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It is a tribute to English orthodoxy that the Act "de haeretico comburendo" was not passed until 1401. Early usage forbade the clergy to be concerned in judgments involving death or mutilation. This finds expression in the Constitutions of Clarendon ; and the fourth Lateran Council definitely forbade clerks to utter a judgment of blood or to be present at an execution.
They passed the bill for an additional excise, together with an act for taking away the writ "De heretico comburendo;" another annulling all attainders and acts passed in the late pretended parliament of king James; a third to prevent foreign education; a fourth for disarming papists; and a fifth for settling the estates of intestates.
But, O mercy! if every human being were to be held up to detestation, who in that age would have thought it his duty to have passed sentence 'de comburendo heretico' on a man, who had publicly styled the Trinity "a Cerberus," and "a three-headed monster of hell," what would the history of the Reformation be but a list of criminals?
His monument adjoins that of the Black Prince. He was involved in the conspiracy for which his brother, the Earl of Arundel, was executed, and was himself exiled. He was restored after Bolingbroke's success, and received the abdication of Richard II. In 1400 the statute De haeretico comburendo was enacted, and Arundel began to put it in force against the Lollards.
It is to be observed, however, that Wycliffe himself limited his arguments strictly to the property of the clergy. See Milman's History of Latin Christianity, Vol. V. p. 508. Walsingham, p. 275, apud Lingard. 5 Ric. II. cap. 5 Wilkins, Concilia, III. 160-167. De Heretico comburendo. 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15. Stow, 330, 338. Rot. Parl.
The first head of Crown Law is that which concerns offences committed against God, and anciently there were three which were capital, viz., heresy, witchcraft and sodomy; but the law passed in the reign of King Charles the Second for taking away the writ de Hæretica comburendo, leaves the first not now punishable with death, even in its highest degree.
During the month following the submission, two fateful Acts were passed; one, almost without discussion, reviving the old acts, "De heretico comburendo" and others, which had been restricted under Henry and abolished under Somerset; the other repealing all the anti-Roman legislation since the twentieth year of Henry , with a proviso, however, securing the alienated wealth of the Church to its present holders.
They sometimes fled to a city for the security it afforded. Serfdom, however, was rapidly disappearing. De heretico comburendo, 1401. In 1539 Valentine Freez, a freeman, and his wife, were burnt at the stake on Knavesmire for heresy. Frederick Freez, Valentine's father, was a book-printer and a freeman . Cf. French journée. Sauce was much used.
"Divers false and perverse people," so runs the act De Heretico comburendo, "of a certain new sect, damnably thinking of the faith of the sacraments of the church, and of the authority of the same, against the law of God and of the church, usurping the office of preaching, do perversely and maliciously, in divers places within the realm, preach and teach divers new doctrines, and wicked erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and determination of Holy Church.
"Divers false and perverse people," so runs the act De Heretico comburendo, "of a certain new sect, damnably thinking of the faith of the sacraments of the church, and of the authority of the same, against the law of God and of the church, usurping the office of preaching, do perversely and maliciously, in divers places within the realm, preach and teach divers new doctrines, and wicked erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and determination of Holy Church.
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