How many heretics

Instead of worshipping the only living Lord, we worshipped dead bones; in place of immortal Christ, we worshipped mortal bread. No care was taken about how the people were led as long as the priests were fed. Instead of God's Word, man's word was obeyed; instead of Christ's testament, the pope's canon.

The law of God was seldom read and never understood, so Christ's saving work and the effect on man's faith were not examined. Because of this ignorance, errors and sects crept into the church, for there was no foundation for the truth that Christ willingly died to free us from our sins - not bargaining with us but giving to us. Mary Tudor. Henry VIII. Henry VII.

Anne Boleyn. The Lollards who survived into the 16th century, embraced the ideas of Martin Luther. This included William Tyndale who worked for many years in completing the English translation of the English Bible that had been started by John Wycliffe and the Lollards.

Why then might they the scriptures not be written in the mother tongue They say, the scripture is so hard, that thou could never understand it They will say it cannot be translated into our tongue Thomas Bilney became a well-known preacher against idolatry.

Twice he was pulled from his pulpit by some members of his congregation. In Bilney's attacks "on the insolence, pomp, and pride of the clergy" drew the attention of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. On 29th November, Bilney was brought before Wolsey and a group of bishops, priests, and lawyers at Westminster.

Also in attendance was Sir Thomas More. It has been argued by Jasper Ridley : "This was unprecedented, for a common lawyer and layman would not ordinarily have joined the bishops and canon lawyers in the examination of a heretic.

Thomas Bilney declared that he had not "taught the opinions" of Martin Luther. Bilney was now handed over to Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall who declared he "was a wicked and detestable heretic". Bilney was held in custody and on 7th December he agreed to recant his beliefs. According to John Foxe : "He was sentenced to prison for some time and forced to do penance by going before the procession at St.

Paul's bareheaded and carrying a faggot on his shoulder, then standing before the preacher during the sermon. Thomas Bilney remained in prison until his release early in January On his return to Cambridge he went to see Hugh Latimer and asked him to hear his confession.

Where before he was an enemy of Christ, he now became a zealous seeker of Him Latimer and Bilney stayed at Cambridge for some time, having many conversations together; the place they walked soon became known as Heretics' Hill.

Both of them set a good Christian example by visiting prisoners, helping the needy, and feeding the hungry. Jasper Ridley , the author of The Statesman and the Fanatic points out that no heretics were burned between and when Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was Lord Chancellor. However, things changed when Sir Thomas More replaced Wolsey: "Apart from other factors, these heretics were burned when More was Chancellor because they refused to recant, or, having recanted, relapsed into heresy, whereas in Wolsey's time all the heretics whom he examined recanted at their trial.

But there is no doubt that at least part of the reason is that More was a far more zealous persecutor than Wolsey. According to Peter Ackroyd , the appointment of Thomas More was a shrewd political move. In fact, More started his pursuit within a month of taking his position he arrested a citizen of London, Thomas Phillips, on suspicion of heresy It was the beginning of the new chancellor's campaign of terror against the heretics.

More now concentrated his energies on persecuting Heretics. In More issued two proclamations proscribing a number of publications and banned the importation of any foreign imprints of English works. More imprisoned a number of men for owning banned books. More also ordered the execution of three heretics and publicly approved of the execution of others.

The times demanded strictness, he repeatedly argued, because the stakes were so high. No other aspect of More's life has engendered greater controversy than his persecution of heretics. Critics argue that as one of Europe's leading intellectuals, and one with particularly strong humanist leanings, More should have rejected capital punishment of heretics. His supporters point out that he was a product of his times, and that those men he most admired In early Thomas Bilney announced to his friends that he was "going up to Jerusalem" and set off for Norwich to court martyrdom.

He began to preach in the open air, renounced his earlier recantation, and distributed copies of the English Bible that had been translated by William Tyndale. He was arrested in March and as a relapsed heretic he knew he would be burnt at the stake. John Foxe later described his execution in August "Bilney approached the stake in a layman's gown, his arms hanging out, his hair mangled by the church's ritual divestiture of office.

He was given permission to speak to the crowd and told them not to blame the friars present for his death and then said his private prayers. The officers put reeds and wood around him and lit the fire, which flared up rapidly, deforming Bilney's face as he held up his hands. Richard Bayfield was arrested at a London bookbinder's in October He was imprisoned, and interrogated by Sir Thomas More. Bayfield was a close associate of William Tyndale and arranged for his English translation of the Bible to be imported to England.

