(Prof.) David Daniel's "Bible in English:" 15th Century Anglican Repressions

          Daniell, David.  The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003. http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-English-History-Influence/dp/0300099304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385668294&sr=8-1&keywords=david+daniell+english+bible

We’ve been talking about the English Bible in England “before printing.”  We looked at the Bible in Britain from the earliest days to AD 850, various Anglo-Saxon Bibles via glossing, and the Wycliff (“Lollard”) Bibles and literature.  We now turn to the times before and after Wycliff in the 14^th and 15^th centuries

Chapter 6, “Before and After Wyclf: the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, pages 96-110.  (At the end, we’ve appended the entire text of Parliament’s 1401 Act of De Haeretico Comburendo and (Canterbury) Thomas Arundel’s 1409 Constitutions, two instruments of English censorship and repression that prevailed into the 1530s, including Thomas More’s citations thereof and recommendations for perseuctions of heretics.)

English writing in the 15^th century depended on the liturgy, but “showed small awareness of the Bible” (96).

Chaucer and his richness, if not familiarity with Wyclif’s versions and theology, is suggestive. Chaucer and Wyclif had friends in common.  Chaucer was Wyclif’s junior by 20 years. But, like Wyclif, Chaucer was at the royal courts of King Edward III.  Chaucer was also at the courts of King Richard II. Both had John of Gaunt as patrons; Gaunt would provide protection for Wyclif, but the battle of transubstantiation gave John of Gaunt pause (as it did to most). His Canterbury Tales were written in 1377 to 1400, shortly after Wyclif’s death. They were read audibly to Richard II.  Chaucer attacked the “monks and friars with force” (97). The Host smells “a Lollere in the wind” which provokes contempt from Shipman who states that Lollards “sow discord from glossing [ = Latin-English interlinear] the Gospels” (97).  Chaucer dedicated his Troilus to Ralph Strode, a mutual friend; in this volume, predestination is the central subject. Mr. Daniell’s notes that a “full study of the Bible in Chaucer has yet to be done” (98).  A 12-line section from the Radix malorum est Cupiditas suggests the mocking of transubstantiation, a possible nod to Wyclif. There was also a Wyclif joke: “Q: Why should one forbid a monk or friar entrance to one’s cellar? A: “Because he might transubstantiate the wine to nothing.”  In reading this in Richard’s court, this suggests a wide knowledge of these things—mediated by oblique humor too.

Chaucer’s Pardoner contains Biblical ideas from Genesis, Judges, Numbers, Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, the Gospels and Paul’s Epistles. They are all in English—one will see later Canterbury’s fears of “English leaks” to the public. There was a general Bible knowledge.  Mr. Daniell’s states that the pilgrims in progress to Canterbury were “professional people” and not the “ploughboys of Tyndale,” but he shows that the Bible was leaving the “distant lands of Latin.”

William Langland.  He wrote the Piers Plowman during Wyclif’s time. It survives in 50-60 manuscripts. It was printed by a Reformed Anglican in 1550 and was a favorite amongst 16^th century English Protestants. It is a semi-allegorical poem full of people, ideas, and places. A “dreamer-narrator” is searching for “true Christianity,” but finds the “spiritual warfare of the ordinary Englishman faced with corruption found in society, in the clergy, and in the mendicant orders” (100-101).  Two themes emerge: (1) church corruption and (2) the spiritual quest for true Christianity.  There was an abiding interest in Langland’s work and, perhaps, the readers of Wyclif’s Bible and literature were readers of Langland.  A tantalizing suggestion.

Richard Rolle.  He lived before Wyclif. He left Oxford in 1320 to become a recluse and to seek the knowledge of God.  He believed this knowledge would come through the Scriptures and away from the factions. He wrote prose Psalms with commentaries—all in English.  This was in 1327, 50 years before Wyclif. His Psalter is the first English version that would be rather recognizable to the modern English reader—requiring slight modernizations.  Daniel Norton writes of Rolle:

Thus the only real precedent for the translators of the Wyclif Bible, a precedent approved by the Church, was an interlinear guide to the Latin.  Rolle was treating a limited part of the Bible in a limited way, opening the literal meaning of the words to his audience but not returning to the meaning of the Psalms to a literal level.  The presence of the gloss, which was largely a translation of earlier, orthodox works, endured this. Rather than presenting an English Psalter to the people, he was presenting them with a Latin Psalter as understood by the Church.  Further, it was not largely illiterate masses to whom Rolle was presenting this work, but a small number of illiterate people who could afford the substantial cost of a manuscript or were in a position to copy it for themselves” (102).

Mystery Plays.  There were 48 Mystery Plays were on the circuit at York, 24 at Chester, 32 in Towneley, and 42 at Coventry.  These were “high civic events” requiring time and money. Dramatizations involved stories from Creation to Doomsday (including the assumption and coronation of Mary).  They were generally in late ME English. They included legends, proverbs, folktales, comedic elements, and secular materials woven into the narrative.  These were later suppressed by Elizabeth 1, due to references to various Popes and Mary’s assumption and coronation.

