As part of my preparation for the pilgrimage I've been reading lots of books about the religious history of Norfolk. Besides the positive stuff about Julian and Margery Kempe, there have been hints at a darker side. Blood libel I knew about from days of being able to sing Hugh of Lincoln in folk clubs in the seventies and so I was prepared for the story of William of Norwich which followed an almost identical narrative arc of a mysterious death of a child which was wrongly blamed on a religious minority followed by blatant fake news, persecution and banishment.
As well as this unpleasant diversion I've skimmed Foxe's Book of English Martyrs. This is the rather unedifying account of the persecution of Protestants by the Catholic regime of Mary Tudor in the mid sixteenth century. This was a countrywide phenomenon but Norwich had a series of fiery executions. Exactly how many depends, as always, on what you take as "evidence". We've always had fake news, sometimes it was called propaganda, sometimes it was simple exaggeration, but unless events leave an existent paper trail, we must take lots on trust. 500 Martys in Norwich is the top number, 3 are mentioned in Foxe, but the general assumption by modern historians is about 50 people were burned in the late Middle Ages and Tudor times. Lollards Pit is a place just outside Norwich City Walls where these particularly gruesome acts took place. And that, of course is a clue when the first heretics were executed: Around the time of Wycliffe and the fight to get a Bible in English, 14th Century.
Burning for heresy is theologically sound because if you believe in bodily resurrection at the last trumpet of Judgement Day, then a death which totally destroys the body is a mark of oblivion (as well as being indescribably painful). Foxe describes all his martyrs as within the conflagration calmly singing hymns and praying with beatific smiles. Protestant propaganda and wishful thinking surely? I shrink from quoting any of the plethora of Foxe's descriptions of torture and burning as they are graphic in the extreme. But what really beggars my belief is that from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, the three books found in every C of E place of worship, and the homes of many of the congregations, were The Bible, The Book of Common Prayer and Foxe's Book of Martyrs. And the latter was deemed suitable to read to children.
In one of those bizarre bits of planning and geography Lollards Pit has now had a pub directly over it called, somewhat predictably but unimaginatively, The Lollards Pit.
I may have a well earned Bloody Mary cocktail when I get there..........