It is estimated that during this period 18, copies of this book were printed and smuggled into England. Jasper Ridley has argued that the Tyndale Bible created a revolution in religious belief: "The people who read Tyndale's Bible could discover that although Christ had appointed St Peter to be head of his Church, there was nothing in the Bible which said that the Bishops of Rome were St Peter's successors and that Peter's authority over the Church had passed to the Popes The Bible stated that God had ordered the people not to worship graven images, the images and pictures of the saints, and the station of the cross, should not be placed in churches and along the highways Since the days of Pope Gregory VII in the eleventh century the Catholic Church had enforced the rule that priests should not marry but should remain apart from the people as a special celibate caste The Protestants, finding a text in the Bible that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, believed that all priests should be allowed to marry.

As Andrew Hope points out Bayfield was an important figure in the illegal importation of English books: "Bayfield He is known to have sent three major consignments to England, the first via Colchester in mid, the second via St Katharine by the Tower, London, in late , and the third via Norfolk about Easter The second consignment was wholly intercepted by Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More, and the third probably partially so.

Richard Bayfield was imprisoned, and interrogated and tortured by Thomas More. The sufferings this man underwent for the truth were so great that it would require a volume to contain them. Sometimes he was shut up in a dungeon, where he was almost suffocated by the offensive and horrid smell of filth and stagnant water.

At other times he was tied up by the arms, until almost all his joints were dislocated. He was whipped at the post several times, until scarcely any flesh was left on his back; and all this was done to make him recant. He was then taken to the Lollard's Tower in Lambeth palace, where he was chained by the neck to the wall, and once every day beaten in the most cruel manner by the archbishop's servants.

According to Jasper Ridley More later attempted to discredit Bayfield by claiming he had two wives. His friends claimed this was untrue. More suggested that Bayfield had relapsed into heresy, "like a dog returning to his vomit" but was "willing to recant again as long as he thought that there was any chance of saving his life".

Richard Bayfield was convicted as a relapsed heretic, degraded, and "burnt with excruciating slowness" at Smithfield , on 27th November, This ended in failure and the next person to try was Henry Phillips. He had gambled away money entrusted to him by his father to give to someone in London , and had fled abroad. Phillips offered his services to help capture Tyndale.

After befriending Tyndale he led him into a trap on 21st May, Luckily, his work on the Old Testament was being kept by John Rogers. Tyndale was taken to Vilvorde Castle , outside Brussels , where he was kept for the next sixteen months. Pierre Dufief had a reputation for hunting down heretics. He was motivated by the fact he was given a proportion of the confiscated property of his victims, and a large fee. Tyndale was tried by seventeen commissioners, led by three chief accusers.

At their head was the greatest heresy-hunter in Europe, Jacobus Latomus , from the new Catholic University of Louvain , a long-time opponent of Desiderius Erasmus as well as of Martin Luther. Tyndale conducted his own defence.

He was found guilty but he was not burnt alive, as a mark of his distinction as a scholar. On 6th October, , he was strangled first, and then his body was burnt. John Foxe reports that his last words were "Lord, open the king of England's eyes! Lord Chancellor Thomas More was a strong supporter of the Catholic Church and he was determined to destroy the Protestant movement in England.

As a writer, More was aware of the power of books to change people's opinions. He therefore drew up a list of Protestant books that were to be banned. This included the English translation of the Bible by William Tyndale. More attempted to make life difficult for those publishing such books.

He introduced a new law that required the name and address of the printer to be printed in every book published in England. People caught owning Protestant books were sat facing back-to-front on a horse.

Wearing placards explaining their crimes, these people were walked through the streets of London. More also organized public burnings of Protestant books. People found guilty of writing and selling Protestant books were treated more harshly. Like those caught making Protestant sermons, they were sometimes burnt at the stake.

More wrote to a friend that he especially hated the Anabaptists : "The past centuries have not seen anything more monstrous than the Anabaptists". His biographer, Jasper Ridley , has argued: "As Thomas More approached the age of fifty, all the conflicting trends in his strange character blended into one, and produced the savage persecutor of heretics who devoted his life to the destruction of Lutheranism.

To say that he suffered from paranoia on this subject would be to resort to a glib phrase, not a serious psychiatric analysis; but it is unquestionable that More, like other persecutors throughout history, believed that the foundations of civilisation, and all that he valued as sacred, were threatened by the forces of evil, and that it was his mission to exterminate the enemy by all means, including torture and lies.

The worst of all the heretics were the Anabaptists, the most extreme of all the Protestant sects, who were already causing great concern to the authorities in Germany and the Netherlands. They not only rejected infant baptism, but believed, like the inhabitants of Utopia , that goods should be held in common. Thomas More wrote that of all the heretical books published in England, Tyndale's translation of the New Testament , was the most dangerous. He began his book, Confutation of Tyndale's Answer , with a striking opening sentence: "Our Lord send us now some years as plenteous of good corn we have had some years of late plenteous of evil books.