Murdoch Nisbet.  This was a Scotsman living in Hardhill in Ayshire.  This district had a strong Lollardy movement.  One Wycliffite version comes from his hand. (There is an industry of discussing textual transmission of varied Wyclif manuscripts.  For example, EV1, EV2, EV3, where EV = early version.  Or, LV, where LV = later version.)  Mr. Daniell says Nisbet’s “Scots version” is drawn from an LV Wyclif Bible. In 1520, when possession of an English Bible was a criminal and capital offense, by law, he saw that the LV-version was “dated”, so he made an updated “Scots version.” He did “many revisions and corrections” (106). He made a vault below his farm in order to read and translate. He and his kinsfolk “had a passion for the Scriptures.” This version was carefully preserved by his descendants.  It finally ended up in the British Library. This was a “demonstration of the passionate dedication of communities to Wycliffite Bible translations.”  Again, all of this was illegal and, if discovered, would have put the old boy to the stake of fire—like Tyndale 17 years later.

William Caxton.  His first career: auccessful merchant of fine textiles.  While keeping his first business, he turned his hand to printing and editorship of English works.  He was from the Low Countries with a press in Bruges.  He later transferred print-operations to Westminster in 1476.  A big question will emerge shortly. Why no English Bibles?

Compare some operations on the Continent with England. There were 3 OTs, most of the NT, and Psalters in Dutch.  Since 1456, there were 10 complete Latin Bibles and Psalters. Before 1483, there were 8 Bibles in German.  There were 5 NT or Psalms in French.  Why not vernaculars in England? [BTW, the vernaculars were for some aristocrats and ecclesiastics, not for the churches, services or the rank-and-file…anti-vernacularists and Roman apologists point to these Continental vernacular versions while triping and complaining about “heretical translations.”  Rome, they say, was against poor translations.  Our rejoinder, “Well, boys, make a better one and get before the people.”  The upshot is they didn’t want the vernaculars in the churches, pulpits and homes. It’s Roman obfuscation.]

The church was opposed to “the housewife in her cottage” who had no need.  She had sermons, plays and the Golden Legend—a list of varied lives including 200 English saints, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Esau, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Saul, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Job and Tobit.  At best, the Biblical stories were buried in a “sea of fiction” (108) It appeared as an advance, but it was not the Bible itself. 

BUT…if Caxton could publish the Golden Legend in 1483 from a press he founded in 1476 at Westminster in the heart of London, near Lambeth, and 70 miles from Canterbury, why did he not publish the English vernacular as some Continental presses had done?

BIG ANSWER: A ROYAL, PARLIAMENTARY, ITALIAN AND CANTERBURIAN CULTURE OF OPPRESSION AND CENSORSHIP PREVAILED THROUGHOUT ENGLAND.

The Parliament Act of 1401, the De Haeretico Comburendo, was still the binding legal authority for England (we appended the entire Act below). This governed England well into the 1530s.  The English Bible was under the “severest censorship.”  Some Englishmen have said that Cromwell was England’s “only dictator.”  Well, his 5-year protectorate gave some religious freedoms and Jews, exiled since the 1290s, were allowed to return; we know Cromwell was an abuser like the Royalists of 1660 and like Elizabeth, James and Laud. However, one see a 130-year plus “iron grip” against vernacular Bibles in England. During this period of the 15^th century, there was also the political instability of the War of Roses, but “vernacular religious writing stopped or was driven into hiding” (109).  We provide two quotes from Nicholas Watson:

“…a situation in which all but the most pragmatic religious writing could be seen, by the early fifteenth century, as dangerous:  a perception that led inexorably to a by and large successful attempt to inhibit the further composition of most kinds of vernacular theology.”

And,

“…for the whole intellectual life of the fifteenth-century England…the legislation as a whole constitutes one of the most draconian pieces of censorship in English history, going far beyond its ostensible aim of destroying Lollardy heresy and effectively attempting to curtain all sorts of theological thinking and writing in the vernacular.”

We return also to the Constitutions passed by the Anglican Church in 1409.  We bring you Articles 6, 7, and 9-11 here (the entire text is appended at the end).

Article 6:

6. Because a new path oftener misleads men than an old, we will and ordain that no book or treatise composed by John Wicklif, or by any other in his time, or since, or hereafter to be composed, be henceforth read in the schools, halls, inns, or other places whatsoever within our province aforesaid, and that none be taught according to such [book] unless it have been first examined, and upon examination unanimously approved by the university of Oxford or Cambridge, or at least by twelve men chosen by the said universities, or by one of them under the discretion of us, or our successors; and then afterwards [the book be approved] expressly by us, or our successors, and delivered in the name, and by the authority of the universities, to be copied, and sold to such as desire it; after it has been faithfully collated at a just price, the original thenceforth remaining in some chest of the university forever. And if any one shall read book or treatise of this sort in the schools or elsewhere, contrary to the form above written, or shall teach according to it, let him be punished according as the quality of the fact shall require, as a sower of schism, and a supporter of heresy.

Article 7:

7. The translation of the text of Holy Scripture out of one tongue into another is a dangerous thing; as blessed Jerome testifies, because it is not easy to make the sense in all respects the same; as the same blessed Jerome confesses that he made frequent mistakes in this business, although he was inspired: therefore we enact and ordain that no one henceforth do by his own authority translate any text of Holy Scripture into the English tongue or any other by way of book, pamphlet, or treatise. Nor let any such book, pamphlet, or treatise now lately composed in the time of John Wicklif aforesaid, or since, or hereafter to be composed, be read in whole or in part, in public or in private, under pain of the greater excommunication, till that translation have been approved by the diocesan of the place, or if occasion shall require, by a provincial Council. Let him that do contrary be punished in the same manner as a supporter of heresy and error.

