Inquisition, Speech, and Writing: A Case from Late-Medieval Norwich

Abstract

It is 18 April 1429, and a suspected heretic, John Burell, servant of Thomas Mone, appears the bishop's palace the city of Norwich, to be examined for heresy the presence of the bishop, his theologians, and in mei, Johannis Excestr, clerici, notarii publici ... presencia, as the scribe puts it-as he habitually puts it, for this is not a unique occasion.' By 1431, he will have recorded sixty such examinations at least; so many records survive of these trials (John Foxe mentions twice that number). As a notary, John of Exeter possesses a battery of formulae that let him record efficiently and then reduce what he has recorded into proper institutional documents. (Back 1382, when Archbishop Courtenay wanted to record Nicholas Hereford's Ascension Day sermon-he guessed it would be a heretical potboiler, and it was-he sent a notary.) And heresy trials, despite their high stakes, could be deeply formulaic exercises: Lollard suspects the fifteenth century often were confronted by a set schedule of heretical assertions, which they were to acknowledge or deny and then forswear.2 The scribe's business began before the suspects appeared, since they were presented with reports of what they had already been heard to say (two cases the Norwich records preserve depositions taken against the suspects.) And his business continued after this preliminary appearance when the heretics, now confessed as such, were appointed a date to return and abjure the errors they had confessed, and it would seem to have been the scribe's job to draw up the schedule of heresies to be recanted. So when John Burell appeared April 1429, John of Exeter was engaged business as usual. Burell himself seems unusual only his eagerness to blame his heresies on others-his brother Thomas, his sister-in-law Matilda, his employer