Thomas Bilney ( 149519 August 1531) was an English Christian

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

Early life

Thomas Bilney was born around 1495 in Norfolk, most likely in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

. Nothing is known of his parents except that they outlived him. He entered

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...

at a young age, around the year 1510. During his life he was nicknamed ''Little Bilney'' because of his short stature.

Education

At Cambridge, he studied law, graduating LL.B. and taking holy orders in 1519. Finding no satisfaction in the mechanical system of the schoolmen, he turned his attention to the Greek edition of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

published by

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...

in 1516. During his reading in the Epistles, he was struck by the words of 1 Timothy 1:15, which in English reads, "''This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am the chief.''" "Immediately", he records, "I felt a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised bones lept for joy, Psal. 51:8. After this, the Scripture began to be more pleasant unto me than the honey or the honeycomb; wherein I learned that all my labours, my fasting and watching, all the redemption of masses and pardons, being done without truth in Christ, who alone saveth his people from their sins; these I say, I learned to be nothing else but even, as St. Augustine saith, a hasty and swift running out of the right way". The Scriptures now became his chief study, and his influence led other young Cambridge men to think along the same lines. Among his friends were

Matthew Parker Matthew Parker (6 August 1504 – 17 May 1575) was an English bishop. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England from 1559 until his death in 1575. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder (with a ...

, the future

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Just ...

, and

Hugh Latimer Hugh Latimer ( – 16 October 1555) was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, and later Church of England chaplain to King Edward VI. In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary I he was burned at the ...

. Latimer, previously a strenuous conservative, was completely won over, and a warm friendship sprang up between him and Bilney. "By his confession", said Latimer, "I learned more than in twenty years before".

Preaching and imprisonment

In 1525 Bilney obtained a licence to preach throughout the

diocese of Ely The Diocese of Ely is a Church of England diocese in the Province of Canterbury. It is headed by the Bishop of Ely, who sits at Ely Cathedral in Ely, Cambridgeshire, Ely. There is one suffragan bishop, suffragan (subordinate) bishop, the Bish ...

. He denounced

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Or ...

and

relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangi ...

veneration, together with

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

s to

Walsingham Walsingham () is a civil parish in North Norfolk, England, famous for its religious shrines in honour of Mary, mother of Jesus. It also contains the ruins of two medieval monastic houses.Ordnance Survey (2002). ''OS Explorer Map 251 – Norf ...

and Canterbury, and refused to accept the mediation of the saints. Gstohl, Mark. "Thomas Bilney", Theological Perspectives of the Reformation
The diocesan authorities raised no objection, considering his diverging views to be of minor relevance to the essentials of the Christian faith, and he was orthodox on the authority of the Pope and Church, and on

transubstantiation Transubstantiation (Latin: ''transubstantiatio''; Greek: μετουσίωσις '' metousiosis'') is, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, "the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of ...

Cardinal Wolsey Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figur ...

took a different view. In 1526 he appears to have summoned Bilney before him. On his taking an

oath Traditionally an oath (from Anglo-Saxon ', also called plight) is either a statement of fact or a promise taken by a sacrality as a sign of verity. A common legal substitute for those who conscientiously object to making sacred oaths is to g ...

that he did not hold and would not disseminate the doctrines of

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

, Bilney was dismissed. But in the following year serious objection was taken to a series of sermons preached by him in and near London, and he was dragged from the pulpit while preaching in St George's Chapel

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

, arrested and imprisoned in the

Tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specific ...

. Arraigned before Wolsey, William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and several bishops in the chapter-house at

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...

, he was convicted of

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important relig ...

, sentence being deferred while efforts were made to induce him to recant, which eventually he did.

Release, re-arrest and execution

After being kept for more than a year in the Tower, he was released in 1529, and went back to Cambridge. Here he was overcome with remorse for his

apostasy Apostasy (; grc-gre, ἀποστασία , 'a defection or revolt') is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that ...

, and after two years he was determined to preach again what he had held to be the truth. The churches being no longer open to him, he preached openly in the fields, finally arriving in

, where the bishop, Richard Nix, caused him to be arrested. Articles were drawn up against him by

Convocation A convocation (from the Latin '' convocare'' meaning "to call/come together", a translation of the Greek ἐκκλησία ''ekklēsia'') is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose, mostly ecclesiastical or academic. In a ...

, he was tried, degraded from his orders and handed over to the civil authorities to be

burned Burned or burnt may refer to: * Anything which has undergone combustion * Burned (image), quality of an image transformed with loss of detail in all portions lighter than some limit, and/or those darker than some limit * ''Burnt'' (film), a 2015 ...

. The sentence was carried out at Lollards Pit, Norwich on 19 August 1531. After witnessing Bilney's death, Bishop Nix is reported to have said, "I fear I have burned Abel and let Cain go"."Norfolk Guide". England's Christian Heritage
/ref> A parliamentary inquiry was threatened into this case, not because

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

approved of Bilney's doctrine but because it was alleged that Bilney's

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

had been obtained by the ecclesiastics without the proper authorisation by the state. In 1534 Bishop Nix was condemned on this charge to the confiscation of his property.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * – contains longer extracts from Merle d'Aubigné {{DEFAULTSORT:Bilney, Thomas 1490s births 1531 deaths People from Norwich Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge People executed for heresy Executed British people People executed under Henry VIII Executed people from Norfolk 16th-century Protestant martyrs People executed by the Kingdom of England by burning Protestant martyrs of England English evangelicals