Articles 9-11:

9. Let no one presume to dispute of things determined by the Church (as they are contained in the decrees, decretals, or provincial constitutions, and the synodal [constitutions] of places) either publicly, or privately; unless it be in order to get the true meaning of them; nor call in question the authority of the said decrees, decretals, or constitutions, or the authority of him that made them; or preach contrary to their determination, especially concerning the adoration of the glorious cross, the veneration of the images of saints, or pilgrimages to their places and relics; or against making oaths in the usual cases and manner in both courts, viz., ecclesiastical and temporal. But let all henceforth preach up the veneration of the cross, and of the image of the crucifix, and other images of saints in memory and honour of them whom they resemble, and their places, and relics, with processions, genuflexions, bowings, incensings, kissings, oblations, pilgrimages, illuminations, and all other modes and forms whatsoever used in the times of us and our predecessors; and the making of oaths in a lawful manner, by touching God’s holy gospels, and upon the same in cases expressed in the law, and used in both courts by all who are concerned. Let him that asserts, teaches, preaches, or pertinaciously intimates the contrary incur the penalties of heresy, and of a relapse into the consequences of it, and be sentenced to such, as to all effects of the law, unless he do penance in manner and form elsewhere by us appointed, and abjure as it is there provided.

10. We ordain and decree that none be admitted to celebrate as chaplain in any diocese of our province of Canterbury, who was not born or ordained there, unless he bring with him the letters of his orders, and the commendatory letters of his diocesan, and also of other bishops in whose dioceses he has any length of time stayed: which letters we will and command to be cautious and express in regard to the manners and conversation of the person; and whether he have been defamed for and concerning the new opinions which have an ill aspect on the Catholic faith and good manners, or whether he be wholly clear as to these points. Let him that celebrates, and he that permits it without such letters, be sharply punished.

11. New and unusual emergencies require new and mature applications; and the greater the danger the more caution and opposition is necessary. What is less valuable should be discreetly pruned off for the improvement of what is truly noble. Considering and lamenting how our almous university of Oxford, which like a thriving vine used to spread her branches to the honour of God and the advancement and protection of His Church, is in part degenerated and brings forth sour grapes, by eating whereof many of her sons, being too well conceited of their knowledge in the law of God, have set their teeth on edge, and our province is infected with new unprofitable doctrines, and blemished with the new damnable brand of Lollardy, to the great scandal of the university itself, reaching to remote foreign parts, and to the exceeding regret of those who study there; and to the seemingly irreparable damage of the Church of England, (which used to be defended by her virtue and learning, as with an impregnable wall, but whose stones are now squandered,) unless speedy remedy be used: therefore upon the petition of the proctors of the whole clergy of the province of Canterbury, and with the consent and assent of all our brethren and suffragans, and the other prelates that are present in this convocation of the clergy, and of the proxies of the absent, (lest the fountain head being polluted the stream be made impure, even after the cleaning of the river;) we desiring to make wholesome provisions for the honour and utility of holy mother Church, and of the university aforesaid, do enact and ordain that every warden, provost, and rector of a college, and the principal of every hall or inn of the said university, do once at least in every month make enquiry with diligence in the college, hall or inn, over which he presides, whether any scholar or inhabitant thereof have asserted, held, defended, or in any wise proposed any conclusion or proposition that carries a sound contrary to the Catholic faith or good manners, against the determination of the Church, though it were no necessary doctrine of his faculty: and if he find any one suspected or defamed in this respect, let him admonish him effectually to desist; and if he do after this admonition again advance the same, or like [tenets], let him incur the sentence of the greater.

These injunctions, both Parliamentary and ecclesiastical would obtain into Thomas More’s times in the 1520; he is found quoting from them in his Dialogue Concerning Heresies in the 1520s. THE CULTURE OF SUPPRESION PREVAILED even, as Professor Anne Hudson has shown, even down to possessing even “single verses” of a vernacular Bible (110).

Two results happened: (1) it stopped a vernacular stream of theology which had flowed in the decades before 1410 and (2) it shrunk circulation of vernacular texts (although they may have been read, they were texts from previous ages).

The debates show the “power” of the hostility in the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury headed by its Primate, Thomas Arundel (1353—1414).  It revealed:

·        The limited and inadequate capacity of the English language to express the Latin Bible

·        The lower classes would be refused any and all vernacular texts

·        What was “necessary” for the people to know

·        The clergy were the “guardians of truth”

·        The church was the “controller of communication.”  This was emphasized in the discussions

·        Growing alarm at the “steady leaking of Biblical materials into English from Rolle’s Psalter Book to a Mother as well as Wyclif’s materials

While effected in the Province of Canterbury, it was controlled by the Italians.  From 1409 to 1530, this was “unique in Northern Europe in its narrowness and terrifying restrictions.”  Things would continue until Tydale, his books, his Bibles and his body was burned for heresy.

We have appended the 1409 Constitutions and the Parliamentary Act of 1401, De Haeretico Comburendo.

http://www.bible-researcher.com/arundel.html

Archbishop Thomas Arundel’s
Constitutions against the Lollards

The following English version of Arundel’s Constitutiones of 14 January 1408 is a revision of the translation of John Johnson, reprinted in A Collection of the Laws and Canons of the Church of England, from Its First Foundation to the Conquest, and from the Conquest to the Reign of King Henry VIII, Translated into English with Explanatory Notes, in Two Volumes ... A New Edition, vol. 2 (Oxford: Parker, 1851), pp. 457-474. I have revised Johnson’s translation for greater accuracy or clarity at some points, and have altered the paragraphing, in accordance with the Latin text of David Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, ab Anno MCCCL ad Annum MDXLV. Volumen Tertium (London, 1737), pp. 314-19.

