CREEDE HINSHAW: ‘The necessity of burning heretics’

Burn, baby, burn! Incinerate those heretics!

During the reign of King Henry IV (1399-1413) the English Parliament passed a law titled, “The Necessity of Burning Heretics.” The title says all we need to know about how church and state approached dissent.

I became acquainted with this intense judgmental strain this summer while visiting Norwich, England, one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval cities. While there I learned about the Lollards, a persecuted sect of Christians who followed the example of John Wycliff.

The pejorative word “Lollard” seems to come from the Middle Dutch language meaning “mumbler or mutterer.” Never great in number, these people of faith were uneducated peasants who rejected the practice of infant baptism and priestly celibacy, claimed confession was unnecessary for salvation and thought it idolatry to pray to saints.

The Lollards had no power. They were a distinct minority. Because they were peasants, they had the potential, however, to cause much trouble for church and state if left uncontrolled.

And so, these powerless sectarians were driven underground, despised, demonized, hunted down like serpents, handed over for trial and public humiliation, and burned at the stake. Their bodies were unceremoniously tossed into a wretched pit outside the city wall where they were quickly forgotten.

The Lollards represent a single drop in the wretched bucket of religious persecution in Europe. In Norwich they left almost no trace. No cemetery or statue, church or historical marker (except one small hard-to-find plaque) commemorates these brave souls.

Only one very unlikely Norwich site preserved the Lollard memory. It is a free house called the Lollards Pit Pub, which claimed to stand atop that dreadful, long-vanished pit in which Lollards were tossed and buried. Uncertain what Lollards thought about alcohol, I decided to find the pub and lift a pint in memory of their witness.

Leaving historic old Norwich, walking past the impressive cathedral whose foundations were dug from stone that created that death pit, I crossed the winding Wensum River to find the nondescript pub sitting on a charmless commercial street choked with autos driving on the wrong side of the road.

The pub was closed for the day, which seemed to be the Lollard story in microcosm.