Since my SCA persona is a Lollard (followers of the teachings of John Wycliffe), one of my A&S 50 challenges is to learn more about the beliefs and practices of the Lollards, and what I can find out about the lives of individuals who stayed true to their beliefs even through persecution and martyrdom. I ran across this interesting tidbit today from http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=AnoChan.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed&tag=public&part=174&division=div1
1425: Petition by Commons for speedy trial of Lollards
Vn to the most excellent most worthy & gracious lordes of this present parlement Shewyn & declaryn to
your hygh discrecion the Communes of this present parlement for as mych as divers persones that
here to for havyn bene arettyd & acusyd of treson felonye lollardrie & other such poyntes bene commyttyd
alday by the kynges comaundement & his counceyll some to the Tour of London & some to othir castels & holdes in
the rewme wher as they lye long tyme other while a yeer or two with out eny processe or execucion done a yens
hem to grete costes of our lord the kyng & grete perill & fere of her kepers & also emboldishing to other of her
covyne & assent / Plesith it vn to your moste excellent & worthy lordshipes so to ordeyne by your
most hye discrecions that all such prisoners that shul in tyme to come be commyttid to eny such place for
treson felony lollardrie or eny such other high poynt mowe in short tyme be sent & apere by for
her Iuges temporall or spirituell as the (caas) askith. to the entent to be
quyt & delyverd or ellis to
have the iewys they have deservid in eschewyng of excessiue costes of our lord the kyng done about the
long kepyng of such prisoners & the grete perill fere & labour of her kepers for goddis sake & in wey of charite.
If you read it slowly and phonetically, you can get the jist of the older English spellings (also I=J). I include it here as it appears for all the weird folks out there like me that love that sort of stuff.
Obviously by 1425, there were so many Lollards in prisons across England that it was becoming a financial burden and the government apparently thought of this particular type of "heresy" to be as dangerous as treason!
Interesting stuff; I think I'm going to enjoy digging deeper.
That's it for today, 'cause we're a sickie house: everybody's got sore throats and stuffy heads. I hope that's all that develops!
-Jayne
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