Comparing this noble sermon with the passages quoted in an earlier chapter from Colet’s lectures at Oxford and his Abstracts of the Dionysian writings, it must be admitted that what, fourteen years before, he had uttered as it were in secret, he had now, as occasion required, proclaimed upon the housetops. What effect it had upon the assembled clergy no record remains to tell.
Wolsey obtains four dismes.
The object which Wolsey had in view in the convocation was, it may be presumed, attained to his satisfaction. The clergy granted the King ‘four dismes,’ to be paid in yearly instalments.[407] And this was the full amount of taxation usually demanded by English sovereigns from the clergy in time of war, except in cases of extreme urgency.[408]
Whether Bishop Fitzjames succeeded equally well in securing the inhuman object which was nearest to his heart, is not equally clear.
Discussion on the burning of heretics.
But one authentic picture of a scene which there can be little doubt occurred in this Convocation has been preserved, to give a passing glimpse into the nature of the discussion which followed upon the subject of the ‘extirpation of heresy.’ In the course of the debate, the advocates of increased severity against poor Lollards were asked, it seems, to point out, if they could, a single passage in the Canonical Scriptures which commands the capital punishment of heretics. Whereupon an old divine[409] rose from his seat, and with some severity and temper quoted the command of St. Paul to Titus: ‘A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject.’ The old man quoted the words as they stand in the Vulgate version: ‘Hæreticum hominem post unam et alteram correptionem devita!’—‘De-vita!’ he repeated with emphasis; and again, louder still, he thundered ‘De-vita!’ till everyone wondered what had happened to the man. At length he proceeded to explain that the meaning of the Latin verb ‘devitare’ being ‘de vita tollere’ (!), the passage in question was clearly a direct command to punish heretics by death![410]
A smile passed round among those members of Convocation who were learned enough to detect the gross ignorance of the old divine; but to the rest his logic appeared perfectly conclusive, and he was allowed to proceed triumphantly to support his position by quoting, again from the Vulgate, the text translated in the English version, ‘Suffer not a witch to live.’ For the word ‘witch’ the Vulgate version has ‘maleficus.’ A heretic, he declared, was clearly ‘maleficus,’ and therefore ought not to be suffered to live. By which conclusive logic the learned members of the Convocation of 1512 were, it is said, for the most part completely carried away.[411]
This story, resting wholly or in part upon Colet’s own relation to Erasmus, is the only glimpse which can be gathered of the proceedings of this Convocation ‘for the extirpation of heresy.’
II. COLET IS CHARGED WITH HERESY (1512).
Colet’s sermon printed.