The Roman Catholic Church was burning people at the stake for daring to translate the Bible into their native languages.
Nope.
False information. Nobody was burned in the Middle Ages for translating the Bible into the vernacular. Absolutely nobody. This is just anti-Catholic propaganda invented after Luther, in order to justify the great revolt against the Church which divided Christendom, and discarded much of the heritage of the previous 15 centuries of Christian practice.
It is certainly true that people were burned in the Middle Ages, but it was because they were found guilty of heresy, not because they produced translations of the Bible. Heresy was a serious crime against the State, subversive of the whole order of society. So if the Church court found you guilty of heresy, despite being given several opportunities to recant your errors, it then handed you over to the State authorities. The King or Parliament had decreed the death penalty for heresy, and the sheriffs and magistrates executed it.
Another writer has mentioned Jan Hus, who certainly was badly treated at the Council of Konstanz in 1415. But it wasn’t for translation.
John Wycliffe died in good standing as Vicar of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, but his edition of the English Bible had a Prologue very critical of the Church. This version was banned by the bishops at Oxford in 1408. It had become associated with Lollardy and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1481, which threatened the Crown and murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury. So the Establishment rather vindictively had Wycliffe’s body dug up and burnt, before throwing his ashes into the river. Many people continued using Wycliffe’s translation without realizing its provenance.
By the 1400’s there were editions of the Bible in Italian, French, Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Czech, German, Slavonic, Arabic. None of their translators were burnt! And of course neither was St Jerome, when c.380 he translated the Biblical Greek and Hebrew into the Vulgar Latin vernacular of the western Empire.
I find it very doubtful you've read Foxe's Book of Martyrs or have even heard of it. If you had, you'd know the truth.
Book of Martyrs, FOXE’S.—John Foxe was born at Boston in Lincolnshire, England, in 1516, and was educated at Magdalen School and College, Oxford. He joined the more extreme Reformers early in life and under Edward VI acted as tutor to the children of the recently beheaded Earl of Surrey. In Mary’s reign he fled to Germany and joined the exiles at Frankfort. In the controversy which arose there he took sides with Knox and the extremists and after the break up of the Frankfort colony he went to Basle where poverty compelled him to take service with the Protestant printer Oporinus. In 1559 he returned to England and entered the ministry; he was helped by his old pupil the Duke of Norfolk and was mainly occupied with his martyrology. He still belonged to the extremists and objected to the surplice. His opinions interfered with his prospects, but he was not an ambitious man. Though violent and dishonest in controversy, he was personally of a kind and charitable temper. Besides his “Acts and Monuments” he published a number of sermons, translations, and controversial attacks on Catholicism. He died in 1587.
Even before leaving England in 1554 Foxe had begun the story of the persecutions of the Reformers. The result was the publication of a little Latin work dealing mainly with Wyclifism. While at Basle he was supplied by Grindal with reports of the persecution in England and in 1559 he published a large Latin folio of 740 pages which began with Wyclif and ended with Cranmer. After his return to England he began to translate this book and to add to it the results of fresh information. The “Acts and Monuments” were finally published in 1563 but came almost immediately to be known as the “Book of Martyrs”. The criticism which the work called forth led to the publication of a “corrected” edition in 1570. Two more (1576 and 1583) came out during his life and five (1596, 1610, 1632, 1641, 1684) within the next hundred years. There have been two modern editions, both unsatisfactory; they are in eight volumes and were published in 1837-41 and 1877. The size of the work may be gathered from the fact that in the edition of 1684 it consists of three folio volumes of 895, 682, and 863 pages respectively. Each page has two columns and over eighty lines. The first volume besides introductory matter contains the story of early Christian persecutions, a sketch of medieval church history and an account of the Wyclifite movement in England and on the continent. The second volume deals with the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI and the third with that of Mary. A large number of official documents such as injunctions, articles of accusation, letters, etc., have been included. The book is illustrated throughout by woodcuts, some of them symbolizing the triumph of the Reformation, most of them depicting the sufferings of the martyrs.
The convocation of the English Church ordered in 1571 that copies of the “Book of Martyrs” should be kept for public inspection in all cathedrals and in the houses of church dignitaries. The book was also exposed in many parish churches. The passionate intensity of the style, the vivid and picturesque dialogues made it very popular among Puritan and Low Church families down to the nineteenth century. Even the fantastically partisan church history of the earlier portion of the book, with its grotesque stories of popes and monks and its motley succession of witnesses to the truth (including the Albigenses, Grosseteste, Dante, and Savonarola) was accepted amongst simple folk and must have contributed much to anti-Catholic prejudices in England. When Foxe treats of his own times his work is of greater value as it contains many documents and is largely based on the reports of eyewitnesses; but he sometimes dishonestly mutilates his documents and is quite untrustworthy in his treatment of evidence. He was criticized in his own day by Catholics such as Harpsfield and Father Parsons and by practically all serious ecclesiastical historians.
