Catharism was a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries. Denounced as a heretical sect by the Catholic Church, its followers were attacked first by the Albigensian Crusade and later by the Medieval Inquisition successively, which eradicated the sect by 1350. Many thousands were slaughtered, hanged, or burnt at the stake, sometimes without regard for "age or sex."
The Inquisition was a judicial procedure and a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, but convictions of unrepentant heresy were handed over to the secular courts, which generally resulted in execution or life imprisonment. The Inquisition had its start in the 12th-century Kingdom of France, with the aim of combating religious deviation, particularly among the Cathars and the Waldensians. The inquisitorial courts from this time until the mid-15th century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition. Other groups investigated during the Medieval Inquisition, which primarily took place in France and Italy, include the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites, and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a changing list of publications deemed heretical or contrary to morality by the Sacred Congregation of the Index ; Catholics were forbidden to print or read them, subject to the local bishop. Catholic states could enact laws to adapt or adopt the list and enforce it.
John Foxe was an English clergyman, theologian, and historian, notable for his martyrology Actes and Monuments, telling of Christian martyrs throughout Western history, but particularly the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the 14th century and in the reign of Mary I. The book was widely owned and read by English Puritans and helped to mould British opinion on the Catholic Church for several centuries.
Rowland Taylor was an English Protestant martyr during the Marian Persecutions.
The Act of Supremacy 1558, sometimes referred to as the Act of Supremacy 1559, is an Act of the Parliament of England, which replaced the original Act of Supremacy 1534, and passed under the auspices of Elizabeth I. The 1534 Act was issued by Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, which arrogated ecclesiastical authority to the monarchy, but which had been repealed by Mary I. Along with the Act of Uniformity 1558, the Act made up what is generally referred to as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.
Anne Askew, married name Anne Kyme, was an English writer, poet, and Protestant preacher who was condemned as a heretic during the reign of Henry VIII of England. She and Margaret Cheyne are the only women on record known to have been both tortured in the Tower of London and burnt at the stake.
De heretico comburendo or the Suppression of Heresy Act 1400 was a law passed by Parliament under King Henry IV of England in 1401 for the suppression of the Lollards. It punished seditious heretics with burning at the stake. This law was one of the strictest religious censorship statutes ever enacted in England, affecting preaching and possession of Lollard literature.
Richard Hunne was an English merchant tailor in the City of London during the early years of the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547). After a dispute with his priest over his infant son's funeral, Hunne sought to use the English common law courts to challenge the church's authority. In response, church officials arrested him for trial in an ecclesiastical court on the capital charge of heresy.
Nicholas Shaxton was Bishop of Salisbury. For a time, he had been a Reformer, but recanted this position, returning to the Roman faith. Under Henry VIII, he attempted to persuade other Protestant leaders to also recant. Under Mary I, he took part in several heresy trials of those who became Protestant martyrs.
Thomas Harding was a sixteenth-century English religious dissident who, while waiting to be burnt at the stake as a Lollard in 1532, was struck on the head by a spectator with one of the pieces of firewood, which killed him instantly.
Juan Maldonado was a Spanish Jesuit theologian and exegete.
Francis Cheynell (1608–1665) was a prominent English religious controversialist, of Presbyterian views, and President of St John's College, Oxford 1648 to 1650, imposed by the Parliamentary regime.
Henry Cole was a senior English Roman Catholic churchman and academic.
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy.
John White was a Headmaster and Warden of Winchester College during the English Reformation who, remaining staunchly Roman Catholic in duty to his mentor Stephen Gardiner, became Bishop of Lincoln and finally Bishop of Winchester during the reign of Queen Mary. For several years he led the college successfully through very difficult circumstances. A capable if somewhat scholastic composer of Latin verse, he embraced the rule of Philip and Mary enthusiastically and vigorously opposed the Reformation theology.
John Twyne (c.1505–1581) was an English schoolmaster, scholar and author, and also Member of Parliament for Canterbury.
The Actes and Monuments, popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by Protestant English historian John Foxe, first published in 1563 by John Day.
Sally M. Foster is a Scottish archaeologist and senior lecturer at the University of Stirling. She specialises in the archaeology of Scotland, particularly the Picts and their neighbours in the early medieval period.
