Peter in his lininge. Moreouer it was deposed against him that he was notoriously suspectedan heretike, and twise pulled out of the pulpet in the dioces of Norwich. 

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The interesting details of these episodes remain obscure.

Commentary on the Woodcuts    Close

The woodcut shows Thomas Bilney being manhandled by two ugly visaged friars who pull him out of the pulpit (a portable wooden one) outside the church of St George in Ipswich. (Bilney is known to have preached at Christchurch in Ipswich). The words in the banderoles in 1563 and 1570 respectively caption the scene as 'p[f]riers pulling Bilney out of the pulpit' and 'M. Bilney twice plucked from the pulpit'. He was accused of having preached in 1527 against false belief in the spiritual value of being buried in a Franciscan habit. This illustration is related both in style and content to a woodcut of Envy that appeared in 1569 in Stephen Bateman's A christall glasse, also published by John Day. CUL copy: detail is added to this illustration in black ink. The additional detail in one figure, dressed in blue (second from the right), has, however, made him cross-eyed. WREN copy: the trees to the right are coloured in a very bright green. The figure in blue (same figure as that in blue in the CUL copy) is not cross-eyed in this copy.

Also it was deposed againste him, that he should in that paryshe churche of Willesdon, 

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Bilney was accused of preaching at Willesden in the week of Pentecost in 1527.

These and many other such like depositions were deposed against him by the deponents & witnesses before sworne, which wholye to recite woulde be to longe and tedious, wherforethese shal suffice at this time, being the principal matters, and in a manner theffect of al the reast. But now before we wil retourn againe to the order of his examination, we thyncke it good here to inferre a certen dialoge cōtaining a communication betwene a frier named Ihō Brusyerd, and master Ihō Bylney, which we haue thought meete for this place, because it was done in Ipswitch, and also about the time of these examinatiōs, the copy wherof we haue wrytten with the friers owne hand in laten, whiche notwithstandinge the barbarousnesse therof, we haue thought good to set forth as it is, and also translated the same into Englysh.

Dialogus inter fratrem Johannem Brusyerde, 

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Details concerning the identity and career of Friar John Brusierd continue to be sparse. Craig W. D'Alton, 'The Suppression of Lutheran Heretics in England, 1526-1529', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 54 (2003), pp. 228-53.

et M. Tbo. Bylnæum. Ypswici.

MarginaliaEx autographo ipsius Brusier ai, cuius scriptum penes me habeo.BRusierdus. Quanuis nonnullis tuis blasphemiis immacularum Christi gregem perniciosissime blasphemasti, piis tamen tuis supplicationibus tuam aliquantisper indolem miserescens, temet conuentum (in doctum vulgus non disseminato rumore) huc me cōtuli, triplici erroris ictu percussus. Primo quidē cū primū pestiferi tui erroris spiculū, durius quam decuit, in docti vulgi vibrasti pectusculū, æciosū christi sanguinē vehemēti quodā īpetuab humani cordis vasculo miserè effudisti in terram.