Making Martyrs

One aspect of the career of Sir Thomas More-Saint Thomas More-that tends to escape popular attention was his enthusiasm for the persecution of heretics, because it is not at all in accordance with the saintly 'Man for all Seasons.'

In religious and intellectual terms More was highly orthodox. The primary message of Utopia, for example, is the need for order and discipline, not liberty. The society described is totalitarian, about as far removed from present day ideals of freedom as it is possible to get. This is a world where attempts to discuss public policy outwith officially allowed forums are punishable by death.

So, More placed great value on the attainment of harmony and on a strict hierarchy of order. All challenges to uniformity and hierarchy were perceived as dangers; and in practical terms the greatest danger, as he saw it, was the challenge that heretics posed to the established faith. The most important thing of all for More was to maintain the unity of Christendom. The Lutheran Reformation, with all of the prospects of fragmentation and discord, was for him a feared and fearful thing.

His own personal counter-attack began in the manner that one would expect from a writer. He assisted Henry VIII with the production of the Defence of the Seven Sacraments, a polemical response to Martin Luther's On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. When Luther replied with Contre Henricum Regem Anglie, with all of the venom and vulgarity of which he was capable, More was given the task of firing off a counter-broadside, which he did in Responsio ad Lutherum. Just as violent and as vulgar as Luther, this book deepened More's commitment to the forms of order and discipline outlined in Utopia. Heresy was a disease, a threat to the peace and unity of both church and society.

More was more than a writer: he was a lawyer, a political and one of the King's chief councillors, so he was able to give his hatred of heresy some practical direction. His early actions included aiding Cardinal Wolsey in preventing Lutheran books being imported into England. He also assisted in the production of a Star Chamber edict against heretical preaching. Further literary polemics appeared under his name; but his greatest opportunity came in October 1529, when he was appointed Lord Chancellor of England.

The task before him was simple enough "Now seeing that the king's gracious purpose in this point, I reckon that being his unworthy chancellor, it appertaineth...to help as much as in me is, that his people, abandoning the contagion of all such pestilent writing, may be far from infection."

Heresy was a cancer, and could only be stopped by burning, of books and of people. In June 1530 it was decreed that offenders were to be brought before the King's Council, rather than being examined by their bishops, the practice hitherto. Actions taken by the Council got ever more severe. In 1531, one Richard Bayfield, a book pedlar, was burned at Smithfield. Further burnings followed. In The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, yet another polemic, More took particular delight in the execution Sir Thomas Hitton, describing him as "the devil's stinking martyr". The extraordinary persecution only came to a (temporary) stop when More resigned as Lord Chancellor in May 1532. It was the end of Utopia.

Kings, Heretics and Witches

Heretics had to burn in England, yes, but why and for what reason? The timing of the introduction of De Heretico Comburendo in 1401, the law that allowed for this practice, hitherto unknown, intrigued me.

The facts are, I suppose, quite simple: the passing of this rather extreme measure at that particular point in English history had a little to do with religion and a lot to do with politics. You see, Henry IV had only two years before the introduction of De Heretico Comburendo deposed his cousin Richard from the throne of England in highly controversial circumstances. There were other people, moreover, who had a claim to the throne just as good if not better than he did himself. He was thus open to challenge and was to spend virtually the whole of his reign defending himself against conspiracy, plot and treason in all of their many forms.

The one thing he needed was support, the support of the church above all. So, on the advice of Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, worried by the growth of Lollardy, a crypto-Protestant heresy, Henry decided that the flames would have to be lit. Rather burn heretics than lose the crown of England.

Henry’s second wife, Joanna of Navarre, probably unknown to most people who read this, has the right to be know as the only Queen Consort to be accused and condemned as a witch. Yes, she was. When Henry V, her step-son, succeeded to the throne in 1413he was anxious to renew the struggle with France, in the long conflict subsequently known as the Hundred Years War. Joanna, the daughter of Charles the Bad of Navarre, had relatives in the French service and refused to agree the king’s request for money. She subsequently found herself accused of attempting to poison the King by malificia. She was convicted, her lands seized and Henry got his money…and his war.

One does not execute royal witches, oh no. Joanna was kept, rather, in Pevensey Castle, and subsequently released after the death of Henry in 1422. Witch or not she is buried alongside her husband, Henry IV, in Canterbury Cathedral.

Tertullian and the Nature of Heresy

For Tertullian, an early Christian apologist, the Church alone bore the apostolic rule of faith, revered the canon of Scriptures, and bore through its ecclesiastical hierarchy the sanction of apostolic succession. Heretics were those who challenged any of these precepts. They were people who refused to accept the rule of faith, as others did. Instead they challenged people to raise theological questions to which there was no answer, "...being ready to say, and sincerely of certain points of their belief, 'That is not so' and 'I take this in a different sense' and 'I do not admit that'".

Tertullian has it that all such unnecessary questioning automatically leads to heresy-"This rule was raised by Christ, and raises among ourselves no other questions than those which the heresies introduce and which make men heretics!" Heretics, moreover, are those who do not restrict themselves to the Scriptures, but bring in other writings or challenge orthodox interpretations. Heretics are, quitesimply, rebels, in theological and in practical terms.

The answer was to believe and never question. It seems clear what practcal form this kind of thinking would take, to the fires of the Middle Ages and beyond.