Heresy, Law and the State: Forfeiture in Late Medieval and Early Modern England
P. R. Cavill
As a punishment for heresy, forfeiture of property had originated in Roman law, was decreed by canon and applied across late medieval Europe. English ecclesiastical secular legislation the early fifteenth century formally adopted confiscation response to threat Lollardy. Prompted Oldcastle’s rising, 1414 an Act Parliament ordered that heretics should henceforth suffer penalty felony forfeiture. This identification heresy with criminality justified greater lay involvement suppression religious dissent. Because designated as type felony, Crown claimed offenders’ personal possessions lords their real property; Church no right heretics’ estates. Although provided common-law basis forfeiture, imposed other circumstances paralleled practice outside England. Notwithstanding Richard Hunne affair, generated little controversy during break Rome. Legislation 1530s, fact, extended use The repealed under Edward VI, revived Mary I, again Elizabeth I. Following this second repeal 1559, lapsed heresy. association between crime thus loosened.
The English Historical Review