Michael Marlowe
February 2012

______________________________________________

Thomas, by divine permission archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, and legate of the apostolical see, to all and singular our venerable fellow-bishops, brethren and suffragans, abbots and priors, deans of cathedral churches, archdeacons, provosts and canons, rectors, vicars and chaplains of parish churches, all clerics and laymen whatsoever within our province of Canterbury, health, and firm adherence to the doctrine of holy mother Church. He does an injury to the most reverend synod who examines its determinations: and since he who disputes the supreme earthly judgment is liable to the punishment of sacrilege, as the authority of civil law teaches us; much more grievously are they to be punished, and to be cut off as putrid members from the Church militant, who, leaning to their own wisdom, violate, oppose, and despise, by various doctrines, words, and deeds, the laws and canons made by the key-keeper of eternal life and death, (the viceregent not of an earthly man, but of the true God, and to whom God Himself has given the rights of a celestial empire,) when they have been published according to form and canon, and observed by the holy fathers our predecessors, even to the glorious effusion of their blood, and voluntary scattering of their brains. ¹ For they ought to consider that in the Old Testament Moses and Aaron were the first amongst the priests; and in the New Testament there was a distinction among the Apostles; and our Lord granted, and the Apostles agreed, that Peter called Cephas, that is, the head, ² should be the principal one of the Apostles, as being he to whom it was said “When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren:” as if he had said, if there be any doubt among them, do thou confirm them in what is good; which our Lord would not have said if He had not determined that others should obey him.

But we experience to our grief, that the old sophister knowing that sound doctrine, as determined by the fathers, which keeps the people in the unity of the faith under one head, would obstruct his malice, endeavours to extirpate that doctrine, and falsely calls vice virtue, that by separating men by degrees from their universal sacred mother, he may erect to himself a church of malignants: he transforms himself into an angel of light while he traduces the ancient doctrine, and would bring in new ones of his own making, which he falsely pretends would be for the better; but he means nothing but schism, and the weakening of the faith (by contrariety of opinions [taken] from Jews, pagans, and other infidels, and perverse men) and the profanation of mysteries, by which the emblem in the Apocalypse is verified, “One sitting on a black horse held a balance in his hand.” By this heretics are meant, who allure people to them with an appearance of what is right and just under the figure of a balance, but afterwards comes the horse with his black tail scattering poisonous errors, and publishing scandals by persons elected to evil; who (alas) preach before they are sent, and sow before they have winnowed their seed: and by not considering the prohibitive decrees and canons against such sowers they prefer a diabolical sacrifice before obedience to the Church.

We therefore, considering that by not resisting error we might seem to approve it, and that we should cherish the viper by not suppressing it, and desiring to shake the dust off our feet, and consult the honour of holy mother Church, and sow the one holy doctrine in the Church, especially in our province of Canterbury, (so far as we may with God’s assistance,) to the increase of faith and divine worship, and for the rooting up of tares, and whatever evils have sprung up by means of perverse preaching and unsound doctrine, to obviate all peril of souls, and removing all obstacles by which our province may be embarrassed, with the advice and consent of our suffragans, and other prelates present in this convocation of the clergy, and of the proxies of those that are absent, and at the instant petition of the proctors of the whole clergy of our province of Canterbury, and for the strengthening of the common law made in this behalf, we provide the following appropriate penalties. We enact, decree and ordain:

1. That no secular or regular, unless authorized by the written law, or by special privilege, take to himself the office of preaching the word of God, or do in any wise preach to the people or clergy in Latin, or in the vulgar tongue, within a church, or without it, unless he present himself to the diocesan of the place in which he attempts to preach and be examined; and then being found qualified both by manners and learning, let him be sent by the diocesan to preach to some certain parish or parishes, as to the same ordinary shall seem expedient, in respect to the qualifications of the man. And let none of the aforesaid presume to preach, unless assurance be first given in proper form of their being sent and authorized; so as that he who is authorized by written law, do come according to the form therein limited; and that they who say they come by special privilege, do really shew that privilege to the rector or vicar of the place where they preach; and that they who pretend to be sent by the diocesans of the places, do shew the letters of that diocesan drawn for that purpose under his great seal. But we take a perpetual curate to be sent by law to the place and people of his cure. But if any of the aforesaid be under a suspension or prohibition from preaching passed by the diocesan of the place or other superior, for any errors or heresies which he is pretended to have formerly preached, affirmed, or taught, let him not thenceforth preach any where in our province till he has purged that defect according to the determination of him who suspended or prohibited him; and be again restored to preach: to which purpose let him be bound to carry with him the letters testimonial of him that restored him, and shew them in the place where he preaches. But let parish priests and temporary vicars (not perpetual) who are not sent in form aforesaid, only simply preach those things which are expressly contained in the provincial constitution (together with the usual prayers) which was well and piously published by John of good memory our predecessor, as a supply to the “ignorance of priests,” with which words it begins. And we will that this be had in every parish church of our province of Canterbury within three months after the publication of these presents, and that it be effectually published by those priests every year, and every time that [the constitution] itself requires. And lest this wholesome statute should seem to mean some evil on account of any pecuniary exactions, we will and ordain that the examination of the persons aforesaid, and the letters of the diocesan to be drawn for them, be sped with all expedition, gratis, and without any difficulty, by those whose office it is, and to whom it is known to belong. If any one do knowingly violate this our statute (which is only a putting the ancient law in execution) after its publication, by preaching of his own temerity, contrary to the form herein mentioned, let him incur the sentence of greater excommunication ³ ipso facto: and we reserve the absolution of him to ourself and our successors, by the tenor of these presents. But if such preacher despising this statute do a second time preach, teach, affirm, or pertinaciously by word or deed intimate that the Church has not power to make such ordinances by the persons of its prelates, let the sentence of excommunication be duly aggravated against them ⁴ by the superiors of the places, and let them be forbid all communion with Christian people: and when they are lawfully convicted of it, let them be declared heretics by the ordinary of the place, and from that time be reputed heretics and schismatics by all, to all effects of the law; and let them incur the penalties of heresy and schism, as expressed in the law ipso facto, and especially that their goods be deemed confiscated in law, and seized by those to whom they belong, unless they repent and abjure in the accustomed form of the Church. And if their supporters, receivers, and defenders desist not within a month, after they have lawfully been admonished in this behalf by their superiors, let them have the same punishment inflicted on them in all respects when they have been convicted of it.

