And after all myn Aue-Marie almost to the ende’: Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede and Lollard expositions of the Ave Maria, myn Aue-Marie almost to the ende’: Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede and Lollard expositions of the Ave Maria

The narrator’s difficulties with learning the ending of the Ave Maria ” as expressed by the quotation in the title of this essay ” serves as a “hot link” to a body of texts that deal with the Ave Maria more fully. The end of the prayer is ideologically contested; Wycliffites viewed “Mary” as an improper insertion to the prayer, since, scripturally speaking, Gabriel already knew Mary’s name when he greets her (Luke 1:28). These exclusions also pertained to Jesus’ name in the third part of the prayer, credited to Urban IV in 1261. Wycliffites rejected the orthodox reading that “indulgence was a central aspect of the prayer”-as signaled by the insertion of “Jesus.” Wycliffite readers of Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede would know that the problems with the end of the Ave Maria refer to these.