1576 Edition | Book 8 | Page 997 
afrayde toMarginaliaThe multitude of lawes, make lawes to be contemned. offend them. Afterward they made many lawes for their aduauntage, and such as were pecuniall, those they doMarginaliaPalea in the popes decrees. obserue, and such as are not pecunial, those they call Palea, and regard them not: and so nowe adayes there are so many lawes, that wether a man do yll or wel, he shalbe taken in the lawe. He confessed that he spake the very same, or the lyke wordes.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe preaching of the Gospell is to be left for no persecution.4 He said, Good people, if I should suffer persecution for the preaching of the gospel of God yet there is. 7000. more that would preach the gospel of God, as I do nowe. Therfore good people, good people (whiche woordes he often rehearsed as it were lamenting) thinke not that if these tyrants and persecuters put a man to death, the preaching of the Gospe, therfore is to be forsaken. This article he confessed that he spake in like wordes and sense, sauyng that he made no mention of tyrantes.
[Back to Top]5 That euery man, yea euery lay man is a priest.
CloseLuther argued in Of the Babylonian Captivity of the Church that every Christian, in some senses, can be a priest in the exercise of ministry. De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae (Basle: Adam Petri, 1520).
6 That men shoulde pray to no Saintes in heauen, but onely to God, and they shoulde vse no other Mediatour for them, but Christ Iesu our redeemer onely. Thys article he denyed.
MarginaliaAgainst Images.7 He preached that they shoulde worshyp no Images of Saintes, which were nothyng but stockes & stones. This he also denyed.
8 He dyd preache vpon Whitsonday last within the vniuersitie of Cambridge, such or like wordes and sentences: That a Bacheler of Diuinitie admitted of the vniuersitie, or any other person hauyng or knowing the gospel of God, shoulde goe foorth and preache in euery place,
CloseFor Arthur to preach that 'euerye man may preach' was unusual, and against canon law and statute. Here he may have been influenced by some of the writings of Erasmus, or the idea of the priesthood of all believers, found in Martin Luther's De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae (Basle: Adam Petri, 1520).
[Back to Top]Which answeares thus made and acknowledged, the said M. Arthur dyd reuoke and condemne the saidMarginaliaArthur submitteth him selfe. articles against him ministred, and submitted hym selfe to the punishment and iudgement of the Church.
The thyrd day of December, the Bishop of London, with the other Bishoppes,
CloseAmong the other examiners whom Foxe did not name was the bishop of Carlisle. They met in the octagonal chapter house of Westminster Abbey, which has remained relatively unchanged in the intervening centuries. It is reached from the Cloister and it retains its original tile floor and wall paintings.
[Back to Top]
CloseThe actual number of letters that passed between Thomas Bilney and Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall is confused here. What is clear is that Tunstall carefully saved Bilney's letters, and used them here in examining him in 1527.
This was done in the presence of Maister Bilney, desiryng a copie of them, and he bounde the Notaries with an othe, for the safe keepyng of the copies, and true registring of the same. Whiche Articles and aunsweares, with three of the same Epistles, with certayne depositions deposed by the foresaide witnesse, here folowe truely drawen out, partly of his owne hand writing, & partly out of the Register.MarginaliaEx Regist. Lonndinensi.
[Back to Top]
CloseThe records of Bilney's and Arthur's examinations are preserved in the Register of Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of London, in Guildhall Library, MS 9531/10, fols. 130B-136A. The bishop of Rochester was John Fisher, chancellor of Cambridge University, who was among the most implacable of Luther's adversaries, and he enjoyed an international reputation for learning and orthodoxy. Luther's 1520 book De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae created a sensation because he attacked the doctrine of the seven sacraments and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church by calling into question the theology of the Mass. Fisher responded against him in Defensio Regie assertionis contra Babylonicam captiuitatem and Sacri sacerdotij defensiones contra Lutherum, (Cologne: Peter Quentell, June 1525).
[Back to Top]1 WHether they dyd beleue with their hartes, that the assertions of Luther, whiche are impugned by the Bishop of Rochester, were iustly and godly condemned, & that Luther with all his adherentes, was a wicked and detestable heretique.
2 Whether they dyd beleue, that the generall CouncellesMarginaliaConstitutions. and ecclesiasticall constitutions once receyued and not abrogate againe, ought to be obserued of all men, euen for conscience sake, and not onely for feare.
3 Whether they dyd beleue that the Popes lawes were profitable and necessary to the preferment of godlynes, not repugnant to the holy Scriptures, neither by any meanes to be abrogate, but to be reuerenced of al men.
MarginaliaThe church.4 Whether they dyd beleue that the Catholique churche may erre in the fayth or no, and whether they thinke that catholique church to be a sensible church, whiche maye be demonstrate and poynted out as it were with a finger, or that it is onely a spiritual Church, intelligible, and knowen onely vnto God.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaImages.5 Whether they thinke that the Images of Saintes are Christenly set in the churches, and ought to be worhipped of all true Christians.
MarginaliaWhether soules be alredy iudged.6 Whether that a man maye beleue without hurte to hys fayth or note of heresie, the soules of Peter and Paule, and of our Ladye, either to be, or not to be in heauen, and that there is yet no iudgement geuen vpon the soules departed.
7 Whether that a man may beleue without spot of hereie, that our Lady remayned not alwayes a virgin.
MarginaliaBreaking of fasting dayes, sinne.8 Whether holy dayes & fasting dayes ordeyned and receyued by the church, may be brokē by any priuate man, at his wyl and pleasure, without sinne or obstinacie.
9 Whether we are bound to be obedient vnto Prelates, Bishops, and Kinges, by Gods commaundement, as we are vnto our parentes.