Nope.
False information. Nobody was burned in the Middle Ages for translating the Bible into the vernacular. Absolutely nobody. This is just anti-Catholic propaganda invented after Luther, in order to justify the great revolt against the Church which divided Christendom, and discarded much of the heritage of the previous 15 centuries of Christian practice.
It is certainly true that people were burned in the Middle Ages, but it was because they were found guilty of heresy, not because they produced translations of the Bible. Heresy was a serious crime against the State, subversive of the whole order of society. So if the Church court found you guilty of heresy, despite being given several opportunities to recant your errors, it then handed you over to the State authorities. The King or Parliament had decreed the death penalty for heresy, and the sheriffs and magistrates executed it.
Another writer has mentioned Jan Hus, who certainly was badly treated at the Council of Konstanz in 1415. But it wasn’t for translation.
John Wycliffe died in good standing as Vicar of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, but his edition of the English Bible had a Prologue very critical of the Church. This version was banned by the bishops at Oxford in 1408. It had become associated with Lollardy and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1481, which threatened the Crown and murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury. So the Establishment rather vindictively had Wycliffe’s body dug up and burnt, before throwing his ashes into the river. Many people continued using Wycliffe’s translation without realizing its provenance.
By the 1400’s there were editions of the Bible in Italian, French, Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Czech, German, Slavonic, Arabic. None of their translators were burnt! And of course neither was St Jerome, when c.380 he translated the Biblical Greek and Hebrew into the Vulgar Latin vernacular of the western Empire.
Book of Martyrs, FOXE’S.—John Foxe was born at Boston in Lincolnshire, England, in 1516, and was educated at Magdalen School and College, Oxford. He joined the more extreme Reformers early in life and under Edward VI acted as tutor to the children of the recently beheaded Earl of Surrey. In Mary’s reign he fled to Germany and joined the exiles at Frankfort. In the controversy which arose there he took sides with Knox and the extremists and after the break up of the Frankfort colony he went to Basle where poverty compelled him to take service with the Protestant printer Oporinus. In 1559 he returned to England and entered the ministry; he was helped by his old pupil the Duke of Norfolk and was mainly occupied with his martyrology. He still belonged to the extremists and objected to the surplice. His opinions interfered with his prospects, but he was not an ambitious man. Though violent and dishonest in controversy, he was personally of a kind and charitable temper. Besides his “Acts and Monuments” he published a number of sermons, translations, and controversial attacks on Catholicism. He died in 1587.
Even before leaving England in 1554 Foxe had begun the story of the persecutions of the Reformers. The result was the publication of a little Latin work dealing mainly with Wyclifism. While at Basle he was supplied by Grindal with reports of the persecution in England and in 1559 he published a large Latin folio of 740 pages which began with Wyclif and ended with Cranmer. After his return to England he began to translate this book and to add to it the results of fresh information. The “Acts and Monuments” were finally published in 1563 but came almost immediately to be known as the “Book of Martyrs”. The criticism which the work called forth led to the publication of a “corrected” edition in 1570. Two more (1576 and 1583) came out during his life and five (1596, 1610, 1632, 1641, 1684) within the next hundred years. There have been two modern editions, both unsatisfactory; they are in eight volumes and were published in 1837-41 and 1877. The size of the work may be gathered from the fact that in the edition of 1684 it consists of three folio volumes of 895, 682, and 863 pages respectively. Each page has two columns and over eighty lines. The first volume besides introductory matter contains the story of early Christian persecutions, a sketch of medieval church history and an account of the Wyclifite movement in England and on the continent. The second volume deals with the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI and the third with that of Mary. A large number of official documents such as injunctions, articles of accusation, letters, etc., have been included. The book is illustrated throughout by woodcuts, some of them symbolizing the triumph of the Reformation, most of them depicting the sufferings of the martyrs.
The convocation of the English Church ordered in 1571 that copies of the “Book of Martyrs” should be kept for public inspection in all cathedrals and in the houses of church dignitaries. The book was also exposed in many parish churches. The passionate intensity of the style, the vivid and picturesque dialogues made it very popular among Puritan and Low Church families down to the nineteenth century. Even the fantastically partisan church history of the earlier portion of the book, with its grotesque stories of popes and monks and its motley succession of witnesses to the truth (including the Albigenses, Grosseteste, Dante, and Savonarola) was accepted amongst simple folk and must have contributed much to anti-Catholic prejudices in England. When Foxe treats of his own times his work is of greater value as it contains many documents and is largely based on the reports of eyewitnesses; but he sometimes dishonestly mutilates his documents and is quite untrustworthy in his treatment of evidence. He was criticized in his own day by Catholics such as Harpsfield and Father Parsons and by practically all serious ecclesiastical historians.
Prove it.
A MASONIC BLUEPRINT FOR THE SUBVERSION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH - https://fatima.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/BT057-Alta-Vendita-2019-WEB2.pdf