Lutterworth's Wall Paintings

I had pleasure visiting Lutterworth Church in Leicestershire some months. Much as I enjoy seeing any old church or chapel, this is the base from which the great John Wycliffe ministered between 1374 and 1384. He was the ‘bright morning star’ of the Reformation., preceding Luther by over a century, but discovering ‘Lutheran’ doctrines by simply reading the scriptures for himself. The church itself thankfully retains his evangelicalism, but, ironically, it boasts a number of old Roman Catholic-era wall paintings that were uncovered from sixteenth-century whitewash. I suspect they were from the fifty years after Wycliffe, but a part of me wishes to believe he saw them.

Over the chancel arch is a ‘doom’ painting. This usually depicts hell’s mouth swallowing up the unrepentant. This one shows the dead rising from the ground, answering Christ’s call, who sits upon a rainbow. Christ appears to be a Victorian restoration but the resurrected figures look authentic enough. Some seem pleased to see the Lord, others hide their faces in shame. One poor fellow remains a skeleton, while various femurs and humeri appear strewn across the ground, their original owners’ location unclear.

Whether the depiction proves accurate or not, its truth is one to which Master Wycliffe would have subscribed, regardless of his thoughts on wall paintings. 

But I acknowledge to thee this thing, that after the sect which they say heresy, so I serve to God the Father, believing to all things that be written in the law and prophets; and I have hope in God, which also they themselves abide, the again-rising to coming of just men and wicked.

Acts 24:14-15, Wycliffe's Bible