William Sawtrey, also known as William Salter [1] (died March 1401) was an English Roman Catholic priest and Lollard martyr. He was executed for heresy.
Sawtrey was born in Norfolk, England. He was a follower of John Wycliffe, the leader of an early reformation movement called Lollardy.
Sawtrey was a priest at two Norfolk churches, St Margaret's in Lynn and Tilney. [lower-alpha 1]
He preached and endorsed Lollard beliefs, including the rejection of Catholic saints and the sacrament of Eucharist. Of the latter, he claimed that "after the consecration [of the host] by the priest there remaineth true material bread" (Trevelyan 334).
As a result of spreading these views, Sawtrey was taken to Henry le Despenser on 30 April 1399. Le Despenser, at the time the Bishop of Norwich, ordered an examination of Sawtrey. The examination lasted for two days, held at the Bishop's palace, South Elmham Hall. Sawtrey's examiners claimed that he rejected free will, and that he did not believe in venerating images and embarking on pilgrimages. He was therefore charged with heresy and held in an episcopal prison. A mound was being prepared for the lollard on nearby Greshaw Green, a nearby large common. As this would provide a suitable site for the burning of a heretic, lollard scholar Maureen Jurkowski, has suggested that this may have persuaded Sawtrey to secure his release by denouncing Lollardy. [2] He abjured privately at first, but then publicly in Lynn on 25 May 1399. He appeared before le Despenser in St John's Hospital, Lynn, the next day, and swore on the Gospels that he would never again preach Lollardy. He also promised to never hear confession without a license from le Despenser.[ citation needed ] His abjuration was repeated in the Bishop's Chapel, South Elmham several days later. [2]
In 1401, Sawtrey moved to London and began working as a parish-priest at St Osyth's, where he continued to preach Lollard beliefs. It is possible that he moved to London in order to distance himself from le Despenser, but he had not removed himself from the anti-Lollard sentiment of the Catholic Church. One year earlier, De heretico comburendo ("Regarding the burning of heretics") was passed. The statute called for the burning of heretics either plainly rejecting Catholicism, or accepting Catholic beliefs but returning to their previous heretical beliefs. Sawtrey was summoned to appear at St Paul's Cathedral on 12 February 1401.
Sawtrey appeared before Archbishop Thomas Arundel. Before convocation, Sawtrey was delivered the following heretical charges: failure to "adore the true cross" (National Biography 869), belief that a priest's time spent in hourly prayers could be better spent preaching and spreading the word of God, his opinion on the temporalities of the church and on how the money could be put to better use, preaching on adoration of mankind over angels, and finally his belief in consubstantiation. Sawtrey resisted, and was once again charged with heresy.
Sawtrey demanded a copy of his charges and was given 18 February to make an appeal. At his appeal before Parliament he defended his beliefs with quotes from St John, St Paul, and St Augustine. His defence was heavily questioned by Arundel, who spent three hours questioning of the topic of the Eucharist alone, all the while trying to convert him back to Catholicism. Sawtrey resisted, and on 23 February charges were once again made against him. He was condemned and "through seven successive stages he was degraded from priest to doorkeeper, then stripped of every clerical function, attribute, and vestment". [3]
Sawtrey was convicted and sentenced to death on 26 February 1401. In March, he was taken to Smithfield and publicly burned at the stake. He was the first follower of Lollardy to die for his beliefs. He and John Purvey, a friend and follower of John Wycliffe who also was tortured for his beliefs, were the two most egregious cases against Lollardy committed under the Statute of Heresy.
The lower classes of England were quick to catch on to Lollard ideas, especially about disbursing Church funds to aid people in need and to ease lower class financial stresses caused by heavy taxation. The representatives of the lower class made efforts on two occasions to convince King Henry IV and Parliament to appropriate the Church's money and to use it for the people of England. The Church reacted against this proposal and, with the help of the King, set forth a number of statutes to protect Church temporalities. Among these orders was the statute De heretico comburendo, which stated that heresy was punishable by means of public burning.
The severity of Sawtrey and Purvey's punishments created a wave of Lollard supporters. Among them was John Oldcastle, a knight and captain for the Prince of Wales. He protected and hid preachers from the Statute of Heresy. Oldcastle and other Lollard-sympathising knights pleaded with King Henry IV to change the law. They argued that the King should take the money the Church was wasting and put it into England's armoury, almshouses, and universities. Many students of Oxford University were also Lollard sympathisers. Students translated Wycliffe's work and began to debate the lawfulness of Bible translations.
However, despite their efforts, the persecution of Lollards continued. The knights' arguments were shot down, and Oxford was discredited by the Church. Nevertheless, Lollard believers continued practising their faith in an underground network.
John Wycliffe was an English scholastic philosopher, Christian reformer, Catholic priest, and a theology professor at the University of Oxford. Wycliffe is traditionally believed to have advocated or made a vernacular translation of the Vulgate Bible, though more recent scholarship has minimalized the extent of his advocacy or involvement for lack of direct contemporary evidence.