2. Farther, let not the clergy or people of any parish or place whatsoever in our province admit any one to preach in churches, churchyards, or any other places, unless full assurance be first given of his being authorized, privileged, or sent, according to the form aforesaid; otherwise, let the church, churchyard, or other place whatever where the preaching was, be ipso facto laid under ecclesiastical interdict, and so remain till they who admitted or permitted him so to preach, have made satisfaction, and have procured a relaxation of the interdict in due form of law to be made by the diocesan or other superior.

3. Moreover, as the good husbandman sows his seed on such ground as is most fit to produce corn, we will and command that the preacher of God’s word coming in form aforesaid, do observe a decorum as to the subject matter in his preaching to the clergy or people, so that the seed be fitted to the auditory under him, by preaching to the clergy chiefly of those vices that are growing up among them; and to the laymen of the sins most rife among them, and not otherwise. Else let him that so preacheth be canonically and sharply punished by the ordinary of the place, according to the quality of the offence.

4. Because that part which does not agree with its whole is rotten, we decree and ordain that no preacher of the word of God, or other person, do teach, preach, or observe any thing in relation to the sacrament of the altar, matrimony, confession of sins, or any other sacrament of the Church or article of faith, any thing but what hath been determined by holy mother Church, nor call in question any thing that has been decided by her; nor let him knowingly speak scandalously either in public or private concerning these things; nor let him preach up, teach, or observe any sect or sort of heresy contrary to the sound doctrine of the Church. Let him incur the sentence of excommunication ipso facto, who knowingly and pertinaciously attempts the contrary after the publication of these presents; from which let him not be absolved except at the point of death, unless he reform himself (by first abjuring heresy generally or simply in the accustomed form of the Church, at the discretion of the ordinary, in whose territory he is convicted of having committed the offence;) and have received salutary penance for what he has done: and if he undertake to do this a second time, and so relapse, let him be declared a heretic and relapse convict by sentence formally passed, and let his goods be deemed confiscated, and seized by them to whom they belong. And we will that the penance before mentioned be such, that if any man have publicly or privately taught, preached, or affirmed any thing contrary to the determination of the Church, contained in the decrees, decretals, or our constitutions provincial, or any sort of heresy or sect, he shall expressly recant the things so preached, taught, or affirmed in the parish church of the place where he preached, taught, or affirmed them, upon some one or more Lord’s-days, or other solemn days, at the discretion of the ordinary, according as he is convicted to have offended more or less, at high mass, when the greatest number of people is present; and shall effectually and without fraud preach, teach, and recite the determinations of the Church; and shall be otherwise punished in proportion to his demerits, as shall seem most expedient to the ordinary.

5. Because an old vessel retains a relish of what it first contained, we enact and ordain that masters and all who teach boys or others the arts, or grammar, and that instruct men in the first sciences, do by no means undertake to instruct them in the sacrament of the altar, or other sacraments of the Church, or upon any theological point contrary to the determinations of the Church; nor in expounding any text of Scripture otherwise than of old it used to be expounded; and that they do not permit their scholars or disciples publicly or even privately to dispute concerning the Catholic faith, or the sacraments of the Church. Let him that transgresses be severely punished as a supporter of errors and schism by the ordinary of the place.

6. Because a new path oftener misleads men than an old, we will and ordain that no book or treatise composed by John Wicklif, or by any other in his time, or since, or hereafter to be composed, be henceforth read in the schools, halls, inns, or other places whatsoever within our province aforesaid, and that none be taught according to such [book] unless it have been first examined, and upon examination unanimously approved by the university of Oxford or Cambridge, or at least by twelve men chosen by the said universities, or by one of them under the discretion of us, or our successors; and then afterwards [the book be approved] expressly by us, or our successors, and delivered in the name, and by the authority of the universities, to be copied, and sold to such as desire it; after it has been faithfully collated at a just price, the original thenceforth remaining in some chest of the university for ever. And if any one shall read book or treatise of this sort in the schools or elsewhere, contrary to the form above written, or shall teach according to it, let him be punished according as the quality of the fact shall require, as a sower of schism, and a supporter of heresy.

