I’m reading a book on the history of the Reformation, and not much enjoying the parts about burnings.
One of the aphorisms in the book was that Protestants burned libraries, but Catholics burned people.
Did the Protestants engage in much burning of people at the stake? I know that Protestants and Catholics alike engaged in witch-burning, so there’s that much they had in common. But did the Protestants do much in the way of burning Catholics at the stake, just for being Catholics, or for any other ecclesiastical kinds of reasons?
In England in the later 16th century, there were extreme punishments visited on Catholic priests arriving clandestinely from the continent, and those who helped or hid them, because at certain times they were ipso facto deemed to be political agents of Spain and the Papacy. In the early stages of the Reformation the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and others who refused to recognise the break with the Papacy were likewise treated as rebels and traitors.
But generally Catholics weren’t sent to the stake purely for heresy (that seems to have been applied to a handful of unorthodox preachers who might otherwise have been considered Protestant).
Friar John Forest was burnt at the stake during the reign of Henry VIII. He’s the only burning recorded.
However, the English government had other gruesome ways of enforcing religious conformity, in addition to burning. Wikipedia has a complete list of Catholic English martyrs:
The victim wasn’t a Catholic but an own-brand heretic (a monofisist, anti-Trinitarian, and that put him in bad terms with everybody), but the Calvinists executed Miguel Servet by staking and burning him.
In general, while the image is of “burning at the stake”, other methods of execution were much more popular for all sides. It’s not as if there wasn’t a wide menu to choose from.
Some food for thought re. “burning at the stake”: in Spanish and Catalan, it’s quemar en la hoguera / quemar a la foguera, to burn in a pyre. I expect other languages will have other expressions, but what I wanted to note is that the method listed, while similar, is not quite the same.
The state just to the north of me used to hang the wrong kind of protestants. Don’t know how they treated Catholics, pretty sure they didn’t roll out a red carpet for them.
While not state-approved, anti-Catholic violence apparently still goes on the UK today. State-sponsored actions seem to have ended in the 18th century, as far as I can determine. That said, Catholics were legally discriminated against even into the 20th century, and even today anti-Catholic laws are on the books, relating to the monarchy.
Even mob violence was often unofficially tolerated by the authorities.
Anti-Catholic violence, you say that like we have mobs of rabid Protestants roaming the landscape routing out those pesky left footers. There is Sectarian violence in NI and football in Glasgow has its moments but that is violence from both sides not a one sided victimization of Catholics, and to be honest it more about tribal hatred than real religion. I’m officially Protestant but in reality have no time for religion of any kind, however my wife and children are Catholic. Have you spent much time in the UK? Religion really isn’t that much of an issue, I like to think we have grown out of it.
I thought it was: Protestants believed that witches had magic powers, and were burned to remove the taint of the Devil. The RCC taught that witches were charlatans but had no powers (demonic possession is different). Professed witches may have been burned for heresy, but not merely because they were witches.
One thing about the difference in attitudes towards one another comes to mind.
Most protestants of the time still adhered to the main beliefs of the Roman Catholic church. They rejected some of the practices, but not the beliefs. King Henry the 8th remained, in his own mind, a Catholic. He just rejected the rule of Rome. Protestants did not regard Catholics as apostate or heretics.
Catholics on the other hand tended to regard Protestants as heretics.
This asymmetry would explain a large part of the religious component of the different treatments.
As time went on, the allegiances between the different codes and the various power blocks would replace religious differences with difference related to power, privilege and territory. Then it just becomes a surrogate for “the other”.
There hasn’t been any REAL persecution of Catholics in Britain since the 1680s. For several years prior to that, accusations of a “Popish Plot” led to the arrest and execution of many Catholics, most notably St. Oliver Plunkett (who was hanged, drawn and quartered, but not burned).
But since merely being a witch was an act of heresy, there isn’t any real difference.
Another early asymmetry was that Protestants were just asking for the right to worship, and didn’t necessarily want to close down Catholic churches. It was (in the early stages) a plea for toleration, and not an attempt to overthrow the Catholic religion.
However, once they attained a certain degree of political majority, this ideal sometimes went by the wayside.
(From our point of view, today, the English Civil War was tragic, in that whichever side was in peril of losing at any given point was the side we, ourselves, would find the most sympathetic. Early on Charles was a tyrant, and the Roundheads were the oppressed; later on, when Cromwell started winning, he became tyrannical, while Charles started offering compromises. A sad affair!)
Anyway, I was really only asking about Protestant burnings, and was pointed to at least one, so my ignorance has been reduced by that modest increment. Thank you, and thank you, everyone.
Franz von Waldeck, the prince-bishop of Munster, had the Anabaptists of Munster, horribly tortured and killed (though not burned). von Waldeck was I think nominally Catholic, though leaning towards Lutheranism, but Anabaptism was just too much.
I don’t have a cite for it, but my recollection is that for some reason which I cannot recall, it was deemed undesirable for the blood of a witch to be shed …hence no beheadings or disembowellings … burning was regarded as not shedding blood, so was the preferred mode of execution.
Drowning would have been equally effective I suppose, but probably not as much fun for the spectators …and there would still have been the problem of what to do with the corpse.
Traditional “burn at the stake” involved the person tied to a pole and the firewood bundled around their feet - or standing on a raised platform, tied to a stake. Either way, this reinforced the learning experience for the last few minutes of the person’s life, as their lower regions would typically burn progressively before they lost consciousness. Joan of Arc was allegedly fricasseed this way.
The English implication of “pyre” does not involve a stake (although I can see how it could). I assume the Spanish edition typically did include a stake also?
There’s evidence, even merely on wikipedia, that “football” is not to blame. That being said, I don’t believe I specifically sought out our accused you. Perhaps you should take up the argument with the people who are, in fact, documenting the issues?
You may not have specified that I am an anti-catholic thug, however you did say that anti-catholic violence is happening now in the UK. Could you provide some evidence of this as outside of sectarian violence (which as I stated is from both sides) Who is documenting these crimes? I have lived in the UK all of my life and have never seen any anti-catholic violence outside of sectarianism or the excuse of “football” (not sure why you decided to “quote” that) I would imagine that 95-99% of people who get involved in that sort of antagonistic behavior, be it in NI or Glasgow, etc never set foot in a Church outside of family occasions. I also do not see why I can’t take the argument up with you? Am I not allowed to defend my country?