Orthodoxy, Heresy and Reform," Mr. Michael Davies discusses the Catholic Doctrine on the Holy Eucharist; John Wycliff and the Lollards - The First Protestants; and finally Girolamo Savonarola.

Catholic Doctrine on the Holy Eucharist
Mr. Michael Davies opens his treatment of heresy in the late Middle Ages by discussing the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. This, of course, had been tied by the 1200s with expressions that explained that doctrine with language taken from Aristotle.

John Wycliff and the Lollards - The First Protestants
John Wycliffe was, after the Catharists, perhaps the most clear cut heretic of the era. His whole approach to Faith and Reason led him to conclusions of the most blasphemous sort, attacking the very holiness of Christ as well as any proper understanding of the Eucharist. The heretical movement promoted by the Lollards, which, despite some help from powerful noblemen, was fought so vigorously by Church and State in England, was in some ways linked with his ideas. Wycliffe and the Lollards developed ideas and practices which, Mr. Michael Davies argues, justify them being considered as Protestants before the term had been coined.

Girolamo Savonarola
Heresy found fertile soil wherever the Church was corrupt. This was due to the fact that a corrupt Church does not do its duty in fighting heresy, while its abuses discredit it in the eyes of the average man. Savonarola, the great Dominican reformer, was disgusted by the corruption of his own day, not just within the Church but in the life of the State. His brief period as spiritual "dictator" of the Florentine Republic placed him on a collision course with the Papacy and the Medici Family, leading to his doom. Mr. Michael Davies provides a sympathetic critique of this deeply serious, though overly zealous and eventually apocalyptic-minded reformer.

Taken from: Christianity in the Late Middle Ages-Early Renaissance - 1996 Von Hildebrand Institute