7. The translation of the text of Holy Scripture out of one tongue into another is a dangerous thing; as blessed Jerome testifies, because it is not easy to make the sense in all respects the same; as the same blessed Jerome confesses that he made frequent mistakes in this business, although he was inspired: therefore we enact and ordain that no one henceforth do by his own authority translate any text of Holy Scripture into the English tongue or any other by way of book, pamphlet, or treatise. Nor let any such book, pamphlet, or treatise now lately composed in the time of John Wicklif aforesaid, or since, or hereafter to be composed, be read in whole or in part, in public or in private, under pain of the greater excommunication, till that translation have been approved by the diocesan of the place, or if occasion shall require, by a provincial Council. Let him that do contrary be punished in the same manner as a supporter of heresy and error. ⁵

8. Further, since by philosophical terms, or other human inventions, the Determiner of all things cannot be fully comprehended, and blessed Augustine does frequently revoke true conclusions which were offensive to pious ears, we ordain, and with invocation of the divine judgment, we specifically forbid any man of what degree, estate, or condition soever he be, to assert or propose any conclusions or propositions that carry a sound contrary to the catholic faith, or good manners, (beyond the necessary teachings of his faculty,) in disputing in the schools, or out of them, or in conversation, with or without a disclaimer; even though they may be defended by subtility of words: for, as blessed Hugo says, concering the sacraments, what is well said is often not well understood. But if any one after the publication of these presents shall be convicted knowingly to have proposed or asserted such conclusions or propositions, unless upon admonition he reform himself, by the authority of this present constitution let him incur the sentence of the greater excommunication ipso facto, and be publicly denounced excommunicate, till he publicly confess his offence in the place where he made such propositions or assertions, and have publicly preached the true catholic meaning of the said conclusion or proposition, at the discretion of the ordinary, in one or divers churches, as shall seem expedient to the ordinary.

9. Let no one presume to dispute of things determined by the Church (as they are contained in the decrees, decretals, or provincial constitutions, and the synodal [constitutions] of places) either publicly, or privately; unless it be in order to get the true meaning of them; nor call in question the authority of the said decrees, decretals, or constitutions, or the authority of him that made them; or preach contrary to their determination, especially concerning the adoration of the glorious cross, the veneration of the images of saints, or pilgrimages to their places and relics; or against making oaths in the usual cases and manner in both courts, viz., ecclesiastical and temporal. But let all henceforth preach up the veneration of the cross, and of the image of the crucifix, and other images of saints in memory and honour of them whom they resemble, and their places, and relics, with processions, genuflexions, bowings, incensings, kissings, oblations, pilgrimages, illuminations, and all other modes and forms whatsoever used in the times of us and our predecessors; and the making of oaths in a lawful manner, by touching God’s holy gospels, and upon the same in cases expressed in the law, and used in both courts by all who are concerned. Let him that asserts, teaches, preaches, or pertinaciously intimates the contrary incur the penalties of heresy, and of a relapse into the consequences of it, and be sentenced to such, as to all effects of the law, unless he do penance in manner and form elsewhere by us appointed, and abjure as it is there provided.

10. We ordain and decree that none be admitted to celebrate as chaplain in any diocese of our province of Canterbury, who was not born or ordained there, unless he bring with him the letters of his orders, and the commendatory letters of his diocesan, and also of other bishops in whose dioceses he has any length of time stayed: which letters we will and command to be cautious and express in regard to the manners and conversation of the person; and whether he have been defamed for and concerning the new opinions which have an ill aspect on the Catholic faith and good manners, or whether he be wholly clear as to these points. Let him that celebrates, and he that permits it without such letters, be sharply punished.

11. New and unusual emergencies require new and mature applications; and the greater the danger the more caution and opposition is necessary. What is less valuable should be discreetly pruned off for the improvement of what is truly noble. Considering and lamenting how our almous university of Oxford, which like a thriving vine used to spread her branches to the honour of God and the advancement and protection of His Church, is in part degenerated and brings forth sour grapes, by eating whereof many of her sons, being too well conceited of their knowledge in the law of God, have set their teeth on edge, and our province is infected with new unprofitable doctrines, and blemished with the new damnable brand of Lollardy, to the great scandal of the university itself, reaching to remote foreign parts, and to the exceeding regret of those who study there; and to the seemingly irreparable damage of the Church of England, (which used to be defended by her virtue and learning, as with an impregnable wall, but whose stones are now squandered,) unless speedy remedy be used: therefore upon the petition of the proctors of the whole clergy of the province of Canterbury, and with the consent and assent of all our brethren and suffragans, and the other prelates that are present in this convocation of the clergy, and of the proxies of the absent, (lest the fountain head being polluted the stream be made impure, even after the cleaning of the river;) we desiring to make wholesome provisions for the honour and utility of holy mother Church, and of the university aforesaid, do enact and ordain that every warden, provost, and rector of a college, and the principal of every hall or inn of the said university, do once at least in every month make enquiry with diligence in the college, hall or inn, over which he presides, whether any scholar or inhabitant thereof have asserted, held, defended, or in any wise proposed any conclusion or proposition that carries a sound contrary to the Catholic faith or good manners, against the determination of the Church, though it were no necessary doctrine of his faculty: and if he find any one suspected or defamed in this respect, let him admonish him effectually to desist; and if he do after this admonition again advance the same, or like [tenets], let him incur the sentence of the greater excommunication ipso facto, beside other punishments appointed by us. And yet, if he who do this be a scholar, let nothing that he does thenceforward in the said university, be taken as done in due form: and if he be a doctor, master or bachelor, let him be thereupon suspended from all scholastic acts, and let him in both cases ipso facto lose all right that he has in the college, hall or inn, and let him be actually expelled by the wardens, rectors, provosts, principals, or others whom it concerns, and let a catholic forthwith be legally substituted in his place. And if the wardens, provosts, rectors of colleges, or principals of halls or inns, where such suspected, detected or defamed persons are, be negligent in their enquiries or execution of the premisses, for ten days next following the real or presumed publication of these presents, let them ipso facto incur the sentence of the greater excommunication; and yet let them be ipso facto deprived of all right which they pretend to have in those colleges, halls or inns; and let the colleges, halls and inns, be effectually void; and after a lawful declaration made thereof by such as are concerned to do it, let new wardens, rectors, provosts or principals be substituted according to the ancient custom of the said university. But if the wardens, rectors, provosts or principals themselves are suspected, defamed or detected, for and concerning such conclusions or propositions, or as defenders, maintainers or supporters of them, if upon an admonition from us, or by our authority, or by the ordinary of the place, they do not desist, let them be deprived in law from that time forward of all scholastic privileges of the university aforesaid, and of the right which they had in the said college, hall or inn, beside other punishments above-mentioned, and farther incur the sentence of the greater excommunication.

