Abstract
The significance John Wyclif saw in the authority of the text of the Bible rather than that of the Church is also reflected in the stress he placed on the Ten Commandments - God's true moral guidelines - rather than on any institutional prescriptions. In England, as Fiona Somerset and Elisabeth Salter have shown, this new emphasis is clearly reflected in rise of popular writings in English (be it mnemonic poems or brief treatises) concerned with this topic.
This paper surveys various tools for remembering the Ten Commandments that were written or copied during the 13th-15th centuries in Central Europe in Latin. Even in the Latin environment, the variety of relevant mnemonic tools (mostly still unedited) reflects a growing interest in this topic beginning from the end of the fourteenth century.
Based on analysis of the concrete Latin texts, the author tries to assess whether this boom can be linked to Lollardy.