Saint or Schemer? The 1527 Heresy Trial of Thomas Bilney Reconsidered

Greg Walker

doi:10.1017/S0022046900042858

Saint or Schemer? The 1527 Heresy Trial of Thomas Bilney Reconsidered

School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	219-238
Number of pages	20
Journal	The Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Volume	40
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900042858
Publication status	Published - Apr 1989

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@article{5e27b3a01bc641329c90b5647c114e8a,

title = "Saint or Schemer? The 1527 Heresy Trial of Thomas Bilney Reconsidered",

author = "Greg Walker",

note = "Funding Information: On 8 December 1527 two scholars, Thomas Bilney and Thomas Arthur, carried penitential faggots at St Paul's Cross as a token of abjuration of heresy. With this act both men formally cleansed their souls and brought about their reconciliation with the Church. Far from being the end of a story, however, this ceremony proved to be the beginning of a controversy which has survived until the present day. For Thomas Bilney subsequently renounced his abjuration and became a significant figure in the early Reformation in England, eventually dying at the stake as a relapsed heretic in 1531. And yet, despite the importance attributed to him as a reformer, Bilney is now, as he was then, an ambiguous figure whose relationship with the Catholic Church and precise beliefs have never been conclusively determined. Many writers have claimed Bilney as a champion of their particular causes or have sought to identify his place in the wider movements of the Reformation. For the Protestant John Foxe he was a martyr, albeit a flawed one, for the reformed faith, who refused to the last to be intimidated into a second abjuration.1 For Sir Thomas More, in somewhat mischievous mood, he was a Catholic saint brought to realise the error of his ways at the stake and reconciled to the Church with almost his last breath.2 Yet neither polemicist found it easy to accommodate the peculiarities of Bilney's case with their simplistic models, and both accounts reveal their authors' embarrassment in the face of unwelcome facts. Bilney's beliefs, his I would like to thank Dr G.W.Bernard, P.J. Gwyn, S.J. Smart, A. C. Duke, Professors C. Morris and Sir Geoffrey Elton, Dr N. Tanner and DrJ. F. Thomson for their generous help with the writing of this paper, which I was able to complete thanks to the award of a British Academy Post-doctoral Research Fellowship. Copyright: Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

year = "1989",

month = apr,

doi = "10.1017/S0022046900042858",

language = "English",

volume = "40",

pages = "219--238",

journal = "The Journal of Ecclesiastical History",

issn = "0022-0469",

publisher = "Cambridge University Press",

number = "2",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Saint or Schemer? The 1527 Heresy Trial of Thomas Bilney Reconsidered

AU - Walker, Greg

N1 - Funding Information: On 8 December 1527 two scholars, Thomas Bilney and Thomas Arthur, carried penitential faggots at St Paul's Cross as a token of abjuration of heresy. With this act both men formally cleansed their souls and brought about their reconciliation with the Church. Far from being the end of a story, however, this ceremony proved to be the beginning of a controversy which has survived until the present day. For Thomas Bilney subsequently renounced his abjuration and became a significant figure in the early Reformation in England, eventually dying at the stake as a relapsed heretic in 1531. And yet, despite the importance attributed to him as a reformer, Bilney is now, as he was then, an ambiguous figure whose relationship with the Catholic Church and precise beliefs have never been conclusively determined. Many writers have claimed Bilney as a champion of their particular causes or have sought to identify his place in the wider movements of the Reformation. For the Protestant John Foxe he was a martyr, albeit a flawed one, for the reformed faith, who refused to the last to be intimidated into a second abjuration.1 For Sir Thomas More, in somewhat mischievous mood, he was a Catholic saint brought to realise the error of his ways at the stake and reconciled to the Church with almost his last breath.2 Yet neither polemicist found it easy to accommodate the peculiarities of Bilney's case with their simplistic models, and both accounts reveal their authors' embarrassment in the face of unwelcome facts. Bilney's beliefs, his I would like to thank Dr G.W.Bernard, P.J. Gwyn, S.J. Smart, A. C. Duke, Professors C. Morris and Sir Geoffrey Elton, Dr N. Tanner and DrJ. F. Thomson for their generous help with the writing of this paper, which I was able to complete thanks to the award of a British Academy Post-doctoral Research Fellowship. Copyright: Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 1989/4

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JO - The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

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ER -

Saint or Schemer? The 1527 Heresy Trial of Thomas Bilney Reconsidered

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