The Trial For Heresy And The System Of Punishment Of Members Of The Lollard Sect In England

Abstract

Trials and system of punishment created by the Inquisition, primarily for the necessity of struggling against the thirteenth-century Continental popular heresy are notorious. Medieval England was faced for the first time with the heretical movement late in its history and its origin was not in the populus, but in the radical professor of the University of Oxford, John Wyclif. This paper considers the experience of trials led – and punishments – dealt to the followers of Wyclifism, pejoratively named Lollards, with a particular interest in the punishments that women of this heterodox group incurred.