... literature were increasingly translated into the common language. Furthermore mystics and other pious people wrote down their experiences and thoughts for others to read. All of this kind of activity had been monopolized by the clergy before the fourteenth century. Now it was available to the laity. Not all pious laypeople were mystics or Lollards. There was the puritanical, Scripture loving fringe of Lollards and near Lollards, skeptical of the sacraments and "superstition." But many other enthusiasts threw themselves into the orthodox devotion of the time. Such devotion centered to a great degree on the fear of purgatory. Purgatory was a doctrine developed in the earlier Middle Ages that caught the imagination of the Later Middle Ages. The idea was that few human beings, even if they are saved, deserved to go directly to heaven. Even if you confessed your sins and had them forgiven, each sin had a punishment ...

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