Lollardy, also known as Lollardism or the Lollard movement, was a proto-Protestant Christian religious movement that was active in England from the mid-14th century until the 16th-century English Reformation. It was initially led by John Wycliffe, a Catholic theologian who was dismissed from the University of Oxford in 1381 for heresy. The Lollards' demands were primarily for reform of Western Christianity. They formulated their beliefs in the Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards.
Year 1401 (MCDI) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
Thomas Arundel was an English clergyman who served as Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York during the reign of Richard II, as well as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1397 and from 1399 until his death, an outspoken opponent of the Lollards. He was instrumental in the usurpation of Richard by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV.
Sir John Oldcastle was an English Lollard leader. From 1409 to 1413, he was summoned to parliament as Baron Cobham, in the right of his wife.
John Purvey was an English theologian, reformer, and disciple of John Wycliffe. He was born around 1354 in Lathbury, near Newport Pagnell in the county of Buckinghamshire, England. He was a great scholar, permitted to enter all priestly ranks on 13 March 1377, or 1378. It has been assumed by scholars that Purvey became acquainted with Wycliffe's ideas in Oxford. In around 1382, Purvey lived with Wycliffe at Lutterworth, Leicestershire, along with Nicholas of Hereford and John Aston, and became one of Wycliffe's disciples.
Wycliffe's Bible or Wycliffite Bibles or Wycliffian Bibles (WYC) are names given for a sequence of Middle English Bible translations believed to have been made under the direction or instigation of English theologian John Wycliffe of the University of Oxford. They are the earliest known literal translations of the entire Bible into English. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395.
Religion in Medieval England includes all forms of religious organisation, practice and belief in England, between the end of Roman authority in the fifth century and the advent of the Tudor dynasty in the late fifteenth century. The collapse of Roman authority brought about the end of formal Christian religion in the east of what is now England as Germanic settlers established paganism in the large sections of the island that they controlled. The movement towards Christianity began again in the late sixth and seventh centuries. Pope Gregory I sent a team of missionaries who gradually converted most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, while Scots-Irish monks were active in the north of England. The process was largely complete by the end of the seventh century, but left a confusing and disparate array of local practices and religious ceremonies. The Viking invasions of the eighth and ninth centuries reintroduced paganism to North-East England, leading in turn to another wave of conversions.
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.
In November 1554, the Revival of the Heresy Acts revived three former Acts against heresy; the letters patent of 1382 of King Richard II, an Act of 1401 of King Henry IV, and the Suppression of Heresy Act 1414 of King Henry V. All three of these laws had been repealed under King Henry VIII and King Edward VI.
Henry le Despenser was an English nobleman and Bishop of Norwich whose reputation as the 'Fighting Bishop' was gained for his part in suppressing the Peasants' Revolt in East Anglia and in defeating the peasants at the Battle of North Walsham in the summer of 1381.
Events from the 1400s in England.
Henry Crumpe (fl.1380–1401) was Anglo-Irish Cistercian.
Thomas Hitton is generally considered to be the first English Protestant martyr of the Reformation, although the followers of Wycliffe - the Lollards - had been burned at the stake as late as 1519.
The ex officio oath developed in the first half of the 17th century, and was used as a form of coercion, persecution, and forcible self-incrimination in the religious trials of that era. It took the form of a religious oath made by the accused prior to questioning by the Star Chamber, to answer truthfully all questions that might be asked. It gave rise to what became known as the cruel trilemma where the accused would find themselves trapped between a breach of religious oath, contempt of court for silence, or self-incrimination. The name derives from the questioner putting the accused on oath ex officio, meaning by virtue of his office or position.
Margery Baxter was an outspoken and heretical Lollard from Martham, England. She was brought to trial twice and flogged at church.
The Oldcastle Revolt was a Lollard uprising directed against the Catholic Church and the English king, Henry V. The revolt was led by John Oldcastle, taking place on the night of 9/10 January 1414. The rebellion was crushed following a decisive battle on St. Giles's Fields.
Dives and Pauper is a 15th-century commentary and exposition on the Ten Commandments written in dialogue form. Written in Middle English, while the identity of the author is unknown, the text is speculated to have been authored by a Franciscan friar. Dives and Pauper is structured as a dialogue between two interlocutors, a wealthy layman (Dives) and a spiritual poor man with many similarities to a friar (Pauper). The text engages with orthodox Catholic theology, and further discusses many questions relevant to Wycliffism, an English movement which criticised doctrines and abuses of the Church, which was condemned as heretical by church authorities.
John Resby was an English priest and supporter of John Wycliffe. He was executed by burning for heresy in Perth, Scotland, in 1407 or 1408, during the time when Henry Wardlaw was Bishop of St. Andrews. He is regarded as the first Protestant martyr in Scotland.