12. If any man rashly and pertinaciously presume to violate these our statutes in any case mentioned in this constitution, in the last, or in any other above expressed, although some other punishment be there expressly assigned, let him thereupon be made wholly incapable from that time forward of obtaining any ecclesiastical benefice in our province of Canterbury for three years, without any hope of pardon; and yet be canonically punished at the discretion of his superior, in proportion to his demerits, and according to the quality of his excess.

13. Further, lest we should leave any thing at uncertainties, we observe that in several laws some parity between the crime of heresy and lese-majesty is mentioned, and yet that the guilt is unequal; and the offending the Divine majesty requires a severer punishment than offending human majesty; since therefore he who is guilty of lese-majesty may be convicted by informations, and be proceeded against in a summary unformal manner, (because of the danger of delay,) and by first sending a citation by letters, by a messenger, by edict, and without a litis contestatio, to the hearing of witness, and to a definitive sentence: we will, ordain and declare, that for the more easy punishment of offenders in the premisses, and for the making up the breach of the Church, that hath been injured by this means, such as are defamed, detected, denounced or vehemently suspected in any of the aforesaid cases, or in any other article that carries a sound contrary to Catholic faith or good manners, be personally cited by authority of the ordinary of the place or other superior, by letters, or by a sworn messenger, if they can be caught; but if not, then by an edict at the place where the offender hath an house in which he commonly dwells, and published in the parish church, if he have a place of habitation, if not, in the cathedral church of the place of his birth, and in the parish church of the place where he so preached and taught; and when a lawful certificate is received of the summons having been executed, let them proceed against the party thus cited, though he be absent and neglect to appear, (without noise and forms of judicature, or a contestatio litis, upon the hearing of evidence and other canonical proofs,) as a punishment for his contumacy. Let the same ordinary, upon lawful information received, without delay, sentence, declare and punish him according to the quality of his offence, in manner and form before expressed, and further do justice upon the contumacious notwithstanding his absence.

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1. An allusion to the murder of Becket.

2. An incorrect interpretation of the name Cephas, which in Aramaic means “stone.” Apparently the author thinks it is derived from the Greek word for head, κεφαλη.

3. Under the “greater excommunication” a man was excluded from all Church meetings and ceremonies, and Christians were instructed to have no commerce or fellowship with him. Under the “lesser excommunication” a man was only prohibited from receiving the sacraments.

4. The sentence of excommunication was aggrevatur “aggravated” by ordering that anyone who continued to have contact with the excommunicated party should also be excommunicated.

5. The Latin text of §7, according to Wilkins, reads as follows: “Periculosa quoque res est, testante beato Jeronymo, textum sacrae scripturae de uno in aliud idioma transferre, eo quod in ipsis translationibus non de facili idem in omnibus sensus retinetur, prout idem beatus Jeronymus, etsi inspiratus fuisset, se in hoc saepius fatetur errasse; statuimus igitur et ordinamus, ut nemo deinceps aliquem textum sacrae scripturae auctoritate sua in linguam Anglicanam, vel aliam transferat, per viam libri, libelli, aut tractatus, nec legatur aliquis hujusmodi liber, libellus, aut tractatus jam noviter tempore dicti Johannis Wycliff, sive citra, compositus, aut inposterum componendus, in parte vel in toto, publice, vel occulte, sub majoris excommunicationis poena, quousque per loci dioecesanum, seu si res exegerit, per concilium provinciale ipsa translatio fuerit approbata : qui contra fecerit, ut fautor haeresis et erroris similiter puniatur.”

More from the (at least) 130-year period of severe censorship in England. Comes after Rolle's English Psalter and the spread of Wycliffism with "concerns about leaks" of the English Bible.