10 Whether they beleue that the church doth well & godly in praying to the Saintes.
MarginaliaChrist not onely to be prayed to.11 Whether they thinke that Christ onely should be praid vnto, & that it is no heresie, if any man affirme that saintes should not be prayed vnto.
22 Whether they doo thincke all true Christians to be by like right, priestes, and all those to haue receyued the keyes of bindyng and loosing, at the handes of Christ, which haue obteyned the spirite of God, and onely such, whether they be lay men or priestes.
13 Whether they beleue with their hart, that fayth maye be without workes and charitie.
CloseThe target of the bishops' inquiry here was the Lutheran tenet of justification by faith alone, without the necessity of good works (including pilgrimages, the invocation of the saints, or almsdeeds).
14 Whether they beleue that it is more agreeable to the fayth, that the people should praye in their owne tongue, then in a learned vnknowen tongue, and whether they cōmende the prayer in a straunge tongue or no.
15 Whether they would haue the Masses and Gospels openly to be read in churches in the vulgare tongue, rather then in the Latine tongue.
CloseThe reading of the Bible in the vernacular by the laity had been illegal in England ever since the medieval heresy laws against Lollardy had been passed by Parliament in 5 Ric. II, st. 2, c. 5 (1382); 2 Hen. IV, c. 15 (1401); 2 Hen. V., st. 1, c. 7 (1414), and also in the 1408 Constitutions of Archbishop Thomas Arundel, printed in William Lyndwood, Provinciale, (seu Constitvtiones Angliae) (Oxford, 1679; rpt. 1968), p. 286. Vernacular prayers and lessons were at issue once more since 1516 when Erasmus first issued his powerful call for everyone to read scripture in the Paraclesis.
[Back to Top]16 Whether they commend that children should onely be taught the Lords prayer, and not the salutation of the virgine, or Crede.
MarginaliaBeades.17 Whether they do thinke the wooden beades which the common people doth vse, worthy to be denyed or not.
CloseThe reference here to wooden `beades' may not be simply to rosary beads, but to the `pardon beads' that were offered by some religious houses to reassure worried lay people. See J. T. Rhodes, `Syon Abbey and its Religious Publications in the Sixteenth Century', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 44 (1993), pp. 11-25.
[Back to Top]18 Whether they do thincke the whole Scripture ought to be trāslated into English, or that it should be more profitable for the people, then as it is nowe read.
CloseTranslations of the Bible into English had been illegal ever since the Wycliffite heresies of the late fourteenth century. See 5 Ric. II, st. 2, c. 5 (1382); 2 Hen. IV, c. 15 (1401); 2 Hen. V., st. 1, c. 7 (1414), and also the 1408 Constitutions of Archbishop Thomas Arundel, printed in William Lyndwood, Provinciale, (seu Constitvtiones Angliae) (Oxford, 1679; rpt. 1968), p. 286. The call of the humanists, including Erasmus, to return ad fontes, and to understand sacred scripture as it had been written, was highly controversial in the late 1520s. Susan Wabuda, 'The Woman with the Rock: the Controversy on Women and Bible Reading', in Belief and Practice in Reformation England: A Tribute to Patrick Collinson from His Students, eds. Susan Wabuda and Caroline Litzenberger (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 40-59.
[Back to Top]19 Whether they would haue the Orgaines and all maner of songes to be put out of the Churche of God.
20 Whether they do think that it perteineth to þe bishops to punishe any man with bondes or imprisonment, or that they haue any temporal power and authoritie.
21 Whether they thinke that cōstitution to be godly, that no man should preach in an other mās dioces, without letters of commendation, and licence obteyned of the Bishop.
22 Whether they thinke the vowes of religious men and priuate religion, to be constitute and ordeyned by the spirite of God, neyther by any meanes to be repugnant to a free & perfect Christian life.
MarginaliaPurgatory.23 Whether they beleue that we should pray for the dead, or beleue that there is a Purgatorie, or that we are bounde by necessitie of fayth, to beleue neyther of them: but that it is free without sinne, either to beleue it or not to beleue it.
MarginaliaPhilosophy.24 Whether they beleue that moral Philosophie and natural, to preuaile any thyng for the better vnderstanding of the scriptures, & for the exposition and defence of the truth.
25 Whether they thinke that the Popes indulgences and pardons are rather to be reiected then receiued.
26 Whether it be contrary to the doctrine of Christe and his apostles, that Christians shoulde by any meanes contend in the lawe, to seke any maner of restitution.
27 Whether they beleue all thinges perteynyng to saluation and damnation to come of necessitie, and nothyng to be in our owne wylles.
28 Whether they beleue God to be the authour of euyl, as wel of the fault, as of the punishment.
MarginaliaMasse.29. Whether they thinke Masse onely to be profitable to hym which saith it, & whether euery mā may alter or leaue out the rite and order of the masse, without hurt of fayth.
30 Whether they beleue that there can be any morall vertues without þe grace of Christian liuyng, or þt þe vertues which Aristotle hath set out, are rather fayned.
31 Whether they thinke it heresie, to teach the people, that it is free to geue tythes vnto priestes, or to any other poore man.
MarginaliaImages.32 Whether they doe thinke it more Christianlike to take away the Images out of the churches, or to permit them to adorne them and honour them.
33 Whether they thinke it the part of a Christian man, that preachers shoude exhort men to pilgrimage, or to the worshipping of reliques.
34 Whether that thou Thomas Bilney, beyng cited vpē heresie to appeare before my Lord Cardinall, and before the day of thy apparance, not hauyng made thy purgation vpon