De Heretico Forisfaciendo: Felony Forfeiture and the Punishment of Heresy

在中世纪晚期和近代早期的英国，“异教徒”——那些不同意教会教义的基督徒——受到了广泛的迫害。神职人员和国王有责任强迫犯错的基督徒收回他们的观点，并保护社会其他人不受这些错误信仰的影响。那些拒绝放弃信仰的异教徒，或者那些先前已经放弃信仰的人，后来又复发了，都要被绑在火刑柱上烧死。在13世纪和17世纪之间，大约有400名男女因此受到谴责。虽然焚烧是最戏剧性的，但这并不是对被定罪的异教徒的唯一惩罚，他们也失去了土地和财产。这个项目涉及的是异教徒的没收。没收异教徒的财产引发了一些问题：有些是这种做法所特有的，而另一些则普遍适用于强制执行宗教统一。关于没收，我们可以问的一个具体问题是谁获得了异教徒的财产：教会，国王或王后，异教徒的佃户，他或她所居住的社区，还是他或她的家人和朋友？这个项目通过王室对这样一个地产的兴趣来解决这个问题；对历史学家来说，它的优势之一是留下了大量证据，揭示了对这一王室权利的追求。事实上，大多数与没收异端有关的记录都在财政部找到，财政部是负责收集王室收入的政府部门。回答了我们的第一个问题就引出了另一个问题：王权是如何行使和规避的？国王为确保异教徒财产的安全所做的努力——通常会违背其他各方（包括受害者的家人和朋友）的利益——取决于其代理人的工作以及当地社区在安排和服务调查陪审团方面的合作。普通民众在多大程度上帮助和阻碍了对异教徒财产的认定，这说明了民众对这场迫害的反应。通过对没收的审视，这个项目以与同时代人相同的眼光看待异端：作为重罪，即像谋杀，强奸和抢劫一样的死罪。将这些罪行放在一起，说明了对异端的迫害是宗教和世俗力量相结合的。理论上，这意味着协调教会的国际法，英格兰教会法庭的运作，普通法的惯例，以及议会通过的法案。在实践中，这意味着神职人员（定义异端并审判案件）、君主（帮助教会发现异端并执行判决）和俗人（通过发现和作证反对异端而做出贡献）之间的责任分工。但是，国王是否准备好接受自己仅仅是辅助性的角色，俗人是否准备好接受自己的法律服从教会的法律呢？《没收》提供了另一种视角来看待宗教和世俗权威之间不断变化的平衡。虽然与罗马的决裂削弱了教会在惩罚异教徒方面的独立性，也动摇了对什么信仰是异端的定义，但这并没有改变异端本身就是一种应该受到严厉惩罚的罪行的信念，没收仍然是其中的一个因素。

In England during the late middle ages and the early modern period 'heretics' - those Christians who dissented from the Church's teaching on matters of doctrine - were widely persecuted. It was held to be the duty of the clergy and the crown to coerce erring Christians into retracting their views and to protect the rest of society from such false beliefs. Heretics who refused to recant or who, having previously renounced their views, then relapsed were burnt at the stake. Between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries about 400 men and women were thus condemned. While burning was the most dramatic, it was not the only punishment inflicted on condemned heretics, who also lost their lands and possessions. It is with forfeiture by heretics that this project is concerned. The confiscation of heretics' estates raises a number of questions: some are peculiar to this practice, while others apply generally to the enforcement of religious uniformity.One question specific to forfeiture that we could ask is who obtained a heretic's estate: the Church, the king or queen, the lord whose tenant the heretic was, the community in which he or she lived, or his or her family and friends? This project approaches the problem through the crown's interest in such an estate; one of several claims, its advantage to the historian is in leaving behind extensive evidence revealing the pursuit of this royal right. Indeed, most records relating to heresy forfeiture are found in the Exchequer, the department of government concerned with the collection of the crown's income. Answering our first question raises another: how was this royal right exercised and also evaded? The crown's efforts to secure a heretic's property - often against the interests of other parties (including the victim's family and friends) - depended on the work of its agents and on the co-operation of local communities in arranging and serving upon inquest juries. The degree to which ordinary people helped and also hindered the identification of heretics' estates illuminates popular reactions to the persecution. By looking at forfeiture, this project sees heresy in the same light as did contemporaries: as a felony, that is, a capital crime like murder, rape, and robbery. The bracketing together of these offences exemplifies the way in which the persecution of heresy combined religious and secular power. In theory, this meant harmonizing the international laws of the Church, the operation of church courts in England, the customs of the common law, and acts passed by parliament. In practice, this meant dividing responsibility between the clergy (who defined heresy and judged cases), the monarch (who aided the Church in detecting heretics and in enforcing its sentences), and laymen (who contributed by detecting and testifying against heretics). But how prepared was the crown to accept its merely supporting role, and laymen the subordination of their own laws to those of the Church? Forfeiture provides another perspective on the shifting balance between religious and secular authority. While the break with Rome undermined the Church's independence in punishing heretics and unsettled definitions of what beliefs were heretical, it did little to alter the conviction that heresy itself was a crime deserving severe punishment, of which forfeiture remained one element.