For they have grown so fast and sprung up so thick, full of pestilent errors and pernicious heresies, that they have infected and killed I fear me more simple souls than the famine of the dear years have destroyed bodies. Frith was arrested when he was suspected that he might have stolen goods hidden in his bag.

When the bag was opened they discovered that it contained English Bibles. After the authorities discovered his real name he was sent to the Tower of London. While in the Tower he wrote an extended essay where he explained his arguments against Catholic ideas such as transubstantiation.

It was smuggled out and read by his supporters. Next, that Christ had a natural body apart from sin , and could not be in two places at once. Third, that 'This is my body' was not literal. Last, that what the church practised was not what Christ instituted. Thomas More obtained a copy of the essay. Catholics like More upheld the doctrine of transubstantiation, whereby the bread and wine became in actual fact the body and blood of Christ.

It is believed because it is impossible, it is proof of the overwhelming power of God. Frith, a follower of Martin Luther , who believed in the real presence of Christ in the sacrament, but denied that he was there "in substance".

Luther believed in what became known as consubstantiation or sacramental union, whereby the integrity of the bread and wine remain even while being transformed by the body and blood of Christ. According to John Foxe , Frith and More were engaged in a long debate on two main issues: "While there in the Tower of London , he and More wrote back and forth to each other, arguing about the sacrament of communion and purgatory.

Frith's letters were always moderate, calm, and learned. Where he was not forced to argue, he tended to give in for the sake of peace. Henry ordered Frith to recant or be condemned. Frith refused and he was examined at St Paul's Cathedral on 20th June Frith wrote to his friends, "I cannot agree with the divines and other head prelates that it is an article of faith that we must believe - under pain of damnation - that the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ while their form and shape stay the same.

Even if this were true, it should not be an article of faith. John Frith was burnt at the stake on 4th July It was reported that "Frith was led to the stake, where he willingly embraced the wood and fire, giving a perfect testimony with his own life. The wind blew the fire away from him, toward Andrew Hewet, who was burning with him, so Frith's death took longer than usual, but he seemed to be happy for his companion and not to care about his own prolonged suffering. He announced that Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn was invalid.

Henry reacted by declaring that the Pope no longer had authority in England. In November , Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy. This gave Henry the title of the "Supreme head of the Church of England". A Treason Act was also passed that made it an offence to attempt by any means, including writing and speaking, to accuse the King and his heirs of heresy or tyranny. All subjects were ordered to take an oath accepting this.

More was happy to swear that the children of Anne Boleyn could succeed to the throne, but he could not declare on oath that all the previous Acts of Parliament had been valid.

He could not deny the authority of the pope "without the jeoparding of my soul to perpetual damnation. Elizabeth Barton was arrested and executed for prophesying the King's death within a month if he married Anne Boleyn. On hearing this news, Anne Boleyn apparently said that the "cursed bastard" should be given "a good banging". Mary was only confined to her room and it was her servants who were sent to prison. On 15th June, , it was reported to Thomas Cromwell that the Observant Friars of Richmond refused to take the oath.

Many people were punished for heresy in this period. People who opposed the religious changes sometimes refused to follow the new practices, spoke out publicly against the changes, or organised rebellions or conspiracies against the monarchy.

These actions were crimes in Tudor times. The reformation therefore led to the monarchy, Government and Parliament becoming more involved in religious matters.

This meant that often someone committing the crime of heresy would also be committing treason. The 16th century saw the start of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. These Protestant ideas began to spread to England and Wales in the s and started to influence many people.

The Bible was translated into English in , however little else changed. Church services and prayers remained in Latin and priests were not allowed to marry. Heresy and treason therefore became more common crimes under Henry VIII in the s and s as anyone who did not follow and support these changes was committing a crime.

Religious tolerance was therefore out of the question. Furthermore, the religion of the country depended on the religious views of the monarch. Disagreement with the monarch's religion was inseparable from treason, and many paid the price as England in the 16th century went through a series of religious about-turns.

Several people who disagreed with this change were executed, including the king's former friend and minister, Sir Thomas More. In , people who were considered heretics were burned for the first time since antiquity. And they would have been alleged to be leaders of heretic groups. A: Again, impossible to say, but we do know that on many occasions heretics were burned in large groups — sometimes at a time.

That gives you an idea of the scale. There is a widely held assumption that heretics who were burned in southern France were part of a Europe-wide heretic movement, who believed there were two gods: one good, and one evil. Most heretics — the ones we can identify, that is — tended to believe a very simple form of Christianity, based on literal readings of the New Testament. They placed high value on chastity, and were opposed to any ostentatious wealth and to the wealth and power structure of the church.

A: This changed over time. There is no indication that they did not get on and coexist with Catholics until outsiders such as crusaders and inquisitors came in.