Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions, The
Margaret Deanesly
Number of quotes: 11
Book ID: 247 Page: 34
Section: 3A2B
Thirteenth century inquisitors certainly burnt or confiscated biblical translations wherever they found them.
Quote ID: 6213
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 36
Section: 3A1A,3A1B
In 1229 a synod was held at Toulouse:"Lay people shall not have books of scripture, except the psalter and the divine office: and they shall not have these books in the vulgar tongue. Moreover we prohibit that lay people should be permitted to books of the Old or New Testament, except perchance any should wish from devotion to have a psalter, or a breviary for the divine office, or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly prohibit their having even the aforesaid books translated into the vulgar tongue."
Quote ID: 6214
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 40
Section: 3A1A
A priest who has joined the Waldensians, and was afterwards burnt as a relapsed heretic, confessed that he had associated with Waldensians, and that “he knew and saw and heard that the Waldensians preach sometimes after supper at night from the gospels and epistles in the vulgar tongue.” Another man “had seen in the house of his father and mother a certain old man, whom he did not know, and in the presence of himself and others of the household the old man drew out a certain book and began reading to them many words.”
Quote ID: 6215
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 41
Section: 3A2B
. . . . the register shews that the reading of biblical translations was regarded as very serious evidence of heresy.Pastor John’s note: the inquisitor’s register
Quote ID: 6216
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 51
Section: 3A2B
Alphonso a Castro, the friar Minor who was confessor to Charles V, addressed the council of Trent on the subject of vernacular scriptures, and he published a work against heresy in 1539. In the latter he states that:The third parent and origin of heresy is the translation of the sacred books into the vernacular, when it often happens that they are read by mankind without distinction of persons.
Quote ID: 6217
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 61
Section: 3A2B
An anonymous inquisitor of Passau wrote a tract on heresy about 1260.. . . .
He explains the six causes of heresy; the third is that they have translated the New and Old Testament into the vulgar tongue, and this they teach and learn:
For I have heard and seen a certain unlettered countryman who used to recite Job word for word, and many others who knew the whole New Testament perfectly.
The second is the heretic’s diligence in teaching and learning those biblical translations:
All, men and women, cease not to teach and learn, night and day. The workman, who toils by day, learns or teaches at night . . . .
The fifth cause is their insufficient doctrine: for they hold as fables whatever a doctor of the Church teaches which cannot be proved by the text of the New Testament.
Quote ID: 6218
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 63
Section: 3A2A
The burning of German heretics had begun again in 1265, and the inquisition was active in Austria and Bavaria between 1250 and 1270. David says that the early followers of Peter Waldo began, though laymen, to preach the gospel:And because they presumed to interpret the words of the gospel in a sense of their own, not perceiving that there were any others, they said that the gospel ought to be obeyed altogether according to the letter: and they boasted that they wished to do this, and that they only were the true imitators of Christ . . . . This was their first heresy, contempt of the power of the Church.
Quote ID: 6219
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 69
Section: 3A2A,3A2B
While Peter Waldo was getting the gospels translated for himself at Lyons, Lambert le Begue (the Stammerer) was preaching in the Netherlands. Gilles d’Orval, a religious of Liege, the town where Lambert himself preached, wrote in 1251 a chronicle of the city; he says that Lambert, the founder of the Beghards, “although he was but little instructed in the study of letters,” was a celebrated preacher at Liege, c. 1167-91: he incurred, however, the displeasure of the bishop, and when he was imprisoned in the castle of Rivogne in consequence, “and had been kept some little time in captivity, he translated the Acts of the Apostles into French”. Another chronicler states “he was a fervent preacher of the new devotion which filled Liege and the neighboring regions”. . . . it is certain that the name Lollard was copied from that applied to the Beghards, or followers of Lambert, early in the fourteenth century. Beghard, or the Latin, Beguinus, was derived from Lambert’s own surname: Lollard, from a Flemish word meaning to “mumble” or “mutter”.
Quote ID: 6220
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 82
Section: 3A1A,2D3B
John Nider the Dominican also described certain Beghards at the time of the council of Bale, whoUse subtle, sublime, spiritual and metaphysical words, such as the German tongue can hardly express, so that scarcely any man, even an educated man, can fully understand them; and in these they wrap up lofty sentences about spirit, abstraction, various lights, divine persons, and the grades of contemplation.
Quote ID: 6221
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 83
Section: 3A2A
When the Emperor was returning from Rome in 1369, he issued from Lucca, at the request of the pope, a number of bulls in support of the inquisition, assuring to it privileges and protection which it had never before received in Germany.
Quote ID: 6222
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 247 Page: 84
Section: 3A2A,3A2B
Wherefore we strictly enjoin and command all the venerable archbishops, bishops . . . and all clerics secular and regular . . . and all dukes, princes, marquesses etc . . . and each and every man, on their obedience to the Holy Roman Empire . . . that ye assist the said inquisitors and their deputies to demand and confiscate such books, treatises, sermons, pamphlets, leaves, bound books, etc., written in the vulgar tongue, from all men, whatever their rank;. . .
For the effectual prevention of books of this kind . . . And ye shall lend your counsel and effectual help that the aforesaid books should be presented to the inquisitors to be burned.
Quote ID: 6223
Time Periods: 7
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