De Hæretico Comburendo (1401)

Text : Statutes of the Realm, 2:12S-28: 2 Henry IV

Whereas, it is shown to our sovereign lord the king on the advice of the prelates and clergy of his realm of England in this present Parliament, that although the Catholic faith builded upon Christ, and by his apostles and the Holy Church, sufficiently determined, declared, and approved, hath been hitherto by good and holy and most noble progenitors and predecessors of our sovereign lord the king it the said realm amongst all the realms of the world most devoutly observed, and the Church of England by his said most noble progenitors and ancestors, to the honor of God and the whole realm aforesaid, laudably endowed and in her rights and liberties sustained, without that the same faith or the said church was hurt or grievously oppressed, or else perturbed by any perverse doctrine or wicked, heretical, or erroneous opinions. Yet, nevertheless, divers false and perverse people of a certain new sect, of the faith of the sacraments of the church, and the authority of the same damnably thinking and against the law of God and of the Church usurping the office of preaching, do perversely and maliciously in divers places within the said realm, under the color of dissembled holiness, preach and teach these days openly and privily divers new doctrines, and wicked heretical and erroneous opinions contrary to the same faith and blessed determinations of the Holy Church, and of such sect and wicked doctrine and opinions they make unlawful conventicles and confederacies, they hold and exercise schools, they make and write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform people, and as such they may excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make great strife and division among the people, and other enormities horrible to he heard daily do perpetrate and commit subversion of the said catholic faith and doctrine of the Holy Church, in diminution of divine Worship, and also in destruction of the estate, rights, and liberties of the said Church of England; by which sect and wicked and false preachings, doctrines, and opinions of the said false and perverse people, not only most greatest peril of the sou1s, hut also many more other hurts, slanders, and perils, which God prohibit, might come to this realm, unless it he the more plentifully and speedily holpen by the King’s majesty in this behalf; especially since the diocesans of the said realm cannot by their jurisdiction spiritual, without aid of the said royal majesty, sufficiently correct the said false and perverse people, nor refrain their malice, because the said false and perverse people do go from diocese to diocese and will not appear before the said diocesans, but the same diocesans and their jurisdiction spiritual, and the keys of the church with the censures of the same, do utterly condemn and despise; and so their wicked preachings and doctrines do from day to day continue and exercise to the utter destruction of all order and rule of right and reason. Upon which novelties and excesses above rehearsed, the prelates and clergy aforesaid, and also the Commons of the said realm being in the same Parliament, have prayed our sovereign lord the king that his royal highness would vouchsafe in the said Parliament to provide a convenient remedy. The same our sovereign lord the king, graciously considering the premises, and also the laudable steps of his said most noble progenitors and ancestors, for the conservation of the said catholic faith and sustentation of the said divine worship, and also the safeguard of the estate, rights and liberties of the said Church of England, to the laud of God and merit of our said sovereign lord the king, and prosperity and honor of all his said realm, and for the eschewing of such dissensions, divisions, hurts, slanders, and perils, in time to come, and that this wicked sect, preachings, doctrines, and opinions, should from henceforth cease and he utterly destroyed; by the assent of the great lords and other noble persons of the said realm, being in the said Pariament, hatth granted, established, and ordained, from henceforth firmly to be observed, that none within the said realm or any other dominions subject to his Roval Majesty, presume to preach openly or privily, without the license of the diocesan of the same place first required and obtained, curates in their own churches and persons hitherto privileged, and other of the Canon Law granted, only except; nor that none from henceforth anything preach, hold, teach, or instruct openly or privily, or make or write any book contrary to the catholic faith or determination of the Holy Church, nor of such sect and wicked doctrines and opinions shall make any conventicles, or in any wise hold or exercise schools; and also that none from henceforth in any wise favor such preacher or maker of any such and like conventicles, or persons holding or exercising schools, or making or writing such books, or so teaching, informing, or exciting the people, nor any of them maintain or in any wise sustain, and that all and singular having such books or any writings of such wicked doctrine and opinions, shall really with effect deliver or cause to be delivered all such books and writings to the diocesan of the same place within forty days from the time of the proclamation of this ordinance and statute.

And if any person or persons of whatsoever sex, estate, or condition that he or they be, from henceforth do or attempt against the said royal ordinance and statute aforesaid in the premises or any of them, or such books in the form aforesaid do not deliver, then the diocesan of the same place in his diocese such person or persons in this behalf defamed or evidently suspected and every of them may by the authority of the said ordinance and statute cause to be arrested and under safe custody in his prison to be detained till he or they of the articles laid to him or them in this behalf do canonically purge him or themselves, or else such wicked sect, preachings, doctrines and heretical and erroneous opinions do abjure, according as the laws of the Church do demand and require.

* * * *

And if any person within the said realms and dominions, upon the said wicked preachings, doctrines, opinions, schools, and heretical and erroneous informations, or any of them be before the diocesan of the same place or his commissaries convict by sentence, and the same wicked sect, preachings, doctrines and opinions, schools and informations, do refuse duly to abjure, or by the diocesan of the same place or his commissaries, after the abjuration made by the same person be pronounced relapsed, so that according to the holy canons he ought to be left to the secular court (upon which credence shall be given to the diocesan of the same place or to his commissaries in this behalf), then the sheriff of the county of the same place, and mayor and sheriffs, or sheriff, or mayor and bailiffs of the city, town, and borough of the same county next to the same diocesan or the said commissaries, shal1 be personally present in preferring of such sentences, when they by the same diocesan or his comissaries shall be required; and they the same persons and every of them, after such sentence promulgate shall receive, and them before the people in an high place cause to be burnt, that such punishment may strike fear into the minds of others, whereby,nosuch wicked doctrine and heretical and erroneous opinions, nor their authors and fautors, in the said realm and dominions, against the Catholic faith, Christian law, and determination of the holy church, which God prohibit, be sustained or in any way suffered; in which all and singular the premises concerning the said ordinance and statute, the sheriffs, mayors' and bailiffs of the said counties, cities, boroughs and towns shall be attending, aiding, and supporting to the said diocesans and their commissaries.