Oxford Martyrs | |
---|---|
Born | England |
Died | 1555 and 1556, Oxford, England |
Means of martyrdom | Burned at the stake |
Venerated in | Anglican Communion |
Feast | October 16 |
The Oxford Martyrs were Protestants tried for heresy in 1555 and burnt at the stake in Oxford, England, for their religious beliefs and teachings, during the Marian persecution in England. [1]
The three martyrs were the Church of England bishops Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley and Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. [1]
The three were tried at University Church of St Mary the Virgin, the official church of the University of Oxford on the High Street, Oxford. The men were imprisoned at the former Bocardo Prison near the extant St Michael at the North Gate church (at the north gate of the city walls) in Cornmarket Street. The door of their cell is on display in the tower of the church. [1]
The men were burnt at the stake just outside the city walls to the north, where Broad Street is now located. Latimer and Ridley were burnt on 16 October 1555 for denying the Roman Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation. Cranmer was burnt five months later on 21 March 1556. [2]
A small area paved with granite setts forming a cross in the centre of the road outside the front of Balliol College marks the site. [2] [3] The Victorian spire-like Martyrs' Memorial, at the south end of St Giles' nearby, commemorates the events.
Lydia Sigourney's poem "Latimer and Ridley" . was published in her 1827 collection of poetry.
Thomas Cranmer was a theologian, leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He is honoured as a martyr in the Church of England.
John Rogers was an English clergyman, Bible translator and commentator. He guided the development of the Matthew Bible in vernacular English during the reign of Henry VIII and was the first English Protestant executed as a heretic under Mary I, who was determined to restore Roman Catholicism.
Hugh Latimer was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary I he was burned at the stake, becoming one of the three Oxford Martyrs of Anglicanism.
Nicholas Ridley was an English Bishop of London. Ridley was one of the Oxford Martyrs burned at the stake during the Marian Persecutions, for his teachings and his support of Lady Jane Grey. He is remembered with a commemoration in the calendar of saints in some parts of the Anglican Communion on 16 October.
The Martyrs' Memorial is a stone monument positioned at the intersection of St Giles', Magdalen Street and Beaumont Street, to the west of Balliol College, Oxford, England. It commemorates the 16th-century Oxford Martyrs.
Rowland Taylor was an English Protestant martyr during the Marian Persecutions.
The Ipswich Martyrs were nine people burnt at the stake for their Lollard or Protestant beliefs around 1515-1558. The executions were mainly carried out in the centre of Ipswich, Suffolk on The Cornhill, the square in front of Ipswich Town Hall. At that time the remains of the medieval church of St Mildred were used for the town's Moot Hall. Later, in 1645 Widow Lakeland was executed on the same site on the orders of Matthew Hopkins, the notorious Witchfinder General.
Broad Street is a wide street in central Oxford, England, just north of the former city wall. The street is known for its bookshops, including the original Blackwell's bookshop at number 50, located here due to the University of Oxford. Among residents, the street is traditionally known as The Broad. On the street is a memorial paving for the Oxford Martyrs.
The University Church of St Mary the Virgin is an Anglican church in Oxford situated on the north side of the High Street. It is the centre from which the University of Oxford grew and its parish consists almost exclusively of university and college buildings.
St Michael at the North Gate is a church in Cornmarket Street, at the junction with Ship Street, in central Oxford, England. The name derives from the church's location on the site of the north gate of Oxford when it was surrounded by a city wall.
The Bocardo Prison in Oxford, England existed until 1771. Its origins were medieval, and its most famous prisoners were the Protestant Oxford martyrs in 1555. Other prisoners included a number of Quakers, like Elizabeth Fletcher, among the first preachers of the Friends to come to Oxford in 1654.
Saints in Anglicanism are people recognised as having lived a holy life and as being an exemplar and model for other Christians. Beginning in the 10th century, the Catholic Church began to centralise and formalise the process of recognising saints through canonisation.
Richard Smyth was the first person to hold the office of Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford and the first Chancellor of the University of Douai.
John Forest was an English Franciscan friar and martyr. Confessor to Queen Catherine of Aragon, Forest was burned to death at Smithfield for "heresy", in that he refused to acknowledge the King as head of the church.
Henry Cole was a senior English Roman Catholic churchman and academic.
Juan de Villagarcía was a Spanish Dominican from Valladolid, known as the witness to one of the statements of confession and recantation by Thomas Cranmer.
Joan Waste or Wast was a blind woman who was burned in Derby for refusing to renounce her Protestant faith.
Edward Crome was an English reformer and courtier.
St Edward's Passage, known in the 18th century as Chain Lane, is a Y-shaped alleyway in Cambridge, England, between King's Parade—opposite the main gate of King's College—and Peas Hill. It houses the entrance and churchyard of the Church of St Edward King and Martyr; the Cambridge Arts Theatre; several cottages; G. David, an independent bookshop run from the same building since 1896; a few businesses; and student accommodation. It is a narrow, dark lane, with riven-stone paving, which opens out onto the much wider and sunnier King's Parade.