This study examines currents of reform in the late medieval English church. One of its primary arguments is that reform is a concept fundamental to the Christian faith, and the notion of a single, monolithic Reformation obscures and distorts other movements of renewal in the history of the church. A related assertion is that the Reformation exhibits characteristics more closely connected to revolution than reform.In the early-fifteenth century, the most successful attempts at reform arose out of the renewed appreciation of Augustine that took place in the previous century. While the culturally Protestant English academy has traditionally understood Augustinianism to be synonymous with the doctrine of predestination, in the later Middle Ages there were numerous other strands of Augustinian thought. Of equal, if not more importance, than the predestinarian strain of Augustinianism, was a theological approach that emphasized the cura animarum and the pilgrimage of life. This pastoral Augustinianism eschews the revolutionary tendencies that animate predestinarian modes of thought, such as Wycliffism and much of early modern Protestantism, and instead sees religious renewal as something patient of (in the Christian sense of the word) terrestrial imperfection. It is this emphasis on measured, incremental advancement through the fallen world that is characteristic of true reform. These reformist tendencies can be seen in the writings of William Langland and the faith and practice of the Austin Canons, one of whom, an Oxford theologian named Philip Repingdon, came to exercise great influence within the English church. Despite his early flirtation with Wycliffism, Repingdon went on to become Bishop of Lincoln, and in that office pursued a program of reform that focused on sound preaching, instruction in the vernacular, and improved pastoral care. Though marginalized in Protestant historiography, such efforts had a lasting impact on the ecclesia Anglicana. One might even argue that this English (i.e. vernacular) reformation, of the fifteenth century, can in some ways account for the very different course taken by the English Reformation a century later, particularly when compared to associated movements on the Continent.
